Congress encouraged the lobbying tactics employed by former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, the defense contended in its opening statement in Ring's trial today.

"You're going to hear about things that should be a crime, but they were not," defense attorney Andrew Wise told the jury. "Kevin Ring played by the rules."

Wise said that the rules encouraged lobbyists to "wine and dine and entertain members of Congress and their staffs," and that though those rules were changed in 2007, the actions taken by Ring between 2000 and 2004, for which he is now on trial, were legal at the time. Not only were they legal, he said, but they were common practice.

"Don't buy into the idea that this was somehow a rogue operation and no one else was doing it," Wise said to the jury.

Wise rebutted the prosecution's contention that Ring gave gifts to public officials and their staffs to "influence and reward," and instead suggested that the defendant only wanted to "gain access and build relationships."

He also argued that Ring gave gifts to officials not as part of a business relationship, but because they were people he had worked with in the past and had become friends with. Before becoming a lobbyist, Ring was chief of staff to former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., and a Senate Judiciary subcommittee aide to former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo.

Wise drew a distinction between Ring and other members of "Team Abramoff" who have already pleaded guilty or been convicted, and denied that his client was part of a conspiracy with them.

"I am not going to tell you that others did not cross the line," he said. But Ring's "lobbying was always founded on policy."

Much of the evidence in the case comes from e-mails that were sent between Ring and lobbying associates, like Abramoff, and public officials. But Wise argued that just because something was discussed in an e-mail does not mean an action was taken. Ring often lied in e-mails, particularly to Abramoff, Wise claimed, to make it seem he was requesting tickets for a sporting or entertainment event in order to influence public officials, when he really wanted the tickets for friends who happened to have positions within the government.

"Sending that e-mail is not a gratuity," Wise said. "You have to look behind the e-mails."