A conservative commentator paid by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing newspaper columns that aligned with Abramoff’s interests has had his column suspended, the Copley News Service said Friday.
“We are suspending Doug Bandow’s column immediately,” Copley editor and vice president Glenda Winders said in a statement. “It has never been our policy to distribute work paid for by third parties whose role is not disclosed by the columnist.”
Bandow also has resigned from the libertarian Cato Institute, where he held a senior fellowship, a think tank spokesman said.
Cato spokesman Jamie Dettmer said Bandow took payments of between $1,000 and $2,000 from Abramoff for “about a dozen to two dozen” opinion pieces that appeared in newspapers.
The pieces identified Bandow as a Cato fellow, Dettmer said.
“For us it was a serious matter. We accepted Doug’s resignation as of yesterday,” Dettmer said.
It was not immediately clear which of Bandow’s columns were subsidized by Abramoff. Abramoff’s clients included Indian tribes looking to protect their casinos and the Mariana Islands, which lobbied to avoid minimum-wage laws.
Bandow did not answer the phone in the San Diego hospital room where he is recovering from knee surgery.
The announcement shines a new light on the activities of Abramoff, the former lobbyist at the center of two criminal investigations that have implicated top Republican lawmakers.
Former Abramoff partners have pleaded guilty to fraud or conspiracy charges for overbilling Indian tribes by millions of dollars and falsifying loan payments in the purchase of a Florida casino cruise line.
Justice Department indictments against Abramoff’s partners detail trips taken by at least one lawmaker to exotic locales, underwritten by Abramoff clients, and frequent free dinners at a restaurant he owned.
Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum declined to comment.
Bandow wrote about current events and appeared as a commentator on network and cable television news, according to a profile on Cato’s Web site. He also was available as a speaker on topics ranging from arts to foreign policy.
San Diego-based Copley provides news, features, cartoons and comic strips to more than 1,500 newspapers, newsletters and other outlets.
Recent Bandow columns listed on Copley’s Web site cover the war in Iraq, the recent election in Germany, and the dangers of ascribing natural disasters to divine forces.
Bandow’s relationship with Abramoff was first reported by BusinessWeek Online.
The Bush administration has tried to influence U.S. and foreign media through secret payments as well. Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams took $240,000 to tout Bush education policies in TV appearances and in his column, while the Pentagon has secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American stories.