{"id":265,"date":"2006-01-26T01:13:37","date_gmt":"2006-01-26T07:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?\r\n\r\np=265"},"modified":"2006-02-02T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2006-02-02T18:00:56","slug":"jack-abramoffs-meetings-with-duhbya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/jack-abramoffs-meetings-with-duhbya\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Abramoff’s Meetings with Duhbya"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr. Abramoff’s Meetings<\/a><\/p>\n

HERE ARE SOME things we know <\/p>\n

about Jack Abramoff and the White House: The disgraced lobbyist raised at least $100,000 for President Bush’s reelection campaign. He <\/p>\n

had long-standing ties to Karl Rove, a key presidential adviser. He had extensive dealings with executive branch officials and <\/p>\n

departments — one of whom, former procurement chief David H. Safavian, has been charged by federal prosecutors with lying to <\/p>\n

investigators about his involvement with Mr. Abramoff.<\/p>\n

We also know that Mr. Abramoff is an admitted crook who was willing to <\/p>\n

bribe members of Congress and their staffs to get what he (or his clients) wanted. …<\/p>\n

Here is what we don’t know about Jack <\/p>\n

Abramoff and the White House: whom he met with and what was discussed. Nor, if the White House sticks to its current position, will we <\/p>\n

learn that anytime soon. …<\/p>\n

Information uncovered by Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the <\/p>\n

same inside the executive branch.<\/p>\n

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff’s White House meetings is no mere exercise <\/p>\n

in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of <\/p>\n

government. Whatever White House officials did or didn’t do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and <\/p>\n

therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting.<\/p>\n

Photos of Bush With Abramoff Are Withheld<\/a> by Jim VandeHei and <\/p>\n

Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writers<\/p>\n

Several White House officials have been briefed about pictures of President Bush and <\/p>\n

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-<\/p>\n

for-favors investigation, aides said yesterday. …<\/p>\n

Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty in the growing bribery and corruption <\/p>\n

scandal, was with Bush about a dozen times when pictures were taken by the official White House photographer or other participants over <\/p>\n

the past five years, according to a source familiar with Abramoff’s legal situation. Abramoff, this source said, displayed at least five <\/p>\n

of them on his office desk and has told people the president talked about his children’s names as well as personal details about their <\/p>\n

schooling during one encounter. …<\/p>\n

The source said Abramoff has more than half a dozen photos with Bush, including one of the two <\/p>\n

men shaking hands, but has no intention of releasing them. The existence of the Bush-Abramoff photos was first reported by Washingtonian <\/p>\n

magazine, which reviewed five photos but was not permitted to publish them<\/em>. [mjh: WTF?]<\/span><\/p>\n

Abramoff was no stranger to the Bush White House. He had served as one of Bush’s top fundraisers and assisted the Interior Department <\/p>\n

during the president’s transition to power in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Abramoff’s Meetings HERE ARE SOME things we know about Jack Abramoff and the White House: The disgraced lobbyist raised at least $100,000 for President Bush’s reelection campaign. He had long-standing ties to Karl Rove, a key presidential adviser. He had extensive dealings with executive branch officials and departments — one of whom, former procurement … Continue reading Jack Abramoff’s Meetings with Duhbya<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}