Bring it on.

As Mark Kleiman suggests, it's hard to think that the prosecutors would be willing to ease up on Just Plain Jack unless they thought he could reel in a lot of other very big fish. In this connection, one of his lunch partners swore that a year or so ago Abramoff waxed indignant about Tom DeLay's affirmations of innocence, and told him that he'd kept all the E-mails confirming DeLay's full knowledge of what Abramoff was doing.

(For today's MDA of Abramoff Scandal, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10547524/ -- in which the guy has now managed to entangle the Superior Court of Guam. At this point I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was connected to Abraham Lincoln's murder.)

Abramoff and mini-me, Scanlon, appear to be guilty of the most blatant political corruption to soil Washington this decade. Burn in Hell boys. They'll be taking down a few other prominent names--e.g. Ralph Reed, who apparently conned/bought off Christian groups to oppose gambling casinos of competing (non-contributing) Indian tribes.

Hope the Feds brought their BIG shovels.

Amusing that the article refers to him as a "Republican lobbyist" and only mentions his bribery of Republicans. Did I not just see the other day that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) returned $18,892 from Abramoff (including $1,892 estimated to pay for a previously unreported use of Abramoff's skybox at the MCI Center), and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) return $67,000? Of course, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) returned their own contributions ($150,000 and around $20,000, respectively.)

He certainly seems to have had his fingers in a lot of pies.

John,

I noticed the same thing (although the article says "...mainly Republican lawmakers..."). Seems to me the only purpose of the last comment was to promote a certain stereotype (which is okay as long as the stereotype is not pointed to a 'persecuted' segment of society).

This is great fun. It would be better if some sex was involved. We haven't had a Congressional sex scandal for a long time, and those are my favorite.

The other possibility, of course, is that the reporter is simply, well, reporting.

After all, the story says that the subjects of the investigation are "mainly Republican lawmakers."

Desite the attempt to confuse the issue being orchestrated by some Republican operatives, it is actually possible for lawmakers to accept donations - and even the ocassional gift - without engaging in any quid pro quos or the kind of systematic corruption some suspect of "the Hammer." Indeed, I would bet money that most Republican lawmakers who accepted money or gfts from Abramoff won't face criminal charges either... that the majority of people with some sort of financial tie to Abramoff didn't enageg in any legal misconduct.

Its not surprising that Republican lawmakers are likely to be getting more payola simply because they have been in power in Washington. The party that has the power gets the money. And the fact is that the subjects of the investigation are primarily Republican lawmakers (for now, at least). Still, I suppose its a sign of the evil left-wing media to point this out ..

Democrats and Republicans have 'shared' in Abramoff's exploits in the same way, say The Yankees and The Cardinals have 'shared' World series titles over the last century. I have no doubt that the prospect of Abramoff spilling beans has a few Democrats and affiliates shaking in their sandals, but I feel pretty safe betting my lunch money that if the crap hits the fan, we'll see alot more R's knee-deep in it than D's.

This hardly attributable to just the fact the GOP is 'in power' right now as opposed to Democrats. As countless pieces demonstrate, Jack Abramoff is a rather infamous conservative/GOP activist and supporter, who's efforts over the last 15 years have largely been spent towards getting the GOP 'in power' to begin with.

The "Dems did it too" response kinda falls flat when you consider Delay's intentional pressuring of K Street lobbying firms to bind them to the GOP by hiring only GOP-linked staff.

Any corruption by Abramoff-linked Democrats certainly ought to be prosecuted, but the fact is, Abramoff was overwhelmingly engaged with Republicans.

I'd bet the dollar values are much higher on the GOP side, and that no Democrats were taken on the junkets to play golf in Scotland, etc.

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