A while ago, Josh Marshell broke the Abramoff Scandal code at
Talking Points Memo:
On paper, Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist. And he made a great deal of money for himself. But if you think of Jack Abramoff as just a crooked lobbyist most of the facts coming out about what he did don't make a great deal of sense. He was a key player in a very big political machine and he was managing a slush fund.
Look at the pattern.
Notice how all Abramoff's clients seemed to get 'bilked' out of large sums of money that ended up going to other conservative foundations, consulting firms, Ralph Reed, lobby shops, Grover Norquist, astroturf organizers, politicians, etc.? All of them part of Washington's Republican infrastructure?
Jack is a 25-year GOP bagman. That is the secret.
The entire corrupt enterprise must be brought down.
We can help. We need to drive this story. Here's how...
Progressive blogs can drive stories. We can frame this scandal as the standard for today's GOP. The interlocking GOP elected officials, talking heads, think tanks, lobbyists and operatives can all be tied to Abramoff, from Bush down to your local school board whacko.
Research is the key. And that is what we can do. Once new information is found we can push it to the top Diaries. Out to other blogs and then to the MSM. We can frame this issue.
There is a rich pile of Abramoff details in all the Diaries at the Jack Abramoff tag.
The Washington Post was the first member of the MSM to focus on Abramoff. Now they have an Abramoff page with links to their stories and the latest from the wires.
For many source documents, you can go to the Committee on Indian Affairs and download the five PDFs of hundreds of emails, letters, spreadsheets and other documents. And for lobbying records one can turn to the searchable database of Senate Lobbying Disclosure Records.
And then there is a Google or Yahoo news search for Abramoff or any of the many players in this scandal.
And there are some Journalists who have earned their stripes as Abramoff Scholars. A quick search of their work will lead to many details:
All the above publications have had other writers working on the Abramoff scandal as well. The NYTs is playing catch-up. Time magazine and Newsweek are on the case as well. And then there is TV and radio. NPR and progressive talk radio have done some good segments of Jack.
The point is that this story is becoming a very competitive news story. And this scandal has enough threads so almost any news organization could break BIG news by tracking Jack.
This is a very complicated story. I have been researching Abramoff since 1999 and I am constantly surprised at the size and depth of this scandal. And I know that there are many more shoes to drop. For one example, the Chinese money flowing through Saipan to Jack to the GOP has hardly been reported.
As reported today, Jack claims he doesn't have money for his defense. It is because everything went back to the Party. Sure he took his take, and he lived well, but his life has been dedicated to establishing one-party rule in the USA. He knows how the connections work.
There is talk of him taking a deal. I say only if he comes clean on everything.
I'm sure the party would gave up Jack and Ney and DeLay and said that's the end of it. It would not end it.
It will take much more to clean house.
Some recent reports have linked Harry Reid to Abramoff donations. I doubt the connection will hold up to scrutiny, but it does give Reid the opportunity to demand a special prosecutor for all things Abramoff: one with the resources, mandate and freedom to get to the bottom of this 25 year old scandal.
Things are just starting to get interesting.
Grab a thread and start pulling...