HuffPo: Tribes Confront Abramoff

Here.

An excerpt:

Another tribe targeted by Abramoff and Scanlon was the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan. When the Chippewa tribal council was reluctant to offer a big lobbying contract to the two men in 2001, they poured money into tribal elections to elect a slate of tribal leaders who would approve a $150,000-per-month deal. (The previous lobbyist for the tribe had made $10,000 per month.) The new council would also approve a bloated contract with Scanlon’s consulting firm, which again split the profits with Abramoff.

Monica Lubiarz-Quigley, a lawyer who once represented the Chippewas, said she was pushed out of her job after she raised questions about the high-priced contracts that tribal leaders were signing. She views the reemergence of Abramoff as a voice of reform with skepticism.

“It’s business as usual in Washington,” Lubiarz-Quigley said. “Certainly the tribes and what happened to the tribes seems to be like an ‘Oh, well,’ and it doesn’t surprise me. … That’s how the insiders in Washington see it. They’re not terribly concerned with what happened to the tribes. And that’s how they got away with it in the first place.”

One thought on “HuffPo: Tribes Confront Abramoff

  1. Ronnie Sellers Walkingstick March 15, 2012 / 11:00 am

    Apparently, there are people in the tribal leadership, that are like the American Government, when it comes to helping the People of their tribes. Money and what it can buy for these individuals is more important than helping our people. The influence of the American Way has reached into the hearts of the First Americans and made them like the ones that killed our people and took their land. Similar things happened to the head men of the Cherokee back in the 1700’s and 1800’s in their history. These people are wolves in sheep’s clothing and hide their wicked desires by making promises that are lies, just like the ones made many years ago by the United States Government.

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