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Over nine months ago a story in
the The MadCowMorningNews
revealed that disgraced Republican
lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s biggest
legal worries concerned neither
the fraudulent takeover of the SunCruz
gambling ships, nor the Indian casino
lollapalooza in which "Casino
Jack" skimmed tens of millions
of dollars off the take from casinos
on Indian reservations across the
U.S.
Abramoff’s big fear, we reported
in a story in June of 2005 headlined
“Terrorists
Torpedoes and Republican Muscle,”
centered on his potential “exposure”
in the gangland-style assassination
of Boulis, a murder which figures
prominently in his rise to power.
This week, with a vengeance, that
prediction began to come true, when
defense attorneys for reputed Gambino
associates accused of the hit on
Gus Boulis announced plans to subpoena
both Abramoff and his former business
partner Adam Kidan.
They
want to question the two men, court
documents showed, about their purchase
of SunCruz, alleged to be "at
the heart" of the murder case.
Abramoff and Kidan's testimony is
critical, the lawyers alleged, in
showing the bitter feelings and
power struggle that followed their
purchase of SunCruz from Boulis
in September 2000.
In plain English, they want to ask
Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan what
they know personally about the subject
of “murder for hire.”
A
man whose cash was key in two American
Presidential elections being questioned
about "Murder for hire."
Imagine the possibilities.
We
(hardly) ever stoop to saying 'We
told you so."
On
a day which saw Zacharias Moussaoui's
death penalty trial go to the jury
in Washington D.C., Jack Abramoff
getting sentenced in Florida, and
George W Bush joining college kids
on spring break in Cancun, the only
bright spot all day on Wednesday
was provided by a total eclipse
of the Sun.
Taking a tip from an old playbook—recall
Al Capone ensconced at his South
Florida mansion when the St. Valentines’
Day Massacre rocked Chicago— Bush
slipped out of D.C. just as his
erstwhile buddy Abramoff was facing
the music (such as it was) in a
Miami Federal courthouse.
For Bush it was clearly a smart
move. But it also held eerie echoes
of the circumstances surrounding
the murder of Sun Cruz Casino gambling
line czar Gus Boulis, which conveniently
occurred while his chief antagonists
Abramoff and Kidan were safely out
of the country, and presumably innocent,
by virtue of geographic distance.
It was fuzzy logic, as if the Age
of Specialization had never happened
to humanity, and we still lived
in a world where everyone grew their
own food and Mob Boss’s did their
own hits.
But
be that as it may—and thank God
for small favors—there was Jack
Abramoff, looking sheepish and properly
humbled, standing before a U.S.
District Court Judge being sentenced
to federal prison.
So
that’s where we’ll begin…
"When did
newspapers stop reporting what happens
every day?"
While going to court for sentencing
is probably nobody's idea of fun,
Wednesday actually turned out to
be an exceptionally good day for
disgraced Republican lobbyist Abramoff
and co-defendant Adam Kidan. 
It
was 'high fives' all around, as
U.S. District Judge Paul Huck accepted
the plea of Abramoff's lawyers and
gave him the shortest possible prison
time.
How odd that news clips weren't
reflecting this fact. They made
it sound, in fact, as if he'd gotten
his just desserts:
“U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck
sentenced Jack Abramoff and a former
business partner to five years and
10 months in prison and ordered
them to pay restitution of more
than $21 million.”
It sounded almost draconian. But
what news accounts left unmentioned
was that for the same crimes someone
without Casino Jack's, um, impeccable
credentials would be looking
at a slightly more severe scenario:
Twenty years of being somebody’s
bitch in a world where cigarettes
double as legal tender.
But what passes for reality in America
today, lucky for Jack, consists
of little more than a flimsy façade.
For example, Abramoff got away with
laundering millions of dollars
through IRS-approved charitable
foundations
which didn’t even pretend
to being real, with the following
"mission statement":
“American International Center
is a Delaware-based corporation
with the global minded purpose of
enhancing the methods of empowerment
in possession of and within the
United States.”
A man with a
plan... a "global minded"
plan
No
wonder 263 people wrote Judge Huck
to ask for clemency for Abramoff.
Perhaps this is why we haven’t seen
stories reporting what really
happened in the ongoing
saga of Jack Abramoff during sentencing
in Miami.
A real story would
have had to start like this...
“After being sentenced to prison,
Jack Abramoff and his co-defendant,
henchman Adam Kidan, left a Federal
courtroom in Miami on Wednesday
walking on air…
Here's
a newsflash for the AP, NY Times,
and Washington Post: Abramoff and
Kidan got a sweetheart deal that
any convict would take in a heartbeat.
The message sent by Abramoff’s sentencing
is anything but “Crime doesn’t
pay.”
Of course, anyone capable of stealing
$43 million and negotiating a sentence
of just six years in a country club
federal prison camp is guaranteed
to become a legend in American jurisprudence.
For having negotiated the Deal of
the Century he is about to go down
in history...Credit where credit
is due:
Jack Abramoff is a con’s con.
More
mascara under the bridge
But wait. There’s more.
Abramoff and Kidan have also been
promised further reductions
in their already meager jail time,
for ‘cooperating’ with authorities.
What “cooperating with authorities”
means, in practice, primarily consists
of “ratting out” some government
pre-selected associates-turned-targets,
leaning heavily towards inconsequential
Congresspersons unfortunate enough
to be less influential than their
peers.
Big
deal. A few schmucks are peeing
their Sansabelts. If public outcry
grows too loud, it appears there
may even be a contingency plan:
offering up Katherine Harris. Even
die-hard Republicans aren't too
troubled by that prospect.
So Jack’s cup truly runneth over.
Being connected in America today
truly does mean never
having to say your sorry.
But before all this prompts you
to hurl your new set of Ginzu knives
at your TV in disgust, be advised
of two slightly hopeful signs also
at work:
1.
Nothing is at it seems. And…
2.
What we are seeing, so far, is just
the tip of the iceberg.
What that means is that, under the
right circumstances, this could
really get interesting.
"Look out
kid. They keep it all hid."
When Sun Cruz casino czar Gus Boulis
was gunned down in a plot described
by one reporter as featuring “three
mugs, and a moll,” it set
in motion a train of events which
is today culminating in a situation
which asks some momentous questions
about the health (or even existence)
of an American Republic.
What do Mob hit men
in Florida have in common with high-powered
Republican lobbyists? Could this
be the biggest scandal in American
history? Will it be allowed
to break? Or will it, like Iran
Contra and almost every other recent
American scandal, by quietly but
effectively covered up?
How will the powerful shadowy forces
operating in the background—you
know the ones— respond should
there be inadvertent public disclosure
of any of the truly earthshaking
revelations out there waiting to
be stumbled upon?
Won’t they be doing their darned-est
to make sure nothing that unsettling
occurs?
The roots of the Abramoff Scandal
go so deep into the national Republican
Party, and spread so wide, that
we believe they will prove virtually
impossible to ignore...even in an
American press corps whose chief
shared characteristic is the ability
to stand stock still with their
hair on fire while at the same time
assuring their readers they can’t
smell smoke.
Tomorrow,
we’ll pull back the curtain, just
a little, and get a quick glance
at things as they are in the world,
before they’re rewritten by soulless
drudges at papers like the Los Angeles
Times. A warning: Some parts of
the story, we quickly discovered,
were almost too cynical for words.
Remember Ronald Reagan's kitchen
cabinet advisor, Alfred Bloomingdale?
Betsy's hubby?
He played a small but significant
role in the Abramoff story, we will
learn. And he
was also and at the same time
the central figure in a little-remembered
sex scandal with a woman named Vicki
Morgan, said to have involved all
kinds of top Republican officials,
caught on camera with their
little pink things showing.
Anyone without both a strong stomach
and an unerring sense of the absurd
should be forewarned. The image
of then-Attorney General Ed Meese
reportedly playing kinky S &
M games in the nude captured
on videotape is perhaps
one reason its been forgotten. 
The murder of the chief witness
is certainly another.
While pursuing leads in the story
of how Jack Abramoff became Jack
Abramoff we even
learned details--heartbreaking
details, really-- about Kiki Camerena,
the DEA agent tortured and murdered
in Mexico.
While he's only tangentially involved
(through his attorney) in the Abramoff
saga, what we learned about him
while pursuing the Abramoff story
may change the way you think about
the people running America.
And we'll learn that poking into
the juncture of Gus Boulis and Jack
Abramoff is sensitive enough for
a reporter to hear some well-meaning
concerns expressed about his physical
health.
But... Abramoff's already
been disgraced. So why is heretofore
knowledge about his role in the
murder of Gus Boulis considered
a "threat to current
operations?"
Stay tuned.
MONDAY: The Rise to Power of Jack
Abramoff
NOTE: WE WILL BE POSTING AN UPDATE
ON THE CURRENT LAWSUIT SHORTLY.
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