Jack Abramoff

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Jack Abramoff, a long-time Washington insider, has been a Republican lobbyist and fundraiser and was a Bush Pioneer. According to the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) web site, he was Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Greenberg Traurig law and lobbying firm and was CRNC National Chairman from 1981-85. He is also a Director of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Born to wealth

Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, where his father (who had ties to Ronald Reagan) worked with Arnold Palmer Enterprises. When he was 10, Jack's family moved to Beverly Hills, CA where he eventually became a high-school weight-lifting champ who once squatted 540 pounds. He was raised in a secular Jewish household. But when he was 12 a viewing of Fiddler on the Roof changed his life: I made the decision that I would become religious in order to preserve the faith in our family. He immediately bought books on Judaism with his own savings. He organized Massachusetts campuses for Reagan's presidential campaign in 1980. A year later a graduated from Brandeis University and the Georgetown University Law Center.

College years

Abramoff was soon elected chairman of the College Republican National Committee with the campaign being managed by Grover Norquist and aided by Ralph E. Reed, Jr..

"It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left" Abramoff said in the group's 1983 annual report. "Our job is to remove them from power permanently."

It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left, Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report. Our job is to remove them from power permanently.

"Jack was twice elected Chairman of the College Republican National Committee beginning in 1981. He was [sic] oversaw the largest and most effective College Republican National Committee ever, with over 1100 chapters nationwide. He also changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before. Jack ran our most successful field programs until that time with very little funding by sending the field representatives out in vans to recruit for months at a time, making the committee more successful than ever before. Jack brought two famous future activists into his administration, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, as his Executive Directors. Before this time Jack ran the youth effort for Reagan in Massachusetts which produced 10,000 absentee ballot votes in Reagan's 3000 vote margin of victory. Jack designed and ran the anti nuclear freeze campaign. He is a regular lecturer at Georgetown Law Center on entertainment law topics. Jack has hands-on experience in the entertainment industry, he spent ten years as the producer of a number of feature motion pictures including Red Scorpion, an anti communist film made just after Jack's term as national chairman of the College Republicans.'

a Reaganite

Abramoff next joined Citizens for America a Reaganite group that helped Oliver North build support for the Nicaraguan contras and staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders in 1985 in Jamba, Angola. I spent Shabbos in Jamba, and when I went out to pray, he told me, the locals thought he was a mystic. Things ended when the group's millionaire founder, Lewis Lehrman, concluded that Abramoff had spent his money carelessly.

Law Firm Days

An archive of Abramoff's biography from the Greenberg Traurig website describes him as follows:

Jack Abramoff's practice focuses on building legislative coalitions, grassroots organizing and Washington, DC based lobbying efforts. Jack is considered a top issues strategist. He has been consistently named as one of the nation's most powerful and effective lobbyists in rankings by publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, National Journal, Roll Call and Washingtonian Magazine. Jack is directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures and is one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates. He is a former executive director of President Ronald Reagan's grassroots lobbying organization, Citizens For America, where he directed and crafted lobbying efforts on a broad range of issues. Jack also had a direct role in shaping the agenda of the second Reagan presidential term, which, in its later applications, ultimately brought the Republican Party to control of Congress in 1994.

The Greenberg Traurig biography has since been removed from their website.

The Con

According to e-mails Reed and Norquist contacted Abramoff separately in 1999 to say they wanted to do business.

Norquist complained about a "$75K hole in my budget from last year."

Reed said he was counting on Abramoff "to help me with some contacts."

In 2000 Abramoff arranged for the Choctaws to give the Alabama Christian Coalition $1.15 million in installments. Norquist agreed to pass the money on to the Alabama Christian Coalition and another Alabama antigambling group, both of which Reed was mobilizing for the fight against the a propossed Alabama state lottery.

Joining Abramoff on a vacation was Tom DeLay who's airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff. According to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.

DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.

David Grosh, now a construction worker, told senators of being a lifeguard on the Delaware shore in 2001 when friend Jack Abramoff asked him to head a think tank called the American International Center, based at his beach house.

In 2002 after Abramoff worked with Christian activist Ralph Reed to close the casino of the Tigua tribe (which has been described as "dirt poor") he persuaded the tribe to hire him to lobby Congress to reopen the casino. Shortly after Abramoff met with Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) to ask him to push the legislation, the Tigua (by overnight mail) sent three checks to Ney's political committees, totaling $32,000. The apparent exchange of campaign contributions in return for Ney's support of an amendment to reopen the Tigua's casino could constitute bribery.

E-mails between Abramoff and the Tigua's political consultant show that Ney solicited the Tigua to pay for part of a 2002 golf trip to Scotland, knowing full well that solicitation of travel is specifically prohibited by House rules. Shortly after Ney returned from Scotland, he was scheduled to meet with members of the Tigua tribal council. Prior to that meeting, Abramoff reminded the Tigua that "for obvious reasons" the golf trip would not be mentioned at the meeting, but that Ney show his appreciation "in other ways," which was, Abramoff pointed out, just what the tribe wanted. Although the tribe never ended up paying for the golf trip, Ney's attempt to tie the gift of the trip to the legislative assistance the tribe was seeking likely violates federal criminal law.

In 2003 Jack Abramoff gave Republican Richard Pombo's PAC $5,000. Abramoff also gave $2,000, the maximum allowed, to Pombo's congressional campaign committee that same year. Pombo is now chairman of the Federal House Resources Committee.

In 2004, Abramoff resigned from Greenberg Traurig amid a scandal related to spending irregularities in his work as a lobbyist for Native American tribes involved in gambling namely The Mississippi Choctaw, the Louisiana Coushatta, the Agua Caliente, Sandia Pueblo, the Saginaw Chippewa and the Tigua of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians paid $15 million dollars to Abramoff and Scanlon's organizations. The funds were diverted to a number of projects, including the Eshkol Academy, an all boys Orthodox Jewish school setup by Abramoff in Maryland, and to a friend who ran sniper workshops for the Israel Defence Forces. [1]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html

The E-mail trail

In E-mails now made public by the FBI who is investigating him, Abramoff repeatedly refers to Native Americans as (among other things) "monkeys" and "idiots."

In 2000

Abramoff warned Reed on February 7 that the initial payment for antilottery radio spots and mailings would be less than Reed thought. "I need to give Grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit lighter," Abramoff wrote.

The transfer was apparently lighter than even Abramoff expected. In a note to himself on February 22, Abramoff wrote, "Grover kept another $25K!"

Norquist claims he had permission.

Abramoff via email once asked his conspirator Michael Scanlon to meet a client. The reason Mr. Abramoff couldn't do it because as put it "I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw tribal council. You need to close the deal... with the client..."

In 2001

Jack was making millions on fees of up to $750 per hour; he was the proprietor of two city restaurants. His BMW was outfitted with a computer screen. He had private sky boxes at sports stadiums from which he could watch Redskins and Orioles and Wizards games.

On November 12, 2001, Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating, "get me details so I can alert cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him" [sic]. Similarly, on November 13, 2001, Reed wrote "I strongly suggest we start doing patch-throughs to perry and cornyn [sic]. We're getting killed on the phone." Also, on January 7, 2002, Reed sent Abramoff an e-mail stating "I think we should budget for an ataboy for cornyn" [sic].

When Cornyn ran for Senate, Abramoff contributed $1,000, the maximum amount legally allowed. The allegedly anti-gambling Cornyn also received $6,250 in contributions from Las Vegas casino interests who oppose Indian gaming, some of which were made at the same time Cornyn was pushing to close the Tigua's casino.

Of the $7.7 million Abramoff and fellow lobbyist Michael Scanlon charged the Choctaw for projects in 2001, they spent $1.2 million for their efforts and split the rest in a scheme they called "gimme five".

Hoping for a contract with the tribe that owned the the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort Jack Abramoff describing his relationships with Indian tribes wrote to his partner Scanlon. "Can you smell money?!?!?!

Did we win it? Scanlon wrote back.

The [expletive] troglodytes didn't vote on you today, Abramoff responded.

What's a troglodyte? Scanlon asked.

What am I, a dictionary? :) It's a lower form of existence, basically, Abramoff wrote. I like these guys, he hastened to add, yet then continued: They are plain stupid. . . . Morons.

About one tribal client (date unknown) Abramoff wrote to Scanlon, These mofos are the stupidest idiots in the land for sure. In another e-mail message he wrote, we need to get some $ from those monkeys!!!!

Abramoff (at age 46) also wrote Da man! You iz da man! Do you hear me?! You da man!! How much $$ coming tomorrow? Did we get some more $$ in?

A senator has described Abramoff and his dealings as a pathetic, disgusting example of greed run amok,

John McCain has said of Abramoff theft. Even in this town, where huge sums are routinely paid as the price of political access, the figures are astonishing.

In 2002 Abramoff came to see Reed as competition.

"He is a bad version of us! No more money for him," Abramoff wrote Scanlon.

Jack Abramoff is also founder and former chairman of the International Freedom Foundation (IFF). [2]

All together Abramoff took about $80 million from multiple tribes.

References

The original version of this article is derived from material at Sourcewatch, and released to Wikipedia under the GFDL license