Names to remember...

In a story that got bumped off of CNN's front page almost as quickly as it appeared, the Senate Finance Committee issued a minority staff report entitled "Investigation of Jack Abramoff's Use of Tax-Exempt Organizations." The full text of the report is available, for now, as an 18-megabyte PDF from CNN. It can also be obtained, in the same format and probably on a more permanent basis, from the Finance Committee itself. Don't let the length of the report -- 608 pages -- deter you from reading it, either. About 550 pages of it are appendices, substantiating the factual assertions made in the main text. The report itself can be knocked off with an hour or so of diligent reading. Don't forget to have a barf bag handy.

The real story here isn't so much the substance of the report -- anyone who watched Bill Moyers' recent PBS documentary, Capitol Crimes, will be familiar with most of the names and organizations mentioned in it. The real story is that this report ever saw the light of day. It is, like I said, a minority report, and, because there was no accompanying majority report, the chairman of the Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, could have blocked its publication. Even stranger, perhaps, is the fact that a significant portion of the material used to write the report was obtained by subpoenas, which can only be issued by a majority vote of the committee. In other words, since the current composition of the committee is 11-9 in favor of the GOP, at least two Republican votes were needed for every subpoena that went out.

To what, then, do we owe the release of this report? Or, for that matter, the fact that a subpoena-backed inquiry even took place? A sudden attack of conscience? A premonition by Republicans that they were about to become the minority party? Or, was the Abramoff scandal just too hot to bury or bottle up in committee?

So many questions, so few answers. Suffice it to say, allowing the release of this report in the current political climate is, from a GOP point of view, almost inexplicable. I can only surmise that the Republicans weighed the electoral hay the Democrats could make if the report was deep-sixed against the damage its release could do in a news environment that is saturated to the point of overload. They may have thought the report would be swamped and swept away by the torrent of other news coming out of Washington these days.

Whatever the reason, the report was released. And, in the interest of acquainting you with some names you are likely to hear quite often in 2007 and 2008, I'll take a few paragraphs to summarize its cast of characters.

GROVER NORQUIST

Norquist is a close personal friend of Jack Abramoff. Their relationship predates the Reagan era, when, as college students, they organized support for Reagan's successful presidential bid in 1980. Norquist then served as the manager of Abramoff's campaign for the national chairmanship of the College Republicans. Coincidentally, that was the same relationship Lee Atwater had with Karl Rove when Rove became chairman of the College Republicans in 1973. After Abramoff won his election in 1981, he appointed Norquist executive director of the organization. Norquist held that position until 1983, when Ralph Reed -- whose name is also worth noting -- took over. Abramoff and Norquist worked together again at Citizens for America, a conservative advocacy group which, among other things, assisted Oliver North in getting funding for the Nicaraguan contras. In 1985, Abramoff and Norquist were fired by the group's sponsor, Lewis Lehrman, after conflicts arose over Abramoff's management of the organization's $3 million budget.

That same year -- "at the request of President Reagan" -- Norquist founded Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a tax-exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization he remains president of to this day. ATR's stated purpose is to lobby for a "system in which taxes are simpler, fairer, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today."

TO BE CONTINUED...