May 4, 2010 11:28 AM
- Text
"Casino Jack": A lobbyist's rise and fall
Jack Abramoff, foreground, leaves Federal Court in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2006. The once-powerful lobbyist pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud, agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors investigating influence peddling that has threatened powerful members of the U.S. Congress. (AP Photo)
(CBS) "Nothing surprises me about the extent of greed or rapacious abuse of power," says documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney.
It's hardly a surprising statement coming from the Academy Award-winner whose films have explored the Enron scandal, CIA black sites, Detroit's war on electric vehicles, a Harlem drug lord and Henry Kissinger.
Gibney's latest film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," examines the rise and ignoble fall of notorious Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff - and, more broadly, the culture of corruption that pervades America's political system.
Abramoff entered the Washington scene in the early 1990s and soon established himself as the most successful and free-wheeling of lobbyists. Forming a tag-team of sorts with Republican Rep. Tom Delay, who wielded extraordinary power over the party's distribution of fundraising dollars as Majority Whip (and later Majority Leader), Abramoff was able to sell more access more profitably than anyone had ever seen.
It's perhaps not surprising that it was competing lobbyists who dropped the dime on him, leading to a four-year prison sentence.
What made Abramoff so successful? His colorful, charming personality and its ability to open doors? (His resume stretched from producing the 1989 Dolph Lundgren action flick "Red Scorpion" to running a D.C. restaurant catering to conservative tastes while serving "liberal" portions.)
A life history that seemed too vivid to be true? (He helped arrange a confab of right-wing guerillas in the African jungle, complete with a congratulatory letter from President Ronald Reagan.)
An agility at making like-minded friends? (Along the way Abramoff's path intersected with those of Republican Party figures on their way up - Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist - and down - DeLay, Bob Ney.)
Most of all, it was his propensity to push the envelope when it came to political wheeling and dealing.
"He broke multiple sound barriers," Gibney said. "Everything he did was extreme, which was his great virtue from a filmmaker's perspective because you can see the rule by the exceptions. It was an exaggeration, I should say, of business-as-usual. Everybody else does it, he just did it bigger and more outlandishly than everybody else."
Abramoff's conservative ideology meshed with that of the GOP power brokers who ruled Congress beginning in 1994. But his downfall came after bilking Native American tribes of millions of dollars in fees, which he pocketed or passed on to other interests.
Abramoff ultimately pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding banks of $23 million stemming from the purchase of a casino cruise line in Florida. (A mob-style hit on the cruise line's owner didn't help, publicity-wise.)
He is currently nearing the end of a four-year prison sentence at a minimum-security prison camp in Cumberland, Md.
(Credit:
Magnolia Pictures)
It's hardly a surprising statement coming from the Academy Award-winner whose films have explored the Enron scandal, CIA black sites, Detroit's war on electric vehicles, a Harlem drug lord and Henry Kissinger.
Gibney's latest film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," examines the rise and ignoble fall of notorious Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff - and, more broadly, the culture of corruption that pervades America's political system.
Abramoff entered the Washington scene in the early 1990s and soon established himself as the most successful and free-wheeling of lobbyists. Forming a tag-team of sorts with Republican Rep. Tom Delay, who wielded extraordinary power over the party's distribution of fundraising dollars as Majority Whip (and later Majority Leader), Abramoff was able to sell more access more profitably than anyone had ever seen.
It's perhaps not surprising that it was competing lobbyists who dropped the dime on him, leading to a four-year prison sentence.
What made Abramoff so successful? His colorful, charming personality and its ability to open doors? (His resume stretched from producing the 1989 Dolph Lundgren action flick "Red Scorpion" to running a D.C. restaurant catering to conservative tastes while serving "liberal" portions.)
A life history that seemed too vivid to be true? (He helped arrange a confab of right-wing guerillas in the African jungle, complete with a congratulatory letter from President Ronald Reagan.)
An agility at making like-minded friends? (Along the way Abramoff's path intersected with those of Republican Party figures on their way up - Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist - and down - DeLay, Bob Ney.)
Most of all, it was his propensity to push the envelope when it came to political wheeling and dealing.
"He broke multiple sound barriers," Gibney said. "Everything he did was extreme, which was his great virtue from a filmmaker's perspective because you can see the rule by the exceptions. It was an exaggeration, I should say, of business-as-usual. Everybody else does it, he just did it bigger and more outlandishly than everybody else."
Abramoff's conservative ideology meshed with that of the GOP power brokers who ruled Congress beginning in 1994. But his downfall came after bilking Native American tribes of millions of dollars in fees, which he pocketed or passed on to other interests.
Abramoff ultimately pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding banks of $23 million stemming from the purchase of a casino cruise line in Florida. (A mob-style hit on the cruise line's owner didn't help, publicity-wise.)
He is currently nearing the end of a four-year prison sentence at a minimum-security prison camp in Cumberland, Md.
(Credit:
Magnolia Pictures)
Gibney (left) found the story of Abramoff's rise and fall "wickedly funny."
"You think of these august corridors of power, and here he was funneling money from the government of Malaysia through a lifeguard in Rehoboth Beach in order to sell a meeting with the president for a million bucks," said Gibney (left). "You can't make that s**t up!"
Nor would you need to, with a political system that welcomes such characters with open palms.
An Act of Imagination
If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man.
Born in New Jersey and raised in Los Angeles (his father was president of Diners Club International), Abramoff displayed an early sign of his conservative ideology (and theatrical tendencies) when, at age 12, he was inspired to convert to Orthodox Judaism after watching the musical "Fiddler on the Roof."
A football player and wrestler in school, he became a leader of the College Republicans at a time when Ronald Reagan's ascendancy to the White House was a siren call for young conservatives. Together with Ralph Reed (who later became leader of the Christian Coalition) and future anti-tax guru Grover Norquist, Abramoff devised agitprop demonstrations against Communism, promoted the cause of "freedom fighters" in Central America, and preached the destruction of liberals using the colorful language of George C. Scott's "Patton" ("Spill their guts! Shoot them in the belly!").
When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, Abramoff was ready.
The tenets of Orthodox Judaism didn't stand in the way of Abramoff expanding the use of influence (through gifts, junkets, visits to skyboxes at sports events, campaign donations, and golf trips to Scotland) to extraordinary levels, while conspiring to spread the wealth among his associates.
As DeLay rose to Majority Leader, Abramoff's influence among Republican lawmakers became incomparable; his access to the Bush Administration was solidified when his assistant Susan Ralston became the personal assistant of Karl Rove.
Perhaps Abramoff's most notorious lobbying came via the Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory where American labor laws did not apply, enabling foreign business owners to open sweatshops producing apparel bearing the "Made in USA" label while workers were held in indentured servitude.
For years Abramoff (lobbying for the islands' business community), DeLay and others in Washington protected the Marianas from a Congressman seeking to investigate human rights abuses there. They promoted the Marianas as a "petri dish of capitalism" and a "free-market paradise," and led whitewashed tours of the islands for visiting dignitaries, complete with golf outings and karaoke. The human smuggling, prostitution, and threats against human rights activists, however, continued unabated.
"At a certain period of time it was a virtual slave society," Gibney said, "and yet these guys were selling it as freedom. Well, it was freedom for the factory owners, but they never really investigated, or wanted to investigate it - or wanted to upend their own ideology because it was too perfect! So they imagined it to be what they wanted it to be. It was an act of imagination.
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise. . . .
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know.
"A lot of people find it ironic when deeply religious men and women do immoral things. I used to find it ironic - I don't anymore, I think it's part of the package," Gibney said.
"I think it's all too consistent, that very often when you have people like Jack or Tom DeLay or Ralph Reed who believe in their own devoutness, they believe that they're good and therefore how could they do bad? There's a kind of 'end justifies the means' self-deception that takes place that I find is very intriguing.
"It's not like they sit there and recognize, you know, I am a devout person but I'm going to do some unspeakable things because I feel like it. That's the way a mobster thinks. For Delay and Jack I think they believe fervently in an ideology and that allows them to be willfully ignorant of the cost of their own policies."
Gibney was not allowed to tape Abramoff during his prison visits. But the filmmaker was impressed by "how charming he was, what a good storyteller he was, how funny he was, how he peppered his conversation with quotes from movies."
It influenced the way he told the story - channeling Abramoff's exuberant personality, and bringing in Stanley Tucci to give voice to the lobbyists' many over-the-top e-mails, such as those where he referred to his own clients as "monkeys," "troglodites," morons" and "mother******s."
Or his warning that if Native American tribes paying him to push their casino interests didn't pony up his inflated fees, and like it, they would suffer "another trail of tears."
Rough words, considering the Mississippi Choctaw, Louisiana Coushatta, and the Tigua tribe in Texas gave millions to Abramoff and his partner, former DeLay staffer Michael Scanlon. And where did that money end up? Some was fed to Israeli settlers, and a lot into the pockets of Abramoff and Scanlon in a scam they called "Gimme Five," where they skimmed more than just the cream off the top of their highly-inflated fees.
Continued . . .
"You think of these august corridors of power, and here he was funneling money from the government of Malaysia through a lifeguard in Rehoboth Beach in order to sell a meeting with the president for a million bucks," said Gibney (left). "You can't make that s**t up!"
Nor would you need to, with a political system that welcomes such characters with open palms.
An Act of Imagination
If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man.
Born in New Jersey and raised in Los Angeles (his father was president of Diners Club International), Abramoff displayed an early sign of his conservative ideology (and theatrical tendencies) when, at age 12, he was inspired to convert to Orthodox Judaism after watching the musical "Fiddler on the Roof."
A football player and wrestler in school, he became a leader of the College Republicans at a time when Ronald Reagan's ascendancy to the White House was a siren call for young conservatives. Together with Ralph Reed (who later became leader of the Christian Coalition) and future anti-tax guru Grover Norquist, Abramoff devised agitprop demonstrations against Communism, promoted the cause of "freedom fighters" in Central America, and preached the destruction of liberals using the colorful language of George C. Scott's "Patton" ("Spill their guts! Shoot them in the belly!").
When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, Abramoff was ready.
The tenets of Orthodox Judaism didn't stand in the way of Abramoff expanding the use of influence (through gifts, junkets, visits to skyboxes at sports events, campaign donations, and golf trips to Scotland) to extraordinary levels, while conspiring to spread the wealth among his associates.
As DeLay rose to Majority Leader, Abramoff's influence among Republican lawmakers became incomparable; his access to the Bush Administration was solidified when his assistant Susan Ralston became the personal assistant of Karl Rove.
Perhaps Abramoff's most notorious lobbying came via the Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory where American labor laws did not apply, enabling foreign business owners to open sweatshops producing apparel bearing the "Made in USA" label while workers were held in indentured servitude.
For years Abramoff (lobbying for the islands' business community), DeLay and others in Washington protected the Marianas from a Congressman seeking to investigate human rights abuses there. They promoted the Marianas as a "petri dish of capitalism" and a "free-market paradise," and led whitewashed tours of the islands for visiting dignitaries, complete with golf outings and karaoke. The human smuggling, prostitution, and threats against human rights activists, however, continued unabated.
"At a certain period of time it was a virtual slave society," Gibney said, "and yet these guys were selling it as freedom. Well, it was freedom for the factory owners, but they never really investigated, or wanted to investigate it - or wanted to upend their own ideology because it was too perfect! So they imagined it to be what they wanted it to be. It was an act of imagination.
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise. . . .
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know.
"A lot of people find it ironic when deeply religious men and women do immoral things. I used to find it ironic - I don't anymore, I think it's part of the package," Gibney said.
"I think it's all too consistent, that very often when you have people like Jack or Tom DeLay or Ralph Reed who believe in their own devoutness, they believe that they're good and therefore how could they do bad? There's a kind of 'end justifies the means' self-deception that takes place that I find is very intriguing.
"It's not like they sit there and recognize, you know, I am a devout person but I'm going to do some unspeakable things because I feel like it. That's the way a mobster thinks. For Delay and Jack I think they believe fervently in an ideology and that allows them to be willfully ignorant of the cost of their own policies."
Gibney was not allowed to tape Abramoff during his prison visits. But the filmmaker was impressed by "how charming he was, what a good storyteller he was, how funny he was, how he peppered his conversation with quotes from movies."
It influenced the way he told the story - channeling Abramoff's exuberant personality, and bringing in Stanley Tucci to give voice to the lobbyists' many over-the-top e-mails, such as those where he referred to his own clients as "monkeys," "troglodites," morons" and "mother******s."
Or his warning that if Native American tribes paying him to push their casino interests didn't pony up his inflated fees, and like it, they would suffer "another trail of tears."
Rough words, considering the Mississippi Choctaw, Louisiana Coushatta, and the Tigua tribe in Texas gave millions to Abramoff and his partner, former DeLay staffer Michael Scanlon. And where did that money end up? Some was fed to Israeli settlers, and a lot into the pockets of Abramoff and Scanlon in a scam they called "Gimme Five," where they skimmed more than just the cream off the top of their highly-inflated fees.
Continued . . .
- 1
- 2
- Next Page »
-
David Morgan David Morgan is a senior editor at CBSNews.com and cbssundaymorning.com.
Popular Now in Politics
- Timothy Dolan: Birth control tweak a "first step"
- Archbishop Dolan urges Obama to back down on birth control
- CPAC: Santorum rips Romney, rouses conservatives
- After uproar, Obama tweaks birth control rule
- Santorum: Women could bring "emotions" to combat
- STOCK Act passes in House
- Ann Coulter riles up the CPAC crowd
- Obama to announce revamp of birth control policy
- Romney takes on hecklers at Maine town hall
- CPAC: Will Sarah Palin spring a surprise?
- Santorum's big benefactor
- Former Giffords aide to run for her House seat
- CPAC: Huckabee "thanks" Obama for birth control firestorm
- Romney says his conservatism will shine
- Report: Chicago cardinal joins contraceptives fight
- Occupy protestors kicked out of CPAC
- Is Rick Santorum conservatives' last, best hope?
Latest CBS News Headlines
on Facebook Most Discussed Stories
on CBS News
- Fire might have claimed 'Gone with the Wind' items
- Fire might have claimed 'Gone with the Wind' items
- 9/11 drama shown at Berlin film festival
- Syrian general slain in Damascus, regime says
on Facebook Most Discussed Stories
on CBS News
Most Popular on CBS News
Stories More »
-
8 Photos | View Gallery »
Fishermen reel in 40-foot whale shark
-
8 Photos | View Gallery »
N.H. teen shoots self in school cafeteria
-
20 Photos | View Gallery »
Stars at Pebble Beach
-
39 Photos | View Gallery »
New York Fashion Week: Day 2
-
29 Photos | View Gallery »
Max von Sydow
CBS News on Facebook
