Last year, Alan Colmes had Ralph Reed on his radio program talking about his latest novel. During the interview, Colmes asked Reed about his work with Jack Abramoff, which Reed defended, saying the work “was outstanding, I’m proud of it, and it advanced sound public policy.”
Reed told Colmes that when he worked with Abramoff, he made it clear that he would not accept any payment that derived from gambling revenues and that Abramoff arranged to have him paid from non-gambling revenues.
Last night, Colmes had Abramoff on his program and asked him about Reed’s claims, which Abramoff laughed off as “ridiculous”:
Colmes: Does that accurately represent what happened?
Abramoff: No. Not at all.
Colmes: In what way?
Abramoff: It’s ridiculous. I mean, even the tribes that had other business, 99% of their revenue came from gaming. But a lot of those tribes had nothing but gaming.
Colmes: So, in other words, Ralph Reed was saying “hey, I’ll work with you but I don’t want to be paid with gambling money, I’m too clean for that.” But are you saying that conversation never happened?
Abramoff: No. Never happened. Ralph didn’t want it out that he was getting gambling money and, frankly, that was his choice and I think it was a big mistake.
Colmes also asked Abramoff what he meant in his infamous email to his partner Michael Scanlon that Reed “is a bad version of us,” which Abramoff explained meant that Reed was “a tap dancer and constantly just asking for money.”
