DeLay aide's deal takes down Buckham (DeLay's Chief of staff)

[babylonsister]

Thanks to Will Pitt for posting this! I pray Bugsy won't even be on the ballot come November!

HEADS UP: DeLay aide's deal takes down Buckham (DeLay's Chief of staff)

Breaking from Roll Call:

Rudy’s Deal Implicates Buckham
By Paul Kane
Roll Call Staff

Friday, March 31

The Jack Abramoff scandal has now reached the deepest portions of Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) inner circle. The plea agreement entered into today by Tony Rudy, a one-time senior staffer to the former Majority Leader and Majority Whip, officially names former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham as participating in the bribery scheme orchestrated by Rudy, ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other members of Abramoff’s lobbying team. After leaving the Texan’s leadership office in December 1997, Buckham continued to exert a large degree of control over the DeLay political operation.

In his plea deal, which was publicly released after Rudy’s formal guilty plea this morning, Rudy officially accuses Buckham — who is identified as “Lobbyist B” in the filings — of helping set up $50,000 in payments to Rudy’s wife’s consulting firm in order to win Rudy’s help in killing a bill that would have outlawed Internet gaming. Abramoff at the time was representing Internet gambling clients who wanted to keep the practice legal. While Buckham is not identified in the documents, they leave no doubt that his firm, Alexander Strategy Group, is “Firm 3.”

In addition, the plea agreement says that Rudy, while working as deputy chief of staff for DeLay in 2000, arranged for other House staffers to travel to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and also secured appropriations money for the CNMI. The Marianas were a long-standing client of Abramoff’s, but the court filings say that Rudy did this work “in part to assist Abramoff, his firm and Lobbyist B with their lobbying businesses.”

Buckham and Abramoff were very close over the years — Abramoff steered donations from his clients into the coffers of nonprofits run by Buckham, such as the U.S. Family Network — and they did work together for some clients. Buckham is considered the single closest adviser to DeLay, even having served as the lawmaker’s minister.

More: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/12735-1... (pay site)