The Ney Scandal Grows

Bob Ney won election to Congress in 1994, one of a bevy of Republican revolutionaries who promised to clean up Washington and reform the House of Representatives. The Ohio Congressman leapfrogged to power by raising cash for Tom DeLay's Retain Our Majority program. As chairman of the powerful House Administration Committee, which oversees everything from lawmaker mail to parking spaces, Ney became known as the Mayor of Capitol Hill. It's a fitting nickname for a man currently at the forefront of Washington's most toxic corruption contretemps--the money trail of über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The brazen manner in which Ney allegedly pulled strings for lobbyists in return for financial favors is powerfully emblematic of the pay-to-play politics honed to perfection by DeLay Inc. Today, Ney and DeLay are the clearest examples of a "revolution" gone terribly awry.

The scandal dates back to early 2000, when Ney's chief of staff, Neil Volz, got a call from an old Hill buddy, Michael Scanlon. Scanlon had recently left DeLay's press office to work for the well-connected Abramoff, who was trying to buy a gambling boat company in Florida named SunCruz Casinos. Scanlon asked Volz for help. Ney, an old friend of Abramoff's from their days as College Republicans, obliged by inserting a statement in the Congressional Record that pressured SunCruz's then-ownership to sell the company. It was the first of many favors Ney would perform on Scanlon's and Abramoff's behalf.

The SunCruz deal served as a precursor to richer fortunes for the lobbying duo, namely the $82 million in fees they demanded between 2001 and 2004 to lobby on gaming rights for a half-dozen Indian tribes. Much of that money, we know now, vanished in a tangled web of phony Christian front groups, bogus self-enriching charitable organizations and pricey Congressional junkets. In mid-November Scanlon pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to bribe public officials and defraud Indian tribes. The plea alleges that Scanlon and Abramoff "engaged in a course of conduct through which one or both of them offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials in exchange for a series of official acts." The provider of those ten "official acts" was a certain "Representative #1"--identified by lawyers as Ney--who received "travel, golf fees, frequent meals, entertainment, election support for candidates...and campaign contributions."

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