The Hidden Fixer Behind MTG: Cheri Jacobus Exposes Ed Buckham’s Abramoff-Era Rot

A deep-dive exposé into the shadow figure behind Marjorie Taylor Greene — the disgraced Abramoff-linked operative whose fingerprints may be all over her sudden resignation and political unraveling.

About the Author: Cheri Jacobus is a political strategist and commentator with extensive experience in political communications. She previously served as Communications Director for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and as a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. After Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination in 2016, Jacobus left the Republican Party and is now a Democrat. She is the host of the acclaimed political commentary podcast Politics with Cheri Jacobus, where she provides in-depth analysis on national politics.

Click to Subscribe to Politics with Cheri Jacobus on YouTube

Almost everyone is familiar with the concept of a Congressman, Congresswoman, and Senator as part of the fabric, machinery, and movement in Washington, DC -- the power center of the nation. While some of them are “lifers”, holding onto public office until their dying breath (literally), most are here for a spell, then go home, much as our Founders contemplated. There is regular, healthy turnover.

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But then there is that “permanent class” of DC critters that include journalists, and long-time Capitol Hill senior staffers and lobbyists. The latter two operate in the shadows, intentionally away from public scrutiny. They survive political upheavals like ginormous mutant cockroaches after a nuclear apocalypse.

Ed Buckham is one of those critters. If you don’t know who he is, you need to rectify that -- and soon.

Buckham is currently chief of staff to soon-to-be-ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). He somehow slithered back onto Capitol Hill in 2016 to ALMOST become Executive Director of the House Freedom Caucus, even though he’d disappeared for a time after going down in flames as Chief of Staff to House Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX) in the Jack Abramoff scandal of the 1990’s. It was that “history” that ultimately made the Freedom Caucus Members ultimately decide that perhaps they had enough cockroaches and didn’t need to put another one in a key position.

Watch Cheri Jacobus Explain Who MTG’s Chief of Staff Really Is On YouTube

Suffice it to say, you cannot speak credibly about MTG without knowing about Ed Buckham. Here’s a snippet from a 2006 piece in Roll Call by Norm Ornstein focusing on Buckham:

“I have been around the track enough to have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to scandalous behavior here in the nation’s capital, but I needed several antacids after digesting that piece.

For years, when I would chat with Republican leadership staff or Members who were close to the leadership, I would get strong warning signals about Buckham–about his tight relationship with and sway over former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and about his willingness to push the ethical envelope. But I could not have imagined the depth of the corruption before reading about the ways in which Buckham and his buddy, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, manipulated the nonprofit rules and bilked large numbers of people–including Abramoff’s clients, the National Republican Congressional Committee and firms that worked with Abramoff.

This was done, apparently, for personal gain, to scratch the back of Abramoff clients such as Northern Marianas sweatshop operator Willie Tan, and to give a nice monetary bonus to DeLay’s wife, Christine, and the wife of another longtime DeLay employee, Tony Rudy. Rudy, an earlier Post story reported, had acted as a kind of “mole” for Abramoff inside DeLay’s office to help one of his other clients, eLottery, head off legislation to ban Internet gambling. Soon after, Rudy left to take a lucrative lobbying job with Abramoff.”

Along the way, the “nonprofit” U.S. Family Network bought expensive artwork, a fancy skybox at the then-MCI Center and lavish travel and entertainment for the Buckhams and their pals. Buckham and his wife allegedly skimmed $1 million of the $3 million raised by the network. Its receipts included a million-dollar payment from Russian energy interests, as well as money from Indian tribes, Marianas Islands employers, tobacco company RJ Reynolds, and a half-million shaken down from the NRCC, from which Buckham took a separate share of $200,000 off the top as a fundraising commission.

All the while, DeLay was carrying water for the Marianas sweatshops, the Russians and other interests, while aggressively raising money for his own charities and nonprofits.”

When I was a senior congressional staffer on Capitol Hill, I had enough experience with Buckham to know he was NOT someone who should be in any position of influence. I’d heard about him being some sort of evangelical minister (and in the congressional district of my then-boss) where they danced around and spoke in tongues.

But Ed Buckham even screwed over his own pastor. A man who personally ordained Buckham into this particular ministry. NPR spoke to Chris Geeslin, pastor of Redeemer International Family Church, a converted carpet warehouse just off interstate 270 in Frederick, Maryland, about an hour outside of Washington, DC.

Here’s a bit from the 2006 NPR Report: (link to full report https://www.npr.org/2006/05/23/5424662/church-leader-says-he-was-lured-into-abramoff-web)

“He says Ed Buckham deceived him, and used him as a front for unethical, and possibly illegal activities involving political corruption, Russian oil magnates, and sweatshops.

One day in 1998, says Geeslin, Buckham asked him and his wife to be on the board of a new non-profit he had just started.

Rev. GEESLIN: He said, I’ve started this entity, U.S. Family Network, and I’d like you and your wife to be on the board. And, you know, we want to - this is going to be a help to bring the United States back to God. So now, here we were with a man who was one of the most brilliant, smartest and most effective leaders; so when he said that to us, we jumped on it, and my wife and I joined U.S. Family Network.

YDSTIE: Geeslin became president; his wife, Mary Ellen became secretary/treasurer. Three other evangelical Christians from a small town in Washington State were put on the board.

Ed Buckham, who was about to leave DeLay’s staff to become a lobbyist, was officially a consultant. But Geeslin says, in fact, Buckham ran U.S. Family Network. He raised the money, decided how it was spent, and controlled the checkbook. And Geeslin says, he now realizes that the organization had more to do with enriching Ed Buckham and advancing Jack Abramoff’s interests, than bringing America back to God.

Geeslin first became uneasy when large donations started rolling in, one for a million dollars. He says he suggested to Buckham, that maybe the group should focus more on being the grassroots organization described in the U.S. Family Network Mission Statement.

Rev. GEESLIN: And he looked at me with some disdain and he said, you know where that million dollars came from. I said, well, no. And he told me, this is the way Washington works, and he kind of was schooling me, so to speak. And he said, that money came from Russian energy magnates, or oil magnates, who wanted to influence Congressman DeLay so that he would not vote against the IMF funding of the bailout of Russia. And again he said, that’s the way Washington works. It runs on money.”

So the Russian money was there for Ed Buckham way back then. We know Marjorie Taylor-Green has become a very wealthy women since entering Congress.

I can’t say I know precisely what is going on with her resignation from Congress and turning tail on Trump, but I can pretty much guarantee that Ed Buckham’s paw prints are all over it, that it’s part of a bigger plan, there is BIG money involved, and lots of lies and coverups.

As I said, you can’t understand or analyze what Marjorie Taylor Greene is up to without knowing who and what Ed Buckham is.