When the gates of Cumberland Correctional Facility in Maryland, not far from Washington, slammed shut on Jack Abramoff in November 2006, you could almost hear the sigh of relief across the nation's political capital.
Behind bars, Abramoff had been stripped of his status as one of Washington's best-connected and highest-powered lobbyists, and instead could be damned as a criminal who had corrupted U.S. politics, bribed Congressmen and their staffers, and brought public opprobrium on an otherwise reputable system.
In Cumberland he has been snorting with derision at that idea - and now he is out, back in the spotlight, and determined to prove he was no bad apple. Money has rotten Washington to the core, he says, and the reforms Congress instituted after the "Abramoff scandal" have done nothing to mask the stink.
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Read more at the Independent.
