Abramoff Begins Here; Where Will It End?

I mentioned a while back that it was only a matter of time before Jack Abramoff would plead guilty to a laundry list of charges. I told you that his tenacles were far reaching, and that no lawmaker who had ever dealt with this man was safe. That has now happened, and the fun has begun. The real question is, where will it all end? Let's start with who this guy is.

Abramoff; Where He Came From

Jack Abramoff began as a young man with lofty goals. It really all began shortly before the 1980 Presidential election, when he was a Young Turk during the Reagan revolution. He helped organize Massachusetts college campuses in 1980, which went a long way towards helping Reagan win that state in the '80 election. He then moved to Washington and managed to take over the College Republicans, turning it into a right-wing activist organization. Abramoff was first connected to Ralph Reed during this period, he in fact put Reed on the map. Reed introduced Abramoff to his future wife, Pam Alexander, who was working with Reed at the time. Later Abramoff ran Citizens for America, a conservative grass-roots group. There he hooked up with Oliver North, and began lobbying Congress on behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras. We all know where that went.

At the same time, Abramoff was secretly accepting money from the Apartheid South African Government. Needing a place to funnel this money, $1.5 million per year, Abramoff started the International Freedom Foundation. At the same time he produced a couple of Hollywood films, namely "Red Scorpion," which included South African soldiers in the cast. Anti-apartheid groups demonstrated at theaters upon the release of this film, which consisted of nothing but anti-communist propaganda. Despite the outrage, he developed "Red Scorpion 2." Neither film proved successful.

When the Republicans gained a majority in both the House and Senate in 1994, Abramoff appeared on the scene as a full time Republican lobbyist. Not surprisingly, he was tied to Newt Gingrich in various ways. Many of his connections were already in place through contacts made previously by his father, Frank, who had spent some time as President of the Diners Club credit card company. Since his father had looked into operating casino's during various times in his career, Abramoff slid right into the Indian casino lobbying game. In 1995 Abramoff hooked up with Tom DeLay at a DeLay fundraiser on Capitol Hill. DeLay was encouraged to become friendly with Abramoff by one of his staffers, who told Delay that Abramoff was going to become an important force in both lobbying and fundraising. Thus, team slime was taking shape.

Abramoff later became a representative of the Pakistani military when Pakistan was attempting to retrieve $600 million that they had paid for military fighters. After the money changed hands from the Pakistani's to the American company that produced the planes, the US Government blocked the sale because of concerns that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons. The Prime Minister of Pakistan did not know that Abramoff was employed by her government, he had done an end run and gone directly to the Pakistani military, bypassing proper channels.

All the while, Abramoff was becoming friendly with Republicans and a few Democrats and their staffers, mostly members of appropriations committees. In 1999 he attended a golf outing at St. Andrews in Scotland, along with six Republican Senators and their aides. It was then that Abramoff learned how to fund trips for lawmakers with his own money. The first "Abramoff Golf Excursion", funded by Abramoff himself, was for DeLay and his aides and took place at St. Andrews.

While all of this was happening, Abramoff was laying the grounwork for becoming a real player in Washington D.C. He opened two restaurants close to the capitol, leased four arena and stadium skyboxes, bought a fleet of floating casinos, and began a religious school for boys in Maryland. Gotta have a way to entertain clients, and buy politicians, you know.

It's All About Connections

In 2000, Abramoff became a member of the transition team for the Interior Department after Boosh was appointed President. Boosh claims to not know Abramoff, stating only that they may have been at the same functions a time or two. Given the track record for honesty that Boosh has made, who knows whether or not this is true. There is no doubt, however, that Abramoff was well grounded at the Interior Department, having become a good friend of J. Steven Griles, the deputy interior secretary. Another Interior Department employee, Roger Stillwell became close to Abramoff during this time.

Susan Ralston, an Abramoff assistant left his employment to take a job assisting Karl Rove at the White House. Abramoff claims credit for landing her this job, so does Ralph Reed. While the New York Times and Wall Street Journal often noted Abramoff's growing power, he still found it necessary to pay op-ed columnists thousands of dollars to write favorable articles about his clients, mainly Indian Tribes wanting to get into the casino business. Only one columnist has come forward to my knowledge, but he claims to have been paid to write over 2 dozen articles since the mid '90's.

People in Immediate Jeopardy

Five members of the House and Senate appear to be in immediate jeopardy with Abramoff's guilty plea, four Republicans and one Democrat. They all have former staffers on Abramoff's payroll. They are: Tom DeLay, (needs no explanation); Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana), the head of the Senate Appropriations panel's Interior subcommittee; Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee; Rep. John Dolittle (R-California), has served on the House committee that oversees Indian tribes; and Sen. Harry Reid, (D-Nevada), Senate Minority leader. Incedentally, Abramoff put Dolittle's wife on his payroll for the planning of one "event."

The Money

The amount of money that Abramoff took from various Indian Tribes alone to buy influence on the Hill is staggering. Between 2000 and 2003, Abramoff received a minimum of $80 million. This is not counting the 50% that he took from his partner, the man ultimately responsible for the takedown of Abramoff, Michael Scanlon. Scanlon charged the Tribes untold millions for "public relations work" in a spin off of the Abramoff lobbying business. They equally divided the profits, and generally did no work for the money.

Indian tribes were not the only victims. Several different "companies" were set up by Abramoff and Scanlon to funnel money through, including the American International Center, which was set up as a "think tank" for the purpose of taking money from foreign entities that they didn't want to "officially represent." I won't mention all of the companies, it really isn't important. What is important is what follows.

The race to distance themselves from Abramoff has begun. Last night, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) announced that he was donating all of the money that he received from Abramoff to charity. The amount was somewhere around $67,000. Many others are following suit, attempting to figure out what to do, with some amounts as little as $5,000. I find it amazing that these lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, are JUST NOW trying to get rid of the money and cover their asses. Since I have known for at least a year that this fiasco would end in a plea deal, surely our elected representatives could have figured that out on their own. Maybe not, maybe they need to read the Real Deal or shoot me an email or something.

I would also give them some additional advice, free of charge. Instead of looking for some charity to give the dirty money too, give it back to the Indian Tribes from which it was stolen. With the unemployment rate, alcoholism rate, educational system and life expectancy of the American Indian being dismal, give them their damn money back.

This will be the biggest scandal ever to hit the US Government, and I hope that it ends the careers of 75 of these scumbags. I know that this will not happen, but I think it would take somewhere around that number to have the positive effect that we need to turn Washington back into a sane environment where the peoples business becomes important again. More likely, a dozen or so members of the House and Senate will end up resigning. Countless numbers of staffers will go down, but that will have no effect on how we are governed. It will only effect who makes up the weekend foursomes.

There are some positives. One is that this marks the end of the Tom DeLay era in politics. He is finished, and should resign his seat immediately. He won't, though, he is arrogant enough to want to stay and fight the indictment that already faces him in Texas. He will find, though, that the little Ronnie Earl skirmish in Texas will be small business compared to where the Abramoff thing leads. Another positive is that I believe that this will speed up the indictment of Karl Rove. Patrick Fitzgerald has nothing to wait for now, so let's get on with it. The third positive is merely a hope. A hope that the Republicans will pay a heavy price for this should we survive to the '06 elections. They have become an out of control, power grubbing monster party, and must go down for this nation to have any chance of survival. Should the American people not toss these bums from office, there is nothing worth saving. Any Democrat that is caught up in this scandal should fall as well. If it were a perfect world, every incumbent would be defeated and we could start from scratch. (I can dream a little, can't I?)

Stay tuned, it's going to be fun to watch. Anyone who saw the way Abramoff was dressed yesterday, should realize that he is not going down alone. He looked like Don Corleone, in a ridiculous hat and trench coat. If I was connected to him in any way, I would probably be on a plane today to some far away place, because he's taking no prisoners. He will make prisoners out of many, however.

As I said before, maybe Jack Abramoff can do something that the American people have not had the will to do as of yet. Create some term limits and clean house in Washington.

Cyclone