For Immediate Release
Dec. 15, 2005
Contact: Jason McCarty
Oklahoma Democratic Party
405.427.3366

Return The Money, Mr. Istook

Oklahoma Democratic Party (ODP) Chair Lisa Pryor said Ernest Istook should follow the lead of North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and return campaign funds associated with Republican super lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Istook received about $29,000 from Abramoff and his lobbying partners.

"It has been thirty days since the Associated Press reported Istook was a Abramoff benefactor. It's time for accountability in government. It's time for Ernest Istook, who wants to be Oklahoma's Governor, to tell the truth and return the tainted money. We challenge Mr. Istook to honestly and completely answer questions about his activities in Washington, D.C.," Pryor said. "Enough of the fancy answers and misdirection. The people of Oklahoma deserve to know their Representatives are not playing unethical games of 'pay-to-play' while conducting the people's business."

The U.S. Department of Justice is targeting Abramoff in an investigation that a Congressional specialist at the Brookings Institution said, "has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a century." Abramoff's partner, Michael Scanlon, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe federal officials. Istook is one of 30 Congressmen and Senators who took their money.

The AP reported Abramoff was a GOP lobbyist with partisan goals who funneled over $3 million to Republicans over the past five years in exchange for legislative support.

"Mr. Istook's responses to questions about his role in the D.C. scandal have been incomplete and misleading. The Republican culture of corruption has oozed out of the back rooms of DC and into the living rooms of Oklahoma," Pryor said. "Istook took money from an indicted lobbyist and his partners, and apparently used his political office to help them, and now he wants us to believe there is no relationship? Do the right thing, return the money."