68 Facts About Jack Abramoff

Jack Allan Abramoff is an American lobbyist, businessman, film producer, writer, and convicted criminal.

Jack Abramoff was at the center of an extensive federal corruption investigation, which resulted in his conviction and 21 others either pleading guilty or being found guilty, including White House officials J Steven Griles and David Safavian, US Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional aides.

Jack Abramoff served 43 months before being released on December 3,2010.

Jack Abramoff was born February 28,1959, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to parents Jane and Franklin Jack Abramoff, who was president of the franchises unit of Diners Club International.

In 1969, when Jack Abramoff was ten years old, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California.

Jack Abramoff attended Beverly Hills High School, where he played football and was a weightlifting champion.

In 2007, Jonathan Gold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic for The Los Angeles Times who attended Beverly Hills High School at the same time, recounted an incident in which Jack Abramoff pushed him and his cello down a flight of stairs.

Jack Abramoff attended Brandeis University, where he was elected treasurer of the Brandeis College Republicans.

Jack Abramoff's chief competitor, Amy Moritz, was persuaded to drop out; later, as Amy Ridenour, she became a founding director of the National Center for Public Policy Research and was treated to several trips funded by Jack Abramoff when Abramoff was a federal lobbyist.

Jack Abramoff "changed the direction of the [college] committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before", CRNC notes.

At the CRNC, Jack Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation, many who went on to hold key roles in state and national politics and business and some who later interacted with Jack Abramoff in his role as a lobbyist.

In 1985, Jack Abramoff joined Citizens for America, a pro-Reagan group that helped Oliver North build support for the Contras in Nicaragua.

Jack Abramoff later departed Citizens for America when the organization's primary sponsor, Lewis Lehrman, a former New York gubernatorial candidate, concluded that Jack Abramoff had spent the organization's money carelessly.

Jack Abramoff subsequently spent a decade in Hollywood, where he developed, wrote, and produced, with his brother Robert, the 1989 film Red Scorpion.

Jack Abramoff served as executive producer to the film's sequel, Red Scorpion 2, which was released in 1994.

Jack Abramoff met Lapin's brother and fellow rabbi Daniel Lapin, who allegedly introduced Abramoff to US Representative Tom DeLay at a Washington, DC dinner shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, though Lapin later said he did not recall making the introduction.

In 1995, Jack Abramoff began representing Native American tribes with gambling interests.

Jack Abramoff became involved with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a federally-recognized tribe.

Jack Abramoff negotiated with the Marianas for a $1.2 million no-bid contract for "promoting ethics in government", which was awarded to David Lapin, brother of his associate Daniel Lapin.

In 1999, US Representative Dana Rohrabacher participated in an Jack Abramoff-funded trip to the Marshall Islands with US Representatives John Doolittle and Ken Calvert, delegates from Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands, and eight staffers.

Jack Abramoff arranged for Ralph Reed's marketing company to mail Christian conservative voters, and he bribed Roger Stillwell, a high-ranking political appointee at the US Department of the Interior who was responsible for some Native American gaming policies.

Emails from 2000 indicate that Susan Ralston helped Jack Abramoff pass checks from eLottery to Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition and Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, en route to Reed's company, Century Strategies.

In January 2001, Jack Abramoff left Preston Gates to join the government relations practice of Greenberg Traurig in Washington, DC The firm described Jack Abramoff as "directly involved in the Republican Party and conservative movement leadership structures" and "one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates".

When he moved to Greenberg Traurig, Jack Abramoff took as much as $6 million worth of client business from his old firm, including the Marianas Islands account, to the new firm.

At Greenberg Traurig, Jack Abramoff recruited a team of lobbyists known as "Team Jack Abramoff", which included many of his former employees from Preston Gates and former senior US Congress staff members.

At Greenberg Traurig, Jack Abramoff eventually represented 24 clients, according to lobbyist registration records, seven of which were Indian tribes.

Flanigan told the US Senate Judiciary Committee that Jack Abramoff "bragged" that he could help Tyco avoid tax liability aimed at offshore companies because he "had good relationships with members of Congress".

Jack Abramoff used them to oppose proposals to penalize US corporations registered abroad for tax reasons.

Jack Abramoff's team represented the government of Malaysia, and worked toward improving Malaysian political and trade relations with the US.

Jack Abramoff met with the government of Sudan, offering it a plan to deflect criticism from US Christian groups concerned about Sudan's role in the Darfur conflict.

Jack Abramoff promised to enlist Reed to launch a grassroots campaign to improve the image of Sudan in the United States.

Between 1999 and 2003, Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist for the school television news service Channel One News, which retained Jack Abramoff to ensure Congress did not block funds to their service.

Jack Abramoff paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying and donated $50,000 to Capital Athletic Foundation, a charity Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for lobbying activities.

Jack Abramoff spent over $1 million to maintain four luxury skyboxes at major sports arenas, which he used for political entertaining and hosting fundraisers, including events for politicians publicly opposed to gambling, including US Representative John Doolittle.

In 2001, US Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Max Baucus returned $18,892 in contributions, which his office found to be connected to Jack Abramoff, including an estimated $1,892 that was never reported for Baucus' use of Jack Abramoff's Washington, DC skybox at a professional sports arena and concert venue earlier that year.

Jack Abramoff co-owned of Signatures Restaurant, a high-end Washington, DC restaurant, which he used to reward friends and associates.

In 2000,2002, and 2003, DeLay, Ney, and Tom Feeney participated in golf trips to Scotland with Jack Abramoff, which were arranged or funded by Jack Abramoff.

Ney later pleaded guilty to knowing that Jack Abramoff paid for the trip.

Jack Abramoff was a highly influential figure as lobbyist and activist during the Bush administration.

In 2001, Jack Abramoff was a member of the Bush administration's 2001 Transition Advisory Team assigned to the Department of the Interior.

The draft report of the House Government Reform Committee said the documents, which largely included Jack Abramoff's billing records and e-mails, listed 485 lobbying contacts between Jack Abramoff and White House officials over three years, including ten with Karl Rove, a senior White House advisor to Bush.

In 2003, Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million from Omar Bongo, the president of Gabon, to arrange a meeting with Bush, and directed his fees to GrassRoots Interactive, an Jack Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm.

White House and State Department officials described Bush's meeting with Bongo, whose government was regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine, and said they knew of no involvement by Jack Abramoff in arranging it.

Jack Abramoff was identified in the background of a photo taken at the meeting.

Jack Abramoff recently granted a rare press interview to Vanity Fair magazine, where he asserts President Bush and other prominent figures in Washington know him very well.

Jack Abramoff called them liars for denying contact with him.

In June 2006, unknown to Abramoff's attorneys or federal prosecutors, Abramoff began secretly granting exclusive interviews to Gary S Chafetz, a former investigative reporter with The Boston Globe.

The interviews, which occurred before and during Jack Abramoff's incarceration, continued through May 2008.

In September 2008, Chafetz's book, The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, was rushed into print prior to the 2008 presidential election.

Jack Abramoff has founded or run several non-profit organizations, including Capital Athletic Foundation and Eshkol Academy, lobbying firms, and political think tanks, including American International Center, GrassRoots Interactive, and the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Jack Abramoff solicited Safavian's help in looking for property deals for Eshkol Academy and tribal clients, leading to Safavian's conviction.

Jack Abramoff was a board member, secretary, and treasurer of Maldon Institute for at least five years from 1999 to 2003.

Jack Abramoff was one of only four board members, including ohn Rees and PJ Johnson.

In late 2004, the US Senate Indian Affairs Committee began investigating Jack Abramoff's lobbying on behalf of American Indian tribes and casinos.

On January 4,2006, Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud in Miami, related to the SunCruz deal.

In 2002, Jack Abramoff was retained under a secret contract by the Superior Court of Guam to lobby against a bill proposing to put the Superior Court under the authority of the Guam Supreme Court.

On January 3,2006, Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony counts for conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion involving charges stemming principally from his lobbying activities in Washington, DC, on behalf of Native American tribes.

Further, Jack Abramoff owes the Internal Revenue Service $1.7 million as a result of his guilty plea to the tax evasion charge.

Jack Abramoff cooperated in a bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides, and members of the Bush administration.

Jack Abramoff served four of his six-year sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, and then was released to a half-way house.

On June 8,2010, Jack Abramoff was released from federal prison and was transferred to a halfway house in Baltimore, Maryland, where he served the remainder of his six-year sentence.

Jack Abramoff completing his sentence, Jack Abramoff registered as a federal lobbyist and returned to lobbying in 2017, attempting to arrange meetings between then President-elect Donald Trump and foreign leaders.

On July 14,2020, Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and violating the Lobbying Disclosure Act in relation to the AML BitCoin case under which he faced up to five years in prison for each count.

Jack Abramoff has a Facebook page, a game app, "Congressional Jack", and is developing a feature film about the lobbying milieu.

Jack Abramoff has joined United Republic, an anti-corruption nonprofit organization, and in February 2012 became a lead blogger at United Republic's newly launched "Republic Report", which is described as "an anti-corruption blog focusing on how self-interested dollars are warping the public-interest responsibilities of America's democratic institutions" by HuffPost.

Jack Abramoff has appeared as a guest on CNN, discussing lobbying and the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

In July 2012, Premier Networks announced it was launching "The Jack Abramoff Show" on XM Satellite Radio's "Talk Radio" channel, on which Abramoff would hold forth on political reform.

Jack Abramoff married to Pamela Clarke Jack Abramoff, a co-manager and executive assistant at Capital Athletic Foundation, since July 1986.