Ralph Reed, Southeast regional chairman of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign and former executive director of the Christian Coalition, confirmed on Sunday that he accepted more than $1 million in fees from a lobbyist and a public relations specialist whose work on behalf of American Indian casinos prompted a federal investigation.

In addition to his role running the campaign in the Southeast, Reed is a liaison to the Christian evangelical community, and many of its leaders are adamantly opposed to gambling. Reed has been widely credited with leading the political mobilization of the Christian right since the late 1980s. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations executive Michael Scanlon -- the two men who paid the fees to Reed -- are subjects of a wide-ranging federal probe with political ramifications in Congress and within the Republican Party. The Reed-Scanlon-Abramoff connections were first reported by Shawn Martin of the American Press in Lake Charles, La., in recent coverage of a struggle for power within the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, one of Abramoff's and Scanlon's clients...