SCANLON PLEA TORPEDOES DELAY, INC.
by Anton Chaitkin
Nov. 25 (EIRNS)The end is coming near for Dick Cheney's political thug machine headed by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas): A top DeLay aide who knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak, has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in ongoing Federal and Texas state probes.
Facing decades in prison for his role in "DeLay, Inc.'s" nefarious operations, DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleaded guilty Nov. 21 and agreed to the cooperation.
Following indictments in separate cases of Scanlon's former boss, Rep. Tom DeLay, and of Scanlon's partner and DeLay's money-bags, casino operator and financier Jack Abramoff, Scanlon's plea bargain is no doubt striking fear into the heart of DeLay, Inc. and its controller, Dick Cheney.
How DeLay, Inc. Worked
Scanlon was in on the creation of the DeLay, Inc. apparatus. As DeLay's spokesman bluntly outlined in a February 1999 memo, the DeLay gang would create a permanent union of crooked financiers, lobbyists, and rightwing politicians: "We must now ignore others and focus solely on what we can directly control."
This "direct control" was attained by rotating DeLay's staffers and closest sponsors out into partnership with nominally private lobbying and corporate agencies. Money-laundering, bribery, and coercion gave a Venetian-style possession of Congress to the same interests that Cheney represents in the Executive branch.
Scanlon personally became rich after transferring from DeLay's official House staff over to a private influence-peddling alliance with casino lobbyist Abramoff. Scanlon's Federal indictment for bribery and fraud described the scheme in which Abramoff and Scanlon took millions from the Tigua Indians of Texas to lobby for reopening the Tigua casino which they had secretly campaigned to shut down. Congressman Robert Ney (R-Ohio), author of the U.S. election law under which Bush/Cheney won in 2004, helped the scheme and got large donations from the conspirators.
Abramoff and his partners took over the SunCruz casino cruise-ships company, in a plot for which Scanlon arranged Rep. Ney's connivance, a fraud DeLay personally and his staff helped consummate. When the former SunCruz owner was killed gangland-style, company spokesman Scanlon told the press Abramoff wasn't involved. But a Mafia man, paid by SunCruz under Abramoff/Scanlon, has been indicted for the murder.
Why Cheney Should Worry
Scanlon's Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking over a vast field of potential targets among Congressmen, lobbyists, DeLay staffers, and others. Scanlon's potential testimonyand possibly Abramoff's, should he decide to try to save himselfcould implicate many in the national power structure, including Dick Cheney, whose weakened position leaves him unable to protect DeLay, Inc.even as he needs its services more than ever. Cheney's weakness is also no doubt contributing to the rats like Scanlon fleeing this sinking ship.
In the inner circle with Abramoff were lobbyist Grover Norquist and Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, an Abramoff/Scanlon fraud partner. Among the operations DeLay, Inc. carried out was the promotion of Enron's various privatization scams, for which Cheney's friends at Enron paid DeLay, Inc. handsomely; they funded DeLay's chief of staff, Ed Buckham, to set up a nominally private lobbying company, Alexander Strategy Group. Reportedly on the recommendation of George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, Enron hired Ralph Reed to sell privatization to the states. Dick Cheney's White House energy task force promoted the scheme, and billions were looted from California and elsewhere.
The Buckham money laundry created the main funding mechanism for Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo), who became interim House Majority Leader after DeLay's money-laundering indictment.
Michael Scanlon may also be able to tell the Feds something of the adventures of Abramoff's assistant, Susan Ralston, who managed casino-derived money laundering for Abramoff and Scanlon. Ralston was later assistant to Karl Rove during the scheming to "out" CIA agent Valerie Plame. Ralston coordinated her management of Rove's communications, by consultation with Abramoff/Scanlon secret partner Grover Norquist, the strategist of Tom DeLay's relations to the Washington lobbying community.
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