Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook

Jack abramof may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time he was at the center of a massive Scandal of brazen corruption and influence pedaling as a republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients he was so good at it he took home $20 million a year it all came crashing down five years ago when Jack abramof pled guilty to corrupting public officials tax evasion and fraud and served three and a half years in prison today he's a symbol of how money corrupts Washington in our interview tonight he opens up his playbook for the first time and explains exactly how he used his clients money to buy powerful Friends and Influence legislation the story will continue in a moment I was so far in 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 abramof 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 to select members of Congress as I looked back it was effective it certainly helped uh the people I was trying to help both the clients and the Republicans at that time but even that was you're now saying was corrupt yes can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman I was actually thinking of writing a book uh the idiot's guide to buying a congressman uh as a way to put this all down but first I I think most congressmen don't feel they're being bought uh most congressmen I think can in their own mind justify system rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way abramof would provide freebies and Gifts looking for favors for his clients in return he'd lavish certain congressmen and Senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golf destinations like St Andrews in Scotland free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area's sporting events including two Sky boxes at Washington Redskins games I spent uh over a million dollars a year uh on tickets to sporting events and uh concerts and whatnot at all the venu doll yeah yeah for the best seats the best seats I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets we were Ticket Master for these guys and uh and the congressman or Senator could take his favorite people from his district District the congressman or Senator uh could take uh two dozen of his favorite people from their District was all that legal we would certainly try to make the activity legal if we could at times we didn't care but the best way to get a congressional office to do his bidding he says was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary when we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us and the chief of staff was a competent person uh I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point you know when you're done working on the hill we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to them that was it we owned them and what does that mean every request from our office every request of our clients everything that we want they're going to do and not only that they're going to think of things we can't think of to do Jack abramof could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck that's how persuasive he was Neil volz was one of the staffers abramof was talking about he was Chief of Staff to Congressman Bob nay who was chairman of the house administration committee had considerable power to dispense favors abramof targeted volts and offered him a job you're the chief of staff of a powerful congressman and Jack owns you and you haven't even left working for the congressman well I I I I have a distinct memory of you know negotiating with Jack at a hockey game so we're you know just a few rows back the crowd's going crazy and Jack and I are having a business conversation and you know I'm I'm wrestling with how much I think I should get paid and then five minutes later we're he's asking me questions about some clients of his when you look back was that the corrupting moment I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship so there were several corrupting moments there isn't just one moment there were many at the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street wanted to be lobbyists you're telling me this The Genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff say I'm having two reactions one is brilliant and the other is I'm sick to my stomach right evil yeah terrible cuz it's it's hurting our country absolutely it's the worst thing that could happen all parts of the system I was mad at me I was mad at me Leslie look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in I'm ashamed of the fact I was there the very reason why now I'm speaking about it and now I'm trying to do something in recompense is the fact that I thought it was it was wrong of me to do it one of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend the majority leader Tom DeLay eventually hiring his chief of staff and his press secretary and going into business with delay's Chief of Staff did you own his staff I was I was as close to his staff as to any staff I had uh a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff H how many congressional offices did you actually own uh we probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at it Time come on no 100 offices in those days I would view that as a failure because at least 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in did he own you I don't believe Jack abramof owned me but were we involved in the culture of corruption together absolutely former Republican Congressman Bob nay was ambitious and looked at abramof as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader I wanted to be speaker of the house and Jack abramof was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with Tom DeLay abramof began inviting nay on golf trips including one to Scotland and to his restaurant signatures where nay was given food and drinks on the house a violation of the Congressional gift limit laws nay says he was hardly the only one crossing the line but I will still tell you at that point in time time in order to get a drink at signatures you had to shove White House staffers of George Bush the heck away from the bar and it was packed with people and there were members now it doesn't mean everybody did everything for Jack but if you want to talk about strict interpretation of violation of the of of the laws of drinking food Katie Bar the Door she was wide open two shotguns blaring after months of taking handouts nay was approached by Neil Voltz his former Chief of Staff and by then a lobbyist for abramof I let you down there Vols asked nay to insert some language into a Reform Bill that would give a backdoor license to an Indian casino owned by one of aboff's clients you often hear about lobbyists getting special secret deals for their clients like this it's an Insidious technique that abramof perfected so what we did was we crafted language that was so obscure so confusing so uninformative but so precise to change the US code here's what you try to get tacked onto this Reform Bill public law 100-89 is amended by striking section 207 pen 101 stat period 668 comma 672 closed parent right now isn't that obvious what that means it was perfect it was perfect so that's what you tried to get inserted yes and that was going to provide for a Casino yes and who on Earth is going to know that no one except the chairman of the Committees who stuck it in there yes and that's one of the things you used to do yes and it was deliberately written like that precisely yes and that's done a lot members don't read the bills you didn't even know what it was for had no idea and then when we got the written language why didn't you know what it was for that doesn't I didn't I didn't care it was a great big shell game and I was in the middle of it well whether you know knowing or not I I was dumb enough to not say what's this thing do May would eventually serve 17 months in federal prison the only congressman who was ever charged in the Scandal but abramof says there were many other members that did his bidding that could have been charged was buying favors from lawmakers easy I think people are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting a favor and that's not the case uh the corruption the bribery call it okay because ultimately that's what it is that's what the whole system is the whole system's bribery in my view I'm talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public at the end of the day that's really what bribery is but it is done every day and is still being done the truth is there were very few members who I could I could even name or could think of uh who didn't at some level participate in that abramov prided himself on being a man who did good let him get in will you he was devoutly religious and exorbitantly charitable he says he gave away 80% of his earnings when he fell from Grace his reputation was in tatters because it was not just that he had corrupted Congress it was found he had cheated his clients like the Indian tribes uh most of the money I made I gave away uh to either communal or charitable causes uh so I thought I was frankly I thought I was one of the most moral obvious out there things began to unravel for abramof when the Washington Post published a largely unflattering portrait of him in 2004 reporting that he charged his clients 10 times more than any other lobbyist in town my first response was what's the big deal I don't understand what this is about of this is what lobbyist do what he didn't understand was the part that said he and a former Aid to Tom DeLay had overbilled four of his Indian casino clients by $45 million in the end he was brought up on federal charges of tax evasion and ripping off Indian tribes on the day he went to court and plad guilty abramof looked Grim the judge sentenced him to four years I really think what you were doing was was subverting the essence of our system absolutely right but our system is flawed and has to be fixed human beings populate our system human beings are weak and you prayed on that I did I was one of many who did I did and I'm ashamed of of of that fact he was sent to a medium security facility in Cumberland Maryland when he was released last June he began working as an accountant at a kosher pizza parlor turns out Jack abramof was broke partly because he's paying off nearly $24 million in restitution to the Indian tribes today he lives in his old house in Maryland with his wife five children and the two Doberman Pinchers Mrs abramov bought to protect the family while he was away hello after the Scandal Congress instituted a package of reforms making what abramof did like plying members of congress with free expensive meals illegal but he doesn't see the new reforms as being very effective the reform efforts continually are these faux reform efforts where they'll change they'll tweak the system they'll say you can have a meal with a congressman if they're standing up not sitting down is that serious or are you joking oh no I'm not I'm not joking at all it's okay if you pay for a lunch as long as you stand up well it's actually worse than that you can't take a congressman to Lunge for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that but but you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that stake but give him $255,000 extra and call out a fundraiser and have all the same access and all the same uh interaction with that Congressman so the people who make the reforms are the people in the system could you do the same thing today I'm asking you whether you think the system's been cleaned up that I no no the system hasn't been cleaned up at all uh there's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists and certainly there was on the part of me and my team that no matter what they come up with we're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it we'll just find another way through that's all he says the most important thing that needs to be done is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington if you make the choice to serve the public with Public Service then serve the public not yourself when you're done go home Washington's a dangerous place don't hang around former Congressman Bob nay now works part-time as a radio host his former Chief of Staff Neil Vol is currently working as a night janitor at a Florida restaurant and Jack abramof has written a memoir called capital punishment

Channel: CBS News

Views: 501,601

Keywords: 60 minutes, jack, abramoff, washington, dc, lobbyist, politician, corrupt, loophole, greed

Id: CHiicN0Kg10

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2011