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

By Peter H. Stone

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374299315
• ISBN13: 9780374299316
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Stone's original reporting tells a wicked tale

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.

Great Story! Respectable Storytelling.

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.

The most comprehensive account of the Abramoff scandal yet written

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.