WHO IS JACK ABRAMOFF?

If you haven’t heard of Jack Abramoff already, you will before long. He is the central figure in a burgeoning scandal that is entangling several members of Congress, some Executive Department officials and a number of their wives.

The unfolding investigation is revealing a new rash of influence peddling in Washington. And it ought to redefine bribery by marking more clearly the blurred line between it and mere favors and political contributions by lobbyists.

Mr. Abramoff and Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, are targets of the Justice Department probe. Prosecutors have warned one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio, and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them.

Other details come mostly from leaks by lawyers and others involved with the investigation. At least 35 investigators are working on the case. The Associated Press reported that 33 or more lawmakers of both parties suddenly pressed the Interior Department on behalf of a relatively obscure tribal issue favored by Mr. Abramoff, while receiving a total of more than $800,000 in donations from Mr. Abramoff’s fund-raising machine. The lawmakers, their wives and their staffs got junkets to sporting events, lavish gifts and many complimentary meals at Mr. Abramoff’s upscale restaurant.

At the center of this swirling investigation, involving largely Indian tribes, gambling ventures and special-interest legislation, is a brilliant lobbyist who entered politics in his student days as chairman of the College Republicans. He was also chairman of the tax-exempt USA Foundation, which promoted Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign in the guise of patriotic rallies.

That set Mr. Abramoff’s pattern of mixing politics with do-good tax-exempts, while raising big money for Republicans and enriching himself. He raised $100,000 for President George W. Bush’s 2004-re-election campaign, getting himself named as a “Bush Pioneer.”

A typical Abramoff maneuver was arranging a May 2000 White House meeting with President Bush of the notorious President Omar Bongo of Gabon, regularly accused of human rights violations. Officials say this came after Mr. Abramoff sought a

$9 million donation from President Bongo to a lobbying company controlled by Mr. Abramoff.

Another typical Abramoff deal was delivering congressional support and tax exemption for his biggest client, the Coushatta Nation of Louisiana. In return, he is said to have received $66 million from the Indians in lobbying fees and gifts to Abramoff-selected charitable groups with strong Republican ties, according to the online newspaper Slate.

In 2001, Mr. Abramoff helped get the Coushatta chief invited to a meet-ing with President Bush in a session arranged by Grover Norquist, a top anti-tax lobbyist who was Mr. Abramoff’s executive director of the College Republicans.

And so on and on and on. There seems to be no end of the wheeling and dealing in a scandal that liberals and conservatives alike want exposed and punished.

Still, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, “Housecleaning has its uses, but if everyone who ever met with a lobbyist at a ball game and later did something that may have benefited a client were sent home, Capitol Hill would soon be empty.”