THE ABRAMOFF MYSTERY

Jack Abramoff was a Republican lobbyist. In fact, he has become the media’s archetype for an evil, greedy, Republican super-lobbyist.

So I ask you this: In this politically charged environment, and caught in a scandal, who would you get for a lawyer if you were Jack Abramoff? The answer of who he got will shock you:

Jack Abramoff’s lawyer is one of the most powerful and trusted Democrat lawyers in the country. He is not just any lawyer. He is the lawyer that argued against Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the Senate. He has represented numerous infamous Democrats over the years. He is the ultimate Democrat insider for the Clintons. Allow me to present a little dossier on Jack Abramoff’s lawyer - Abbe Lowell:

From 1998 story on him in the Washington Post, entitled Counsel Lowell: A Defender of Democrats in Trouble :

"In choosing Lowell as their chief investigative counsel in the impeachment showdown with Republicans, House Judiciary Committee Democrats tapped a savvy defense lawyer whose clients include former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) and numerous other Democrats. ...

A Bronx native, Lowell, 46, has been a Democratic insider in Washington since shortly after he graduated from Columbia Law School in 1977. His first job here was as a special assistant to the attorney general in the Carter administration.

Lowell ... is a certified liberal Democrat who ran for public office himself once, losing a 1982 race for the Maryland House of Delegates."

He’s so liberal that, as USAToday noted, he once “worked for Greenpeace and for Ralph Nader at the Center for Auto Safety.” Lowell is such a Clinton insider that he "fought independent counsel Donald Smaltz's criminal conspiracy charges against Henry Espy, brother of former Agriculture secretary Mike Espy" during the Clinton Administration's Espy-Tyson bribery scandal.

USA Today also notes that he is a "combative advocate". Remember Congressman Gary Condit who was suspected of murdering a girl named Chandra Levy? Lowell got him off. Former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos observed on ABC News :

“You can see the difference Lowell has made. He figured out a way to protect Condit from the wrath of the police and preserve whatever's left of Condit's political viability by mounting a public defense.”

Note that he “mounted a public defense” for Condit, yet there has been a almost total absence of a public defense for Jack Abramoff.

Remember Robert Torricelli, one of the biggest bribe-taking crooks ever to infest the Senate and the Mafia’s personal representative on Capitol Hill? (Believe it or not, his father Salvatore came from the village of Corleone in Sicily.) Guess who was Torricelli’s favorite lawyer to get him off on umpteen corruption charges?  Abbe Lowell.

It was Abbe Lowell who defended Chicago Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, convicted on Federal counts of campaign finance fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice; Speaker of the House Jim Wright, who resigned after being charged with 69 violations of House campaign finance rules; and Pennsylvania Congressman Joseph McDade, who thanks to Lowell beat a Federal bribery indictment.

Lowell has also made his allegiances clear through his political donations which are available at the Federal Election Commission web site .All of his Federal political donations were to Democrats, including particularly slimy ones. Federal donations since 2004 were to:

Barney Frank

John Kerry

John Edwards

Tom Daschel

Ed Markey

Martin Frost

Tom Harkin

Hillary Clinton

Nick Clooney

Marty Meehan

Eliot Engel

We all know that Jack Abramoff is a Republican. The evidence is overwhelming. He was the National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee in the early ‘80s and has been a very active Republican ever since. He gave a baby shower for Dana Rohrabacher. He hosted Jack Wheeler’s 60th surprise birthday party. The list goes on and on. Take it as established: No matter how much harm to the Republican cause has resulted from his actions, he is a Republican.

So why did he choose Abbe Lowell? Why would any Republican in such a situation choose Abbe Lowell? The question is particularly biting in the current political climate. Why would a life long Republican risk his life, his fortune and his sacred honor on a proven hard core Clinton-loving Hyper-Liberal Democrat insider, especially during this time of over-the-top political warfare? 

Jack Abramoff has strangely stuck with Abbe Lowell even though Lowell has not aggressively defended him. He even stuck with Abbe Lowell after Lowell had him show up in court in an outfit that (according to the media) made him "look like a lawbreaker; he looked shadowy, threatening and downright creepy."  "... dressed like a crime boss. He could not have appeared more guilty, more menacing and more unsympathetic..."  Any lawyer would know better than that, and Lowell is an experienced media savy lawyer.  

It is not apparent that Lowell has generated any defense.  Consider that Lowell counseled his client to accept a plea agreement. Earlier he told Abramoff to "take the fifth". Abbe Lowell never had to defend Jack Abramoff in court so we cannot judge his performance by any court performance. Everything is behind closed doors. It does not take much of a lawyer to say “give up” and that is essentially what Abbe Lowell did.

When Abbe Lowell did make a public statement in an op-ed piece , he virtually admitted Abramoff's guilt, said that the problem went far beyond him, and called for election law reform.  This was no defense - and it played right into the Democrat "culture of corruption" scheme.

Lowell never mounted any substantial public defense of his Republican client as he did so vigorously for his Democrat clients. It appears that h e never permitted Abramoff to utter a single public word or give a single media interview in his defense . As Jack Wheeler said in Surprise! , “What is most puzzling to me is Jack’s silence.” Why in the world would Jack Abramoff allow himself to be muzzled by his lawyer, and thus allow himself to be demonized by the liberal media? Why would a passionately dedicated conservative Republican hire a hardcore solid slime Lefty deep in Clinton and Democrat confidences – and then let him be used by that lawyer to smear the entire Republican Party as “the party of corruption”?

The only reasonable answer is that he was coerced: As in having him or a loved one threatened with something awful. Something bad enough that he would sell out his friends of decades. Bad enough that he would help hand the election to the Democrats. He may be a tough guy, but what about his loved ones? He has a wife, three sons and two daughters.

The Democrats see the Abramoff scandal as their key to the White House and the Congress. This election and the next will decide if the Clintons get back in the White House. The Clinton reputation for terrorizing witnesses is thoroughly established, and the Abramoff situation has played right into their hands.

To understand how Jack Abramoff may be the victim of coercion, we need to look at how he got in trouble in the first place.

Abramoff had a friend, Adam Ronald Kidan, who he met in college in a Republican organization back in the early 1980’s. Kidan and Abramoff became reacquainted years later when Kidan was a Washington DC lawyer and he owned a mattress franchise in Washington DC.

Unbeknownst to Abramoff, Adam Kidan was mixed up with the Mafia . He had been in a New York bagel business, partnered with Michael Cavallo who was a member of a crime family. In 1990 while in the bagel business, Kidan became acquainted with “Big Tony” Moscatiello who was an "accountant" and heroin smuggler for the Gambino crime family.

In 1993 Kidan’s mother was killed in a Mafia related robbery. Kidan was accused of stealing the money from the reward for finding the perpetrators and he lost his law license in 2000. Kidan was a pathological liar who made outrageous claims and had numerous business failings.

Kidan’s mattress business had failed and he needed Abramoff's image to give him legitimacy. Abramoff appears to have been oblivious to Kidan's past. They first went into business together briefly to do advertising on a Potomac water taxi, and later partnered in buying a Florida casino boat fleet called SunCruz.

Abramoff went into business with Kidan knowing little about him except that he was a fellow Republican back in college. In college days Kidan was not yet mixed up with the Mafia in any businesses, and he probably seemed like a good kid. Abramoff had some recent experience with Indian casinos lobbying. Kidan was to supply the money, and Abramoff was to provide the image and political support for the business.

To make a long story short, the former owner (Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis) was not paid as agreed because Kidan’s representations were false. Kidan only pretended to pay. Boulis threatened to sue.

As the Washington Post describes:

“Abramoff went to see Boulis on his own ‘to try to mediate their differences for the good of the business.’ Abramoff met alone with Boulis and his representatives. Boulis recounted Kidan’s bad acts and at one point stated ‘Kidan stole my company.’ Abramoff said later in court documents he learned for the first time at this meeting with Boulis that Kidan had not given Boulis the $23 million.” Abramoff was "flabbergasted" and "could not believe that it could be true".

Abramoff had been duped by Kidan. Not only did Jack Abramoff not know about Kidan’s Mafia relationships, he didn’t even know that the money to buy SunCruz had not been sent. He was suddenly learning about his big-lying business partner. He learned a great deal more soon thereafter.

Four months later, in early February of 2001, Boulis was killed gangland style. Kidan had hired “Big Tony” who came to work for SunCruz with two of his associates ("Little Tony" and "Pudgy"). These associates and Big Tony together performed the hit. It was then that Abramoff discovered that Kidan was more than a crook. He was a dangerous criminal with Mafia hit men murdering for him.

Remember that Big Tony was an “accountant” working for the Gambino crime family. Furthermore, Big Tony had been indicted on trafficking in heroin in conjunction with John Gotti. Now what do you think a person like Big Tony and Adam Kidan would do with a fleet of gambling boats off Florida?

The first thing Kidan did was to fire everyone associated with Boulis: Kidan says “We fired his [Boulis’s] friends, we fired his family, and he wasn’t happy with it”. He replaced the crews with his own people. It was an ideal situation for laundering money. 

Common sense suggests that he probably used the boats to do money laundering for the Gambino crime family. Florida is an important route for drugs from South America en route to New York. With Kidan’s mafia relationships, and the presence of mafia personnel, how could he do anything else?

Jack Abramoff discovered his predicament in early 2001. He had been lobbying for Indian tribes before this, yet while the arrangements are complicated, and not all is disclosed in the press, it appears that the only clearly unethical events happened after January 2001.

Given the involvement of organized crime in entities competing against Indian gambling, it would be in their interest to harm the Indian Tribal casinos as much as possible. Thus those actions which Jack Abramoff did to the tribes may also have been directed for the benefit of the organized crime.

When Jack Abramoff discovered that he was a duped partner in a Mafia enterprise, he started doing things that make no sense given his past. Perhaps they threatened him, or his wife or his sons or daughters. It appears that Abramoff has been doing whatever they ask since then, a frightened puppet of a criminal enterprise.

Imagine what it must be like to discover that a person you trusted turned out to be a pathologic liar, that you have become responsible for millions of dollars in debt, that your former friend is a cold blooded killer, and that he has the connections to kill you or your loved ones if you take a wrong step.

Do what they want and you get money. Do anything else and you or your son or daughter or wife are easily killed or worse. If he was coerced, that does not imply he did not receive money as well. Money is part of the dirty process to make the person feel obligated, guilty, frightened, isolated, etc. That is how the Mafia works.

Remember Jack Abramoff’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. This is not the first time Abbe Lowell has had a relationship with the New York Mafia and political scandal:

“Convicted felons, associates of the American Mafia, Mafia-corrupted labor unions, Mafia-tainted gambling casinos, international con-artists, including wanted fugitives, and associates of Islamic terrorists are among those who have contributed to the campaigns of Senator Robert ‘The Torch’ Torricelli.” (See link above.) Abbe Lowell was Torricelli’s lawyer for political scandals. Sound familiar?

Abbe Lowell’s assignment to Jack Abramoff led to a series of unfortunate events that benefited the Democrats and the Clintons. Common sense tells us Jack Abramoff never would have chosen that lawyer if he were free to choose.   Common sense also tells us who has benefitted from that choice of a lawyer.  The unavoidable conclusion is that the New York Clintons and/or Democrats made a deal with the New York mob to deliver the Abramoff scandal and thus the 2006/2008 elections. 

Once that political mob associated lawyer was assigned to Jack Abramoff, no law enforcement personnel were legally allowed to speak privately with him without Abbe Lowell present.  Jack Abramoff could not tell his own story safely. 

If the above analysis is true, then Jack Abramoff may soon have outlived his usefulness. He can no longer do lobbying. He will soon have done all the damage he could do to the Republicans. If the bad guys get a notion that he could come forward and tell the whole story, then they might do something to prevent it.

They would try to make it either look like a suicide, or like a right-wing guy did it to punish him for his damage to the Republicans. Either story would be entirely plausible to the press, and yet another way to damage the Republicans. Thus he may soon become more useful dead than alive to them. Bringing out this story now, first, is my way to help prevent that from happening. 

[Jack Abramoff is now safely in prison - He went in one week after the election. They kept him out and under threat until they got what they wanted. It was apparently timed for after Election Day. Bob Ney, who was fingered by Abramoff, pleaded guilty to corruption only two days before the election. This was clearly to maximise political damage to the Republicans. The timing was scheduled, controlled and manipulated by the Democrats as part of their operation Culture of Corruption.

Also of interest, the week after the election, news reports came that Abramoff was now finally implicating some Democrat Senators, and Karl Rove. That is probably no coincidence. Note the Rove article to see that he too was suspected of being a Democrat mole in the White House. Now that Abramoff is safe, he can finally talk. -added by Dagny 20 Nov 2006]

References

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