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Jack A. Abramoff (born February 28, 1959) is a United States political lobbyist, Republican activist, and businessman who is a central figure in a series of high-profile political scandals. He pled guilty on January 3, 2006 to three criminal felony counts in federal court related to the defrauding of Native American tribes. On January 4th, Abramoff pled guilty to two criminal felony counts in a different federal court related to fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos. In his Indian lobbying plea bargain, Abramoff agreed to testify in related investigations, which are still ongoing.

Abramoff was Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Greenberg Traurig legal and lobbying firm (see Team Abramoff) and was College Republican National Committee National Chairman from 1981-85. He was also a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank. He was the founding member of the International Freedom Foundation, an apartheid South Africa&mdash;financed anti-communist think-tank that operated from 1986 to 1992.

The monetary influence of Jack Abramoff runs far and wide. Abramoff was deeply associated with Tom DeLay's K Street Project to bring Republican dominance to Washington lobbying. From 2000 to 2006, he personally donated money to campaign funds and Leadership PACs of numerous Republican candidates for Congress. Under his guidance, his Indian tribe clients loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they donated to federal candidates since 2001. He raised $100,000 for the reelection of George W. Bush, making him a Bush Pioneer. Abramoff and his wife gave $10,000 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund, shortly before Abramoff joined Greenberg Traurig, which forgave over $314,000 in legal fees incurred by the Bush Campaign in the 2000 Florida election recount. Because of Abramoff's criminal behavior, prominent Republican politicians with close ties to Abramoff as well as hundreds of Congressional politicians who have received money from his clients (see the monetary influence of Jack Abramoff) have come under media scrutiny, with lobbying reform proposals presented by both parties. The Democratic proposal would make initiatives like the K Street Project illegal.

Summary of investigations and scandals

 * Jack Abramoff Native American lobbying scandal
 * Abramoff was under investigation by federal grand juries for his involvement in the multimillion-dollar defrauding of Native American tribes who were his lobbying clients and related bribery of public officials. On January 3, 2006, Abramoff pled guilty to three felony counts, conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion (Abramoff owes the Internal Revenue Service $1.7 million for that charge). In addition, Abramoff and other defendants must make restitution of at least $25 million USD that was defrauded from clients, most notably the Native American tribes. Abramoff's guilty plea was part of a plea deal that requires him to cooperate in the ongoing investigation of his role in congressional corruption.
 * The agreement alleges that Abramoff bribed public officials, including a person identified as "Representative #1," confirmed to be Bob Ney, a Republican congressman from Ohio. Also included: the hiring of congressional staffers and conspiring with them to lobby their former employers&mdash;including members of Congress&mdash;in violation of a one-year federal ban on such lobbying. Ney has established a legal defense fund for himself to defend against possible charges related to Abramoff. On January 15, 2006, Ney relinquished his post as Chairman of the House Administration Committee.


 * Jack Abramoff Guam investigation
 * Abramoff was under investigation by a grand jury in Guam over an alleged plot to control the functions of the courts in that territory, until the prosecutor was removed from office by the Bush administration. ;SunCruz Casinos investigation
 * Abramoff was indicted on August 11, 2005, by a grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for bank fraud arising from the purchase of SunCruz Casinos. On January 4, 2006, Abramoff pled guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and of a separate charge of wire fraud.


 * Other scandals
 * Abramoff is linked to a scandal involving a troubled multibillion-dollar Homeland Security contract. :Abramoff made multiple payments to Doug Bandow, former Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and at least one other think tank expert, Peter Ferrara, to write opinion pieces favorable to his clients.
 * Abramoff was involved in a scandal to influence the United States Department of Interior to prevent the Jena Band of Choctaw Indian Tribe from building a Casino that would take away money from one of Abramoff's tribal clients. Abramoff paid money to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), in exchange for help from CREA president Italia Federici in persuading Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Interior Steven Griles to block the Jena Band's Casino application.
 * Some commentators have theorized that there are links between Abramoff and Islamic terrorism: several 9-11 hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, were reported to have made multiple visits to the SunCruz casino cruise ship. leading to speculation of ties between Abramoff and the hijackers. In 2002 Abramoff was a registered lobbyist for the General Council for Islamic Banks, for which he was paid $20,000. Saleh Abdullah Kamel, the chairman of this Council, was investigated for allegedly funding terrorism and terrorists including Osama Bin Laden.

Early years
Abramoff was born to a Jewish American family in Atlantic City, New Jersey where his father, Franklin Abramoff, worked as a businessman and promoter. Arnold Palmer was among his biggest clients. In 1968, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California, where Abramoff later attended Beverly Hills High School, where he was renowned for his weightlifting and football prowess. At the age of 12 he decided on his own to become an observant Orthodox Jew, teaching himself Hebrew, and walking to synagogue. Abramoff had an early political setback in 1972 when he "ran for student council president at the Hawthorne School, a Beverly Hills elementary and middle school. Heading into a runoff election, Abramoff was disqualified for exceeding the spending limit. The principal, Herbert recalled, penalized Abramoff for holding a party, stating it amounted to a campaign expenditure that pushed him over the limit (Allowed budget)."

College years
In college, Abramoff organized Massachusetts campuses for Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1981 and earned his JD at the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986. In college, Ralph Reed would sleep on Abramoff’s couch. According to his book "Active Faith," he also introduced Abramoff to his future wife, Pam Alexander.

After a campaign managed by Grover Norquist and aided by Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Abramoff succeeded Norquist as chairman of the College Republican National Committee. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left," Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report, "our job is to remove them from power permanently." Abramoff "changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before," notes the CRNC.

At the CRNC in the 1980's, Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation, many of whom went on to active roles in state and national politics and business. Some of these long-standing alliances are the subject of various federal investigations into Abramoff and his political and business dealings. At the CRNC, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate." Upon Abramoff's election, the trio purged "dissidents" and re-wrote the CRNC's bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization. According to Nina J. Easton's book Gang of Five (p. 142), Reed was the "hatchet man" and "carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints."

In 1983 with Abramoff in control, the CRNC passed a resolution condemning "deliberate planted propaganda by the KGB and Soviet proxy forces" against the government of South Africa, at a time when the government of South Africa was under worldwide criticism for the Apartheid regime.

In 1984, Abramoff and other College Republicans formed the 'USA Foundation", a non-partisan tax-exempt organization which held two days of rallys on college campuses around the United States celebrating the first anniversary of the invasion of Grenada. In a letter to campus Republican leaders, Abramoff claimed:
 * "While the Student Liberation Day Coalition is nonpartisan and intended only for educational purposes, I don't need to tell you how important this project is to our efforts as [College Republicans]. I am confident that an impartial study of the contrasts between the Carter/Mondale failure in Iran and the Reagan victory in Grenada will be most enlightening to voters 12 days before the general election."

In Hollywood
Abramoff spent ten years in Hollywood, and produced Red Scorpion, a low-budget action film with anti-communist themes, made in 1988 just after his term with the College Republicans ended. This movie was filmed in South-West Africa (now Namibia) and was funded in part by the apartheid regime in South Africa through the International Freedom Foundation, which Abramoff founded. On April 27 1998, Abramoff wrote a letter to the editor of The Seattle Times rebutting an article critical of Abramoff. He claimed, "The IFF was a conservative group which I headed. It was vigorously anti-Communist, but it was also actively anti-apartheid. … In 1987, it was one of the first conservative groups to call for the release of Nelson Mandela, a position for which it was roundly criticized by other conservatives at the time. While I headed the IFF, we accepted funding only from private individuals and corporations and would have absolutely rejected any offer of South African military funding, or any other kind of funding from any government—good or evil."

It was during his travels in South Africa that Abramoff first met South African-born Daniel Lapin, who allegedly introduced Abramoff to Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) at a Washington, DC dinner shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 Lapin later claimed that he did not recall the introduction.

Abramoff joined Citizens for America, a pro-Reagan group that helped Oliver North build support for the Nicaraguan contras. Citizens for America staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders, including Laotian, Angolan and Afghan (Mujahideen) rebels in 1985 in Jamba, Angola. His membership ended on a sour note, however, when the group's millionaire founder, Lewis Lehrman, a former New York gubernatorial candidate, concluded that Abramoff had spent his money carelessly.

Lobbying
In the second half of the 1990s, Abramoff was employed by Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, the lobbying arm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, based in Seattle WA. In 1995, Abramoff began representing Indian tribes with gambling interests. He became involved with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. One of Abramoff's first acts as a tribal gaming lobbyist was to defeat a Congressional bill to tax Indian casinos, sponsored by Reps. Bill Archer (R-TX) and Ernest Istook (R-OK) in 1995. According to Washington Business Forward, a lobbying trade magazine, "Tom DeLay was a major factor in those victories, and the fight helped cement the alliance between the two men.

Saipan and Marianas Islands
Abramoff took on the Northern Mariana Island of Saipan as a client in 1994. He was paid nearly $100,000 a month by the island's government from 1995 to 2002. Abramoff and his law firm were paid about $4.5 million between 1996 and 2000, according to Preston, Gates and Ellis. The Northern Marianas is a US territory, and is allowed by law to apply the Made in the USA label to goods manufactured there.

Frank Murkowski, then Republican Senator from Alaska and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, submitted a bill to extend the protection of U.S. labor and minimum-wage laws to the workers in the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas.

In testimony before the Senate, it was described that 91 percent of the workforce were immigrants, and were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage. Stories also emerged of workers forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks without plumbing. The Senate passed the Murkowski worker reform bill unanimously.

Abramoff later arranged an all-expenses paid trip to Saipan for Tom DeLay on New Year's Eve, 1997. Although House ethics rules at the time prohibited House members from accepting such gifts from lobbyists, the trip was funded directly by Saipan and thus was technically allowable. An internal memo from Preston, Gates and Ellis stated that these sort of trips are "one of the most effective ways to build permanent friends on the Hill." While on the trip, at a benefit dinner for Willie Tan of Tan Holdings Corporation, DeLay was quoted as saying:
 * "When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C., invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free-market success and the progress and reform you have made."

An undercover investigation by ABCNews captured Willie Tan speaking on a hidden camera about a conversation with DeLay about labor reform laws. According to Tan, " [DeLay] said, 'Willie, if they elect me majority whip, I make the schedule of the Congress, and I'm not going to put it on the schedule.' So Tom told me, 'Forget it, Willie. No chance.'"

After the trip, Abramoff helped DeLay craft policy that extended exemptions from federal immigration and labor laws to Saipan industries, though the island is part of the U.S. Commonwealth. Brian Ross at ABC News for 20/20 on March 13 1998 pointed out that factories in Saipan have forced their workers to have abortions in order to keep their jobs.

Abramoff also negotiated for a $1.2 million no-bid contract from the Marianas for 'promoting ethics in government' to be awarded to David Lapin, brother of Daniel Lapin.

Abramoff also paid the expenses for at least two other trips to the Marianas, in violation of House rules against direct payments by lobbyists for travel-related expenses. In both cases, Abramoff was reimbursed by Preston, Gates and Ellis, which was then paid by the Marianas government.

The first trip involved two aides to Tom DeLay, Edwin A. Buckham amd Tony Rudy, both who later joined the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group. They traveled with Abramoff from December 4 to December 12, 1996. Abramoff paid at least $3000 of the costs, according to a memo written by his assistant Jennifer Senft Hamann.

The second trip involved James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). In a letter dated Dec. 17, 1996, the National Security Caucus Foundation invited the lawmakers to attend a trip to the island in January 1997, saying that the government would incur no expense. Non-profits are allowed to pay for lawmaker travel, and Clyburn and Thompson said they believed the NSCF was doing so. Greg Hilton, the director of the NSCF at the time, has said that Preston, Gates and Ellis sent him the airline tickets and told him the government had paid for them. The cost of the trip was, according to an Abramoff memo, $15,657. The lawmakers said that they never met Abramoff nor knew of his involvement.

eLottery, Inc.
In 1999 hired Abramoff to block the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which he did by enlisting the help of Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and Tom DeLay's former chief of staff

from 2000 show that Susan Ralston helped Jack Abramoff pass checks from to Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) and also to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), in route to Ralph Reed's company,

Abramoff joins Greenberg Traurig
On January 8 2001, Abramoff left Preston Gates to join the Government Relations division of the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, which once described him as "directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures" and "one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates." With the move to Greenberg Traurig Abramoff took as much as $6 million dollars worth of client "work" from his old firm, including the Marianas Islands account. When asked in an interview why he moved to Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff replied "they have a dominant presence … This move is an excellent opportunity for me and my clients with the new Administration." Abramoff collected a bipartisan team of lobbyists known familiarly as "Team Abramoff", most of whom were former senior staffers of members of Congress.

Tribal lobbying
Around the time he joined Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's choice of lobbying clients changed, and focused much more on Native American tribes. While Abramoff was a registered lobbyist for 51 clients while working at Preston Gates, with only 4 being tribes, Abramoff would eventually represent 24 clients for whom he was registered lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig, of which 7 were tribes.

Tyco Inc.
Former White House Deputy Counsel Timothy Flanigan left his job in December 2002 to work as General Counsel for Corporate and International Law at Tyco International. He immediately hired Abramoff to lobby Congress and the White House on matters relating to Tyco's Bermuda tax-exempt status. Flanigan stated to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Abramoff bragged that he could help Tyco avoid tax liability aimed at off-shore companies because he "had good relationships with members of Congress."

Tyco Inc. claimed in August 2005 that Abramoff had been paid $1.7 million for an 'astroturf campaign' to create a 'grassroots' campaign to oppose proposals to penalize US corporations registered abroad for tax reasons. The work was allegedly never performed, and most of the fee Tyco paid Abramoff to lobby against the legislation was "diverted to entities controlled by Mr. Abramoff".

Government of Malaysia
Abramoff's team also represented the government of Malaysia, and worked toward improving Malaysian relations with the United States, particularly with trade relations. Because Grover Norquist worked with a lobbying firm that represented Anwar Ibrahim, some have alleged a connection between the two, and theorized that Abramoff and Norquist were running a scam in which Norquist's firm would create issues that Abramoff's firm would then take care of. Abramoff also reportedly wanted to spread his influence deep into the Muslim world through a front group called the Lexington Group.

Channel One News
Abramoff has been a lobbyist for the school TV news service Channel One News. From 1999-2003, Channel One retained him to ensure Congress did not block funds to their service. Not only did Channel One face frequent efforts in Congress to limit its commercial use of school students, but it also derived much of its advertising revenue from US government sources, including the Office of National Drug Control Policy and military recruitment. Since Abramoff and Channel One parted ways, Channel One's advertising revenues have dropped substantially, but a cause-and-effect relationship would be difficult to establish.

Access to the Bush Administration
Jack Abramoff was a member of the Bush Administration's 2001 Transition Advisory Team assigned to the Department of the Interior. Abramoff befriended the incoming Deputy Secretary of the Interior, J. Steven Griles. In the first 10 months of 2001, the Abramoff lobbying team logged almost 200 contacts with the new Administration. He may have used these senior level contacts at assist in his lobbying for Indian tribes concerning tribal gaming. The Department of the Interior has Federal regulatory authority over tribal affairs such as tribal recognition and gaming. From 2000 to 2003, six Indian tribes paid Abramoff over $80 million in lobbying fees. The Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs has authority over policy and grants to US Territories such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). This may have assisted him is lobbying for textile interests in the islands. U.S.Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and U.S. Rep and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay also heavily lobbied the CNMI for opposing the minimum wage. An article published in the New York Times on November 10, 2005 alleged that Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of the African nation of Gabon, Omar Bongo to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to an Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm, GrassRoots Interactive. Bongo did meet with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004. There has been no evidence in the public record that Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon.

White House and State Department officials described Mr. Bush's meeting with President Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine. The officials said they knew of no involvement by Mr. Abramoff in the arrangements. Officials at Gabon's embassy in Washington did not respond to written questions. Susan Ralston, Special Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Senior Advisor Karl Rove since 2001, previously worked as an administrative assistant for both Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/nataffdaily/story/9130607] Sometime before December 2005, she moved to the United States Department of Commerce but remained on the White House Roster.

Signatures, Skyboxes, and Scotland
In addition to offering many Republican members of Congress expensive free meals at his restaurant, Signatures, Abramoff maintained four skyboxes at major sports arenas for political entertaining at a cost of over $1 million a year. Abramoff hosted many fundraisers at these skyboxes including events for politicians publicly opposed to gambling, such as John Doolittle.

DeLay, Ney and Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney have each gone on golf trips to Scotland that were apparently arranged or funded by Abramoff. These trips took place in 2000, 2002, and 2003. Ney and Feeney each claimed that their trips were paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, but the group denied this. Spokespeople for Ney and Feeney blamed others for filing errors.

A former top procurement official in the Bush administration, David H. Safavian, has been charged with lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff investigation. Safavian, who traveled to Scotland with Ney on a golf outing arranged by Abramoff, is accused of concealing from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the General Services Administration at the time of the golf trip. Safavian was then GSA chief of staff.

Indian tribes grand jury investigations


Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon are accused of conspiring with Ralph E. Reed, Jr., and Grover Norquist to bilk Indian casino gambling interests out of an estimated $85 million in fees. The lobbyists are accused of orchestrating lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services. These practices were the subject both of long-running criminal prosecution and hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

On January 3, 2006, Abramoff pled guilty to three felony counts, conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, involving charges stemming principally from his lobbying activities in Washington on behalf of Native American tribes. In addition, Abramoff and other defendants must make restitution of at least $25 million that was defrauded from clients, mostly notably the Native American tribes. Further, Abramoff owes the Internal Revenue Service $1.7 million as a result of his guilty plea to the tax evasion charge. In the agreement, Abramoff admits to bribing public officials, including Bob Ney, a Republican congressman from Ohio. Also included: the hiring of congressional staffers and conspiring with them to lobby their former employers&mdash;including members of Congress&mdash;in violation of a one-year federal ban on such lobbying.

SunCruz Casinos fraud indictment
Main article: SunCruz Casinos

On August 11, 2005, Abramoff and his partner, Adam Kidan, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on fraud charges arising from a 2000 deal to buy SunCruz Casinos from Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. Abramoff and Kidan are accused of using a fake wire transfer to make lenders believe that they had made a $23 million down payment, in order to qualify for a $60 million loan. Congressman Bob Ney was implicated in helping to consummate the deal.

After the partners purchased SunCruz in September 2000, the business relationship with Boulis deteriorated, culminating in a fistfight between Kidan and Boulis in December 2000. In February 2001 Boulis was murdered in his car in a mob style attack.

The murder investigation, which presently includes three mobsters who had received payments from Kidan, is ongoing. Two of the suspects face the death penalty. SunCruz is now owned and operated by Oceans Casinos Cruises.

Guam grand jury investigation
In 2002, Abramoff was retained under a secret contract by the Guam Superior Court to lobby against a bill proposing to put the Superior Court under the authority of the Guam Supreme Court. On Nov. 18, 2002, a grand jury issued a subpoena demanding that the administrator of the Guam Superior Court release all records relating to the contract. On Nov. 19, 2002, U.S. Attorney Frederick A. Black, the chief prosecutor for Guam and the instigator of the indictment, was unexpectedly demoted and removed from the office he had held since 1991. The federal grand jury investigation was quickly wound down and took no further action. In 2005, Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks initiated a new investigation of the Abramoff contract which is continuing.

Abramoff organizations
Abramoff has founded or run several non-profit organizations and lobbying firms which have received hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Their activities and finances were brought to light during the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. These organizations include the American International Center, GrassRoots Interactive, the National Center for Public Policy Research, the Capital Athletic Foundation and Eshkol Academy.

Federal investigators believe more than $140,000 of Capital Athletic Foundation funds were diverted to a Jewish settler in the Israeli West Bank for "purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material" described in foundation records as 'security' equipment. The equipment was apparently for the town of Beitar Illit, to be used to defend against the Palestinian Intifada. US Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings reveal that the Capital Athletic Foundation "also paid a monthly stipend and Jeep payments to a high-school friend of Abramoff. The 'high-school friend' is, apparently, an old friend he knew from Los Angeles."

In 2002 Abramoff founded the Eshkol Academy in Maryland. According to emails revealed during the US Senate hearings into the Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal, the school's dean, Daniel Lapin was paid $20,000 a month, through Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation. In 2004, thirteen former Eshkol employees sued the Academy, demanding nearly $300,000 in back salary. The teachers' complaint claims that the Capital Athletic Foundation "was used to launder funds from the tribes to Eshkol." Federal tax records show that various Indian tribes donated more than $1 million to the foundation, which in turn benefited the school.