I: LARCENY IN MY BLOOD

December 4, 1979. John Jenrette sits in the library of a Washington DC home, conversing with two men who say they represent a wealthy Arab sheik. He asks for a drink. As one man goes to pour him a glass of whisky, the other begins to explain. “Mr. Jenrette, our bosses are prepared to offer you $50,000 right now, in exchange for your assistance expediting their visa applications. Now, surely this is a small matter for an important Congressman like yourself.” Jenrette takes the drink and quaffs it in one smooth motion, unfazed. Setting the glass down he declares, “Boys, I’ve got larceny in my blood. I’d take that in goddamn minute.” Unfortunately for Jenrette, while the money is real, the sheik is not. The men he's speaking with are, in fact, FBI agents, and the entire conversation is being recorded. [A]

Within months Jenrette stood trial for bribery and conspiracy, alongside six more members of Congress who attended similar meetings. All seven were convicted and sent to prison in the largest federal anti-corruption sting operation in American history: an operation so effective, the Senate actually drafted a Bill—right here, Bill 804, “The Undercover Operations Act of 1983”—that literally attempted to make this type of investigation effectively illegal. [B, 375]

Obviously, politicians outlawing the investigative tactics that bust them for corruption is insane, and thankfully, their efforts failed. But if that’s the case, and the FBI could still do this, why don’t we hear about busts like this anymore? I mean, our politicians aren’t magically less corrupt than they used to be!

But as I dove deeper into this story and the FBI’s plot became more and more absurd—phony Arab sheiks, fake bank accounts, hundreds of thousands of dollars, the FBI literally inventing crime where it didn’t previously exist—I began to see the conundrum here.

Because, somewhere along this road, there’s a red line we don’t want to cross, where unaccountable actors in our intelligence community could abuse these tactics to target democratically elected officials they simply don’t like.

So, to understand just how the FBI succeeded in this massive bust, why nothing quite like it has ever happened since, and where we draw that red line, we need to dive into the story of how the legendary “Arab Scam” shook Washington to its core. This is ABSCAM.

II: CRISIS

Our story begins in 1973, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in crisis.

J. Edgar Hoover, the bureau's director for nearly a half-century, is dead. His tenure was marked by widespread use of surveillance—possibly illegal, definitely immoral—of so-called subversives, including J. Robert Oppenheimer and Martin Luther King Jr., and in the wake of his death the bureau was widely seen as obsessed with petty grudges and prone to abuses of power. [M]

So when Hoover's successor, Patrick Gray admitted to destroying documents to assist President Richard Nixon's attempt to cover up the Watergate Scandal, one thing was crystal clear to America. The FBI existed not to hold the powerful to account but to suppress their critics. [N]

The FBI, and America, needed new leadership. When Nixon finally resigned, they got it. Promoted straight from Chief of Police of Kansas City, Missouri (cough awesome), Clarence Kelley was determined to re-invent the FBI and repair its reputation. To do that, he needed to shift the bureau's focus from bullying easy targets to bagging high-value, white-collar criminals. And that called for a whole new playbook: no more simple wiretaps and mail interceptions. [M]

Because white collar criminal activity is typically what's called "consensual"—that is, they are crimes agreed to willingly by the parties involved. Those victimized are often unaware anything has happened, making these crimes especially hard to detect and investigate. [O] So, Kelley proposed a relatively novel strategy: utilizing undercover operatives who would concoct, participate in, and document a "consensual" crime, exposing their counter-parts. [M]

But, when Long Island field office director John Good received the new boss's instructions, he knew he wouldn't make much progress using just his spooks. He needed a bona fide criminal with some street cred who could get the ball rolling. [P]

Enter Melvin Weinberg. Weinberg was a con man and swindler from New York City whom the FBI had known about for some time and relied on as an occasional informant. But by the end of the 70s, the bureau had Weinberg’s own crimes well-documented, and they let him know in no uncertain terms that he’d find himself in handcuffs unless he played ball. Naturally, he complied. [Q]

In addition, Good brought on field agent Anthony Amoroso, whose blue-collar Italian-American background helped sell his criminal facade. By 1978, Good was ready, and he sent Amoroso and Weinberg out to solicit some deals, make some meetings, and hopefully catch the bite on camera. [Q]

III: THE PLAN

Their plan had been fairly simple, if ridiculous. They posed as representatives of two fictitious Arab sheiks swimming in oil money but who—worried by political instability at home—wanted to park their fabulous wealth in safe American investments. Thus the internal codename was born: the "Arab Scam." To sell the scam to outsiders, though, they officially incorporated Abdul Enterprises Ltd., set up an office in Long Island, and opened an account with an initial million-dollar deposit at Chase Manhattan Bank.[Q]

They had intended to lure some shady business-men, but after a year ferreting out these leads they wound up hooking something beyond anything they ever expected in the unlikeliest of places: New Jersey.

There, Weinberg and Amoroso met William Rosenberg, a small-time con artist who was so suckered by the promises of Abdul Enterprises, Ltd that he suggested he had someone else they may be keen to meet: someone who could help them secure lucrative gambling licenses, in exchange, of course, for a small finder's fee. Good's team was floored. Exposing political corruption hadn't been the plan, but their mission was to bring criminals to justice. So they took Rosenberg up on his offer, and he pointed them to the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Angelo Erichetti. It didn't take much digging for the team to learn Erichetti faced several prior fraud investigations, and so they set a meeting. [Q]

Upon being offered $25,000 to facilitate gambling licenses, Errichetti happily took the money. Even better, he told the sheiks’ representatives that he knew of certain members of Congress that might also be interested in helping the sheiks out. [Q]

One more finder's fee later, and ABSCAM launched far beyond its origins as a novel but low-profile operation, beyond even its newfound purpose exposing municipal fraud, into a corruption sting at the highest levels of American politics.

But still, Abdul Enterprises, Ltd. had more than a whiff of absurdity about it. How could these entirely fictitious sheiks really be enough to induce some of the most important people in the country to violate their oaths to the American public?

IV: THE TARGETS

Well, of the seven men exposed by the FBI, three in particular speak to the…quality of individuals in question: the idiot, the madman, and the drunk.

Michael Myers really had no idea what he was doing in Washington. I mean, those are his words. Seeking the nomination, he said of his predecessor, “I only hope I can do as good a job as he done,” then inspiring confidence, he added “I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do until I get there — I’ve only been there three times in my whole life.” [C] Moreover, while in office, he threw a party at a hotel bar and attacked a security guard after shouting, “I’m a congressman, I don’t have to be quiet.” [D] He was, by the way, just sent back to prison a couple years ago for ballot-stuffing. [I]

Before Richard Kelly made his way to Washington, the Florida man served as a judge with the unique honor of facing multiple impeachment attempts, citing apparent paranoia, psychosis, and arrogance. [E] But, despite hiring a psychiatrist to certify his sanity, Kelly’s behavior during and after Abscam, as we’ll soon see, helps to explain those impeachments. [F]

And finally, there’s our friend John Jenrette, who actually held a fairly impressive record working on the House’s prestigious Appropriations Committee, founding and chairing his own Tourism Committee, and serving all six years as a Deputy Majority Whip. [G] Yet, Jenrette struggled with alcoholism most of his life and, obviously, was prone to recklessness which would eventually sink his impressive career.

So one answer to this question of how the FBI pulled this off is...these guys were fools. But there’s a lot more to it, in how the investigation itself was conducted.

Even with idiots, mustering corruption convictions of members of Congress is not easy. Good's team needed unquestionable evidence that the bribe had been accepted with the target's firm understanding of the exchange. Moreover, there were clear legal red lines they had to carefully avoid crossing.

V. EXECUTION

Among those was the matter of privacy. The meetings needed to be recorded to get the evidence, but, given the targets’ lack of corruption records, Good knew it would be hard to get warrants, maybe impossible. However, if the targets agreed to meet somewhere they had no reasonable expectation of privacy, recording was fair game, no warrant necessary. So, all the meetings took place either in a New York hotel room booked by the investigators or at a townhome the Bureau rented in Washington, D.C. [Q]

In either location, Weinberg and Amoroso held meetings that any member of congress might take; they said they had potential investment to allocate and, well, "your district could hold some opportunities for us." They explained the situation with the sheiks: political turmoil, safe investments, etc: tens of millions of dollars at stake. But with these politicians, they added a new twist. Before those investments could be made, the sheiks were also interested in moving to America. [Q]

In exchange for a promise to introduce legislation that would grant the sheiks asylum, the target would receive $50,000 in cash. [Q] By dangling a quick buck now and massive investments later, it was easy to get these Congressmen—not the brightest bunch, as we’ve seen—to agree.

Now, the fine details of the exchange varied from meeting to meeting—madman Kelly, for example, didn't take a briefcase but simply stuffed wads of cash into his pockets before asking his new "friends" if it was too obvious. [R] Further, a number of congressmen simply didn't partake in the corruption, either by declining the meeting or refusing the bribe when offered. [Q]

This was all the more damning, of course, for the seven who did. They took the money in a room with no reasonable expectation of privacy, so they were recorded, and they did so with a clear understanding of just what it was that they were agreeing to. In other words, however strange the Abscam operation may seem to us today, and however idiotic the targets, it was also just compellingly formulated and competently executed such that the unsuspecting targets incriminated themselves in just about the clearest, most damning manner possible.

By January of 1980, the investigators had the evidence to charge seven men, and they were just about running out of time. Targets were starting to ask Weinberg when they should introduce the sheiks' visa legislation, and when the investments they’d been promised would materialize. In other words, the facade of Abdul Enterprises, however elaborate, just couldn’t be sustained.

And so, on the morning of February 2nd, 1980, just X months after the team's first meeting with a Congressman, the FBI dropped the hammer. Across the east coast of the United States, seven congressmen, Errichetti, Rosenberg, and everyone else swept up in Good's operation awoke to agents banging on their doors. They were quickly indicted and charged with bribery, conspiracy, and travel across state lines with criminal intent.

VII. VICTORY

When news broke, the nation was stunned, maybe not even so much at the revelation of corruption in Washington as at the idea that the FBI actually cared. Yet, as some praised the bureau, others immediately registered concern about the lengths to which they had gone to invent these crimes and the tactics used to invite the congressmen into self-incrimination.

Congress, meanwhile, attempted to balance condemnation of the corrupt members with criticism of the Bureau’s tactics. The chair of the Senate Ethics Committee declared the FBI itself needed to be investigated, given how much it had crossed the line in pursuing congressmen.

Echoing those concerns, most of the defendants claimed entrapment either in their jury trials or on appeal, asserting that the government pressured them into actions to which they were not personally predisposed. But each took on their own unique flavor, especially those of our leading men.

Madman Kelly had a characteristically bizarre defense strategy whereby he insisted that he was actually conducting his own counter-investigation of the supposed sheik and his associates. All the bribe money he accepted and spent were…operational expenses. While this defense didn't quite sway the jury, an appeal judge actually threw out Kelly's case, arguing his due process rights had been violated. For a moment, Kelly was the only congressman to beat the charges...until a higher appeal judge reaffirmed his conviction. [F, ch. 7]

Myers, meanwhile, had the genius idea to claim that prior to the meetings caught on camera, he was coached by Weinberg that the whole thing was a charade, that the Sheik just wanted to have some fun by pretending to bribe a politician. When the chair of a House ethics inquiry asked him why, then, he received real money for a fake bribe, Myers was dumbfounded and replied, “I thought it was a fairy tale.” [J, 31]

Ironically, John Jenrette, who'd claimed he had "larceny in his blood," actually had the best chance at winning his trial, because, it turns out, he hadn't taken the money on camera. Instead, he had an associate pick it up two days later, which, however, he confirmed in a recorded call with Weinberg. He tried to argue that he'd just been helping that associate get some money, and that he was an alcoholic who'd lost the straight and narrow, succumbing to temptations which would challenge the resolve of any man. Though a judge declared, “I have a great deal of sympathy for you,” Jenrette was convicted and sentenced to prison like all the rest. [K]

Now, batting 1,000 on convictions of sitting members of Congress is no mean feat. And yes, part of the reason is that these guys were pretty dumb. But also, the investigation just…worked. It was a realistic simulation of the sorts of proposals that could be made to a political figure, and these guys accepted it. And, importantly, not everybody approached by the FBI did, for the same reason that the FBI was able to neutralize all the entrapment claims.

Because the investigation was cleanly run. When targets said, “no,” like in the case of House speaker Tip O’Neill, the FBI backed off. [Q] When they said, “no…but,” they didn’t. And it clearly wasn’t a targeted hit-job by the executive branch, either. Six of the seven convicted were members of President Carter’s party, and larceny-blooded Jenrette was actually the first member of Congress to endorse Carter for the nomination when he ran in 1976! [G]

VIII. ANALYSIS

So there’s still this big, nagging question, “why doesn’t this happen anymore?”

Part of the answer lies with the Senate, who tried in the aftermath of ABSCAM to basically make this kind of thing illegal. They flirted with ideas like requiring warrants—sure to doom any operation connected to corrupt judges—but eventually drafted this bill which proposed to hand Congress oversight of undercover operations—say goodbye to federal corruption stings—and to require probable cause for all such investigations—say goodbye to any kind of sting. Because, remember, this type of operation is useful for busting “consensual" crime: the sort of thing where probable cause is basically impossible to come by. And courts have made it clear that this would be an unreasonable standard, because nobody’s rights are violated here. It’s up to you to make sure the person you’re talking to is trustworthy when you say you’ve got “larceny in your blood.”

And though I mentioned at the outset of this video that this bill was never ratified, it was a warning shot to the FBI, and they took notice. The Department of Justice ultimately adopted some procedures that made conducting undercover ops harder, and though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, their rules went further by setting special conditions that made investigating politicians especially difficult. [B]

So, yeah, part of the reason we don’t see investigations like this is just that politicians are protected from it more than private citizens which just seems…wrong. But this is where the question of that red line comes back in, where we have to ask at what point are we at risk of enabling abuse by an unelected intelligence community. Remember the FBI's behavior and reputation from the Hoover period and Watergate. That is what it looks like when agencies like the FBI have no guard rails. Yet, when politicians are so clearly predisposed and willing to take bribes, it's hard to say those guardrails should be designed to provide them with special protections.

Just earlier this year, for example, history rhymed when another New Jersey Senator, Bob Menendez, was convicted of accepting bribes from a middle eastern mogul, except this time it was the Egyptian government, not an FBI agent, and the bundles of cash were instead literal gold bars.

But this arrangement with Egypt lasted years, and it wasn’t even this scumbag’s first rodeo. He was tried for corruption back in 2015 but a mistrial rendered no verdict. [L] There's no way to be sure, but an Abscam-style sting might have stopped him a lot earlier with a lot less damage. Remember, this whole story went down in like six months! Because stings do work.

However, they might just not work as well as they once did, because corruption is just a lot less illegal than it once was.

This graph helps explain. Back when ABSCAM happened, basically nobody was retiring from Congress and going into lobbying, but today more than half do so. [S] These are jobs offered by lobbying firms to retiring members of congress who while in office did their part to advance the firm's agenda. That is obviously bad, but it's completely legal. If you want to learn more about lobbying and this so-called “revolving door” check out Johnny Harris’s recent video on military spending, but there’s more than this. Remember how some members of Congress made huge money trading stocks right at the outset of COVID. I mean there’s all kinds of things like this which are obviously shady, but a sting operation isn’t any good when that’s all legal. And when that’s all legal, suddenly clearly illegal offers of $50,000 from a mysterious sheik start to sound like pretty bad risk-reward situations.

So, here we are again, back in many ways where we started in 1973 after Watergate: corruption abound, leadership absent, the public cynical, without a whisper of a promise that this ship is soon to be righted. As then, America needs new leadership, and while at the time of writing the election is undecided, it's certain we've just gotten it one way or another. But more importantly, America needs reform which goes beyond the actions of a single figure. A Clarence Kelley couldn't fix our busted campaign finance regime, our lobbying system, or Congress's stock-trading habits. And neither will a President, whoever it is. Leadership matters, of course it does. But it will take legislative action for any of these problems to be addressed. And that requires public pressure.

Even with all that said, we still face that same perpetual conundrum. We know the line needs to be redrawn. But where? It's really not for us to say, but perhaps we can start to get an idea by talking about it, and hopefully the bizarre 1970s saga of ABSCAM helps shed a certain light.

Sources

A = Richard Sandomere, "John Jenrette Jr., Congressman Nabbed in Abscam Sting, Dies at 86," New York Times, 21 March 2023.

B = Georg A. Wagner, "United States’ policy analysis on undercover operations," in International Journal of Police Science & Management 9 No. 4 (2007), pp. 371-379.

C = Paul Critchlow, "Democrats Pick Rep. Myers for Barrett's Seat," Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 July 1976.

D = "Congressman Charged After Incident in Lounge," Associated Press, 18 January 1979.

E = "The Life and Times of Richard Kelly—Will it Sell?" Orlando Sentinel, 21 October 1985.

F = Craig Pittman, Oh, Florida! How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country (St. Martin's, 2016).

G = John Jenrette Wikipedia

H = Schuyler Kropf, "Former SC congressman John Jenrette has passed at 86," Post and Courier, 18 March 2023.

I = "Former congressman sent back to prison in ballot stuffing case," Associated Press, 17 September 2022.

J = "In the Matter of Representative Michael J. Myers," House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, 24 September 1980.

K = Al Kamen, "Jenrette Sentenced To 2 Years in Prison On Abscam Charges," Washington Post, 9 December 1983.

L = "Sen. Bob Menendez guilty of taking bribes in cash and gold and acting as Egypt’s foreign agent," Associated Press, 16 July 2024.

M = James Q. Wilson, “The Changing FBI - The Road to Abscam,” in National Affairs 61 (2024).

N = Patricia Sullivan, "Watergate-Era FBI Chief L. Patrick Gray Dies at 88,” in The Washington Post, 6 July 2005.

O = Andrew Altman and Steven Lee, “Legal Entrapment,” in Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 No. 1 (1983), pp. 51-69.

P = John Good, “Abscam,” in The Grapevine (2015), pp. 12-14.

Q = Jessica Carolyn Hills, “’Larceny In My Heart’: The Abscam Political Scandal, 1978-1983,” Masters Thesis, Auburn Univesity.

R = United States of America, v. Richard Kelly, Appellant, 748 F.2d 691 (D.C. Cir. 1984)

S = Jeffrey Lazarus, Amy McKay, and Lindsey Herbel, “Who walks through the revolving door? Examining the lobbying activity of former members of Congress” in Interest Groups and Advocacy (2016).