Abramoff and chimp's $25,000 meeting

[rainbow4321]

Hey, Scottie, let's help you out here..you are UNSURE if chimp and Abramoff ever met?? Maybe someone needs to subpoena Chairman Poncho to find out who all was at the meeting talked about in this article...

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle_new.asp?ArticleID=13


According to a source close to the tribal majority, Chairman Poncho recently “revisited that issue” of his visit to the White House. He had previously denied it because he thought he was responding to press inquiries that implied he had a one-on-one meeting with Bush. He now recalls that he in fact did go to the White House on May 9, 2001. Tribal attorney Kathryn Fowler Van Hoof went with him, although she did not get into the meeting with the President. That meeting lasted for about 15 minutes and was not a one-on-one meeting. At the meeting, Bush made some general comments about Indian policy but did not discuss Indian gaming. Abramoff was at the meeting—for which he charged the Coushatta Tribe $25,000. The change in Poncho’s position is odd in light of the fact that he and his spokespersons have maintained for more than a year that he did not meet with President Bush in May 2001.

<snip>

The White House press office has not responded to our questions about other visits Jack Abramoff might have made to the White House or about Norquist using the official residence of the President to raise funds for Americans for Tax Reform. None of the political contributions Abramoff insisted the tribes make as yet have been returned.

[ShockediSay]

1. Cheney's secret energy task force meeting -

Were bribes offered, demanded? Was Enron there? Was Abramoff?

[OKNancy]

2. OOOO - that's good

good article too. There are so many twists and turns in this thing, it's hard to keep up.

Thanks for posting this.

[Neil Lisst]

3. Bush was flying all over the country with Kenny Boy Lay in 2000.

But come August 2001, Bush hardly knew Lay.

Don't expect this WH to be forthcoming. They lie even there is videotape proving they're lying.

[rainbow4321]

7. Same song, different verse

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/05/national/w234745D97.DTL

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

<snip>

White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Thursday that Bush didn't consider Abramoff a friend. "They may have met on occasion, but the president does not know him," she said.


As for the number of Abramoff lobbying team contacts with Bush officials documented in the billing records, Healy said: "We do not know how he defines 'contacts.'"

The documents show his team had extensive access to Bush administration officials, meeting with Cheney policy advisers Ron Christie and Stephen Ruhlen, Ashcroft at the Justice Department, White House intergovernmental affairs chief Ruben Barrales, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles and others.


------------------------
PDF's w/ the article....Abramoff telling who all in the chimp administration he had met with at one time or another.

http://wid.ap.org/documents/documents/abramoff_marianas_success.pdf

http://wid.ap.org/documents/documents/greenberg_outline.pdf

[xchrom]

4. anything that furthers bushco's slide into ignominy

is a.o.k. with me.
:hi:

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Abramoff and Norquist

Goody, goody.

[MADem]

6. When there is a formal meeting, ON THE SCHEDULE

There are photos taken by the White House photographer, who is paid with OUR TAX DOLLARS. Those negatives/digital representations are stored in the WH photog's office for retrieval as required, and copies are eventually consigned to Presidential libraries.

Everyone wants their grip and grin shot with the Prez, if they are lucky enough to get IN THE ROOM with him, and if they are real good, he may actually sign it himself and not let the autopen do the job.

Some clever Lois Lane or Clark Kent needs to FOIA THOSE PICTURES. America needs to see pics of Jackie Boy IN THE ROOM with MonkeyKing.

[rainbow4321]

9. At one point it looks like the WH denied such a meeting took place

And that Coushatta Chairman Lovelin Poncho also denied it...til his signature was on one of the cashed checks, then he 'fessed up to being at the WH meeting...the meeting that the WH denied happened.


http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/008614.asp

But a spokesperson said the White House has no records that the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana or the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians attended the May 9, 2001, meeting, the Associated Press reported. The tribes each gave $25,000 to cover the $100,000 cost of the event.

However, former Coushatta Chairman Lovelin Poncho has confirmed that he attended the meeting. But Choctaw Chief Philip Martin did not, an attorney for the tribe said.

The Coushattas and the Choctaws gave the money to Americans for Tax Reform, records show. The group is headed by Grover Norquist, an associate of Bush's, and is fighting a subpoena as part of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation into Abramoff.

http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/008594.asp

Correction: The two tribes *and* two corporate sponsors paid a total of $100,000. The Choctaws, like the Coushattas, only paid $25,000.
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians paid a total of $50,000 to attend a White House meeting with President George W. Bush, The Texas Observer reports.

The Coushattas paid $25,000 and the Choctaws paid $75,000. The money went to Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist, a Republican activist with close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House.

Outgoing Coushatta Chairman Lovelin Poncho initially denied attending a "one-on-one" meeting with Bush. But his signature appeared on a check to ATR and he later recalled that he went to the White House where "Bush made some general comments about Indian policy but did not discuss Indian gaming," The Observer reports.

[MADem]

12. Amazing, eh? (!!!!!)

Someone needs to ask those guys if they had their picture taken with the Monkey...the public LIKES pictures, and they'd go a fair piece towards setting this event in the public mind. I can't imagine that anyone would pay that kind of dough without getting their little souvenir of the event!

[MagickMuffin]

8. Lobbyist Sought $9 Million to Set Bush Meeting

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - 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. There has been no evidence in the public record that Mr. Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon.

The documents also show that Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues drew up a draft contract that called for $9 million in fees to be paid to GrassRoots Interactive, the small Maryland lobbying company that his former colleagues say he controlled.

Documents, including copies of canceled checks, show that millions of dollars flowed through the company's accounts in 2003, the year it was created, including at least $2.3 million to a California consulting firm that used the same address as the law office of Mr. Abramoff's brother, Robert. A separate check for $400,000 was made out to Kay Gold, another Abramoff family company.

Mr. Abramoff, a Republican fund-raiser who once was one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, has been indicted in Florida on federal fraud charges. He is also under investigation by a federal grand jury in Washington and two Senate committees.

In a draft agreement with Gabon dated Aug. 7, 2003, Mr. Abramoff and his associates asked that $9 million in lobbying fees be paid through wire transfers - three of them, each for $3 million - to GrassRoots instead of the Washington offices of Greenberg Traurig, the large lobbying firm where he did most of his work. The agreement promised a "public relations effort related to promoting Gabon and securing a visit for President Bongo with the president of the United States."

GrassRoots Interactive came under scrutiny on Capitol Hill in recent months when the Senate Judiciary Committee considered President Bush's nomination of a senior lawyer at Tyco International, a former lobbying client of Mr. Abramoff, as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.

The lawyer, Timothy E. Flanigan, told the committee that at Mr. Abramoff's suggestion he had directed $2 million to GrassRoots from Tyco for lobbying on the company's behalf.

:popcorn:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1110-04.htm

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Oh Gawd, I hope Tyco gets sucked into this!

They deserve to go down a few notches!

[Catrina]

11. This is totally disgusting!! Send that to Tweety and the other

media whores who still think this president is some kind of good-intentioned individual, who occassionally makes a mistake or two.

Since when do people have to pay thousands or millions of dollars to the see these idiots who are only there because they work for US?? And they are already getting paid a salary to do their job.

In fact, if I remember correctly, the Constitution forbids a president getting any more money than approved of by Congress and that even that amount cannot be increased during his four year term.

That story, about the African leader being charged $9 million to get in to see this president was reported a few weeks ago and was supposed to be under investigation. It actually made it to CNN.

They won't find the money unless they look in all the offshore money-laundering places these criminals have been using, or maybe in the Sunkruz Casino cash vaults. Isn't that why the Right is so interested in the gambling industry?

Looks like the Indian tribes got a bargain! Only $25,000 each? His value must have gone down.