The Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council publicly rejected a donation of $111,000 from Montana Senator Conrad Burns on January 17, the Associated Press reports. Burns allegedly offered the money to the council in an attempt to rectify his monetary association with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "To us it’s tainted money," Julia Doney, a member of the tribal leaders council, told the AP. "If he wanted us to have extra money he would have given it to us in other ways." The senator had accepted nearly $150,000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff, but promised to give away and/or return the money in order to distance himself from the impending scandal. The Tribal Leaders Council has no plans to reconsider the offer, according to the Billings Gazette.
