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Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist’s playbook Or
How To Buy Your Own Congressperson

CBS 60 Minutes

November 07, 2011 — Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington’s biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.

Transcript

Jack Abramoff may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time. He was at the center of a massive scandal of brazen corruption and influence peddling.

As a Republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s, he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. He was so good at it, he took home $20 million a year.

Jack Abramoff: Inside Capitol corruption
How corrupt is lobbying in Washington, DC? Enough to get “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl angry when she hears how Jack Abramoff bribed and influenced legislators.

It all came crashing down five years ago, when Jack Abramoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials, tax evasion and fraud, and served three and a half years in prison.

Today he’s a symbol of how money corrupts Washington. In our interview tonight, he opens up his playbook for the first time.

And explains exactly how he used his clients’ money to buy powerful friends and influence legislation.

Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn’t figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.

Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.

Abramoff: As I look back it was effective. It certainly helped the people I was trying to help, both the clients and the Republicans at that time.

Lesley Stahl: But even that, you’re now saying, was corrupt?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: Can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman?

Abramoff: I was actually thinking of writing a book – “The Idiot’s Guide to Buying a Congressman” – as a way to put this all down. First, I think most congressmen don’t feel they’re being bought. Most congressmen, I think, can in their own mind justify the system.

Stahl: Rationalize.

Abramoff: –rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way.

Abramoff would provide freebies and gifts – looking for favors for his clients in return. He’d lavish certain congressmen and senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world’s great golf destinations like St. Andrews in Scotland. Free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area’s sporting events; including two skyboxes at Washington Redskins games.

Abramoff: I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what not at all the venues.

Stahl: A million dollars?

Abramoff: Ya. Ya.

Stahl: For the best seats?

Abramoff: The best seats. I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.

Stahl: And the congressman or senator could take his favorite people from his district to the game–

Abramoff: The congressman or senator uh, could take two dozen of his favorite people from their district.

Stahl: Was all that legal?

Ira Rosen is the producer.

Abramoff: We would certainly try to make the activity legal, if we could. At times we didn’t care.

But the “best way” to get a congressional office to do his bidding – he says – was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.” Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ‘em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.

Neil Volz: Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that’s how persuasive he was.

Neil Volz was one of the staffers Abramoff was talking about. He was chief of staff to Congressman Bob Ney, who as chairman of the House Administration Committee had considerable power to dispense favors. Abramoff targeted Volz and offered him a job.

Stahl: You’re the chief of staff of a powerful congressman. And Jack owns you and you haven’t even left working for the congressman.

Volz: I have the distinct memory of, you know, negotiating with Jack at a hockey game. So we’re, you know, just a few rows back. The crowd’s goin’ crazy. And Jack and I are havin’ a business conversation. And, you know, I’m– I’m wrestlin’ with how much I think I should get paid. And then five minutes later we’re– he’s askin’ me questions about some clients of his.

Stahl: When you look back was that the corrupting moment?

Volz: I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship. So there were several corrupting moments. There isn’t just one moment. There were many.

Abramoff: At the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street, wanted to be lobbyists.

Stahl: You’re telling me this, the genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff, say. I’m having two reactions. One is brilliant. And the other is I’m sick to my stomach.

Abramoff: Right. Evil. Yeah. Terrible.

Stahl: ‘Cause it’s hurting our country.

Abramoff: Shameful. Absolutely. It’s the worst thing that could happen. All parts of the system.

Stahl: I’m mad at you.

Abramoff: I was mad at me–

Stahl: I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding.

Abramoff: Look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I’m ashamed of the fact I was there, the very reason why now I’m speaking about it. And now I’m trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was– it was wrong of me to do it.

One of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend, the Majority Leader Tom Delay, eventually hiring his deputy chief of staff and his press secretary, and going into business with Delay’s chief of staff.

Stahl: Did you own his staff?

Abramoff: I was as close to his staff as to any staff. I had a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff.

Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?

Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.

Stahl: Come on.

Abramoff: No.

Stahl: A hundred offices?

Abramoff: In those days, I would view that as a failure. Because that leaves 335 offices that we didn’t have strong influence in.

Stahl: Did he own you?

Bob Ney: Oh, I don’t believe Jack Abramoff owned me. But were we involved in the culture of corruption together? Absolutely.

Former Republican Congressman Bob Ney was ambitious and looked at Abramoff as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader.

Ney: I wanted to be speaker of the House and Jack Abramoff was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with, Tom Delay.

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