Wampum

From the Hill (via Indianz.com)

Former Sen. Campbell pays law firm $20,000
By Mike Soraghan
July 24, 2007

Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) paid his law firm more than $20,000 after his ex-chief of staff Ginnie Kontnik pleaded guilty in connection with a kickback investigation.

According to campaign finance records, Campbell paid $21,257 on May 11 to Patton Boggs, the firm he retained after the Department of Justice began investigating allegations that Kontnik overpaid a Campbell staffer and demanded $2,000 back for herself.

Campbell's payment came out of unspent campaign funds. He'd already paid more than $150,000 to the firm.

Indianz added a line not in the original article: "Campbell retired in March 2004."

For those who need a bit of reminding of the events of late winter, 2004, at the time, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) was the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. During the last week of February, the Washington Post did its big expose on Jack Abramoff and his tribal clients. Abramoff was a long-term foe of John McCain, viewed by many as having been, with friend Grover Norquist, behind the dirty anti-McCain campaign in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary. McCain is nothing if not a man of vengance: On Thursday, February 26, Senator John McCain, member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (but not, yet, the Chairman), announced that he would hold hearings on Abramoff and his cronies. That evening, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, checked himself into a Washington hospital with chest pains. Turned out to be heartburn. But it didn't stop him from deciding, only a month after his splashy kickoff to his re-election campaign, to retire from the Senate due to "health concerns." It also didn't stop Campbell from picking up a very lucrative gig with the big lobbying firm, Holland and Knight.

Campbell's connections to indicted and soon-to-be sentenced CREA executive director Italia Federici are very clear, though seldom discussed. Campbell was on the board of her other GOP project in Colorado, promoting private funding of the Arts. I've always suspected his was one of the two names redacted as attendees for a party for Gale Norton in an email between Federici and Abramoff in March, 2001, a party Abramoff also attended.

Campbell still may need his high paid Patton Boggs attorneys, so he better make sure his balance is current.