ABSCAM Arrives (1980)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's February 4th. This day in 1980, the story is breaking about the FBI's "ABSCAM" operation -- a bribery sting that ended up implicating many congressman and other elected officials.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the sting morphed from art theft to political corruption, the murky line between political maneuvering and corruption, and the waning appetite for political shenanigans post-Watergate.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:09.0 | This day, February 2nd, 1980, NBC breaks the news of what came to be known as the Ab-Skam Sting Operation. |
| 0:19.0 | Look, if you've seen the movie American Hustle, you know about |
| 0:21.5 | abscam, cheap suits, bad toupees, wiretaps, video surveillance, and an FBI operation with some |
| 0:27.8 | very sketchy informants that eventually rolled up seven members of Congress and other local |
| 0:32.6 | officials for taking bribes in exchange for things like casino licenses, government contracts, lots more |
| 0:38.7 | shady stuff. And look, do I even need to point out that this largely took place in New Jersey? |
| 0:44.0 | I have deep love for New Jersey. My wife is from New Jersey. But sometimes New Jersey is as New Jersey |
| 0:50.1 | does. And this is certainly a very New Jersey story. Look, we haven't touched on abscam on this show |
| 0:55.5 | before, but it kind of falls, to me at least, in that window of like one of the best known |
| 1:01.1 | obscure incidents, you know, a thing that people always bring up as something that not that many |
| 1:05.5 | people know about. But that is a nice sweet spot for us and a bunch of people have asked that we |
| 1:09.4 | talk through abscam. So we're going to go through the basics and then also some larger questions about |
| 1:14.5 | what it says, about corruption, graft, how government functions and doesn't function and lots more. |
| 1:20.4 | So here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. |
| 1:26.3 | Hello, Jody. |
| 1:28.2 | Hey there. |
| 1:29.9 | American Hustles is a good movie. |
| 1:31.9 | I think it really holds up. |
| 1:32.7 | I haven't seen it. |
| 1:33.6 | You haven't seen it. |
... |
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