\nVegas vs. the Internet. \u201cIt could go either way,\u201d says Jack Abramoff. <\/p>\n
\tFormer Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed has stepped into another internecine war between gambling interests, with 11 state chapters of his Faith & Freedom Coalition joining a well-funded campaign by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to block the growth of online gambling.<\/p>\n
\tLawyers for Reed told BuzzFeed that the move is \u201centirely consistent with Dr. Reed\u2019s prior positions with respect to the expansion of gambling in the U.S.\u201d His choice of allies is also consistent with the scandal that derailed his political career: His work with lobbyist and (now) convicted felon Jack Abramoff to mobilize Christians against new casinos. That work was paid for by Abramoff\u2019s clients, Native American tribes who operated casinos and were seeking to block new competition.<\/p>\n
\tAdelson\u2019s group, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, has a similar structure: Though its rhetoric its focused entirely on the evils of internet gambling, its funding is from Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands corporation owns four casinos in the United States, four in Macau, China, and one in Singapore. <\/p>\n
\tEleven state chapters of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a Christian political group Reed chairs, are listed as members of the Adelson-backed coalition, whose spokesman, Dan Wilson, acknowledged that they were strange bedfellows.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThese are state-based affiliates that don\u2019t normally stand with casino interests, but found common cause in order to halt Internet gambling,\u201d Wilson wrote in an email. \u201cAs far as I\u2019m aware \u2013 none of the FFC chapters who are CSIG members received money from LVS [Las Vegas Sands]\/Adelson.\u201d <\/p>\n
\tThe depth of the chapters\u2019 relationships to the coalition is unclear. Several of their leaders did not respond to inquiries made via email. One who did, Florida FFC Chairman Jim Kallinger, said his group is \u201cnot involved in the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Washington Post has also reported that the group hired two former Faith and Freedom officials to back its cause. Wilson wrote that Reed isn\u2019t \u201cpersonally involved\u201d in the work.<\/p>\n
\tTaking sides between dueling gambling interests brings Reed back to his professional Donnybrook. The celebrated leader of a resurgence of organized evangelical politics in the 1990s, he became a political consultant who, from 1999 to 2002, participated in a series of lucrative deals that figured at the center of a damning Senate committee investigation centered on the efforts of Reed\u2019s ally, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to fleece his Native American clients.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cEvery kind of charlatan and every type of crook has deceived and exploited America\u2019s native sons and daughters,\u201d Sen. John McCain said of Abramoff\u2019s operation at a 2004 hearing. \u201cWhat sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tReed himself was never charged with a crime, and his lawyers heatedly denied in a letter to BuzzFeed that he had done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cDr. Reed was never accused of any wrongdoing related to this work,\u201d wrote Reed\u2019s Virginia lawyer, David Ventker. \u201cIndeed, the work he and his Century Strategies colleagues performed was legitimate, fairly compensated, and consistent with his opposition to gambling expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBut the emails published in the Indian Affairs Committee investigation derailed Reed\u2019s career and put him at the heart of Abramoff\u2019s work with Mississippi Choctaw, Louisiana Coushatta, and Texas Tigua tribes. Reed\u2019s name appears 180 times in the committee\u2019s final 2006 report, as Abramoff\u2019s key ally in rallying Christian groups on behalf of Native American casino interests. Abramoff and his allies funneled millions to Reed\u2019s firm \u2014 but also worked to conceal its origins.<\/p>\n
\tOne Coushatta leader, William Worfel, recalled to Senate investigators being told by the tribe\u2019s lawyer to be \u201creal careful about a Ralph Reed person.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt can\u2019t get out. He\u2019s Christian Coalition. It wouldn\u2019t look good if they\u2019re receiving money from a casino-operating tribe to oppose gaming. It would be kind of like hypocritical,\u201d Worfel said.<\/p>\n
\tAs a result, payments to Reed were funneled through Americans for Tax Reform and other groups. <\/p>\n
\tAbramoff pled guilty in September 2008 to charges of conspiracy, honesty services fraud, and tax evasion. At the time, he was already serving time in prison for a fraudulent casino deal in Florida. He was released after serving nearly four years in June 2010. <\/p>\n
\tAbramoff, in an email to BuzzFeed, defended the motives of his old friend. <\/p>\n
\tReed was always \u201copposed to the expansion of gambling,\u201d even when he worked on behalf of Abramoff\u2019s Native American casino clients. \u201cThey had different reasons (my clients not wanting competition; Ralph opposing gambling), but their short term aims vis a vis expansion by others were the same,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
\tWhen asked whether he saw \u201cany risk\u201d in Reed\u2019s participation in a debate pitting two groups with gambling interests against one another, Abramoff replied: \u201cNot sure. It could go either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tReed denied at the time knowing that he was being paid in casino profits during the Abramoff era. However, several emails exchanged in 1999 between Reed and Abramoff suggested otherwise. In one, Reed wrote: \u201cIt would be really helpful if you could get me invoices [for services performed] as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP.\u201d At the time, the Mississippi Choctaws hired Abramoff \u2014 who in turn solicited Reed \u2014 to help keep competitors out of neighboring Alabama. <\/p>\n
\tReed did not directly respond to requests for comment, but his lawyer promised to sue for defamation any media outlet that tarnished his reputation.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe record is clear that Dr. Reed has actively and aggressively opposed the expansion of gambling in all venues and forums,\u201d his lawyer, Ventker, wrote. \u201cIf you intend to suggest otherwise in your reporting, or if you in any way malign Dr. Reed\u2019s character or integrity, you should understand we will actively pursue you and the publisher of any such defamatory statements to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Vegas vs. the Internet. \u201cIt could go either way,\u201d says Jack Abramoff. Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed has stepped into another internecine war between gambling interests, with 11 state chapters of his Faith & Freedom Coalition joining a well-funded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}