Italia Federici

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Italia Federici is the President of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Federici is also a former political aide to Secretary of the Interior and CREA founder Gale Norton.[1] Federici has been questioned by the United States Senate for her involvement in the Abramoff scandal.

Jack Abramoff donated more than $400,000 to her charity, after which time she began using her connections with J. Steven Griles, to influence him to make decisions beneficial to Abramoff's tribal benefactors.[2]

In emails, Abramoff claimed that "she is critical"[3] to his work with the Department of Interior, especially with regards to preventing the Jena Band of Choctaws Indian Tribe from creating a casino, that would take money away from one of Abramoff's "core tribes". A February 18, 2003 email from Abramoff to Federici said "...This will be a PR disaster as you can imagine, especially if for some reason Interior agrees to approve this deal. McCrery and Vitter (the other R's in the delegation) are furious beyond belief. This is going to get really ugly. Please let Steve know about this. Thanks so much Italia!" [4], referring to Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Interior Steve Griles. Griles is reported to have been romantically connected to Federici.[5]

In her defense, she claims that the John McCain-lead Senate investigation is a "witch hunt" to smear her good name, because she and her organization helped to successfully block a John McCain environmental bill. Federici claims that the bill would have raised gas prices for Indians, which is why she opposed it.[6]