The sight of lobbyist Jack Abramoff emerging from court this January sent shivers down the spines of Washington's most influential powerbrokers.
Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and to bribe public official and, in his plea bargain with the Justice Department, he has agreed to reveal all.

MELANIE SLOAN, CITIZENS FOR ETHICS AND RESPONSIBILITY: The Abramoff scandal is huge. it's going to be one of the largest scandals in American political history. It's still growing. We still don't know, exactly, how big it's going to be.

SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER: The scandal has shaken the public's confidence in our government because of Mr Abramoff's close ties to Republican members of Congress and the White House. For starters, FBI officials have said that the Abramoff investigation "involves systematic corruption, within the highest levels of government."

Abramoff's testimony threatens not only the most senior politicians in the country but it is also exposing the corrosive influence of lobbyists' money on American democracy.
The Abramoff scandal begins here in the swampy back-roads of Elton, Louisiana.

BOB: This is the Texas state flag. The red, white and blue.

REPORTER: Are are there a lot of people from Texas around here?

BOB: There are a lot coming over to go to the casino, which is a mile up the road from here.

Gambling is heavily restricted in Louisiana but the Coushatta Indian tribe built this casino on sovereign Indian land, where the normal state rules don't apply. Drawing hundreds of thousands of people from nearby states, it brings in over US$300 million a year. Back in 1999, the Coushatta Indians became worried that competing casinos might eat into their revenue. So they hired Jack Abramoff to help close down their competitors.

JIMMY FAIRCLOTH, ATTORNEY: He was presented as the best. He was the guy. He was the "go-to" guy in Washington.

Attorney Jimmy Faircloth represents the Coushatta Indian tribe.

JIMMY FAIRCLOTH: He absolutely would talk about killing legislation. About getting people to vote the way he wanted them to vote. About tremendous promises about his clout.

Hired on a monthly retainer of $120,000, Abramoff's main objective was to convince lawmakers to close a casino in Texas, owned by the Tigua Indian tribe. The Tigua Indian's have a reservation within the city of El Paso, in south-west Texas. Like the Coushatta, the Tigua opened a casino on their land.
Working through his connections, Abramoff pushed lawmakers to pass legislation that would close down the Tigua casino.

ARTURO SINCLAIR, TIGUA GOVERNOR: We went from rags to riches and then, after the closure, we went back to rags.

Arturo Sinclair is the Governor of the Tigua Indian Tribe.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: Ultimately, in 2002, February 11, 2002, we were ordered by the circuit court judge to shut down. We did shut down on that day.

The true ruthlessness of Abramoff can be seen in what he did next. Abramoff had directed the campaign to close down the Tigua casino in secret and nobody knew it was his doing. But he then had the gall to approach the Tigua Indians and offer to work on their behalf to try and re-open the casino he had just helped close.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He was very charming. You can tell he's got a slight sense of arrogance to him, where he does know people - name dropping. Unfortunately, when he did come in, he didn't tell us that he was a 90% factor in our shutdown. We didn't know that.

Now working both sides of the fence, Abramoff requested millions of dollars from the tribes for their lobbying efforts.

JIMMY FAIRCLOTH: Outside the $120,000 retainer, saying "we need $5 million for the Texas effort". $4.5 million for this. $3 million for this.

In total, the Coushatta and the Tigua paid Abramoff more than $36 million. But the tribes have now learned that millions went into Abramoff's own pocket. They'd been ripped off. So now they're blowing the whistle on the lobbyist.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He came in and he promised that he was going to be able to change legislative language. He said "this is going to be like a submarine operation". "Nobody knows what's going to happen until the submarine surfaces and that's when the legislation is going to pass."

So how does an unelected citizen like Jack Abramoff make Congress work to his desire?
First, he was into the business of fine wining and dining. Abramoff's upmarket restaurant, Signatures, now sits empty but this is where he would regularly entertain the most important powerbrokers in town.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: I did visit him several times in Washington DC and I did visit his restaurant. That's where everybody wanted to be seen. The who's who,that was Signatures. At the time I was there. There were also some legislators there, in private room meetings, so you can see the influence that Jack Abramoff had.

The second way to get onside with American politicians is through campaign contributions.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He came in with a list and he says "you know what guys, it's critical that you contribute, and here's a list of the key contributions your gonna have to make." That amounted to almost $300,000.

JIMMY FAIRCLOTH: Jack Abramoff would submit a list. He would say "please make cheques to these officials in these amounts." He said something like "the tribe needs to have a giving presence, or a generous presence, in Washington to establish itself."

Here in Washington, there are endless opportunities for lobbyists to spread their campaign contributions around. On just my first day in the US capital, lobbyists turned up at this Starbucks, for coffee with Congressman Jon Porter, in exchange for giving $1,000 to his campaign fund.
At La Colline, for another grand, they ate lunch with Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn and then evening drinks and dinner at Shelley's Backroom, for another $1,000, they got quality time with Congressman Gresham Barrett, on his birthday.

MELANIE SLOAN: Every person who is running for Congress is constantly running around trying to raise money.

Melanie Sloan is a former federal prosecutor. She is now the Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

MELANIE SLOAN: It's the lobbyists who will come through with the money for your political campaigns. And that makes for an incredibly cosy relationship between members of Congress and lobbyists.

GEORGE BUSH: I accept your nomination for President of the United States.

And after lobbyists provide the funds for these lavish and exuberant campaigns, they expect something in return when their candidate gets elected.

MELANIE SLOAN: Really, what the money pays for is access. Everybody can't get in to just see their Congressman, you can't just make an appointment and walk in. But if you're a lobbyist, who's been contributing a lot of money, you can make that appointment and walk in.

Melanie thinks there's something deeply wrong with the system. Because when lobbyists buy access, they're also paying to exert influence over a politician's agenda.

MELANIE SLOAN: They're coming in saying "here, this is our idea and by the way let us give you several thousand dollars." and then the member of Congress is likely to listen a little more attentively to someone giving them all that money, to someone who isn't giving them all that money.

Someone who was listening just a bit more attentively was the Republican Congressman Bob Ney, of Ohio. Ney has been identified within the Justice's Department's investigation of Abramoff. The Congressman, and his staff, were regulars at Abramoff's restaurant and in his football super boxes. Ney also spent a luxurious week in Scotland on a golf trip funded by Abramoff's clients.
Once on side, Ney was going to come in handy in the lobbyist's work with the Tigua Indians. Abramoff had promised the tribe he could get his contacts to amend legislation that would allow their casino to reopen.

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He called it a 'vehicle'. I need a 'vehicle' for this language to be inserted, it's gonna be several thousand pages and for somebody to even find it, it's gonna be remote. I am gonna get it passed.

REPORTER: When Mr Abramoff told you that he was going to try and change this legislation on your behalf, how did he explain that he was going to do it. I mean he's not an elected member of Congress, how is he going to accomplish this?

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He clearly came out and he said I've got a key ally, his name is Bob Ney. Carlos Hisa, the Lieutenant Governor, did travel to Washington. He did meet with him, in his office, and the conversations went that "it is going to be taken care of", it is going to be taken care of".

REPORTER: So Congressman Bob Ney told Carlos Hisa, from your tribe, that he was going to insert this amendment...

ARTURO SINCLAIR: He said "We're gonna take care of it", 'it' being the language. 'It' is going to get taken care of.

This is bad news for Bob Ney, because if the Congressman did agree to ‘take care' of the casino legislation, in return for the Tigua's money, that is a bribe.

MELANIE SLOAN: Bribery is very hard to prove and the Justice Department doesn't bring a lot of bribery cases. The reason is - you have to be able to prove the link between the money and the specific legislative act. It's not just enough that you would just be giving money to Congress for their general goodwill. If you were just giving them because you just wanted them to, sort of, look at you more favourably. That wouldn't be bribery. There has to be an agreement whereby you say "I will do X for you in exchange for this campaign contribution". The reason you are going to see the Justice Department prosecuting Bob Ney is because you have Jack Abramoff's testimony that, yes, there was indeed that link, there was a quid pro quo.

There are also questions about a quid pro quo arrangement between Abramoff and the most powerful Republican member - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
He was Abramoff's Congressional contact for a lobbying effort in the northern Mariana Islands in the West Pacific. Despite being US territory, certain American labour laws do not apply here, leading to sweatshops that churn out clothing labelled ‘made in the USA.' Workers complained of the conditions to US officials.

AL STAYMAN, FORMER HEAD OF GOVERNMENT DEPT: They weren't allowed to join unions. They weren't allowed, essentially, to challenge mistreatment.

As the former head of the government office in charge of the Mariana Islands, Al Stayman drafted a bill to protect worker's rights. But Jack Abramoff was hired by the sweatshop owners to block the bill.
Abramoff flew Tom DeLay and his family to the Mariana's on an all-expense-paid trip. Seen in this picture hugging Abramoff on arrival at the airport, DeLay didn't have time to see the abuse of workers.
When he returned, DeLay described Abramoff as "one of his closest and dearest friends" and the Congressman developed a sudden desire to campaign against the Mariana Worker Protection Bill.
Using his clout in Congress, DeLay ensured the vote on the bill was blocked for eight years.

AL STAYMAN: The House did not ever formally take up that bill, and hasn't to this day.

Details of Abramoff's contributions to Tom DeLay's campaign funds have now emerged, showing that, with enough money, the legislative agenda of the Government can be blocked.

AL STAYMAN: Were it not for the lobbying campaign, the very expensive and aggressive lobbying campaign, that was managed by Mr Abramoff, I think this law probably would have passed.

Tom DeLay has not been charged as part of the current investigation into Abramoff's dealings. But so damaging is this scandal, DeLay was forced to stand down as House Republican Leader in January, because of his close relationship with the lobbyist.

TOM DELAY: Earlier today, I asked Speaker Hastert to convene the House Republican Conference as soon as possible for the purpose of electing a new majority leader.

In downtown Washington, K Street is home to the 11,000 registered lobbyists who work the political system on behalf of their corporate clients. Last year, American companies spent over $10 billion on this legal form of influence peddling.

GARY YOUNGE, JOURNALIST: The lobbying industry is essential to US politics it's like the grease that makes the wheels of Washington turn. The whole thing would just grind to a halt without it.

Gary Younge is an opinion writer for the British Newspaper ‘The Guardian.' He's watched the dramatic increase in lobbying in recent years.

GARY YOUNGE: The current administration was always hand-in-glove with business. And so, a system that was already, by all other standards of other countries, pretty intense, in terms of lobbying, has been exaggerated and blown out of all proportion to what it used to be because Bush is the President of big business, so big business has been camped out in Washington for the last six years and is going to be there for the next couple of years.

Anyone who wants to grab the attention of US Congress members is forced to play the game. When the Australian Government was negotiating the US Free Trade Agreement, it spent nearly $1.5 million hiring American lobbyists. And when Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had trouble getting an audience with President Bush, in 2002, he hired Jack Abramoff. After paying the lobbyist $1.2 million, Mahathir got his meeting with the President.

GEORGE BUSH: It is great to see you, I have been looking forward to this visit...

The Abramoff scandal now has everyone on their toes. On Capitol Hill, it's the first day back for Congress members since the scandal broke and journalists are keen to question them on their ties to lobbyists.

ZACH WAMP, CONGRESSMAN: It's the best time to comprehensively address some of these abuses.

‘Reform' is suddenly the word on everyone's lips.

REPORTER: What's your opinion on the proposals for lobbying reform?

ZACH WAMP: Full disclosure, transparency, let people see all the aspects of what goes on and then we will be OK. Because the public is smart. They understand what is right and what is wrong and what is not appropriate and what is.

One maverick Republican, Congressman Jeff Flake from Arizona, has gone as far as to challenge one of the key drivers of corruption by lobbyists. A strange anomaly of the US system called 'earmarks'.

CONGRESSMAN JEFF FLAKE: Earmarks have become, as I have mentioned before, Earmarks have become the currency of corruption, here on Capitol Hill.

Earmarks are projects like roads or school buildings that legislators write into completely unrelated bills which when passed, make the project, and its funding, also become a law.

JEFF FLAKE: We shouldn't have that power, in Congress, to write government cheques, to colleagues, to donors and to organisations, without any real Congressional check.

Congress members sneak earmarks in, hoping no-one reads the fine print before the bill gets passed.

MELANIE SLOAN: They're put in, in the dead of night. They're not debated. They're done after a conference committee has already met and decided on what, supposedly, is the final legislation and then these things are just slipped in the last minute so no-one even knows they're there.

It seems extraordinary that huge sums of government money can be diverted to Congress member's pet projects without any scrutiny at all.

REPORTER: I don't understand how that can happen in your parliamentary system. How can Congress people legally put in such inserts into legislation?

MELANIE SLOAN: Congress makes up its own rules and even though the rules say that your not supposed to be able do that, that all the, kind of, measures that go into an appropriations bill are supposed to go through the committee process, the fact is that, in the end, leadership can just stick things in at the very last minute and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Under this administration, earmarks have exploded. For example, in this transportation bill, passed last year, there were over 6,000 earmarks. These unscrutinised projects were all adopted without any hearing or debate. In total - the earmarks in this bill are worth over US$24 billion.
And the things Congress members get away with are incredible. For example, in last year's defence funding bill, the following projects were also sneaked in. $1 million for a snake eradication program in Guam, $1.8 million for a walking trail and $2.5 million for the Alaska Federal Healthcare Network.

MELANIE SLOAN: When you are paying your lobbyist to get an earmark, no matter what your paying to the lobbyist, you're getting a great deal, because your earmark that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to you and yet you're paying your lobbyist maybe even hundreds of thousands, so you've still come out way ahead.

Jeff Flake is struggling to find support for earmark reform from his Republican colleagues and he's worried about the message that sends to voters.

REPORTER: How does it feel, being such a renegade, out here doing this, when most of your party doesn't support this?

JEFF FLAKE: Aw. It's something that has to be done. If we don't move this, if we don't support this, unless we move it, then we won't be in the majority much longer. So it's trying to protect the majority.

PROMO: What time is it when oil company lobbyists sit at the White House, helping write their own tax breaks while you stand at the gas pump, paying $40 to fill your tank...

The Republicans are facing a huge public relations disaster. Anti-Bush groups have been quick to label the Abramoff scandal part of a Republican culture of corruption. ..

PROMO: to stop the abuse of power, end secret meetings for lobbyists, ban gifts and trips for Congress. To improve the state of our nation, we must improve the state of our leadership.

Gary Younge thinks that, because of lobbyists, it's big business that ends up setting the policy agenda.

GARY YOUNGE: One good example is healthcare. One in six Americans don't have any healthcare at all. If they get sick, they have to go to the doctors with their cheque book if they can't afford it, they may just get sicker. Almost two thirds of Americans favour some form of universal healthcare, so that everybody would be covered.

But because the private healthcare industry spends more than $300 million per year to lobby against universal healthcare, Neither party currently supports it.

GARY YOUNGE: It's difficult to believe that Americans would, willingly, deny themselves healthcare that they want, and that they clearly need, unless someone was persuading them otherwise. Whenever it comes out, the big guns come out, they spread their cash about. They make sure that people know what's the right way to vote. And they make it very clear. "If you don't vote this way this time, we'll be looking for another candidate next time".

As long as politicians in the US need huge amounts of money to enter the political race, it seems there will be a market for political lobbying. And when the idea of capping campaign contributions, or campaign spending, is raised supporters of lobbying highlight the First Amendment as protection.

MELANIE SLOAN: The thing that we desperately need, here in the United States, is publicly-financed campaigns. So far, the Supreme Court has made that very difficult because it has previously held that money is equal to free speech.

GARY YOUNGE: If lobbying is free speech, then a huge number of Americans are mute, because they just can't pay to play, so they have no influence over the system. So, if anything, I think it's the antithesis of free speech because it's not free, it's actually quite expensive.

Whether Abramoff's evidence implicates the White House remains to be seen. President Bush says he doesn't know the guy, but Abramoff maintains he has met the President several times and has even been invited to his Crawford ranch. Abramoff also claims he has at least 10 photographs of the President with him and his family.
While the administration waits anxiously, to see whether senior politicians will be indicted for corruption, it appears that the broader problems raised by Abramoff's case will not be addressed.
The Republicans and the Democrats show no sign of seriously tackling the impact of lobbyist's money on the American political system.

GARY YOUNGE: So long as it stays an issue about one wayward, maverick guy, then, you know, the pay-to-play system will continue to carry on pretty much intact, it would be a bit like arresting the Watergate burglars for burglary and not going any further. But this is much more profound than that and I question the system's ability to regenerate itself so long as money is at the heart of it.