04-23-2007, 07:31 PM
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#9 (permalink)
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More K Street Project fallout and Repub corruption and influence peddling:
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ocuments filed in federal court today for Mark Zachares, a former Bush administration official and House GOP aide who is expected to plead guilty tomorrow on a federal corruption charge. Zachares will reportedly plead to one felony count of conspiracy for accepting "a stream of things of value from Abramoff and his lobbyists," which in return for Zachares "took a stream of official action" to benefit Abramoff and his clients. The conspiracy between the two men allegedly ran from 2000 to 2004, and Zachares, according to the criminal information document filed by the Justice Department today, offered to help Abramoff's clients in return for a job "warranting a high annual salary" when Zachares left Capitol Hill...
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who went to St. Andrews in Scotland with Abramoff in August 2003, finally made the case as "Representative #3." This is not good news for Feeney, and the FBI is reportedly looking into his dealings with Abramoff, according to the St. Petesburg Times. At the direction of the House ethics committee, Feeney has already agreed to pay a fine of $5,643 for improperly reporting the trip.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecry...ctivities.html
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....and more
This one has a different twist to it.
Quote:
Two Bush administration officials who have been linked in scandal are now linked in wedlock.
The union of former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and Sue Ellen Wooldridge could have implications for the investigation into Griles’s ties to ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
They were married March 26, three days after Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship with Abramoff and a previous romantic partner. Wooldridge was the top environmental prosecutor at the Department of Justice (DoJ) before she resigned in January.
Legal experts note that people can refuse to testify against their spouses, and that in some cases, people can prevent their spouse from testifying against them.
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Wooldridge was a senior aide at Interior, then became solicitor, the department’s top lawyer. She moved to the environmental enforcement job at Justice in 2005.
As a senior staffer, Wooldridge provided ethics advice to Griles during an investigation by the Interior Department’s inspector general, according to published reports.
The investigation concerned whether Griles had used his official position in dealings with clients of his former lobbying firm even as he continued to receive payments from the firm amounting to more than $1 million.
Investigators learned after their report was issued in 2004 that Griles and Wooldridge had been dating since February 2003.
Wooldridge also advised then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton on the allegations raised by the inspector general. Norton cleared Griles of wrongdoing on two key matters raised by the probe.
In his guilty plea, Griles admitted lying to a Senate committee investigating the Abramoff matter about the extent of his ties with Abramoff, who lobbied the Interior Department on tribal casino issues.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...007-04-19.html
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__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire
Last edited by dc_dux; 04-23-2007 at 07:45 PM..
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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