Abramoff helped arrange Bush meeting for Malaysian leader: report - Yahoo! News

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and corruption charges, may have helped arrange a 2002 meeting between President George W. Bush and then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, a US newspaper reported.

The report printed in The Los Angeles Times comes after the White House has repeatedly denied it had dealings with Abramoff, who is charged with defrauding American Indian tribes that sought his services in establishing their gambling operations and influence peddling in the US Congress.

Mahathir Mohamad had been chastised by the Clinton administration for repeated anti-Semitic statements and for jailing political opponents and thought a meeting with Bush would help improve his image, The Times said.

Citing an unnamed witness, the newspaper said Abramoff had contacted presidential advisor Karl Rove on at least four occasions in a bid to arrange a meeting.

Finally, the former associate said, Rove's office called to tell Abramoff that the Malaysian leader soon would be getting an official White House invitation, according to the report.

In May 2002, Mahathir met with Bush in the Oval Office and his photograph with the president was beamed around the world.

The paper said Abramoff received 1.2 million dollars from the Malaysian government for his lobbying services in 2001 and 2002, and documents obtained by Senate investigators appear to confirm at least 900,000 dollars of that amount.

It is not clear how central Abramoff was in arranging the Oval Office session, The Times pointed out. The White House says the meeting was arranged through normal channels.

Last month, Abramoff pleaded guilty to improperly influencing members of Congress and their aides by offering foreign travel and other benefits and later seeking favors from some of them.

He often routed lobbying fees through nonprofit organizations to evade taxes or hide the sources of the funds, the paper said.

The Malaysian payments were made to the American International Center, a bogus think tank that an Abramoff partner, Michael Scanlon, set up at a Delaware beach house, according to the report.

Abramoff and Scanlon have admitted using the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients.

By routing the money in that way, Abramoff identified his client on federal lobbying disclosure forms as the Delaware-based center and avoided having to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government, The Times said.

Abramoff Bragged of Ties to Rove - Los Angeles Times

The disgraced lobbyist helped get Bush to meet the leader of Malaysia, a former associate says.
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

February 15, 2006

WASHINGTON — When the government of Malaysia sought to repair its tarnished image in the U.S. by arranging a meeting between President Bush and its controversial prime minister in 2002, it followed the same strategy as many other well-heeled interests in Washington: It called on lobbyist Jack Abramoff for help.

It was a tall order. The then-prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, had been chastised by the Clinton administration for repeated anti-Semitic statements and for jailing political opponents. But it was important to the Malaysians, according to a former Abramoff associate who attended meetings with the Malaysian ambassador and the lobbyist.

Abramoff contacted presidential advisor Karl Rove on at least four occasions to help arrange a meeting, the witness said.

Finally, the former associate said, Rove's office called to tell Abramoff that the Malaysian leader soon would be getting an official White House invitation.

Neither the former Abramoff associate nor any others who spoke about the Malaysian contacts wanted their names used, out of fear they might damage future business opportunities.

In May 2002, Mahathir met with Bush in the Oval Office; his photograph with the president was beamed around the world.

Abramoff received $1.2 million from the Malaysian government for his lobbying services in 2001 and 2002, the former associate said. Documents obtained by Senate investigators appear to confirm at least $900,000 of that amount.

It's not clear how central Abramoff was in arranging the Oval Office session. The White House says the meeting was arranged through normal channels.

But it was clear, the former associate said, that Abramoff took credit for it. His reputation for close relationships with the White House and congressional officials enabled him to charge stratospheric fees from his lobbying clients — and the president's meeting with Malaysia's prime minister enhanced that reputation.

The Malaysia episode sheds new light on the practices of Abramoff, the man at the center of a burgeoning corruption scandal, and suggests closer ties than previously acknowledged between the disgraced lobbyist and the highest levels of the Bush White House.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to improperly influencing members of Congress and their aides — offering foreign travel and other benefits and later seeking favors from some of them. He often routed lobbying fees through nonprofit organizations to evade taxes or hide the sources of the funds.

The Malaysian payments were made to the American International Center, a bogus think tank that an Abramoff partner, Michael P.S. Scanlon, set up at a Delaware beach house. Abramoff and Scanlon have admitted using the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients.

By routing the money in that way, Abramoff identified his client on federal lobbying disclosure forms as the Delaware-based center and avoided having to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government.

After the Malaysian leader's White House meeting, the former associate said, Abramoff was invited to a dinner honoring the prime minister at the Malaysian Embassy and was given a seat near the head table.

At least one other Washington lobbying firm — Alexander Strategies, which was run by an Abramoff friend and former chief of staff to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) — was compensated during this period for helping boost Malaysia's reputation in Washington. That firm was also given credit in some circles for helping to arrange the White House meeting and separate trips for leading members of Congress, including DeLay and several Democrats, to Malaysia.

The former associate was the only person to observe Abramoff's direct contacts with Rove, and he heard only Abramoff's end of the conversation. He recalled Abramoff picking up his ringing cellphone, looking at the caller identification and saying, "It's Karl." Abramoff listened for a few seconds and gave the former associate the thumbs-up sign. Abramoff then closed his phone and said the official invitation was forthcoming. "Call the ambassador," he said.

Apart from the direct contacts between Rove and Abramoff, the former associate's description of the Malaysia episode was backed by another former Abramoff associate and by documents released last year by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Both said Abramoff talked of his access to Rove and cited his relationship with Susan Ralston, Rove's administrative assistant. Before joining the White House staff, Ralston was an assistant to Abramoff.

One of the former associates said Abramoff referred to Ralston as his "implant" in the White House.

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said Tuesday that Rove had "no recollection" of any conversations with Abramoff regarding the Malaysian meeting.

She said the meeting was arranged through "normal staffing channels."

The meeting took place as Malaysian and U.S. officials were discussing that nation's participation in the post-Sept. 11 campaign against terrorism. Malaysia is a heavily Muslim country.

"At the time [Mahathir] was Asia's longest-serving prime minister and an influential Islamic leader," Healy said. "The president met with him to discuss Malaysia's role in the war on terrorism."

Healy said Rove considered Abramoff a "casual acquaintance."

White House officials said Ralston's hiring had nothing to do with her prior association with Abramoff. Healy said she was a "valued member of the White House team."

Although White House officials have taken pains to distance Bush and his aides from Abramoff, hoping to shield the president from the scandal's political fallout, former associates say Abramoff often bragged of his ties to the highest levels of the administration.

One lobbyist recalls Abramoff's frequent refrain when confronting important legislative issues: "I'll call Karl on that."

The Malaysian Embassy did not respond to requests for comment on Abramoff's work.

Bills from the American International Center to the Malaysian Embassy have been turned over to a Senate committee investigating Abramoff's representation of Indian tribes, which he has admitted to defrauding.

Lobbying records show that Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the center but did not disclose that the funds originated with the government of Malaysia.

According to one of Abramoff's former associates, Abramoff said he did not need to disclose Malaysia as a client on federal lobbying disclosure forms — or to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department — because the money had come from the American International Center.

Abramoff's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, declined to comment on any aspect of Abramoff's work for Malaysia.

The failure of Abramoff and his colleagues at Greenberg Traurig to register as foreign agents was initially a topic of interest to the Justice Department, which is investigating Abramoff's contacts with lawmakers and executive branch officials as part of an ongoing fraud and bribery case. Abramoff has pleaded guilty in that case and is helping federal prosecutors. But a person familiar with that inquiry said the issue had not been pursued recently, perhaps because the law had many loopholes.

This person, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Abramoff's relationship with Rove had "not been a matter of any great significance" in the Justice Department inquiry.

The Oval Office meeting with Mahathir, on May 14, 2002, was publicly warm, with Bush praising Mahathir for his "friendship" and "strong support" in the war on terrorism.

The meeting rehabilitated the Malaysian leader's reputation only temporarily, and the appearance of friendliness between the two emerged as a political headache for Bush.

Eight months after the meeting, Mahathir surprised the opening session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by warning the U.S. against its looming invasion of Iraq — "out-terrorizing the terrorists," he called it.

Later that year, he said the U.S. was fighting terrorism "through attacking Muslim countries and Muslims, whether they are guilty or not."

He went on to make anti-Semitic comments, charging that "Jews rule this world" and get "others to fight and die for them."

Democrats charged that Bush was slow to rebuke the prime minister.

In October 2003, he pulled Mahathir aside at an international economic conference to express his disapproval, calling the remarks "wrong" and "divisive," according to a White House spokesman.

Mahathir later emerged as an issue in Bush's reelection campaign, as Republicans aggressively courted Jewish voters.

One such GOP outreach featured Mahathir pictured beside Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat above a Kerry quote in which he said "foreign leaders" wanted him to win the election. The campaign mailer suggested Mahathir and Arafat, "renowned for their hatred of the Jewish people," supported Kerry.

On one occasion, Abramoff — an orthodox Jew and a supporter of Israel — was asked whether he was comfortable representing a country led by a man known for anti-Semitic comments.

Abramoff responded, "They pay their bills on time."

The Raw Story | Before lobbying scandals, Abramoff group had hand in apartheid wars

Filed by Danny Schechter


Lobbyist tied to group supporting apartheid South Africa; Spokesman vehemently denies

It was a quiet night in June 1985 in the equatorial heat of Jamba, a small town in the heartland of Angola, the oil and diamond-rich African nation that was divided by a bloody civil war for 30 years. Jamba at the time was a base for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement, a tribal secessionist army bizarrely funded by Communist China and the CIA at the same time.

A top-secret meeting was then underway between Savimbi and his boosters, led by a young American Republican activist named Jack Abramoff. He was there representing an organization he founded, the International Freedom Foundation. The group was codenamed "Pacman."

Also present, a South African newspaper reports, "Leaders of the Afghan mujahedin, Nicaraguan contras, Laotian guerrillas and members of the Oliver North American right."

UNITA's strongman, the late Jonas Savimbi, who fancied calling himself Dr. Savimbi, was a masterful guerilla fighter who became the darling of the American right wing as it rallied to the cause of UNITA's main ally, racist South Africa. Conservatives dubbed him a freedom fighter, heralding him as their Che Guevara. In the end 600,000 people, mostly civilians would die in this bloody conflict, many as a result of atrocities perpetuated by UNITA.

Abramoff's trip to Angola had been paid for by right-wing New York financier Lewis Lehrman as part of an effort to create a global anti-communist alliance. (Lehrman later fired Abramoff, who would go on to become the most notorious lobbyist in America, for inflating his expense reports, a portent of practices to come.)

Abramoff, an ultra-orthodox Jew recalled an incident when he left the meeting to pray in the bush. "When I went out to pray," he would later write, they thought he was a "mystic."

There was nothing mystical about the U.S. policies Abramoff was then covertly advancing.

Savimbi was invited by President Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1986, where Reagan spoke of UNITA winning "a victory that electrifies the world." The African strongman was also supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which sent analysts to to visit with Savimbi in his clandestine Angolan camps. They also offered the rebel leader political and military guidance in his war against the Marxist Angolan government.

Savimbi's U.S.-based supporters ultimately convinced the CIA to covertly channel weapons to Savimbi's war, which kindled the conflict.

This early period in Abramoff's career has been largely ignored in most of the American media. It was the period in which he began building relations with tribal people, a practice he would parlay into serving as a very well-compensated lobbyist for American Indian tribes in the lucrative gambling industry.

His fascination with Africa would lead to a lobbying contract for the Congo's Mobutu Seso Seko, a Savimbi supporter and then the richest and most corrupt dictator on the continent. Mobutu's critics charged he ran a "kleptocracy" -- government by thieves -- based on the violent suppression of human rights while Abramoff represented him.

Abramoff would later be accused of becoming a kleptocrat in his own right.

South African training ground

Apartheid South Africa offered Abramoff the chance to make a big name and big money. At that time, the country was rocked by uprisings in the townships and challenged by the artists who backed a cultural boycott of South Africa's "Sun City," the top gambling resort and entertainment venue. South Africa's apartheid's rulers decided to fight back against the likes of activists like singer Little Steven Van Zandt by channeling state funds into media projects they could later deny they were linked with.

Jack Abramoff had first visited South Africa in 1983, as head of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). South Africa's Mail and Guardian reported on the International Freedom Foundation on February 10, 2006: "The IFF was officially headquartered in Washington, where the South Africans were given entrance into the American political establishment by Abramoff and the Young Republicans. But, it was effectively run from Johannesburg. Newsday reported that the Johannesburg office was "the nerve centre of IFF operations worldwide."

In 1995, South Africa's Truth Commission revealed that the apartheid regime helped launch the IFF, funneling it $1.5 million a year to allay "image problems" and to smear Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

Abramoff enlisted in South Africa's cultural war and suddenly found himself sitting pretty as the head of a Hollywood movie studio called Regency Enterprises. The idea was to make anti-communist films that could denigrate the anti-apartheid movement. Jack became a credited screenwriter.

The movie was "Red Scorpion" starring the very Aryan-looking Dolph Lundgren. It pictured African liberation fighters as surrogates for Soviet totalitarians. The plot: "A Russian KGB agent is sent to Africa to kill an anti-Communist black revolutionary." The tagline: "He's a human killing machine. Taught to stalk. Trained to kill. Programmed to destroy. He's played by their rules... Until now."

Abramoff's African work was now on the big screen.

The movie, made in South African-occupied Namibia, was denounced by Hollywood supporters of the cultural boycott like Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee and Robert DeNiro for supporting apartheid. Other critics called it "homoerotic" and overpatriotic." Abramoff later was executive producer of a sequel, Red Scorpion 2.

Anti-communist movie 'got apartheid funds'

For years, Abramoff publicly denied South African financing, but on January 24, 2006, the Mail & Guardian quoted one-time apartheid spy Craig Williamson as now admitting that the money came directly from the South African military.

Wrote the Mail & Guardian, "Among Abramoff's South African projects was the anti-communist film Red Scorpion, made in South African-occupied Namibia and, according to Williamson, funded by the South African military."

Why the military? The newspaper reveals: "The IFF was ostensibly founded as a conservative think-tank, but was in reality part of an elaborate South African military intelligence operation, code-named Operation Babushka. Established to combat sanctions and undermine the African National Congress, it also supported Jonas Savimbi and his rebel Angolan movement, Unita."

The movie was modeled romantically on Savimbi's "War for Freedom" but was also riddled with stereotypes and crude propaganda.

Sample exchange: "Colonel Zayas: Are you out of your mind?"

"Lt. Nikolai: No. Just out of bullets. [Burps]."

Through his connections, Abramoff procured a Soviet-made WWII-era T-34 tank with a 76mm cannon for the final battle sequence.

An amateur reviewer posted an insightful comment on a film website which may have foreseen the off-screen drama that Abramoff himself is now starring in. "Looking beyond the mindless action scenes (which, despite the countless guns and explosions), there is a good fable about the possibility of manipulating truth, and how appearance is not always truth."

Spokesman calls claims of apartheid support 'defamatory'

IFF sought to destabilize the African National Congress and took up the cause of discrediting Nelson Mandela. The African National Congress leader's freedom was demanded by millions at the time, with the exception of politicians like then-Congressman Dick Cheney, who voted against a Congressional resolution calling for Mandela's release from prison. (Cheney also opposed overturning Ronald Reagan's ban on sanctions against South Africa, a ban Jack Abramoff personally worked in Hollywood to support as a Pretoria-funded agent.)

Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, denied that Abramoff had ever supported apartheid and called any such implications "false and defamatory."

"It is untrue that Jack Abramoff ever supported apartheid," Blum said in an email to RAW STORY. "As the media at the time reflected, Mr. Abramoff's involvement in the Washington office of IFF occured in the mid-1980s, was short-lived, and was when IFF came out against apartheid and for the release of Nelson Mandella. In fact, Mr. Abramoff was criticized at the time in pro-South African governmentcircles for these positions. Mr. Abramoff did no work to advance the agenda of the South African apartheid government.

He added, "Mr. Abramoff's anti-apartheid positions were clear and never contradicted in any forum. Any suggestion, implication or reporting that Mr. Abramoff was ever pro-apartheid or working for the interests of the South African government are false and defamatory."

Abramoff's spokesman and a second individual at the lobbyist's lawyer's office did not reply to a second inquiry seeking examples of Abramoff's anti-apartheid positions.

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