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"Before he took up lobbying, Jack Abramoff was an aspiring moviemaker who cowrote and produced Red Scorpion, a Cold War potboiler starring hulking Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren. It drew decidedly mixed reviews. Century Strategies, Ralph Reed's Georgia-based consulting firm, was paid close to 6 million dollars by two of Abramoff's casino-rich tribal clients. A little more than a third of the money was funneled through a "think tank" that Scanlon set up in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a seaside getaway three hours from Washington. It was run with the help of a lifeguard and a yoga instructor. Six casino-rich Indian tribes paid an astonishing total of 82 million dollars to superlobbyish Jack Abramoff and public relations whiz Michael Scanlon. Abramoff and Scanlon devised a secret a kickback scheme-dubbed "Gimme five"-to split and pocket more than 40 million dollars of these tribal payments."--From source other than the Library of CongressExamines the federal corruption scandal involving Capitol Hill lobbyist Jack Abramoff that defrauded four Native American tribes of millions of dollars.
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Peter H. Stone's Heist tears the veil off the Republican Party's conservative power base, revealing parts of the Washington lobbying community and the GOP establishment in which greed, arrogance, and corruption seem to have run amok.At the center of this drama is the larger-than-life superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, a onetime B-movie producer who boasted deep ties to Republican heavyweights like the former GOP power broker Tom DeLay, embattled congressman Bob Ney, former executive director of the Christian Coalition turned corporate consultant Ralph Reed, influential antitax activist Grover Norquist, and others with links to the Bush administration. Working with a secret partner, public relations whiz Michael Scanlon, Abramoff bilked several Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars in fees and bought influence in Congress. The federal corruption probe into Abramoff's lobbying has already produced separate guilty pleas by Abramoff and Scanlon to charges that they conspired to bribe public officials and defrauded four Indian tribes. Two other ex-high level Capitol Hill aides who became Abramoff's lobbying associates have also pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials, and an ex-Bush administration official has been convicted of making false statements to government officials and obstruction of justice. More charges are expected to follow in a scandal that has tarred many powerful Washington insiders, and which The New York Times has called "potentially one of the most explosive in Congressional history."As a writer for the National Journal, Stone was one of the first reporters to cover the Abramoff story and has been following it closely since it broke in 2004. In Heist, he digs behind the headlines to capture a riveting tale of our time: an inside-Washington drama driven by outsized personalities and the toxic mix of money and power.
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