Jack Abramoff Quotations

Words will not ever be able to express my sorrow for this.

Words will not ever be able to express my sorrow and my profound regret for all my actions and mistakes. I hope I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and those I've wronged or caused to suffer.

Words can never express my sorrow and profound regret.

When I arrived in prison, they locked the prison down that day because the media was all over the place.

Many of my e-mails have been maliciously taken out of context, another effort by those assaulting my career.

I have chatted with Ralph and we need to get the funding moving on the effort in the 10 congressional districts, ... Please get me a check as soon as possible for $150,000 made payable to American Marketing Inc. This is the company Ralph is using.

Had I known these facts about Kidan, I would never have signed

Well, I try to not view things through a prism of anti-Semitism, because often, people will use that as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of Jews.

The reason there are tens of thousands of lobbyists is because the ever-expanding federal government creates ever-increasing opportunities for abuse. The more the federal government does, the more lobbyists there will be to protect special interests at the expense of the common interest.

Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!!

Tony would say to members, 'Oh, you're getting phone calls on this? I better go tell the whip.' Lou Sheldon sending a letter is not going to do anything unless you have somebody on the inside. Tony exaggerated to leadership how backing the bill could hurt those members,

Did you get the message from the guys that Tom wants us to raise some bucks from Capital Athletic Foundation? ... I have six clients in for $25K. I recommend we hit everyone who cares about Tom's requests. I have another few to hit still.

public relations effort related to promoting Gabon and securing a visit for President Bongo with the president of the United States.

Any ideas on how we can make sure she does not get it? Can you ping Karl on this?

This is really high on the priority list of tribal concerns. This is a cash cow in many circumstances, and tribes are concerned about protection of tribal assets.

This cannot be shared with anyone not on this distribution list,

This is a disaster in the making, ... This is the casino we discussed with Steve and he said that it would not happen. It seems to be happening! The way to stop it is for Interior to say they are not satisfied with the environmental impact report. Can you get him to stop this one asap? They are moving fast. Thanks Italia. This is a direct assault on our guys, Saginaw Chippewa.

All of my remaining days, I will feel tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done. I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to suffer.

As you can imagine, this day is incredibly painful for my family, friends and me.

For a guy who did all these evil things ... it's pretty amazing, considering I didn't know anyone.

A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and a libertarian is a conservative who's been indicted.

In Hollywood, they put the knife in your front; in D.C., they put it in your back. I found far fewer duplicitous people in Hollywood.

I'm trying to avail myself of the various technologies to get the message that Washington needs to be cleaned up, that the system that's in place is not what's beneficial in the country.

I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and those I have wronged.

In the past two years I've started the process of becoming a new man. I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful over the reckless and hurtful things I have done in my life, especially those which have brought me before you today.

Call Grover, tell him I am in Michigan and that I have two checks for him totaling 160 and need a check back for Faith and Family for $150K.

Access is vital in lobbying. If you can't get in your door, you can't make your case.

I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying.

I don't pay much attention to sports.

I got into lobbying kind of against my will at first. I frankly didn't want to be a lobbyist, but I realized that in lobbying I could do things politically that were interesting to me and do some what I thought would be good. I'm not sure it all turned out like that, but at least that was some of the initial thinking.

I mean, money is a tool.

I might dream, but I am no dreamer.

Words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused.

In the past two years, I've started the process of becoming a new man. I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful over the reckless and hurtful things I have done in my life, especially those which have brought me before you today.

I know I'm intellectually capable of finding a series of things and making hundreds of millions. I have to get there and do it. Carefully. Legally.

In the past few years I have begun the process of becoming a new man.

I can't vote again ever, so political party is not a relevant thing for me.

I can't afford to be a member of a golf course.

I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful. I can only hope that the Almighty and those whom I have wronged will forgive me my trespasses.

All I have, really, is my creativity.

All I want is for people not to see me as this cartoon monster.

As a lobbyist, I thought it only natural and right that my clients should reward those members who saved them such substantial sums with generous contributions. This quid pro quo became one of hallmarks of our lobbying efforts.

As a lobbyist, I was completely against term limits, and I know a lot of people are against term limits, and I was one of the leaders, because why? As a lobbyist, once you buy a congressional office, you don't have to re-buy that office in six years, right?

As a result, I've been portrayed as a cynical barbarian preying on the very clients I was charged to defend.

Being somebody who wants to be religious doesn't make me perfect and doesn't make me necessarily any better than anybody else. It maybe makes me better than I would have been if I didn't have that level.

Everybody's a complex person. Everybody. Everybody's nuanced.

A senator will come off Capitol Hill and they'll be barred from two years from lobbying in the Senate. So they'll pick the phone up and they'll call their buddy, the senator, their old buddies, and they'll say, 'Listen, I'm here at this law firm now. I can't lobby you, but my new partner, Jack, can lobby you.'

Human beings are weak.

They realize that spending millions to save billions is just good business.

You can't beat somebody with nobody.

I support myself by public speaking and trying to work on as many appropriate and legitimate ventures as I can.

In Hollywood, they put the knife in your front; in D.C., they put it in your back. I found far fewer duplicitous people in Hollywood.

In my religion it's actually better to know you're doing wrong and try to improve that wrong than to think philosophically that what you're doing is right and in fact it is wrong.

It's very difficult for felons to live in society.

Lobbying is not a bad thing. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't have lobbyists or we shouldn't have lobbying to petition our government. It's in the Constitution, and it's something that should be honorable and good.

No one wants a domain with their name on it owned by somebody else.

One of my personality defects, perhaps, is that I'm rather ADD, and I work on a bunch of things at once.

The hope in radio is to build an audience over a number of years, a slow build to see if something works.

Washington's a dangerous place.

Well, I don't think most Americans are playing the super-PAC game. I think what you have is elites on both sides playing the super-PAC game.

Well, I think the great tragedy in American politics is what is legal, not what is illegal.

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself.

If you chose to serve in Congress or on a congressional staff, you should be barred for life from working for any company, organization, or association which lobbies the federal government.

I'm not a complete libertarian. There is a proper role in some areas of the government to have rules and regulations - I'm not an anarchist.

I'm a hypercompetitive individual.

I'm a human being. I'm not perfect.

I try to avoid saying anything positive about any presidential candidate for fear that if I actually like them then I will kill their campaign.

I think the American people deserve somebody telling them what is really happening in Washington.

I'm not asking people to feel sorry for me.

I'm not exactly the endorsement people are seeking.

I'm not trying to become popular.

I'm an aggressive person.

Class envy is dangerous.

Congress doesn't hate Congress.

Democrats don't react the same way Republicans do, because they are not forced to react the same way Republicans are forced to react. They get to be as corrupt as, basically, they want, and just ignore it.

Prisoners do different things. Some write, some read. Some engage in athletic events and working out and some do all of that. Some get involved in the religious groups that they're part of. Some get involved in hobbies that are permitted in prison. There are plenty of ways to stay busy. You're never going to survive in prison unless you start getting busy.

Having gone through what I went through, watching my family be torn to shreds and my children suffer immensely, I can't be the agent of doing that to someone else. I can't be the agent of causing someone to go to prison.

If I read the articles about me, and I didn't know me, I would think I was Satan.

Some issues lend themselves to grassroots campaigns - homeschooling works well - but others require contrivance and connivance to whip up support. Often, lobbyists will hire vendors to dispatch blast emails and robocalls in the hopes of bombarding Congressional offices with citizen fury.

Good news. I think she (Norton) knows Grover,

I don't want to bother you guys with a meeting request, so I was hoping you could pass on to Karl that Interior is about to approve a gaming compact and land in trust for a tribe which is an anathema to all our supporters down there.

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

The lure of post-public service lobbying employment needs to be eliminated.

The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows.