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January 12, 2006
Looks like political cellar is filled with rats
When I was a kid, there was nothing worse than being a rat.
That was the rule passed down through generations of piece-workers to their sons. And these men were all commendable because they never joined their connected friends, but they grew up with them, knew them and respected their rules. It was explained to me as, "Rats may be doing the right thing, but it's not for the right reasons. They may tell you they found God, or decided to come clean, but the fact is rats turn in other people to save their own sorry skins or for revenge or for both."
And aren't we seeing it now on a grand scale?
Jack Abramoff and his "associates" were having a field day ripping off Indian tribes, taking money supposedly to do work on their behalf. Then instead of working, they paid people off to take care of stuff for them.
It was sort of a sophisticated protection racket.
They essentially told one Louisiana tribe, "You don't want any competing casinos across the border in Texas, you give my friend here $30.5 million. He'll take care of it."
Then they skim a cool $11.5 million off the top and put it in their pockets.
And, in Texas, they convince the other tribe to hire them for $4.2 million to help reopen their casino by changing federal laws.
Cute, huh?
And the tribes kept kicking in because these guys made stuff happen.
According to Abramoff's and his buddy Michael Scanlon's guilty pleas they dumped a lot of money on politicians, and badda-bing badda-bang, stuff happened.
It was pretty slick though. If there were out-and-out bribes we haven't put a finger on it — yet. Instead, the money was donated as campaign contributions. But the rats are still squealing.
According to reports, among many others, Abramoff and his guys drop $100,000 on President George Bush; 70 grand on the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and they dump $32,000 more on Rep. Bob Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee, and another $70,000 on House Speaker Dennis Hastert. They plunk down a cool $250,000 on the guy who deals with appropriations for Indian affairs, Conrad Burns, and just so the Republicans won't feel alone they cough up $128,000 to Democrat Patrick Kennedy of Rhose Island while he was in charge of soliciting money for Democratic congressional candidates. And another $62,000 for Byron Drogan, another Democrat, the vice-chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and Harry Reid gets a paltry $40,000. He is the Democratic senator from the great state of Nevada.
How'd they get caught?
It seems Abramoff and an "associate", Adam Kidan, bought a fleet of gambling boats by faking out some heavy-weight lenders with a bogus wire transfer that makes it look as if they are kicking some of their own into the deal. Then they buy the fleet with the money the lenders put up. No skin off their own noses.
They get indicted on charges of wire fraud and Abramoff pleads innocent, but all of a sudden he is being asked questions he isn't supposed to be asked.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee starts digging into the tribe rip-off stuff and Abramoff stonewalls them. Refuses to answer questions.
Then his buddy gets bagged. And, quick as a numbers runner, Abramoff's associate Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay, a Texas Republican, pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials. This is called rolling over.
Then Kidan reaches a plea bargain with federal prosecutors on the wire fraud charges. It seems to me this guy rolled over too.
Then all the protection Abramof must have thought he had for himself jumps ship as all the politicians start returning or giving away all the campaign donations he gave them.
Wooops.
So now, Abramoff pleads guilty and hopes he can find "forgiveness from the Almighty."
The way I see it, having been brought up watching scam artists of all shapes and sizes, Abramoff was supposed to be taken care of, and he wasn't, and now he is going to rat out some people.
The U.S. Justice Department says it will follow the investigation "wherever it goes," and Asst. Attorney General Alice Fisher tells reporters, "Government officials and government actions are not for sale."
That may be true, But there's a list of names in this rat's head bigger than the madam's black book, and since politics has turned into the biggest confidence game of them all, this is going to get very interesting. It will be fun to see just who tries to get the pigeon off the stool before all the names come out.
Posted by Hourihan on 11:30 AM | Comments (252)
