The money is among the nearly $150,000 Burns, R-Mont., announced Thursday he is either returning or donating to charity. Burns is seeking his fourth six-year Senate term in 2006.
Burns has said his campaign donations from Abramoff and the lobbyist's clients had no bearing on his support for a controversial $3 million grant obtained through a school construction program for Michigan's wealthy Saginaw Chippewa tribe, an Abramoff client. Burns said his support for the grant came in response to requests from Michigan's two Democratic senators.
Only two reservation schools in Montana qualify for the construction grants.
Burns spokesman James Pendleton said Friday the senator pushed for the school program because he supports education in general. Even if Montana's two qualifying schools don't use the construction grants, they indirectly benefit because the grants free up more federal construction dollars for all tribal schools, he said.
“Burns casts his votes and lends his support to programs and issues based on his personal beliefs and the information he has at hand,” Pendleton said in a prepared statement. “(Burns) feels that education is key for improving the quality of life on our reservations.”
Abramoff and his lobbying partner Michael Scanlon are at the heart of a U.S. Justice Department investigation into allegations that the pair bilked tribes newly wealthy from gambling out of millions of dollars and inappropriately funneled tribal money to key lawmakers.
Burns is one of four lawmakers reported to be part of the investigation, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have written. He received close to $150,000 between 1999 and 2004 from Abramoff, his clients and associates, more money than any other lawmaker, a Washington Post tally shows.
In particular, Burns has come under scrutiny for helping Abramoff's Saginaw Chippewa client secure the $3 million construction grant over the objections of the Department of Interior. The tribe pays each of its members $70,000 a year thanks to revenue from the tribe's casino.
In the letter, Burns and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., asked Byrd, then the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, for a long-term extension of the Tribal School Construction Demonstration program. Begun in 2001, the program allowed certain tribal schools to split the cost of building new schools with the federal government, thereby allowing the tribes to build new schools faster. The letter does not mention the Saginaw Chippewa, although it does mention another Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
Seventeen days after Burns sent the letter, the Saginaw Chippewa donated $2,000 to Burns. Less than two months later, the Choctaw tribe donated another $5,000. By the end of March 2002, the Saginaw Chippewa had contributed another $20,000.
Burns received a total of $75,000 from Abramoff's tribal clients between the date he wrote the letter and the end of March 2002, a Bloomberg analysis shows.
Michigan's Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin first asked for money for the Saginaw Chippewa in a March 22, 2002, letter to Byrd and Burns, according to a packet of information Burns sent to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last month and released to the media.
Burns was a ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee at the time. He later became chairman.
Dorgan, Burns' co-author of the letter, this week also returned some $67,000 he received from Abramoff and his tribal clients.
Only certain Indian schools qualify for the grants awarded to the Michigan tribes.
Most of Montana's reservation schools are controlled by local school boards and must meet state standards just like off-reservation schools, said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch. She knew of only two schools in the state eligible for the grants: the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Schools in Busby and the Two Eagle River School in Pablo. Additionally, a dormitory that provides housing for a public school in Browning is eligible, said Stan Juneau, a Browning school trustee.
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