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WASHINGTON — A conservative commentator paid by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing newspaper columns that aligned with Abramoff's interests has had his column suspended, the Copley News Service said Friday.

"We are suspending Doug Bandow's column immediately," Copley editor and vice president Glenda Winders said. "It has never been our policy to distribute work paid for by third parties whose role is not disclosed by the columnist."

Bandow also has resigned from the libertarian Cato Institute, where he held a senior fellowship, a think-tank spokesman said.

Cato spokesman Jamie Dettmer said Bandow took payments of between $1,000 and $2,000 from Abramoff for "about a dozen to two dozen" opinion pieces that ran in newspapers. The pieces identified Bandow as a Cato fellow, Dettmer said.

It was not immediately clear which of Bandow's columns were subsidized by Abramoff. Abramoff's clients included Indian tribes looking to protect their casinos and the Mariana Islands, which lobbied to avoid minimum-wage laws.

Bandow did not answer the phone calls seeking comment.

The announcement shines a new light on the activities of Abramoff, the former lobbyist at the center of two criminal investigations that have implicated top Republican lawmakers.

Justice Department indictments against Abramoff's partners detail trips taken by at least one lawmaker to exotic locales, underwritten by Abramoff clients.

The revelation caps a year of disclosures about partisan payments to seemingly independent writers, including Armstrong Williams, the conservative columnist and television host, who got payments from the Education Department.