I Don't Know Jack

So as promised, I started digging in. It's a good thing I had the day off, because this Jack Abramoff affair, or matter, or whatever it is that they're calling it in the blogosphere is huge, it's scope is beyond anything you can summarize in one or two posts. The matters under investigation to my lay person's knowledge of legal things is narrowly focused on just a couple of the issues that I will attempt to explain here. The things that Abramoff has pled guilty to so far are mail fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe elected officials. The plea deal has been posted to Josh Marshall's site, but it's all in legalese, so I'm going to have to have some of the lawyers in the hood explain it to me. He's also pleaded guilty to separate charges in the state of Florida, and that's a story for another post.

Basically, our guy Jack made a crap load of money representing Native American tribes who were interested in getting in on the gambling action. Lobbyists in Washington sell friendships with elected officials to folks who need action on bills, or legislative things. It's really just influence peddling, once these guys serve some time as a staffer to an important Senator or work for a few years in an Administration for a pitiful salary of $100,000 a year, they then go on to these lucrative lobbying jobs, because, as we all know, in America it's not what you know, but who you know. It happens all the time, with Democrats and Republicans, and it's perfectly legal.

With Jack, it's not the lobbying that's in question, it's a complex web of contributions from his clients, that made their way into the pockets of such organizations as Focus On the Family, the Christian Coalition, and the Traditional Values Coalition. Now if you're wondering like I am, when gambling became such an avid Christian pastime, I can tell you it probably had something to do with the cash flow from gambling interests into the coffers of these organizations. An awful lot of the money went through Grover Norquist's organization, Rich Americans Who Don't Want to Pay Taxes (okay, that was a joke, the real name is Americans For Tax Reform), and then to another group called Faith and Family Alliance, and then eventually to Ralph Reed. The guy who was running the Faith and Family Alliance would deposit the check and then send a check to Ralph for an identical amount. That guy is now serving time in Virginia for soliciting sex with minors over the Internet. That's completely true. Don't you love these Christians?

We know that Abramoff's money came from clients wishing for favors from Congress. But where did Abramoff's dirty money end up?

Conrad Burns got $146,000. Patrick J Kennedy (one of our guys) got 131,000. Denny Hastert got $81,000. Tom Delay got $71,000 and a trip to Scotland. Ney got $62,000 and a trip to Scotland.Harry Reid got $47,000.
Oh wow! What's this? George W. Bush got $34,000! The assumption is that this money went from the gambling clients into clean organizations like the Faith and Family Alliance for Diddling with Minors, and then into the re-election funds of influential members of Congress in exchange for votes and favors.

Today I read in the Post that Bush was donating $6000 of the dirty money to the American Heart Association.

So the fun begins, and as I dig further in, I will make an attempt to get it all out there for your reading enjoyment.

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