:00:13. > :00:17.In the lead-up to November's presidential election in the US,
:00:17. > :00:22.grips on the right and left are sounding the alarm at the influence
:00:22. > :00:26.on money on US politics. Outguess today knows a lot about that. At
:00:26. > :00:32.the height of his career he made billions as a career lobbyist in
:00:32. > :00:36.Washington. His fall from grace was dramatic, seeing him publicly
:00:36. > :00:40.disgraced and imprisoned for fraud and bribery. A free man once again,
:00:40. > :00:43.Jack Abramoff now says he is a reformed man, lobbying to correct
:00:43. > :00:48.what he describes as a corrupt system where he says his behaviour
:00:48. > :00:50.was, and continues, to be commonplace. Is he trying to make
:00:50. > :01:00.amends for his past or trying to put the planes on -- blame on
:01:00. > :01:21.
:01:21. > :01:27.Jack Abramoff, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Time magazine famously
:01:27. > :01:30.described you as the man who bought Washington. You were known as the
:01:30. > :01:35.most powerful lobbyist in Washington, hey man who could get
:01:35. > :01:40.legislation introduced, changed or even scrapped. A man who was making
:01:40. > :01:45.millions and millions of dollars, but then you went to jail. Now you
:01:45. > :01:51.live a modest lifestyle with your family. Do you live the old -- miss
:01:51. > :01:57.the odd live? I probably miss some of the old action, but I don't miss
:01:57. > :02:01.it enough to try it again. You were born in New Jersey, you were raised
:02:01. > :02:06.in California to a father who worked for a credit card company.
:02:07. > :02:12.As a youngster, he worked for the college Republicans. You made quite
:02:12. > :02:18.a name for yourself there. Why did you choose to leave active politics
:02:18. > :02:22.and eventually choose lobbying as your career? I have left after
:02:22. > :02:27.serving as head of the College Republicans and then moving on to
:02:27. > :02:31.President Reagan's grassroots lobby on Capitol Hill. I left politics to
:02:32. > :02:37.become a movie producer. I spent about eight-ten years producing
:02:37. > :02:42.films and re-entered politics as a poll at -- lobbyist. Lobbying is
:02:42. > :02:50.part of the political scene. I spent about a decade after I re-
:02:50. > :02:59.entered being a lobbyist. Why? Why choose lobbying? I wanted to get
:02:59. > :03:04.back in. I missed politics when I was making films. I missed the
:03:04. > :03:07.Washington scene of and I didn't feel that the appropriate entry
:03:07. > :03:10.point was through a campaign or running for something. The
:03:10. > :03:16.opportunity came up through a friend of mine to join one of the
:03:16. > :03:23.lobbying firms. I took on the responsibilities of helping clients
:03:23. > :03:30.in their political battles. That is how I got back in. You describe, in
:03:30. > :03:35.your book about capital punishment, your life as a lobbyist. In the
:03:35. > :03:43.early years, you do sense a kind of a pride or excitement that perhaps
:03:43. > :03:46.you still feel for your formal work. When you talk about setting up team
:03:46. > :03:48.Abramoff you say it, our team eventually included some of the
:03:49. > :03:53.greatest minds in the policy business, as well as some of the
:03:53. > :03:57.brothers, tough first street-smart killers who ever walked he also of
:03:58. > :04:02.well-heeled war films -- law firms. That sounds like a script from one
:04:02. > :04:09.of your films. I wish it was, they might have done better in the box
:04:09. > :04:12.office. Unfortunately it was a real life. I don't necessarily more of
:04:12. > :04:18.those days, but I try to describe it and describe the feelings that I
:04:18. > :04:24.have. They were feelings of exhilaration. Our idea of a
:04:24. > :04:31.successful day was obliterating our clients' enemies. Unfortunately
:04:31. > :04:40.that is the modus operandi that we had. We were constantly engaged in
:04:40. > :04:44.political battles. When we won and we would go in to win very
:04:44. > :04:54.thoroughly, we were exhilarated, we were delighted. When we last, we
:04:54. > :04:58.only lost once. Described last the lifestyle as a lobbyist. To quote
:04:58. > :05:08.Time magazine again, they describe you as the flamboyant power broker
:05:08. > :05:14.
:05:14. > :05:19.starts on junkets around the world, entertain them in Washington. You
:05:19. > :05:27.do not deny this in your book, do you? That is indeed the lifestyle
:05:27. > :05:31.of an active lobbyist. Lobbying is really two things. One is access
:05:31. > :05:35.and the second is persuasion. The access in Washington often comes
:05:35. > :05:40.with purveying and conveying a financial benefits to the lawmakers
:05:40. > :05:46.and their staff, the people who are public servants. It includes
:05:46. > :05:50.playing golf, travel, meals and political contributions. Of that
:05:50. > :05:58.activity I was probably at the razor's edge. I did and overdid
:05:59. > :06:05.everything I could to maintain the access that the 40s -- 40 lobbyists
:06:05. > :06:10.that work with me within Congress. In the book there is a feeling of
:06:10. > :06:16.inevitability about your demo in a ute did not realise your actions.
:06:16. > :06:21.You said, I never contemplated the payments made to Congress were
:06:21. > :06:24.really just bribes, but they were. Can we really believe that you,
:06:24. > :06:28.such a successful career man, didn't realise that what you were
:06:29. > :06:32.doing was wrong? I will go even further. I think most people still
:06:33. > :06:36.engaged in the system had not come to the epiphany that I have come to.
:06:36. > :06:39.People involved in Washington in terms of making campaign
:06:39. > :06:45.contributions to public servants or providing them meals or whatever
:06:45. > :06:47.they are giving to them do not feel that they are bribing them. They
:06:47. > :06:52.feel that is the way business is done, do they are engaged in
:06:52. > :07:00.relationships with them. They do not really come to the conclusions
:07:00. > :07:05.that I am the came to when it was all over. In the midst of it all I
:07:05. > :07:11.didn't think that this was bribery. I am not certain had I come to that
:07:11. > :07:15.conclusion, as I should have, I might not have treated it as a
:07:15. > :07:19.serious notion. That is the big problem here. That is one of the
:07:19. > :07:25.problems in terms of fixing the system. People feel that it is OK
:07:25. > :07:29.and Perth at the find to do these kind of things. They are not being
:07:29. > :07:36.immoral and they continue to do them. Let's have a look at what you
:07:36. > :07:40.did do, it eventually you. You admitted guilt on a number of
:07:40. > :07:47.charges, including fraud, bribery and tax evasion. But grabbed the
:07:47. > :07:49.headlines was your relationship with a number of Native American
:07:49. > :07:54.tribes are you admitted to defrauding. What did they hire you
:07:54. > :07:59.to do? I was hired by the tribes to do two things. One was to protect
:07:59. > :08:04.their interests in Washington, which we did. I was also hired to
:08:04. > :08:11.protect their interests in their individual states. I should note
:08:11. > :08:18.that what I played guilty to and what I was guilty of was not
:08:18. > :08:21.revealing to the clients that I was sharing in the property of the
:08:21. > :08:29.companies I was brought in to work with. I think my relationship with
:08:29. > :08:33.the tribes has been blown out of proportion in the media. That was
:08:33. > :08:39.specifically what I played too. Let's have a look at that some of
:08:39. > :08:45.managed -- money. In a report in 2006, it said you and your business
:08:45. > :08:50.parte collected about $66 million from six native American tribes
:08:50. > :08:56.between 2001 and 2003. That deserves a headline. That is a huge
:08:56. > :09:03.amount of money. First of all, be paid -- committee report was
:09:03. > :09:08.extremely inaccurate. The sum was actually less than what we were
:09:08. > :09:13.paid by more than six tribes. The efforts that we engage in were
:09:13. > :09:20.extremely active political battles. Many of them cost several million
:09:20. > :09:25.dollars each time. We engaged in them to save $6.8 billion worth of
:09:25. > :09:35.their revenue and worth of their income and value. At the end of the
:09:35. > :09:36.
:09:36. > :09:40.day, I believe the tribes filled, the people I worked for, felt that
:09:40. > :09:43.we did indeed do a fine job for them. What I did do that was wrong
:09:43. > :09:47.and what I have served time for and played guilty to was taking away
:09:47. > :09:50.from them the right to make a decision as to whether engage us
:09:50. > :09:54.based on the full facts. What I didn't do was inform them properly
:09:54. > :10:01.but I was in fact been compensated by companies that are recommended
:10:01. > :10:07.to them. He described how you believe the tribes filled. A member
:10:07. > :10:13.of the tribal council in Michigan said you defrauded his stride out
:10:13. > :10:17.of millions of dollars. He said families and children suffered much
:10:17. > :10:23.pain because of this man. He said, you left a dark stain across...
:10:23. > :10:27.me at least put some context in this. He was part of the very
:10:27. > :10:33.opposition in the tribe that remove the tribal council I worked for. He
:10:33. > :10:38.did everything he could to remove them from the tried let alone the
:10:38. > :10:44.tribal council. He brought his own lobbyists in. He paid them in many
:10:44. > :10:49.cases more than what we were paid. The problem is that their array lot
:10:49. > :10:53.of science to this. A -- there are a lot of sides to this. I am not
:10:53. > :10:58.saying that I did not do things that were wrong. I have tried to
:10:58. > :11:03.focus on the things I actually did wrong. You say that you always did
:11:03. > :11:08.your best for your clients and that you were very sincere in that. The
:11:08. > :11:13.e-mails revealed between you and Mike Scanlon not a very high
:11:13. > :11:22.opinion that you held off those Native American tribes. In March
:11:22. > :11:30.2002, you referred to them as those effing sad chips. You said they
:11:30. > :11:35.played stupid and referred to them as morons. I sent 850,000 e-mails.
:11:35. > :11:39.I was a very rough player. I hope I have changed myself in the eight
:11:39. > :11:43.years I had been in this process. What the committee did not pull out
:11:43. > :11:47.with the mouse I had sent about everybody. I was a very rough
:11:47. > :11:57.player. It was not just about my clients that I had spoken roughly
:11:57. > :11:58.
:11:58. > :12:04.about. I am ashamed about it does e-mails and I am sorry I sent them.
:12:04. > :12:08.I am sorry that I send e-mails to my wife about how kids being morons.
:12:08. > :12:12.I was not careful to be, as everyone should be, aware of the
:12:12. > :12:17.fact that you could wind up reading your e-mails on the front page of
:12:17. > :12:22.the paper. I am terribly sorry about those e-mails. They are a
:12:22. > :12:27.small part of the effort and should reflect a small part of my
:12:27. > :12:32.relationship to the tribes. None of the positive e-mails that I sent it
:12:32. > :12:39.ever came out. We will move on. You say you're sorry. Are you sorry in
:12:39. > :12:43.general about how you treated the tribes? That I used sorry for that?
:12:43. > :12:47.Have used sensory? I am sorry exactly for what I did that was
:12:47. > :12:51.wrong. What I did wrong was that I didn't inform the tribes that I was
:12:51. > :12:54.sharing the profits of the companies are recommended. I am
:12:54. > :12:59.certainly not sorry for winning every effort on their behalf. I am
:12:59. > :13:02.not sorry for working day and night on their behalf. I'm not sorry for
:13:02. > :13:07.the efforts are made to improve their relationships on Capitol Hill
:13:07. > :13:12.and elsewhere. People who asked me to be sorry for things I didn't do
:13:12. > :13:15.it, I'm going to be very disappointing to them. I did plenty
:13:15. > :13:22.wrong it and plenty to be sorry for, but I'm not going to be sorry for
:13:22. > :13:26.things I didn't do. You owe the tribes money. Tribes and others.
:13:26. > :13:31.But the tribes more than $20 million. Tom Rogers, the trouble
:13:31. > :13:34.advocate who did much of the ground were to expose your work, says,
:13:34. > :13:38.we're not asking for tens of millions of dollars, we want to
:13:38. > :13:41.atonement. You cannot have true redemption without due atonement.
:13:41. > :13:46.His issue should go to the poorest reservation in the country and
:13:46. > :13:53.asked to work with the elders and the children they have, without a
:13:53. > :13:57.camera crew of reporters. Ironically, Mr Rogers, who was a
:13:57. > :14:02.rival lobbyist to last and was defeated by us, his suggestion was
:14:02. > :14:07.something I asked to do at the beginning of this. I wanted to go
:14:07. > :14:11.to a reservation to work and I was turned down. The fact is, the
:14:11. > :14:15.efforts that we engaged in a vet about a decade at the time I was a
:14:15. > :14:20.lobbyist did more than could -- more good than harm. We prevented
:14:20. > :14:24.them from losing billions and billions of dollars in federal
:14:24. > :14:31.taxation and egregious federal legislation to take over the tribes.
:14:31. > :14:36.We were at time solely responsible for that. Will be paid and that?
:14:36. > :14:39.People like him have their opinions. Some of them have agendas. I
:14:39. > :14:47.certainly apologise to the people I have offended. But will be paid
:14:47. > :14:52.about? I am trying. A how much have you pay them back so far? I am just
:14:52. > :14:55.out of prison and felons did exactly have all the financial
:14:55. > :15:01.opportunities that one would have. You are paid for your speaking
:15:01. > :15:05.engagements. I am and portions of that money goes to the restitution
:15:05. > :15:09.that I hope. Everything that I earn, every dollar that I own and every
:15:09. > :15:13.dollar that I spend, is overseen by the Justice Department. I don't
:15:13. > :15:17.think people have to worry that I'm screwing money away. I wish I were
:15:17. > :15:27.able to, but I am not. And dedicated to paying back the
:15:27. > :15:32.
:15:32. > :15:38.There are others who question the sincerity of your remorse. In your
:15:38. > :15:42.books and public speaking. For example, a former Washington Post
:15:42. > :15:52.journalist, he writes, reading his book we're left with a odd mixture
:15:52. > :15:55.
:15:55. > :16:00.of chanted admission and score- settling. Geoffrey Smith has part
:16:00. > :16:05.of an agenda. You have to understand, people have been
:16:05. > :16:08.involved in this for 8-10 years who are on one side or the other. He
:16:08. > :16:14.actually spent time writing articles about me in the Washington
:16:14. > :16:24.Post. He was part of the team that got the bullet surprise. They were
:16:24. > :16:25.
:16:25. > :16:29.very offended that part of their story was wrong. -- Pulitzer Prize.
:16:29. > :16:34.It is hard for me to respond to all of these allegations, some of them
:16:34. > :16:44.are absolutely baseless. In terms of my book being score-settling, I
:16:44. > :16:47.
:16:47. > :16:50.invite anyone who reads my book to tell me where I settle scores. Some
:16:50. > :16:54.people criticise me for not bringing out enough detail about
:16:54. > :17:00.things that people did. I just wanted to tell the story of what
:17:00. > :17:06.happened. I wanted to tell America what is still going on and how I
:17:06. > :17:12.did it so we can find a way of fixing fee system. If I can ask you,
:17:12. > :17:22.your faith is very important to you. You write about it a lock. It is
:17:22. > :17:23.
:17:23. > :17:28.evident from the personal choices business you were in and dedicated
:17:28. > :17:35.to, you did not write, you did not telephone, you did not send e-mails
:17:35. > :17:43.on the Sabbath. How did your behaviour sit with your religious
:17:43. > :17:52.faith? I strive to be religious. Like anyone who strives to reach a
:17:52. > :17:58.higher standard, I am also a sinner. I'm not a saint. It is a struggle
:17:58. > :18:04.between the angels and the apes. Being pulled down into the mark and
:18:04. > :18:09.Maya, rising up to more ethereal behaviour. I have had troubles or
:18:09. > :18:19.my life. I will have them for the rest of my life. How does it make
:18:19. > :18:20.
:18:20. > :18:25.you feel when a leading rabbi on the Jewish religion, a professor at
:18:25. > :18:32.the University, after he pleaded guilty in 2006 he described you as
:18:32. > :18:40.a blot on the religious world. -- after you. He said you were an
:18:40. > :18:43.embarrassment to Judaism. I do not know who that man is. That is not
:18:43. > :18:52.the statement of an Orthodox Jew. To say such a thing against a
:18:52. > :18:57.fellow Jew. Especially one who is trying to do penance. I do not know
:18:57. > :19:01.who he is and I do not think I need to comment about him. When you were
:19:01. > :19:05.earning millions of dollars, he gave a lot of money to charity. You
:19:05. > :19:13.say you are giving 80% of your income to good causes and to help
:19:13. > :19:17.people. -- you were. You describe in your first job interview, you
:19:17. > :19:22.could never fight for something you did not believe in. I would not do
:19:22. > :19:27.it for all the money in the world. Could you stand there and say you
:19:27. > :19:31.have stayed true to that? Yes, I can. I did not take on one caused
:19:31. > :19:37.that I did not believe him. I turned down many that were quite
:19:37. > :19:42.lucrative. Would you say the lobbying business has changed since
:19:42. > :19:48.you were operating? Not really. There are some changes on the
:19:48. > :19:52.margins. The modus operandi is pretty much the same. They have
:19:52. > :20:02.more hurdles to get around as a consequence of my scandal. For the
:20:02. > :20:04.
:20:04. > :20:09.most part the system is intact. After the Reform Act of 2006 was
:20:09. > :20:14.introduced, you have been pretty scathing about the reforms. I have
:20:15. > :20:19.not been skating. I have said they do not go far enough. They do not
:20:19. > :20:27.do what is necessary. What is necessary to read out is corruption,
:20:27. > :20:34.the corruption I was involved in, is to sever the link between
:20:34. > :20:40.lobbyists and the public servants. We are working to push the ball
:20:41. > :20:44.further down the court. But I believe they got what they thought
:20:44. > :20:51.they could get at the time. Everything proposed in Washington
:20:51. > :20:57.DC has got to go through a congress whose own members are looking to
:20:57. > :21:04.the future of becoming lobbyists. They will look very carefully at
:21:04. > :21:07.changing roles that will benefit them later. -- rules. When you were
:21:07. > :21:12.sentenced, the judge said you have corrupted the political process and
:21:12. > :21:15.deprived the public of the honest services of their own public
:21:15. > :21:25.officials in the legislative and executive branch. You say you were
:21:25. > :21:31.
:21:31. > :21:41.not alone. I do not think any sensible person could say that. I
:21:41. > :21:44.
:21:44. > :21:54.anticipated, I was part of a system. -- participated. There has been a
:21:54. > :21:56.
:21:56. > :22:03.letter to the Daily congressional newsletter, do not paint as all
:22:03. > :22:13.with the brush. The majority do not go to jail for it. I agree with
:22:13. > :22:13.
:22:13. > :22:17.that. I say that everywhere. Most lobbyists are doing just fine. 99.9
:22:17. > :22:24.%, I do not think that is right. But I would say 90% are behaving
:22:24. > :22:30.properly. There are 30,000 lobbyists in Washington DC. Let's