Profile Jack Abramoff: Jack Abramoff's guilty plea to buying off public officials and defrauding Native Americans out of millions could see important heads roll in a massive investigation, writes Sean O'Driscoll
He parked his BMW on the corner and strolled into his restaurant like a king among his people. Jack Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures, was the focal point for the lobbying scene. There, at a table by a window that had a permanent "Reserved" sign, Abramoff would meet Congressional staffers, clients and big-name politicians, routinely tearing up the bill for Congressional or White House high rollers.
With shiny shoes, sharp suits, stylish hats and Sopranos-style language of "getting whacked" and "breaking balls", he looked like the Mafia capo of The Godfather that he tried so hard to emulate, often recalling lines from the movie during meetings with friends.
If you wanted legislation passed in Washington, you came to the table and wrote out a multi-million dollar cheque. Then you sat down to eat with Abramoff, who later sent you the bill for the meal.
Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, usually ate only sushi because it was kosher. It impressed one Jewish client, Marc Schwartz, who has inadvertently been pulled into the biggest political scandal to hit Washington in decades.
"The fact that we only ever ate at his own restaurants might have been an indicator that he was a con man and a thief," Schwartz told The Irish Times on Wednesday, after Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges, directly relating to his taking of $4.2 million (€3.5 million) from Schwartz, a Texas consultant who was working for the Tigua Native American tribe in El Paso.
The tribe was fighting to reopen its $60-million-a-year (€49.5 million) casino and needed Jack Abramoff's help. Over dinners in Signatures, where the autographs of Martin Luther King and J Edgar Hoover hung proudly on the wall, Abramoff was passionate, convincing Schwartz that he could have Congress reopen the Tigua casino. Unknown to Schwartz, Abramoff was plotting behind his back.
In secret e-mail exchanges with his business partner, Michael Scanlon, Abramoff described the Tigua tribe as "morons", "monkeys", "idiots" and even an abridged version of "motherf***ers".
Also unknown to Schwartz, Abramoff was paid $33 million (€27 million) by the Coushatta tribe in Louisiana, who wanted to keep gamblers flooding in from Texas and wanted the Tigua casino to remain shut.
To that end, Abramoff had given millions to his old college buddy Ralph Reed, a Republican Party strategist and a former head of the Christian Coalition, to get Christian pastors in Texas riled up about the immorality of gambling. Along the way, Abramoff gave members of Congress free holidays and gifts to oppose the Tigua tribe proposals.
One e-mail uncovered by the Congressional investigation offered an insight into the white male frat-boy world in which Abramoff lived.
"Da man! You iz da man!" he e-mailed Michael Scanlon, after a successful deal in 2002. "Do you hear me?! You da man!! How much $$ coming tomorrow? Did we get some more $$ in?" In another, in February 2002, he and Scanlon couldn't contain their excitement at the tens of millions they were milking from the Tigua tribe. "I'm on the phone with Tigua! Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso," wrote Abramoff, to which Scanlon replied: "I want all their MONEY!"
IT WOULD LATER transpire that Native American tribes were the best customers at Signatures, their tribal leaders forking out tens of thousands of dollars on Abramoff's lobbying expenses in the hope of winning gambling concessions.
"They had the best Japanese beef; they had a great sushi menu. All the staff in there were so respectful and Jack was really the kingpin in there," says Schwartz of his days in Signatures. "Nobody knew that it was all being funded by fraud." He recalls that Abramoff delighted in having his seat by the window. "I think that was so he could see and be seen," he says.
Despite the money rolling into Signatures from tribes across the country, the restaurant was struggling under the weight of free meals that Abramoff dished out to political friends, as well as more than $3,500 (€2,900) a month he used from the restaurant's money to fund paramilitary groups in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Some e-mails show that the money went towards night-vision glasses, sniper training, thermal imaging and a jeep for a right-wing group dedicated to protecting the settlements from Palestinian attack.
It is, say those who worked with him, typical of a man who campaigned for right-wing causes around the world since his college days.
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, his father was the chairman of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, a golfing supply company. When Jack was 10, the family moved to Beverly Hills, where Abramoff excelled at weight-lifting and enjoyed the privileged life of a Beverly Hills teenager. A viewing of Fiddler on the Roof persuaded him to take his Jewish faith seriously, and he became devout, choosing to attend Brandeis College outside Boston, known for its strong Jewish tradition.
There, he threw himself into organising campus events for Ronald Reagan, a family friend who was running for president in 1980.
His college roommate, Jay Rovins, recalls that Jack was devoted to his religion and loved to network among fellow Republicans, earning a reputation as a campus leader. Rovins recalls attending his first Orthodox Yom Kippur service with Jack, where Jack loudly thumped on his chest in atonement for sins. "I hope he re-finds that meaning," Rovins says.
After graduating, Abramoff was elected chairman of the College Republican National Committee, a position once held by President Bush's chief adviser, Karl Rove. Abramoff's campaign had been managed by Grover Norquist, who now runs the conservative group Americans For Tax Reform and who is being investigated for his involvement with Abramoff. "He was very different," Norquist told The Irish Times. "Here was this guy from southern California who chose weight-lifting over tennis or sailing. His religion and his politics were also different - he was down the line Reaganite and he opposed the left on every issue imaginable."
Their college election team was helped by an intern named Ralph Reed, the future leader of the Christian Coalition.
Abramoff, Norquist and Reed saw themselves as the radical right-wing new guard, re-energising college Republicans and smoothing the way for the rise of Republicans in campuses across the US.
Their headline-grabbing tactics included smashing a mocked-up version of the Berlin Wall in a park outside the White House and burning an effigy of a Soviet leader. Their shock tactics and overspending were strongly opposed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Richard Bond, who banned Abramoff from the RNC office.
Nevertheless, Abramoff and his two friends were mingling at the very top of the Republican party.
Abramoff met his future wife, Pam Alexander, at Ronald Reagan's 72nd birthday party at the White House, after Ralph Reed introduced the pair.
AFTER GRADUATING FROM Georgetown University law school in 1986, Abramoff started a production company, still obsessed with fighting communism. He would later joke about the poor quality of its chief production, Red Scorpion, an action movie in which Dolph Lundgren plays a crude Soviet agent who goes against his demonic communist masters. Much of the filming took place in Apartheid-era South Africa, against international sanctions, and the film was heavily picketed upon its release in the US.
After setting up an organisation to stop obscene language in Hollywood, he joined the lobbying firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds. One of his first clients was the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean notorious for use of sweat-shop labour. It gave $7 million (€5.8 million) to Abramoff's company to stop minimum wage and health and safety proposals for the island's employees.
It was through that fight that Abramoff became friends with the future House majority leader, Tom DeLay, then the No 3 Republican in the House.
Abramoff flew DeLay and many other members of Congress to the Mariana Islands, putting them up in luxury resorts in an effort to win their support. On one trip to the Marianas in 1997, DeLay made a speech in which he called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends". His success in stopping minimum wage on the "free market economy" of the Mariana Islands attracted attention across Washington and he was quickly earning a reputation as a sharp political operator.
Abramoff quickly found a new gig representing Native American tribes, who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year running casinos on their lands. Not only did Abramoff make tens of millions, he also ensured that the tribes paid millions in contributions to helpful Republican allies, including Tom DeLay.
Other allies also cleaned up. His old college friend, Grover Norquist, received tens of thousands of dollars from the Coushatta tribe in Louisiana, while their former intern, Ralph Reed, took $4 million (€3.3 million) from the same tribe for his consulting firm to help rally Christian opposition to gambling in Texas, forcing gamblers across the state line to Louisiana.
"Nobody knew what he was doing," said Norquist. "He would tell me he was lobbying for lower taxes but at the same time he was lobbying for more government spending. He never claimed to have much money for himself when I spoke to him but I think somewhere along the line, the money became more important than the ideology."
However, Abramoff's insatiable appetite for money would inevitably lead to trouble. Once it was discovered that he was working for both the Tigua and Coushatta tribes against each other's interests, it was only a matter of time before congressmen from states with strong Native American populations would call for an investigation.
NOW THAT THE scheme has finally blown up, with no less than five federal agencies investigating Abramoff's finances, his former friends are reeling in horror at the knowledge that he engaged in wrongdoing. Tom DeLay has rushed this week to return campaign contributions, as have President Bush and Ralph Reed. Reed, who is running for lieutenant governor of Georgia, insists he was deceived by Abramoff.
But the US media is already saying that Abramoff's co-operation with the Justice Department could lead to the biggest political scandal ever seen in Washington.
"What you have to realise is that this isn't just about funding for Native American casinos," says Marc Schwartz. "I would sit there in Signatures and Jack would excuse himself to go over to shake hands with a group of people and come back. He was always on the move and every day there was different deals. What we're looking at here is a man who could bring down the Republican Party. With Jack Abramoff, anything is possible."
The Abramoff File
Who is he? The most powerful lobbyist in Washington, aka The Godfather
Why is he in the news? He has pleaded guilty to fraud and threatens to expose busloads of politicians if he sings
Most appealing characteristic A nice hat
Least appealing characteristic Funding right-wing nut jobs around the world, fraud, conning Native Americans out of millions of dollars
Most likely to say Anything at all to save himself from prison
Least likely to say "But doesn't bribing churches cross ethical guidelines?"