Jack Abramoff, Who Is He Really?

[DR_GONZO]

9/11 TERRORISTS GAMBLED ON HIS BOATS
Less than a week before the 9.11 attack, Atta and several other hijackers were aboard one of Abramoff’s casino boats. What no one seems able to answer is this:

What possible thrill could gambling offer men getting ready to die in less than a week? To this date, their Sept 5 visit to a gambling vessel overrun with retirees remains unexplained.

http://www.madcowprod.com/06202005.html

[DR_GONZO]

GUESS WHO STOPPED INVESTIGATION IN 2002?
...all this Abramoff stuff was going to be investigated by a United States Attorney, but just as he began to ask questions...

...the WHITE HOUSE ORDERED HIM FIRED!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_08_07.php#006251

This is by far the most corrupt administration in American history. Every day, another report about the evil they do, yet there is so much of it, most Americans can't even grasp it all.

[DR_GONZO]

DID ABRAMOFF FUND SETTLER TERRORISTS?
Will the media give this aspect of the Abramoff case little notice? No doubt!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7615249/site/newsweek/

[DR_GONZO]

In emails now made public by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, who is investigating his activities, Abramoff repeatedly referred to Native Americans as "monkeys", "troglodites" and "idiots."

Abramoff via email once asked his co-conspirator Scanlon to meet a client, saying, "I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw tribal council. You need to close the deal... with the client..."

About one tribal client (date unknown) Abramoff wrote to Scanlon, "These mofos are the stupidest idiots in the land for sure." In another email message he wrote, "we need to get some money from those monkeys!!"

[DR_GONZO]

Very interesting

Abramoff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff#The_murder_of_Konstantinos_Boulis)

[dtwarren]

From the Wall Street Journal
BUSINESS WORLD
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Indian Taker
January 11, 2006; Page A15

Jack Abramoff was sui generis -- a personality out of control, flamboyantly corrupt, engaged in bizarre antics that your average Zegna-clad Washington lobbyist would never have dreamed of. And yet one of the soggy paper bags that we journalists have a hard time punching our way out of is the notion that any scandal, when it reaches a certain prominence, must be representative. Enron wasn't the exception but the norm of corporate behavior. Jack Abramoff is just the protruding left toe under a bedsheet of K Street corruption.

In fact, the downfall of the man known in every press account as a "Republican lobbyist" was not remotely the upshot of workaday lobbying on behalf of corporations over this or that tax or regulatory issue. The media is wowed by the numbers in such cases but the millions the government giveth or taketh away are less impressive on corporate income statements, and are usually competed away in the marketplace for a company's goods or services.

How different when Washington can conjure vast wealth for specific individuals or small groups by granting unique privileges to exploit the public without competition, as in the peculiar case of Indian casinos.

Mystifying, then, is why all hands insist on treating Indians as Mr. Abramoff's "victims." Louisiana's Coushatta Tribe was under no compulsion to pay him $32 million; it did so to foil another tribe's gambling project and secure its own inflated margins.

"You're the problem, buddy, in what happened to American Indians," Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell lectured an Abramoff associate two years ago. Huh? Mr. Custer's, er, Mr. Abramoff's sole interesting feature, aside from his self destructiveness and his possibly larcenous attempt to get into the gaming business himself, was his chutzpah in asking for such a big piece of change to do the tribes' dirty work.

Political anthropologists will have to excavate why Mr. Abramoff is a mega-scandal when peeps were barely raised about previous outrages in which the chief actors were public officials who presumably owed a higher standard of conduct. Say, several political appointees in the Bureau of Indian Affairs who, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, tossed aside expert advice and recognized a bunch of new "tribes" just before spinning themselves out the revolving door and into jobs as lawyers for Indian gambling interests.

One of them, Michael Anderson, after he'd officially left his post, continued to sign and backdate documents to help one tribe. Mr. Anderson, an "enrolled member" of the Muskogee Nation, and a deputy, Loretta Tuell, a Nez Perce member, are now partners at the firm of Monteau and Peebles, connected lineally to the very foundation myth of Indian gaming.

No, we're not referring to the prehistoric "hoop and pole game," touted on one tribe's Web site. The beginning traces to the ancestral year of 1983, when an unemployed Connecticut welder, who may or may not have been one-sixteenth Pequot, wangled recognition for his defunct tribe. With backing from a Malaysian billionaire, and over the impotent objections of most of Connecticut, he launched the Foxwoods casino.

Foxwood's operators felt vulnerable and in need of allies, so another resurrected tribe, the Mohegans, teamed up with another billionaire, South African Sol Kerzner. Swiftly approving their Mohegan Sun casino was Harold Monteau, the Clinton-appointed head of the National Indian Gaming Commission, who ignored opposition from agency staff and from both of his
fellow commissioners.

Need we add that Mr. Monteau, a Chippewa-Cree, was eventually shooed from office by congressional critics (mostly Democrats)? His law firm, with the Mohegans as a major client, now serves as a landing place for other fixers
on the wing.

Mr. Abramoff was sui generis, all right. He wasn't an Indian and obviously lacked the discretion to keep his sleaze between even such compendious lines, allowing him to enjoy the fruits thereof undisturbed by prosecutors.

If there's a lesson for anyone but lobbyist trainees here, it's not a very original one. Where opportunities for enormous, instant wealth are sloshing around at the discretion of bureaucrats and legislators, invariably is bad policy to be found.

Take the minority and small business "set-asides" that produce indictments and jail sentences with such regularity that it's hardly noticed anymore. Or take the FCC auctions for wireless spectrum: A Journal front-pager recently detailed how favoritism for "disadvantaged" entrepreneurs allowed an aerobics instructor and others to pocket large fees as fronts for secret investors.

Typical of high-profile scandals, the Abramoff affair is a spectacular bit of flotsam left behind by a tide that has already begun to recede. Dozens of defunct "tribes" still seek recognition, and dozens more have their eyes on reclaiming traditional lands that just happen to be near major population centers and freeway interchanges. But the backlash was already underway. It comes from gaming tribes that don't want their good thing spoiled, from state governments that covet gambling proceeds for themselves, from a Congress fed up with "reservation shopping" by casino promoters.

[DR_GONZO]

White House Silent on Abramoff Meetings

Mums the word (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060118/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_abramoff_4)

[avet]

There is so much honor among thieves. Watch the video for a good laugh.

Abramoff "hearts" Delay
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/01/10.html

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/cbs_abramoff_delay_college_republicans_060109a.wmv

Jack: "Never before has an individual who has been steadfast to our principles-risen as high as Tom Delay."

Jack: "Tom Delay is who all of us want to be when we grow up."
________________________________________

"when we grow up" ....when does that happen?

[avet]

A "perported" encounter of Scotty M. with Gregory in a "perported" press briefing.

Get 'em Gregory!!

Gregory Bashes Scotty over Abramoff
(6 meg video)
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Press-Conference-Scotty-Gregory-Jack.wmv

[DelawareDistrict]

There was a speech given in Congress Tuesday, Jan 18, concerning the Abramoff scandal. Here are two quotes from the speech:

The Abramoff scandal has been described as the biggest Washington scandal ever: bigger than Watergate; bigger than Abscam; bigger than Koreagate; bigger than the House banking scandal; bigger than Teapot Dome. Possibly so. It’s certainly serious and significant. . .

Perhaps some of us in Congress are mistaken about the true problem; perhaps others deliberately distract us from exposing the truth about how miserably corrupt the budget process in Congress is. Others simply are in a state of denial. But the denial will come to an end as the Abramoff scandal reveals more and more. It eventually will expose the scandal of the ages: how and to what degree the American people have become indebted by the totally irresponsible spending habits of the U.S. Congress-- as encouraged by successive administrations, condoned by our courts, and enjoyed by the recipients of the largesse. . .
I urge anyone reading this to take the time to read the whole speech. (http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr011806.htm) While you are reading it, really thing about what is being said and relate it to what you see going on around you everyday. It is a sad situation that if not corrected soon will consume us all.

[DR_GONZO]

Why is Bush afraid of pictures of him and Abramoff? How in the hell can't he remember a $100,000 pioneer campaign contributor? That was also a team member on his 2000 campaign staff? WTF!

[DR_GONZO]

Bush picks Abramoff prosecutor for federal judgeship

Good Timing? (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/27/MNGCNGU1J01.DTL&feed=rss.news)

[DR_GONZO]

Bush Official Warned Abramoff

This just gets better and better.


By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 29, 9:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an Abramoff client, newly filed court papers say.

David Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud in a burgeoning bribery probe centered on Capitol Hill but also involving the Interior Department.

The White House is refusing to release photographs of
President Bush and Abramoff or to reveal what contact Abramoff had with White House aides.

Acting on the information that Abramoff provided the company in November 2003, Tyco lawyer Timothy Flanigan, a former assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, contacted the general counsel to the GSA and asked for an opportunity to address the suspension.

The company revealed Flanigan's role in a statement.

In October, Flanigan withdrew his nomination to be Bush's deputy attorney general. His confirmation was delayed due to questions about his dealings with Abramoff when Abramoff was a Tyco lobbyist.

The government had planned to suspend Tyco because of alleged criminal conduct by former Tyco executives.

After advising Abramoff about the internal deliberations at GSA, Safavian suggested to Abramoff what arguments Tyco should make when it appealed the suspension decision, the court papers in Safavian's federal court case say.

Once tipped off by Abramoff, Tyco hired an outside law firm and successfully petitioned the government to lift the suspension and allow Tyco to continue to perform on government contracts.

The law firm outlined "the many steps that Tyco had taken, including to bring on a new board of directors, a new CEO and new corporate senior management," Tyco said in its statement.

Safavian faces trial on charges that he lied and obstructed investigations into whether he aided Abramoff in efforts to acquire GSA-controlled property around the nation's capital.

The government said in its court filing Friday that it intends to present the information regarding Tyco at Safavian's upcoming trial. Safavian has pleaded innocent and his lawyers have moved for dismissal of all charges.

Safavian is accused of concealing from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the GSA when Safavian joined the lobbyist on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002. At the time, Safavian was GSA's chief of staff. He became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in November 2004.

In its statement, Tyco said that the information from Abramoff had come in unsolicited, that the corporation did not use Abramoff's services to respond to GSA, and that the company did not contact Safavian directly.

The company said its outside counsel, George Terwilliger, was assured by Justice Department prosecutors that neither the company nor anyone at the company, including Flanigan, is accused, is suspected or is being investigated for any wrongdoing.

In May 2003, Abramoff, then employed by the Washington firm Greenberg Traurig, solicited Tyco for lobbying on a tax issue.

Prosecutors say Abramoff recommended that Tyco hire both him and a public relations and campaign consulting firm called GrassRoots Interactive, but hid from Tyco that GrassRoots Interactive was his business.

In May and June 2003, Tyco paid GrassRoots Interactive, directly and through Greenberg Traurig's bank account, about $1.8 million, of which about $1.6 million went to Abramoff and entities he controlled, prosecutors say.

Bush stooge tips Abramoff (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060130/ap_on_go_pr_wh/abramoff_tyco_3)

[DR_GONZO]

Abramoff says he met Bush "almost a dozen" times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jack Abramoff said in correspondence made public on Thursday that
President Bush met him "almost a dozen" times, disputing White House claims Bush did not know the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal.

"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail to Kim Eisler, national editor for the Washingtonian magazine.

Abramoff added that Bush also once invited him to his Texas ranch.

The messages were made public by the American Progress Action Fund, a liberal activist group. Eisler confirmed their accuracy to Reuters but said he did not intend them to become public.

"They reflect the feeling of frustration he has not just with Bush but with all these guys claiming they didn't know him," said Eisler, who knew Abramoff through a book he wrote about the Pequot Indian tribe.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in early January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption probe that could implicate lawmakers and officials across Washington.

Bush has said he never had a discussion with Abramoff and does not remember having his picture taken with him.

The White House has said Abramoff attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House.

Eisler said he had seen five photographs of Abramoff with Bush, none taken at Hanukkah parties.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Thursday that the revelations did not prove Bush knew him well.

"I think as the president also indicated, he's taken at least five photos with many people in this room at the annual holiday reception. And so I think you need to put this in context," McClellan said.

Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum declined to comment.

Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, a feat that won him an invitation to Bush's ranch in August 2003, the National Journal reported at the time.

"I was invited during the 2004 campaign," Abramoff told Eisler.

Abramoff said he did not make the trip because as an Orthodox Jew he cannot travel on Saturdays.

In the wake of Abramoff's indictment, the Bush-Cheney campaign said it would donate to charity $6,000 in contributions made by Abramoff or his clients, but not the money he helped raise.

The White House has acknowledged he participated in a few staff-level meetings at the White House.

Although the Abramoff scandal has mostly focused attention so far on prominent House Republicans, including former Majority Leader
Tom DeLay of Texas, at least two Bush administration officials have been implicated.

David Safavian, a former White House budget official, has been charged with lying and obstructing investigations into his 2002 golf outing to Scotland with Abramoff.

Stephen Griles, the former No. 2 official at the Interior Department, has come under scrutiny after allegations he tried to block a casino at Abramoff's request.

Abramoff says he met Bush a dozen times (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/pl_nm/crime_abramoff_dc)

[Pauldo]

Abramoff-gate: Another Washington Soap Opera
by Warren Mass
January 6, 2006

The Republican Party’s leadership has been more troubled by the recent charges of campaign-related irregularities than it has been since CREEP -- the Committee to Re-Elect the President -- instigated the bungled Watergate break-in that eventually toppled Richard Nixon.

Those who remember the Watergate scandal may recall that the series of events that brought down the Nixon administration were more notable for their stupidity than their dishonesty, especially considering the presumed level of intelligence and experience of all the parties involved. Watergate was likely much more than a case of incredibly inept trespassers caught with their hands in the cookie jar. And the White House effort to cover up the crime was equally clumsy.

Could the political operatives have been that stupid? A more likely explanation for Watergate is that members of the Nixon’s own administration had been secretly drafted to bring an early retirement to a president who had forgotten that he was answerable to the power brokers who had placed him in office.

Will the revelations of Jack Abramoff and the charges against Rep. Tom Delay develop into this administration’s Watergate? (Abramoff-gate?) While at this point it is impossible to predict whether Abramoff-gate is merely a warning or something much more ominous for Republican leaders, Americans should be wary of becoming distracted from matters of serious national policy by the mass media’s preoccupation with “chicken stealing” charges. Exactly that scenario has played out during previous presidential administrations.

Back to Richard Nixon: While the mass media fed the flames of public indignation over the Nixon White House’s involvement in the relatively minor Watergate incident — leading to Nixon’s resignation in the face of likely impeachment — they ignored his far worse crimes in office. Among these were his unconstitutional institution of wage and price controls, his sellout of Free China on Taiwan, and his subsequent opening up of “normal” relations with the murderous mainland Communist Chinese regime.

In our more recent history, we impeached President Bill Clinton — for his relatively minor transgressions. Yes, Bill Clinton should have been impeached. In 1997, the conservative John Birch Society (JBS) launched a campaign to “Impeach Clinton Now!” on the grounds of bribery, treason, and related presidential high crimes and misdemeanors. Many of these charges were related to the “Chinagate” scandal, in which Johnny Chung, the former fund-raiser for the Democratic Party, admitted to federal investigators that Communist China’s chief of military intelligence funneled $300,000 through him to President Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.

Almost predictably, however, the major media became preoccupied with a matter much less threatening to U.S. national security, the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Though the scandal did lead to Clinton’s impeachment, he was not convicted and removed from office, as he might have been if his impeachment had been based on the more critical charges raised by the JBS-led “Impeach Clinton Now!” campaign. Of equal gravity for America’s well-being, the Lewinsky scandal-driven hoopla obscured important national security lapses by the Clinton administration.

Now the current Republican leadership is dealing with embarrassing charges. First, Rep. Tom DeLay, who faces charges involving illegal corporate campaign donations, was forced to step down from his position as House majority leader. More recently, the once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in making a plea agreement with government prosecutors, has been implicating many key figures on Capitol Hill in receiving legally questionable campaign contributions. Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. As a result of Abramoff’s revelations, President Bush's re-election campaign has given up $6,000 in campaign contributions and House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Representative DeLay will also donate Abramoff's campaign contributions to charity.

It is not at all unlikely that, as “Abramoff-gate” occupies more and more space in the news, the more serious failures of some of the leading Republicans (and Democrats) in the nation’s capital will become obscured. Certainly, there is lingering dissatisfaction with the pointless war in Iraq, which is reflected in the president’s low figures in popularity polls, but the gradual ratcheting-down of our involvement there will probably take the wind out of anti-war sails. The most publicized opponents to the war have missed the point, anyway — that the invasion was waged under the authority of the United Nations and without a congressional declaration of war.

Congress, for its part, did nothing to uphold its constitutional prerogative to declare war and acquiesced to surrendered authority for the invasion of Iraq to the Executive Branch.

Other offenses committed by President Bush move dangerously close to being grounds for impeachment, such as his unconstitutional authorization for the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on the international communications of U.S. citizens in violation of the warrant requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). And Congress is still debating about whether to extend some of the most intrusive surveillance provisions of the liberty-threatening Patriot Act.

It would be a national shame and an abandonment of journalist integrity if our nation’s mass media follows the pattern it did during the Nixon and Clinton years and focuses almost exclusively on “chicken stealing” incidents such as improper campaign fundraising — and then remains silent as the administration and Congress trample on the Constitution.

[DR_GONZO]

“chicken stealing” charges

Hardly. Lobbyist filth like Abramoff sway government, via bribing(ex. campaign coffer stuffing), to create, pass, or remove laws to their benefit, with little regard to the U.S. citizen. This affects you, me, and every single citizen. Ignoring this corruption for too long results in all that is coming to light presently. Everything that is wrong with our government. Both parties are involved and both should be held accountable for their fleecing of America.

[DR_GONZO]

Abramoff Said to Claim Close Ties to Rove

WASHINGTON - Three former associates of Jack Abramoff said Monday that the now-disgraced lobbyist frequently told them during his lobbying work he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.

The White House said Monday that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.

New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times.

Three former business associates of Abramoff, who worked with the lobbyist in various roles between 2001 and 2004, told The Associated Press that Abramoff routinely mentioned Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

One said he was present when Abramoff took a call from Rove's office to confirm a White House meeting had been approved between Malaysia's prime minister and Bush in May 2002. Abramoff was being paid by Malaysia for helping it in Washington, according to evidence the Senate has made public.

All three associates would describe the Abramoff comments only on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation of Abramoff's work and fears that speaking out could affect their current businesses. At least one said he had been interviewed by the
FBI.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General
John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery conspiracy case and is cooperating with prosecutors' investigation into those in Congress and the administration he used to lobby.

Asked about the three former Abramoff associates' account, the White House said Rove shared a common past with Abramoff as leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

Healy said Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about the Malaysian prime minister's meeting in May 2002. She said Bush first met the prime minister at a foreign summit in October 2001 and that the 2002 meeting in the Oval Office was "another opportunity to get together to discuss the war on terror."

Rove ties to Abramoff (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060214/ap_on_go_pr_wh/rove_abramoff)

[DR_GONZO]

Can't forget about Reid's ties to Abramoff

Add Another To The List, A Dem (http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=reid+ties+to+abramoff&c=)

[DR_GONZO]

Interior Secretary Gale Norton is resigning after five years in
President Bush's Cabinet

Might have to add another to the list of poltical filth.

http://www.doi.gov/initiatives/foia.html

[DR_GONZO]

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service on Friday revealed four more visits to the White House in 2001 by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including one to see a domestic policy aide to Vice President
Dick Cheney.

The newly released records of Abramoff's access to the White House bring the total number of his known visits to seven.

One Abramoff White House visit, according to Secret Service logs, was on April 20, 2001, to see Cesar Conda, at the time Cheney's assistant for domestic policy.

Five days after the Conda meeting, one of Abramoff's former lobbying colleagues, Patrick Pizzella, was nominated by the president as assistant secretary of labor. The Secret Service logs do not state why Abramoff met with Conda.

One log entry indicates Abramoff visited the White House residence on Dec. 10, 2001, for two hours, as part of a large holiday party.

The Secret Service entry for Abramoff's name that day reads, "POTUS," "WH," "RESIDENCE," and lists the number of people present as 326, according to the documents. POTUS refers to the president of the United States.

The Secret Service material surfaced as a result of lawsuits by the conservative organization Judicial Watch and the
Democratic National Committee. An earlier Secret Service search turned up just two Abramoff White House visits, and a further search turned up the additional contacts.

Judicial Watch said the public has a right to know "why an admitted felon had appointments with the Bush White House." The DNC said it will aggressively pursue additional questions about visits to the White House by Abramoff and his lobbying associates.

The government is asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuits, but another group that is suing, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says it will also seek more information on the visits.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in an influence-peddling scandal and is cooperating with a wide-ranging Justice Department probe of alleged corruption on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch.

A former White House aide, David Safavian, was convicted in a trial last month for covering up his relationship with Abramoff. Safavian was the Bush administration's top procurement official until his arrest last year.

Abramoff's other previously undisclosed trips to the White House complex in 2001 were on March 1 and May 17. Both were to meetings in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House.

It has been previously known that Abramoff was in the White House on May 9, 2001, when
President Bush had his photograph taken with an Indian tribal official who was an Abramoff client.

The Secret Service earlier disclosed White House visits by Abramoff on Jan. 20, 2004, the day Bush delivered his State of the Union address, and on March 6, 2001.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060708/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_abramoff

Time for the old Reagan stand by, 'I can't remember' ?

[DR_GONZO]

Jack who?

Uh-oh!!!!!!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:


The latest casualty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal was a key aide to presidential political strategist Karl Rove who once worked for the disgraced influence-peddler.

Susan Ralston stepped down Friday from her post as a special assistant to
President Bush. A congressional report showed she had extensive contacts with Abramoff and had accepted tickets to sporting events and concerts from him.

Corruption and scandal are major issues going into the Nov. 7 elections. Ralston's resignation followed accusations that her contacts with Abramoff showed he was closer to Rove and Bush than the White House has been willing to acknowledge.

"She recognized that a protracted discussion of these matters would be a distraction to the White House and she's chosen to step down," deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

A recent House Government Reform Committee report listed hundreds of contacts that Abramoff's lobbying group had with the White House. Ralston had been administrative assistant to Abramoff and, after Bush took office, assumed the same post with Rove.

Ralston played an instrumental role in organizing and choosing presidential event sites.

Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) of California, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said he suspects the White House is trying to make Ralston a scapegoat.

"There is a lot that we don't yet know about the assistance that Ms. Ralston provided Mr. Abramoff from inside the White House, but there are also many unanswered questions about the assistance that higher-ranking White House officials appeared to provide Mr. Abramoff," Waxman said.

"The vast majority of lobbying contacts and meals with White House officials documented in the report were with White House officials other than Ms. Ralston," Waxman said.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to fraud and is now cooperating with prosecutors in an influence-peddling investigation that has enveloped Capitol Hill even as lawmakers, facing elections, struggle with the fallout from a scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s salacious messages to teenage male pages.

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that about half of likely voters consider corruption and scandal in Congress very or extremely important, and about two in three of those said they would vote for Democrats in House races.

The committee's report — based largely on Abramoff's billing records and e-mails — listed 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years, including 10 with Rove. The report indicated that Abramoff and associates lobbied on behalf of more than 20 individuals for administration jobs but were successful only once.

According to e-mails, Abramoff and his team offered White House officials tickets to 19 sporting events and concerts. Ralston was the most frequent recipient. The report did not make clear whether Ralston or other White House officials paid for any of the tickets.

The federal gratuities statute makes it a crime to give anything of value to a public official for any official act performed by that official. Ethics rules prohibit federal employees from accepting gifts unless given because of personal friendship.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061007/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_abramoff

[citymouse]

Wheres Biker and Hardy?

[TheRightView]

Wheres Biker and Hardy?


They are recieving their colonic treatments from the local bathhouses...just kidding, they are probably buying conservative patterned ties together....No that can't be it...ah...they are brainstorming creative ways to say how Foley was busy teaching Cheney's daughter all his knowledge.

[mikewrona]

They are recieving their colonic treatments from the local bathhouses...just kidding, they are probably buying conservative patterned ties together....No that can't be it...ah...they are brainstorming creative ways to say how Foley was busy teaching Cheney's daughter all his knowledge.

I've had a pinched never in my lower back for the last couple of days. Am unable to sit in front of a computer for more than a couple of minutes.

You post did help. LOL :eek:

[citymouse]

They still don't have the guts to show up here.

[tomac]

They are recieving their colonic treatments from the local bathhouses...just kidding, they are probably buying conservative patterned ties together....No that can't be it...ah...they are brainstorming creative ways to say how Foley was busy teaching Cheney's daughter all his knowledge.

Or like Rush Limburger, they're busy blaming the pages for Foley's IMs....


:rolleyes:

[DR_GONZO]

Probably, NOT!


Ex-Interior Dept. aide admits lying about favors for Abramoff clients

WASHINGTON — The former No. 2 official in the Interior Department admitted Friday he had lied to the Senate about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who gained the official’s intervention at the agency for his Indian tribal clients.

Steven Griles pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a felony for making false statements Nov. 2, 2005, in testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and in an earlier interview with panel investigators. He is the 10th person — and the second high-level Bush administration official — to face criminal charges in the continuing Justice Department investigation into Abramoff’s lobbying activities.

Griles, 59, a former mining lobbyist, drew the wrath of environmentalists and his department’s inspector general during a stormy four-year tenure.

Standing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle, Griles said little beyond admitting guilt, though in a written statement distributed by his lawyer, he apologized for his actions.

Griles could receive up to five years in prison for obstructing the Senate investigation, but prosecutors agreed to ask for a sentence of 10 months in exchange for the guilty plea — five months in prison and five months in a halfway house or in home detention. Huvelle set sentencing for June 26.

Griles told the Senate panel and its investigators his relationship with Abramoff was no different from that with any lobbyist.

But Griles’ girlfriend had introduced him to the lobbyist and then acted as a go-between. The woman, Italia Federici, identified as “Person A” in court papers, ran an advocacy group to which Abramoff and his clients donated $500,000.

“Abramoff occasionally sought and received — both directly and through Person A — defendant James Steven Griles’ advice and intervention on issues within the [Interior Department] that directly affected Abramoff and his clients,” the government’s charging document said. Griles was not accused of accepting anything of value in exchange.

Griles was a controversial political appointee from the start of his tenure under then- Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Environmentalists and the department’s inspector general faulted him for maintaining ties to energy and mining companies that were once his lobbying clients.

The guilty plea stems from his testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that “there was no special relationship for Mr. Abramoff in my office. It never did exist.”

He now has admitted that he had frequent contact with Abramoff through Federici, the founder of a conservative environmental group with close ties to Norton. Federici had served as an official on one of Norton’s political campaigns in Colorado.

Abramoff and his lobbying team focused on the Interior Department because the agency’s actions affected their most important clients: Indian tribes with casinos. Abramoff directed his tribal clients to contribute to Federici’s group, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.

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