Sarah PAC, Sarah Palin's Slushfund - Part II

By VinnieF

I wrote an article back in March that looked at Sarah PAC's spending. This article is a follow up to that which does two things. First, I'm going to address some of the replies that the Palinbots have used to defend Sarah's spending. Secondly, we now have the data from the FEC for the first half of 2013, and I was able to easily get the full spending for the entire 2011-2012 campaign season which is quite revealing.

I find the phenomenon of Sarah PAC to be truly fascinating. I don't think there's ever been a multi-million dollar PAC that is built around propping up the reputation of someone to bolster the power of their endorsement. If the goal of the PAC is the more traditional one - helping out endorsed candidates - then how does one rationalize the trip to Republic, WA, the bus tour, the trip to Israel? These activities had no impact on any specific candidate running for office but were paid for by the PAC.

A PAC designed to promote Sarah's political wishes is not only incredibly narcissistic, it reveals her fading star power. Who else needs an organization full of expensive consultants specifically designed to keep them in the news? Who else deemed their endorsement so powerful that it needs a full-fledged organization to manage it?

Debating the Palinbots - Proceed at Your Own Risk

The past articles on Sarah PAC's spending generated a predictable round of excuse making from the bots. Engaging the bots on the blogs that aren't censored is ... let's just say interesting.

Many of the bots are capable of little more than childish debate. They will call you names and try to dismiss you altogether as crazy and not worth responding to. But there are some that actually try to make reasoned arguments. Below are some of their lame attempts to rationalize Sarah PAC's orgy of spending.

The Attention Sarah Gets Shows She's Powerful

This is somewhat off topic and could easily fill an article on its own. Anytime Sarah is in the news and we talk about it, whether it's about the PAC or not, we're accused of having PDS - Palin Derangement Syndrome. Of course, this line of attack doesn't address the issue of her PAC spending at all. It is simply an attempt to attack the messenger, which they do a lot of.

They will also go so far as to say that the attention we give Sarah is done out of fear. We supposedly know how powerful she is and for that we feel the need to take her out. This extends to the GOPe (GOP establishment) which fears Sarah because she threatens to be the white knight that can do away with the all of the corruption present in both parties. Their level of conspiracy mongering on this issue is simply laughable.

Of course, this is Orwellian logic. In their minds, a large outpouring of hatred indicates that Sarah is actually very popular and well-liked. There are few politicians I detest so much so that I would write an article about them. Sarah is one of them.

There's also a general sense of fascination about Sarah. Indeed, articles about her will generate thousands of comments. Many people have a similar fascination about Lindsay Lohan, Octomom, Charlie Sheen, and other badly-behaved celebrities. Millions will read articles about these people but that hardly means that they are well-liked, let alone that people think they'd make a good president.

"I can see a big lake from my house!"

"There's a Five Thousand Dollar Campaign Contribution Limit"

Yes, this is true. A PAC is limited to what it can donate to a single candidate. The bots argue that this limitation restricts the spending Sarah can give to candidates.

How would you feel if I collected $78,125 from you all for a worthy cause and then told you that I was only allowed to give $5,000 of that money to the cause and the rest went for my expenses? That's literally the proportion that Sarah PAC spent on expenses in 2011-2012. Of course, it would be much better for the candidate if Sarah PAC simply asked their followers to donate directly to the campaign to avoid this limit.

This line of reasoning also fails to realize that the limit only applies to direct cash payments. Many PACs do actual campaign work (mailers, TV ads, etc.) in what are called independent expenditures. Sarah PAC does NONE of these. Thanks to Citizens United, there is no limit on the amount that a PAC can spend on IEs. Indeed, Super PACs can, and do, spend millions on specific candidates. It's a sign of Sarah's laziness that she chooses not to come up with any kind of campaign activities for the PAC to do. It's much easier to just write a small check and act all supportive.

The bots argue that Sarah's donation are very helpful to the candidate. Actually, $5,000 is a rather small amount for a congressional race. Jason Smith raised almost $700,000 putting Sarah's share of the donations at 0.7 percent of the total. Cruz's campaign raised over $15 Million for the 2012 race. Sarah did give twice to Cruz but her share still comes out to 0.07 percent. At least from a financial perspective, Sarah's help to a candidate is a drop in the bucket compared to someone like Sheldon Adelson's.

"I just wink at you, you do not need my money"

"Sarah Palin's Endorsement is Very Powerful"

Yes, I regrettably agree that many people look up to Sarah and her endorsement carries a lot of weight. But the issue here is the mismanagement of Sarah PAC funds, not how powerful her endorsement is.
Also, you don't need a PAC, or any money for that matter, to make an endorsement. There are many important, influential people whose endorsement is powerful. I can't think of another individual that created a PAC to try and raise the power of their endorsement.

What an issue oriented PAC will often do is make their endorsement, and then work (i.e. spend money) to get the word out about the candidate by real campaigning such as sending out mailers to voters that are likely to agree with the views of the PAC. Sarah PAC simply transfers 6.4 percent of their donations to candidates (for 2011-12), and spends the other 93.6 percent on expenses to keep the PAC running.

"Sarah Palin is a King Maker"

This is similar to the above argument but assumes much more about Sarah's power than it should. We all know that Democrats took a beating in 2010. Since it is difficult to tell exactly what was behind the conservative tide of 2010, it's easy for the bots to just say it was largely Sarah's doing.

This argument falls apart when one looks at 2012 which was a Democratic rout. Why couldn't the kingmaker Sarah deliver again in 2012? The bots will point to the incompetence of the Romney campaign, in which they have a valid point. However, that still doesn't explain why Sarah wasn't out there working her magic as she did in 2010? My prior article noted that the Sarah PAC had NO new posts from June of 2012 to December of 2012. Once Sarah got through with her famous Bus Tour tease of 2011, she largely took a vacay from the critical 2012 election. Some king maker! Now all they do is dream about 2014 and how Sarah will again lead the way for true conservatives.

The brand has gone sour - It ain't 2010 any more

Ali Akbar Says It's So

After the articles about Sarah PAC this last March, Ali Akbar wrote a piece on Blaze.com critical of John Avlon's article. Being the poor debaters that they are, the bots will often just give a link to the Akbar article over and over and act as if this article settles things once and for all.
Akbar uses many of the standard arguments mentioned above and says:

"Is Avlon arguing that the GOP needs to spend more money on useless TV ads, like those of Karl Rove’s Crossroads? ... Every consultant will tell you that the value of Palin and having her PAC behind you is Palin herself! The value in the brand is that she is a high-profile figure whose endorsement garners more media hits and grassroots donations than an endorsement from anyone else in the center-right movement. The PAC invests in maintaining that brand so that candidates, many now sitting in office, can enjoy the benefits largely unique to SarahPAC."(emphasis mine)

First, saying that TV ads are worthless shows that Akbar knows little about American electoral campaigns. TV ads are a critical part of a large political campaign. Yes, Rove had a bad year in 2012 but to imply that typical PAC activities are worthless is ridiculous. Is he suggesting Republicans abandon typical campaigning and just pay Sarah to fly around the country?

The highlighted comment shows just what I've been arguing - The PAC is, first and foremost, about Sarah. Again, I can't think of a single other person that uses a PAC to 'maintain their brand'. I guess no one before has ever been as special as Sarah. Most good people just focus on doing good work and get known for that. They don't need their own personal PR firm.

Prominent Republican blogger Ali Akbar: He knows a lot about fraud, and his mugshots do not look so good, 

but he is a Republican, so thankfully it does not matter (crimes are only relevant for Democrats)

The Slush in the Slush Fund

Note - How to find the SarahPAC reports:

Go to http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/candcmte_info.shtml and then enter "sarah pac" with a space and hit "Get Listing". Click on the ID link to "Sarah Pac" (not "Team Sarah Pac"), and at the "Filings" tab you will find all the reports. The "Report Summaries" are helpful as well.

The First Half of 2013 Report

As one can easily see from the FEC website, Sarah PAC spent 93.6 percent of its donations on expenses during the 2011-2012 election cycle. This is staggering on its own. Could it get any worse? Well, yes.

For the first half of 2013 Sarah PAC spent about $489,000. A whopping total of $5,000 was spent on a single candidate, Jason Smith, who was likely to win with or without Sarah's help. Yes, Sarah PAC spent 98.97 percent of their donations on expenses and 1.03 percent on their alleged mission of getting conservatives elected!

One will argue that there's not much going on politically in the first half of 2013. Yes, this is true. Well then, if that's the case then why did Sarah spend:

• $48,350 on Airfare - And another few thousand on other travel expenses.
• $12,000 on Compliance Software - This gives her lists of voters to grift from.
• $5,000 on Coalitions Consulting - Because we all know how well Sarah builds coalitions.
• $69,000 on Timothy Crawford - His salary dropped from $180,000 to $138,000, hard times.
• $97,500 on Logistics Consulting - You couldn't buy enough logic for Sarah.
• $33,750 on Research Consulting - Research? Sarah? Yeah right!
• Well over $100,000 in Postage and Direct Mail - She is the master grifter.

And who can forget the $271 for the items in the little gift bags Sarah gave to the graduates in Republic, WA. Couldn't a 'gift' from Sarah actually come from Sarah? No. Sarah's idea of a 'gift' is sending Todd to the Wasilla Walmart to pick up a few trinkets and having the PAC pay for it. You can't make this stuff up.

Let's look at what the PAC did in 2013. They prepared a speech for Sarah to give at CPAC, they created a video asking for money after that speech, and they flew her to Republic, WA to give a speech to 26 college students. There's really not much more than that. Does this really sound like $480,000
worth of work?

Sarah: Always looking for the big catch

A Second Look at 2012

If you've been following this saga the 2013 filing is nothing new. The cast of characters is largely the same (i.e. RAM, Timothy Crawford). The true purpose of the PAC still appears to pay for Sarah's expenses and keep her friends employed. Since I was able to pull all of the data into a single database, I thought it would be good to look at her spending during this cycle again. This period covers the two years of 2011 and 2012. It also better demonstrates that Sarah's pattern of spending in 2013 is not an anomaly.

Of course, the 'consultants' are the biggest fraud. They constitute a total of over $1.6 Million (!) or 32 percent of the entire PAC spending during this period. On top of their fees, there was over $78,000 in expenses that they ran up. The highest paid consultants - many of whom are her old friends - are below:

• Timothy Crawford (Fundraising) - $364,336.00
• Grey Strategies (Logistics) - $171,773.00
• Andrew Davis (Political and Research) - $166,875.00
• Aries Petra Consulting LLC (Speechwriting)- $162,000.00
• Northstar Strategies (Logistics) - $144,373.00
• C & M Transcontinental LLC (Management)- $144,042.00
• Peter Schweizer (Issue) - $106,250.00
• True North L'Attitudes (Scheduling)- $94,645.00
• Pamela Pryor (Coalition) - $91,000.00
• Orion Strategies (Issue) - $50,000.00
• Paideia Research LLC (Research) - $24,000.00

Sarah also has friends who are lawyers. Legal expenses during this two year period were $186,000. What huge legal issues could she possibly be resolving? Why don't other PACs have similar legal bills? There is an $8,000 monthly payment to Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen simply for 'retainer'.
It's truly baffling what these people do to get this kind of money. All Sarah PAC really does is pick out a few candidates that they like. For all of the 'research' that they do you'd figure they could at least put a small bio of each candidate and why they're worthy of Sarah's endorsement. Nope, the Sarah PAC website is primarily about Sarah.

And then there's the postage. Any organization needs to spend money on fundraising. But Sarah PAC spent over $2 Million, over 40% of their budget, on postage in 2011-2012. There is also an additional $90,000 in payments to Aristotle International. This firm provides mailing lists. It seems clear that they're casting a broad net to grift as many people as possible.

Source: FEC Website

Double Dipping - Speaking Fees, Travel and the PAC

By calling any of her activities, such as speaking at a high school graduation, a political event, Sarah can consider any expenses related to that trip to be something the PAC can cover. Indeed, there were over $384,000 of loosely defined 'travel' expenses in 2011-2012. Some of these are specific such as; over $50,000 for three chartered flights, over $40,000 on the famous bus including $13,700 to wrap it and $1,200 to unwrap it, $10,800 on the trip to Israel (not including airfare), and $4,500 renting rooms near the Republican Convention in Tampa as a threat to show up and do something. (I believe nothing ever happened with this last one.)

It's hard to show all of the specific travel expenses since well over $100,000 of these are lumped together under 'Visa' payments. That's Sarah running around with a credit card going "PAC, PAC, PAC". But there are some notable specific meals; $1,134 at 801 Chop House, $376 at Montis La Casa Vieja, $394 at the Centro Restaurant and several others. Finally, there's a $967 charge for the hotel at the Disneyland Resort.

This also raises the question of whether the PAC should pay for trips when Sarah is actually making money herself via speaking fees. When you go to Sarah PAC, there's a prominent link to 'request an event appearance'. I would argue this is unethical but I don't believe it is illegal. The sad news of this is that there really is no crime for the PAC to spend its money frivolously. The only 'crime' is the idiocy of the people that still give their money to Sarah PAC.

If you look at US 4 Palin's master list of Sarah's accomplishments for 2012, it confirms that she only gave two campaign appearances for the 2012 campaign season (one for Cruz and one for Steelman). If you can scroll past all of the Facebook posts, you'll see that she gave nine 'Commercial' speeches in 2012. (You know one is scraping the bottom of the barrel when FB posts are considered 'accomplishments'.) It begs the question what Sarah was spending all of this travel money on. Other than things like the bus tour, the trip to Israel, the trip to Republic, WA, there aren't many answers.

Summary

It's perfectly acceptable for a public official to travel about and run up reasonable expenses when doing the duties of their job. Of course, this privilege is often abused and people should be held accountable for those abuses. Candidates running for office should be able to use campaign donations to pay for expenses which will often include travel expenses. It's also reasonable for them to have competent staff to help with all of their activities.

But Sarah Palin is neither a public official nor a candidate running for office. There is no logical reason why she should be paid to travel around the country (unless it's expenses for a specific paid event). Yet Sarah has used her popularity to create a multi-million dollar organization whose primary goal, at least in terms of their results, is to fly Sarah around the country and get her to show up at places for no specific reason (think Iowa).

For an individual to assume that they are so important that they deserve to be paid by a PAC for most of their activities simply because of who she is, is the height of narcissism and grifting.

Jon Stewart can read Sarah Palin's thoughts...

UPDATE (by VinnieF):

Let me take the liberty of writing a lengthy update that talks about the C4P and Daily Beast articles that others have mentioned in the comments. I saw these right as I was sending off my final copy to Patrick.

C4P attempts to rationalize Sarah's spending in a most dishonest way.

PAC activity will obviously be lower in the first half of 2013 than during an election season such as 2012. The C4P article looks at several PACs, but only looks at the data for the first half of 2013 (considered part of the 2013-2014 election cycle). Indeed, many PACs are spending money during this period without putting much towards candidates. Below are examples of large Republican PACs that C4P references.

Senate Conservatives Fund - 2013-2014 - Expenses are 91.24% of total

American Crossroads - 2013-2014 - Expenses are 93.80% of total

Reclaim America - 2013-2014 - Expenses are 95.53% of total

This makes Sarah PAC's spending 98.97 percent on expenses for this same cycle not look that bad.

An honest analysis would look at both the 2011-2012 and the 2013-2014 cycles, and the summary of both. Since 2011-2012 spending is generally much greater than 2013-2014, the results will skew towards the 2011-2012 numbers.

Below are my results. All numbers are the percent of the total disbursements spent on expenses.

Sarah PAC

2011-2012 - 93.72%

2013-2014 - 98.97%

Both - 94.17%

American Crossroads

2011-2012 - 10.02%

2013-2014 - 93.80%

Both - 10.70%

Senate Conservatives Fund

2011-2012 - 36.67% 

2013-2014 - 91.24%

Both - 40.63%

Reclaim America

2011-2012 - 95.53% 

2013-2014 - 89.35%

Both - 93.25%

With this fair analysis, the only PAC that looks anywhere near as bad as Sarah PAC is Marco Rubio's Reclaim America.

Just for fun, I thought I'd look at a couple of the big Democratic PACs. Not bad!

Restore our Future

2011-2012 - 6.70% 

2013-2014 - 100.00%

Both - 6.75%

Senate Majority PAC

2011-2012 - 9.31% 

2013-2014 - 37.71%

Both - 10.75%

As to be expected, this is another lame attempt to rationalize Sarah's grifting machine. Would we expect anything less from C4P that is likely tied into Sarah's financial machine? Note that RAM is heavily paid by the PAC and also was very involved in C4P.

Sarah Palin: She does not know much, but she knows how to fleece the fans

Infamous quitter Sarah Palin gives interview to infamous disgraced "Christian" activist and former Abramoff associate Ralph E. Reed and provides one of the most hilarious quotes of the year, while promoting her new book about Christmas!

By Patrick

The proof: Sarah Palin can see Santa Claus from her house! (picture from 2008)

What can you say! What a big surprise on a Saturday night! From time to time, I like to search youtube for the latest clips of ex-Governor "Granny Grifter" Sarah Palin - well, "just because", you never know! One might find a clip which has been overlooked so far, ideally containing ridiculous quotes in a situation riddled with hypocrisy - and today, I found exactly what I was looking for! It feels like I have received an early Christmas present!

As we have already pretty much forgotten, Sarah Palin made a screech in June at an event of the "Faith and Freedom Coalition." The dubious background of these self-appointed super-Christians got barely noticed back then. However, this is going to change right now! 

These "Christians" were so incredibly proud of Sarah Palin being at their event that they posted a short interview with her on youtube a few days ago. Sarah is being interviewed by none other  than Ralph E. Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. One of the original moral majority. And he and Sarah have a lot in common as he himself is in the same top-ranking grifter category as the Quitter from Alaska, as we can see below!

This interview is noteworthy for another "epic" quote by Sarah Palin. As expected she delivers and her jumbled thoughts go astray yet again. This time in a weird, disjointed and disastrous botched attempt to appear humorous (that is at least what I think, and which really is the best one can say in her favor in this case).

Watch the interview:

Where to start?

The hair!!! OMG...no more needs to be said.

Anyway - here is the quote, starting from 1:05, when Palin discusses her new book about Christmas::

Quote:

"Oh it's gonna be a great Christmas book, lots of nice festive joyful things within the book, like recipes and traditions of our family that are probably pretty unique, because we are from Alaska, and live near the North Pole, so we have access to Santa Claus and all the good things that come with Christmas."

I mean, come on! You couldn't make up such a Palin-quote! It's a gift! Sarah Palin invokes close proximity to Santa in her bid to prove that Christ is the center of Christmas. Much in the same way as proximity to Russia makes her a defense expert, Sarah seems to imply that proximity to Santa means that she is an expert on the traditions of Christmas. Or something!

However, this interview also provides us with an excellent opportunity to take a closer look at one of  Sarah Palin's new "associations" - namely Ralph E. Reed, who founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition in 2009 and asks the questions in the interview.

Well, let's start with another quote by Sarah Palin, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly from 2010:

In the interview, Palin said, after being asked about "Obama's Pastor" Reverend Wright:

"Well, I believe that it is not negative campaigning or off-based to call someone out on their associations."

So let's take a quick look at Sarah Palin's new friend, Ralph E. Reed!

Wikipedia reveals a lot of very, very interesting information regarding Ralph E. Reed. He was, for example, in the past a close business associate of infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and supported  some of Jack Abramoff's shady deals, for which Abramoff and several others were then later sent to prison.

From Wikipedia:

Reed was named in the scandal arising from lobbying work performed by Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian gambling tribes. E-mails released by federal investigators in June 2005 revealed that Reed secretly accepted payments from Abramoff to lobby against Indian casino gambling and oppose an Alabama education lottery. Additional e-mails released in November 2005 show that Reed also worked for another Abramoff client seeking to block a congressional ban on Internet gambling. These cases are being investigated by multiple federal and state grand juries and by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony counts in federal court, raising the prospects of Abramoff testifying against others.

Those e-mails and other evidence revealed the participation of the Christian Coalition in the alleged fraud, particularly the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition, which received large amounts of donations from the casino money. It is alleged that Abramoff engaged Reed to set up an anti-gambling campaign to include the U.S. Family Network, the Christian Coalition, and Focus on the Family in order to frighten the tribes into spending as much as $82 million for Abramoff to lobby on their behalf. To represent him in connection with the scandal, Reed retained defense attorney W. Neil Eggleston of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Eggleston served as White House associate counsel during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

In December 2005, three Texas public interest groups filed a complaint with Travis County Attorney David Escamilla on December 1, 2005, alleging that Reed failed to register as a lobbyist in 2001 or 2002 when he was working for Abramoff. Escamilla said on March 27, 2006 "his office had concluded its investigation -- but that a two-year statute of limitations on misdemeanors from 2001 and 2002 had expired."

On June 22, 2006 the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs released its final report on the scandal.

The report states that under the guidance of the Mississippi Choctaw tribe's planner, Nell Rogers, the tribe agreed to launder money because "Ralph Reed did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests." It also states that Reed used non-profits, like Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, as pass-throughs to disguise the origin of the funds, and that "the structure was recommended by Jack Abramoff to accommodate Mr. Reed’s political concerns."

The "Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal", one of the main reasons why Jack Abramoff was ultimately convicted and sent to prison for six years, has its own, very detailed page at Wikipedia. The introduction reads like this:

The Jack Abramoff Native American lobbying scandal is a United States political scandal relating to the work performed by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on Native American casino gambling interests for an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff and Scanlon grossly overbilled their clients, secretly splitting the multimillion-dollar profits. In one case, they were secretly orchestrating lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services.

More from the excellent Wikipedia page about the scandal:

Abramoff and his partner Scanlon are alleged to have engaged in a series of corrupt practices in connection to their lobbying work for various Indian gaming tribes. The fees paid to Abramoff and Scanlon for this work are believed to exceed $85 million.

In particular, Abramoff and Scanlon were alleged to have conspired with Washington power broker Grover Norquist and Christian activist Ralph Reed to coordinate lobbying against his own clients and prospective clients with the objective of forcing them to engage Abramoff and Scanlon to lobby against their own covert operations. Reed was paid to campaign against gambling interests that competed with Abramoff clients. Norquist served as a go-between by funneling money to Reed.

Allegation of double dealing

On June 22, 2000, Susan Ralston e-mailed Abramoff, "I have 3 checks from elot: (1) 2 checks for $80K payable to ATR and (2) 1 check to TVC for $25K," [...] "Let me know exactly what to do next. Send to Grover? Send to Rev. Lou?"

Thus eLottery money went through Norquist's foundation, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the Faith and Family Alliance, and Reed's company, Century Strategies, while the last check was sent to Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC).

In 2000, Abramoff forced the Choctaws to give the Alabama Christian Coalition of America $1.15 million in installments. Norquist agreed to pass the money on to the Coalition and another Alabama antigambling group, both of which Reed was mobilizing for the fight against a proposed Alabama state lottery.

In 2002, after Abramoff worked with Reed to close the casino of the Tigua tribe, he persuaded the tribe to hire him to lobby Congress to reopen the casino.

Of the $7.7 million Abramoff and Scanlon charged the Choctaw for projects in 2001, they spent $1.2 million on their behalf and split the rest in a scheme they called "gimme five."

The 2006 report by the U.S. Senate Committee about this scandal reveals more - and Ralph E. Reed is given a very prominent role in the report.

The "contents" of the 2006 report explain some of the main facts and make it abundantly clear that Ralph E. Reed played a very prominent role in the "Abramoff-scandals":

Excerpt from the report:

Substantial Fees and Conduits – Setting the Stage for Scanlon

As the Tribe’s trust and confidence in Abramoff grew, Rogers would often discuss with Abramoff issues affecting the Tribe, both at a local and national level. In 1999, Rogers and Abramoff discussed various legislative proposals in Mississippi and elsewhere that threatened the market share of the Choctaw’s casino operations, and which the Tribe wanted to somehow counter. It just so happened that a few months earlier, Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and one of Abramoff’s long-time friends, had reached out to Abramoff: “Hey, now that I’m done with electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts! I’m counting on you to help me with some contacts.” Abramoff saw an opportunity: he suggested a grassroots effort and recommended the Choctaw hire Reed to orchestrate an anti- gaming effort.

The Tribe agreed to hire Reed to mobilize grassroots opposition to various legislative proposals throughout the Gulf Coast that would have increased gaming, thereby diminishing the Choctaw casino’s market share. No one from the Choctaw had any direct contact with Reed; rather, Abramoff served as the liaison with Reed and his firm, which eventually became a subcontractor to Preston Gates.

In March 1999, Abramoff and his associate, Shawn Vasell, spoke with Reed about the Choctaw’s grassroots needs. According to a draft engagement letter from Reed to Abramoff, Reed was hired to defeat a bill that had passed the Alabama House of Representatives “authorizing dog tracks in the state to install video poker and other casino-style games on their sites.” Reed promised to “build a strong grassroots network across the state against the extension of video poker and [REDACTION].” He claimed that no firm had better relationships than his with the grassroots conservatives in Alabama, including the Alabama Christian Coalition, the Alabama Family Alliance, the Alabama Eagle Forum, the Christian Family Association, and “leading evangelical pastors such as Frank Barker of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.” Reed boasted that “Century Strategies has on file over 3,000 pastors and 90,000 religious conservative households in Alabama that can be accessed in this effort.”

So Ralph E. Reed was selling his "believers" as his own private "Christian" PR-army to Jack Abramoff in order to support his criminal dealings.

He did not do this for free, of course, but received a handsome fee. Ralph E. Reed is obviously a very talented grifter, just like Queen Sarah from Alaska. It should come as no surprise that they both like each other!

More from the 2006 report:

On April 6, 1999, Abramoff informed Reed that he “spoke with our managing partner [at Preston Gates] and he has approved the subcontractor arrangement” and instructed Reed to “get me invoices as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks asap.” When Abramoff believed he could not get money quickly enough to Reed, Abramoff suggested that the Choctaw pay Reed directly: “Ralph, I am not sure that I can get this wire moving fast enough today. Give me your wire info and I’ll do what I can.” Abramoff then asked, “Any chance that a wire from Choctaw directly would be OK?” Reed’s response is unknown; however, the Committee has seen no evidence that the Choctaw paid Reed or his firms.

By mid-April, things were moving. In an e-mail entitled “Disbursement on behalf of Choctaw Indians,” Abramoff assured Reed that the money was on its way. Using the Choctaw’s money, Reed paid for grassroots activities including, telemarketing (patch-through, tape-recorded messages and call-to-action phone calls), targeted mail, legislative counsel and local management, rallies, petitions, “voter contact, television and radio production, the remainder of phones, the statewide fly-around, the pastor’s and activist rally, the church bulletin inserts, and other items.”

Reed also claimed that he was leveraging his contacts within the Christian community for the Choctaw’s benefit. Reed reported to Abramoff that there would be “a saturation statewide radio buy with a new ad by Jim Dobson that he will record tomorrow.” Reed assured Abramoff, “We are opening the bomb bay doors and holding nothing back. If victory is possible, we will achieve it,” and, one day later, again promised, “All systems are go on our end and nothing is being held back.”

By May 10, 1999, the Choctaw had paid Reed $1,300,000 through Preston Gates, with another $50,000 outstanding. For reasons unclear to the Committee, in late 1999 the Tribe discontinued paying Reed through Preston Gates. Rogers recalled that there came a time when either Reed or Preston Gates (or both) became uneasy about money being passed through Preston Gates to Reed. Abramoff thus searched for another conduit.

In the exhibits to the report, extensive email-correspondence between Abramoff and Reed can be found - examples (click to enlarge):

In 2010, a feature film starring Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff was released. The movie is based on the real events and has the title "Casino Jack." 

Also in 2010, a documentary film about the Abramoff scandals was released. It is called "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" and is available in full on youtube - where it only got little attention so far. 

Here it is - this is a brilliant, devastating documentary, an absolute must-see - and it not only prominently features Ralph E. Reed, but also for example the corrupt scumbag Grover Norquist, who is still around:

So this is the caliber of Sarah Palin's latest "association!" Just wonderful, isn't it?

Still, we can be comforted in the knowledge that at the very least Sarah Palin will ensure that Santa Claus and Christ won't be taken out of Christmas! That surely is a real relief, and a great service for humanity. Please give Governor PayMe a medal or something, and let her give another speech, for her $ 90,000 standard fee, pretty please! She has a lot of Christmas presents to buy (and names lists from Mr Reed  do not come cheap) so she needs the money, the poor woman!

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UPDATE:

Our reader "Got a life" was inspired and created this wonderful photo montage, which is just perfect for the content of our post:

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UPDATE 2:

Bill Moyers summarized the disgraceful "Mariana Islands episode" in an article at Huffington Post from 2012. This Mariana Islands PR-scandal is also explained in great detail in the excellent documentary film I posted above.

Excerpt from Bill Moyer's article:

As head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Reed boasts he's building a political dynamo of five million members with a massive database, an annual budget of $100 million and full-time lobbyists in all fifty state capitals, a colossal effort aimed at putting in place a right-wing social agenda and identifying and establishing contact with what it estimates as 27 million conservative voters in America. As you can imagine, with clout like that, Reed and his coalition were in high cotton at the Tampa convention.

Which brings us to that curious Mariana Islands minimum wage plank in the Republican platform. Some years ago, our government made an effort to clean up sweatshops on the islands -- including Saipan -- that have been under the control of the United States since the end of World War II.

Chinese women were brought over to the islands to work under awful conditions -- subject to forced abortions and prostitution and paid pennies for producing garments labeled "Made in the USA."

Corrupt local officials hired the firm of infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- for more than four million dollars -- to try to stop the reforms proposed back in Washington. Abramoff, in turn, hired Ralph Reed and his political direct mail company, Millennium Marketing, to conduct a phony grass roots campaign urging Alabama Christians to write their local congressman to oppose the reforms.

Of course, Reed didn't tell those Christians he was being paid to help keep running sweatshops that exploited women. Instead, he told them the reforms were a trick orchestrated by the left and organized labor. Limits on Chinese workers would keep them from being "exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ." His company explained it was just trying to encourage "grass roots citizens to promote the propagation of the Gospel" and that many of the workers were "converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand."