Moyers on America; 101; Capitol Crimes

man?! Sonora, I respectfully invoked the privileges previously stated. And I'd say to you, Mr. Abraham Oife, Shane mono. Jack Abramoff was a fallorn figure at the Senate hearing that sealed his downfall. I respectfully end up the privilege that it's her. Again and again, he invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Tribe was never told that $10,000 of their money would be sent to read for chairman when Ralph Reed was seeking the chairmanship of the Georgia Republican Party. This tribe was never told about the secret scheme that allowed Jack Abramoff to skim $5 million from the money. The evidence kept piling up of money, politics, and the buying and selling of influence, a sorted betrayal of democracy.

Those two men walked away with money that would have gone and should have gone to the children and elders of the tribe. Why? Because Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlan were all about the money. For years, he'd been a major domo of Republican Washington. He took lawmakers on junkets around the world, fed them free meals in his own restaurant, turned over his luxury sports skyboxes to politicians with their hands out, and raked in millions of dollars for himself at the same time that he directed millions more to favored politicians and conservative causes. Put yourself in the mind of a lobbyist. You want to figure out a way to get money to a lawmaker without people knowing about it. Well, Abramoff was good at that. He was really good at that. Why would a tribe be making a donation to Americans with tax reform? It's because Mr. Abramoff suggests that we make these donations to these various groups. He was no lone ranger. Lawmakers, corporations, and contributors were joined in a spectacle of corruption. Much of it centered around one of the most powerful men in Congress.

It was like there was a giant machine, and the man in the center controlling all the knobs and levers was Tom Delay. Jack Abramoff's most marketable asset was his connection to the House Majority Leader, Tom Delay. Definitely the people giving money thought they had given money to get close to Tom Delay. Tom Delay is who all of us want to be when we grow up. You're here. Without Tom Delay, there's no Jack Abramoff, and without Jack Abramoff, there is no Tom Delay. They moved money in circles, and the circles moved. It was an enormous money laundering scheme. We were not supposed to be able to catch on. We were not supposed to be able to figure out that this money came from this client and was used to influence this vote. That's the objective. Even in this town where huge sums are routinely paid as the price of political access, what sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit.

Major funding is provided by the Park Foundation, and by our sole corporate funder, Mutual of America, designing customized, individual, and group retirement products. That's why we're your retirement company. I'm Bill Moyers. Welcome to this report of an extraordinary political scandal. The scale of corruption is still coming to light to worst anything since Watergate. In one sense, it's the age old tale of greed, but greed encouraged now by the way our system works. Deep in the plea bargains of Jack Abramoff and his cronies is the admission that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe politicians. Campaign finance is the core of the corruption. They took great pains to cover their tracks, and they might have pulled it off, except for a handful of honest people and the work of some innerprising print reporters,

Senate investigators, and the ethics team at the Department of Justice. Following the money in this story leads us through a bizarre maze of cocktail parties, golf courses, private jets, four-star restaurants, sweatshops, and the chandelier rooms frequented by the high and mighty in Washington. Stay with the twist and turns, and the pieces fall into place. But keep in mind that what you're seeing is only a partial picture. We've not seen the end of Capital Crimes. Sherry Jones produced our report. On changing our mind, I'm Tom Delay from Texas. The story begins in 1984. The year Tom Delay, a pest exterminator from Sugarland, Texas, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. But I have not had, being a freshman, I have not had the opportunity to speak to the leaders of the same in these two parties. That same year, a young Jack Abramoff was introduced to the Republican National Convention.

One of the ever-going lists of young people who have joined in the Republican cause. The chairman of the College Republican National Committee, Jack Abramoff, for purposes of addressing the committee. A self-described, rabid right-winger, he now headed the organization that had launched the careers of Republican power brokers from Leigh Atwater to Karl Rowe. Hello Republicans. I come before you today representing American students. The future of our Republican party. I went to work at the College Republican National Committee in 1982, when he was chairman. And we had a great time. And he's a lot of fun. He's a nice guy, tough guy. We have a lot of fun. We did a lot of great things. Ronald Reagan was our hero. It's Jack. And it's A-B-R-E-M-O-F-F. Okay. When I heard it for the first time, when they mentioned Jack's name, I said to myself, he did it.

Because that's what he did when we were college Republicans. We wanted to entertain Congressman. That was like a winning a football game. The team headed by Abramoff had lots of connections and lots of plays. One of the favorite ones was, can we create a hospitality suite with plenty of liquor and plenty of college girls? And see if we could get a Congressman to come to that. As college students, Jack Abramoff and another young Republican, Grover Norquist, organized campuses for Ronald Reagan. Now Norquist had become Abramoff's executive director. Together, they intended to remove liberals from power, as Abramoff put it permanently. We were idealists. We were young people who thought that we were going to save the world for democracy. I mean, we were fighting for the liberty of the world. And in that sense, we viewed everything as ideology. You're either either helps or fight against the communists or it doesn't.

They dreamed up headline-grabbing stunts, like this one in the shadow of the Capitol, to support Reagan's anti-communist foreign policy. Good morning. My name is Ralph Reed on the executive director of Students for America. Ralph Reed, a junior from the University of Georgia, joined the hard-charging team as a $200 a month intern. It was very simple, very black and white. We used Army metaphors. We talked about being hardcore. Volunteers sent out to organize the grassroots. We're told to memorize a speech from the movie Patton. But for the word Nazis, they would substitute the word Democrats. Wait into them, the young recruits repeated, spill their blood. And if you're the party of composure, and not the party that ducks disclosure, then we're riding our way. From the beginning, Abramoth played fast and loose with the money.

We were bankrupt, and we owed thousands and thousands of dollars. And I was going, we had people call us every day printing companies and morning money. And I played that horrible game for six months or three months of going, I don't have the bills, send me a bill. What's it for? And so forth, because we were inundated with just tons of debt that Jack can run up. Two of my colleagues and I quit working with him in 1983, because we thought he was completely unethical. And I never went back to talk to him since. And so it is to our party that they come. It is with us that they trust our dreams. And it is in us that they place their hopes. He seemed to be very much a man of principle. Until you got into it with Jack and began to see what he did when it came to money, Jack had no principles.

And it is for them that we must restore liberty and righteousness throughout the world. Thank you. As the Reagan years came to an end, Abramoth headed home to Hollywood to try his hand at producing movies. His first effort was the anti-communist action flick, Red Scorpion. Let's kick some ass. The plot could have been hatched at the think tank Abramoth had run that tried to polish the image of the apartheid South African government. His movie, Like His Organization, was reportedly bankrupted by the racist military regime that imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 27 years. Are you out of your mind? They got awful. Wrote one critic.

But if Abramoth had a dim future in Hollywood, there was a political tsunami brewing that would carry him back to Washington. In November 1994, Republicans won eight new Senate seats and a whopping 52 seats in the House. The revolution, imagined by Abramoth in his college Republicans, was embodied in Newt Gingrich. The new speaker of the House. Gingrich put Washington on notice. If you want to play in our revolution, he said, you have to live by our rule. And that the center of the action was Grover Norquist, a chief architect of the revolution. And he had loved to get together since Thursday morning, if I can't fly off to Newt Gingrich. Horing over list of campaign contributions, Norquist concocted a scheme to turn Washington into a Republican town. Insist that only Republicans be hired as lobbyist and make sure the lobbyist contribute only to Republicans.

The result would be a lucrative money machine for the party. He dubbed it the Kay Street Project after the lobbyist main drag in downtown Washington. One day, my Republican head of government relations came back from a meeting at Grover's shop. And he said that they had distributed a list of the biggest democratic contributors that year, who were registered lobbyists. Grover's shop is called Americans for Tax Reform. And it's the conservative movement's nerve center. Every Wednesday morning, Norquist commands a strategy session of congressional staff, party activists, and think tankers. And the important fact is, they gave out a list with 150 names of lobbyists to congressional staff who were there, essentially saying, this is who they're giving to, pay attention to that the next time they come to your office and ask you for something. I'd never seen anything like that before.

On Capitol Hill, Tom Delay of Texas had moved up to number three in the new house leadership. He became the Kay Street Projects enforcer. And he called lobbyists in one or time, and he put this leisure in front of them and said, here's the book. You've contributed too much money to Democrats. You've got to contribute more money to Republicans, we're in power now. We keep a very close eye on the money. Delay told a reporter, there can be no revolution in policy without a revolution in fundraising. In other words, you had to pay to play. As an ambition was to create a vertically integrated political machine that controlled who was in the lobby at the top, controlled who got big lobby jobs, some of them a million five a year, some of them a million a year, some of them the lower paying jobs, $250,000 a year. If they could control who got them, then they could control the political contributions that lobbyists and their clients made. So that was the top of this vertically integrated, shakedown machine.

Essentially, the Kay Street Project was a way of consolidating power. If you can force companies to hire only Republicans as lobbyists, if you can force companies into a position where they don't feel comfortable donating to anyone but Republicans, you have just consolidated your power and made it all but impossible for the other party to make any kind of a comeback. It was new roles for lobbyists. The rules were, if you contribute to us, we're going to look the other way at what you do with your clients. And the other side of it was your clients, your clients are going to, your clients are going to get what they want out of us. Every lobby shop in town was searching for an inn with the new GOP majority. Among them was the venerable Seattle firm of Preston Gates. Their old connections weren't anywhere near as effective and to sort of have contact and be able to talk with the new crowd.

They needed somebody who had the bonafides to talk to them. Jack did. The Kay Street Project paved the way for Jack Abramoff. The firm announced its new hire with a press release touting Abramoff's ties to the Republican National Committee to the Christian coalition headed by his old pal Ralph Reed and to the new leaders of the house, Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay. But there was no one more indispensable to Abramoff's rise than Grover Norquist. There are probably about as inseparable as two political people can get. Jack had left Washington. He didn't have the day-to-day contact with his networks. So if Grover vouched for him, then Abramoff was fine. What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs, Norquist said, then this becomes a different town. So it did.

If it wasn't for his relation with Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff would never have been able to become the super lobbyist that he became. And to charge the huge rates that he charged because he had this unique relationship with certain Republican leaders. The hefty fees would enrich Abramoff and he in turn would direct his clients to enrich the conservative political machine. One of his first was the wealthiest gambling tribe in America, the Mississippi Choctaw. To keep their huge casino earnings from being taxed, the tribe needed connections to the right people in Washington. It appears from their own words Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlan held their tribal clients in absolute contempt. In an email discussing a dinner meeting with a client, the reason Mr. Abramoff could not attend? I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw Tribal Council. Mind you that these monkeys, quote unquote,

had enriched him over a five year period with over seven million dollars in lobbying fees. It's a story of greed run a muck. In 1995, Jack Abramoff had convinced the Choctaw he was their man. He'd be sort of warm and personable and irreverent. And then he'd start talking and getting his hands and sort of say, you know, I can help you. We can win. You know, I'm going to mobilize my forces. We're going to attack on these three fronts and we will life out the enemy. You put that together with everything else and can be convincing God. And Grover Norquist had just what Abramoff needed to prove his worth to the Choctaw. An organization dedicated to opposing all tax increases as a matter of principle. The two old college comrades frame the casino tax as a tax increase that conservatives should oppose.

All of a sudden, activists at Norquist weekly meetings found themselves discussing Indian tribe. We didn't know one tribe from another. We just, you know, so what? Let them have their casino. We didn't know. Nobody knew they were multi-billion dollar. And it's not something anybody paid attention to. But Norquist was paying attention. And the Choctaw were putting up the money to organize anti-tax groups across the country to lobby their cause. Why in the world would Grover Norquist care about, care so deeply about Indian tribes? Unless there was something else going on. We all suspected something pretty fishy. In fact, the Choctaw became a major contributor to Norquist organization. And Norquist, in turn, was moving much of the money to this man. The third member of the old college Republican Troika. In 1989, Ralph Reed had become head of Pat Robertson's Christian coalition.

His skill at mixing religion with hardball politics landed him on the cover of Time Magazine at the age of 33. Reflects what we believe is one of the greatest cancers growing on the American body politic. And that is the scourge of legalized gambling. But in the mid-1990s, Reed left to set up his own political consulting firm. And he sent an email to his old friend Jack Abramoff, who was now known on K Street as Casino Jack. This is what Reed wrote. Hey, now that I'm done with electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts. I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts. And humping they did go. Despite Reed's long time opposition to gambling, he and Abramoff set out to protect the Choctaw Casino against competition. The scheme called for Reed to organize his fellow Christians on moral grounds to oppose threats to Abramoff's client, without telling them that that client was actually in the gambling business.

Emails between the two make clear there was no doubt where the money came from. When Reed pushed for a green light, for example, to begin organizing devout gambling opponents in Alabama, Abramoff told him approval would first have to come from the Choctaw and ask. Get me invoices as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP. Reed wrote back with the list and a total. We have fronted 100K, which is a lot for us. Abramoff promised to do what he could. Any chance that a wire from Choctaw directly would be okay? Just days later, Reed tells Abramoff. We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back. Yeah, baby. To keep secret the source of the Choctaw money paid to Reed and the Christian groups he recruited, Abramoff turned to their old friend, Grover Norquist.

When Norquist needed money for his own organization, he turned to Jack. What is the status of the Choctaw stuff? I have a 75K hole in my budget from last year. Ouch! In a reminder to himself, Abramoff notes. Call Ralph Reed Grover doing pass-through. And then tells Reed. I need to give Grover something for helping so the first transfer will be a bit lighter. But not to worry with the next 300,000. So when Norquist again kept a cut for his calls, Abramoff registers his surprise. Grover kept another 25K. The money spigot was now wide open. Abramoff was being paid millions as a lobbyist. Reed was being paid millions to do his fellow Christians. And Norquist was feeding his political operation by acting as their cover. The three college Republicans first came to Washington to run a revolution.

It was turning into a racket. And what's the basis for your tribe making a donation to Americans for tax reform? I have no idea Senator. I didn't understand it then. I opposed it. And I don't understand it today. Did you, Mr. Abramoff, add you and your partner, your colleague, Mr. Scanlon, give $4 million to Ralph Reed? Senator, I respectfully invoke the privileges, privileges, privileges. To follow Jack Abramoff's money trail, we will be coming back often to this red door. The townhouse at 132 D-street southeast is just three short blocks from Tom Delay's office on Capitol Hill. His staff called it his safehouse. It was bought by the U.S. Family Network, a non-profit outfit that said its mission was to restore moral fitness to American life.

Tom Delay and a letter that was signed by him, which was used for fundraising purposes, claimed that it was one of the most powerful and influential pro-family groups in Washington. In fact, it had a single staffer. It operated from a townhouse that was paid for by Jack Abramoff's client money. The townhouse that was also shared with Tom Delay's political fundraising groups and was really an arm of his political machine. Delay's political action committee, Americans for a Republican majority, was housed here. Upstairs, the second floor master suite was reserved for Delay to make telephone fundraising pitches, calls that would be illegal if made from congressional offices. With Delay's support, the family network had been set up by this man, Ed Buckham. Buckham was Delay's chief of staff and spiritual confidant, the two men often prayed together.

Buckham, himself a lay minister, recruited his own pastor and evangelical in Frederick, Maryland, along with his wife, to volunteer as members of the board. He'd been in my church for 20 years. We thought, well, this sounds like a good thing. He's been written up in raw calls, one of the most brilliant strategists on Capitol Hill and very good family man, very good husband, strong Christian. We thought, hey, here's Ed, who's really this professional strategist. And basically, Ed ran the whole thing. The family networked, very first contribution, had come from J. K. Abramoff's client, the casino-rich Choctaws. Everybody on this board was opposed to gambling. Nobody on the board, none of the people on this pro bono board believed in gambling. While the board was kept in the dark, Ed Buckham was thanking Abramoff for the Choctaw money, payments that would eventually total $345,000.

I really appreciate you going to bat for us, pray for God's wisdom. I really believe this is supposed to be what we are doing to save our team. I never ask questions of Ed. You know, Ed's finding this money, he's bringing it in, and you know, we're doing our part to bring America back to God, you know, basically through this political means. When Ed Buckham left Delay's staff, he set up his new lobbying shop on the top floor of the safe house. J. K. Abramoff said in many of his first clients. But to unravel the hidden ways Abramoff funded Delay's political machine, we need to travel far beyond the house with the red door. American soldiers, sailors, and Marines fought hard to liberate the Northern Mariana's doing World War II. Today, this string of islands and the Pacific Ocean is U.S. territory, promoted as a tropical paradise with first-class hotels, sandy beaches, and championship golf.

But there are other realities here, too. Over the years, tens of thousands of people, primarily Chinese and mostly women, have been lured to the main island Sa Pen, told they were coming to a job in America. All the flights arrived in the middle of the night. It's scary for the workers. They really had no understanding of where they were going to end up. They were coming to America for a job. And, you know, most of them back then, they were paying huge recruitment fees. They soon discovered they were essentially indentured servants, thousands of dollars in debt to the company men who had recruited them, and often forced them to sign secret shadow contracts. They agreed they wouldn't date, they wouldn't go to churches. If they got payment, they'd have an abortion.

The factories, many owned by the Chinese Communist government, manufactured clothing for some of the biggest retailers in America, from the gap to Jones, New York, and legally labeled them, made in the U.S.A. But workers were paid a pittance. It was a very sweet deal, made possible because Congress had exempted the territory from U.S. minimum wage and immigration law. Just a general understanding that if you filed a complaint against your employer, that they would have you deported. At the Interior Department in Washington, Allen Stateman was the portman in efforts to bring the Chinese manufacturers and the Marianas, officially U.S. soil, in line with U.S. law. They had a tremendous amount of control over these workers. Something I think it's pretty hard for Americans to understand. Americans can always just say, I've had enough and walk out. These people did not have that opportunity. They lived behind barbed wire in squalid sharks. The Interior Department called them labor camps.

Who was to work 12 hours a day, often seven days a week. Their pay was barely half the U.S. minimum wage. It was very tough for me personally. As the senior government official, they would say, we were told we were coming to America. This is America. Why can't you do anything for me? Republican Senator Frank Makowski, then chairman of the committee with oversight of U.S. territories, traveled a si-pan with Stamen to investigate. How could we have in the United States working conditions like this under the U.S. flag? We went to where a number of Bangladesh security guards were living. A couple of them came out with a handful of checks. They said, can you help me? Help me? These checks are for my wages, but I can't catch the checks. The checks are no good. You're getting to get the impression that this was a scam going on.

They showed us all of their balanced paychecks and described in great detail how difficult it was to live without any money, but that they still had to go to work. They had borrowed money from friends and family to get these jobs. They went to work every day and every time they tried to cash a paycheck, it balanced. It was a very moving story. Exactly. It just was unacceptable. I'm putting it wildly. Those working conditions were tough. I'll never forget it. During the 1990s, pressure mounted in Washington to bring the Mariana's in line with U.S. law. The factory owners convinced the government in Saaphan they needed some big time lobbying. Once again, Jack Abramoff was the man. Critics called the Far Away Garment Industry America's biggest sweatshop. Abramoff set out to paint a different picture, promoting the Mariana's to conservatives as a free market even for maximizing profits.

He began running all expense paid tropical junkets for lawmakers, their staff, and conservative activists and journalists. The first few times that these groups went out there, we asked for meetings and we were simply blown off. Abramoff's marquee guest was Tom Delay. When Delay, his wife, and daughter, and Ed Buckham arrived to ring in the New Year of 1998, Delay praised Abramoff as one of my closest and dearest friends. They were generally taken on a dog and pony show to one of the garment factories where everything had been sanitized and employers were there to monitor the workers and what they said. Delay later told a Texas newspaper that contrary to reports that workers were being sexually exploited, he had interviewed them one on one and found those such evidence.

It's a beautiful island with beautiful people who are happy, he said. Their first night, Abramoff and Delay were hosted at a party, thrown by Willie Tan, a Chinese textile tycoon who had paid the largest labor fine in US history, $9 million for sweatshop conditions and his factories. And you represent everything that is good about what we're trying to do in America and leading the world in the free market system. But Delay warned his host, back in America people wanted to spoil their deal. He said, you're up against the forces of big labor and the radical left, stand firm, resist evil, remember that all truth and blessings emanate from our creator. Later that night, Delay and Willie Tan went to a coq fight.

When he returned to Washington, Delay called the Marianas a petri dish of capitalism and denounced efforts to enforce US laws. And at the weekly meetings of Grover Norquist Conservative nerve center, a new item appeared on the agenda. Activists were now discussing not only Indian tribes, but the US territory 14 times owns away. I can't remember the straight face. Why Sipan would become a conservative issue was beyond so many of us. Now to some of us, Sipan is a huge Chinese sweatshop. To those of us getting money from those Chinese sweatshop interests, Sipan was a wonderful experiment in free market and low taxes at work. See every time Grover Norquist would take an issue, if you map it, you can see how Abramoff

had a client and there's a symbiosis there. Turning the Marianas into a conservative cause was crucial if Abramoff was to block the growing bipartisan consensus in Congress that U.S. minimum wage and immigration laws should be enforced in the islands. Now the purpose of the hearing is to consider legislation that would alter the federal laws applicable to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. When Senator Murkowski convened hearings on reform legislation, Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team were there and they had a plan. But just days before the session, Abramoff's battle plan had been leaked. It appears that we've got a good deal of media interest in the hearing today. I see one of the notes here, lobbying upstage as Marianas hearings. In the rare inside look at big time lobbying, Abramoff bragged he would work his congressional connections to impeach island statement and either defund or severely restrict statements

activities at the Interior Department. It was a real eye opener. The idea that they would go in and defund the reform program was particularly shocking. Mr. Stamen has been subjected to a massive campaign of intimidation, much of which is being orchestrated by the paid lobbyists for the government of the Northern Mariana Islands. We saw living conditions that simply should not exist in the United States of America. Murkowski's reform bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent, that's as far as it went. It would have been induced to come to the Marianas, had not been paid. Time went on, went in a dry hole over the house, we passed it again, and then nothing was done. Nothing was done because Jack Abramoff and the Marianas garment industry had Tom Delay in their pockets.

And Willie Tan met in Saipan with a human rights activist posing as a clothing bar from New York. A hidden camera recorded their conversation. Tan was confident he had nothing to worry about. Because Tom Delay will never let it go. You sure are. You know what Tom told me? You see Willie, you think he'll let me set the job to you? I make this gadget on the Congress, and I'm going to put it on this gadget. Don't talk to me, forget it, Willie, no chance. Trudor is word, Delay made sure no bill that my threaten the fortunes of the sweatshop owners would ever be debated on the floor of the house. In the end, Abramoff bill the government of the Marianas for more than 200 contacts with Delay and a staff and collected close to $8 million in fees. Mr. Abramoff is a carbon beggar.

You walked away with a lot of money that didn't need to be paid that could have been used on the island. You know, we're begging for federal grants while we're handing him the equal of a year's worth of capital improvement projects, which is sorely needed there. And we paid a lot of money for nothing. Other than making sure the garment industry could continue to pay low wages. And Willie Tan, Abramoff sweatshop patron, would contribute $650,000 to Delay's favorite nonprofit, the U.S. Family Network, with its stated mission of restoring America's moral fitness. To increase his firepower as a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff opened a restaurant featuring $74 stakes, just eight blocks from Capitol Hill. He called it Signatures for the signers of the Declaration of Independence displayed in the National Archives just across the street.

This was a place where everybody came for lunch. Members of Congress, lobbyists, CEOs, entertainment folks, everybody knew to go there. It just became sort of a scene. I mean, it was the place to hang out. They were there for lunch. They were there for sushi. They were there for dinner. Bar. It was an ongoing. I've never seen so many politicians in one spot in my life. It was amazing. Signatures advertised liberal portions in a conservative setting. And it turns out a fair amount of those liberal portions were served free to some conservative members of Congress. In a typical message, Abramoff instructed his restaurant managers not to charge Tom Delay, his wife, and for guests. Table of six, put where I sit. Their meal is to be comped. It's very blatant. It's very blatant. I mean, I've had some servers chastise for handing a check to certain people because it's just not done.

And how are they to know that a guest doesn't get a check without being told ahead of time? So the restaurant kept a customer list of Washington VIPs like Carl Rove. Henry Tnotes show who was an F-O-O or friend of owner. Besides Delay, other powerful Republican members dined on Abramoff's tab, including Representative Bob Nay. House rules are clear on this, a member cannot accept anything worth more than $50 from a lobbyist. We had the clientele and the business, but because of all the comps and the, oh, buy him dinner, buy him dinner, just for the sake of it, I think our comps outweighed our profits on a monthly basis. Abramoff was feeding the political machine, literally. In the middle, a lot of friends there, I got to know a lot of politicians firsthand. But overall, it's just amazing how it's take, take, take, and not pay.

Winning and dining was not all. Case street also loves the junket, and globetrotting excursions or something members of Congress like Tom Delay have come to expect. He said about Tom Delay that he wasn't a man of great personal wealth, but he lived the life of a rock star. I said, what do you mean? And they said, well, like he travels on the record label's money. It was a lifestyle his constituents back in Sugarland, Texas might find hard to imagine. Lots of golf trips, lots of vacation spots, and who's picking up the tab for this? The lobbyists are always picking up the tab. The corporations are flying him around on their private jet. They're paying for this rock star's travel and for his high living. Over the Memorial Day holiday in May 2000, Jack Abramoff was the lobbyist who arranged for Delay, his wife, and two close advisers to head for the famed St Andrews course in Scotland on a golfing vacation.

Own his official report, Delay listed the purpose of the trip as educational. It was an expensive education. The group's greens fees exceeded $5,000 a day. At their stopover in London, Abramoff napped the best tickets to one of the hottest plays and arranged for Delay and his wife to stay in a room at the four seasons that cost almost $800 a night. He charged their business class air tickets to his own American Express Card. Here you had the most powerful man in the house of representatives, and he was taking money directly from a lobbyist lobbyist who was paying his travel tab. Delay's official report also names the conservative nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research as the trip's sponsor. Sounds innocent enough, until you learn this pro-business outfit was run by another Abramoff pal from college Republican days, and that Abramoff himself was on the board. He told one colleague that the sitter can direct money at our discretion anywhere, if you

know what I mean. It provided just the kind of cover Abramoff needed to sponsor trips that congressional rules prohibited him paying for, and on the very day Delay flew to Scotland, two of his clients who were trying to stop Congress from outlawing internet gambling, sent the nonprofit $25,000 each. He turned himself in the mind of a lobbyist, and what you want to do is you want to have an influence on legislation, and you know that money helps you have that influence. And so you want to figure out a way to get money to a lawmaker without people knowing about it. Well, Abramoff was good at that. He was really good at that. We were not supposed to be able to catch on. We were not supposed to be able to figure out that this money came from this client and was used to influence this vote. That's the objective. Two months after they returned from Scotland, Tom Delay sought to it that the bill posed

by Abramoff's clients died in the House of Representatives. Who did Mr. Abramoff say to you that he had special influence with if anyone here in Washington? The guy, the senator's name was, oh yes, Representative Tom Delay, he was very powerful, and with this guy being Jack having access to this guy, he was going to be able to do a lot of things for our tribe. So Mr. Abramoff was making representations to the tribe that he had special influence with Representative Tom Delay, is that correct? That's correct. When George W. Bush was elected president, he played a victory round with his fellow

Texan. We have the House, we have the Senate, we have the White House, Tom Delay declared, which means we have the agenda. The number one on his agenda was a project to keep Republicans in power permanently. And the old college Republican Troika of Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, was also flying high. Abramoff had been a major fundraiser for Bush, he and his wife also made a big contribution to the Florida recount fund. Reed raised more, at least $100,000, and that made him an elite Bush pioneer. Abramoff leaned on Reed to get him appointed to the transition team, preparing to take over the Interior Department, the government agency that had power over his biggest clients, the Marianas and Indian tribes. This would be really key for future clients for both of us, let's discuss.

Reed got the point, Abramoff asked for more. He wanted his man appointed to Alan Stamman's old job, overseeing the Marianas. Do you think we could get this favor from Carl? It would be my big ask for sure. A big ask from Carl Rove, the new president's closest advisor. Reed responds, it never hurts to try, what's the next move? I believe we're his words. Later that day, Reed writes Jack back full of energy and enthusiasm. Just let me know who to call, when to call, and what to say. And while you're at it, get me another client, now. So Reed is fully into the mercenary spirit here, it appears. Coming back to college Republican days, Grover Norquist also had ties with Rove. Over the next five years, he would log almost 100 meetings inside the White House, some

with guest he invited. George Bush was still trying to find out where the linen closets were, and Grover Norquist. Suddenly he's holding fundraisers in the White House, that's our White House, right? Abraham off told his Choctaw clients that Norquist would be launching a new anti-tax campaign and have asked whether Choctaw could underwrite 25K of this. Twenty-four hours later, he writes Norquist, Grover, here is the first of the checks for the tax event at the White House, I'll have another 25K shortly. He's charging $25,000 ahead for American Indians and other legislators to fly to Washington and to have FaceTime with the president. Abraham off also forwarded an invitation from Norquist to another tribe, the Koshada of Louisiana, a new casino-rich client.

We would be honored if a representative for the Koshada tribe and you could come to the White House meeting. The Koshada could have checked for $25,000, Luda Bose founded in the tribe's files. And there is a cancel check for $25,000 from Americans for Tax Reform. The chief said he never went, I called Americans for Tax Reform, they said it never happened, but I had the check in hand, and ultimately they said maybe it did happen, but it's not what it seemed to be. In fact, on May 9, 2001, at least four of Abraham off's clients met with President Bush. They included Willie Tans' right-hand man from the Marianas, Ben Fidiel, the Koshada chairman was there, as was a member of another Louisiana tribe. So was the chairman of the Kikapoo, standing against a wall, watching the action was one of the biggest rain makers on K Street. Why would a tribe be making a donation to Americans for Tax Reform?

It's because Mr. Abramoff suggests that we make these donations to these various groups in organizations because it would be helpful to you, because they help us. They would help you, yes. Jack Abramoff's fortune soared, but some at his lobbying firm were getting nervous. After a partner warned that if he didn't clean up his act, the lobbyist would wind up dead, disgraced, or in jail, Abramoff moved on to a company called Greenberg Trawick. The Miami-based law firm was hot. One of its senior partners had helped the Bush campaign in its legal battles in Florida in 2000. The team that Abramoff pulled together included seven former top-age to lawmakers, two from delays office, working for Abramoff they could more than double their salaries. He had guys who were poor, smart, and hungry. They wanted to be up there. They wanted to be part of a team that was doing something innovative and different, and

that's why everybody loved him and everybody wanted to work for him. Everybody included Mike Scanlon, Abramoff's big catch. Delay's press secretary was 29 years old and still paying off student loans when he moved from Capitol Hill to hook up with Abramoff. During one of their racquetball games in the spring of 2001, Abramoff and Scanlon hatched a secret kickback scheme. Abramoff would have his clients hire Scanlon's new public relations firm. Scanlon would charge them far beyond what it would really cost to do the work he promised, and the two would then spit the windfall. How much came in? Tons, I hope. It's pretty good. 1.5 mil. Ooh, chaw! So let me see, that's 700K for each of us, and 100K for the effort? In other words, $100,000 for the actual work, and 1.4 million to secretly split between them.

Not bad. They nickname this game, Give Me 5. By the way, you are a total stud on this effort. Thanks. I'm having a great time running the Give Me 5s. The star lobbyist coached his young partner, the key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so quickly. Abramoff would refer to their tribal clients as morons, chocolate dives, mofos, who are the stupidest idiots in the land. You and Mr. Scanlan referred to tribes as morons, stupid idiots, monkeys, chocolate dites, which you define as a lower form of existence and losers. Why would you want to work for people that you have that much contempt for? I respectfully invoke the privileges stated, sir.

Once upon a time, the Kishada tribe of Louisiana had subsisted in part on pine needle weaving. Then they struck gold with a casino built on farmland between New Orleans and Houston, and each of their 800 members began receiving stipends of $40,000 a year. But in 2001, their casino compact with Louisiana needed a renewed blessing by the Interior Department in Washington. Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlan came calling. Jack Abramoff, first time we met him, he came to a council meeting, him and Mike Scanlan. Jack was sharp dress, smooth, and Mike was sharper. Mike was flashy now, he was a flashy type. At their first meeting with the tribal council, the two talked of their success with other

Indian clients. When they would come here, they were your best friend, they would like, or appreciate your culture and your tradition and saying that you're doing a great job for your people and everything. Jack went to tell us that he understood our cause because he was a Jew and his people had been, took advantage of, been mistreated, so he understood, put to a good pitch there. First off, Abramoff suggested the tribe contribute to one of Tom Delay's golf fundraisers. He said they needed some real stroke in Washington because threats to the tribe's gaming interests were everywhere. That was especially true next door in Texas. Folks from Houston could follow the billboards along Interstate 10 to the Kashato gambling palace, less than an hour across the Louisiana border. But Abramoff told the Kashato, Texas was just one vote away from allowing a new casino

to open, close to Houston. You never know, and we weren't familiar with all the laws in Texas, you know. That's why we hired experts, so called experts, you know, professional people. Abramoff and Scanlan promised the tribe they could get gambling outlawed in Texas. They didn't mention that the Texas Attorney General had already filed suit to do just that. Abramoff was able to convince some people on council that if we didn't do this, our whole casino would be shut down and we would hurt our people. Scanlan told Abramoff, Kashato is an absolute cakewalk. Your cut on the project, as proposed, is at least 800K. How can I say this strongly enough, you is the man. On the Kashato's tab, Casino Jack once again turned to Ralph Reed. The right hand of God was just the one Abramoff needed to stir up Texas Christians against

gambling in the Lone Star State. Mike Scanlan told the Kashato that paying Reed was crucial. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos. The wackos get their information from the Christian right, Christian radio, the internet, and telephone trees. I do guerrilla warfare. Reed once said of his political tactics, I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. In Texas, his weapons included bogus Christian front groups. It had the earmarks of guerrilla activity, not from a do-goodter faith commitment perspective, but all the earmarks of just big corporate business and how they operate when they decide to try to smash something. Reed's emails to Abramoff were insistent. He needed money and he needed it now.

At one point, Abramoff responded, give me a number. 225K a week for TV, 450K for two weeks of TV. Ralph they are going to faint when they see these numbers. But Reed claimed he was worth it. We have over 50 pastors mobilized with a total membership in those churches of over 40,000. We have one of our reporters, based in Dallas, who did a lot of calling around and just asking pastors, well, were you involved in this and low and behold, no one was. Marvin Alaska is editor in chief of world, the leading national journal of the Evangelical right. The magazine spent seven months investigating Reed's involvement with Abramoff. There was a lot of fooling going on. Abramoff in a way was manipulating Ralph Reed, Ralph Reed was manipulating others, but perhaps Ralph Reed was manipulating Abramoff and saying I'm accomplishing these things whereas he

wasn't. So, you know, there were millions of dollars changing hands. There were actually hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in this whole thing. You know, there's something ironic and amusing and all that is that while Abramoff was shaking down these Indians, it's quite possible that Ralph Reed was shaking down Jack Abramoff. They were now turning on each other. When Mike Scanlon quizzed his partner, did Ralph spend all the money he was given to fight this, or does he have some left? Abramoff answered, that's a silly question he would never admit he has money left over. Would we? No, but he is a bad version of us. No more money for him. You know, I think when I read that phrase about Ralph Reed, that he's a bad version of us, you know, I got to tell you my heart hurt, but you could really just disregard the values

and the rules that you've played by. And for what? I mean, we all come to the edge of that shore at some point in our lives and have to ask ourselves, am I going to step over that? And for what? For money? For, you know, raking off money for my own political gains or whatever. That's what it said to me that Ralph Reed had stepped across some kind of moral line. And Jack Abramoff would say he's a bad version of ourselves. At the far western end of the long highway that is interstate 10 in Texas, the Tigua Indians of El Paso operated one of only two casinos in the state. Its profits had lifted the tribe out of poverty. But when the authorities did succeed in outlawing casino gambling in Texas, Jack Abramoff

saw the unsuspecting Tigua as yet another opportunity. He emailed Mike Scanlon. I'm on the phone with Tigua. Fire up the jet baby we're going to El Paso. I want all their money. You know Paso, Abramoff assured the Tigua that using his connections in Washington, he could get their casino reopened. He would work pro bono. But on the condition that the tribe hire Scanlon's PR firm for grassroots support. Abramoff did not tell them he and Scanlon were secret partners or that they had just been paid millions by the Louisiana Cushada to close down casinos in Texas. The very day that Tigua tribal council met to vote on Abramoff's proposal, and El Paso newspaper featured a story about the tribe's dire straits. Mike Scanlon read the report of the tribe's misfortune as good fortune for the Gemi-5 scheme.

This is on the front page of today's paper while they will be voting on our plan. Is life great or what? As the first order of business, Abramoff handed the Tigua a list of contributions they must make to a collection of political action committees with high flute names, Tom Delay's arm pack, rely on your beliefs pack, friends of the big sky pack, and own and own a total of $300,000. That was just the beginning. People members familiar with the rely on your beliefs funds or perhaps the Missouri Millennium fund or restore America pack or friends of the big sky. Those contributions were recommended by Jack Abramoff to generate the support to get

our bill passed. It was a center yield a moment. Those, I hadn't seen that list, but the center became red some of the names of those things. It's like the association of Godfaring citizens, who's that? Some of these names ring a bell, I mean, who are these people that were being asked to contribute to? No, I never asked. Took Abramoff's word at face value that it was something good. Abramoff's strategy was to hide language that would reopen the Tigua Casino in an unrelated bill already moving through Congress. He emailed his team. It will start in the Senate and will protect it in the House. In the House, Abramoff turned to one of the lawmakers, his team called its champion, Congressman Bob Nay, the influential Republican chairman of a key committee. Abramoff sent Scanlon the news.

If met with Nay, we're effing gold, he's going to do Tigua. In other words, Nay had agreed to slip the Tigua provision into a bill called the Help America Vodak, touted as a way to clean up elections. Just six days after the meeting with Nay, Abramoff directed checks totaling $32,000 to be written to the Congressman's campaign accounts. Please get us the following checks for him, ASAP, Bob Nay for Congress, 2000, American Liberty PAC, federal five now. You know, I'm sure that there's an understanding or wasn't understanding back then that, you know, I help you and I need you to raise 20 grand from me or 15 grand from me or to have someone do a fundraiser for me. And let's be honest, I mean some of the people in Congress is the best job they're ever going to have. So, they're not leaving anytime soon. And so that requires money and lobbyists who have the ability to raise it and pull it together. Casino Jack was relentless. He soon pressed a Tigua for money for another golf outing in Scotland.

Our friend, that is Congressman Nay, asked if we could help, as in cover, Scotland golf trip for him and some staff and members for August. We did this for another member, you know who. That was Tom Delay. I anticipate that the total cost would be around $100K or more. But the Tigua's were being strung along. Abramoff had told them the Democrat managing the bill in the Senate, Chris Dodd, would work with Nay. But when Nay finally mentioned the Tigua language to Dodd, the senator flatly refused to include it. I just spoke with Nay. Dodd looked at him like a deer in the headlights and said he has never made such a commitment. The plot had fallen apart, but no one told the Tigua's, even though the tribe was helping finance the golf junket as Abramoff had requested. A week later, Congressman Nay and two members of his staff were among the passengers posing

in front of the private golf stream jet Abramoff had chartered to fly them to Scotland. Ralph Reed was there too. They headed straight for the links. On his official disclosure, Nay said the purpose of the trip was to give a speech to Scottish parliamentarians. But the atinerary shows no such plans. Maybe because the Scottish parliament was not in session. Just days after they returned from the junket, Abramoff arranged a meeting between Tigua tribal leaders and Congressman Nay. He was read like a lobster from that Scotland trip, one of them said, Nay told them you're working with the right guy in Jack Abramoff. These guys are flying to Scotland on the tab of American Indians while they're deceiving them about a bill that they're never going to have passed. It would be two more months before the tribe learned their casino would not be reopened.

You know, it's one of the most shameless episodes in an American political history. Today the Tigua Casino is a struggling nightclub with a couple hundred video slots that pay off in stuffed animals. The tribal government has cut back programs and services. The annual stipends and insurance coverage are gone. The median income has dropped to $8,000 a year. What was your reaction when you learned that you had paid the man who had worked at Closure Casino? Not rage. A rattlesnake will warn you before it strikes, and the warning, they did everything behind her back. In Washington, Abramoff had transformed a mid-size lobbying practice at Greenberg Trowrig

into one of K Street's top cash cows. His tribal clients paid an average of $6 million a year and fees to the firm. They were also major donors to Tom Delay's Republican Majority Project. And that wasn't all. Abramoff was also secretly funding Delay's political machine through the US Family Network, the nonprofit that owned the house with the Red Door. The group's tax returns, which we obtain, make clear that almost all of his $3 million plus income came from Abramoff's clients. They included not only Casino owners and sweatshop tycoons, but some Russian oligarchs as well. In the mid-1990s, Russia was like something out of the Wild West. So these Russian gangster capitalists had a lot of money and they didn't care which political party they got involved with, whether when it was the Democrats running the

White House. They did it with the Democrats and when they wanted to work with the Republicans in Congress then they'd buy a Republican or rent a Republican here and there. A plumb ripe for Abramoff's picking. This time, he registered as a lobbyist for a mysterious company based in the Bahamas connected to a Russian oil and gas giant called NAFTA-SIT. A lot of people were happy to represent Russian interests and there was no reason to hide it. It wasn't like before each of you were working for the KGB or something and you had to hide this. So these other lobbyists for Russian interests all registered as lobbyists for Russia, except Abramoff registered as a lobbyist of the Bahamas. Why would you, why can't you see that? Abrahamoff knows the answer to this obviously, but he won't tell us. We can only say what we've heard from others and that is that Abramoff really thought that these clients in Russia and the Russian oil business would be the doorway for him

to a whole new revenue stream. NAFTA-SIT with its headquarters in this unmarked building in the heart of Moscow was a major supplier to the Russian military. It also advertised the close ties between its vice president and Russian military intelligence. So here you have an instructor at Russian Military Intelligence Academy who is one of the top two people in a very sketchy deceptive looking influence operation in Washington where it's hiring people to identify lawmakers and staffers. Or free trips to Russia. In hotels that were still equipped the way the KGB had always equipped the hotels.

This is not an educational exchange program. This is not a pure person to person understanding type program. This is potentially a very serious operation. On the 5th of August 1997, Tom Delay and Ed Buckham, Delay's chief of staff who had recently set up the U.S. family network, left for a six day visit to Moscow. Abramoff joined in there. Delay's official report claimed the trip was sponsored by the very same non-profit that paid for his golf vacation in Scotland. In Russia, they were hosted at a lavish dinner and shown around town by the two top NAFTA-SIT executives. But the oil executives were excited at the possibility that Tom Delay could help open doors for them in Washington. And they wanted to reward him in some way. And so they asked a colleague of Abramoff's, you know, what would happen if the Delay's woke up one day and found a luxurious car like BMW or Mercedes on their driveway.

And the colleague of Abramoff said, well, that would be illegal. This shows a motive and desire by the Russians to reward the Delays in one way or another for work that they expected him to do for them. Nine months later, the U.S. family network received a wire transfer from a London law firm, now Defunc, that the Washington Post has connected to the NAFTA-SIT bosses. The amount, $1 million. Pastor Chris Giesland questioned Ed Buckham. Kind of looked at me with some disdain and he said, you know where the large money has come from, don't you? I mean, and I said, no, I have no idea. He said, well, let me tell you, this is how it works in Washington. He said, that money came from Russian oil barons.

And I, you know, I just couldn't believe it. $1 million was an astounding sum, but consider the timing. It arrived just as Washington was beginning to debate legislation, critical to Russia and its collapsing economy. Congress was being asked to resupply the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, with taxpayer money that would be used to help bail out the Russian economy and oligarchs like the NAFTA-SIT bosses. Then you wonder, why in the world did they give that money? I mean, obviously, they did not believe in the pro-family values that we were talking about, and what did they want from that money, okay? Was it this IMF vote? You know, obviously, they didn't just give it, they gave it for some reason. Long a critic of the IMF, Tom Delay had disparaged the pending legislation. The IMF is bailing out the bankrupt, he said. And by the time the vote came, he had a change of heart and supported the legislation he

had scored. Did they buy a vote with that money? That is public corruption, and that's wrong. Tom Delay has never taken an official act, his attorney told the Washington Post, that was not based on his strongly held principles. If Jack Abramoff's help Delay Incorporated, as his money machine was known, was mine in K Street for Gold. It was like there was a giant machine. At one end, it vacuumed the pockets of corporations and lobbyists in town. And out of the other end of the machine came legislation that was favorable to their interests, that ensured that they were protected or that they had tax breaks or whatever. And the man in the center controlling all the knobs and levers was Tom Delay. At least 29 former Delay Aides had moved to K Street where they continued as part of

his power network. Their access made many of them millionaires. While contributions from corporate giants and energy, finance and technology, from the largest healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, made sure Delay's Republican majority project never wanted for cash. He was really quite open about saying that if you want my ear, if you want access to me, if you expect to get hearing for your causes in my office, you have got to pay money to these political action committees or to contribute to other Republicans or to Republican causes generally. And I think he thought of this as a perfectly appropriate way of doing business. It was a way of ensuring that the Republicans kept their majority in Congress and it was a way of making people he regarded as constituents of the party and power a way of keeping them happy.

Here's one way Delay worked it. When he hosted a golf tournament at the Homestead Resort in Virginia, the corporate executives who paid to play could make their $25,000 checks out to a new branch of Delay's political machine, this one known as trim pack, Texans for a Republican majority. And the concept was it was going to work with other Republican-oriented business groups in Texas to knock off a bunch of Democratic incumbents and take over the Texas House of Representatives for the Republican Party for the first time in over a hundred years. Much of the money to finance the attempted takeover of the Texas legislature would come from donors with no interest in Texas, but big reasons to keep Tom Delay happy in Washington. So the Homestead fundraiser, for example, was scheduled during negotiations on a huge energy bill. It was within days of the conference committee meeting on the energy legislation and Tom Delay was on that conference committee.

A Kansas utility, West Star, had several billion dollars writing on getting a provision into the bill. One West Star executive questioned why the company was giving tens of thousands of dollars to a Texas political action committee. Delay is from Texas. What is our connection? The answer was, well, because we want this bill in Congress and we need Tom Delay's support on this bill. And so we've got to give it to this Texas committee that he likes. You know, West Star gets a shaken down for $25,000 to contribute to Tom Delay. West Star is a Kansas utility, it ain't in Texas. Definitely the people giving money thought they had to give money to get close to Tom Delay. That money greased Delay's Republican majority project. In Texas, Republicans did take control of the state legislature and redrew, Jerry Manard, the state's congressional districts. That meant a near certainty that Republican seats would be added to Delay's majority in the House of Representatives in Washington.

Never before as an individual who has been steadfast to our principles, risen as high as Tom Delay. They moved money in circles and the circles moved. You know, money went from Abramoff would order. He would send out directives saying, cancel this $20,000 check to this pack and move it to this pack. Delay would say, I don't want this money sent to Trimpack, return it, tell the Indians to return it and to move it to this pack, it was an enormous money laundering scheme. I just have one more piece to it because I think we really need to hear from Mr. Delay. But Tom Delay is who all of us want to be when we grow up. You're here. Thank you. Far from Kay Street, trouble was brewing for Jack Abramoff.

In Louisiana, the Cushadow Tribal Council had shut out Burtney Langley when he began to question how much the tribe had been paying Abramoff in Scanlan. And I was saying these figures don't match and I said, there are no documentation for some of the fees that we're paying out. Burt Langley smelled a rat and it was a big one. Langley insisted on an audit. I said, you're a CFO and a Secretary of State of Detroit. I said, one day if something comes out of this will be in trouble because we didn't do our part to protect the tribe. And then when he got his audit, he knew something was wrong. Roughly the numbers. About 32 million. How much? 32 million. So I didn't even know, I almost fell out of my chair when I read that.

This is a scheme that I unraveled because of a couple of genuine American heroes. And Burt Langley is one of them. When the audit leaked to a small Louisiana newspaper, the word was out. The Cushadow had paid more than any other tribe in a give me five scam. I'm sure if the papers hadn't gone a whole of this memo, it would have been swept under the rug, you know, and just nothing would have taken place. On Sunday morning, February 22nd, 2004, the capital awoke to a front page headline in the Washington Post. Abramoff and Scanlon had been paid at least $45 million. The story reported in a secret scheme to defraud four Indian tribes. Abramoff's team sent emails flying. Now what do you think of my partner, Jack? Not too shady, huh? So were these redskins just blindly paying these exorbitant fees based largely on Jack's past successes?

He talks tribes into hiring Scanlon. That's what I gathered from the story. I know more than the article, and the truth is worse. Abramoff scrambled. He wrote one client. This hit piece was in yesterday's post, the reporter was a real racist and bigot. Like, and, you know, he's kind of panicking, you know, you tell. What Jack would call me four or five times a day, he'd never call me that much. And finally, you know, I kept, I would, when my phone rang on answer, it was like, you know, I would say, hello, you know, I said, I can't hear you, you know, I'm in the bad service there, but I could hear him. That was just the way to get him off, you know, I said, you know, it works good. Every ad running to something like that, you know, on a thought, I can't hear you, you know, I'm in the bad area, you know, it's okay, you kept calling. And then he would leave me voicemails, voicemails, you know, for about 10 days, they went on just every day calling, you know, I could quit answering. And so finally, I had to get a new cell phone.

Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon prayed upon the tribe and its members when they were most vulnerable. They played upon their hopes and fears. They went to El Paso, selling salvation and instead delivered snake oil. It was snake oil, so with claims of some very high powered connections. Did Mr. Scanlon ever suggest that he had special influence here in Washington as a reason to pay him that much money? Yes. And in what way did he indicate that he had special influence? He used to work, I believe, with Tom DeLay, and did he say that to you? Yes. He did. And what representation did he make as to what special influence he might have with Mr. DeLay? That's all he said he had special interest and that he would try to convince him to work in our benefit and try to get us open.

So, and others as well, and using, I guess, delays, credibility to contact and get through other representatives. Did Mr. Abramoff ever suggest that he had special influence with anyone here in Washington? Yes. He did as well? Yes, sir. And who did he say that he had special influence with? Of majority of people from Bob Nay all the way to the President of the United States of America? He suggested that he had special influence with the President of the United States? Yes. In the fall of 2004, even as the Senate hearings were unveiling a story of front groups, secret kickbacks, and political playoffs, DeLay's Republican majority was beginning to look pretty permanent. Five Democrats were ousted from Gerrymandered Texas Districts, and five Republicans replaced them in the House of Representatives in Washington. But an attorney in the Austin Office of Texans for Public Justice also smelled a rat.

Chris Felden had the bright idea to go to the IRS site, and I was just searching around for whatever he could find and he came across a filing from Trimpack at the IRS. The Texas Pack had reported to the Texas authorities as required by state law, but federal law also required that it report to the IRS. He opened up that filing, and lo and behold, what fell out was 27 corporate donors that were not in the Texas database. That has never been disclosed to the Texas regulatory authorities, 27 donors who had given approximately $600,000. For a century, it has been illegal to spend corporate money on elections in Texas. They took for granted that they could raise corporate money and spend corporate money on just about anything they wanted to. Once the attorney discovered the corporate contributions, and what looked like two sets of books, he started searching for how the corporate money had been spent.

And he found this Czech Republican National State Elections Committee in the amount of $190,000. There was a backstory to that hidden expenditure, a big one. As the Texas State Elections had approached in 2002, a critical moment for Delay's majority project, the head of Trimpack wrote an urgent email to the group's accountant. He asked that a blank check be sent overnight to the chief fundraiser for Delay's political operation in Washington. The fundraiser made the check payable to an arm of the Republican National Committee, and filled in the amount, $190,000. Three weeks later, he met with Delay for half an hour in the majority of his office in the capital. The day after that, the Republican National Committee cut seven checks payable to seven candidates for the Texas State Legislature.

Together, the checks total $190,000, exactly the amount that Trimpack had paid. What happened in Austin was pretty simple. It was $190,000 went to Washington to the RNC, and $190,000 came back to Texas. It was soft money illegal to spend going up, and it was hard money illegal to spend coming back to Texas. The in-game picked up speed. Good afternoon. Thank you all for attending. This morning, in an act of blatant political partisanship, a rogue district attorney in Travis County, Texas named Ronnie Earl, charged me with one count of criminal conspiracy, a reckless charge wholly unsupported by the facts. They just kind of looked at the Texas rules and said they don't apply to us. In October 2005, Tom Delay was indicted in Texas for conspiracy to violate the state's

campaign finance laws. Two weeks later, he flew to Houston in a corporate jet provided by R.J. Reynolds, a company that had once contributed to the U.S. family network and surrendered to the authorities. I said a little prayer before I did the fingerprint thing and the picture, Delay said, my prayer was basically, let people see Christ through me and let me smile. The smiles would not last long. A month later, on November 21, 2005, Delay's former press secretary, Mike Scanlon, pled guilty to joining in a fraud and bribery scheme with Jack Abramoff and agreed to turn state's evidence. Sir, are you satisfied with the open-ended requirement of Mr. Scanlon to continue cooperating with the government? He's not concerned about cooperating. He continues to do so. Do you think he can save this crime? Do you mind, Bob?

Well, he's regretful for what happened to the tribes, but he has nothing to say no. On January 3, 2006, Jack Abramoff pled guilty to defrauding his tribal clients, as well as bribing lawmakers to take actions on behalf of the very tribes he and Mike Scanlon were built. Abramoff's guilty plea shook up the Capitol. What he did is not that different from what the way other people behave in town. You look around and you see all the same problems in other lobbying work that cropped up in Abramoff's work. You see the use and abuse of nonprofit organizations to funnel money to lawmakers. She payments to lawmakers, spouses. You see legislators doing favors for big donors. These are not rare events in Washington, unfortunately, they're very common. All over town, members of Congress race to return campaign contributions connected to Abramoff and his clients.

Bob Nay, representative number one in the lobbyist guilty plea, claimed that he, like the Indian tribes, was duped by Jack Abramoff. In a handwritten note, Tom Delay told his Texas constituents, the reality is, Jack Abramoff and I were not close personal friends. I met with him only occasionally. But four days after Abramoff's plea, Delay gave up his post as the majority leader of the house. As you know, I am still a candidate for re-election this November and I plan to run a very vigorous campaign and I plan to win it. And then, on April 3, 2006, just days after he was referred to as representative number two in the guilty plea of another former top eight, Delay made the sudden announcement that he would retire from the Congress. I am sustained by my lord and savior. When you go through this kind of adversity, I got to tell you, if you know him and he's

on your side, ain't nothing but joy. I think trim pack laid the groundwork for Tom Delay's political demise, but it was Jack Abramoff that pushed him off the cliff. The influence peddling scandal has led prosecutors back to the house with the Red Door. Even though the US Family Network has gone out of business, the FBI has subpoenaed its records. And after Chris Gieslin now tells a story of betrayal. We were supposed to be presenting, you know, this moral value to the country and bringing the country back to God and supporting those programs. Now, we did some of that, but, you know, really I feel now that was kind of the charade and the real purpose of this USFN was a shell organization where there was Jack Abramoff's

shell organization out of his concepts or whether it was Ed Buckham's, you know, it doesn't really matter. We, you know, we were just used. Subsidized by Jack Abramoff's clients, the nonprofit outfit that promised to restore America's moral fitness spent some half million dollars illegally on radio ads attacking Democrats. It rallied to Tom Delay's side to lobby against campaign finance reform. In Ed Buckham, Delay's political and spiritual advisor pocketed more than a million dollars in consulting fees paid to his lobbying shop Alexander strategy group. Buckham in turn paid Delay's wife more than $3,000 a month and set up a retirement account in her name. In all, the money machine operating out of the safe house paid almost half a million dollars to the family of Tom Delay. You got money flowing from Abramoff's clients to nonprofits, nonprofits hiring Buckham

to be their representative or consultant to Buckham paying money to Christian Delay. It's, I mean, it's, it's, these paths are meant to be indirect. That's how it works. It's the kinds and ways that dollars have flowed into the system in recent years have led to something of a form of institutional corruption and the kind of thing that you want to watch for is it's not a very big step from the campaign contribution to a bribe. Jack Abramoff is headed for jail. Ralph Reed lost his campaign to be the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia. Bob Nay is pleading guilty to charges that he put his office up for sale. Grover Norquist still presides over weekly meetings of Washington's conservative nerve

center. While Tom Delay awaits trial before Texas jury, he has been speaking at religious and political rallies. Delay's successor as House Majority Leader is John Boehner of Ohio. Ten years ago, when Congress was considering legislation that would have cut tobacco subsidies, Boehner moved around the house floor, handing out campaign checks from the tobacco industry. He has long been a player in the K Street project, holding weekly meetings with powerful lobbyists, flying on corporate jets, and now raising more than $10,000 a day from drug companies, health insurers, the oil industry, military contractors, and Indian tribes. On K Street, business goes on as usual. With me now two seasoned observers of Washington, Thomas Frank isn't a historian by training

who edits the occasional journal, The Baffler. His book on politics, what's the matter with Kansas, how conservatives won the heart of America was a bestseller. He recently was a guest columnist for the New York Times. Tom Frank lives in Washington where he's now writing another book on conservative governance. Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and is admired across the political spectrum for his devotion to Congress as an institution. Most recently, he co-authored this book with Thomas Mann, The Broken Branch, how Congress is failing America and how to get it back on track. Thank you both for joining me. Just this morning, the New York Daily News says, and I quote, because I could make this up, there is so much political corruption on Capitol Hill that the FBI has had to triple the number of squads, investigating lobbyists, lawmakers, and influence peddlers. What does all this tell you? It tells me that this is not entirely business as usual. We have ratcheted this up to a level that, frankly, I have not seen before in 37 years in

Washington. This is not simply Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff who are the limiting cases, or Bob Nay now set to serve more than two years in a penitentiary. This is a lot of other members, a lot of staffers, a number of people in executive agencies. It's something where the closest analogy that I can come up with is the famous gilded age of the 1870s coined by Mark Twain for a period of unprecedented corruption, and now we have a precedent that brings us to the modern day. You must have a strong stomach at the 37 years in Washington. You've seen a lot there, but as I've been reading your columns this year in roll call, the journal on the hill, I sense an anger in what you're saying that I haven't felt before. There's a real anger there that I haven't felt. I mean, I do have a strong stomach. I've seen how politics works. Politics has plenty of messy elements to it, and I'm willing to tolerate a lot. This is different.

And as somebody who loves Congress, loves the legislative process, believes that it's the first branch of government for a reason, to watch this body descend to these dips. At a time when the country is at a crossroads in so many ways, leaves me shaking at times. And I see what's going on, and this has been building for more than a decade. There were stories about Abramoff and the Seattle paper back when he was with Preston Gates about the Mariana silence that didn't make the Washington press corps. There were stories about his ties to the South African government during apartheid, but there have also been all kinds of stories about the way the K-Street Project operated in a much broader way to try and create the self-reinforcing loop of bringing in the interest, giving them what they wanted, getting the money, larding the companies and trade association and lobbying offices with your people who would then contribute money back to you so that you could ensure that you could stay in power and that everybody could get enriched. That just takes it to a level we haven't seen before, and to watch the indifference to

it for so long. And then see the outcome, which is bad policy for the American people and for others around the world, just leaves me very frustrated. There are no victimless crimes in politics. Somebody is always paying for this, right? It is you to the taxpayer. And it's not simply that you get a few members of Congress or staffers who suddenly are able to live lavish lifestyles, big deal in some ways, it is that they're doing things that make them perpetrators with all kinds of other people victims. Now, the Indian tribes, you know, they're victims in a sense. They also said, geez, we're making money here, let's put some back because that's the way Washington works, so that they were in a sense willing victims. But a lot of us were victims from what was going on there. And we're victims in a host of ways through policies that are made from a Medicare prescription drug bill to a bankruptcy bill that are a lousy policy done because these people who are

running government don't care, their goal was to stay in power and to live nicely while doing it. And not caring is a, this is, you're getting right at the heart of it here because this is the irony, this is the thing that really gets me upset. I mean, what Norman just said is very important and everybody should hear that, but the really creepy thing is going to be the aftermath to this, three years, four years, five years down the road. And that is, who's going to, who's going to profit from all this politically? And the deep irony is that the party that has a lock hold on the position of being cynical about government, it's the very same people that are doing this stuff. Well, these are men who all presented themselves as men of conservative values. Right, right. This is one of the things that's just, that's so disturbing about it is the, they're just the rank hypocrisy of, of some, what is it, Tom Delay hoping that people would see Jesus in his mug shot? I mean, that's, that's, that's unbelievable. You can't make that up.

That's. But Norman described a process that has taken place with the K-Street Project that Grover Norkridge would tell the two of you were simply his way of replacing the permanent power of the Democratic Party with the perpetual power of the Republican Party. I mean, is it more of the same? No, because, well, I mean, in a very, very broad sense, sure. But in a very specific, specific sense, no, because the power that they are in throning in Washington is, is, is corporations. That's who's money they're taking, that's who's favors they're doing. You know, we, it's, this has all come to light through the, you know, through the, the, the, what's happened to these, to these Indian casinos. But the, the broader picture of K-Street, K-Street is corporate lobbying. So that's why the Medicare bill you talked about would be a bad bill because it was driven by money to give business what it wants. Yeah, but I would take slight issue with, with Tom here. When the Democrats were in power, they're, they had a lot of people who were running companies or doing lobbying. They were getting campaign contributions. They allowed access.

They were sensitive. It wasn't one side's for the corporate America and the other side is not. That's not basically how it worked. A lot of what goes on was done in a more subtle way. It has always been the case. You get campaign contributions at some subsequent point. There are actions taken that benefit those who have given the campaign contributions and everybody said it's just coincidence. This was more blatant and this was taken to a level that we have not seen before and it was an attempt to hijack the political process as well. Remember, they weren't just getting the money so that Abramoff could channel it through to Republican campaign committees. They were actively trying to defund those sources who were giving money to Democrats so that they could perpetuate themselves in power. They were sending this money in a laundered illicit fashion to Texas to provide a firewall of an additional level of seats so that even if there were a wave of discontent in the country, the House wouldn't change hands. The framers, you know, to use the, the old line.

If the framers were alive today, they'd be spinning in their graves at the notion that the House was insulated from public disapproval, it was supposed to be the body that would be responsive to this. So this has taken to a different level. But you know, it's not entirely a new process and it's not just that one side's protecting one set of interests against the others who were for the good guys. I remember ads about 10 years ago saying, in effect, only Democrats need to plot for jobs as lobbyists, but you keep saying this is deeper and different. And Democrats didn't set up a process where if you hire a Republican, you're going to be punished here. We're going to shut you out from the legislative process and coerce people into hiring not just Democrats, but specific people. They had a list they wanted specific people put into specific posts so that then they could go to these people and say, you know, you were making $50,000 as a staffer on Capitol Hill. He got you a job making $200,000. Now you're going to max out and contributions coming back.

That's a different level. What does it say that in the last few years, some 50 former members of the congressional staff of the Appropriations Committee's left Congress and took jobs and registered as lobbyists? What does that say to you? This is just more about the role of money in Washington and in our society generally. One of the statistics, I'm sure you know the actual numbers about this norm, but that lobbyists as a rule make considerably more than congressmen, even congressmen that have been around for a very long time. This is where the money is at in Washington and when you're done working on Capitol Hill or you only need to serve a few years there, whatever it is, that's where you go nowadays. You go and work for these people. And by the way, I don't think it's that the Democrats have been particularly wonderful on this. You know, I'm not a, I may sound like a partisan guy, but I don't mean to be. I don't think that what we, that they're going to solve the problem or anything like that. In some ways, in fact, I think they don't understand it. They really miss, they really miss the boat as well. I mean, the Republicans in some ways are the perpetrators or most of the perpetrators

are. But the Democrats, you know, they talk about the culture of corruption, but they can't understand what is, what is essentially conservative about what's been going on with, you know, they cannot link all the things that you've been describing, the K Street Project, the Abramoff affair, they can't link that to conservatism in any way larger than the fact that these people are conservative players. And there are a number of conservatives who find this process loathsome and who've spoken out about it. So you've got people on both sides, actually, who are stalwarts in trying to stop this process from moving forward. They've been in the minority. A lot of members don't want to get discomfort. They've lived kind of nicely the way that things have been going. You know, I would add, having been in Washington for 37 years, now I see a level of spending and conspicuous consumption that I just didn't see before. The fact is, when you've got a $3 trillion economy, and now you take $30, $40, $50 billion out of that, you know, chump change in a way, and say to every member of Congress, you've

got a few hundred million you can play with. You are the king over a few hundred million dollars. These are the earmarks. The earmarks. The earmark is, I understand it means that a Congress, a member of Congress, can direct that money be given, sent directly to a project without going through a public agency. And without going through any kind of vetting or cost-benefit analysis in effect. And it's done through appropriations, it's done through authorizations, there's academic earmarking, getting money going to a particular university. It's also, it's surreptitiously steering contracts, like defense contracts. That's what Randy Duke Cunningham did in return for $2.4 million in bribes. There's a book that came out a few years ago called The Cheating Culture, as well before the Abramoff affair. He focused a lot on things like Enron and World Com where you see a lot of the same kind of forces at play and a lot with people rationalizing the things that they were doing. And what he keeps coming back to is that these things are the product, they are intrinsically related to the kind of society we are, the inequality that you're seeing in America

nowadays. I mean, the vast change that has actually been worked by conservative economic policy in the last 30 years. And when you talk about DC that way, I could add anecdotes as well to talk about the kind of money that you see in that town. I used to go up there when I was in college 20 years ago. And it was kind of a middle-class town. And now everybody has a BMW. I read in the Washington Post just a few weeks ago, according to the latest census data, five of the suburban counties in DC or outside of DC are among the seven wealthiest counties in America. So is this excused the loss of a moral compass? Of course not. Of course not. What has happened to the moral compass? Well, it's been demagnetized by the money. And then you got to remember one other thing. What I'm trying to supply here are ways in which this scandal is linked to a certain political way of looking at the world.

It's not just a bunch of guys that saw a chance and took it. I mean, it is that, obviously, in the same way that Enron was. These are guys gaming the system, or WorldCom, or all the accounting stuff that you saw in the 1990s. Guys, it figured out how they could do it, and they did it. But it's also the product of contempt for government, okay? Do you agree with that? I think there's a lot of truth to that. One of it is Congress basically took their ethics process and threw it out the window more than a decade ago, partly because we were into these wars between the parties where we were criminalizing policy differences. When you lose an ethics process, you lose the sensitivity to some of these questions of what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. And everybody, or lots of people, became a part of that. And there are Democrats, just as there are Republicans, who have gone so far over to the dark side that they're going to end up serving very long prison sentences. It happens when you don't have any kind of boundaries in place. And these guys were happy to remove the boundaries because they could stay in power that way. Speaker of the House removed the boundaries on the ethics committee when it started getting

close to Tom Delay. That, I found, was one of the most outrageous things that I have ever seen. By the way, can I compound the outrage? Apparently, Michael Scanlon, I'm sure you know this, has written a master's thesis at where John Hopkins is. But how the ethics committee is always already compromised. So you wrote recently that the leaders of Congress have shown they don't really care if their colleagues are taking bribes or using hookers or whether there's oversight of crooked contractors. I mean, has this become a culture of corruption? It has become a culture of corruption. In a way, I cringe when Democrats have used it as a campaign phrase because I don't want it to become a partisan element here. This is a culture of corruption. It's wrong-headed. It's bad for the country. And we're only now starting to see some corrective mechanisms in place. And look what happened. The day that Bob Nay is, in effect, working in arrangement with prosecutors, which will involve a 27-month prison term.

That day, the Republicans in Congress effectively declared the end to any lobbying or ethics reform other than a completely sham earmark proposal just to get people off their backs. What Hutzpah, even now, in the face of all of this, but a part of it is, look around us in the campaign. Do we have a public expressing outrage? At this point? No. The cynicism is great enough that they think this is just business as usual when Abramoff was sentenced. Right after that, Speaker Hasterd said, oh, we're going to go for sweeping reforms. And as soon as the public attention drifted away, it was deep-sixth. Do we have the delay team without delay? We have something very close to it. Tom Delay was sui generous, but others have followed in his path and have been more than willing to take advantage of the cover that he provided and the extra seats he managed to bring in to give him a majority. What's his take for democracy? I think that, in a lot of ways, what we're seeing is a reversion to an older philosophy

of government where, look, one of the things about having a totally free market laissez-faire society, which is the direction in which all of these people, when they were being idealistic, that's the direction in which they wanted to move this country, is that when you let the market free to do whatever it wants, one of the things that it's going to do is try to work its way through government. That's what it's all about. This is what Hamiltonian, the Hamiltonian theory of government serves those who own. That's the old, old, old school conservative way of viewing government in America. Breibree is, if you look at this in a big picture, big economic perspective, Breibree is, well, how would you say this? It's a cost of business. Yeah, exactly. It's a cost of doing business. It's insignificant. Of course, it's going to keep going. Of course, it's going to keep going. And the reforms have to be far more sweeping. What's to be done?

There are some reforms that would make a difference. Primarily, in this case, we need an ethics committee and an ethics process that has some outside involvement to have- It's not members of Congress, right? Not just members of Congress. The Constitution says they make the ultimate decisions, but you've got to have some better vetting process. There are states like Florida and Kentucky that manage to do this reasonably effectively. You've got to change this earmarking process and bring some honesty to it, and we're far from being able to do that. And we've got to help- In other words, you could publicize who is sponsoring the earmark so that I would know Norman Ornstein has sent an earmark over to a campaign kind of people. And so that you can look into the behavior of individual members and staffers, which may be related to those earmarks. But if reform has to come from the people who have benefited from the system, will we go to get reform? We're going to get reform if and when they believe that the public will have the tar, cooking, and the feathers waiting if they don't do reform. We're not there yet, Phil.

Can I say two things about this question? First of all, the people who are in charge now have a vested interest in increasing our cynicism. They are the party of cynicism against government. And when they do these things, that's just an added benefit that they've managed to get those cynicism numbers up where they have, that's good for the Republican Party. The party that tells you that, what, remember what President Reagan used to say about government, you know, that it was a joke, the idea that they were here to help you all that stuff. The second point that I want to make is go back to the 19th century, the sort of parallel experience to what we're going through now. You had a series of reformers come up in the 19th century and every single one of them from, you know, Horace Greeley all up to the 1890s failed miserably. You know, we're rejected and huge, sweeping. I mean, the corruption is just whipped these guys. It was a piece of cake. It was easy. The only thing that what really changed it is when reform became a broader thing, when it became progressivism and when it became, you know, look at society as a whole. We're going to change the entire direction that we're moving in.

When I'm talking about here, people like Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt would draw Wilson. That's when this stuff started to abate, not before then. One problem we have here is what we really need is politicians. Politicians understand the nature of politics and the importance of the institutions, how to do, give and take, and compromise in an effective fashion. What's happening now is where this flames cynicism in the public. Somebody pops up and says, I'm not a politician. And we say, okay, great, we'll elect you. And what we get are people who are on an ideological crusade, people who have a contempt for politics and believe that it is all sleaze, everybody does it. So bribery is a way of life. Is there hope when money trumps everything else today? You don't want to ask me that. You know, I'm a very pessimistic guy. And I don't think there is because, you know, earlier we were talking about the Democrats and their reaction to all this.

And I think their reaction has been lukewarm to feeble. No, they want that money too. They want to turn this around. I saw the other day a very powerful House member, Democrats saying, you know, we're going after some uncharted sources of money in the financial community. And we're telling them that the next majority leader might be a Democrat. And you know, we've had a telecommunications bill that's been up and pending in Congress for a long time. They're going to keep it pending for a long time. And every once in a while they say it's going to pass, going to pass. So then each side keeps throwing more money into it. Some of this stuff is difficult to deal with. It's an age-as-old problem. We have to constantly be at it to keep the money system from careening out of control. In the short run, we've got a big problem here. We have a sharply polarized political system. We call the book The Broken Branch because Congress is thoroughly dysfunctional. It isn't going to change overnight. We need new leadership, including a presidential campaign that may bring it. But we've got a process that's going to take us years to reconstruct. I have long-term hope.

We've always done it before. But short-term, I'm very pessimistic. It's history. Mr. Historian, give us any reason for hope. Sure. Absolutely. But in the very long term, I'm sorry to say. George Bush came to office in 2000, vowing to clean up Washington. I just looked at one of his speeches this morning. We're going to clean up Washington. And he said, what happened? They cleaned up in Washington. No more in steam and, Tom Frank, thank you very much. The books are What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives won the Heart of America and The Broken Branch. Our Congress is failing America and how to get it back on track. Thank you both very much. Thanks, Bill. For a who's who and timeline of the Abramov scandal, to see who's funding your local candidates, and to join the discussion in our citizens' class, log on to pbs.org. There's something happening to the earth. The disk is a battle between good and evil. Many Christians have become born again environmentalists. I care about the creator, therefore I care about the creation.

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