Jack Abramoff
He is serving time at a minimum security federal prison in Maryland.
Abramoff pled guilty on January 3, 2006, to three criminal felony counts in a Washington, D.C., federal court related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials. The following day he pled guilty to two criminal felony counts in a separate federal court, in Miami, related to his fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos. On September 4, 2008, a Washington court found Abramoff guilty of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favors and he was sentenced to a four year term in prison which will be served concurrently with his previous sentences.
The extensive corruption investigation has led to the conviction of White House officials J. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides.
Abramoff was a top lobbyist for the Preston Gates & Ellis and Greenberg Traurig firms and a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, and Toward Tradition.
He was a founding member of the International Freedom Foundation.
Early life
Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His father, Franklin Abramoff, was president of the franchises unit of Diners Club.
In 1968, when Abramoff was 10, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California.
Abramoff attended Beverly Hills High School. During his high school years, he managed both the Beverly Hills and Westwood United Artists movie theater; his father had left Arnold Palmer Enterprises to become president of the Diner's Club franchises. Abramoff has said that he became a Baal teshuva at the age of 12 after seeing the film version of Fiddler on the Roof.
On an episode of Public Radio International's This American Life that aired in June 2006, journalist Jonathan Gold described Abramoff as a high school bully.
"He was the sort of person who would walk across the street to be unpleasant to somebody," Gold says, going on to describe how Abramoff knocked him and his cello down a flight of stairs. The episode was number 314, "It's Never Over."
College and law school years
As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, Abramoff served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, which organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated in 1981 and earned his JD at the Georgetown University Law Center, in 1986.
According to Nina J.
Easton's book Gang of Five, Abramoff gained much of his credibility in the conservative movement through his father, Franklin Abramoff. As president of Diners Club, Abramoff's father worked closely with Alfred S.
Bloomingdale, a personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and Abramoff would use the name in fundraising.
College Republican National Chairman
After graduating from Brandeis, Abramoff ran for election as chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). After a campaign which cost over $10,000 and was managed by Grover Norquist, Abramoff won the election after the chief competitor, Amy Moritz (who later, as Amy Ridenour, became a founding director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, and was involved in several trips funded by Jack Abramoff), was convinced to drop out.
Abramoff "changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before," notes the CRNC. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left," Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report.
He later recruited Ralph Reed, a former president of the University of Georgia College Republicans chapter, as an unpaid intern. Reed, still a young student, was invited to sleep on Abramoff’s couch.
According to Reed's book Active Faith, Reed also introduced Abramoff to his future wife, Pam Alexander.
Long-standing college political alliances
At the CRNC, Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation, many who would later hold roles in state and national politics and business, and some who would later interact with Abramoff as a lobbyist. Some of those relationships are at the core of the current federal investigation.
At the CRNC, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate." After Abramoff's election, the trio purged "dissidents" and re-wrote the CRNC's bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization.
142), Reed was the "hatchet man" and "carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints."
In 1983, the CRNC passed a resolution condemning "deliberate planted propaganda by the KGB and Soviet proxy forces" against the government of South Africa, at a time when that country's government was under worldwide criticism for the Apartheid regime.
In 1984, Abramoff and other College Republicans formed the "USA Foundation", a non-partisan tax-exempt organization which held two days of rallies on college campuses around the United States celebrating the first anniversary of the invasion of Grenada. In a letter to campus Republican leaders, Abramoff claimed:
"While the Student Liberation Day Coalition is nonpartisan and intended only for educational purposes, I don't need to tell you how important this project is to our efforts as .
I am confident that an impartial study of the contrasts between the Carter/Mondale failure in Iran and the Reagan victory in Grenada will be most enlightening to voters 12 days before the general election."
Citizens for America
In 1985, Abramoff joined Citizens for America, a pro-Reagan group that helped Oliver North build support for the Nicaraguan Contras. Citizens for America staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders known as the Democratic International in Jamba, Angola.
This conference included leaders of the Mujahedeen from Afghanistan, UNITA from Angola, the Contras, and opposition groups from Laos. Abramoff helped to organize, and also attended the conference.
Abramoff's membership ended on a sour note when Citizens for America's sponsor Lewis Lehrman, a former New York gubernatorial candidate, concluded that Abramoff had spent his money carelessly.
Reagan appointment
In 1986, Abramoff was appointed by President Reagan as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
In Hollywood
Abramoff spent 10 years in Hollywood, and produced Red Scorpion, a low-budget action film with anti-communist themes, made in 1988, just after his term with the College Republicans ended.
This movie was filmed in South-West Africa (now Namibia) and was funded in part by the apartheid regime in South Africa through the International Freedom Foundation, which Abramoff founded. In the early '90s Abramoff helped try to raise funds for a remake of the unreleased Jerry Lewis film The Day the Clown Cried, about a circus clown at Auschwitz.
On April 27, 1998, Abramoff wrote a letter to the editor of The Seattle Times rebutting an article critical of him. While I headed the IFF, we accepted funding only from private individuals and corporations and would have absolutely rejected any offer of South African military funding, or any other kind of funding from any government — good or evil."
It was during his travels in South Africa that Abramoff first met South African-born rabbi David Lapin, who became his religious advisor, and David's brother and fellow rabbi Daniel Lapin, who allegedly introduced Abramoff to Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) at a Washington, DC dinner shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Lapin later claimed that he did not recall the introduction.
Lobbying
In December 1994, Abramoff was hired as a lobbyist at Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, the lobbying arm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, based in Seattle, Washington.
One of Abramoff's first acts as a tribal gaming lobbyist was to defeat a Congressional bill to tax Indian casinos, sponsored by Reps. After Abramoff paid for DeLay and his staffers to go on trips to the CNMI, they crafted policy that extended exemptions from federal immigration and labor laws to the islands' industries.
Abramoff also negotiated for a $1.2 million no-bid contract from the Marianas for 'promoting ethics in government' to be awarded to David Lapin, brother of Daniel Lapin. In 1999 Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) went on an Abramoff-funded trip to the Marshall Islands with John Doolittle (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), delegates of Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and 8 staffers.
Documentation also indicates that Abramoff's lobbying team helped prepare Rep.
Ralph Hall's (R-TX) statements on the House floor in which he attacked the credibility of escaped teenaged sex worker "Katrina," in an attempt to discredit her testimony regarding the state of the sex slave industry on the island. Ms. magazine also explored Abramoff's dealings in the CNMI and the plight of garment workers like Katrina in their spring 2006 article "Paradise Lost: Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists."
Later lobbying efforts involved mailings from a Ralph Reed marketing company to Christian conservative voters and bribery of Roger Stillwell, a Department of the Interior official who in 2006 pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from Abramoff.
Naftasib
Executives of Naftasib, a Russian energy company, funneled almost $3.4 million to Abramoff and DeLay advisor Ed Buckham between 1997 and 2005.
About $60,000 was spent on a trip to Russia in 1997 for Tom DeLay, Buckham, and Abramoff. Family Network to "influence DeLay's vote in 1998 on legislation that helped make it possible for the IMF to bail out the faltering Russian economy." DeLay voted for the legislation.
The money was funneled through the Dutch company Voor Huisen, the Bahamas company Chelsea Enterprises, and the London law firm James & Sarch Co.
The executives involved, who met DeLay during the 1997 trip, were Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky. At Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff recruited a team of lobbyists known familiarly as "Team Abramoff".
While Abramoff was a registered lobbyist for 51 clients while working at Preston Gates, with only 4 being tribes, Abramoff would eventually represent 24 clients for whom he was registered lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig, of which seven were tribes.
Tyco Inc.
Former White House Deputy Counsel Timothy Flanigan left his job in December 2002 to work as General Counsel for Corporate and International Law at Tyco International. claimed in August 2005 that Abramoff had been paid $1.7 million for 'astroturfing', or the creation of a fake "grassroots" campaign to oppose proposals to penalize US corporations registered abroad for tax reasons.
The work allegedly was never performed, and most of the fee Tyco paid Abramoff to lobby against the legislation was "diverted to entities controlled by Mr. Abramoff".
Government of Malaysia
Abramoff's team also represented the government of Malaysia, and worked toward improving Malaysian relations with the United States, particularly with trade relations.
Government of Sudan
According to the Los Angeles Times, Abramoff also met with the government of Sudan, offering a plan to deflect criticism from American Christian groups over the regime's alleged role in the Darfur conflict.
Abramoff promised to enlist Reed to assist, as well as starting a grassroots campaign to improve the image of Sudan in America.
Channel One News
Abramoff has been a lobbyist for the school TV news service Channel One News. From 1999 to 2003, Channel One retained him to ensure Congress did not block funds to their service.
Not only did Channel One face frequent campaigns by political groups to persuade Congress to limit its presence in schools, but it also derived much of its advertising revenue from U.S. Since Abramoff and Channel One parted ways, Channel One's advertising revenues have dropped substantially, but a cause-and-effect relationship would be difficult to establish.
Telecommunications firm
On October 18, 2005, The Washington Post reported that Bob Ney, as chair of the House Administration Committee, approved a 2002 license for an Israeli telecommunications company to install antennas for the House.
It also donated $50,000 to the Capitol Athletic Foundation charity that Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for some of his lobbying activities. In Abramoff's plea agreement, Abramoff pleaded only to misrepresentation; in Michael Scanlon's plea agreement, the above was described as public corruption.
Access to the Bush Administration
Jack Abramoff was a member of the Bush Administration's 2001 Transition Advisory Team assigned to the Department of the Interior. Abramoff befriended the incoming Deputy Secretary of the Interior, J. Steven Griles.
The draft report of the House Government Reform Committee said the documents — largely Abramoff's billing records and e-mails — listed 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years, including 10 with top Bush aide Karl Rove.
The report said that of the 485 contacts listed, 345 were described as meetings or other in-person contacts; 71 were described as phone conversations and 69 were e-mail exchanges.
In the first 10 months of 2001, the Abramoff lobbying team logged almost 200 contacts with the Bush Administration. He may have used these senior level contacts to assist in his lobbying for Indian tribes concerning tribal gaming. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and DeLay also heavily lobbied the CNMI for opposing the minimum wage.
According to an article published in the New York Times on November 10, 2005, Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of the African nation of Gabon, Omar Bongo, to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to an Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm, GrassRoots Interactive. Bongo did meet with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004. There has been no evidence in the public record that Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon.
White House and State Department officials described Bush's meeting with Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine. The officials said they knew of no involvement by Abramoff in the arrangements.
Officials at Gabon's embassy in Washington did not respond to written questions.
Susan Ralston, Special Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Senior Advisor Karl Rove since 2001, previously worked as an administrative assistant for both Abramoff and Reed.
According to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between Mahathir and Bush, allegedly at the direction of the Heritage Foundation. Mahathir insisted that someone unknown to him had paid for the meeting.
On May 9, 2001, Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas met with Bush, with Abramoff and Norquist in attendance.
According to Isidro Garza, Abramoff did not say the donation was required to meet the President; the White House denied any knowledge of the transaction.
Other photos have surfaced of Abramoff and Bush meeting at the White House and Oval Office on either December 22 or 23, 2002. The photos were found on a site that published many pictures of governmental events, ReflectionsOrders.com.
The owner of the site removed the photos almost immediately when the presence of Abramoff and Bush together was discovered. Some Internet users located the photos and preserved copies of some of them. The owner of the site gave thousands of dollars to the Bush campaign and Republican National Committee, according to public FEC contribution records.
An NPR news report from March 2006 stated that: "...Abramoff recently granted a rare press interview to Vanity Fair magazine, where he asserts President Bush and other prominent figures in Washington know him very well.
Bush seems to love Sharon and Israel, and thinks Arafat is nothing but a liar. This was also before the Office of Special Plans and the White House Iraq Group were created, and before Congress authorized Bush the authority to invade Iraq with the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.
Signatures, skyboxes, and Scotland
Signatures restaurant, in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., once owned by Jack Abramoff, is under new ownership and will be renamed.
Abramoff maintained four skyboxes at major sports arenas for political entertaining at a cost of over $1 million a year.
Abramoff hosted many fundraisers at these skyboxes including events for politicians publicly opposed to gambling, such as John Doolittle.
DeLay, Ney and Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney have each gone on golf trips to Scotland that were apparently arranged or funded by Abramoff. Ney and Feeney each claimed that their trips were paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, but the group denied this.
Ney later pleaded guilty to knowing that Abramoff had paid for the trip.
A former top procurement official in the Bush administration, David H. Safavian, has been convicted of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff investigation.
Safavian, who traveled to Scotland with Reed and Ney on a golf outing arranged by Abramoff, was accused of concealing from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the General Services Administration at the time of the golf trip — in particular, seeking help finding property for his private religious school Eshkol Academy and for one of his tribal clients. For the mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion charges stemming from the influence-peddling scandal in Washington, Abramoff was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison on September 4, 2008 by U.S.
He had faced up to 11 years in prison.
Abramoff is cooperating in a bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides and members of the Bush administration.
Lawmakers, lobbyists, Bush administration officials, congressional staffers and businessmen caught up in the Jack Abramoff public corruption probe:
Adam Kidan (former Abramoff business partner), was sentenced in Florida in March 2006 to nearly six years in prison for conspiracy and fraud in the 2000 purchase of the Fort Lauderdale-based SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.
Bob Ney, (former Rep.) R-Ohio, sentenced in January to 2 1/2 years in prison, acknowledged taking bribes from Abramoff. Safavian is appealing his conviction.
Italia Federici, co-founder of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, pled guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of a Senate investigation into Abramoff's relationship with officials at the Department of Interior.
Mark Zachares, former aide to Rep.