A couple of days ago came an amazing story by Susan Schmidt and William Grimaldi on the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff. Of course, the real fall is just beginning for the former Beverly Hills High grad, who this weekend either will make a deal with prosecutors and turn on his former friends and close associates…or face the prospect of years in prison on a variety of bribery charges.
(And thank you Washington Post for encouraging linking to the story and blogging, even if a registration might be required.)
Abramoff is Mr. Culture of Corruption himself, a one-man wrecking crew who, it turns out, wasn’t a good guy gone bad; he was a bad guy from the start.
Abramoff was fired by his very first boss in politics, Rich Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Bond not only fired Abramoff and two close associates, but banished them from headquarters and told Abramoff: "You can’t be trusted."
Here are some of Abramoff’s close friends and supporters: Oliver North. Jonas Savimbi. Apartheid South Africa. Dolph Lundgren. Grover Norquist. Newt Gingrich. The Pakistani military. Tom Delay.
A couple of other memorable quotes from the piece, which deserves full and careful reading.
"[When he was on a roll] Abramoff gathered his [lobbying] troops for strategy meetings that were "a great show," rollicking forums where ethical niceties were derided with locker room humor, recalled a former Preston Gates colleague. "Jack would say, ‘I gave that guy 10 grand and he voted against me!’ " the former associate recalled."
[cut]
"A Louisiana paper, the Town Talk of Alexandria, reported in September 2003 that the Coushatta tribe paid Scanlon’s public relations firm $13.7 million, a figure that amazed tribal lobbyists as well as some of Abramoff’s colleagues.
It was around that time that one colleague, Kevin Ring, learned from one of Abramoff’s assistants that his boss was secretly getting money from Scanlon, according to a source privy to the conversation."
"This could be the Enron of lobbying," Ring told the colleague."
Abramoff was getting multi-million kickbacks from Indian casinos via Michael Scanlon, in a scheme they called "Gimme Five." The government has emails in which Abramoff and Scanlon refer to their Indian clients as "morons" and "troglodytes"…but now Scanlon has "flipped" and agreed to testify against Abramoff for the prosecution.
This story by Walter Roche of the LATimes, via the Houston Chronice, speaks of "indications" that a deal between Abramoff and prosecutors is in the works, to be announced on Tuesday.
And here’s another similarity to the Enron case. Both are about to go to trial.
In the Enron case, the chief accountant, Richard Causey, has turned against the two men at the top with whom he had been, from all indications, conspiring for the last decade or so.
Why now?’
"The reality of it, the unavoidability of it, finally hit him," said one witness close to the story.
For long-suffering leftists who have been disgusted but helpless to stop the wave of anti-environmental legislation peddled by the Tom DeLay-led hard right, 2006 is shaping up to be a banner year for courtroom entertainment.
Kit Stolz 