How high will Abramoff's implications go?Follow

The Who:

Jack Abramoff, a former Washington lobbyist whom on January 4th of this year plead guilty to 3 counts of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. This was part of a plea deal that requires him to provide evidence about members of Congress...

The What:

It seems that Mr. Abramoff was at a meeting with W, as shown in a recently authenticated photo.

The Why:

Why is this news? Well, because W told reporters last month that he doesn't know Abramoff.



Was he lying? Or, does he not remember (Regan's favorite excuse)




All in all, this means nothing...yet. But we do know that Abramoff will implicate Republican members of congress when he testifies. Does the White House, who seem to be trying to cover up any connection between them and Abramoff, have something to hide?

Curiouser and curiouser...

That is a valid argument; however, it is the fact that W said he has never seen him before and there is photographical proof that he had a meeting with him.

Huge difference between:

Saying I may of talked to Mr. X but I can't remember off the top of my head

and

I never saw that man in my life!

Why lie if you are innocent?



Edited, Mon Feb 13 13:51:03 2006 by Kronig

I think the real threat is if Brown decides to bail himself out by sinking the Bush Adminstration on Katrina, which he threatened to do if the Whitehouse doesnt give him executive privilege in classifying some of the material related to the Katrina debacle.

But then, you're not the President and you don't come into contact with as many people as the President would. The guy probably meets people in passing through various meetings and functions that literally number in the hundreds every month. And probably forgets their name 10 minutes later, especially if it's someone just accompanying a person that you would actually talk to. Was it stupid for Bush to say flat out he'd never met the man? Sure. But then that's to be expected from Bush.





You're assuming you'd be surrounded by competant people. Obviously Bush is not.

I'm not saying people shouldn't raise a bit of a stink over Bush saying flat out that he never met the man when he obviously did, if only in passing. All I'm saying is I think it's a little much to expect him to remember it.

I didn't see anything about that. It said that the records didn't show him as a list of attendies at the meeting. Kind of a huge difference.

Looking at the photos, it's pretty clear that Abramoff is just some guy standing in the backround while Bush was meeting with other people. Bush probably didn't even know he was in the room.

I do love the Time's caption on the second photo on their page though. It says: "At the 2001 meeting with Abramoff, Bush greets tribal chairman Garza", which implies that Bush was "meeting with Abramoff", when I would assume he was actually meeting with the tribal chief Garza and Abramoff was just a guy with the group. You'd think if Bush was actually meeting with Abramoff that he'd be the one in the picture having his hand shook...


As to how he got into the meeting? I'm no expert on how White House meetings are conducted, but I'd assume that lots of aides and adjunct personell don't show up on "official" lists of people at meetings. The lists are to record who atttended the meeting and was there for the purpose of the meeting, not random staffers standing around.

Certainly, if we're to assume some actual collusion or involvement in a scam involving Abramoff, you'd think Abramoff himself would be part of the meeting, not just a wallflower in the backround. This looks more to me like Abramoff knew that one of his clients was going to meet the president and asked to come along. It's very likely that Bush didn't know who he was, and quite possible he wasn't even introduced in any way. My understanding in that photographers take pictures of pretty much everyone who meets the president. Usually in one of those cheesy handshake thingies. Find one of Bush and Abramoff shaking hands and we might have something (at least on whether Bush "met" Abramoff). Even that doesn't come close to implying that Bush had any dealings with Abramoff, much less any illegal dealings with the man (Abramoff was a lobbyist. Not everything he did was illegal, so presumably many people who did business with him did so legally).