For those of you
just joining us, get your HAVA Director Drew Durham/Colorado Accenture fiasco primer
here. Whole new levels of probably unrelated yet
very interesting fun below.
From the May 20th, 1998
Austin American-Statesman:
An aide to Gov. George W. Bush said Tuesday that the attorney general's office acknowledges it has authority to sue an El Paso Indian tribe running the state's largest casino but has not decided whether to file suit...
Ward Tisdale, a spokesman for Attorney General Dan Morales, said he could not confirm that Morales' staff now believes the state has jurisdiction to file such a lawsuit. He said he was unable to contact Deputy Attorney General Drew Durham, who met Monday with Stuart Bowen Jr., Bush's assistant general counsel, to discuss the issue.
Bush said last week he believes the Tiguas are violating state law that prohibits casino gambling...
Where else have I been reading about the Tiguas? That's right,
Jack Abramoff...
The Tiguas paid $4.2 million to Scanlon and Abramoff, who said his connections in high Washington places could get federal legislation passed allowing the Tiguas to reopen the casino.
Unknown by the tribe, Abramoff had paid lobbyist Ralph Reed millions to persuade Texas officials to close the casino in the first place...
Did Drew Durham have a hand in Jack Abramoff's Tigua shakedown? Are you paying attention yet? If that wasn't good enough, the
Texas Observer, 12/17/04:
As Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn wasn't the first public official in Texas to oppose Indian gaming. Ann Richards declared it illegal when she was the state's governor. As did Dan Morales, when he was attorney general. But Cornyn relentlessly pursued the tribe, which had become a big contributor to Democrats after the casino opened in 1993. Shortly after taking office in 1999, he filed suit in federal court, seeking to shut the tribe's casino down. The Tiguas fought back...
By the time Cornyn went to work on the Tiguas, it was widely known that Reed had both the hottest Christian rolodex in the nation and the imprimatur of G.W. Bush. He quickly got inside Cornyn's office and kept Abramoff apprised of the Tigua litigation. The director of Cornyn's criminal division, according to an e-mail from Reed, provided the dates when Cornyn expected Judge Garnet Thomas Eisle to act, and an outline of Cornyn's response to the judge's rulings.
(ahem)
Drew Durham, deputy attorney general for criminal justice...
Down the rabbit hole we go...