Civil rights groups support Roberts

At a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, speakers from the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, Project 21, the Center for New Black Leadership, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said liberal advocacy groups who came out against Roberts' nomination this week did not speak for all minority communities, including blacks and Hispanics.

Project 21 is an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research to promote the views of African-Americans whose entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to family and commitment to individual responsibility has not traditionally been echoed by the nation's civil rights establishment.

A 3rd DeLay Travel Controversy 1997 Russia Visit Reportedly Backed by Business Interests

Aides to DeLay, who is now the House majority leader, said that despite the presence during the trip of the two registered lobbyists, DeLay thought the nonprofit organization -- the National Center for Public Policy Research -- was funding the trip on its own. Suggestions to the contrary have come to light in media reports only in the past few weeks, an aide said.

"The trip was initiated by the National Center," spokesman Dan Allen said, "and they were the ones who organized it, planned it and paid for it." Sources connected to the trip say, however, that Abramoff, acting at the behest of his Russian-connected client, Chelsea, brought the idea to the center.