“That whole trip has been the subject of investigation,” Will Brooke, Burns' former chief of staff, told the Lee Newspapers State Bureau. “Investigators have requested that we not discuss those interviews.”
Brooke, who left Burns' staff in late 2003 to take a lobbying job with Abramoff's Greenberg Traurig firm, attended the trip along with Ryan Thomas, a Senate staffer assigned to the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which is chaired by Burns.
Brooke now has a law firm in Bozeman and lobbies for a different Washington, D.C., firm. Thomas is still a Senate Appropriations Committee staffer assigned to the Interior Subcommittee.
Burns has repeatedly said he is not a part of an ongoing Justice Department probe into lobbying and influence peddling involving campaign contributions, trips and other favors given to lawmakers and their staff in return for official acts.
He has faulted national newspapers for citing anonymous Justice Department sources and the Montana Democratic Party for consistently linking his name to the investigation.
Burns has come under scrutiny for taking two controversial stands supporting Abramoff clients. In 2001, the senator voted against stiffer immigration and labor laws on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. The vote came after Burns received a $5,000 campaign contribution from an Abramoff client who hired the lobbyist to defeat the bill. He had earlier supported an identical bill.
In 2003, Burns fought for a $3 million grant for Michigan's wealthy Saginaw Chippewa tribe. The grant came over the objections of the Department of the Interior, which initially concluded the tribe was ineligible for the money.
Burns has received some $150,000 in campaign donations from Abramoff, his associates and tribal clients, more than any other lawmaker, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Burns has since given most of that money to the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leadership Council.
Abramoff, once a powerful lobbyist with Republican connections, pleaded guilty earlier this month to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Abramoff has agreed to participate in a larger investigation into lawmakers who may have taken his bribes.
His plea agreement, which does not mention any lawmaker by name, cites the Super Bowl trip as the kind of favor Abramoff would do for lawmakers and their staff.
Burns has said that Brooke and Thomas thought the 2001 trip was paid for by Abramoff's tribal clients. The Washington Post has reported the trip was actually paid for by SunCruz, a line of gambling ships Abramoff bought in 2000. The staffers were flown to the game in Tampa, Fla., on a SunCruz corporate jet, the Post reported, and taken to a SunCruz ship for a night of gambling.
Burns told the Lee Newspapers State Bureau last week that Brooke and Thomas “were lied to” about who paid for the trip.
The senator's campaign chairman, Mark Baker, also said Brooke didn't tell Burns about the trip before he left. Baker said the fact that a former staffer has confirmed the trip is part of the investigation is nothing new.
“We know that the Justice Department is investigating Jack Abramoff's activities,” Baker said.
Matt McKenna, a spokesman for the Montana Democratic Party, said Brooke's confirmation that the trip is part of the investigation pokes holes in the senator's previous statements that the Democratic Party is behind Burns' ties to the ongoing probe.
“It confirms every suspicion that people have long had about Conrad Burns,” he said.
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