Jack Abramoff...Grover Norquist...Ron Nehring

Connecting the corruption dots.

The connections between Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist go back years. They supported each other and grew to become power brokers in the Republican Party. In 1995, Norquist proclaimed, “What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs. Then this becomes a different town.”

Norquist worked with Abramoff to engineering the quiet take over of the American government attemping to insure that right wing Republican rule would last forever. A coup designed to give the United States to corporations and the ultra-rich.

Norquist and his organization American For Tax Reform (ATR) became part of Abramoff's lobbying efforts on behalf of numerous gambling interests. In 2000, ATR helped Abramoff launder money from eLottery, an on-line company trying to break into the lottery business.

"The Senate had passed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act in late 1999, aiming to make it easier for authorities to stop online gambling sites. With a companion bill by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.) advancing in the House in the spring of 2000, eLottery was desperate to ramp up its Washington lobbying. It had to sell off assets to stay afloat and raise cash.

In May, eLottery hired Abramoff's firm, Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, for $100,000 a month, according to lobbying reports. In the following months, Abramoff directed the company to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to various organizations, faxes, e-mails and court records show. The groups included Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; [Rev. Louis P.] Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition; companies affiliated with [Christian Coalition's Ralph] Reed; and a Seattle Orthodox Jewish foundation, Toward Tradition.

To reach the House conservatives, Abramoff turned to Sheldon, leader of the Orange County, Calif. - based Traditional Values Coalition, a politically potent group that publicly opposed gambling and said it represented 43,000 churches. Abramoff had teamed up with Sheldon before on issues affecting his clients. Because of their previous success, Abramoff called Sheldon "Lucky Louie," former associates said.

Checks and e-mails obtained by The Post show that Abramoff recruited Reed to join Sheldon in the effort to pressure members of Congress. Reed had left the Christian Coalition in 1997 and started a political consulting firm in Georgia.

Abramoff asked eLottery to write a check in June 2000 to Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). He also routed eLottery money to a Reed company, using two intermediaries, which had the effect of obscuring the source.

The eLottery money went first to Norquist's foundation, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), and then through a second group in Virginia Beach called the Faith and Family Alliance, before it reached Reed's company, Century Strategies. Norquist's group retained a share of the money as it passed through.

Minutes later Abramoff responded, saying that the check for Sheldon's group should be sent directly to Sheldon, but that the checks for Norquist required special instructions: "Call Grover, tell him I am in Michigan and that I have two checks for him totaling 160 and need a check back for Faith and Family for $150K."

According to the e-mails, Reed provided the name and address where Norquist was supposed to send the money: to Robin Vanderwall at a location in Virginia Beach.

Vanderwall was director of the Faith and Family Alliance, a political advocacy group that was founded by two of Reed's colleagues and then turned over to Vanderwall, Vanderwall said and records show.

Vanderwall, a former Regent University Law School student and Republican operative, was later convicted of soliciting sex with minors via the Internet and is serving a seven-year term in Virginia state prison.

In a telephone interview, Vanderwall said that in July 2000 he was called by Reed's firm, Century Strategies, alerting him that he would be receiving a package. When it came, it contained a check payable to Vanderwall's group for $150,000 from Americans for Tax Reform, signed by Norquist. Vanderwall said he followed the instructions from Reed's firm -- depositing the money and then writing a check to Reed's firm for an identical amount.

"I was operating as a shell," Vanderwall said, adding that he was never told how the money was spent. He said: "I regret having had anything to do with it."

When we connect the dots what we have is Abramoff, Norquist, DeLay, Reed and a bunch of slimy "movement conservatives" and "family values Christians" using various organizations, such as Americans for Tax Reform, to move dirty money around Washington. Abramoff's associations with Norquist and ATR are already under federal scrutiny. How much money did ATR move for Abramoff?

In San Diego County, one of Grover Norquist chief lieutenants heads the county Republican Party. Ron Nehring is the county chair and the co-chairman of the California State Republican Party. Nehring is also a "senior consultant" to Americans for Tax Reform.

Nehring was a staunch supporter of Randy "Duke" Cunningham right up to the Duke's guilty plea. In November, when Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate for Cunningham's seat in the CA-50 proposed reforms that would reduce the sort of abuses that allowed Cunningham to secretly steer millions of dollars to companies and individuals, without congressional over-sight, Nehring accused Busby of "regurgitating a 'spoon-fed' proposal created by the Democratic Party in Washington."

Nehring consistently attempts to steer reporters to historical ethical abuses by Democrats. It is interesting that not a single local reporter is questioning Nehring's connections with Norquist, ATR and, ultimately, Jack Abramoff. Maybe it is time to connect one more dot in the mess that is the Republican congress of corruption.