Blue Spot

PolitiFact | Ghost of Abramoff haunts McCain

Critics of Sen. John McCain have seized on news that controversial political strategist Ralph Reed is helping McCain's campaign. The Democratic National Committee piled on in a recent news release.

"On the campaign trail, John McCain likes to brag about chairing the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that investigated criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff's role in the Republican culture of corruption," the DNC said in the Aug. 13 release. "But that is not stopping John McCain from raising campaign cash with one of Abramoff's closest business partners: scandal-plagued conservative activist Ralph Reed."

Reed is the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and currently a principal of the political consulting company Century Strategies. He was credited as a key operative in George W. Bush's sharp-elbowed effort against McCain in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary in 2000. McCain, in turn, chaired the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2006 when it investigated and unveiled Reed's deep personal and business ties to Abramoff, a lobbyist who pleaded guilty to three felonies.