Jack Abramoff’s Shell Games and Fall Guys
News: The spreading ripples of corruption around the superlobbyist helped to take out Burns, Pombo, and Hayworth. But at its core, Abramoff’s operation used an assortment of players and patsies to funnel money all over D.C.
November 9, 2006
|
|
The sprawling influence-peddling scandal starring convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff was the most prominent of several corruption and ethics issues that in Tuesday's elections proved costly to Republicans. The defeats of Senator Conrad Burns of Montana and Reps. Richard Pombo of California and J.D. Hayworth of Arizona were all partly attributable to their links to the one time superlobbyist whose campaign largess was legendary. Burns received almost $150,000 in campaign contributions—more than any other Member of Congress—from Abramoff, his lobbying colleagues and his deep-pocketed Indian casino clients. Burns, two of whose former staffers worked for Abramoff, has faced scrutiny in the long running Justice Department-led criminal probe into Abramoff's influence-buying schemes.
That probe last month secured its first conviction of a member of Congress when Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), pleaded guilty to two felonies. One of the charges centered on Ney's receiving tens of thousands in free meals at Abramoff's former restaurant Signatures, free tickets to sporting events, and an infamous $160,000 golf junket to Scotland in the summer of 2002 with the lobbyist and several others. In exchange, Ney agreed to push legislation to benefit Abramoff and some of his clients. Ney, who resigned from Congress right before the midterm election, is expected to serve about two years and is slated to go to prison early next year.
Meanwhile, Abramoff is scheduled to turn himself in next week on November 15 to begin serving a sentence of five years and ten months in another case involving fraud in the acquisition of SunCruz Casinos in Florida in 2000. This January, Abramoff pleaded guilty to three other felonies: conspiracy to bribe public officials, defrauding four Indian tribes with casinos of almost $25 million, and evading $1.7 million in taxes. Abramoff, who has been instrumental in the Justice-led corruption probe, is expected to wind up getting about ten years in the Washington scandal and will serve his two sentences concurrently. To date, the scandal has scored eight convictions including a few former high-level Congressional aides turned lobbyists. A Washington jury also convicted David Safavian, an ex-Bush administration official and old friend of Abramoff's, of four counts of lying and obstruction of justice. Safavian has been sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Sources say that the two-and-a-half-year-old federal investigation is likely to go into next year and that other indictments are expected this year or early next. Among others still under scrutiny, are Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) who narrowly won reelection on Tuesday, and Ed Buckham, a powerful lobbyist and close associate of Abramoff's who used to be chief of staff to then Minority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
When it was launched in early 2001, the American International Center's Web site described its mission in grandiose terms: "AIC is determined to influence global paradigms in an increasingly complex world. Based in sunny Rehoboth Beach, Del., the AIC staff is using 21st-century technology and decades of experience to make the world a smaller place. In summary the AIC is bringing great minds together from all over the globe." The Web site also referred proudly to the "high-powered directorship" of AIC by David Grosh and Brian Mann. It turned out that Grosh and Mann were both old pals of Jack Abramoff's partner (and former Tom DeLay aide) Michael Scanlon from Rehoboth Beach, where they worked, respectively, as a lifeguard and a yoga instructor. After Scanlon left DeLay's office, he himself worked part-time as a lifeguard, despite his multimillion-dollar beach home.
The think tank itself was housed in a very modest, yellow beach bungalow that I visited briefly one rainy summer day in 2005. It was located at 53 Baltimore Ave., a street filled with several chic and expensive boutiques, arts and crafts shops, and restaurants. The key missions of the think tank were basically to serve as a pass-through conduit for almost $2.3 million in Indian tribe funds that were channeled to former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed to pay for work he did for the Louisiana Coushattas against rival gambling enterprises, and to help disguise about $1.5 million in payments that the Malaysian government was sending to Abramoff and his firm for lobbying work. And Abramoff and Scanlon also wound up splitting close to $4 million in tribal funds that were sent to AIC at their direction.
The Rehoboth Beach think tank was just one of several conduits and shells that Abramoff used to disguise and divert millions of dollars in funds supplied by his Indian casino clients as well as some corporate and foreign clients. Using these pipelines, the lobbyist effectively hid enormous sums of money from public scrutiny and directed the cash into his own pet projects and pockets, as well as those of his friends and political cronies.
Besides AIC, Abramoff channeled some $6 million from tribal and other clients through the Capital Athletic Foundation (CAF)—his own personal charity that was instrumental in funding the Eshkol Academy, the Jewish prep school he founded in suburban Maryland. For other assistance in moving money covertly, Abramoff used a few old conservative friends who ran think tanks or other nonprofit organizations that he helped to bankroll. At times, Abramoff turned to groups run by two of his oldest political comrades, such as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and Amy Ridenour's National Center for Public Policy Research, to funnel casino funds and other client monies that Abramoff wanted to keep hidden. He also used even more-obscure entities, such as Toward Tradition, Rabbi Daniel Lapin's conservative Jewish group of which he was a longtime board member.
