Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

House ethics rules allow lawmakers and their staffs to have travel expenses paid only for officially connected travel and only by organizations directly connected to the trips. The rules also require that lawmakers accurately report the people or organizations that pay for the trips. They prohibit payments by registered lobbyists for lawmakers' travel.

DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, said: "The trip was sponsored, organized and paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, as our travel disclosures accurately reflect and what the National Center has publicly said."

Then what was the donation for? Why did Abramoff arrange for the payment to go to DeLay?

Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip
Later in 2000, Lawmaker's Vote Helped Defeat Regulatory Measure

By James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page A01

An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

The sponsor of the week-long trip listed in DeLay's financial disclosures was the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research, but a person involved in arranging DeLay's travel said that lobbyist Jack Abramoff suggested the trip and then arranged for checks to be sent by two of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.

The dates on the checks coincided with the day DeLay left on the trip, May 25, 2000, according to grants documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The Choctaw and eLottery each sent a check for $25,000, according to the documents. They now say that they were unaware the money was being used to finance DeLay's travels. [P6: What were they told it would be used for?]