Plot

A hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.

A hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.—Anonymous

The film focuses on the career of Washington, D.C. lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey), who was involved in a massive corruption scandal that led to the conviction of himself, two White House officials, Rep. Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional staffers.

2 years ago, before the indictment, Jack is a licensed lobbyist in Washington & is authorized to legally accept money on behalf of special interest groups to influence law makers in DC to vote on specific legislation in a certain way. For e.g., Jack accepts money from a garment maker to relax minimum wage restrictions in US governed offshore Mariana islands to keep manufacturing costs down.

But by law, each lobbyist is capped to the amount of money he can accept from a client. Jack decides to break this law when he approaches the chief of the Indian Chippawa tribe, who is building a casino "The Screaming Eagle", for $ 30 MM in fees to prevent a neighboring tribe to open their own casino that would be detrimental to both tribes. However, this is done without the knowledge of Jack's firm who employs Jack. Jack is doing the Indian deal under the table. The tribe selection committee refuses Jack's proposal on account of the high fees.

Jack also comes across a struggling offshore gambling business that is about to enter chapter 11 & whose owner is looking for a buyer as he is not a US citizen & his gambling license is about to be revoked. Jack plans to use the $ 30 MM from the Chippawa tribe as a down-payment for the offshore gambling business of "SunSail" Casino.

Jack's partner Michael Scanlon travels to Florida to make a deal with the owner of Sunsail, Gus, & makes an offer of 20 cents to the dollar. Gus is offended & leaves. Jack uses his influence in Congress with Sen Robert Key, to introduce legislation targeting Sunsail specifically.

Jack's boss finds out about Jack's plan to buy Sunsail for himself. The boss fires Jack since this is in violation of the firm's ethics policy. Also, Jack tried to use Adam as a front to buy the casino so his boss wouldn't find out. Adam is a disbarred businessman, about to enter bankruptcy & has proven mob connections. Adam explains to Jack that Gus wants to sell the casino & retain control at the same time, which is not allowed under US law.

Jack takes Michael over to his new firm. He & Adam make illegal payments to Gus to becomes owners of SunSail. Jack & Michael rig the Chippawa tribe elections to rig the voting in their favor. They get their desired fee of $ 30 MM from Chippawa. Jack then acts to eliminate the jobs of the dissenting tribesmen who had resisted giving the contract to Jack to begin with, including tribe's previous chairman Bernie. Bernie finds that Jack has used the $ 30 MM to open his restaurant, put up bogus bills & not provided any services to help the Chippawa casino in return. Michael cheats on his wife, who finds out & is so angry that she goes to the FBI & to the Washington post to expose Michael & Jack's scam with the Chippawa Indians.

Gus pressurizes Adam to give jobs to his family members in Sunsail & roughs Adam up. Adam uses his mob connections to have Gus eliminated. Also, Adam had used Jack to make payments to Gus to buy Sunsail, which never reached Gus & were siphoned by Adam. Together with Gus's killing, Jack is under suspicion for getting rid of Gus.

As the story breaks, all of Jack's political friends run for cover & dissociate themselves from Jack. Jack is fired from his new firm as well. He is sued for $ 70 million by the Indian tribes for fraud. Senate Indian committee orders an inquiry into Jack's dealing with the Chippawa. The committee is headed by John McCain, the guy whom Jack destroyed when he ran for president against Bush. Michael agrees to cooperate with the FBI, so when Jack reaches out for a deal, he is too late. Abramoff was convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion in 2006, and of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favors. Abramoff served three and a half years of a six-year sentence in federal prison and was assigned to a halfway house. He was released on December 3, 2010.