Stoli vodka sticks by Abramoff-linked lobbyist

Stoli vodka sticks by Abramoff-linked lobbyist
By Elana Schor

The fallout from Jack Abramoff’s influence-peddling network has severed lobbying contracts and closed one firm’s doors, but the distilled-spirits company Abramoff defrauded to fund 2002’s now-infamous Scotland golfing trip continues to work with the lobbyist who signed off on Abramoff’s solicitation.

E-mails exchanged by Abramoff and two former Greenberg Traurig colleagues, Tony Rudy and Richard Edlin, are among more than 100 pages of e-mails and documents forwarded by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to the Finance Committee for use in its investigation into abuses in the nonprofit sector. In the messages, Abramoff and Rudy make what they termed a “delay request” to Edlin for a $25,000 contribution to the Capital Athletic Foundation, an Abramoff-run charity.

“Do you think stoli can help with this delay request?” Rudy, a former senior aide to ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), wrote to Edlin in June 2002.

“Sure, how much?” Edlin responded, later adding, “[H]ope it will do us some real good!”

The $25,000 payment request helped pay for a golfing trip two months later attended by Abramoff, embattled former Bush administration official David Safavian, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and others, according to the plea agreement Abramoff signed earlier this year. “Stoli,” the client that made the contribution, refers to SPI Spirits, the Cyprus-based company that hired Greenberg Traurig to lobby on its behalf in a trademark battle with the Russian government over the rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand name.

It is unclear from the e-mails whether Edlin knew the true purpose of the $25,000 contribution, but he continues to lobby for SPI Spirits, according to recent lobbying disclosures. All other onetime Abramoff clients who paid him through the Capital Athletic Foundation have cut their ties to Greenberg Traurig, including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and the Saginaw Chippewas of Michigan.

“Since the inception of [the] investigation, we have cooperated with the Senate Indian Affairs Committee … consistent with our ethical responsibilities to our clients,” a firm spokeswoman said via e-mail. Greenberg “continues to cooperate fully with ongoing government investigations,” the spokeswoman said, declining to comment further on client-related issues still under scrutiny.

SPI hired the firm to lend some Capitol Hill leverage to its dispute with the Russian government. SPI contends that it had rightfully purchased the trademark rights to Stoli, but Moscow continues to push for state ownership of the popular vodka label.

The Indian Affairs Committee ended its Abramoff investigation with a report last week, but the Finance Committee could continue probing SPI’s $25,000 payment and relationship with Greenberg as part of its Abramoff inquiry.

Abramoff was never a registered lobbyist for SPI, but a conservative think-tank commentator who has admitted accepting money from Abramoff to write opinion columns published a commentary in May 2002 backing SPI in the vodka fight. Peter Ferrara, now a fellow at the Institute for Policy Innovation, quoted Edlin in an op-ed that blasted the Russian government as having “failed to respect contracts, trampled on property rights and flouted its own court orders and the rule of law.”

E-mails between Abramoff and Ferrara outlining their agreement were also sent to the Finance Committee. In one 1999 message, Ferrara urges Abramoff to “keep in touch, particularly with highly lucrative, overpaying projects.”

Bogdan Titomiroff