DUer babylonsister provided this:
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.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=833588&mesg_id=833611Bush Demoted Acting United States Attorney ...
...for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, Frederick A. Black.; in November 2002.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5179170Delay's step-down could mean a whole lot of good--in so many ways :)
Conyers: Investigate 2002 Bush Shutdown of (Abramhoff)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5516647