Tainted Probe.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Money And Power: Democrats think the investigation of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist for Indian tribes, will expose Republicans as corrupt and help Democrats gain congressional seats. They'd better think again.

Turns out that in 2002 Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs investigating Abramoff for fraud, accepted $5,000 from the Coushatta Indian tribe of Louisiana, an Abramoff client.

Tribal lawyer Jimmy Faircloth said Abramoff instructed the tribe to make the campaign contribution just three weeks after Dorgan, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, lobbied fellow senators to protect a tribal school funding program for Abramoff's clients.

Dorgan's campaign also got $2,000 from another of Abramoff's client tribes, the Mississippi Choctaw, just nine days after Dorgan's letter to the appropriations committee calling for long-term funding for the program.

By the late spring of 2002, Dorgan's political action committee (PAC) could boast of another $17,000 from three other Abramoff tribes and his firm. Between 2001 and 2004, Dorgan reportedly received more than $90,000 from sources associated with Abramoff.

There are more than a dozen members of Congress from both parties -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- who got campaign cash totaling more than $440,000 from Abramoff tribal clients and interests near the time they wrote letters supporting the school program. Reid got more than $66,000 in ...