http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=834Jack Abramoff’s long GOP career includes stints chairing the College Republican National Committee, sitting on the Republican National Committee and heading Reagan lobby group Citizens for America (see David Carmen). This orthodox Jew helped build the political power of the Christian Coalition and Pioneer Ralph Reed. He ostensibly founded the International Freedom Foundation (IFF) in 1985.
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He helped the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands kill a 1998 bill to revoke its exemption from U.S. minimum wage laws. For $100,000 a month, Abramoff helped block legislation to help women who make “Made-in-USA” garments for $3 an hour. Abramoff compared the proposed Mariana reforms to Nazi laws that restricted the movement of Jews. Bringing some old clients when he switched firms in 2001, Abramoff helped make Greenberg Traurig the nation’s No. 5 grossing lobby firm in 2002. Greenberg Traurig (see James Miller and Fred Zeidman) quickly capitalized on the September 11th attacks, creating a “Government Contracts and Homeland Security Team.”
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Abramoff and Bush go back to at least 1997 - Bush wrote ltr for AbramoffPosted 5/6/2005 8:35 AM Updated 5/7/2005 8:19 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-06-abramoff-bush_x.htmexcerpt:
Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, is now under criminal investigation for some of his lobbying work. His firm boasted its lobbying team helped revise a section of the Republican Party's 2000 platform to make it favorable to its island client.
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The records from Abramoff's firm, obtained by The Associated Press from the Marianas under an open records request, chronicle Abramoff's careful cultivation of relations with Bush's political team as far back as 1997.
In that year, Abramoff charged the Marianas for getting then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to write a letter expressing support for the Pacific territory's school choice proposal, his billing records show.
"I hope you will keep my office informed on the progress of this initiative," Bush wrote in a July 18, 1997, letter praising the islands' school plan and copying in an Abramoff deputy.
White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Thursday that Bush didn't consider Abramoff a friend. "They may have met on occasion, but the president does not know him," she said.
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