Jack Abramoff, humanitarian?

‘I’ve known a far different Jack’
Once nearly omnipresent on Capitol Hill, where he doled out political donations and lent his restaurant to lawmakers for fundraisers, Abramoff got just a single letter of support from a member of Congress — his longtime friend Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

“Over many years, I’ve known a far different Jack that the profit-seeking megalomaniac portrayed in the press,” Rohrabacher wrote. “Jack was a selfless patriot for most of the time I knew him.”

In an interview Rohrabacher said he took a risk others in Congress wouldn’t — writing the letter — because he didn’t want Abramoff’s many accomplishments to be lost among his crimes.

“All I can say is that Jack was a good friend, and even your good friends at times do wrong things and he’s admitted that and has to pay the price for that. But that doesn’t mean that you abandon him because he’s made wrong choices in his life,” the lawmaker said.

A former top Republican official in California’s Assembly, Steve Baldwin, and two military officers were the others with government connections willing to attach their names to letters praising Abramoff.

Air Force captain speaks of kindness
Air Force Capt. Andrew Cohen, a chaplain, wrote the court about Abramoff’s generosity in taking in Cohen’s family of seven for several weeks last year when the military family couldn’t find housing.

Cohen wrote that Abramoff was a complete stranger and his act of generosity arose from “humanitarian considerations” and a “sense of national service and duty to assist a service member and his family.”

Army Reserve Capt. Michael Young told the court that Abramoff cared for his family during a lengthy deployment to Afghanistan, crediting the Abramoff household with providing “emotional support for my wife and children during this mission.”

The letters from average citizens were strewn with references to Abramoff’s generosity, like the time the lobbyist gave $10,000 to a rabbi “overwhelmed by medical bills” or the countless times he took children to professional sports games to teach them sportsmanship.

“Jack is a good person, who in his quest to be successful, lost sight of the rules,” National Hockey League referee Dave Jackson wrote, describing the time Abramoff brought 14 kids to his dressing room before a game.

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