Larry Pressler, Abscam, and the Hall of Fame 

by Ronald Kolb  7/30/2020

With the recent indictment of former Congressman and Abscam figure Michael "Ozzie" Myers for election fraud, the high profile FBI sting from 40 years ago was back in the news. And now eyes turn to former South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler, who is scheduled to be inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame this September. 

In 2014, Pressler was attempting to return to the Senate after an 18-year absence. Jonathan Ellis was a reporter covering the campaign for the Argus News Leader, the state's largest newspaper in Sioux Falls. I sent Ellis the transcript of the FBI undercover tape of Pressler made during the controversial Abscam investigation in 1979 as well as some background material showing Pressler has been less than honest about the penultimate event of his career. 

Ellis never mentioned it publicly, even though Pressler was using his dubious account of Abscam as the centerpiece of his campaign. I would find that other media in the state were aware of Pressler's fallacious account of the most significant event of his political life, but the Argus Leader and other news outlets in the state endorsed him, even though he would ultimately lose. 

Last year, Ellis endorsed Pressler in his bid for a seat in the South Dakota Hall of Fame. I contacted the Hall and at the time, he was rejected. But Pressler tried again this year. The current staff was unaware of my previous contact and this time, Pressler is now scheduled to be inducted into the Hall in less than two months. 

Pressler's career began in 1974, when the 32-year-old South Dakota registered Democrat approached the incumbent House Democrat Frank Denholm for a job, but there were no openings. Pressler changed his registration to Republican, ran against Denholm and defeated him. After serving just two terms in the House, Pressler ran for a Senate seat in 1978 and won. On September 25, 1979, just eight months after his victory, Pressler announced his candidacy for President in 1980.

Meanwhile Joe Silvestri, who was a real estate developer in New Jersey, was trying to obtain a license for a casino in Atlantic City, and learned what turned out to be fictitious FBI Abscam "sheiks," of "Abdul Enterprises" who told Silvestri that they were willing to invest millions, and also might need political help to immigrate to America for the right price. 

Silvestri eventually contacted a volunteer for Pressler's campaign, and told her some wealthy Arabs might be willing to contribute to his campaign, which is technically illegal. On the afternoon of November 7, 1979, Silvestri called FBI agent Anthony Amoroso who was part of the Abscam investigation, and told him that a scheduled House member would not be coming, but that Senator Pressler would be instead. Approval for a bribe offer quickly went up the chain, including then FBI Director William Webster. What Pressler would eventually say about the meeting was far different then what is in the official government transcript.

When Pressler and Silvestri arrived late that afternoon they were warmly greeted by Amoroso and Mel Weinberg, a con man working for the FBI who helped invent the sting. The transcript shows they discussed Pressler's primary campaign, then Amoroso mentioned that the sheiks, because of instability in the Middle East, would need assurances that they could come to America if necessary, and that the "right people" could help them. Pressler replied that, "my door is always open." Amoroso added that they want "guarantees from people" in case they need to leave. 

Pressler added, "they're gonna, wanna, for example, even if they wanna home here, they have to get a visa or become an American citizen...I mean that's what they want in the bluntest terms." Amoroso responded, "yeah, the bluntest terms,,,and they don't want to come here, and you know, get kicked out." Pressler interjected, "in the event of an overthrow or something like that." Amoroso added that "what we're trying to do is line up people who could be of service to 'em," and that he was aware that Congressmen "could introduce legislation."

Pressler adds "you can't really introduce legislation anymore," then mentioned former Congressman Henry Helstoski (D-NJ) who was indicted the previous session for taking cash from two South Americans to obtain green cards, and eventually lost his seat. "I knew him," said Pressler. Amoroso interjected that "I would like to do this, I would like you to research this thing, and see what you could do for us." 

"Yeah," responded Pressler, "it would be so hard to know because you'd have to persuade your colleagues, you know, and you'd have to have a reason...it seems that people who stand up for us get kicked in the teeth in the end...I mean my door would always be open to entertain people's problems...but I don't know if we can really assure these people that one Senator or even the Senate would, you know, even agree to this, you know, until they're presented with this matter." Pressler said he wasn't being evasive, but to "let me research this" and find out what he could do.

Amoroso said, "we've got the money, okay, and like I said, and I told Joe (Silvestri), you know, fifty thousand is no, you know, is no problem, putting that kind of money out. I don't care what you wanna call it, I don't care if you wanna call it a campaign contribution, you wanna call it, I don't, you know."

Pressler responded that, "well, but I'm not going to be like a President, you know, I mean I'm running for different reasons, to get my name known, and I'm a young Senator and so forth. And I mean, I would be surprised if I, I'm not saying I'm not going to be elected President, but we're gonna do well in some of the primaries...but I don't wanna-what we do, we're trying to run a viable campaign and we can't make any promises or any, you know, other to listen and be educated, and then to make a judgment, you know."

Amoroso hoped that Pressler could research it and see what he could do. Pressler replied, "sure, yeah....the people who have been friendly to us and, you know, we should be able to help 'em out as much as we can help them out...God, we help our enemies out more than we help our friends, but beyond a commitment to that, I mean like I can't promise that I would introduce "X' bill for "X" person...because I don't even know if I can." 

Amoroso told Pressler that the sheiks could invest in the state to give him better cover. "Sure," Pressler replied, "and helping constituents out." Pressler noted that for a potential bill, "you have to have 50, you have to have 51 Senators voting for it, and I would surely vote for anything that would help our people...but it would be hard to give you a guarantee." 

"Well, as long as you did your part to help them. I know there's no such thing as a guarantee," Weinberg added. "Yeah," Pressler replied, and added "I'm gonna have my staff prepare a memo" on what the processes were for a foreign citizen, and "I'll give you a copy of it." 

Amoroso suggests finding out what he can do and have another meeting, and Pressler says that "it would not be proper for me to promise to do anything in return for a campaign contribution," and that he could not make any promises. He added that "there are people who have introduced special legislation, when, when they keep a maid in the country for a year or longer, but that's become very suspect, you can introduce a special bill...so now there are people who check everybody who's introduced a special bill and they ask you what your purpose was, and so it's, it's not easy to do."

Amoroso again brings up investing in the area to show a reason to help. Pressler noted he had to get back to the Senate. Several pleasantries were exchanged, and Pressler and Silvestri left the Townhouse. Pressler's presidential campaign was short-lived. He withdrew from the race in early January, before any primary or caucus had even taken place. Less than a month later, on the night of February 2nd, 1980, Abscam went public, and Pressler quickly realized that he'd been taped. 

On February 4th, he approached all three TV news networks, and told Walter Cronkite of CBS what he would soon tell the rest of the press about the meeting at the townhouse three months earlier (which actually lasted about 25 minutes). "After two or three minutes, I stood up and said the purpose of the meeting was different than what I was led to believe. I repeated three times the word 'illegal' and stormed out of the house." 

That night, Cronkite led off the broadcast with Pressler's portrait on the screen behind him saying, "Good evening. Listen to the words of South Dakota Republican Senator Larry Pressler commenting on the attention he's getting because he avoided the tentacles of the FBI sting operation called Abscam. Said Senator Pressler, 'I turned down an illegal contribution. Whatever have we come to if that's considered heroic.'" 

The next day, Pressler spoke with the late Jim Lehrer of PBS. "Somebody said, 'why didn't you report it?' Because there was nothing offered to me." Pressler also spoke to the New York Times that day and said he did not report the meeting to anyone because no formal bribe offer was made. The FBI and Agent John Good, who were busy covering up for illegal actions by Mel Weinberg, went along with Pressler's charade.

In 1982, when Congress was investigating Abscam, the House asked Pressler to testify, but he sent a letter instead. On his own letterhead, he wrote that "an additional question arises, is why my meeting was not reported. In fact, there was nothing to report, because no bribe offer was made to me. There was nothing suggested about any money for me personally; nothing suggested about anything that they wanted; and nothing suggested that they would in any way suggest doing anything wrong."

But back in 1980, Pressler would quickly become the celebrated hero of Abscam, and soon would turn Cronkite's quote that Pressler had given to him into Cronkite himself having called him a hero. But six months after Abscam went public, famed investigative reported Jack Anderson wrote in the Washington Post about what was really on the tape. "Pressler did a pretty classy job of conning the American public about his supposed Sir Galahad role." Anderson added that after Abscam went public in February that Pressler had, "leaped on his snow-white charger," and had "righteously rejected" the bribe offer. 

"Unfortunately for the Senator", Anderson wrote, "the secret FBI videotapes of the meeting leaves a little tarnish on the shining armor in which he has decked himself." Anderson added that Pressler chatted amicably for about a half an hour both before and after an offer of money was made, but even though he said he could not take a campaign contribution Pressler had "never reacted angrily to the hints of a bribe; he did not use the word "illegal" once, let alone three times; and he did not storm out of the room after two or three minutes."

Summing up, Anderson said about Pressler that "apparently, he couldn't resist the temptation to work out his own Abscam on the public."

Four years later, in the book "Capital Corruption," noted sociologist Amitai Etzioni wrote about Pressler and the tape, which he had seen, and sarcastically noted that, "you must be a 'hero' not to take money,"  He added that "sadly, I must report, heroes are rare in Congress, and those who are quick to tout themselves would be better off silent." Etzioni said Pressler, "did not storm out of that meeting any more than you 'storm' out of a dinner party after you have finished dessert and bidden farewell to your host." 

Pressler ignored and never acknowledged anyone who wrote about what was really on the tape. He was reelected to the Senate in 1984 and 1990, but was finally defeated in 1996, losing to Democrat Tim Johnson, but would remain in Washington for the most part, even considering at one point running for Mayor, and later setting up a lobbying firm. In 2008 and 2012, Pressler publicly endorsed Obama. In early 2013, Tim Johnson, who had suffered a stroke years earlier, but had made a nearly complete recovery, decided not to run for reelection the following year.

Then in December of 2013, the movie American Hustle was released. It bore little resemblance to the truth and did not involve Pressler's misleading story, but several members of the press were contacting Abscam's self-proclaimed hero. It was then that Pressler decided to run again, but added a new flourish to his story: He had contacted the FBI in 1980 after the bribe offer was made. On December 26, the Bergen (NJ) Record, in a story about Abscam, reported that on his undercover video Pressler had said that, "wait a minute, what you are suggesting may be illegal," and that, "Pressler reported the incident to the FBI." Also, on the 26th he told the Washington Post that, "I've still got the tape somewhere."

Two months later, on March 2, 2014, American Hustle was up for several Academy Awards (but would win none) and Pressler's campaign ran a nationwide ad twice during the Oscar broadcast. It began with Pressler looking into the camera. "American Hustle shows the FBI making real life bribes to Washington politicians. I know because, as your U. S. Senator, I turned them down." Then the camera cuts to Amososo at the townhouse. "Fifty thousand is no-is no problem." Then there is a flawless jump cut about 10 minutes later from the 1979 videotape, with Pressler saying, "in any event, it wouldn't be proper for me to promise to do anything in return for campaign contributions." The ad cuts back to Pressler looking at camera in 2014: "This is the type of honest leadership I will bring to Washington, D.C."

What is the missing from those ten minutes is where Pressler said how difficult it was to get a bill passed in the Senate and that his staff prepare a memo and get together with the sheik's people. In the portion after the jump cut, Pressler again brought up how difficult it is to pass a bill "because now there are people who check and it's not easy to do," and that Pressler would be back in touch. 

As for Pressler's statement about campaign contributions, Silvestri had noted before the meeting that the rich Arabs were interested in making campaign donations, which Pressler would have to have known would been a crime if given from a foreign national. Some have suggested, and even Weinberg himself, that Pressler wanted the money just based on faith. 

The most likely way to know would be viewing the full tape to provide an answer, and Pressler has the full copy as he had told the Washington Post, and which he used in the highly edited campaign ad.

A month after the ad was shown during the Academy Awards, he wrote a column for the Huffington Post. He mentioned his current Senate campaign as well as the Abscam tape. "Wait a minute!" he quoted himself saying, "what you are suggesting may be illegal, and I would never do anything in exchange for a campaign contribution." Pressler then wrote "and with that, I stormed out of the house." 

As the campaign moved into August, another ad was produced, this time from the newscast of Cronkite back in 1980, where he had used the words that Pressler had fed to him.

On October 20, with the election only two weeks away, Pressler did a talk radio interview in South Dakota. I called to ask two questions. One, did he contact the FBI after the bribe offer. At the time I only had the New York Times interview just after Abscam broke, and would later find the 1980 Jim Lehrer interview and Pressler's letter to the House in 1982.

Second, I wanted to mention that what he was saying that had happened on the tape was far different then what the transcript showed, which I had a copy of, but would never get to ask him that question.

I did ask Pressler if he reported the bribe offer to the FBI. "Yes," he responded. I mentioned other recent articles saying that he did, but that he had told the New York Times three days after Abscam broke that he never reported it because he didn't consider it a bribe offer. At that point, he began talking over my question, and my connection was gone.

Pressler then gave a stuttering, stammering response that he had contacted Howell Heflin, then Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee (and who had died in 2005) and that Heflin would have contacted the FBI. However, I would soon find that Heflin had written a letter to Pressler in 1980 six months after Abscam had gone public and wrote him that the Ethics Committee recently reviewed his videotape, and "that the circumstances were insufficient to obligate you to report the matter."

Then as the radio interview in 2014 continued, Pressler mentioned that he had been favorably recognized by Walter Cronkite. After a commercial break he addressed the issue again, saying that he was made into a sort of character hero nationally and internationally because of Abscam, and referenced me as a nitpicker, and that "nitpickers out there, 'alert', you're not gonna get away with this one."

Three days after the interview, he appeared at a press conference in Sioux Falls, but according to an article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, Pressler said that he didn't want to brag about Abscam before he starting bragging about Abscam, and again took Walter Cronkite out of context.

Pressler was locked in a three-way race but eventually finished a distant third. The next year, Pressler published a book, "An Independent Mission" about the campaign, and that he had been inundated with media requests for his self-proclaimed role as Abscam's hero. The back cover states that after turning down the bribe, "he immediately reported it to the FBI," and that "Walter Cronkite referred to him as a hero."

In 2016, now again as a Republican, Pressler campaigned for Hillary Clinton for president, even appearing at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, and kept boasting to anyone that he was Abscam's hero. He made a number of disparaging comments on TV and elsewhere about Trump.

When Hillary lost, Pressler, now living in Washington, started to associate with people close to Trump, in an obvious move to join the new administration. After failing to do so, he wrote columns for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City until last year, including one puffing up his role in Abscam.  

Pressler has gone from Democrat to Republican to Independent and once again to a Republican, showing that not only is he an opportunist, but his behavior and false and misleading comments about Abscam as well as claims that he had reported the bribe offer shows he lacks any kind of moral compass as well.

Much the same can be said about the media in South Dakota who continue to enable him, and who are in reality a miniature version of today's mainstream press. And now, if his current attempt to be enshrined at the South Dakota Hall of Fame succeeds, he will stain the reputation of the Hall forever. I recontacted the Hall earlier this year after Pressler was listed as a future inductee, and the current staff was unfamiliar with the info I sent last year. I resent it to CEO Greta Chapman who forwarded all the info to the Board of Directors. 

I recently spoke with Michelle LaVallee, chair of the board, and she said that all of the members were aware of Pressler's false account of Abscam and the factual account by Jack Anderson, but made the choice to accept him into the Hall based on his history as an elected official. I pointed out that Pressler was last elected in 1990 and has been living primarily in Washington, DC and not South Dakota since then.

I also noted that when he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate just six years ago, he again pushed his false narrative of Abscam, and then added the new element that he had contacted the FBI back at that time, which he did not. I also asked if she would request a full copy of the Abscam tape from Pressler, which he has, but she stated she would not. 

Still LaVallee held firm, and I pointed out that there seem to be no heroes in South Dakota, except for the four presidents on Mount Rushmore, and she added that many do not think that they are heroes. So apparently the Board thinks Pressler is, whom their website calls a man of "high moral character." A person who would qualify as a lifetime charlatan, hustler, liar and con artist is due to be inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame, and permanently stain that institution, and the State of South Dakota as well.



Afterword 8/8/20: I contacted a few of the members of the Board of Directors. One told me she was a personal friend of Pressler and then alluded to his only noteworthy bill in the Senate, the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The bill allowed for cross ownership in media markets and helped conglomerates to form, therefore raising prices, and helped to defeat Pressler later that year. She did not contest the fact when I asked if he was a fraud and a charlatan.

Another member told me there was now no way to stop Pressler from being inducted next month. A third member said that I wouldn't like how he voted, even though he agreed Pressler was dishonest and agreed to read the article. 

One other item not noted in the article: when Pressler failed in his attempt to become DC mayor in 1998, he claimed without proof that he attended the Martin Luther King, Jr, "I have a dream" speech in 1963. However, 20 years later, Senator Pressler voted against making King's birthday a holiday.