Wampum

And boy, is it a doozy.

The discussion has continued over at Marcy's place, spurred on by this excellent post documenting recent changes in the make-up of the Native American Issues Subcommittee at the DoJ. Of particularly interesting note, the 2006 appointment of Colorado USA, Troy Eid.

Seems that Eid was a 2003 hire of Greenberg Traurig in their Denver office. While Eid tried to whitewash his involvement in the firm at the same time as Abramoff's tenure, such claims turn out to be patently false. First, from the Denver Post upon Eid's appointment:

Eid, a shareholder at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, practices land use and environmental law, federal Indian law, American Indian tribal law, business negotiations and public law.

Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who recently pleaded guilty to bribery, mail fraud and other charges, previously worked at Greenberg Traurig.

Eid and Abramoff both worked in divisions that represented American Indian tribes. But Eid has said he joined Greenberg Traurig in 2003, about the time Abramoff was being fired.

However, not only did Eid and Abramoff overlap in 2003-2004 (Abramoff wasn't fired until March, 2004), Eid was directly involved in at least two clients handled by "Team Abramoff". The first was Convergys. Here's what I originally wrote in comments over at the Next Hurrah:

I took a look at his Senate lobbying disclosure forms, and two things stood out. One, he was definitely in with Abramoff's gang, as the one lobbying disclosure form on record at SOPR lists his co-lobbyists as Ed Ayoob, Kevin Ring, Stephanie Leger, Pat Wilson, Neil Volz, Michael Smith - I mean, almost every except Abramoff himself.

Second, his client - Convergys Corp. Not happy with taking over state government:

Convergys Corp. says it landed a contract to provide human resources and payroll services to 46,000 government employees in Texas. State officials say the contract is worth up to $85 million over five years.

Cincinnati-based Convergys (NYSE: CVG) will perform the work for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, according to a news release. Convergys will open a new shared service center in Austin to serve the state employees, and the company expects the first phase of the transition to take about one year. The company says it will hire up to 150 employees for the new call center.

...

The company has started a similar program for the state of Florida. Convergys already employs about 5,000 people in Texas contact centers, and it was immediately clear if the company will be adding more to service the new contract. Cincinnati-based Convergys is a provider of outsourced billing, human resources and customer care services.

Convergys was looking to move into the Federal government, and who better to look to than Abramoff and GT.

And then after a bit more research and coffee:

I went over Eid's resume at GT, and here are some thoughts. Abramoff wanted him on the Convergys account because of his experience as Secretary of Personnel and Administration. The lobbying disclosure form states Convergys' lobbying targets as the White House, Department of Labor, Homeland Security and "others". For this, GT in last half of 2004 was paid $140,000. Even for GT, that's a hefty sum for just one 6 month reporting period. The contract was terminated in February, 2005, one would assume because of the fall-out from the scandal hitting the media. According to Colorado Political News blog at the time, Eid's name was submitted for the Colorado USA way back in December 2004, even though he wasn't named until mid-2006. Was that because the White House was watching the Abramoff fallout and wanted to make sure their golden boy didn't get caught up in the scandal's fallout. They must have wanted him pretty bad if they were willing to take that chance.

At that point, uber-commenter Rayne made a remarkable discovery:

Note on page 17 at this link a mention of Troy Eid at GT in Nov. 2003, writing to Norton. (Note also use of the word, "shareholder".)

That link pointed to an article which included this:

On Nov. 25, 2003, Troy A. Eid, a shareholder with the lobbying firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP. wrote Norton.

"'Thanks for taking the time to visit last week. I really enjoyed seeing you,"the letter begins. "The Mashpee would like to meet with Interior to discuss the concept of developing a timetable for resolving the tribal recognition issue one way or another."

The Mashpee were definitely Jack's client, and if Eid wrote Norton (who he probably knew personally from Colorado) in November 2003, then that's even more evidence that he was part and parcel of Team Abramoff while at GT. But Eid was never listed a GT lobbyist for the Mashpee. As I wrote in comments,

So I checked out the Mashpee lobbying records, and while most of Team Abramoff is listed, Eid is not. What's more, in their mid- and end-year reports for 2003 and 2004, only the Senate and House are listed as lobbying targets - nothing for DoI. So Eid, 1) didn't have himself listed as a lobbyist, despite contacting a government official regarding a current client, and 2) that government official's agency was never reported as having been lobbied by his firm. Bad form all around, and, frankly, legally actionable.

Of course, a lobbyist not reporting their lobbying activities with a federal official would be prosecuted by the local US Attorney. That would Troy Eid himself.

Update: As if on cue, dKos commenter Magnifico offers up a the ultimate connect-the-dots article (well, for me at least, judging from my recent Section 1813/tribal rights-of-way obsession):

Pipeline deal unlikely El Paso Natural Gas, Navajo Nation in stalemate on lease as deadline nears

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK -- A pipeline right-of-way agreement between the Navajo Nation and El Paso Natural Gas is set to expire at midnight with negotiators for both sides still hundreds of millions of dollars apart on the value of the 20-year lease.

Following an executive-session status briefing Thursday before the Resources Committee, Chairman George Arthur said El Paso has made an offer on a time extension; however, "We haven't talked with them in respect to any dollar value. In fact, we're not interested at this point in time to give them any extension."

El Paso attorneys Christopher Castillo of Colorado Springs and Troy Eid of Greenberg Traurig LLP in Denver attended Thursday's meeting in hopes of presenting their side but were booted out of the executive session for several hours along with the rest of the public. Chairman Arthur and Delegate Larry Noble voted against the executive session.

I've always argued, from the beginning, that Abramoff was not just about tribal "gaming", but exploitation of tribal land and natural resources. Eid seems to be the missing link.