Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook... He Tells All...

First, a little background on Abramoff for those of you who may not remember him

Jack Abramoff (pronounced /ˈeɪbrəmɒf/; born February 28, 1958) is an American former lobbyist and businessman.[1] Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides. He served three years, six months of a six-year sentence in federal prison before being released early to a Baltimore halfway house on June 8, 2010.[2][3][4]

en.wikipedia.org...

Plenty of people fell in the aftermath of Jack's downfall. Now his new book is due to hit the shelves and he is not holding back about what really goes on in DC. We've all read about it, but his tale is jaw dropping to say the least.

Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington's biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.

I missed his interview with 60 minutes... I stopped watching years ago

Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn't figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.

Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.

www.cbsnews.com...

"People are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting that favor, and that's not the case," Abramoff told CBS's Lesley Stahl. "The bribery, call it, because ultimately that's what it is, that's what the whole [lobbying] system is ... it is done every day, and it is still being done.

"The truth is there are very few members [of Congress] who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that," he said.

Here's the kicker

Abramoff went on to explain how lobbyists can game the legislative process to secure payoffs for clients, often without their targets' express knowledge. By convincing members of Congress to insert into bills backdoor language that is intentionally obscure and draped in legal code, lobbyists can open up sweetheart holes in regulations for their clients.

"We crafted language that was so obscure, so confusing, so uninformative, but so precise, to change the U.S. code," Abramoff said.

It worked so well, he explained, because, "Members don't read the bills."

(emphasis added)

From a Rep. who served jail time from the Abramoff scandal.

Former Rep. Bob Ney confirmed Abramoff's story:

"I had no idea [what the obscure, coded phrases changed in the law]; I didn't care," Ney said. "It was a great big shell game. ... I was dumb enough to not say, 'What's this thing do?'"

In the span of 10 years, Jack Abramoff became the most powerful lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Congressmen lined up to do his bidding, executives heeded his advice and heads of governments hung on his every word. But scandal brought him down, ultimately casting him into prison.

www.wnd.com...

Here's the big secret... This stuff is still going on today. After the Abramoff meltdown nothing has changed. Might want to pass that on to the OWS crowd who refuse to march on Capital Hill and the White House.

Abramoff has a solution though and it makes sense

ban lobbyists from making campaign donations or giving any gifts.

"No finger food, no snacks, no hot dogs. Nothing," he writes. "If you choose public service, choose it to serve the public, not your bank account. When you're done serving, go home. Get a real job."

Just add term limits to that and we would have a great start to true reform in our nations troubled political system.

reply to post by jibeho


Excellent OP. This is the kind of information that people need to be screaming from the roof tops or screaming through their blow horns down at OWS. I hope the book blows the whole scam wide open. I will be surprised to see how the MSM outlets handle the information that is revealed. I hope he goes all the way and names-names so we know who to go after! Very interesting! ''

reply to post by seabag


You're right. Sadly, this is the reality most people do not want to see, hear or speak about. It's all there in Black and White and we even have a president who reversed his pledge not to employ lobbyists in the White House.

We're just in Bizarro World right now..

If you pay off the politicians you can do anything.

Look at the 3HO Islamic-Hindu Cult in Arizona. They've got a complex that would put Waco to shame and are armed to the teeth. They bribed politicians and got the contract to provide Security to the Oklahoma City Building. After it blew up they changed the name of their Security Contractor and.....got lots more Federal Contracts.

They're securing many of the military bases and Federal buildings. An Armed Religious Cult.

Put $$$$ in Politicians pockets and you too can do as you wish.

reply to post by jibeho


The villains have been selected. They don't want to let the truth get in the way of their redistributive agenda. The fact is that it's not illegal for any company to lobby and I don't blame them for trying. Until we get corporate money out of politics it'll never change. The real crooks are the politicians (on both sides) who are on the take. That is where the true greed is. You can burry all the Abramhoff's out there and they'll just be replaced by the next guy. 

The politicians are not just whores, they are cheap whores. They will insert language into bills that create loopholes that will gain corporations billions or even hundreds of billions, often without understanding what they are really doing, and all for a ten grand campaign donation and a junket to Vegas with two "secretaries".

It's pathetic. They ALL have to go.

This interview speaks volumes but touches nothing. Some are wondering why there is protesting in the streets of America now. Jack owned 100 congressional offices, wow ! What the interview tells us is that the American people have not been represented for along time. Your does not matter or has in the past.

AKA Casino Jack, This guy is a pure conman. The Saipan and Northern Mariana Islands scandal was very big , but hardly made the news.

Abramoff took on the Northern Mariana Islands as a client in 1995. Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the CNMI government from 1995 to 2001.[1] The CNMI is a US commonwealth and thus may apply the "Made in USA" label to goods manufactured on Saipan. Frank Murkowski, then Republican Senator from Alaska and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, submitted a bill to extend the protection of U.S. minimum-wage labor laws to the workers in the CNMI. In testimony before the Senate, it was described that 91% of the private-sector workforce were immigrants, and were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage. Stories also emerged of workers forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks without plumbing. A Department of the Interior report found that "Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry." [2] The Senate passed the Murkowski worker reform bill unanimously.

Jack also blocked testimony of sex workers in this scandal, The operation was run I think by the TAN family in Saipan.

Tom Delay was on involved in this. they are also Best Friends. BFF ('')

Thank OP . I'm heading over to Amazon to see what else jack has.

36 of the 39 lawmakers he bribed were Republican.
Convictions in the Abramoff corruption probe

Until the stranglehold of lobbying and monied corporate influence peddling over lawmakers is broken, this government cannot possibly be a "representative" government. As bad as you might think the Dems are, the GOP is much worse. Abramoff, the most notorious sleaze in Congressional bribery, 'donated' only to GOP lawmakers and zilch to Dems.

Abramoff's `Equal Money' Went Mostly to Republicans (Bloomberg)

So now Abramoff is back after his short vacation, and as a reward for not naming names during his trial or in this book, all those corrupt phony politicians will make sure he get's well compensated. He still isn't naming names, just using his book to go after those he felt slighted him during his downfall;

Jack Abramoff Takes Shots At Enemies And Protects Friends In New Book

Typical 'conservative' apology - not sorry for what he did, just sorry he got caught.



OP no idea why you would berate OWS for this, the primary focus of their protest is over corporate influence and government corruption. Where is the Tea Party protest over corporate influence and lobbying? Instead they're protesting the minimum wage and demanding cuts to medicare and social security. OWS made it clear they had only one message - 'occupy' Wall Street - and end the ties between the government and big banks on Wall Street. 90% of everything else you're hearing is phonies glomming onto that message or propaganda from Fox/Koch's.

reply to post by jibeho

Abramoff has a solution though and it makes sense

ban lobbyists from making campaign donations or giving any gifts.

"No finger food, no snacks, no hot dogs. Nothing," he writes. "If you choose public service, choose it to serve the public, not your bank account. When you're done serving, go home. Get a real job."

I like that.

S&F&

Originally posted by jibeho
Here's the big secret... This stuff is still going on today. After the Abramoff meltdown nothing has changed. Might want to pass that on to the OWS crowd who refuse to march on Capital Hill and the White House.

I keep hearing this "demand" from people who keep going on about how much they utterly and completely hate the very idea of OWS at the most fundamental level. So, I really can't help but take it with a grain of salt.

Here's the thing, jibeho. Changing the sheets doesn't clean the mattress. We can keep installing new legislators, and all that will happen is that the lobbyists and the dealmakers and the "campaign donors" will keep buying them. So it's pretty much useless to "occupy congress" until there is traction gained against the source of the corruption.

I know there are several posters here who simply flat refuse to believe that the people buying our government are to blame for anything, but htey are in fact where the bulk of the blame lies. They are the root of the problem. Block them, and then we can see about cleaning house effectively.

Until then, you can have the whitest, cleanest linens possible, and you'll still wake up covered in bug bites.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox

Originally posted by jibeho
Here's the big secret... This stuff is still going on today. After the Abramoff meltdown nothing has changed. Might want to pass that on to the OWS crowd who refuse to march on Capital Hill and the White House.

I keep hearing this "demand" from people who keep going on about how much they utterly and completely hate the very idea of OWS at the most fundamental level. So, I really can't help but take it with a grain of salt.

Here's the thing, jibeho. Changing the sheets doesn't clean the mattress. We can keep installing new legislators, and all that will happen is that the lobbyists and the dealmakers and the "campaign donors" will keep buying them. So it's pretty much useless to "occupy congress" until there is traction gained against the source of the corruption.

I know there are several posters here who simply flat refuse to believe that the people buying our government are to blame for anything, but htey are in fact where the bulk of the blame lies. They are the root of the problem. Block them, and then we can see about cleaning house effectively.

Until then, you can have the whitest, cleanest linens possible, and you'll still wake up covered in bug bites.

"Changing the sheets doesn't clean the mattress" I must remember that one!!

We have to eliminate the demand in order to make traction. Right now the demand has been generated on Capital Hill in regards to the way the legislation is wriiten and who its written for. Most of it is definitely not written for us. Tie their hands in congress and the lobbyists will have no recourse and will hopefully end up keeping their wallets closed.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I was trying to keep the partisan BS out of this thread. I know who Abramoff is, I followed his case very closely as well as those who fell as a result. The problem has infected both sides aisle without a doubt. Hence his book. Sure he is dishing out the jabs and he's taken his share of jabs also.

This was a big case just a few short years ago and yet nothing has changed and has probably gotten worse because Big Labor has a man in the house now. Just add that to the usual lobbyist cash flow.

He has every right to write his book and to tell his story. He served 3 years for his actions and probably would have served more if he hadn't cooperated with the investigation at the time.

Now, we need leaders who have the stones to address the issues concerning the lobby influence on govt. , term limits and campaign financing. It's time to move on... and you don't have to be an "R" or a "D" to see that reality.

OP no idea why you would berate OWS for this, the primary focus of their protest is over corporate influence and government corruption.

Because they are NOT addressing the problem that Abramoff has written about and that he and those he paid off were convicted of. The problem of "corporate influence and government corruption" is still there in DC. Yet, these OWSers insist on attacking people who have nothing to do with the problem. Occupying a Burger King, vandalizing a Whole Foods store, attacking conservatives who attended a simple conference in DC, and after nearly 2 months hearing the same talking points and orchestrated chants no one is marching on capital hill to address the legislators who created a tailor made climate for corruption and corporate influence in our political system. You get it now??