Since 1999 I’ve been tracking Jack Abramoff and the Culture of Corruption. Over the years, I’ve often written about the John McCain’s investigation cover-up of the scandal (like in this Diary) and this work has led me to a simple statement of fact:
John McCain is a liar.
I could point to many examples of the lies McCain has told over his long mendacious career, but the whopper he told on November 17, 2004 during a Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hearing on the Abramoff Scandal is a perfect example of a McCain Lie. Representatives of the Tigua Tribe of Texas—the Tribe that suffered the greatest damage from the crimes of Jack Abramoff—were testifying. McCain interrupted their testimony to look them in the eye and say:
"I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told."
It was a promise that John McCain never intended to keep.
To the Jump...
Jack Abramoff and John McCain are linked together in a timeless dance of mutual corruption. Of the two men, I would say that Abramoff is the more honorable and honest man. While McCain has spun his cover-up into an example of his "Maverickieness", Jack has admitted his crimes. He is cooperating with the ongoing investigation while McCain has sent 750,000 pages of documents into a 50-year cold storage at the National Archives. Abramoff has shown some remorse and he has been reaching out to make some amends. McCain has buried the truth in a web of lies and inaction.
On the day that John McCain accepted the nomination of his Corruptionist party as their candidate for President, Jack Abramoff was sentenced to serve four years for the crimes he committed in Washington. Abramoff is already in prison serving a five years and 10 months sentence for other crimes he committed in Florida. He began that sentence in 2006. He’ll serve this new sentence concurrently with the remainder of his Florida sentence. He may get out by 2012 during the next Presidential election year.
If John McCain has his way, he will be ending his first four-year term as President.
Jack Abramoff just got a four years sentence for his crimes.
We can not let John McCain be rewarded with four years in the White House for his.
He is a lying super corruptionist who must be stopped. Here is a quick look at John McCain’s Cover-up of Republican Corruption:
During the course of his non-investigation, McCain protected many in his party from close examination. In this cycle we are NOT letting these weasels escape their record of scandal. For example when news of Jack Abramoff’s sentence broke, Democratic Candidate Debbie Cook took after Dana Rohrabacher for his ties to Abramoff. And over in Colorado, Jack Abramoff is just one of the many Scandals of Bob Schaffer.
There are many other Republican Candidates we need to call out for their connections to the Abramoff Scandal and John McCain leads the parade.
It is true what they say in Washington:
The cover-up is always worse than the crime.
The crimes of Jack Abramoff were bad, but McCain’s cover-up is worse.
Abramoff is showing remorse. McCain is showing arrogance. And yet, even John McCain dare not mention Abramoff’s name in this campaign as the Financial Times so insightfully noted in their convention coverage:
Jack Abramoff, the former Republican super-lobbyist, was sentenced yesterday to serve four more years in prison following his conviction on corruption charges. [snip]
John McCain might be expected to relish the coincidental timing of the sentencing, given the role he played in initiating investigations into the corrupt lobbyist. But his campaign is unlikely to highlight that. The name "Abramoff" still conjures images of a corrupt Republican party.
I came to my research of Jack Abramoff and the Republican Culture of Corruption out of outrage over the system of sweatshops, forced prostitution, money laundering, gambling, graft, corruption, human trafficking and abuse that has flourished on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). It was a system that Jack Abramoff and his Republican Party (with a few exceptions) protected and defended. It was a system of abuse that John McCain never cared about at all.
Of all of his crimes, Abramoff’s real victims were the guest workers of the CNMI. Because of his protection of this system of abuse, people were raped, forced into the sex trade, abused, beaten and some died. As part of his lobbying work on behalf of the Pirates of Saipan Abramoff would go after human rights workers, anti-sweatshop activists and any victim of the abuse who dared to speak up. He once even had an attack on a rape victim entered into the Congressional Record.
Wendy Doromal is one of those human rights workers that Jack Abramoff worked overtime trying to destroy. He threw everything he had at her. It was a relentless and vicious attack. It lasted for years and years. Wendy kept fighting for the rights of these workers. She still is.
She maintains a blog, Unheard No More, for the workers of the CNMI. I link to her blog in the signature line of every comment I make on Daily Kos. She is the most courageous and decent person I know. She is a REAL American Hero.
When Jack Abramoff was sentenced yesterday she put up this post. It made me think that perhaps, Jack Abramoff really is trying to come to terms with his crimes:
I have mixed feelings about Abramoff's sentencing. I am disgusted with his lobbying work on behalf of the CNMI government. It perpetuated the suffering of hundreds of foreign contract workers by preventing the passage of federalization laws that could have spared them the indignity and injustice of being victims of illegal recruiters, being cheated, scammed, and otherwise abused. Abramoff's work on behalf of the CNMI painted an untrue and distorted picture of the situation in the CNMI. The lobbying efforts in the Philippines included meeting with Philippine officials to conduct a libelous campaign against my human rights work, and successful efforts to promote their flawed labor and immigration system.
A few years ago when my friend, Dennis handed me copies of the billing records that the CNMI received from Abramoff's lobbying firms, I was shocked to see my name among the pages. I was disgusted to see that the CNMI was billed over 140 hours to "prove" that the story about me and the victims of labor abuse in the Reader's Digest was false. (It was true.) I was disgusted to learn that the CNMI government spent an estimated $11 million dollars on a lobbying campaign of deceit and cover ups. The wasted funds that the CNMI spent on lobbying firms could have gone to building a power plant, funding the Public School System, Northern Marianas College, and the Commonwealth Health Center. All of the young women and minors who were trafficked into the CNMI illegally and coerced into prostitution or forced to perform sex acts on stage could have been spared—hundreds of them.
The efforts of Abramoff, his co-conspirators from right wing think tanks, foot soldiers from the US Congress, CNMI government officials, and wealthy business owners to successfully block federal reform legislation hurt many innocent people. The junkets, bribes, and deals were conducted on the backs of innocent workers. If the Akaka-Murkowski CNMI reform legislation had passed in the U.S. House after it was passed unanimously in the Senate in 2000, the CNMI would be a different place today. Abramoff, Tom Delay, Bob Schaffer, Don Young and others successfully blocked it in the House.
As much as I detest the irreversible damage of the lobbying deal between Abramoff and the CNMI, I believe Jack Abramoff is sincerely sorry for his crimes and takes responsibility for what he has done. I know this because I wrote to him last year, and he replied to me last summer after the death of his mother. I believe that his two-page typed letter to me was sincere.
Today the letter Jack Abramoff wrote to the judge was released. He wrote:
I have a lot to make up for and a lot of amends to make. If I can earn more than a mere living again, I will be paying back those I harmed for the rest of my life. However, little is accomplished by delaying that day by my being jailed longer than is necessary.
Jack Abramoff's actions hurt many people. He has spent two years in jail talking for over 3,000 hours to over 100 law enforcement officials and attorney to reveal information on others who violated the law. Hopefully, more convictions are coming as his attorneys have predicted. Hopefully, justice will be served, and some officials and others in the CNMI will join Mr. Abramoff behind bars.
Jack Abramoff has written Wendy and started down the path toward accepting responsibility for his actions (and you can see a PDF of Jack’s letter to the Judge here). Perhaps Jack Abramoff will find a way to redeem himself. As a Liberal, I believe that it is possible. I hope he leaves the dark side and comes clean. For me, the proof will be what he does to make amends with the guest workers on the CNMI that he harmed so greatly.
These crimes should have been exposed. Justice should have been done. Instead, these crimes are mostly invisible. They are hidden and in the passage of time more and more of these crimes will go unpunished. Jack Abramoff had a role in this obstruction of justice, but once his crimes were exposed and he went to jail the burden for justice was passed to the investigators: John McCain and the Bush Department of Justice. So far, both have failed these victims. Both have looked the other way and allowed human trafficking and abuse to go on and on and on. While the DOJ has to deal with Bush dead-enders slow walking and obstructing the investigation, John McCain only has himself to blame.
It is a strange world when I find myself thinking that Jack Abramoff has more honor than John McCain, but that is where I am.
At least Jack Abramoff shows some remorse.
McCain just piles on the lies, hype and self-promotion.
We need to work hard and defeat this Corruptionist in the next two months. Every day counts.
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We have Country to Take Back and a planet to save.
We can do this.
Yes. We. Can.
Cheers