The U.S. Department of Justice ended a six-year investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), clearing “the Hammer” of any federal corruption charges for his ties to now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hayworth and Blunt are not the only active politicians to have accepted donations from the tainted lobbyist. In all, 37 current congressional candidates and sitting members of Congress received money from Abramoff, according to a review of campaign finance data by the Center for Responsive Politics

Abramoff, along with his wife, Pamela, personally contributed more than $301,400 to federal candidates, parties and committees between the 1992 and 2004 election cycles, according to the Center’s research.

Of this sum, 92 percent went to Republican politicians, while 8 percent went to nonpartisan political action committees and interest groups, including the gun-rights organization Arena PAC , the Susan B. Anthony List committee that opposes abortion rights and the PAC of his then-employer, Preston Gates & Ellis . The lobby shop in 2007 merged with another firm to become K&L Gates.

Among current candidates and members of Congress, Abramoff’s top beneficiaries include:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who took $9,000 directly from the Abramoffs

Blunt, who accepted $8,500

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who accepted $7,000

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who also received $7,000

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who collected $5,500

Overall, DeLay was the top recipient of contributions from the Abramoffs, raking in $44,500 from Abramoff and his wife between 1995 and 2004.

These numbers only reflect the Abramoffs’ personal donations and do not include the numerous contributions to politicians made by Abramoff’s clients.

As the Center has previously reported , Abramoff’s clients donated at least $5 million to federal candidates, political parties, leadership PACs and members of the House and Senate. And 60 percent of the members of the 109th Congress, which convened from 2005 through 2006, received a contribution from at least one of his clients.

For his part, Hayworth received $2,250 from Abramoff — money that he says he donated to charity in 2006 (although he did not part with donations he received from Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients). Hayworth cooperated with federal investigators regarding Abramoff-related charges, and he himself was never charged with any wrong-doing.

Of all the Abramoffs’ donations, only $11,500 was explicitly returned to the Abramoffs, the Center’s research shows. This may be because donating “tainted” money to charity is a more frequent method of divesting in Washington — and difficult to track in any empirical way. The five recipients who gave the money back in full are Rohrabacher, Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Sen. James Talent (R-Mo.).

OpenSecrets Blog previously reported. In 2006, Abramoff pled guilty to charges related to defrauding millions of dollars from Indian tribes he represented as a lobbyist, as well as corrupting public officials. He was released from federal prison to a halfway house in Maryland earlier this summer and is currently working in a kosher pizzeria in Baltimore, as

Center for Responsive Politics Senior Researcher Douglas Weber and reporter Michael Beckel contributed to this report.



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

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