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       THE UNITED STATES OF CORRUPTION

       All plans of government, which suppose great reformation in the manners of mankind, are plainly imaginary.

       —David Hume

       — 1 —

       Our Machiavellian Moment

      FOR FOREIGN INVESTORS, America is always a good bet, and that’s especially true when they come from corrupt countries, as Kambir Abdul Rahman and Yassir Habib did. Together the two formed Abdul Enterprises and deposited a million dollars in Chase Manhattan Bank to give themselves credibility. Then they hired Melvin Weinberg to approach American politicians for their support. If this is beginning to sound familiar, that’s because it’s the Abscam sting of 1978–80, and the basis for the 2013 film American Hustle.

      Kambir Abdul Rahman and Yassir Habib didn’t exist. The entire operation was an FBI plan to entrap corrupt politicians, and before it was over it led to the conviction of six U.S. congressmen as well as Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ). Melvin Weinberg was all too real, an elementary school dropout and ne’er-do-well who once took $10,000 from a doctor on a promise to kill his wife and then simply kept the money without doing the job. He subsequently moved on to bigger stings, making $500,000 a year and never paying income tax. In time the feds caught up with him, and after being convicted of wire fraud he agreed to work for the FBI to entrap corrupt politicians. Beginning with low-level New Jersey pols, he quickly moved up to Washington officials as word spread that he had money to hand out. The first congressman he caught in his web was Michael Myers (D-NJ), who was persuaded to introduce a private bill that would have permitted “Rahman” and “Habib” to remain in the United States. “I’m no Boy Scout,” he told Weinberg. Truer words were never spoken, but Myers might have been less candid had he known that he was being taped and the FBI was listening in.¹

      It made for a good movie, but it was only garden-variety corruption, where public officials take money under the table in exchange for an official act and are sentenced to jail. In such cases, the FBI and the local police seem entirely up to the job of ferreting out the grifter, the pol on the take. What they miss are the nudges and winks that fall short of an official act, the way in which campaign donors and lobbyists support candidates and thereafter enjoy a privileged relationship with them. The donors and lobbyists will expect to have their calls returned and their opinions respected, and that’s not a crime. “Ingratiation and access . . . are not corruption,” ruled Justice Kennedy in Citizens United v. FEC.² In a subsequent case, Chief Justice Roberts took it one step further. There’s nothing wrong with campaign donors not only gaining access but expecting that the officials they support will respond to their interests, he thought. Rather, it’s “a central feature of democracy.”³ That sounds like a heavy dose of realism.

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