Browse content similar to Jack Abramoff - Former US lobbyist. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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In the lead-up to November's presidential election in the US, | :00:13. | :00:17. | |
grips on the right and left are sounding the alarm at the influence | :00:17. | :00:22. | |
on money on US politics. Outguess today knows a lot about that. At | :00:22. | :00:26. | |
the height of his career he made billions as a career lobbyist in | :00:26. | :00:32. | |
Washington. His fall from grace was dramatic, seeing him publicly | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
disgraced and imprisoned for fraud and bribery. A free man once again, | :00:36. | :00:40. | |
Jack Abramoff now says he is a reformed man, lobbying to correct | :00:40. | :00:43. | |
what he describes as a corrupt system where he says his behaviour | :00:43. | :00:48. | |
was, and continues, to be commonplace. Is he trying to make | :00:48. | :00:50. | |
amends for his past or trying to put the planes on -- blame on | :00:50. | :01:00. | |
:01:00. | :01:21. | ||
Jack Abramoff, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Time magazine famously | :01:21. | :01:27. | |
described you as the man who bought Washington. You were known as the | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
most powerful lobbyist in Washington, hey man who could get | :01:30. | :01:35. | |
legislation introduced, changed or even scrapped. A man who was making | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
millions and millions of dollars, but then you went to jail. Now you | :01:40. | :01:45. | |
live a modest lifestyle with your family. Do you live the old -- miss | :01:45. | :01:51. | |
the odd live? I probably miss some of the old action, but I don't miss | :01:51. | :01:57. | |
it enough to try it again. You were born in New Jersey, you were raised | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
in California to a father who worked for a credit card company. | :02:01. | :02:06. | |
As a youngster, he worked for the college Republicans. You made quite | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
a name for yourself there. Why did you choose to leave active politics | :02:12. | :02:18. | |
and eventually choose lobbying as your career? I have left after | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
serving as head of the College Republicans and then moving on to | :02:22. | :02:27. | |
President Reagan's grassroots lobby on Capitol Hill. I left politics to | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
become a movie producer. I spent about eight-ten years producing | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
films and re-entered politics as a poll at -- lobbyist. Lobbying is | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
part of the political scene. I spent about a decade after I re- | :02:42. | :02:50. | |
entered being a lobbyist. Why? Why choose lobbying? I wanted to get | :02:50. | :02:59. | |
back in. I missed politics when I was making films. I missed the | :02:59. | :03:04. | |
Washington scene of and I didn't feel that the appropriate entry | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
point was through a campaign or running for something. The | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
opportunity came up through a friend of mine to join one of the | :03:10. | :03:16. | |
lobbying firms. I took on the responsibilities of helping clients | :03:16. | :03:23. | |
in their political battles. That is how I got back in. You describe, in | :03:23. | :03:30. | |
your book about capital punishment, your life as a lobbyist. In the | :03:30. | :03:35. | |
early years, you do sense a kind of a pride or excitement that perhaps | :03:35. | :03:43. | |
you still feel for your formal work. When you talk about setting up team | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
Abramoff you say it, our team eventually included some of the | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
greatest minds in the policy business, as well as some of the | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
brothers, tough first street-smart killers who ever walked he also of | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
well-heeled war films -- law firms. That sounds like a script from one | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
of your films. I wish it was, they might have done better in the box | :04:02. | :04:09. | |
office. Unfortunately it was a real life. I don't necessarily more of | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
those days, but I try to describe it and describe the feelings that I | :04:12. | :04:18. | |
have. They were feelings of exhilaration. Our idea of a | :04:18. | :04:24. | |
successful day was obliterating our clients' enemies. Unfortunately | :04:24. | :04:31. | |
that is the modus operandi that we had. We were constantly engaged in | :04:31. | :04:40. | |
political battles. When we won and we would go in to win very | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
thoroughly, we were exhilarated, we were delighted. When we last, we | :04:44. | :04:54. | |
only lost once. Described last the lifestyle as a lobbyist. To quote | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
Time magazine again, they describe you as the flamboyant power broker | :04:58. | :05:08. | |
:05:08. | :05:14. | ||
starts on junkets around the world, entertain them in Washington. You | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
do not deny this in your book, do you? That is indeed the lifestyle | :05:19. | :05:27. | |
of an active lobbyist. Lobbying is really two things. One is access | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
and the second is persuasion. The access in Washington often comes | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
with purveying and conveying a financial benefits to the lawmakers | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
and their staff, the people who are public servants. It includes | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
playing golf, travel, meals and political contributions. Of that | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
activity I was probably at the razor's edge. I did and overdid | :05:50. | :05:58. | |
everything I could to maintain the access that the 40s -- 40 lobbyists | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
that work with me within Congress. In the book there is a feeling of | :06:05. | :06:10. | |
inevitability about your demo in a ute did not realise your actions. | :06:10. | :06:16. | |
You said, I never contemplated the payments made to Congress were | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
really just bribes, but they were. Can we really believe that you, | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
such a successful career man, didn't realise that what you were | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
doing was wrong? I will go even further. I think most people still | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
engaged in the system had not come to the epiphany that I have come to. | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
People involved in Washington in terms of making campaign | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
contributions to public servants or providing them meals or whatever | :06:39. | :06:45. | |
they are giving to them do not feel that they are bribing them. They | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
feel that is the way business is done, do they are engaged in | :06:47. | :06:52. | |
relationships with them. They do not really come to the conclusions | :06:52. | :07:00. | |
that I am the came to when it was all over. In the midst of it all I | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
didn't think that this was bribery. I am not certain had I come to that | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
conclusion, as I should have, I might not have treated it as a | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
serious notion. That is the big problem here. That is one of the | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
problems in terms of fixing the system. People feel that it is OK | :07:19. | :07:25. | |
and Perth at the find to do these kind of things. They are not being | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
immoral and they continue to do them. Let's have a look at what you | :07:29. | :07:36. | |
did do, it eventually you. You admitted guilt on a number of | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
charges, including fraud, bribery and tax evasion. But grabbed the | :07:40. | :07:47. | |
headlines was your relationship with a number of Native American | :07:47. | :07:49. | |
tribes are you admitted to defrauding. What did they hire you | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
to do? I was hired by the tribes to do two things. One was to protect | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
their interests in Washington, which we did. I was also hired to | :07:59. | :08:04. | |
protect their interests in their individual states. I should note | :08:04. | :08:11. | |
that what I played guilty to and what I was guilty of was not | :08:11. | :08:18. | |
revealing to the clients that I was sharing in the property of the | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
companies I was brought in to work with. I think my relationship with | :08:21. | :08:29. | |
the tribes has been blown out of proportion in the media. That was | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
specifically what I played too. Let's have a look at that some of | :08:33. | :08:39. | |
managed -- money. In a report in 2006, it said you and your business | :08:39. | :08:45. | |
parte collected about $66 million from six native American tribes | :08:45. | :08:50. | |
between 2001 and 2003. That deserves a headline. That is a huge | :08:50. | :08:56. | |
amount of money. First of all, be paid -- committee report was | :08:56. | :09:03. | |
extremely inaccurate. The sum was actually less than what we were | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
paid by more than six tribes. The efforts that we engage in were | :09:08. | :09:13. | |
extremely active political battles. Many of them cost several million | :09:13. | :09:20. | |
dollars each time. We engaged in them to save $6.8 billion worth of | :09:20. | :09:25. | |
their revenue and worth of their income and value. At the end of the | :09:25. | :09:35. | |
:09:35. | :09:36. | ||
day, I believe the tribes filled, the people I worked for, felt that | :09:36. | :09:40. | |
we did indeed do a fine job for them. What I did do that was wrong | :09:40. | :09:43. | |
and what I have served time for and played guilty to was taking away | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
from them the right to make a decision as to whether engage us | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
based on the full facts. What I didn't do was inform them properly | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
but I was in fact been compensated by companies that are recommended | :09:54. | :10:01. | |
to them. He described how you believe the tribes filled. A member | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
of the tribal council in Michigan said you defrauded his stride out | :10:07. | :10:13. | |
of millions of dollars. He said families and children suffered much | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
pain because of this man. He said, you left a dark stain across... | :10:17. | :10:23. | |
me at least put some context in this. He was part of the very | :10:23. | :10:27. | |
opposition in the tribe that remove the tribal council I worked for. He | :10:27. | :10:33. | |
did everything he could to remove them from the tried let alone the | :10:33. | :10:38. | |
tribal council. He brought his own lobbyists in. He paid them in many | :10:38. | :10:44. | |
cases more than what we were paid. The problem is that their array lot | :10:44. | :10:49. | |
of science to this. A -- there are a lot of sides to this. I am not | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
saying that I did not do things that were wrong. I have tried to | :10:53. | :10:58. | |
focus on the things I actually did wrong. You say that you always did | :10:58. | :11:03. | |
your best for your clients and that you were very sincere in that. The | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
e-mails revealed between you and Mike Scanlon not a very high | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
opinion that you held off those Native American tribes. In March | :11:13. | :11:22. | |
2002, you referred to them as those effing sad chips. You said they | :11:22. | :11:30. | |
played stupid and referred to them as morons. I sent 850,000 e-mails. | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
I was a very rough player. I hope I have changed myself in the eight | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
years I had been in this process. What the committee did not pull out | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
with the mouse I had sent about everybody. I was a very rough | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
player. It was not just about my clients that I had spoken roughly | :11:47. | :11:57. | |
:11:57. | :11:58. | ||
about. I am ashamed about it does e-mails and I am sorry I sent them. | :11:58. | :12:04. | |
I am sorry that I send e-mails to my wife about how kids being morons. | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
I was not careful to be, as everyone should be, aware of the | :12:08. | :12:12. | |
fact that you could wind up reading your e-mails on the front page of | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
the paper. I am terribly sorry about those e-mails. They are a | :12:17. | :12:22. | |
small part of the effort and should reflect a small part of my | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
relationship to the tribes. None of the positive e-mails that I sent it | :12:27. | :12:32. | |
ever came out. We will move on. You say you're sorry. Are you sorry in | :12:32. | :12:39. | |
general about how you treated the tribes? That I used sorry for that? | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
Have used sensory? I am sorry exactly for what I did that was | :12:43. | :12:47. | |
wrong. What I did wrong was that I didn't inform the tribes that I was | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
sharing the profits of the companies are recommended. I am | :12:51. | :12:54. | |
certainly not sorry for winning every effort on their behalf. I am | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
not sorry for working day and night on their behalf. I'm not sorry for | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
the efforts are made to improve their relationships on Capitol Hill | :13:02. | :13:07. | |
and elsewhere. People who asked me to be sorry for things I didn't do | :13:07. | :13:12. | |
it, I'm going to be very disappointing to them. I did plenty | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
wrong it and plenty to be sorry for, but I'm not going to be sorry for | :13:15. | :13:22. | |
things I didn't do. You owe the tribes money. Tribes and others. | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
But the tribes more than $20 million. Tom Rogers, the trouble | :13:26. | :13:31. | |
advocate who did much of the ground were to expose your work, says, | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
we're not asking for tens of millions of dollars, we want to | :13:34. | :13:38. | |
atonement. You cannot have true redemption without due atonement. | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
His issue should go to the poorest reservation in the country and | :13:41. | :13:46. | |
asked to work with the elders and the children they have, without a | :13:46. | :13:53. | |
camera crew of reporters. Ironically, Mr Rogers, who was a | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
rival lobbyist to last and was defeated by us, his suggestion was | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
something I asked to do at the beginning of this. I wanted to go | :14:02. | :14:07. | |
to a reservation to work and I was turned down. The fact is, the | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
efforts that we engaged in a vet about a decade at the time I was a | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
lobbyist did more than could -- more good than harm. We prevented | :14:15. | :14:20. | |
them from losing billions and billions of dollars in federal | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
taxation and egregious federal legislation to take over the tribes. | :14:24. | :14:31. | |
We were at time solely responsible for that. Will be paid and that? | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
People like him have their opinions. Some of them have agendas. I | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
certainly apologise to the people I have offended. But will be paid | :14:39. | :14:47. | |
about? I am trying. A how much have you pay them back so far? I am just | :14:47. | :14:52. | |
out of prison and felons did exactly have all the financial | :14:52. | :14:55. | |
opportunities that one would have. You are paid for your speaking | :14:55. | :15:01. | |
engagements. I am and portions of that money goes to the restitution | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
that I hope. Everything that I earn, every dollar that I own and every | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
dollar that I spend, is overseen by the Justice Department. I don't | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
think people have to worry that I'm screwing money away. I wish I were | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
able to, but I am not. And dedicated to paying back the | :15:17. | :15:27. | |
:15:27. | :15:32. | ||
There are others who question the sincerity of your remorse. In your | :15:32. | :15:38. | |
books and public speaking. For example, a former Washington Post | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
journalist, he writes, reading his book we're left with a odd mixture | :15:42. | :15:52. | |
:15:52. | :15:55. | ||
of chanted admission and score- settling. Geoffrey Smith has part | :15:55. | :16:00. | |
of an agenda. You have to understand, people have been | :16:00. | :16:05. | |
involved in this for 8-10 years who are on one side or the other. He | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
actually spent time writing articles about me in the Washington | :16:08. | :16:14. | |
Post. He was part of the team that got the bullet surprise. They were | :16:14. | :16:24. | |
:16:24. | :16:25. | ||
very offended that part of their story was wrong. -- Pulitzer Prize. | :16:25. | :16:29. | |
It is hard for me to respond to all of these allegations, some of them | :16:29. | :16:34. | |
are absolutely baseless. In terms of my book being score-settling, I | :16:34. | :16:44. | |
:16:44. | :16:47. | ||
invite anyone who reads my book to tell me where I settle scores. Some | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
people criticise me for not bringing out enough detail about | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
things that people did. I just wanted to tell the story of what | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
happened. I wanted to tell America what is still going on and how I | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
did it so we can find a way of fixing fee system. If I can ask you, | :17:06. | :17:12. | |
your faith is very important to you. You write about it a lock. It is | :17:12. | :17:22. | |
:17:22. | :17:23. | ||
evident from the personal choices business you were in and dedicated | :17:23. | :17:28. | |
to, you did not write, you did not telephone, you did not send e-mails | :17:28. | :17:35. | |
on the Sabbath. How did your behaviour sit with your religious | :17:35. | :17:43. | |
faith? I strive to be religious. Like anyone who strives to reach a | :17:43. | :17:52. | |
higher standard, I am also a sinner. I'm not a saint. It is a struggle | :17:52. | :17:58. | |
between the angels and the apes. Being pulled down into the mark and | :17:58. | :18:04. | |
Maya, rising up to more ethereal behaviour. I have had troubles or | :18:04. | :18:09. | |
my life. I will have them for the rest of my life. How does it make | :18:09. | :18:19. | |
:18:19. | :18:20. | ||
you feel when a leading rabbi on the Jewish religion, a professor at | :18:20. | :18:25. | |
the University, after he pleaded guilty in 2006 he described you as | :18:25. | :18:32. | |
a blot on the religious world. -- after you. He said you were an | :18:32. | :18:40. | |
embarrassment to Judaism. I do not know who that man is. That is not | :18:40. | :18:43. | |
the statement of an Orthodox Jew. To say such a thing against a | :18:43. | :18:52. | |
fellow Jew. Especially one who is trying to do penance. I do not know | :18:52. | :18:57. | |
who he is and I do not think I need to comment about him. When you were | :18:57. | :19:01. | |
earning millions of dollars, he gave a lot of money to charity. You | :19:01. | :19:05. | |
say you are giving 80% of your income to good causes and to help | :19:05. | :19:13. | |
people. -- you were. You describe in your first job interview, you | :19:13. | :19:17. | |
could never fight for something you did not believe in. I would not do | :19:17. | :19:22. | |
it for all the money in the world. Could you stand there and say you | :19:22. | :19:27. | |
have stayed true to that? Yes, I can. I did not take on one caused | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
that I did not believe him. I turned down many that were quite | :19:31. | :19:37. | |
lucrative. Would you say the lobbying business has changed since | :19:37. | :19:42. | |
you were operating? Not really. There are some changes on the | :19:42. | :19:48. | |
margins. The modus operandi is pretty much the same. They have | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
more hurdles to get around as a consequence of my scandal. For the | :19:52. | :20:02. | |
:20:02. | :20:04. | ||
most part the system is intact. After the Reform Act of 2006 was | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
introduced, you have been pretty scathing about the reforms. I have | :20:09. | :20:14. | |
not been skating. I have said they do not go far enough. They do not | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
do what is necessary. What is necessary to read out is corruption, | :20:19. | :20:27. | |
the corruption I was involved in, is to sever the link between | :20:27. | :20:34. | |
lobbyists and the public servants. We are working to push the ball | :20:34. | :20:40. | |
further down the court. But I believe they got what they thought | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
they could get at the time. Everything proposed in Washington | :20:44. | :20:51. | |
DC has got to go through a congress whose own members are looking to | :20:51. | :20:57. | |
the future of becoming lobbyists. They will look very carefully at | :20:57. | :21:04. | |
changing roles that will benefit them later. -- rules. When you were | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
sentenced, the judge said you have corrupted the political process and | :21:07. | :21:12. | |
deprived the public of the honest services of their own public | :21:12. | :21:15. | |
officials in the legislative and executive branch. You say you were | :21:15. | :21:25. | |
:21:25. | :21:31. | ||
not alone. I do not think any sensible person could say that. I | :21:31. | :21:41. | |
:21:41. | :21:44. | ||
anticipated, I was part of a system. -- participated. There has been a | :21:44. | :21:54. | |
:21:54. | :21:56. | ||
letter to the Daily congressional newsletter, do not paint as all | :21:56. | :22:03. | |
with the brush. The majority do not go to jail for it. I agree with | :22:03. | :22:13. | |
:22:13. | :22:13. | ||
that. I say that everywhere. Most lobbyists are doing just fine. 99.9 | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
%, I do not think that is right. But I would say 90% are behaving | :22:17. | :22:24. | |
properly. There are 30,000 lobbyists in Washington DC. Let's | :22:24. | :22:30. |