Abramoff Tied to Bush White House

[kerrygoddess]

Abramoff Tied to Bush White House
6 May 2005

Move over Tom DeLay… The scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff seems to have taken another twist today as AP News reports that Abramoff had roughly 200 contacts with the Bush administration during Bush’s first year in office.

Abramoff and his lobbying team met with Bush administration officials as they sought to influence Bush's hires and pressed him to keep the Northern Mariana Islands free from the minimum wage law, documents show.

"Our standing with the new administration promises to be solid as several friends of the CNMI (islands) will soon be taking high-ranking positions in the Administration, including within the Interior Department," Abramoff wrote in a January 2001 letter in which he persuaded the island government to follow him as a client to his new lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.

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

AP News has provided two documents regarding the dirty dealing of Abramoff & Co and the Bush administration.

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