Blueneck
09-05-2008, 12:03 PM
Broken and disgraced, lobbyist Jack Abramoff will spend four years in prison for his role in a corruption scandal that upended Washington politics and contributed to the Republicans' loss of Congress in 2006.
The once powerful Washington insider, at times choking back tears during his sentencing hearing Thursday, appeared crestfallen as a judge handed down a longer sentence than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has come to symbolize corruption and the secret deals cut between lobbyists and politicians in back rooms or on golf courses or private jets. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill.
"I come before you as a broken man," Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. "I'm not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption."
He added later that, "My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal."
He's also written a book:
Although Abramoff expressed remorse, he also has spent his time in prison cooperating with a book that portrays him much differently: as a victim of Washington politics.
The book, set for publication later this month and obtained by The Associated Press, says Abramoff was pressured to plead guilty. The book blames The Washington Post and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee whose Senate committee investigated Abramoff, for making him the fall guy.
"I never expected that I would have to go to prison," Abramoff says in the book, "until it became clear that the media could not allow this play to close without the hanging of the villain."
In "The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Boston journalist Gary Chafetz portrays Abramoff as an innocent man who excelled in an already corrupt system and was undone by biased prosecutors, reporters and political enemies.
What a maggot this guy is.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMZw4dYnLxr5AKkDn0bKGqH0epYAD930EBDG0
The once powerful Washington insider, at times choking back tears during his sentencing hearing Thursday, appeared crestfallen as a judge handed down a longer sentence than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has come to symbolize corruption and the secret deals cut between lobbyists and politicians in back rooms or on golf courses or private jets. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill.
"I come before you as a broken man," Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. "I'm not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption."
He added later that, "My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal."
He's also written a book:
Although Abramoff expressed remorse, he also has spent his time in prison cooperating with a book that portrays him much differently: as a victim of Washington politics.
The book, set for publication later this month and obtained by The Associated Press, says Abramoff was pressured to plead guilty. The book blames The Washington Post and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee whose Senate committee investigated Abramoff, for making him the fall guy.
"I never expected that I would have to go to prison," Abramoff says in the book, "until it became clear that the media could not allow this play to close without the hanging of the villain."
In "The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Boston journalist Gary Chafetz portrays Abramoff as an innocent man who excelled in an already corrupt system and was undone by biased prosecutors, reporters and political enemies.
What a maggot this guy is.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMZw4dYnLxr5AKkDn0bKGqH0epYAD930EBDG0