GUY RAZ, host:
If you're not convinced that truth is often stranger, more devious and even more entertaining than fiction, well, that might change this Friday. That's when a documentary about Jack Abramoff opens in New York, Los Angeles and here in Washington, D.C.
Abramoff was sent to prison for defrauding American Indian tribes and effectively bribing at least one member of Congress. Here's a clip from the film.
(Soundbite of film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money")
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. NEIL VOLZ (Chief of Staff to Representative Bob Ney): (as Himself) Jack is one of a kind. I mean, Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck. He's that persuasive.
RAZ: "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" is the latest project by award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, who is with me in the studio. Welcome to the program.
Mr. ALEX GIBNEY (Documentary Filmmaker, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money"): Great to be here.
RAZ: Alex Gibney, what was it about Jack Abramoff that you felt, you know, wasn't quite understood or absorbed by the public? What did you think needed to be said about him?
Mr. GIBNEY: Just pure and simple, his was a spectacular story. I mean, it goes from shooting machine guns in Africa to mob hits in Miami to Chinese sweatshops in the Marianas Islands, Indian casinos. It was just too colorful, you know, a lifeguard who runs this aghast think tank that's shuttling money from the Malaysian government. You can't make this stuff up.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. GIBNEY: But I think there was a lot about the Abramoff story that we didn't really understand. In some ways, he had become purposefully marginalized by a lot of people in Washington, D.C., as having been a crook, you know, a bad apple.
Now, he's gone to jail. You know, he broke the law. There's no doubt about it. But I think in many ways, what he did, even though he did it recklessly, he was an exaggeration of business as usual rather than an exception to the rule.
RAZ: I was fascinated in the film, and you have a lot of archival footage of a young Jack Abramoff as a member of the College Republicans. He eventually becomes the president. At an early age, he forms an alliance with Ralph Reed, who then goes on to head the Christian Coalition; Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader. How important are those alliances for what Jack Abramoff would eventually become?
Mr. GIBNEY: I call that, I think, the gang of three. I mean, in a way, they were like right-wing Leninists. They were people who were, you know, going to the Finland station. They had an agenda that they were going to take over the government as kind of right-wing radicals.
And they never lost their radical ideas, but once they got into power, when the Republicans swept into power in '94, they became part of this massive money machine.
RAZ: Abramoff as a younger man went into the movie business, and he actually wrote a film, some people know about this, with his brother. It's called "Red Scorpion," starring Dolph Lundgren.
(Soundbite of film, "Red Scorpion")
Mr. CARMEN ARGENZIANO (Actor): (As Colonel Zayas) Are you out of your mind?
Mr. DOLPH LUNDGREN (Actor): (As Lieutenant Nikolai Rachenko) No, just out of bullets.
RAZ: Was that his destiny? Was he going to be a Hollywood film producer?
Mr. GIBNEY: I think he hoped to be. It was a kind of an action-film remake of a sort of documentary production that he did of a kind of right-wing Woodstock where he brought all these right-wing freedom fighters like the Contras and the Mujahideen to Africa with hosted by Jonas Savimbi, this rather bloodthirsty dictator.
I think Jack was kind of conflicted. There is something about him that always remained a movie producer, and that's what probably made him a great lobbyist.
RAZ: How did he eventually make his way to Washington?
Mr. GIBNEY: The Republicans are swept into power in 1994 in the Republican Revolution. When that happens, his friends, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, are very close to Newt Gingrich, and Newt Gingrich is the guy who is pioneering the Contract with America. He's at the heart of power now in Washington.
And Jack came in. He had all these very good, solid Republican connections, and so suddenly, he became a kind of go-to guy. And the big story here is that he found the key person to align himself with, which is Tom DeLay.
RAZ: There's a clip in the film where it's footage of Jack Abramoff giving a speech, about to introduce Tom DeLay, and here's what he says.
(Soundbite of film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money"):
Mr. JACK ABRAMOFF (Former Republican Lobbyist): (as Himself) Tom DeLay is who all of us want to be when we grow up.
RAZ: You talked extensively with Tom DeLay. You interviewed him for this film. He seems to defend the amount of money in politics in this film.
(Soundbite of film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money")
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. TOM DeLAY (Former Representative, Republican, Texas): (as Himself) Money is not evil. Money is free speech. Money is involvement. And as long as it's open and transparent so that the electorate can see who's giving money, who's taking money and how is it being spent, it's a system that's extremely necessary.
RAZ: Tom DeLay was pretty candid in the film. Why did he agree to be interviewed?
Mr. GIBNEY: Well, the short answer is he was on a book tour, and in the process of the book tour, he talked about this and some other things. I mean, and I also he was very forthright about his views. Tom DeLay believes, in some sense, that you should be able to buy and sell congressmen like sneakers.
Now, he would say you always have to do it according to the law, but he believes that the market is the ultimate value, and so what's wrong with having money flooding Congress?
RAZ: I'm speaking with Alex Gibney. He's a documentary filmmaker. And his latest film is called "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," and it's about Jack Abramoff.
There's a key player in this whole saga. His name is Michael Scanlon. He was a top aide to Tom DeLay. Abramoff recruits him, has him come and work with him. Describe what these two men eventually did.
Mr. GIBNEY: They entered into a kind of a kickback scheme called Gimme Five.
(Soundbite of film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money")
Mr. STANLEY TUCCI (Actor): (as John Abramoff) (Voice) Remember we promised when we had dinner with the chief that we would make them the most powerful folks in the state, (unintelligible), gimme five.
Mr. PAUL RUDD (Actor): (as Michael Scanlon) Let's grow that 2.1 million to five. We need a true gimme five.
RAZ: And those are the actors Paul Rudd and Stanley Tucci doing the voices of Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon.
Mr. GIBNEY: Gimme Five, which was memorialized in some rather outrageous emails, was basically a way where Abramoff would go to a tribe, an Indian tribe, and he would say, look, I'll lobby for you with Tom DeLay, and I can do a lot of good things for you.
But really, the key thing here is to hire this grassroots organizer, this guy Mike Scanlon. He's great. And you've got to pay him a lot of money. You know, I'm going to try to hold the line because I believe in your cause, but you've got to pay him a lot of money. Well, he never told them that he was basically getting 50 percent of Scanlon's fee.
RAZ: I remember when the stories about Jack Abramoff started to come out, and there was a lot of speculation that many, many heads, perhaps dozens of heads in Congress would roll. Bob Ney was the only member of Congress who went to prison. How did so many other members of Congress get away with accepting cash and gifts and other things from Jack Abramoff?
Mr. GIBNEY: We don't know. I mean, the fact is we don't know what the Department of Justice has. We don't know what they felt they could charge people with. The only thing I would say is this: One thing we do know is that Jack Abramoff testified extensively, you know, once he pled guilty and went to prison, and he was a bit surprised, more than a bit surprised, that more people didn't end up being prosecuted.
RAZ: Now, you have visited him on several occasions at this prison in Cumberland, Maryland. He agreed to be interviewed for the film, but in the end, he wasn't in the film. Why not?
Mr. GIBNEY: He agreed to be interviewed, and after beating down the doors legally, mysteriously, out of the blue, I got a letter saying Mr. Abramoff does not want to be interviewed by you.
I believe strongly that, you know, basically, the Department of Justice took a very dim view of the idea of him being interviewed and put a lot of pressure on him.
RAZ: What happens now with Jack Abramoff? I mean, once he's released, I mean, can he tell his story? Can he sell his story?
Mr. GIBNEY: I hope that he comes out and talks about what he experienced. It helps us all to understand how the kitchen in this grand Chinese restaurant that we call our government works.
RAZ: That's Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney. His new documentary about Jack Abramoff is called "Casino Jack and the United States of Money." It's out in selected theaters this Friday.
Alex Gibney, thanks so much.
Mr. GIBNEY: Thanks so much.
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