Italia Federici, a onetime political aide to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion and lying to Congress as part of the ongoing investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff, according to documents obtained by The Hill.
The Republican activist will be the second person with ties to Norton to plead guilty in the Abramoff investigation. Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship to Abramoff and Federici. He is to be sentenced later this month.
Federici is set to admit in federal court on Friday that she helped to forge a connection between Norton’s top deputy and now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to court documents filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“During much of Griles’s tenure as [Department of the Interior] Deputy Secretary, defendant Federici served as a conduit for information between Abramoff and Griles in order to foster Abramoff’s and his client’s interests,” the court documents, filed by the Justice Department, state.
Federici is president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), which evolved from a group Federici and Norton founded in 1997 with tax activist Grover Norquist to push for Republican environmental goals. It originally was funded with money Federici received from an inheritance.
Federici moved her organization to Washington in 1998 “with substantial assistance” from Griles, who was then an energy industry lobbyist.
Before that, Federici had been a top aide in Norton’s 1996 Senate primary campaign. Norton lost to Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.). Norton became interior secretary in 2001, and documents indicate Federici helped Abramoff arrange meetings and contacts at the Interior Department after Norton took over.
Griles admitted as part of his plea bargain that because of his “personal and romantic relationship” with Federici, he “gave Abramoff more credibility as a lobbyist,” which “distinguished him from other lobbyists.”
The court documents say Federici introduced Abramoff to Griles in March 2001 about a week before his nomination to Interior.
They talked about Griles’ impending nomination, Abramoff’s interest in Interior Department decisions and CREA’s funding, according to the document.
“Shortly thereafter,” the document says, “Abramoff personally and through his clients, became a substantial contributor to CREA.”
The Interior Department regulates Indian casinos, including determining which tribes can start new ones. Abramoff was paid millions of dollars by tribes that had casinos to block nearby tribes from getting their own.
Abramoff told casino-tribe leaders in one e-mail that CREA was “Norton’s main group outside Interior” and signed up his clients as members of CREA’s board of trustees for a $50,000 donation. It was one of a number of payments to CREA by Abramoff’s tribal clients. Abramoff once told a colleague questioning his generosity to Federici: “Unfortunately, she is critical to me.”
Federici told a Senate committee in a contentious 2005 hearing that Abramoff directed about $500,000 from casino tribes to her nonprofit group.
Much of that money went directly to Federici and her assistant, who withdrew money from CREA’s accounts using ATM cards, though their accountants told them not to, according to court documents.
Now that Abramoff is in prison, Federici filed an affidavit saying she didn’t have enough money to hire her own lawyer to handle her case.
While still in office, Norton defended Griles and Federici, saying she had no qualms about Federici’s activities and stating that Griles had not been involved in her department’s Indian gambling decisions.
Then-Senate Indian Affairs Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), who led the public portion of the investigation, stated repeatedly that his investigation uncovered no wrongdoing by Norton.
Prosecutors had told Federici in a Jan. 19 “target letter” that investigators were looking at whether she violated five statutes in connection with running CREA: conspiracy to defraud the United States, tax evasion, impeding the IRS and obstructing proceedings and making false statements before the Senate.
The letter added that prosecutors believe Federici “may have assisted others in depriving the American public of honest services of at least one administration official.”
