McCain's Secret Gambling Promotion Trips Called "Lobbyist Corruption"

[mloutre]

Time magazine ran a piece this week talking about McCain's longtime love of playing craps for thousands of dollars a pop and what that habit implies about his personality and the kind of president he'd be. (The Time article contrasted that against Obama's close-to-the-vest, low-dollar poker-playing style.)

I read that this morning, and then lo and behold, I click over to Daily Kos and there's a diary talking about McCain's gambling habits and the very curious fact that he has never declared and gambling income or outgo on his tax returns (hmm, hmm...):

Lobbying McCain at the craps table? I'm shocked!

Yesterday there was lots of discussion about McCain's high-stakes craps playing. This was triggered by the fact McCain is so scrupulous he reports 14 bucks in interest as a line item on his 1040, but there is never any reporting of winnings or offsetting losses when we know he is a high-stakes gambler.

Most of that conversation looked at McCain's gambling from a tax point of view, a judgment point of view, or a moral point of view. Only briefly did we touch on it from a corruption point of view.

Okay, fine. So the Kossacks picked up on the ethics & corruption & financial-dishonesty questions inherent in McCain's non-reporting of his gambling activities to the IRS, which is something that high-stakes players are legally required to do. (And that the casinos are also required to report to the IRS from their end, which sort of begs the question as to why McCain has gotten away without reporting them on his end for so long. Hmm, hmm redux.)

But in today's dKos diary, blogger http://8ackgr0und-n015e.dailykos.com/">8ackgr0und N015e goes on to connect the dots between McCain's extensive casino gambling, his longtime gambling buddies, and the illegal Congressional lobbying activities on behalf of certain Indian casinos that brought Jack Abramoff and his cronies down:

I want to focus on the corruption angle now because I found something interesting in the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act Database.

Remember those marathon gambling sessions in 2005? We know he was often in the company of Wes Gullett, a former staffer and now a lobbyist. If you check the client list on the web site for Gullett's firm you find nothing strange there -- now. However, look at their former clients and things get more interesting...

According to the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database, Gullett’s firm filed a client registration on 12/13/ 05 for the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians dated 11/29/05. The purpose of the lobbying was to promote Indian gambling. But on 1/12/06, Gullett filed an amended registration because the Senate had never received an ID number.

Walter Gray, the head of the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians testified before McCain’s committee in July 2005 so why would the Pomo Indians hire Gullett in November? Especially AFTER they got their access? The answer is they probably didn't hire him afterwards. He just didn't report it until afterwards and no one knew to ask because he didn't file the paperwork with the Senate when he was doing the lobbying. Looks to me like a sloppy way to retroactively cover your tracks in case anyone ever wanted to check if you were secretly lobbying for a client.

The bottom line: It looks like Gullett got $20,000 for secretly lobbying McCain while McCain was chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the committee was actively investigating Indian gambling in connection with Jack Abramoff.

But wait, there's more! When I went back to clip the excerpt for this OP, I saw that the diarist had (somewhat excitedly) updated it with even more juicy goodness, linking to an earlier diary by a truly awesome investigative muckracking blogger whose work I have come to greatly appreciate over the last many months:

UPDATE!!!!!!!!! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!!!!

Turns out we have been sitting on this tidbit for months! h/t to Mrs. Panstrappon for covering this even though no one noticed it at the time.

Hey, now, this is seriously hinky stuff. McCain's gambling habits say a lot about his judgment and personality, his non-reporting of those activities say a lot about his character and ethics, and the lobbyist corruption and Ambramoff tie-ins give us tons of ammo to attack him with. We progressives need to jump all over this stuff and trumpet far & wide to that the voters learn just who the *real* John McCain is, stat.

GO OUT THERE AND GET 'EM, TEAM BLUE!!

[mloutre]

1. (in case you were wondering)

(Yes, the title of this OP is a deliberate hat tip to the title of this DU post...)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6470113

[mloutre]

2. Worth noting about gambling lobbyist Wes Gullett

He's not just a highly-paid casino lobbyist who happens to be John McCain's favorite high-dollar gambling buddy, he's also a former McCain staffer.

Think for a few minutes about how many levels of special personal and professional access to a possible future President that gives Gullett and those who bankroll his activities behind the scenes. As 8ackgr0und N015e pointed out in his previous day's dKos diary on this topic:

If he is winning and not declaring -- that's a crime. If he is losing and not taking the deductions, that is peculiar for a lot of obvious reasons. It means he never wins. If he is losing his own money and not taking the deduction, it looks like he is trying to hide a problem. If he is losing other people's money that certainly raises questions about influence peddling if they have business in front of his committee. Whether he is winning or losing, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how a lobbyist bankrolling the senator's marathon craps session might be using this as a way of funneling money into the senator's coffers without drawing attention to the transactions.

We progressives really need to mailbomb the media and demand they dig into this story, people, because it could totally knock McCain out of the running if they do it right.

Finally, all this talk about unreported transactions raises raises more questions no one in the media will likely bother to ask: Has anyone seen Cindy McCain's tax returns? Does anyone know if she ever filed a 5754? Is he hiding his winnings on her tax forms? Is he burying his losses on her forms? With all the interest paid to Obama's mortgage payments, you would think something this glaring would get more media attention. Of course, then the press would have to get off the Lapdog Express and that wouldn't be any fun, would it?

Like 8ackgr0und N015e says, here's the meme:

[background n015e]

3. Nice to get noticed....here's the meme:

"Would you trust an habitual gambler with your tax dollars?"

[tnlurker]

4. I have two observations

One- McCain probably was not playing with his own money. If he won it was probably credited by the casino to the person that put the money up in the first place but McCain got to keep the winnings.

Two- He probably never walked away a winner. He said that he just played for fun and his wife is worth millions so he just played until he pissed whatever he had away.

[background n015e]

5. So he just gambles until....he gets wiped out every time? Hmmmm

<img src="">

Maybe that should be habitual LOSER :)

[mloutre]

6. Professional craps dealer ruminates on implications of McCain's gambling habits

As posted in a Daily Kos diary on the topic...

I was surprised that Steven R's diary on McCain and craps was the first I'd heard of this, and the only reason I'm writing a new diary is because, as a former craps dealer, I may be able to offer fresh insight. (I wrote a piece about my career as a casino dealer for GQ in January, 2001.)

{snip}

McCain's habit is hardly new, nor is the belief that it might make useful political hay. In 2000 (NY Times, Feb. 27), Maureen Dowd noted that Bush's "Pioneers" had invested "$800,000 for private detectives to hunt for McCain bimbo eruptions and to stake out casinos to catch him shooting craps."

No word as to what they uncovered...

More recently, The New Yorker offered a profile of McCain gambling with someone he was in bed with politically, though it's not that part of the story I can offer insight on:

"The moment the car stopped at McCain’s hotel in downtown New Orleans, he set out at his usual fast clip for Harrah’s, across the street. McCain is an avid gambler. Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight. "Craps is addictive," McCain remarked, and he headed for the fifteen-dollar-minimum-bet tables. At the most obvious level, the game is incredibly simple -- players rotate turns throwing the dice, and you either win or lose depending on what number comes up. But McCain’s betting formula makes it much more complicated. "Uh-oh!" he cried, as a player accidentally threw the dice off the table. "This is a very, very superstitious game," he said. When his turn came to throw the dice, he picked them up and blew on them first. He had placed chips on the number 5, so (envisioning a combination of 2 and 3) he called, 'Michael Jordan! Michael Jordan!'"

Now, as a former dealer, this is annoying in all kinds of ways.

{snip}

The first thing that strikes me here is the 14-hour stints that Gullett describes. That's hardcore. That's not craps for fun -- that's craps thinking you might actually win, even though you know (or should know) that the house shaves the odds or forces you to take bad bets to get to good bets. It's beyond social. In fact, one of the questions on questionnaires for those who worry they might be addicted to gambling asks whether you've indulged in long binges like this. It's a red flag. To call McCain an "avid" gambler, if Gullett is correct, is to engage in a bit of euphemistic generosity.

But let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Gullett was drunk, doesn't remember right, whatever. Still, McCain hurries directly to the casino, and says "Craps is addictive."

Duh. Gambling is addictive, senator. For a guy who has opposed Native American casinos, this is curious. You'd think at some point he might have entertained the possibility that blackjack, or pai gow, or poker, for that matter, might also be addictive. Plus, I don't get the sense that this is his don't-do-this-at-home-kids warning. The tone the writer is conveying here suggests that for McCain, this vice is fun. And if his aides are still tearing him away from the table, then you have to wonder.

The next bit of important information we find is that McCain plays $15 tables. Don't be fooled by this: that's not cheap. Everyone admits that McCain will play with a few thousand dollars (Cindy's money, I dare say), and the $15 game isn't inconsistent. If you intend to last any length of time on a $15 game, you better have a solid bankroll. (The short explanation for this is that craps players generally make not just one bet at a time, but several or many, and each of them must be at a minimum of $15. It's much more if you want to try to get to the "true odds" that are supposed to make craps a good game for the player.)

{snip}

McCain's system of betting is a little troubling. There are many systems of betting in craps (and if anyone knows anything more about McCain's, please let me know), and they're all bad. That is, they all lose, in one way or another. Here's what concerns me about this: you don't bother devising a system unless you're going through the process of really trying to beat the bank. This was Dostoevsky's problem with roulette -- and it's just as dumb. One shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that McCain's having a complicated system means he has a complicated mind, either. Most craps players have a system they've played for many years, and they know that one small aspect of the game backward and forward. Indeed, some of the social element of the game is showing off in this regard. But the truth is that once you know your system, playing it becomes as brainless as playing a slot machine. (To Barack's credit, poker, by contrast, exposes you to an endless set of strategic decision-making situations.)

When McCain becomes worried when the dice leave the table -- well, that's ridiculous, too. "Craps is a very superstitious game" is actually a nonsensical non sequitur. It implies that you have to be superstitious in order to play -- that it's a valid part of the game. Again, the contrast to poker is stark. Poker players strive to take the luck out of the game, McCain wants to revel in it.

Hmm, hmm, hmm. I don't know about y'all, but I for damn sure don't want a President McCain playing high-stakes craps with *my* country's future...

[NattPang]

7. Oh my!

This is not good
for McCain!