Jack Abramoff

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Biography

Family and early life

College activism

Seattle-based lobbying

Greenberg Traurig lobbying

Bush Administration influence

Criminal probe and imprisonment

[1]

Post-incarceration activities

Occupations

Organizations

Lobbying firms

  • Preston Gates & Ellis (1994-2001)
  • Greenberg Traurig (2001-2004)
  • Cassidy and Associates (2004-????)

Controversies

Marianas Islands labor laws

Indian lobbying scandal

Guam interference

Russian influence

Election industry lobbying

Human compromise

Political connections

US Congress

Bush Administration

Lobbyists and firms

Corporate connections

References

  1. ↑ ABA Journal, "Disgraced Lobbyist Abramoff Accused of Defrauding Greenberg Traurig", 2008/09/10
  2. ↑ Washington Post, "Lobby Giant Is Scandal Casualty", 2006/01/10

External links

Intelligence connections

Election fraud

  • Brad Friedman, "Two Days, Two Hat Tricks for Increasingly Well-Known and Much-Befriended GOP Lobbyist!", 2006/01/04 - has Bev Harris comment about strange payments involving Diebold Election Systems and Greenberg Traurig; she also discusses privatization advocate Abe Frank starting the Election Center; others like Dredd believe that the Abramoff prosecution was used to subvert the exposure of a larger corrupt network
  • Velvet Revolution offered a reward to Abramoff on 2006/01/02 if he revealed information about the theft of the 2004 election: "We now make an offer directly to Mr. Abramoff. VR will pay $100,000 toward his legal bills if he provides us and the Department of Justice with conclusive proof that the 2004 Presidential election was rigged in favor of the Republicans. We have received numerous tips that Mr. Abramoff made deals with Republican power brokers who were in a position to illegally rig the election. Moreover, we have indications that he had ties with folks associated with Diebold and ES&S. Finally, press accounts have revealed that much of the money paid out by Abramoff was used to affect elections, leading us to conclude that he should know of illegal schemes to rig the vote."
  • DU discussion starting on 2006/01/04 - one poster mentions an article starting that Ney didn't put Abramoff's casino provision into HAVA because HAVA was "too important"; another poster claims to have been a researcher for a legal firm representing Indian tribes, and says they were asked around December 2000 to look into Jack "Abramhoff", which turned up his role in the Brooks Brothers Riot
  • DU discussion starting on 2006/01/05 - suggestion that Abramoff's crimes would be covered up by Alex Acosta (now in Donald Trump's cabinet); allegation that Tom Noe was connected to Abramoff
  • Anonymous post shared on the blog of Mark Crispin Miller titled "Abramoff money = election fraud" (newer blog link) - links Abramoff to the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal involving former New Hampshire GOP chair Chuck McGee and former Bush New England campaign manager Jim Tobin: "Days before the payment was made [to a phone jamming firm], the NH GOP accepted 3 payments of $5000 each from the following sources: 1) Abramoff client the Mississippi Choctow Tribe 2) Abramoff client the California Aqua Tigua Caliente Tribe 3) Tom Delay's ARMPAC"; also links Abramoff to the HAVA authorship by Bob Ney: "In 2002 House Administration Chair Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio was a prime sponsor of the (sic) "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA). In fact, HAVA was actually written in Bob Ney's office. HAVA, under the guise of resolving the 2000 election fraud issues, was actually written to promote the distribution of computerized voting systems across the nation. The bill was designed to send $3.8 billion taxpayer dollars straight into the pockets of corporations like Diebold, whose voting equipment has now been unequivacolly proven to provide an open door to election rigging. Diebold, one of the prime lobbyists for HAVA, was at the time a client of Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's firm. I have compiled plenty of information on this issue, which I am ready to provide in order to get this story out. I have access to eye witnesses and players who were physically present and participating in Bob Ney's office when HAVA was written. As sexy as congressional scandal is, it pales in comparison to the real story behind the Abramoff affair: the theft of our democracy."
  • DU thread responding to MCM's article started 2006/01/08 - same user mentions Ney claiming that HAVA was "too important", writing that "But here were the crooks who were steering it through Congress--Ney and Abramoff--viewing it as a top priority above their dirty bribes. Add in Delay, who prevented a "paper trail" requirement (bottled it up in committee), and you have a veritable vipers' nest of corrupt Bushite Republicans determining how Americans will vote."
  • Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich - supported the introduction of Diebold's systems before later turning against them
    • Baltimore Sun, "Democrats promote Ehrlich connection to Abramoff", 2010/05/06
    • As seen below, there are also allegations by Wayne Madsen that Abramoff provided Deborah Jeane Palfrey's prostitutes to members of Ehrlich's administration as a lobbying payment
    • Washington Post, "Ehrlich's Running Mate Choice", 2006/10/06 - one commenter asks: "A follow question to Ehrlich. Did he give [Kristen] Cox a job at the request of his buddy Jack Abramoff? After all Cox was involved in the diebold scandal while at the NFB."
    • Marta Steele writes in her book: "According to Reporter Luis Monteagudo Jr., writing in September 2003 for the Union Tribune in San Diego, where SAIC is based: “[Governor Ehrlich] ordered Maryland election officials to proceed with the installation of the machines. Ehrlich said the study [SAIC] and its recommendations will lead to safe elections in Maryland.”"
    • From "Will the Next Election Be Hacked?" by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: "In response to the [Johns Hopkins] study, Maryland commissioned two additional reports on Diebold's equipment. The first was conducted by Science Applications International Corporation - a company that, along with Diebold, was part of an industry group [the Information Technology Association of America] that promotes electronic voting machines. SAIC conceded that Diebold's machines were "at high risk of compromise" - but concluded that the state's "procedural controls and general voting environment reduce or eliminate many of the vulnerabilities identified in the Rubin report." Despite the lack of any real "procedural controls" during the 2002 election, Gov. Robert Ehrlich gave the state election board the go-ahead to pay $55.6 million for Diebold's AccuVote-TS system."
    • New York Times, "Common Sense in Maryland", 2006/03/23: "The Maryland House's bill calls for replacing the Diebold machines with optical scanning machines for this fall's elections. Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr., once a Diebold supporter, has said he'll sign the bill if the State Senate agrees."
  • David DiStefano connection
  • 2017/10/31 email exchange with Brad Friedman (TODO: Upload and link)
    • "One thing I've been wondering for a while is how substantial Jack Abramoff's influence over HAVA was. As far as I can tell, officially, Abramoff's only involvement was lobbying Bob Ney to insert a gambling provision for the Tigua Indians into the law. However, there's reason to suspect (as some of your own articles have shown) that Abramoff's involvement might have extended farther.

      Since Ney, the main shepherd of the bill in the House, was found guilty of corruption involving Abramoff, that calls into question all of his earlier actions, including his HAVA support. Interestingly, as your article points out, Ney vehemently fought any reforms of HAVA, including paper trails. And there's the fact that Greenberg Traurig, the firm where Abramoff worked, was paid a substantial amount of money to lobby for Diebold in New York (though I don't know if Abramoff was involved with that), and that lobbyist David DiStefano, more directly involved with Diebold, had contacts with Abramoff's lobbyists.

      Also of note is the unexplained trip with Abramoff taken by Tom Feeney, who was implicated by Clint Curtis as wanting to rig elections.

      Basically, it seems like Abramoff is consistently lurking in the background of HAVA and the ensuing controversy over election fraud, but there's little I can find directly linking him to any of it. Do you know how well-substantiated Abramoff's involvement in the whole HAVA process was?"
    • "Without time this morning to offer more details, I'll point you to my interview with Abramoff on this (and some other matters) from a few years ago. Pressed him as hard as I could -- at least in the limited, live, on-air time we had to discuss all of it, and with hopes of keeping future contacts alive for more discussion…
      http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9420"

Human trafficking and sex rings

Sun Cruz Casinos

  • Washington Post, "Untangling a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet", 2005/05/01 (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Guam interference

Naftasib lobbying

  • Washington Post, "A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny", 2005/04/06: "A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements. [...] During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a friend of Russian oil and gas executives associated with the lobbying effort. DeLay also dined with the Russian executives and two Washington-based registered lobbyists for the Bahamian-registered company, sources say. One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, [...] In this case, travel funds did not come directly from lobbyists; the money came from a firm, Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd., that funded the lobbying campaign, according to the sources. Chelsea was coordinating the effort with a Russian oil and gas company -- Naftasib -- that has business ties with Russian security institutions, the sources said. Aides to DeLay, who is now the House majority leader, said that despite the presence during the trip of the two registered lobbyists, DeLay thought the nonprofit organization -- the National Center for Public Policy Research -- was funding the trip on its own. [...] Unlike some House conservatives who scorn such support as "corporate welfare," DeLay proved to be a "yes" vote for institutions bolstering Russia in this period. For example, DeLay voted for a bill that included the replenishment of billions of dollars in IMF funds used to bail out the Russian economy in 1998. [...] [The Russian Reform Monitor] quoted promotional literature for Naftasib that described the firm as a major shareholder in Gazprom, the state-controlled oil and gas giant. The literature also said Natfasib's largest clients were the ministries of defense and internal affairs. The literature also states that Nevskaya was an instructor at a school for Russian military intelligence officers."
  • Boston Globe, "Abramoff Ties to Russians Probed", 2006/02/23 (pages 1, 2, 3) (Truthout copy, original link, now 404s): "The subpoena seeks information about ties between Abramoff-related groups and a Moscow energy giant that is called Naftasib, a major supplier to the Russian military. Investigators have asked for any information about Abramoff's dealings with two top Naftasib executives, Alexander Koulakovsky and Marina Nevskaya. Senior Naftasib executives helped arrange a trip Abramoff took to Moscow in 1997 with former House majority leader Tom DeLay, a longtime Abramoff friend. [...] Separately, several former Abramoff lobbying partners have told the Globe that a key connection between Abramoff and Russia is an obscure Dutch firm called Voor Huisen. Voor Huisen was one of Abramoff's biggest clients, paying $2.1 million in lobbying fees to Abramoff and his partners from 2001 to 2004, according to public records that were filed by Abramoff in the US Senate. [...] several of Abramoff's former partners, who also lobbied for Voor Huisen, said in interviews this month that they were told the Dutch company was connected to Naftasib executives. [...] Abramoff's work on Russian affairs began in the mid-1990s, according to J. Michael Waller, the former editor of a Washington-based newsletter, Russia Reform Monitor. [...] ''I was told by two of Abramoff's colleagues that he wanted to represent the Russian government," Waller said. He said Abramoff's colleagues explained that Abramoff was working for Naftasib, the Russian energy company, and that if he performed well on Naftasib then the Russian government would retain him. [...] The subpoena indicates that investigators want to establish what the Russians were trying to accomplish through Abramoff. It asks for records relating to Naftasib's interest in legislation, tax policy, and the International Monetary Fund. [...] [Former US Family Network president Christopher] Geeslin said he had been told that the money was aimed at influencing the vote of DeLay, the former House majority leader, on legislation that shored up the IMF's financing for Russia."
  • EIR, "Abramoff, the Russian Mob, and Israel", 2006/03/10: "The set of e-mails published by Senate investigators, cited above, between Jack Abramoff and his Israel-based paramilitary agent Shumuel Ben Zvi, actually consisted of a three-way dialogue involving also some furtive Russian figures who have paid Abramoff millions. Leaders of the Russian oil company NaftaSib, including NaftaSib Vice President Marina Nevsakaya, were collaborating on acquiring paramilitary and sniper supplies (Russian equipment or otherwise) for routing to Israel, which were to be paid for by looting American Indian gambling casino clients and falsifying accounting records, according to Senate Indian Affairs Committee exhibits of Nov. 2, 2005. [...] Also in 1998, NaftaSib and its lobbyists (presumably Abramoff) worked with circles within the U.S. political, military, and intelligence community (including the American Security Council Foundation, identified with the late CIA deputy director James J. Angleton and neo-conservatives), to prepare the way for a U.S. visit of corrupt Russian leader Viktor Chernomyrdin. That NaftaSib lobbying was "part of the work of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission," according to the Russian daily Kommersant, Aug. 20, 2004. [...] On March 1, 2006, the Globe reported that Abramoff and his Russian friends had set up a front company, First Gate Resources, to arrange for oil-drilling ventures inside Israel. Intrigues around this enterprise are discussed in the set of e-mails released by the Senate probers, alongside the paramilitary matters."
  • Patrick Simpson, "Yes, Trump’s Russian Scandal Is Real, It All Traces Back to One Guy", 2017/05/27 (original link, now fails)
    • "Once the Soviet Union fell, it was open season for the Council for National Policy. Founder Paul Weyrich and Robert Krieble immediately opened Heritage Foundation offices in Moscow as well as opening the Krieble Institute. Russian oil companies started hiring American lobbyists to lobby for them over the time; including Rudy Giuliani, Jim Baker, Michael Caputo, and others. But, the most underreported but most important part of the Abramoff Scandal is his work for Russia."
    • "[...] Another lobbyist registered with Chelsea Commercial was Patrick Pizzella."
    • "Abramoff used his contacts and other lobbying firms to bring Ed Buckham, Conrad Burns, Bob Ney and Tom to Russia to meet with the Russian government and Naftasib executives. Pizzella also used this time to bring Kellyanne Conway and the editor of the Nixon Center’s Publication, The National Interest on some of the trips as well. Ed Buckham used his 501cb US Family Network company to funnel millions of dollars from the Russians to Abramoff, which Ralph Reed also worked for."
    • "Buckham also ran a consulting firm, Alexander Strategy Group, which he used to represent Abramoff as well as Blackwater worldwide, the private mercenary force run by Erik Prince. Paul Behrends was registered lobbyist for the Group. Behrends was friends with Prince, and both worked for Dana Rohrabacker at separate points. When Delay was finally caught, he hired Don Mcgahn to defend him."
    • "In 2009, The Council for National Policy created the “Conservative Action Project” aimed at making sure Obama failed at everything he did. The only paid member at the time was Patrick Pizzella, but former Reaganite Ed Meese and Kellyanne Conway were the other members of the C.A.P."
  • Patrick Simpson, "The Republicans favorite lobbyist made the Trump Russia scandal possible", 2017/07/20
    • "Nobody knew it at the time, but Jack joined the National Security Caucus Foundation, and by extension, the American Security Council in 1986. This places him, again, with Dana Rohrabacher and one Edward Lozansky and the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, as I’ve pointed out above"
    • "1991: Rabbi Lapin forms “Toward Tradition” and makes Abramoff a board member through 2004. Abramoff met Lapin and his family when he was traveling back and forth to South Africa as part of one his anti-communist ventures. Lapin introduces Abramoff to Tom Delay."
    • "January 1998: Before a visit by Viktor Chernomyrdin, NaftaSib met with Lobbyists including the ASC"
    • "11/29/1998: Jack Abramoff, as part of the National Security Caucus Foundation (American Security Council) brings Sergei Kiriyenko to the US for a week of meetings. Meets with Jesse Helms."
    • "11/30/98: Kiriyenko meets with Strobe Talbott, who has been accused of being a Russian intelligence asset, by Jesse Helms…..who Kiriyenko also met with that week."
    • "12/3/98: Kiriyenko meets with business leaders at event hosted by AIG. Maurice Greenberg was head of AIG from 1962–2005 and currently sits on the board of Directors of the Pro-Russian Center for the National Interest."
    • "10/15/2001: Abramoff talks about cost of obtaining thermal imaging equipment from Naftasib to provide to Israeli settlers."
    • "November 2001: Abramoff tried to get a bankers letter for Naftasib to drill for oil in Israel"
    • "1/11/06: Abramoff office doubles as office for Farid Chadry’s reform party of Syria."
    • "6/22/06: Senate Report comes out about Abramoff scandal in senate. Russia mentioned nowhere. John Mccain had subpoenaed all the documents about Abramoff and systematically ignored anything related to Russia."

9/11 hijackers

  • SunCruz casino boat trip
  • One of Abramoff's clients was Saleh Abdullah Kamel, the head of the Saudi company Dallah al-Baraka Group (DBG) which was the source of covert payments to Saudi spy Omar al-Bayoumi who handled two of the hijackers
  • Daily Kos blogger leveymg, "GOP Lobbyists Spiked Terror Report", 2006/03/14 (New York Times, "Lobbyist Paid by Pakistan Led U.S. Delegation There", 2005/05/08): "Abramoff was the registered lobbyist for Pakistan. In 1997, he is alleged to have arranged the travel of a Congressional delegation to Pakistan without informing the members of his relationship with the government of that country. Pakistan had retained the services of Abramoff's lobbying group, Preston Gates & Ellis in 1995, after Congress imposed human rights sanctions and stopped arm shipments during the period of increasing tensions leading up to the first test explosions of Pakistan's nuclear weapons in May, 1998. According to a New York Times, the trip to Pakistan arranged by Abramoff was sponsored by the National Security Caucus Foundation, a group that claimed to have very prominent figures on its Board, including former Secretaries of State, George Shultz and Henry Kissinger. [...] Consider as well, the UBL cells were being treated as part of the Pakistani-Saudi network that had produced the "Islamic bomb" with very high level American support. Guided by Grover Norquist, this network was tapped by Abramoff in building his multi-million dollar GOP slush funds."

Other curiosities

  • Connection of Abramoff to the "Poway mafia" (Duke Cunningham and Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo)
    • Daniel Hopsicker, "Cunningham Stripped $700 Million from U.S. Defense", 2005/11/30: "Money budgeted for U.S. Defense went in at the ADCS end of something called the “Wilkes Corporation” for services which the Pentagon protested it never requested, and out the other end came a magical cornucopia of bribes, kick-backs, campaign contributions, yachts, Lear jets and Rolls Royce’s. Over the course of almost an entire decade, from 1994 to 2001, Cunningham’s Appropriations Committee repeatedly added funding to the Pentagon budget for a previously non-existent (prior to 1995) software company, ADCS, owned by the “Wilkes Corporation,” a private company (natch) owned by San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes. The money then made a short trip—courtesy the wonders of modern accounting—from one of Brent Wilkes’ pants pocket to another, called “Group W Advisors,” which proceeded to obligingly send hundreds of thousands of dollars in ‘client fees’ annually to The Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying and consulting firm currently under scrutiny in the Justice Department's investigation of Casino Jack Abramoff. [...] The point man on the Group W “account” for the Alexander Strategy Group, which received almost $200,000 of gratitude for "client services," was former DeLay aide Karl Gallant, who apparently made a specialty of stealing money from widows and orphans, having signed Enron Corp. to a $750,000 lobbying contract a few years earlier. [...] A news account in the San Diego Union-Tribune about the Lear jet used by Cunningham and DeLay, paid for by you and I from money "passed through" to San Diego "businessman" Wilkes, told of a flight DeLay flew from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., to John Wayne Airport in Orange County to appear at a campaign dinner for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach. Dana Rohrabacher will appear again (several times) in our story… He gave a sterling personal recommendation, for example, to Adam Kidan, the "dunsky (John Gotti's phrase) about to be indicted for paying for the brutal murder of Sun Cruz Casino Line owner Gus Boulis… with a check."
    • Daniel Hopsicker, "Cunningham Scandal Figure Linked to Iran Contra Cocaine Trafficking", 2005/12/06: "San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal—as well as the Justice Department investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff—worked in Honduras during the 1980’s for a company accused by federal prosecutors of deep involvement in cocaine trafficking. Over the weekend the San Diego Union-Tribune, Cunningham’s hometown paper, reported that Brent Wilkes has a two decade long history of close links with the CIA. The company which provided Wilkes his initial entree into the world of lucrative government defense contracts, said the paper, was World Finance Corp."
      • Consortium News, title unknown, 1997: "Then, in the mid-1970s, [Cuban exile and Bay of Pigs veteran Guillermo Hernandez] Cartaya launched his most ambitious endeavor, an international financial holding company called the World Finance Corp., later renamed WFC Corp. The firm's maze of banks reached to the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, London, the Caribbean, Miami, Colombia and Panama. [...] But Cartaya's banking empire encountered troubles in South Florida. Responding to a routine call, Dade County police found large quantities of marijuana residue in a Miami dumpster. Along with the marijuana residue, police found business records of corporations connected to WFC. As the investigation developed, authorities uncovered other corporate links between WFC and Aerocondor, a South American airline that had been caught smuggling drugs. Police also discovered that WFC agents had contacts with the Mafia drug syndicate of Santo Trafficante, Jr., whose lucrative narcotics operations had dominated Cuba prior to Castro's revolution. [...] Police came to suspect that WFC was an intelligence front. "It was drugs, it was money-laundering, it was everything," South Florida detective James Rider told The Consortium. "I know the CIA was in there somewhere." [...] By 1978, a joint federal-state task force had unearthed evidence of other crimes, too, particularly drug money-transfers. But both local police and federal prosecutors reported pressure from Washington and CIA headquarters in Langley to back off WFC. Too many of WFC's principals, it turned out, had cooperated with U.S. intelligence in the past. Detective Rider recalled a senior Treasury Department official assuring police investigators in the late 1970s that WFC was clean. A federal prosecutor in the case added that the CIA had intervened at the top levels of the FBI to protest the WFC probe."
      • San Diego Union-Tribune, "Contractor 'knew how to grease the wheels'", 2005/12/04: "Born in San Diego County in 1954, Wilkes graduated from Hilltop High School in 1972, along with his football teammate and best friend Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, currently third-in-command at the Central Intelligence Agency. Wilkes and Foggo were roommates at San Diego State University, were best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other. Wilkes' career in political relations dates to the early 1980s, shortly after Foggo joined the CIA. Foggo was sent to Honduras to work with the Contra rebels who were trying to topple the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, according to sources within the CIA. [...] Wilkes had moved to Washington, D.C., and opened a business named World Finance Corp. about three blocks away from the White House. One of his chief activities, sources say, was to accompany congressmen – including then-Rep. Bill Lowery of San Diego, whom Wilkes met during his participation in the SDSU Young Republicans organization – to Central America to meet with Foggo and Contra leaders. A number of sources who have had business dealings with Wilkes say he hinted at that time and afterward that he was affiliated with the CIA. CIA sources say he was never employed by the agency."
  • The Hill, "Beyond Manafort: Both parties deal with pro-Russian Ukrainians" by Taras Kuzio, 2017/04/24: "Ukrainian gas tycoon Dmytro Firtash has a more colorful background and is wanted by the U.S. on corruption charges and by Spain for money laundering with Russian organized crime. Firtash hired Jack Abramoff, who had spent three years in jail, to thwart U.S. requests for his extradition and to promote his newly created Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine."
  • Casino industry on the Marianas Islands and Macau
    • The Guardian, "China feared CIA worked with Sheldon Adelson's Macau casinos to snare officials", 2015/07/22: "China feared that casinos in Macau owned by the billionaire gambling magnate and Republican party funder Sheldon Adelson were used by US intelligence agents to entrap and blackmail Chinese officials, according to a “highly confidential” report for the gambling industry. The report, by a private investigator in 2010, said that Beijing believed US-owned establishments in the former Portuguese colony were working in league with the CIA. “Many of the (Chinese) officials we contacted were of the view that US intelligence agencies are very active in Macao and that they have penetrated and utilised the US casinos to support their operations,” it said."
    • Mother Jones, "Trump Aides Go Where Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay Went Before", 2018/05/30: "When the Best Sunshine Live casino opened in the Northern Mariana Islands in late 2015, the local press described it as a temporary training facility for a forthcoming permanent casino. [...] A year later, Bloomberg reported that it might be “the most successful casino of all time.” Best Sunshine’s VIP tables were each bringing in nearly eight times as much money per table as those at the biggest casinos in Macau, the most lucrative gambling haven in the world. Macau gambling promoters told Bloomberg that Imperial Pacific, the casino’s Hong Kong-based owner, was either inflating its numbers or facilitating money laundering. Eight casino executives and analysts later said there was no way to generate such high betting volumes legitimately. [...] A few months after Trump became president, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) hired former Trump campaign adviser Jason Osborne to be its man in Washington. (Osborne had previously advised the former CNMI governor.) [...] And in September 2017, the CNMI hired Turnberry Solutions, founded by Osborne and fellow Trump campaign veteran Mike Rubino, to secure the extension of a foreign work visa program that drives the local economy, including the casino. The Northern Marianas Business Alliance, a newly formed group of local business interests that includes Imperial Pacific, hired Turnberry one week later. Politico reported in November that Lewandowski was working and sleeping in Turnberry’s Capitol Hill office when he was in Washington and that he had once been on a conference call with Turnberry and one of its clients. [...] A week later, the FBI searched the office of an Imperial Pacific contractor who had employed the dead worker through a subsidiary and found spreadsheets listing more than 150 workers as “hei gong,” the Chinese term for undocumented worker. The federal government used the information to charge employees of Imperial Pacific contractors with violating a human smuggling statute. [...] Now that the garment factories have shut down, Chinese-owned casinos are moving in as the next big politically-connected industry. Casinos outside of mainland China—in Macau, which is economically autonomous, and now Saipan—are attractive to wealthy Chinese nationals trying to convert their yuan to foreign currencies in order to prevent possible seizure by their government. [...] In 2016, a former vice president at the Best Sunshine Live casino sued Imperial Pacific for wrongful termination, alleging that the company had fired him after he told superiors that it was instructing gamblers on how to avoid US anti-money-laundering regulations."
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