Jack Abramoff is Back

Jack Abramoff, disgraced former Washington lobbyist, discussed his new book and his new life outside of the federal prison in front of an intimate gathering of family, friends and interested public at the American Jewish University (AJU), in Bel Air, California, Sunday April 1. The self-described poster child for “don’t write in an email what you don’t want to read as a newspaper headline”, pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion. Dr. Robert Wexler, AJU President, interviewed Abramoff in a recorded session inside the University’s synagogue.

Affable and in good humor, Abramoff shared what it was like to receive one of the most public floggings of modern Washington history. “Anybody who says there’s no such thing as bad press has never seen my press,” he said with a chuckle. He resents his demonization at the hands of duplicitous politicians. It was at least 300 members of Congress that Abramoff’s firm “had a lot of influence with, meaning we raised money for them and we were involved in their offices.” For a man who once had so many inroads to congressional circles, the number of representatives who don’t remember meeting him is remarkable.

Jack’s back - and he’s written a book.

 Abramoff gave his prescription to cure the various ills plaguing the Beltway. Term limits are crucial to cleaning up Washington. “I fought term limits,” said Abramoff. After working six years to buy a congressman he didn’t want to have to start all over again with someone new. It was expensive and it wasted time. Staffers need to have limits imposed on their stays too. Abramoff also recommends limitations placed on staffers’ future careers on the Hill. “This is corruption that people don’t think about,” said Abramoff.

Take two term limits and call him in the morning.

Abramoff recognized early on that if you wanted to get something done you go to a congressman’s staffers. Ninety percent of the people he lobbied wanted to become lobbyists. A lobbyist makes three to five times as much as a staffer. Abramoff realized that if he made an arrangement to hire a staffer into his firm and delayed the start date of a year, during that year, all this staffer would think about was him, his clients, and coming to work for his firm. “These people wound up being better staffers for me than they were for Congress,” said Abramoff. One of Abramoff’s cures for what ails Washington is “shuttering the revolving door between public service and cashing in as a lobbyist or a consultant.”

So what happened to the congressmen who were the beneficiaries of Abramoff’s largess? Only one of them went to prison. That was Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio. He took $50,000 worth of casino chips from an Iranian gentleman and paid off his mortgage with it. This Iranian donor wanted to sell planes from the United States to Iran. No other congress members were indicted or pleaded guilty. Abramoff blames the speech and debate clause which prevents representatives from being punished for things they may say in Congress. He says the clause also applies to things that legislators do in Congress. He illustrated this with the example of Democratic Rep. William Jefferson “who had $90,000 in cash in his freezer. He is sitting in prison today. If that freezer were in his office and not his house, he would be enjoying that money today,” contends Abramoff.

When not promoting his new book, “Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist”, Jack Abramoff lectures in schools, universities, and at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Training Academy on government corruption.