The Gimme-Five Game

A trove of e-mail offers an inside look at a lobbying scandal that's making top conservatives nervous

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

Posted Monday, Jun. 27, 2005

At this stage, it's not easy to make Jack Abramoff's reputation worse. The Washington superlobbyist has been caught, in his e-mails, calling his Indian tribal clients "monkeys" and "morons." It has been made clear, in congressional hearings, that he charged the tribes outlandish fees and got them to make donations that underwrote his lifestyle, his kids' education and the luxury travel of his favorite politician. But for those who were recipients of the largesse that Abramoff could afford with his clients' money, exposure is a frightening prospect. House majority leader Tom DeLay, that luxury traveler, has already been burned by his association with Abramoff. The latest disclosures about the lobbyist's methods have dusted up two more Republican notables: antitax activist Grover Norquist and Christian conservative Ralph Reed. Their names came up in the thousands of e-mails released last week by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is investigating Abramoff. The fact that Abramoff-controlled tribal money found its way to the highest levels of conservative power in the country is making a lot of people in Washington nervous. "If you painted that money purple, there'd be a lot of purple pockets around town," says Senator Byron Dorgan, the ranking Democrat on the committee.