She allegedly took $250,000 from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff in return for using her influence in high government places to benefit his clients. But when she failed to show up to testify before a Senate committee chaired by Sen. John McCain, he sent U.S. marshals out to bring her in.
It is an odd characteristic of our era that all the big scandals seem to produce a blonde woman near their centers – Fanne Foxe, Donna Rice, Fawn Hall, Gennifer Flowers and Linda Tripp, to name just a few.
The corrupt Republican leaders in the Congress have kept a lid on scandals during the first five years of the Bush Administration, but recent events indicate that the lid is about to be blown off.
“Any way to see if this is something coming from the top?” Abramoff asked in an email. Federici responded: “I will definitely see what i can find out. I hate to bug you, but is there any news about a possible contribution. . . .”
And right on cue comes Italia Federici, complete with honey-colored hair and a swirling cloud of controversy.
She is the president of a Republican anti-environmentalist group based in Washington who has been caught up in the alleged influence peddling of former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon are accused of bilking $80 million from six Indian tribes who had hired the lobbyists to represent their interests in the Capital.
Abramoff donated between $225,000 and $500,000 he collected from his tribal clients to Federici’s nonprofit group, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA).
Investigators allege that, in return, Federici used her influence at the Dept. of Interior to help one of the tribes maintain its monopoly over gambling in its home region.
The “favors” Italia Federici performed for Abramoff’s clients usually involved making requests to her friend Steven Griles, who was a deputy interior secretary.
Whatever she did for Abramoff, it had little or nothing to do with the activities or purview of CREA, which was founded by anti-tax whack job Grover Norquist and Gale Norton before she became interior secretary.
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