By DAVID WHITNEY Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- E-mails uncovered by a Senate committee show
superlobbyist Jack Abramoff had a keen interest in Rep. John
Doolittle's unsuccessful effort to block approval of the United Auburn
Indian Community's Thunder Valley casino in Placer County, Calif.
Abramoff, whom Doolittle described as a close friend, had a tribal
client thousands of miles away in Louisiana that could have benefited
from the precedent if Doolittle and other critics succeeded in
persuading the U.S. Department of Interior to stop Thunder Valley in
2002.
It's unclear whether the e-mails sparked the Justice Department's
reported interest in Doolittle, R-Roseville, Calif., as its corruption
investigation digs deeper into Abramoff's connections on Capitol
Hill.
But nothing in the e-mails and other documents uncovered by the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee's probe of the scandal proves Doolittle
and Abramoff were working together on the tribal cases.
Doolittle's office, moreover, denied the congressman coordinated
efforts with Abramoff on the United Auburn casino, which ultimately
opened in 2003. Doolittle spokeswoman Laura Blackann said the
congressman arranged meetings between the Interior Department and local
government officials but said he did not attend.
Abramoff was watching the United Auburn case closely because the
Interior Department ruling on it could become a damaging precedent for
his clients, the Louisiana Coushattas, who were trying to torpedo a
Louisiana casino proposed by the Jena Band of Choctaws.
In both the Jena and United Auburn matters, the Interior Department
was being asked to take non-Indian land into trust _ essentially
accepting title to lands on the tribes' behalf _ so that they would
qualify for a casino under an exception to the Indian Gaming Regulatory
Act.
The United Auburn matter came to a head midway through the 2001-2002
election cycle in which Abramoff and his tribal clients contributed
about $30,000 to Doolittle's campaign committees and just months before
the congressman's wife, Julie Doolittle, was hired in August 2002 to do
fund-raising and event planning for an Abramoff foundation.
But those working on behalf of the United Auburn tribe said
Doolittle did not fully flex his political muscle with the Bush
administration to try to kill the casino _ another sign that Doolittle
was not necessarily advancing Abramoff's interests.
"We would rather that he had done nothing, obviously," Howard
Dickstein, the Auburn tribe's attorney, said of Doolittle. "But what he
did was ineffectual."
