Bush Doesn’t Know Abramoff?

Bush Doesn’t Know Abramoff?

Comments 15 comments

White House spokesliar Scott McClellan claims Bush doesn’t really know Jack Abramoff, who only met with administration staff two or three times. He won’t even say whether they were senior staff meetings.

Ha!
Bush knows Abramoff.

See this and this and this, and this.

15 thoughts on “Bush Doesn’t Know Abramoff?”

  1. How exactly do you know for a fact that he know Abramoff? You are so quick to toss out the name liar. Why are you so filled with vile hatred for President Bush and anyone that works in the White House? It is so obvious that you will never accept anything that is said by anyone associated with the Bush administration.

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  4. Ok, I’ll bite where does it say he even met George W. Bush? He was part of the Department of the Interiors transition team. This is what I mean by your vile hatred of Bush. You read something like this which gives no proof that bush even knew Abramoff and you call the White Press secretary a liar with no evidence. If you weren’t filled with vile hatred toward Bush why would you make statements like that? Again show me where in that whole long article does it say that Abramoff even met with President Bush at any time. Just because he was part of the Department of the Interior transition team doesn’t mean he met with President Bush.

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  5. If Bush didn’t meet with a guy who was part of his transition team, was helping to staff the Dept. of the Interior, was a personal “Pioneer” contributor among the rest of the money he hauled in, and who was actually billing people for face time with the President, then he was seriously remiss in his duties. Is that what you’re really wanting to argue?

    Here’s a good summary of many of the contacts, among which:

    Abramoff’s lobbying partner boasted that he is a phone call away from the President. “Jack has a relationship with the President,” Abramoff’s former spokesman and fellow lobbyist Michael Scanlon once said. “He doesn’t have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one.”

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

    In 2001, Bush tapped the lobbyist as a member of his Presidential Transition Team, advising the administration on policy and hiring at the Interior Department, which oversees Native American issues. Abramoff’s former top aide, Susan Ralston, currently serves as the top aide to Karl Rove, one of the president’s closest political advisers.

    —Ties that Bind? WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey, Jan. 4, 2006
    Newsweek/MSNBC
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

    As the Bush-Cheney Administration began in 2001, Jack Abramoff was an official member of the Administration’s transition team (for the Interior Department!). Abramoff recommended that Karl Rove should take, as his personal secretary, Susan B. Ralston, who was at the time the personal aide of Jack Abramoff. Ralston got the post as Rove’s executive assistant, in charge of screening calls that went to Rove, and thus affecting access to the President.

    When the Plame affair went before a Federal grand jury, Ralston was compelled to testify, and had to leave the job with Rove.

    Salon online magazine reported that Ralston, while working for Rove, would call Grover Norquist to ask if callers should be put through to Rove; only if Norquist approved, would the call would go through.

    So, anyone attempting to reach Karl Rove might have to pass through the Norquist-Abramoff channel.

    — Anton Chaitkin, “Abramoff Indictment Makes Bush Regime a Fat Target,”August 26, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

    The records from Abramoff’s firm, obtained by The Associated Press from the Marianas under an open records request, chronicle Abramoff’s careful cultivation of relations with Bush’s political team as far back as 1997.

    In that year, Abramoff charged the Marianas for getting then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to write a letter expressing support for the Pacific territory’s school choice proposal, his billing records show.

    “I hope you will keep my office informed on the progress of this initiative,” Bush wrote in a July 18, 1997, letter praising the islands’ school plan and copying in an Abramoff deputy.

    –USATODAY.com – “Controversial lobbyist had close contact with Bush team”
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

    The lobbyist Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny, according to newly disclosed documents.

    The African leader, President Omar Bongo of Gabon, met with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004, 10 months after Mr. Abramoff made the offer.

    — Lobbyist Sought $9 Million to Set Bush Meeting, November 10, 2005, New York Times
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

    In a town where money buys influence and access, it would have been highly unusual for one of the top fundraisers for the Bush White House to not have had meetings with the President.

    McClellan, in a carefully-worded response to reporters Tuesday, said his personal investigation into the matter revealed that Abramoff may have had two “private staff level meetings” at the White House. This is the same Scott McClellan who claimed he investigated the Valerie Plame leak and told reporters that neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor anyone on his staff had any involvement in that scandal. Then Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, got slapped with an indictment for giving the info to the press.

    McClellan, as skilled a liar as anyone who has stood before the press and misled reporters on behalf of a President, fails to mention Abramoff’s frequent visits to the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, the private meetings that the lobbyist arranged with the President on the 2004 campaign trail and at the Republican National Convention that year.

    White House visitor logs are not public record and the Bush administration keeps separate logs of visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and other locations like Camp David or the President’s home. In addition, logs can – and often are – revised when scandal erupts.

    But Abramoff, who raised more than $100,000 for Bush in the last campaign, promised big time donors face time with the President and delivered on those promises during the convention. In addition, he traveled to Bush’s ranch in Texas with his co-conspirator in crime, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

    A former DeLay staffer who is cooperating with the investigation into both Abramoff and the disgraced GOP leader’s activities, has told investigators that Abramoff and DeLay visited Bush at his ranch on at least four occasions in 2003 and 2004.

    It is common for big money contributors to get personal meetings with the President. At the GOP’s annual Presidential Dinner in Washington, those who pony up at least $25,000 are hustled into a room before the dinner for time and photo ops with the President.

    Abramoff kept a photo of himself with Bush, shot at the Crawford ranch, in his office in Washington. The autograph from Bush said “to my great friend Jack.”

    Dale Knally, a campaign worker in the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, recalls a meeting between Bush and Abramoff during a campaign stop in Florida.

    “He put his arm around Abramoff and told us that ‘this man is one of this administration’s greatest friends,’” Knally recalls. Knally declined a job in the Bush administration and returned to school after the election and remembers some in the campaign privately calling Abramoff a “sleazeball.”

    “That campaign taught me that I never wanted anything to do with the Bush administration or politics again,” Knally said. “No matter how many showers I took, I couldn’t wash away the stench.”

    “Bush often met with, and praised, corrupt lobbyist,” Doug Thompson, Jan 18, 2006, Capital Hill Blue

    See also Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist Billing Clients for Face Time with G.W. Bush at the Texas Observer.

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  6. Come on, in your first quote box this Abramoff’s partner making a claim about Abramoff (not proof Bush knows Abramoff) and you actually beleive that means anything. Second quote box make a claim that says Bush taps him to be part of his transition team, according to the article you linked it actually says he was brought in to the transition team for the Department of the Interior by memebrs of the Department of the Interior and not President Bush personally ( you are making the stretch that it was Bush who personally appointed him). The next quote box you mention a Abramoff and Karl Rove connection and not President Bush. The next quote box says something about Abramoff and Bush’s political team, again nothing about any personal ties with Bush and Abramoff. You have carefully found articles that attempt to fit your little agenda that creates that idea that Bush just had to know Abramoff personally. But not a single one of those stories ever says that President Bush knew Jack Abramoff personally or that he knew him as anything more than aquaintences.

    You are seeming to create a “he must have known him ” scenario with all of these stories you found. But all I got out of all of this was Jack Abramoff was a overly ambitious man that could charm anyone to get what he wanted and he conned and bribed a lot of people for his benefit. The fact of the matter is he is going to prisom for his activities and a few other people are going to pay a high price politically, but President Bush isn’t one of them.

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  7. Hugs, photographs, positions, signatures, judicial intervention, visits to Crawford ranch, authority to bill for Presidential face-time – none of that scores with you? Hmmm.

    Well, in the larger sense, I believe you’re right that none of it will touch the President.

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  8. No, I don’t see how even if he knows Bush personally it doesn’t mean that anything illegal can be connected to Bush. I guess if you believe in guilt by association.

    It just seems that you are going a long ways to make a connection between Jack Abramoff and President Bush so it can somehow be used against him in your fantasy that he should be Impeached.

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  9. Jon – I don’t care if they are godfathers for each other’s twins. I care that the spokesman went out of his way to say he didn’t know him, and that statement is getting modified from day to day – and I think it will continue to do so. This is the pattern.

    I care about whether the administration is again hiding things, being deceitful, covering things up – and if they are, why. In case you’ve forgotten, the administration works for us. This administration is extremely secretive and it’s not that big of a stretch to think that there may be reasons for that.

    If all you are going to do is engage in personal attacks, I don’t really understand why you continue to read or comment on this blog.

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  10. You appear to be mistaking being wrong for lies (of course it is the first time; WMD and President Bush) Just because someone is wrong doesn;t mean they are intentionally deceiving (definition of a lie) .

    I am still trying to understand why you chose to believe everything that turns out to be wrong is a lie being told by someone in the Bush Administration. That is why I chose to use vile hatred, because that would make it ieasier to understand why you think like you do.

    I chose to comment on your posts becuase I like to discuss the topics with someone that holds an opposite point of view.

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  11. I’m quite aware of the difference between a simple case of being mistaken and this administration’s consistent policy of deceit. There is ample documentation.

    For me, it’s not a matter of “choosing” to believe. I would prefer to believe that I could trust the President of the United States and his administration, even if we don’t agree on policies or viewpoints here and there. I would prefer to believe that my country wasn’t being pulled apart by power mongers and control freaks. I would prefer to focus on my own intellectual interests and creative projects.

    “Vile hatred” is not only inaccurate but also crosses the line from valid discussion into insult and – worse still – purple prose. If you expect me to continue to post your comments on my domain, you must at least insult me with some panache.

    Finally, if you have to go that far for an explanation, you’re not doing enough reading. It’s not really that hard to understand why I think like I do.

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  12. The deceit you are speaking of is exactly what I have been talking about in all of my posts. President Bush has not deceived anyone and if you were filled with so much hatred of President Bush you would see it. He was simply wrong about the WMD’s and that is all there is too it. He didn’t deceive anyone about the Intelligence and I would just love to see your evidence that he did deceive anyone. Just because the Democrats and MSM are claiming he deceived us doesn’t make it true. Several different committees have made inquiries into whether Bush or anyone in his administration altered or urged anyone in the Intelligence community to alter the intelligence that was used to justify the War in Iraq. The head of the CIA said he no one in the Bush administration pressured anyone to lie or alter the intelligence. So where is the deceit you speak of and please don’t bring up Libby or Rove since nothing has been proved as of yet. As a matter of fact nothing has even alleged against Rove. All of this nonsense has been created by the Democrats and MSM and until anything is proven it is all NONSENSE.

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  13. Tell me why the investigation into the prewar intelligence has been blocked by the Republican Congress then. Explain the testimony related to Bolton then. Tell me about the Downing Street memo. Wake up.

    In your mind the two alternatives for thinking are either “conviction” or “nonsense”? What about pattern recognition, deduction, basic curiosity and research?

    It’s a sad argument that has to wait until criminal convictions are attained before the most basic questions can be asked – and that in the face of some pretty extraordinary events and behaviors.

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  14. The crucial aspect of Abramoff’s relationship to the Republicans is that he was the point man for Tom DeLay’s K Street Project, which was reponsible for getting lobbying firms to hire to and donate exclusively to Republicans in order to cement Republican control of Congress. In return, the Reps would pass all the lobbyists legislation. This led to legislation written by and for lobbyists. And let’s remember that Bush never vetoed any of it. This was his Congress to lead – and regardless of how well he personally knew the guy, Abramoff was, UNDENIABLY (they’ll deny it, anyway, the liars) one of the key parts in the Republican machine under Bush. Challenge any Bush supporters look into that and chew on it for a while. Bottom line: doesn’t matter how well W knew A of how many times they met. Abramoff is radioactively dirty and admittedly culpable, and all that he did was DIRECTLY AND UNIQUELY for the Republicans under…Dubya.

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  15. Don – thank you for that comment. Better than anything I’ve managed to express here, it presents a wider angle and a better-connected view of the evidence. Deeply appreciated.

    The people’s questioning has to go even beyond the people and structures directly involved in the scandals, and even beyond the Party (what are they anyway? not Republicans) corruption.

    I really think that a system that can allow these things is a broken system. I don’t think campaigns should be run on contributions of any kind, at all. This has not only allowed personal corruption to thrive, but has also hurt us as a people. Money shouldn’t be able to buy legislation, not money from people or groups or corporations. Maybe we could have a lobbyist idea exchange – in a public forum. Let arguments be made, not deals struck.

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