rabbi daniel lapin's name resurfaces in investigation

The Jack Abramoff/Delay scandal gets more odiferous every day and reveals more layers than a Walla Walla Sweet--many of which are peeling off at the feet of prestigious Seattle law firm Preston Gates, for whom Abramoff worked around the turn of the century.

Seattle Weekly reporter Rick Anderson's latest installment in this smelly saga places controversial fundamentalist talk show host Rabbi Daniel Lapin (KTTH,Sundays 7-10p) and Toward Traditon, his Mercer Island charity, a little closer to the stink.

Lapin is the ultra-orthodox Seattle rabbi tangled in the unfolding influence-peddling-and-everything else scandal in the Capitol and swirling around his close political friends: disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, meaneocon Tom DeLay, Christian conprop guru Ralph Reed and, distantly, neocon theorist and activist Grover Norquist.

Lapin dismisses the scandal as an accounting error.

Anderson's story reports US Senate investigations that reveal the boy-faced Reed's laundering scheme for money supplied by an Indian casino client and disguised as a "deceptive Deep South antigambling campaign."

That campaign and other Reed-managed antigambling drives are now part of a U.S. probe into the allegedly fraudulent practices of former Preston Gates D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who arranged the secret money flow, investigators say. Documents indicate Abramoff, during and after his Preston Gates years, steered more than $4 million in tribal gaming money to gambling foe Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.

This astounding story of greed and hypocrisy, comes close to Lapin. Anderson writes: 

New Senate documents show Seattle radio host Rabbi Daniel Lapin was more than just a friend and fellow religious conservative to embattled D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff (see: "Meet the Lapin Brothers," May 11). Lapin was also on the payroll of Abramoff's D.C. charity, Capital Athletic Foundation. According to Abramoff's e-mails, CAF was sometimes used as a money conduit to avoid paying higher income taxes.

At one point, the e-mails state, Abramoff proposed using Lapin and another person on CAF's payroll to create a "research" project as a tax write-off, but Abramoff's accountant worried the IRS would see it as a "sham transaction," and the idea was apparently dropped. Abramoff also proposed using Lapin's Mercer Island charity, Toward Tradition, as an apparent money pass-through to help fund Ralph Reed's antigambling drives (see main story), then learned the charity didn't have the correct IRS status.

There is no indication Lapin, who would not comment last week, was aware of the schemes. Abramoff is a board member of Lapin's charity, and Lapin was one of four people who collectively earned $20,000 a month at Abramoff's D.C. charity, according to Senate documents.

Rabbi Lapin has positioned himself as a stern moral leader in the Seattle area, even partnering with controversial anti-gay evangelical Rev. Ken Hutcherson organizing anti-gay rights events and getting into faith-based pissing matches with local liberal clergy. BlatherWatch wonders how long the veneer of local respectability will last for the the rabbi as Sen. McCain's investigations in Washington  unfolds.

Read the whole blatherWatch file on Lapin:

rabbi daniel lapin: a man who stands by his scandal-ridden friends

rabbi daniel lapin: more national embarrassment

rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward

the rabbi with the tinfoil yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

Comments

[Michael B.]

BlatherMike: Can you tell me in three sentences or less (i'd settle for a paragraph), what specificly Rabbi Lapin did that is so troublesome? From what I can tell his only crime is hanging around people you don't like.

[blathering Michael]

Michael: you might try reading all the blatherposts on the rebbi. Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, David Lapin, et al, are interesting, not only because we don't like them, but because they're being investigated by the GOP-run US Senate, and Bush administration federal entities. The investigations have revealed major improprieties at the very least. It's a big story nationally. These are all close friends and associates of Daniel Lapin whose name has popped up rather embarrassingly throughout. We love it when the most pompous, self-righteous and critical of the religious right get caught up in these kinds of sleazy circumstances. I wouldn't be so quick to exonerate him: who knows what'll come up next week in the continuing probe...

[Michael B.]

Mike, i've read the Blatherposts and aside from guilt by association, I still don't know what crime he has committed.

[blathering Michael]

we have not accused him of any crime...

[Michael B.]

"we have not accused him of any crime...". My point exactly.

[blathering Michael]

no, that was our point,remember? I suppose it's pointless to point out that your point is not a point, but rather--a silly circular argument..
Our original point was that this man of god sleeps with skunks while criticizing odiferousness. Maybe there's more than sleeping going on--stay tuned...