Remember Jack Abramoff? Well, turns out he might have been innocent of the charges against him, the victim of a vengeful plot hatched by rival lobbyists and organized crime figures tied to Senator John McCain.
Susan Bradford has written a book about it, called Lynched!: The Shocking Story of How the Political Establishment Manufactured a Scandal to Have Republican Super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff Removed from Power [Paperback]
I recently ran across her blog, Susan Bradford Press, where on the post titled The Shamelessness Of The Washington Post Knows No Bounds she went into some detail mainly about the culpability of the Washington Post in helping to engineer the downfall of Abramoff. But in this post she also explains how the Posts villainy culminated in John McCain using his Senate influence to call a special committee hearing on behalf of his own lobbyist friends and Abramoff rivals, and how this was instrumental in Abramoff's persecution.
I was mainly curious as to whether she considered McCain to be a dupe, or whether he was willingly involved in the effort to intentionally destroy Jack Abramoff. I was pleasantly surprised to receive an answer from Susan the same day I posted the query, and she gave me permission to post it in full. It follows, along with a subsequent response from me, and again from Susan.
SUSAN BRADFORD-Thank you for writing. Is your question: was McCain duped in the Abramoff conspiracy? I know that legislators are tremendously busy and rely heavily upon the advice and judgments of others. Since I never interviewed McCain, I cannot answer with complete certainty.
However, according to Indians close to McCain, the Senator’s wife, Cindy, demanded that he take down Abramoff after losing the South Carolina primary of 2000 since she was under the mistaken belief that the lobbyist spread the rumor that she was a drug abuser.
There are a number of indications that McCain carefully orchestrated the take down of Abramoff. Many participants were offered/cut deals. For example, Louisiana Coushatta Council Member William Worfel, who defended Abramoff, changed his position after McCain invited him to appear in the hearings with the representation of Roy Fletcher, counsel McCain personally recommended to him after promising that he would amend the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, with the advice of Worfel. In addition, the firms involved were aligned with McCain.
McCain was personally close to the accusers. In fact, he even used his office to act on their behalf. The accusations brought forth against Abramoff in his hearings could easily have applied to McCain’s own fund raisers – including the exceptional fees Abramoff was able to command from tribes. Lobbying firms close to McCain micro-managed the hearings, investigation, and media to acquire the results they sought.
McCain, in turn, used the information he had acquired to challenge political opponents, like JD Hayworth — and others, by threatening to either turn the investigation on them or slander them by tarring them with the Abramoff scandal.
In fact, he used the scandal, after removing from power a lobbyist who had thwarted his presidential ambitions in 2000, to position himself for a second presidential run in 2008. McCain was no innocent bystander.
What is unclear is what and how much he knew. My view is that McCain is an incredibly savvy and ruthless political operator who knew exactly what he was doing and was arrogant enough to think he could get away with it.
Rather shocking for many people, wrongful convictions are becoming more common than not.
I am glad you are asking questions and seeking out the truth. Our country needs more people like you!:)
Please keep in touch — and thank you for your post!
Reply
On October 26, 2011 at 8:52 pm ThePaganTemple said:
TPT-You’re welcome. Actually, I was wanting to do a post about this on my blog. Would you mind if I use your reply in my post? I’m assuming its all right with your attorney for you to talk about it. This is really some interesting stuff here, and could be very important. I for one never questioned Abramoff’s guilt. I just assumed everything I had heard was basically the truth. I was never a McCain fan though, so this doesn’t really surprise me, other than it ever seeing the light of day. If the truth was known, this is probably the tip of the iceberg.
On October 26, 2011 at 11:08 pm susanbradfordpress said:
SB-I would be deilghted if you would! What was uncovered is the tip of the iceberg, as you said. My book, Lynched, which is available on my website (www.susanbradford.org) and on Amazon, does provide a full and detailed account of what actually transpired over the investigation, if you are interested. Look forward to reading your post! Thanks again!:)
There the conversation ends, and I think I should point out that the reason I made the statement that I assumed her attorney was all right with her discussing this is because there is currently a lawsuit in the works, in which Susan Bradford is seeking damages from The Huffington Post. The Post, the lawsuit claims, made an agreement with Bradford to publish her story, and then reneged on the agreement. At some later date, however, they published the story and attributed it to a different author.
I just learned all of this today and am still digging. Sometime tomorrow I'll try to update with some links pertaining to the suit.
For now though I'll just end this by saying that if this is true-and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt Ms Bradford or her story-this could be really big, and a lot of people could go down, not the least of whom is Senator John McCain.
Stay tuned.
