Lobbyist scandal hits home

Rep. Rohrabacher takes a moderate approach when discussing the crimes of his old friend, Jack Abramoff.He’s called him a contributor, an advisor and even a friend.

But the recent guilty pleas of Jack Abramoff have created a dilemma for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. A longtime associate of the “super-lobbyist,” Rohrabacher has finally denounced the behavior of the man believed to be the mastermind of a scheme to bribe as many as 20 politicians for favors. Yet in the same breath, Rohrabacher refuses to personally attack the friend he’s known for nearly three decades.

“I have condemned Jack for his illegal activities and his legal-but-less-thanethical behavior,” the Republican congressman said. “But I have refused to call him a monster and abuse him personally when he is down and out. I’m not on top of the corpse of my friend, beating my chest and trying to convince others that he is not my friend.”

Asked if he felt other politicians were unfairly scapegoating Abramoff, Rohrabacher said, “I don’t know another member of Congress who isn’t doing that.”

Abramoff pleaded guilty on Jan. 4 to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from his 2000 purchase of a fleet of casino boats for $100 million. He also recently admitted to defrauding four Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars and corruption charges stemming from his involvement with potentially more than a dozen unnamed politicians.

It remains unclear whether Rohrabacher is one of those names, although most familiar with the case say it is unlikely. Rohrabacher said he hasn’t been contacted by the U.S. Justice Department or U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the congressman wasn’t even one of the top 50 recipients of political contributions from Abramoff, according to a report from a Washington watchdog group, the Center for Responsive Politics. Documents show that Rohrabacher received about $3,000 directly from Abramoff and another $9,500 since 1999 from tribes Abramoff represented.

Rohrabacher said he plans to return the bulk of the money.

“Three-fourths of what Jack [Abramoff] did was standard operating procedure,” he said. “If all his activities were found to be illegal, there would be nobody left on Capitol Hill that would be allowed to lobby.”

Political scientist Mark Petracca of UC Irvine said he wasn’t impressed by Rohrabacher’s explanation.

“The defense can’t be that if most people do it, it’s OK,” he said. “We ought to have higher standards than what the law prescribes. The law is neither the beginning nor the end of ethical behavior.”

The Huntington Beach congressman’s ties to Abramoff stretch back to the early 1980s, when Rohrabacher was working as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. Abramoff at the time was the chair of the College Republicans, and over the years the pair developed a strong friendship that included multiple visits by Rohrabacher to Abramoff’s Washington, D.C., eatery, Signatures.

According to court documents, Abramoff even used Rohrabacher as a reference for a loan to purchase a $60 million fleet of casino boats in Florida.

Rohrabacher is also said to have taken two trips overseas with Abramoff, including a late 1990s trip with now-embattled former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and a 2002 trip to Malaysia. A report in the National Journal found that the government of Malaysia, for whom Abramoff had done some lobbying work, paid for part of the trip.

Rohrabacher said both trips were to discuss political issues with those nations’ leadership and that it’s very common for politicians to take trips abroad.

“It’s standard operating procedure,” he said. “Take Israel or Taiwan. Members of Congress are regularly pressured to take trips to those countries to prove their loyalties.”

The power of incumbency will probably protect Rohrabacher from any major fallout on election day, Petracca said, and the episode is not likely to lead to any substantive political reform on Capitol Hill.

“We’ve been here before and we’ve tried to outlaw this type of behavior,” he said. “That usually just encourages clever people like Abramoff to find ways to circumvent it.”