Awaiting The Abramoff Plea Deal

Stories for Bloomberg and the Houston Chronicle both attempt to preview what the impending Abramoff plea deal may mean.

Neither story offers new facts on the deal, or a timeline, but both speculate that the deal could be announced as early as today, prior to a 3:30 p.m. scheduling conference with U.S. District Judge Paul Huck in the Florida Abramoff fraud case. 

Both stories conclude that any deal will provide federal prosecutors with nearly unprecedented access to the inside of a major corruption scheme.  And despite the protestations of DeLay's lawyer in each story, both try to hint mightily that the Abramoff deal spells real trouble for Rep. Tom DeLay. 

As Joshua Berman, a former federal prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section at the Justice Department put it in the Bloomberg story:

A cooperating Abramoff would be ``the insider who will describe every event, every phone call, every cup of coffee and conversations at golf outings,'' said Joshua Berman, a partner at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Washington who until 2004 was an attorney in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which is leading the prosecution. ``The paper records won't tell you what was discussed at the fourth hole. Abramoff can.''

Also in the Bloomberg story, Melanie Sloan of CREW, a former federal prosecutor says what everyone has been speculating:

To get a reduced prison sentence, Abramoff would have to implicate lawmakers in a related probe of his lobbying activities, said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

``I believe he has to be giving up members of Congress,'' Sloan said. ``Otherwise, Abramoff is as high as you go.''