Under the plea agreement , Abramoff said that he and others sought [former top aide to House GOP Leader Tom Delay] Tony Rudy’s agreement to help torpedo the postal rate increase and a prohibition on Internet gambling. “With the intent to influence those official acts,” the documents [gif] say, Abramoff provided “things of value, including but not limited to . . . ten equal monthly payments totaling $50,000″ to the wife of a congressional aide called “staffer A” but identified elsewhere as Rudy. 

On Friday, the Magazine Publishers of America which had hired Abramoff’s firm Preston Gates Ellis in 2000 for a $10 million campaign against the postal rate increase, revealed  that $25,000 of the $50,000 came from them. USPS had proposed a 15 percent increase, triggering a fight from the magazine industry. With a lobbying contract worth millions, Preston Gates put its heavyweights on the team, including Abramoff, and then directed the MPA to make its $25,000 payment to a group headed by a longtime friend of Abramoff’s.

On May 1,[2000] the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call quoted Rudy as saying “we’re planning to do all we can so that the postmaster general [William Henderson] sticks to his word” and reduces the rate increase. By December, the magazine publishers were claiming victory: The rate increase that went into effect in January 2001 was considerably smaller.-

-Political Scandal Touches DM World- USPS has no comment

- Lobbyist’s Work for Publishers of Magazines Under Scrutiny (New York Times)

- Editorial: Jack Abramoff and Postal Rate Increases (DMNews)

- Abramoff used area foundation as conduit for money(Seattles Times)