Ney fell down and broke his crown.
Feeney came tumbling after.
Today, the Orlando Sentinel ran a story that uncovers Feeney's ties to Jack Abramoff's slush fund. We now know that the Scotland golf trip cost $150,226.32, about $18,750 more than Feeney reported.
ThinkProgress compares the Feeney trip to convicted felon, former Congressman Bob Ney, right down to Abramoff's instruction to underreport the trip and to show it being paid by the National Center for Public Policy Research, same group as Feeney's. And, they include this little tid bit from the Sentinel story:
Feeney has declined to answer detailed questions this week about how he
determined his $5,643 share of the trip’s expenses.
Fortunately, the St. Petersburg Times has discovered exactly how Feeney's office determine what to report, as I outlined in an earlier post.
But an e-mail obtained by the St. Petersburg Times on Wednesday shows that
Abramoff's office sent specific instructions on how to report the trip expenses to a handful of people, including Feeney's congressional assistant.
The e-mail from Holly Bowers, Abramoff's then-assistant, instructs
recipients to say a conservative think tank, the National Center for Public
Policy Research, paid for the trip at a cost of $5,643 per person.
As I highlighted, Feeney's office specifically outlined how to report the trip which, by the way, was not reported until December 29, a full four months after the trip occurred.
The hits just keep on coming. Florida Today, another of Feeney's hometown newspapers, has also been asked by the FBI for a tape of an interview Feeney conducted with the Editorial board of the paper. This is in addition to the requests to the St. Petersburg Times and Orlando Sentinel.
Feeney says the FBI says he is not a target of the investigation but it's getting harder and harder to believe that. He's just lying way too much.
- Feeney denies having a relationship with Abramoff. Abramoff was on the golf trip with Feeney and eight others, one who has already plead guilty for doing exactly what Feeney did. Feeney has visited Abramoff's restaurant and picked up a $2,000 tab on at least twice.
- Feeney didn't know Abramoff paid for the trip. The email from Abramoff's office speaks for itself. It makes it clear that 1)there was a relationship developed enough so that Feeney's office would take instructions on how to fill out a required reporting form and 2) that Feeney's office knew that Abramoff paid for the trip.
And, he sounds just like Ney did about this time.
I am absolutely outraged by the dishonest and duplicitous words and actions of Jack Abramoff."
He has said his actions benefiting Abramoff had nothing to do with the favors he received. He said he was misled by Abramoff and his associates.
I, like these Indian tribes and other members of Congress, was duped by Jack Abramoff."
Ney has said he was misled by Abramoff about who paid for the trip. "In April, 2002, I was approached by Mr. Abramoff, who I believed to be a respected member of the community, and asked to go on a trip to Scotland which Mr. Abramoff said would help support a charitable organization, that he founded, through meetings he organized with Scottish Parliament officials."
Feeney has said he did no favors for Abramoff in exchange for the trip.
In a 2005 Orlando Sentinel story, Feeney, an Oviedo Republican, said he was misled about who paid for the Scotland visit. In January of this year, he used stronger language, saying he was "duped and lied to" about what he thought was a fact-finding trip with Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges.
