Newsweek: "Abramoff was about as subtle as a madam in a whorehouse"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

A Washington Tidal Wave

Blackjack: Members of Congress rushed to give back money. DeLay stepped aside. Reformers pledged to fix the system. Can anything change the Capitol's money-hungry ways? Behind the Abramoff lobby scandal.

By Michael Isikoff, Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756433/site/newsweek/



Jan. 16, 2006 issue - First came the dinner invitations, then the tickets. Staffers in the office of former House Majority leader Tom DeLay could dine—usually, free of charge—at Signatures, the expense-account restaurant conveniently owned by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Then they could sit in his skybox at Washington's MCI Center, home of the NBA Wizards and NHL Capitals. Before too long, recalled a former GOP leadership aide—who, like almost anyone on Capitol Hill these days, declines to be identified talking about his relationship with Abramoff—the DeLay staffers began to think that Abramoff's box at the arena was their box, and, in the cozy way of Washington, it might as well have been. "Jack was sort of like a drug dealer," said the former staffer. "He'd give them (DeLay's staffers) a little taste and then get them hooked."

It may be convenient for Hill staffers to think of Abramoff as insidious, subtly corrupting idealistic but naive public servants. Actually, Abramoff was about as subtle as a madam in a whorehouse. He milked (and bilked) clients exuberantly. "Guess what I just scored?" he e-mailed his old friend, former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, celebrating the Gulfstream jet that he had arranged to fly their party (including Congressman Robert Ney) to Scotland for a weeklong golf junket. "Fire-up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!!" he wrote his partner—and former DeLay press aide—Michael Scanlon, announcing the acquisition of a Texas Indian tribe, the Tiguas, as a lobbying client. "I want all their MONEY!!!" replied Scanlon. "Yawzah!" chimed in Abramoff.

There are, to be sure, congressional rules that require staffers to report all gifts and bar them from accepting any with a value of more than $50. But in the world of Abramoff, compliance was, at best, spotty. Business interests in the U.S.-run Northern Mariana Islands hired Abramoff to block federal labor regulations meant to crack down on sweatshop abuses. The lobbyist led congressional staffers on a fact-finding expedition to the Western Pacific. "There were charter-fishing-boat trips, lavish dinners, massages," said the former leadership aide. "Nobody ever reported any of that stuff."

The party ended last week with Ab-ramoff, looking like a character out of a gangster movie in a black fedora and black raincoat, leaving federal court after pleading guilty to defrauding his clients and conspiring to bribe public officials. To reduce his jail sentence, Abramoff was talking to the Feds about as many as a dozen congressmen who had been the recipients of this largesse. The panic on Capitol Hill was palpable; lawmakers scrambled to give away or return their campaign donations from Abramoff and his clients, led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert ($67,000). All denied any wrongdoing.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Which makes the Republicons...

?

:evilgrin:

NGU.

[joeybee12]

2. What really bothers me is they taking those lavish trips to the Mariana

Islands and having a grand old time, while the people there are basically slaving away and being so horribly abused.