Flashback - Bush's Wise Guys: Noe, Abramoff, Reed, and the Wyly Brothers

[ProSense]

George Bush's Wise Guys: Noe, Abramoff, Reed, and the Wyly Brothers

June 14, 2005

Today, George Bush will be banking millions of dollars for Republican campaigns. This afternoon Bush will be in Pennsylvania to raise money for Senator Rick Santorum's (R-PA) reelection campaign, and tonight he will return to Washington, DC to raise millions at a dinner organized by the NRCC and NRSC. There will be a few empty seats at today's fundraising events, though: five of Bus's big time fundraiser- Thomas Noe, Sam and Charles Wyly, Jack Abramoff, and Ralph Reed-have found themselves under Federal investigations for illegal contributions, tax evasion, and various corruption scandals. With at least five of Bush's donors coming under federal investigation, the attendees at today's fundraisers have to ask themselves: What's next?

http://democrats.org/a/2005/06/george_bushs_wi.php

Controversial lobbyist had close contact with Bush team

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

Abramoff remains under investigation for some of his lobbying work.
Dennis Cook, AP

The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records.

Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, is now under criminal investigation for some of his lobbying work. His firm boasted its lobbying team helped revise a section of the Republican Party's 2000 platform to make it favorable to its island client.

In addition, two of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues on the Marianas won political appointments inside federal agencies.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-06-abramoff-bush_x.htm

Former Bush official charged with concealing Abramoff ties

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Bush administration official is charged with making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation into his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

David Safavian, a former chief of staff of the General Services Administration and Abramoff lobbying associate, concealed from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the government when Safavian, a GSA official at the time, joined him on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002, according to an FBI affidavit and government officials.

FBI agent Jeffrey Reising said in the affidavit that a lobbyist — identified elsewhere as Abramoff — had enlisted Safavian's help in trying to gain control of 40 acres of land at the Federal Research Center at White Oak in Silver Spring, Md., for a private high school that Abramoff helped establish.

Safavian edited a letter the lobbyist was preparing to send to GSA, and arranged and attended a meeting involving a GSA official, the lobbyist's wife and others to discuss leasing the property, the affidavit said.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-20-lobbyist-probe_x.htm?csp=15

[Warpy]

1. Don't forget Wilkes!

There's very little out there on the web right now, http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/120605_wilkes.html being the best I could find quickly, but basically Wilkes has been using a bunch of little subsidiary corporations to garner fat DOD contracts, do little, and flip the money into RNC coffers.

That's right, folks, taxpayer money slated for DEFENSE laundered directly into party slush funds.

Wilkes's books have been subpoenaed as part of the Delay investigation. They're also part of the Cunningham investigation, and will probably figure into Abramoff's multiple scams, too. It's getting increasingly hard to tell where one scandal stops and another one picks up.

[0007]

2. Texas Senator John Cornyn is right in the mix. Trying his

hardest to keep a low profile.

Sooner or later it will come out. Ralph Reed will turn on Cornyn to save his own ass.

[ProSense]

4. I'm waiting for the dots to connect to Bush. n/t

[ProSense]

3. How long before Scotty caught in another lie?

The White House spokesman Scott McClellan was unable to say yesterday whether George Bush had ever met Mr Abramoff, but he denounced the lobbyist. "What he is reportedly acknowledged doing is unacceptable and outrageous," he said. "If laws were broken, he must be held to account for what he did."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1677515,00.html?gusrc=rss