The Knights Who Say, "Ney, Ney, Ney!"

Well the Abramoff fall-out begins. Ohio Representative Bob Ney will be the first to be indicted based on Abramoff's plea bargain testimony. The only real story left is to figure out what sort of defense Ney will use.

Will it be the Cunningham style rope-a-dope? I'm innocent and soon I will release the documents that prove it, followed by a guilty plea. Or, will Ney stick to his story until Ohio voters toss him out? Of course, in Ohio, you're not out of office until Diebold says you're out of office, so Ney could stick around for a while.

The AP reports some details as to the nature of Abramoff's bribes to Ney.

"New accusations include that Ney supported legislation to help a California Indian tribe with taxes and a post office and, as chairman of a House committee, approved a lucrative deal to improve cell phone reception in House buildings.

An Israeli communications company, Foxcom Wireless, received the contract and Abramoff admits to lobbying for Foxcom without reporting it. Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, said Ney held an open bidding process for the contract and Ney has denied ever talking to Abramoff about the deal."

Old accusations include lots of pay-to-play stuff between Abramoff, Ney and Abramoff's Indian clients.

"Abramoff previously has said the chairman of the House Administration Committee [Ney] took favors including a 2002 golf trip to Scotland, free dinners and events and campaign donations in exchange for his support of Abramoff's American Indian tribe clients in Texas and the lobbyist's purchase of a fleet of Florida casino boats."

My former congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham received over $2.4 million in bribes for his services. Ney on the other hand, appears to be a cut rate whore at best. Last August, Slate suggested that Ney was a real bargain rate congressman.

"It never fails to astonish me how cheaply a politician can be bought. Consider the case of Rep. Bob Ney, R., Ohio. Ney entered comments in the Congressional Record not once, but twice, for the sole apparent purpose of helping Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan acquire and then maintain control of SunCruz Casinos, a transaction that is now the basis for a bank-fraud indictment against Abramoff and Kidan.

[...]

Abramoff and Kidan were both big GOP fund-raisers at the time, and Ney, it has been widely noted, received $30,000 for his political action committee, American Liberty PAC, from the Tigua Indian tribe through the good offices of Abramoff, their lobbyist, who also arranged for Ney to take an all-expenses-paid golfing trip to Scotland."

The Duke got millions, Ney a lot less, but he is going to take the same fall as the Duke. Maybe all these guys will end up in the same Federal slammer. Then, it would be more like a corruption camp than a jail.