How to Win [Buy] Friends and [Peddle] Influence People

Below is an excerpt from another great Bill Moyers Journal story. This one deals with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal from a few years back. At least Abramoff was punished (actually more like scolded--5 years in minimum security? Dudes in my neighborhood get more than that for getting caught with more than a few ounces). The scourge of super-lobbyists isn't anathema to our political system; it is our political system. As Thomas Frank notes in an interview with Moyer: "It's not the apples, it's the trees themselves." Does that overstate things? C'mon man:



BILL MOYERS: In the mid-1990s, Russia was like something out of the Wild West.

MICHAEL WALLER: These Russian gangster capitalists had a lot of money, and they didn't care which political party they got involved with. Whether - when it was the Democrats running the White House, they did it with the Democrats, and when they wanted to work with the Republicans in Congress, then they'd buy a Republican, or rent a Republican here and there.

BILL MOYERS: A plum ripe for Abramoff's picking. This time, he registered as a lobbyist for a mysterious company based in the Bahamas connected to a Russian oil and gas giant called Naftasib.

BILL MOYERS: Naftasib - with its headquarters in this unmarked building in the heart of Moscow - was a major supplier to the Russian military. It also advertised the close ties between its Vice President and Russian military intelligence.

MICHAEL WALLER: So, here you have an instructor at Russian Military Intelligence Academy who is one of the top two people in a very sketchy, deceptive-looking, influence operation in Washington where it's hiring people to identify lawmakers and staffers for free trips to Russia, in hotels that were still equipped the way the KGB had always equipped the hotels. This is not an educational exchange program. This is not a pure person-to-person, understanding-type program. This is potentially a very serious operation.

BILL MOYERS: On the fifth of August, 1997, Tom DeLay and Ed Buckham, DeLay's Chief of Staff who had recently set up the U.S. Family Network, left for a six-day visit to Moscow. Abramoff joined them there. DeLay's official report claimed the trip was sponsored by the very same non-profit that paid for his golf vacation in Scotland. In Russia, they were hosted at a lavish dinner and shown around town by the two top Naftasib executives.

JEFFREY SMITH: The oil executives were excited at the possibility that Tom DeLay could help open doors for them in Washington, and they wanted to reward him in some way, and so they asked a colleague of Abramoff's, you know, what would happen if the DeLays woke up one day and found a luxurious car, like a BMW or a Mercedes on their driveway. And the colleague of Abramoff said, "Well, that would be illegal. This shows a motive and desire by the Russians to reward the DeLays in one way or another for work that they expected him to do for them.

BILL MOYERS: Nine months later, the U.S. Family Network received a wire transfer from a London law firm, now defunct, that the Washington Post has connected to the Naftasib bosses. The amount: one million dollars. Pastor Chris Geeslin questioned Ed Buckham.

REV. CHRIS GEESLIN: He kind of looked at me with some disdain, and he said, "You know where the large money has come from, don't you?" And I said, "No, I have no idea." And he said, "Well let me tell you, this is how it works in Washington." He said, "That money came from Russian oil barons." And I, you know, I just couldn't believe it.

BILL MOYERS: One million dollars was an astounding sum. But consider the timing: it arrived just as Washington was beginning to debate legislation critical to Russia and its collapsing economy. Congress was being asked to resupply the International Monetary Fund, the I.M.F., with taxpayer money that would be used to help bail out the Russian economy and oligarchs like the Naftasib bosses.

BILL MOYERS: Long a critic of the IMF, Tom DeLay had disparaged the pending legislation. "The IMF is bailing out the bankrupt," he said. But by the time the vote came, he had a change of heart and supported the legislation he had scorned.

The world's greatest hustle. But of course, we musn't look back or dredge up the past. Just keep looking forward. How do you like those blinders? Not too tight around the temples are they?