Abramoff - All in the Family

By Paul Kiel - April 8, 2006, 3:00 PM
In what is mostly a rehash of the role of wives and other family members in the Jack Abramoff investigation, Sunday's piece in the New York Times has a couple of new nuggets.

The central role of wives in the investigation has been clear for quite awhile (see our earlier post on the Abramoff wives theme.). Tom DeLay's former aide Tony Rudy has already pled gulty to accepting bribes through his wife for work he did in DeLay's office for Abramoff. Investigators are also reportedly looking at DeLay himself and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), both of whose wives worked for Ed Buckham. Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, ran the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group and worked very closely with Abramoff.

Investigators apparently call this group the "The Wives Club." They subpoenaed Doolittle's wife's company back in 2004, and today we learn that "prosecutors have asked [Christine DeLay] about the circumstances of her hiring by Mr. Buckham and whether it was an effort to influence Mr. DeLay."

But now for the real bombshell.

We learn a lot more about Jack Abramoff's brother Robert, who seems to share his brother's penchant for shell companies:

State business records in California show that Robert Abramoff, who went on to produce other little-known films, is a director or registered agent for almost 100 companies, many of them with colorful names, including FilmSoup, Deliberate Ink, It's Pawfect, Knot-2-Much-2-Ask and Make-Up Your Mind Inc.
One of those companies, Aeneas Enterprises, got $2.3 million from one of his brother's shell companies, GrassRoots Interactive. It's not clear what he did for the money, if anything.

But there's another company for which Robert Abramoff is the registered agent, it's - wait for it - Nicole Richie, Inc. The Times describes it as "an umbrella company for the business activities of the young Hollywood celebrity," best known for co-starring with Paris Hilton in The Simple Life. Nicole Richie. Where will the Abramoff scandal lead next?

Unsurprisingly, Richie says she had nothing to do with Abramoff's brother:

Ms. Richie's spokesman, Cindy Guagenti, said that Mr. Abramoff had been hired to deal with the logistics of the company's incorporation. She said Ms. Richie "has never met him, never talked to him."

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