Records reveal major lobbying campaign at HUD by Abramoff

I smell investigation into HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson..

Now, though, e-mail and billing records turned over to a congressional committee by Greenberg Traurig, the Miami-based firm that employed Abramoff, say that Abramoff and others conducted a coordinated lobbying campaign at HUD in 2002-03 on behalf of Michigan's Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe.

The campaign involved lobbying contacts with at least three high-ranking HUD officials, including current HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, the records say.

The records - which the committee cautioned were uncorroborated - do not document any meetings between Abramoff and then-HUD Secretary Mel Martinez. Martinez is now a U.S. senator from Florida who was tapped by President Bush in November to become chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Abramoff's team members boasted to colleagues about their influence at HUD, according to the internal records, which were made public by the House Committee on Government Reform.

They were released in late September as the scandal over former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., was breaking, and have gone largely unnoticed.
Abramoff's apparent high-level push into HUD could raise sensitive questions for Martinez, who quit the housing agency in December 2003 to run for the Senate. Two months later, Abramoff co-chaired a Washington fundraiser for Martinez's campaign that raised $250,000.

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