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Banned
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The immediate concern is that congress has handed "new powers", to a criminal executive branch, not only criminal in it's waging of aggressive war, and violations of human rights, as outlined by SCOTUS rulings, and domestically, as outlined in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of VP Cheney's COS, Irwin Libby, and in filings submitted to Libby's criminal trial court judge, but also in the matter of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff, and by <b>the 6 year employment, in the white house, just doors from the POTUS, of presidential and Rove "special assistant, and former "key assistant" to Abramoff, at both the Traurig law firm, and at Abramoff's employer, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801588_pf.html">Preston Gates</a> before Traurig....none other than Susan Ralston:
(Pictured with Bush, in the previous post....)</b>
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/wa...9abramoff.html
September 29, 2006
Report Links White House and Lobbyist
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — A bipartisan Congressional report documents hundreds of contacts between White House officials and the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partners, including at least 10 direct contacts between Mr. Abramoff and Karl Rove, the president’s chief political strategist.
<b>The House Government Reform Committee report, based on e-mail messages and other records subpoenaed from Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying firm, found 485 contacts between Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying team and White House officials from 2001 to 2004, including 82 with Mr. Rove’s office.
The lobbyists spent almost $25,000 in meals and drinks for the White House officials and provided them with tickets to numerous sporting events and concerts, according to the report, scheduled for release Friday.</b>
The authors of the report said it was generally unclear from available records whether the aides reimbursed Mr. Abramoff for the meals or tickets. Ethics rules bar White House officials from accepting lobbyists’ gifts worth more than $20.
A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Thursday that while White House officials had not seen the report, earlier evidence showed that Mr. Abramoff had exaggerated his ties to the administration and was “ineffective in terms of getting government officials to take actions.”
Ms. Perino added, “It’s a real shame that so many of his clients were taken advantage of, lied to and ripped off.”
The report describes several instances in which Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to bribe public officials, failed to get the action he desired from the White House, and described his overall record in lobbying the White House as “mixed.” But it also suggests that Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying resulted in Bush administration actions that benefited Abramoff clients, including decisions to distribute millions of dollars in federal money to Indian tribes with large gambling operations.
After an especially aggressive lobbying campaign in 2001 and 2002 involving 73 contacts with White House officials, Mr. Abramoff claimed credit for an administration decision to release $16.3 million to a Mississippi tribe for jail construction despite opposition from the Justice Department, the report found.
<b>A copy of the bipartisan report was provided to The New York Times by Congressional officials who were granted anonymity because the document had not been released publicly.</b>
Mr. Rove has described Mr. Abramoff as a “casual acquaintance,” but the records obtained by the House committee show that Mr. Rove and his aides sought Mr. Abramoff’s help in obtaining seats at sporting events, and that Mr. Rove sat with Mr. Abramoff in the lobbyist’s box seats for an N.C.A.A. basketball playoff game in 2002.
<h3>After that game, Mr. Abramoff described Mr. Rove in an e-mail message to a colleague: “He’s a great guy. Told me anytime we need something just let him know through Susan.” The message was referring to Susan Ralson, Mr. Abramoff’s former secretary, who joined the White House in February 2001 as Mr. Rove’s executive assistant.
Ms. Ralston, who did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday, was lobbied scores of times by Mr. Abramoff and his partners, the report found, and was instrumental in passing messages between Mr. Abramoff and senior officials at the White House, including Mr. Rove and Ken Mehlman.</h3>
Mr. Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, was then a senior White House political strategist. A national committee spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, said Thursday that in Mr. Mehlman’s White House job, “it was not unusual” that he “would be in contact with supporters who had interest in administration policy.”
In October 2001, the report said, Mr. Abramoff asked the White House to withhold an endorsement from a Republican candidate for governor of the Northern Marianas Islands, an American commonwealth in the western Pacific where Mr. Abramoff had clients; Mr. Abramoff was backing another candidate.
<b>On Oct. 31, 2001, the report said, Ms. Ralson sent an e-mail message to Mr. Abramoff that read: “You win : ) KR said no endorsement.”
In March 2002, the report said, Mr. Abramoff contacted Ms. Ralson to offer tickets to Mr. Rove and his family for use of a skybox during the N.C.A.A. tournament at the MCI Center in Washington.
“Hi Susan,” Mr. Abramoff wrote in an e-mail message.” I just saw Karl and mentioned the N.C.A.A. opportunity, which he was really jazzed about. If he wants to join us in the Pollin box, please let me know as soon as you can.”
Ms. Ralston replied: “Karl is interested in Fri. and Sun. 3 tickets for his family?”
Mr. Abramoff responded: “Done. Does he want to go Friday night or Friday afternoon or both?” The report said that Mr. Rove offered to pay for the tickets, prompting Mr. Abramoff to propose that Mr. Rove pay $50 per ticket “payable to me personally.”
The report cited numerous e-mail messages in which Mr. Abramoff referred to Mr. Rove and his visits to Signatures, a Washington restaurant owned by Mr. Abramoff.</b>
On learning in July 2002 that Mr. Rove planned to dine at Signatures with a party of 8 to 10 people, Mr. Abramoff wrote to a colleague: “I want him to be given a very nice bottle of wine and have Joseph whisper in his ear (only he should hear) that Abramoff wanted him to have this wine on the house.” In another e-mail message, <b>Mr. Abramoff directed his restaurant staff to “please put Karl Rove in his usual table.”</b>
Ms. Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said the offer of a free bottle of wine was actually proof of how little acquainted Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Rove were because “Karl doesn’t drink alcohol.”
Disclosure of the report’s findings came as a federal judge in Miami agreed on Thursday to delay Mr. Abramoff’s imprisonment, but not for as long as the Justice Department wanted.
In court papers this week, the department asked that Mr. Abramoff, who has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison, not have to surrender for three months because of the need for his continued cooperation in the influence-peddling investigation in Washington that is said to involve several members of Congress.
But the judge, Paul C. Huck, agreed to allow Mr. Abramoff to remain free only until Nov. 15, saying “there comes a time when people have to pay the piper.” Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty in Miami as part of an agreement with the Justice Department in which he confessed to corruption charges in Washington, and to fraud charges in Florida involving his purchase of a casino-boat fleet there.
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The following is even more disturbing, since Bush himself, as well as his key aids, have denied the following associations with Abramoff, numerous times:
Quote:
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/b...s/15254-1.html
House Report Details 485 Contacts Between Abramoff Team and White House Officials
By John Bresnahan and Paul Kane
Roll Call
Thursday, Sept. 28; 7:10 pm
A House committee has documented hundreds of contacts between top White House officials and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates, as well as tens of thousands of dollors worth of meals and tickets to sporting events and concerts that were offered to these officials during a three-year period starting in early 2001.
A 95-page report, which was released by the House Government Reform Committee on Thursday evening, includes an analysis of more than 14,000 pages of documents provided to the panel by Abramoff's former lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.
Democrats and Republicans on the committee immediately began to fight over the report's findings, with each side portraying the results in the context of its own political needs.
Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform Committee, released a statement portraying Abramoff’s efforts to lobby the Bush administration as largely ineffective.
Davis also pointed out that Abramoff’s billing records and e-mail exchanges do not mean that events unfolded as he claimed to either his firm or his clients.
“These records are just one side of what was often a multi-party conversation,” Davis said in a statement released by his office. “The almost complete absence of reply e-mails from Abramoff’s lobbying targets in the White House has to be seen as telling. In an environment that lives and breathes on e-mail exchanges, that silence speaks volumes about how seriously most people in the White House took Jack Abramoff’s schemes.”
“A number of individuals appear to have been offered tickets to sporting events and concerts,” said the statement from Davis’ office. "The Committee does not know in all cases if executive branch employees accepted them, if they were allowed to accept them without paying for them, or if they indeed paid for them themselves. The Committee is confident the appropriate authorities will examine whether the tickets were accepted, required to be paid for, and if so, whether they were paid for.”
A summary prepared for Democratic leaders by staffers for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of Government Reform, stated that the information provided by the Abramoff documents may show wrongdoing on the part of top White House officials.
Democrats suggested that the documents obtained by the committee “raised serious questions about the legality and ethics of the actions of multiple White House officials.”
The Government Reform Committee report singled out two of President Bush’s top lieutenants, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, as having been offered expensive meals and exclusive tickets to premier sporting events and concerts by Abramoff and his associates.
In total, the committee was able to document 485 contacts between White House officials and Abramoff and his lobbying team at the firm Greenberg Traurig from January 2001 to March 2004, with 82 of those contacts occurring in Rove¹s office, including 10 with Rove personally. The panel also said that Abramoff billed his clients nearly $25,000 for meals and drinks with White House officials during that period.
Rove, Mehlman, and other White House officials have denied having any close relationship with Abramoff, despite the fact that Abramoff was a “Pioneer” who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush’s White House campaigns.
Democratic committee staff wrote in a three-page summary that accompanied the report: “The documents depict a much closer relationship between Mr. Abramoff and White House officials than the White House has previously acknowledged.” Davis and Waxman this summer subpoenaed e-mails and billing records from Greenberg Traurig and other firms, including Alexander Strategy Group, which was run by one-time aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). They examined more than 14,000 pages of documents from Greenberg Traurig, including 6,600 pages of billing records and 7,700 pages of e-mail.
During the period examined by the committee, Bush administration officials repeatedly intervened on behalf of Abramoff’s clients, including helping a Mississippi Indian tribe obtain $16 million in federal funds for a jail the tribe wanted to build.
Abramoff was able to block the nomination of one Interior Department official using Christian conservative Ralph Reed as a go-between with Rove, according to e-mails between Abramoff and Reed.
Abramoff also tried to oust a State Department employee who interfered with their efforts on behalf of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, one of Abramoff’s most lucrative clients.
White House officials were allowed to view the draft report on Wednesday evening.
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, dismissed Abramoff’s claim of pull with the Bush administration. She also noted that Abramoff has pleaded guilty to a number of felonies during the last year, including fraud and conspiracy to bribe public officials.
“The billing records that are the basis of this report are widely regarded as fraudulent in how they misrepresented the activities and influence of Abramoff,” Perino said. “There’s no reason those records should be suddenly viewed as credible.”
Perino added that she was unaware of any link between Abramoff’s lobbying and White House intervention in policy or personnel matters affecting his clients. “Not that I’m aware of as a result of a direct contact,” Perino said.
Perino did not specifically address whether White House officials ever accepted meals or tickets from Abramoff.
“We have high standards and expect them to be met,” she said.
In a bipartisan executive summary of the new report, committee staff said that “there are certain caveats” about Abramoff’s actions that are impossible to verify because the report is based solely on the records of Abramoff and Greenberg Traurig employees.
“There is little or no corroboration of the events described in the documents,” the summary states. “In other instances, the documents are vague about who was lobbied and what was said. While the documents described in this report are authentic, that does not mean that the events actually transpired or that Abramoff and his associates did not exaggerate or misrepresent their actions.”
Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, which Mehlman now chairs, said Mehlman and Abramoff would have interacted when Mehlman served as White House political director.
“In his capacity as Political Director of the White House, it is not unusual that Mr. Mehlman would be in contact with supporters who had interest in Administration policy,” Schmitt said in a statement.
The committee was able to uncover numerous times when Abramoff and his associates attended social events with senior White House aides using tickets or passes supplied by Abramoff. For instance, Abramoff attended an NCAA Tournament college basketball game with Rove in March 2002. Afterward, Abramoff told an associate that Rove was “a great guy” who told him “anytime we need something, just let him know” via Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston. Ralston worked for Abramoff before moving over to the White House.
In June 2001, while he was still working at the White House, Mehlman was offered two tickets to a U2 concert by Abramoff. The documents do not indicate whether Mehlman paid for the tickets or attended the concert.
“If White House officials failed to pay for these meals and tickets, their actions would be a violation of these legal requirements,” Democratic committee staff wrote in their summary, noting a ban on gifts from lobbyists worth more than $20 to executive branch officials.
The committee said its investigation is continuing.
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<b>If the POTUS was trustworthy and competent, I would object to the passing of the "Detainee" anit-"terror", bill, out of concern that a future, less ethical or credible president might abuse these new "powers". It defies credulity that congress would transfer such unmonitored and unchecked extra-constitutional discretion and detention and prosecutorial authority to officials who have such a high probability of being felons, traitors, and war criminals, themselves!</b>
The White House responds to the charges:
Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001632.php
ROLL CALL: WHITE HOUSE INTERVENED FOR ABRAMOFF CLIENTS
"The billing records that are the basis of this report are widely regarded as fraudulent in how they misrepresented the activities and influence of Abramoff," [White House spokeswoman Dana] Perino said. "There's no reason those records should be suddenly viewed as credible." Perino added that she was unaware of any link between Abramoff¹s lobbying and White House intervention in policy or personnel matters affecting his clients. "Not that I'm aware of as a result of a direct contact," Perino said.
Perino did not specifically address whether White House officials ever accepted meals or tickets from Abramoff. "We have high standards and expect them to be met," she said.....
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Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001636.php
<b>Email: Rove Killed Interior Nomination for Abramoff</b>
By Paul Kiel - September 29, 2006, 11:26 AM
The House Government Reform Committee has released <a href="http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/abramoff/index.asp">hundreds of new emails</a> from Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm pertaining to his and his associates' contacts with Administration officials.
We're scouring them now, and here's a good one. In an email exchange subject-lined "were you able to whack mccain's wife yet?" Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff discuss derailing the nomination of a woman named Angela Williams to an Interior post.
Williams was up for head of the Office of Insular Affairs in the Department of the Interior, which has authority over decisions affecting the Northern Mariana Islands, an Abramoff client.
With the White House's help, Abramoff's effort was successful. <b>Ralph Reed emailed Abramoff, "talked to rove about this and I think I killed it." You can see the exchange here.
<img src="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/files/1159541778reed_abe_whack1.jpg">
"Williams is married to former Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle, who was a Vietnam POW with Senator John McCain,"</b> <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1122014,00.html">according to Time.</a>
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Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001635.php
<b>Emails Suggest Mehlman Arranged Fed Funds for Abramoff Contributions</b>
By Paul Kiel - September 29, 2006, 8:35 AM
There's already a lot of evidence out there that Ken Mehlman was Jack Abramoff's prime favor man in the White House -- but this new congressional report provides the most damning example yet.
From The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092801918.html
<b>"One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP."</b>
So in exchange for political contributions, Mehlman made sure the Choctaw got their $16 million contract. <b>I believe that's called a quid pro quo.</b>
It's by no means the only example of Mehlman's favors.
In 2001, he <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000085.php">made sure</a> a State Department official wasn't re-nominated for his post -- the official, Allen Stayman was a long-time foe of Abramoff's.
<h1>And according to a report from the Justice Department's Inspector General, Mehlman ordered one of his suboordinates at the White House to <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001052.php">keep Abramoff updated</a> on issues related to Guam; Abramoff was keen to see the U.S. Attorney there replaced.</h1>
<h3>In March, Mehlman told Vanity Fair, "Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper."</h3>
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How do you feel about so many influential members of the "one party" in power, being linked with "plea copping" scumbags.....like these:
<h3>If we can just get through the elections in 5 weeks, without anyboy else getting indicted.....we'll maintain "one party" rule !</h3>
Quote:
http://www.nbc6.net/news/9957023/detail.html
<b>Abramoff, Kidan Win 2nd Delay In Start Of Prison Sentence</b>
UPDATED: 4:25 pm EDT September 28, 2006
MIAMI -- Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan won new delays Thursday in the start of their prison sentences for fraud convictions stemming from their purchase of a gambling fleet.
But U.S. District Judge Paul Huck rejected a joint request by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers for an additional 90 days beyond Monday's scheduled prison surrender date for both. Instead, the judge reluctantly agreed to give Abramoff until Nov. 15 and Kidan until Oct. 23 to remain free.
"I don't feel good about this," Huck said. "My main concern is, there comes a time when people have to pay the piper, so to speak. I think that time has come."
Abramoff and Kidan were each sentenced to nearly six years in prison after they pleaded guilty to charges of concocting a fake wire transfer to close a deal in 2000 to buy SunCruz Casinos from businessman Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, who was later killed in a gangland-style shooting.
Huck approved a first 90-day delay for Abramoff and Kidan in June. He initially said he intended to leave Monday's prison date unchanged.
<b>But prosecutors, including senior officials at the U.S. Justice Department, and defense attorneys insisted Abramoff must remain out of prison to continue cooperating in a Washington corruption investigation. They said he is combing through about 500,000 e-mails related to that probe and needs unimpeded access to his laptop computer and to dozens of federal investigators.</b>
If he is imprisoned, "what we need from Mr. Abramoff will be impossible to get," said Ed Nucci, acting chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, in a telephone conference call with Huck. "There are so many areas that have to be explored and so many pockets."
Abbe Lowell, a Washington attorney representing Abramoff, added that because of upcoming Jewish holidays -- Abramoff is an observant orthodox Jew -- he would be unavailable during much of October. Lowell said Abramoff has devoted some 300 hours since June in assisting investigators and submitted to seven all-day "debriefing" sessions.
"This has not been a foot-dragging experience. This has been diligent," Lowell said.
No details were provided about what Abramoff is saying. <b>But earlier this month, Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney became the first congressman charged in the case and agreed to plead guilty to charges that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in trips and other perks from Abramoff and an international businessman.
Ney's former chief of staff and two one-time aides to ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas have also pleaded guilty in the case. A former White House aide [David Safavian] was convicted in June of covering up dealings with Abramoff.</b>
Kidan, meanwhile, is assisting prosecutors in Broward County in the murder of Boulis, who was gunned down at the wheel of his car in February 2001 amid an acrimonious dispute over the future direction of SunCruz. <b>Kidan has told investigations that he believes the murder was committed by John Gurino, who he said was a former associate of New York crime boss John Gotti.
Gurino was killed in a Boca Raton deli by his business partner in 2003. Kidan also told authorities he was told details about the Boulis killing by Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, purportedly an associate of the Gambino crime family once headed by Gotti.</b>
Kidan's attorney, Joseph Conway, said Kidan will be a witness in that case and needs additional time to prepare for depositions and meetings with prosecutors. Huck, however, said that could be accomplished in a month's time or even while Kidan is incarcerated in federal prison.
"I don't see his situation to be any different than a typical cooperating witness," Huck said.
Moscatiello, 68, is charged with first-degree murder in the Boulis killing along with Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, 49, and 29-year-old James "Pudgy" Fiorillo. All have pleaded not guilty. Abramoff has not been implicated in the Boulis slaying.
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Last edited by host; 05-03-2007 at 08:08 AM..
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