Ed Buckham

Edwin A. Buckham is a former congressional staffer and lobbyist, who presently is under investigation in various scandals surrounding high-profile lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Congressman Tom DeLay. Those associated with Abramoff are of special note, because Justice Department prosecutors have systematically pursued guilty pleas from such lower associates seeking testimony against Members of Congress. Buckham has said little, but maintains his innocence.
He served as chief of staff to then Majority Whip Tom DeLay from approximately 1995 to 1998. Buckham had run the House Republican Study Committee in the early 1990s, while Tom DeLay was the Committee's Chairman, where Buckham hired Jim Backlin, also of Maranatha Campus Ministries, now Vice President for Legislative Affairs for the Christian Coalition previously run by Ralph Reed.
Buckham is a lay (non-ordained) evangelical minister, who served as an elder of the Washington D.C. chapter of the controversial and politically active church, Maranatha Campus Ministries, then later as a deacon of a small church in Frederick, Maryland.

Connections to the Abramoff scandal

Most of the $3.02 million in revenues of the U.S. Family Network came from clients of Jack Abramoff. More $1 million of that money was then paid by USFN to Buckham and his wife, Wendy, during a five-year period ending in 2001, via their lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

In January 2006 Buckham closed Alexander Strategy Group, and left the lobbying business. Buckham said that the company was fatally damaged by publicity about the ongoing federal investigation into the affairs of Abramoff.