1997 Special Investigation in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns. United States Senate Committee
Tamraz told the Committee, “I will come through the window.” Unfortunately, his eagerness to promote his business schemes and enlist the government’s support against the vehement protests of U.S. national security experts found itself an ally in the cash-hungry DNC. The story of Tamraz demonstrates, perhaps better than any other episode of the Democratic fundraising scandals, that nothing was sacred in the President’s desperate search for campaign funds: no corner of the U.S. Government—not even the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) or the NSC—was off limits.
An international businessman with significant involvement in the oil business, Tamraz was wanted by French police and faces an Interpol arrest warrant for embezzlement in Lebanon. Tamraz was willing to invest great energy, and significant sums of money, to secure U.S. backing for his oil pipeline project in the Caucasus. Rebuffed by officials at the NSC who regarded his schemes as untenable and harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests, he began making huge contributions to the DNC. As Tamraz had intended—and as he admitted to the Committee in his remarkably candid testimony—these contributions enabled him to enlist senior party officials like Fowler in helping Tamraz gain the access to senior U.S. officials that a high-level inter-agency working group had determined to deny him. His contributions—both directly to the DNC and to various state Democratic campaigns at Fowler’s personal direction—also won Tamraz the DNC chairman’s intercession in a series of highly inappropriate contacts with CIA officials. In at least two conversations with a CIA clandestine operative named “Bob,”8 to whom he had been referred by Tamraz and who had already been “lobbying” the NSC on Tamraz’s behalf, Fowler asked the CIA officer to help him “clear Tamraz’s name.” Fowler even telephoned NSC staffer Sheila Heslin to inform her that “Bob” would soon be sending her information about Tamraz. (Despite taking notes of his discussions with Tamraz about Bob, despite talking with “Bob” on at least two occasions, and discussing the CIA officer with NSC staffers Nancy Soderberg and Heslin, Fowler continued to deny any memory of his CIA contacts). After Tamraz was “disinvited” from an October 1995 event with Vice President Gore by the NSC, his DNC allies arranged for him to attend a dinner with the Vice President at the home of Senator Edward Kennedy. Despite the NSC’s determined efforts to deny him access to President Clinton, Tamraz’s DNC contributions bought him no fewer than six private meetings with the President.
Tamraz took the opportunity to discuss his pipeline with President Clinton at a White House dinner on March 27, 1996. The President assured Tamraz that someone would “followup” with him, and detailed Presidential advisor Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty to look into the matter the next day. Tamraz next met the President at a White House coffee on April 1, 1996, at which, Tamraz discussed his pipeline ideas with McLarty. McLarty asked Energy Department employee Kyle Simpson whether some reason could be found to support Tamraz’s pipeline. When Simpson conveyed McLarty’s instructions to his colleague John Carter, he told Carter that Tamraz had donated $200,000 to the DNC and was considering giving an additional $400,000.
The nadir of the Tamraz episode occurred with Carter’s subsequent call to NSC staff member Heslin, who chaired the inter-agency working group that had sought to deny Tamraz access to senior government officials and who had determined that the U.S. should not support his pipeline. Carter told Heslin that if she reconsidered her opposition to Tamraz, it “would mean a lot of money for the DNC” because “he’s already given 200,000, and if he got [what he wanted] he would give the DNC another $400,000.” Heslin refused, despite Carter’s claim that “the President really wanted” this and threats that McLarty might exact reprisals against her.
The Indian Casino Decision
The DNC also targeted the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) to influence a decision whether three bands of Wisconsin Indian tribes would be allowed to open a casino in Hudson, Wisconsin. A wealthy group of neighboring tribes in Minnesota, who operated a nearby casino that would face competition if the Hudson application were approved, opposed the proposal. Significantly, the opposing tribes had given large sums of money to the DNC, while the applicants had not.
After the BIA’s Minneapolis office approved the applicant tribes’ plan in late 1994, the opposing tribes hired Patrick O’Connor, a prominent lobbyist and former DNC treasurer, who spoke personally with President Clinton about this matter. Four days later, O’Connor, accompanied by other lobbyists and opposition tribal leaders, met with Fowler. As one participant recalled it, Fowler “got the message: it’s politics and the Democrats are against [the new casino] and the people for it are Republicans.” Fowler promised that he would contact Ickes and have him talk with Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, which he did a few days later.
After making several calls herself to the Interior Department, Ickes’ assistant Jennifer O’Connor, in June 1995 asked a White House intern to get an update on the Hudson casino. Heather Sibbison, special assistant to Secretary Babbitt, told the intern “it was 95% certain that the application would be turned down.” Just two days later, however, a career BIA employee, wrote a 17-page analysis recommending approval of the Hudson application. Nevertheless, the assurances that Secretary Babbitt’s staff conveyed to Ickes’ office were correct: despite the BIA’s recommendation that it be approved, a draft letter rejecting the application was prepared on June 29, 1995, and the Interior Department formally denied the application on July 14.
The opposing tribes apparently had little doubt as to how to show their gratitude for the Interior Department’s decision to protect them from gaming competition. According to FEC records, in the four months following the Department’s denial of the Hudson application, the opposition tribes contributed $53,000 to the DNC and the DSCC; they donated an additional $230,000 to the DNC and the DSCC during 1996, and gave more than $50,000 in additional money to the Minnesota Democratic Party.
Another suspicious aspect of the Hudson episode involves the inconsistent positions taken by Secretary Babbitt when asked about the matter. According to Paul Eckstein, a longtime friend of Secretary Babbitt who had been retained by the applicant tribes, when Eckstein tried to persuade Secretary Babbitt to delay making a decision on the Hudson matter, Secretary Babbitt replied that Ickes had directed him to issue a decision that very day. Later in their conversation, Eckstein told the Committee, Secretary Babbitt turned the subject to political contributions, declaring to Eckstein: “Do you have any idea how much these Indians, Indians with gaming contracts … have given to Democrats? … [H]alf a million dollars.”
When asked about these comments by Senator John McCain, who then chaired the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Secretary Babbitt denied that he had ever told Eckstein anything about Ickes seeking a prompt decision on the Hudson matter. Nevertheless, several months later, in response to this Committee’s inquiry, Secretary Babbitt changed his story, admitting that he probably did make such a remark to Eckstein about Ickes’ request. Secretary Babbitt still claims to have “no recollection” of making the comment Eckstein recalls about the opposing tribes’ political contributions.9
The Hudson casino matter is, if anything, more sordid than the Tamraz story, as political donations to the DNC apparently succeeded in purchasing government policy concessions. In light of the opposing tribes’ DNC contributions, the DNC’s lobbying effort against the casino, the involvement of Ickes’ staff in drawing Secretary Babbitt’s attention to this issue, and Secretary Babbitt’s remarkable comments to Eckstein, the Hudson casino matter raises serious questions about the propriety—and the legality—of the Interior Department’s decision. And the DNC also took advantage of two Oklahoma tribes that sought the return of their former lands, and made contributions in the belief that their prospects for favorable action would be enhanced.
Foreign Efforts to Influence the U.S. Elections
The DNC’s eagerness to raise unprecedented