You don't know Jack

"In the beginning, there was Abramoff." -- Frank Rich, October 2005.\nThe story of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has taken Washington by storm. His connections to politicians are still nebulous, but Abramoff's sordid tale reads like something out of "The Sopranos." Consider the following facts from a comprehensive report in The Weekly Standard, listed in the order in which they occurred:\n• Abramoff represented American Indian gaming interests through his employer and was therefore not allowed by his employer to purchase casinos. \n• Not to be discouraged by ethics regulations, Abramoff decides he wants to buy SunCruz casinos, based in Florida, and decides not to tell anyone except for two partners, the more involved of which is Adam Kidan.\n• Konstantinos Boulis, the owner of SunCruz casinos, is shown he has the weaker hand in negotiations when Abramoff gets Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, to enter into the Congressional Record remarks that impugn the legality of Boulis' company. \n• To obtain loans to make the $147.5 million casino purchase, Abramoff and Kidan forge counterfeit copies of a wire funds transfer of $23 million to Boulis that never went through (Both Kidan and Abramoff are currently indicted for wire fraud). They begin to run the company and in addition to deceiving the lenders to obtain their loans, they shortchange Boulis $20 million. \n• Ney then makes a second entry into the Congressional Record, this time declaring that SunCruz's new leadership of Kidan "will easily transform SunCruz from a questionable enterprise to an upstanding establishment that the gaming community can be proud of." In return for inserting his comments, Abramoff has Kidan write a check for $10,000 to be donated to the National Republican Campaign Committee, a donation Ney is credited for raising. \n• Disagreeing with the new direction of his former company, Boulis refuses to extricate himself from SunCruz, and clashes with Kidan until their arguments boil over into a physical confrontation at a meeting. \n• After this event and subsequent communications about it with Jack Abramoff, Kidan puts onto payroll and directs more than $200,000 to two mobsters known as Big Tony and Little Tony.\n• After that money had been dispensed, Boulis was shot to death while driving his car from two cars that had pulled up next to his.\n• After the murder, Abramoff and Kidan extricate themselves from the failing company and hand control over to the remaining Boulis estate. \n• Big Tony and Little Tony, along with another associate, are indicted for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. \nThis story is only a small part of the treachery of Abramoff and does not even mention his swindling of $66 million from Indian tribes (which he referred to as "monkeys" and "morons") and his almost innumerable connections to members of Congress. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to various charges, and Ney has stepped down from his leadership position in the House. Amid this chaos, one thing seems certain: significant involvement with Abramoff ought to be the black mark of death in the next November elections.