Seattle Weekly: The Preston Gates Mates (Abramoff & Delay)

[Pachamama]

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0508/050223_news_prestongates.php

Very interesting article in the Seattle Weekly - excellent summary on Abramoff and reference to his connections to the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis (Bill Gate's father's law firm) and what was/is Microsoft's biggest outside counsel and includes now on the executive committee Microsoft's former Chief Counsel William Neukom.

Meanwhile, this article gives more information on who Jack Abramoff is...for example:

Abramoff, 45, who grew up in Beverly Hills, has been one of D.C.'s highest-paid arm-twisters the past 10 years, with monthly retainers of up to $175,000. He earned his considerable repute through Preston Gates as a power broker for offshore sweatshops and for American Indian casinos in the 1990s. A self-described ultraconservative Orthodox Jew, Abramoff is a longtime pal of Bush brain Karl Rove, antitax guru Grover Nordquist, and religious-right leader Ralph Reed. He helped raise funds for Ronald Reagan and Ollie North, was the movie producer/writer of a Cold War potboiler called Red Scorpion, and founded a political group that supported the South African apartheid government.

Abramoff also was a founder and chair of Toward Tradition, the nonprofit Mercer Island faith-based, right-wing political coalition run by Lapin, who is a Seattle radio host on KTTH-AM (770), a GOP fund-raiser, and a native South African. Toward Tradition started in 1991 after Lapin moved here from California, where his then-followers included such Hollywood heavyweights as devout liberal Barbra Streisand. Paid $165,000 a year, according to a 2003 IRS filing, Lapin calls his Mercer Island organization a coalition of Jews and Christians formed to counter antireligious bigotry and preserve the social fabric. He is also co-chair of American Alliance of Jews and Christians, created with former GOP presidential also-ran Gary Bauer. Its board of advisers includes Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, Abramoff, and Lapin's longtime friend and fellow radio talker Michael Medved.