Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit

DeLay supported the interests of many USFN donors on Capitol Hill, including an Indian tribe seeking to keep a tax exemption for gambling revenue and wealthy Russians seeking a favorable vote on Russian aid legislation. DeLay's spokesman has said his opinions and votes were based solely on "good policy" and national interests.

Edwin and Wendy Buckham and their lawyer, Laura A. Miller, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on USFN spending or the money they received. The Rudys did not return calls to their home and Tony Rudy's cellphone.

The accounting records reviewed by The Washington Post included a list of every transaction by the USFN from 1996 to 2000 and the group's tax returns for 2001, the last year it existed. They demonstrate that the consulting fees, bonuses and fundraising commissions for the Buckhams -- plus the purchase of a townhouse that served as the locus of DeLay's own fundraising efforts -- consumed far more of the group's budget than its spending for lobbying on "moral fitness" issues.

A previous article in The Post detailed how USFN had drawn its largest checks from Abramoff's clients, including $1 million from what several former Buckham associates described as Russian oil and gas executives and hundreds of thousands of dollars from an Indian tribe.

Records obtained by federal investigators after that article appeared and reviewed by The Post make clear just how unusual USFN's spending was. Its revenue was lavished not only on DeLay's advisers but on a variety of expenses that experts say are atypical for such a small nonprofit: $62,375 for wall art, a vase listed at $20,100, airfare and meals for Abramoff that cost $11,548, and $267,202 in travel and entertainment expenses that appear to have benefited mostly Buckham, the group's board members, and its tiny staff.

"They were using donor funds for interior decorating," said Chris Geeslin, a pastor in Frederick, Md., who between 1998 and 2001 served as one of the group's directors and then its president. He blamed what he described as the group's misspending on Buckham, who he said "would tell us where you should put things. He orchestrated all this. . . . He used us."

A Handpicked Board

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When the USFN was incorporated at Buckham's instigation in 1996, it described its purpose as promoting policies favorable for "families, the economic prosperity, social improvement, moral fitness, and general well being of the United States."

From the outset, it was organized differently from other public advocacy groups located in the capital that hoped to influence the nation's leaders. For example, Buckham selected as its board members three evangelical Christians from the tiny town of Republic, Wash. (pop. 954), who associates say he had met at a religious retreat.

According to the minutes from its March 1997 board meeting, the group considered appointing "J. Abramoff" to the board, but never did. The group's first donation, a $15,000 check, came from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, one of Abramoff's highest-paying clients, and the next two donor checks came from other groups linked with Abramoff.

Formally, Buckham was a consultant to the board, but he said in an October 2003 deposition taken by Federal Election Commission lawyers and obtained by The Post that he had a verbal understanding allowing him to take whatever actions he deemed "in the best interest of the USFN pertaining to issues that they cared about." This included authorizing payments to others.

But some routine procedures were not followed: USFN officials did not register as lobbyists until 2000, when the group became the target of a complaint at the FEC, and they sent in retroactive registrations for the three previous years.

The Buckhams closely controlled the group's finances. Wendy Buckham formally served as the group's treasurer and secretary for only five months in 1996 and 1997, but kept the books and signed its checks until it folded in 2001, according to its tax forms and former officers. Edwin Buckham said in the 2003 deposition it was he who suggested she take this role.