Last updated: May 20, 2016 5:27 pm
Donald Trump, the Republican party presidential candidate, says he was “100 per cent right” when he claimed that the spread of Native American casinos in the US would lead to scandal.
Indian gaming boomed after President Ronald Reagan signed a 1988 law that paved the way for Native American tribes to compete against the two casino centres of the time — Nevada in the west and Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the east.
Mr Trump, as the owner of three Atlantic City casinos, emerged as a vociferous opponent of the deregulation of gambling, arguing that Native American tribes would be unable to police their casinos as well as he and other established operators did.
In 2000, Mr Trump and his associates — without admitting guilt — agreed to pay a $250,000 civil penalty after New York regulators uncovered evidence that he had secretly funded advertisements that attacked a Native American tribe called the St Regis Mohawks that was seeking to open a second casino in the state.
The broadsides claimed the tribe had a long history of drug dealing, smuggling and other the crimes. “Are these the new neighbors we want?” one asked. “The St Regis Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented.”
Mr Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment for an FT report this week on his battles with Native American casino rivals. After the story appeared online, Mr Trump, who has retreated from the gambling business in recent years, fired back in an email sent by his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks.
“I was 100 per cent right about this — it was the Jack Abrahamoff scandal,” Mr Trump said on Thursday night.
Jack Abramoff, as his name is spelt, was a powerful conservative lobbyist in Washington who served more than three years in prison after pleading guilty in 2006 to federal charges arising from his work for Native American tribes. Prosecutors claimed that Mr Abramoff corrupted public officials and defrauded Native American tribes that were either operating casinos or seeking to do so.
As late as the early 1990s, I believe, justice department wiretaps captured organised crime figures attempting to infiltrate Indian casinos. However, organised crime was not very successful
- Professor Kevin Washburn, University of New Mexico
The scandal ensnared politicians including Bob Ney, a Republican member of the House of Representatives who pleaded guilty to criminal charges after admitting he accepted gifts from Mr Abramoff that included a $160,000 Scottish golfing trip with two of his aides.
Although Mr Trump claimed that the spread of Native American casinos would foster criminality, he failed to predict so many of the perpetrators would be political power-brokers from the party he now hopes to lead.
Mr Trump’s warnings focused on traditional organised crime. In 1993 testimony before a House subcommittee, he said he doubted “an Indian chief is going to tell Joey Killer to please get off his reservation”.
“Organised crime . . . is rampant on the Indian reservations,” Mr Trump said at the time. “It will be the biggest scandal ever or one of the biggest scandals since Al Capone in terms of organised crime.”
Kevin Washburn, a University of New Mexico law professor who formerly served as general counsel for the federal agency that regulates Indian gaming and as assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs, said concerns that mobsters in the Capone mould would penetrate Indian casinos have faded in recent years.
“As late as the early 1990s, I believe, justice department wiretaps captured organised crime figures attempting to infiltrate Indian casinos,” he said. “However, organised crime was not very successful. By the very early 2000s, the Department of Justice stopped mentioning organised crime in its testimony before annual congressional oversight hearings on Indian gaming.”
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