Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington [Hardcover]

Peter H. Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2006

The Indian-casino scandal has torn the veil off the Republican Party’s conservative power base, revealing parts of the Washington lobbying community and GOP establishment where greed, arrogance, and corruption seem to have run amok.

 

At the center of this drama is the larger-than-life super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, onetime B-movie producer, with deep ties to Republican heavyweights like the embattled Republican power broker Tom DeLay, Congressman Bob Ney, former head of the Christian Coalition Ralph Reed, influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, and others with links to the Bush administration. Abramoff, working with public relations whiz Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aid, bilked several Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars in fees and bought influence in Congress. The federal corruption probe into Abramoff's lobbying has already produced indictments and seperate guilty pleas by Abramoff and Scanlon to charges that they conspired to bribe public officials and defrauded four Indian tribes. More charges are expected to follow in a scandal that has tarred many powerful Washington insiders, and which the New York Times has called "potentially one of the most explosive in Congressional history."

 

The scandal is front-page news and will continue to be as the midterm election campaigns of 2006 heat up. But Stone digs behind the headlines to capture fully a riveting tale of our time: an inside-Washington drama driven by outsized personalities and the toxic mix of money and power.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this absorbing exposé, journalist Stone rakes through every bit of Abramoff muck, from his role as producer of the Dolph Lundgren thriller Red Scorpion to his efforts to shield Marianas Islands sweatshops from labor regulations and minimum-wage laws. In his ripest scam, Abramoff took Indian casinos for millions, largely to help quash rival gambling establishments; in one masterstroke, he lobbied to get the Tigua tribe's casino reopened—after secretly organizing the campaign that shut it down. No mere opportunist, Stone contends, Abramoff became "financial godfather to a conservative influence machine" and "indispensable bagman" to GOP stalwarts like Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed—who almost outsleazed Abramoff by organizing Christian antigambling crusades while collecting millions from Abramoff's tribal casino clients (and recently lost a Republican primary in Georgia perhaps because of this hypocrisy). Stone's sometimes repetitive account traces the labyrinthine routes—the charity front groups, the golf junkets—by which Abramoff funneled money to lawmakers and translated that influence into policy. The details can be eye glazing—as they were designed to be—but Stone keeps the story comprehensible while sprinkling in quotes from Abramoff's e-mails ("those moronic Tiguas... I'd love us to get our mitts on their moolah") that showcase his irrepressible grubbiness. The result is a troubling but colorful portrait of business as usual in Washington. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"...[A]ll the damning evidence a reader could want...with luck, this lively little study will help inspire reforms." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Peter Stone has provided a comprehensive history...the clearest picture yet of how Abramoff's operation really worked." -- Washington Monthly

"To anyone who cares about our political institutuions and their integrity, this story is simply revolting." -- Norman J. Ornstein, The New York Times Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299315
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299316
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #853,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most comprehensive account of the Abramoff scandal yet written, April 5, 2007

By 

Brandon Wilkening (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington (Hardcover)

This was a highly entertaining and readable account of the Abramoff scandal. Before I started reading it, I had a pretty vague understanding of the whole affair. I had obviously followed the story in the newspapers but tended to get lost in all the details of the intricate plot. Stone does a good job of explaining Abramoff's activities in a clear way that renders the affair understandable even to those with no prior knowledge. For the most part, Stone's voice is fairly unbiased. He presents the facts and lets them speak for themselves. He mostly refrains from making moral judgments of Abramoff and his collaborators until the last chapter, in which he situates the scandal within the larger topic of corruption in Washington. If I had to make a criticism, it might be that the author is sometimes repetitive, as he had a habit of citing certain facts and making certain arguments multiple times. Overall, however, I would recommend this book to anybody looking to gain a better understanding of the Abramoff affair. It makes for a pretty entertaining read at points, mainly just because the affair itself is so interesting and populated by such a colorful cast of characters. As far as I know, this is the only book-length treatment of the Abramoff scandal.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Story! Respectable Storytelling., August 11, 2007

By 

Zato Ici (Starbucks, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington (Hardcover)

What a story! A classic tale of corruption in Washington, DC. I was both entertained and educated by the author's summary of this complicated series of events. He introduces the characters, the situation, and describes the "action" in a respectable narrative style.

Sometimes I pay almost no attention to the Federal Government. The unveiling of Abramoff, DeLay, Ralph Reed, and the other villains is this drama passed me by. This book has filled me in admirably. Stone's choice of level of detail seemed just right.

I take off one star for the few places where one wishes the editor had made the author clean up unnecessary repetition, and for the general lack of color. The style is that of a journalist, not a novelist.

A fine job of reducing a complicated story to a brisk, informative read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stone's original reporting tells a wicked tale, August 14, 2008

By 

Anne Colamosca "writer and reader" (new york, new york United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington (Hardcover)

Peter Stone's first-rate investigative reporting -- done over several years -- is a deftly handled take by an experienced Washington reporter on Jack Abramoff's scandalous activities. The thing that makes this book stand out is the incredible amount of original reporting that went into it. The tale is also well-written and not overly hyped. It doesn't have to be. It is told in delicious, understated detail that could easily be turned into a movie script.