[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 84 (Monday, May 20, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E629-E630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         MASHPEE WAMPANOAG TRIBE RESERVATION REAFFIRMATION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 15, 2019

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the following 
article from The Washington Post regarding consideration of H.R. 312.

                [From the Washington Post, May 13, 2019]

A Riddle in New England: A Casino, 321 Acres of Indian Tribal Land and 
                          a Presidential Tweet

                            (By Marc Fisher)

       Between a boast about bringing jobs to Ohio and a statement 
     of sympathy for victims of a school shooting in Colorado, 
     President Trump last week found time to tweet about an 
     obscure House bill that would assure a Massachusetts Indian 
     tribe control of 321 acres of land it wants to use for a 
     gambling casino.
       The president was against the bill, he wrote, because it 
     was ``unfair and doesn't treat Native Americans equally!''
       Presidents don't usually get involved in local tiffs over a 
     planned 900-room casino hotel. And even though this president 
     has a four-decade-long record of slamming American Indian 
     casinos as scams that pose unfair competition to other 
     gambling enterprises, notably his own, Trump's decision to 
     weigh in on a measure that had strong bipartisan support 
     seemed unusual for a chief executive who doesn't like to be 
     bothered with the little stuff.
       But a closer look at House Bill 312 and the favor it would 
     do for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe reveals a sprawling 
     network of Trump-related interests, from the National 
     Enquirer to a Rhode Island casino company--a small but 
     strikingly intricate example of the ways this president's 
     business dealings, personal bonds and political alliances can 
     complicate and color the ordinary doings of government.
       On the surface, the matter is a simple dispute over who 
     wants a casino and who doesn't. The Mashpee Tribe seeks to 
     build a casino in southeastern Massachusetts. If the federal 
     government decreed the land to be the tribe's sovereign 
     property, the casino would be exempt from many taxes.
       But some residents of the town where the casino would be 
     built sued over the project, and after the tribe broke 
     ground, a federal judge sided with the residents, ruling 
     that, because of the history of that parcel of land, the feds 
     didn't have the authority to guarantee it to the tribe.
       So far, no Trump connection. But the tribe's site is about 
     18 miles from Rhode Island, and that state's politicians 
     aren't keen to have a new competitor go up against their two 
     casinos, both of which are run by Twin River Worldwide 
     Holdings, a public company with strong Trump ties.
       Twin River's president, George Papanier, was a finance 
     executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City 
     earlier in his career, and Twin River's chief marketing 
     officer, Phil Juliano, also lists experience at a Trump 
     casino on his resume.
       For decades, Trump, whose Atlantic City casinos were his 
     first big venture outside New York--they became some of his 
     biggest failures when they suffered bankruptcies in the early 
     1990s--has spoken of casinos built by Indian tribes as 
     fraudulent ventures: ``the biggest scandal ever,'' he said.
       In 1993, concerned about competition from the Foxwoods 
     Resort Casino in Connecticut, Trump urged a House committee 
     on native affairs to investigate whether members of the tribe 
     that operates that resort were really Native Americans.
       ``They don't look like Indians to me,'' Trump said. In an 
     earlier interview, he opined that ``I might have more Indian 
     blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to 
     open up the reservations'' to gambling.
       In 2000, when New York state considered expanding Indian 
     casinos in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City, 
     Trump, working through his longtime ally Roger Stone, funded 
     a group that paid for TV and print ads accusing prominent 
     members of the Mohawk Indian tribe of having mob connections 
     and criminal records. Trump and Stone failed to report their 
     spending on the ads as lobbying, as the state required, and 
     state regulators imposed their largest-ever civil penalty, 
     $250,000, on Trump, who was forced to issue a public apology.
       But Trump has not always opposed Indian casinos. In 1997, 
     he cut a deal with another Connecticut tribe, the Paucatuck 
     Indians, who agreed to pay him a management fee in exchange 
     for his efforts to win the tribe the federal recognition it 
     needed to open a casino.
       In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two 
     Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of 
     the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, 
     to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp's wife, Mercedes, 
     is director of strategic communications at the White House.
       Matthew Schlapp said last week that his wife played ``no 
     role in my advocacy'' and that he lobbied against the casino 
     because it was a ``terrible idea.''
       The lobbyist apparently focused Trump's attention on the 
     casino bill by connecting it to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-
     Mass.), who is seeking her party's presidential nomination 
     and has been for years a favorite target of Trump's because 
     of her since-retracted claim to be Native American. But there 
     is no Senate version of the House bill, which the House is 
     scheduled to vote on this week, and Warren has made no 
     statement on the casino project.
       Twin River has paid Schlapp's company, Cove Strategies, 
     $30,000 this year, according to federal records. Another 
     lobbyist, Black Diamond Strategies. also got $30,000 from the 
     casino firm to work on the Mashpee case, records show. One of 
     Black Diamond's lobbyists working for Twin River, Doug 
     Davenport, was a delegate strategist for Trump's 2016 
     campaign and formerly worked for ex-Trump campaign manager 
     Paul Manafort's lobbying company, where he handled public 
     affairs for clients including Trump.
       As a candidate, Trump repeatedly promised to ``drain the 
     swamp,'' describing Washington as a den of elite thieves--
     politicians, lawyers, lobbyists, domineering corporations--
     whose interlocking interests were more powerful than any 
     political party or ideological allegiance.
       But as president, Trump has embraced the very structures he 
     railed against in the 2016 campaign, for example picking more 
     than 350 former lobbyists to serve in his administration, 
     most in agencies that they used to lobby.
       Spokesmen for the White House and Twin River did not 
     respond to requests for comment.
       The intersections between Trump and entities involved with 
     Twin River can be complex.
       Among Twin River's major investors is a $4 billion New 
     Jersey-based hedge fund called Chatham Asset Management and 
     its founder, Anthony Melchiorre, according to SEC records. 
     Chatham also owned about 80 percent of American Media Inc., 
     the publisher of the National Enquirer, the supermarket 
     tabloid that took payments from Trump's longtime lawyer and 
     fixer, Michael Cohen, to make certain that no stories were 
     published about two women's allegations that they had affairs 
     with Trump.
       A spokesman for Chatham declined to speak on the record 
     about Twin River's involvement in the Mashpee Indian matter, 
     but Chatham and Twin River have been embroiled in a lawsuit 
     in Delaware, where Chatham accused top executives at the 
     casino company of self-dealing and ``placing their personal 
     financial interests above those of Twin River's 
     stockholders.'' Twin River has denied the allegations.
       David Pecker, American Media's chief executive and a 
     longtime ally of Trump's, has said that Chatham saved his 
     company from financial collapse. Pecker last fall signed an 
     agreement to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New York 
     who were investigating the

[[Page E630]]

     payments made to Trump's accusers. As part of the agreement, 
     Pecker and the Enquirer's chief content officer, Dylan 
     Howard, admitted to paying the women to ``influence the 
     election.''
       According to the company's website, AMI's four-person board 
     of directors consists of Pecker, two Chatham executives and a 
     former chief financial officer of Trump Entertainment 
     Resorts, David R. Hughes.
       American Media agreed last month to sell the Enquirer to 
     the chief executive of Hudson News, a chain of airport 
     newsstands, for $100 million. The sale was prompted by 
     Melchiorre's unhappiness with the Enquirer's actions on 
     Trump's behalf, including the so-called ``catch and kill'' 
     gambit in which the tabloid bought the two accusers' stories 
     and then published nothing about them, and the Enquirer's 
     exposeV an extramarital affair conducted by Amazon 
     billionaire Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
       American Media's board and Melchiorre ``didn't want to deal 
     with hassles like this anymore,'' according to an individual 
     familiar with the board's deliberations who spoke on the 
     condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
       That individual said Trump ``has been somewhat estranged 
     from Pecker'' since the Enquirer executive began talking to 
     federal prosecutors.

                          ____________________