Raw Story: Bush appointee lobbied for front group with Abramoff

[BuyingThyme]

Anybody know what this is?

http://rawstory.com/

ON EDIT: Here's the updated link:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Documents_show_extent_of_ties_between_0112.html

[stop the bleeding]

1. My money is on Steven Griles - was a lobbyist for the coal mining industry

and then got appointed to a Secretary post in the Dept. of Interior, but that is just a guess.

[BuyingThyme]

2. You might be right.

J. Steven Griles: Griles was deputy secretary of the Interior Department from July 2001 to January 2005. E-mails released by congressional investigators show he had numerous meetings, telephone calls and other contacts with Jack Abramoff concerning the lobbyist's tribal clients. According to the e-mails, Griles advised Abramoff how to get members of Congress to pressure the department and provided him information about Interior decision-making. The e-mails show Abramoff tried to influence Griles through Italia Federici, head of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.

In testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Griles denied having any special relationship with Abramoff. Since leaving office, Griles has joined former White House national energy policy director Andrew Lundquist and former House member George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) to form the political lobbying firm of Lundquist, Nethercutt & Griles, LLC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/12/23/CU2005122300939.html#griles

[stop the bleeding]

3. I only know this because there were 2 threads that I was trying kick

for other author's named: LSK and nothing without hope, I can not locate the threads on this in the archives

[stop the bleeding]

4. found it! here is the link for the 2 threads

Griles = Coal Mining Disaster ---- Read this if you want the truth

[BuyingThyme]

5. This could be a timely disclosure.

I hope RS has something nasty.

[stop the bleeding]

6. Did you check out the links with the research on Griles- leave it to DU

be ahead of the game - whether it relates the RS article remains to be seen but this issue of Griles has completely floated under the Radar here at DU and the MSM

[BuyingThyme]

10. The CM are looking for Dems, and the DU is fascinated with Alito.

[stop the bleeding]

7. Patrick Pizzella ????

from Rawstory:http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Documents_show_extent_of_ties_between_0112.html

The official, Patrick Pizzella, was an Abramoff lieutenant who lobbied on behalf of at least five clients that are now the subject of investigations: E-Lottery, Naftasib, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands and the Saginaw Chippewas. Pizzella paired with Abramoff at Washington lobby shop Preston Gates Ellis and Rouvelas Meeds, working together on more than $11 million in accounts.

Rediscovered records show that Pizzella lobbied on behalf of a Bahamian company the Washington Post revealed to be a front organization for a Russian oil business. They also show that Pizzella arranged numerous trips for conservative activists with Abramoff and another Preston Gates lobbyist, David Safavian, to a U.S. territory in the Pacific, paid for by the territory.

<snip>

A newly discovered Senate lobbying record filed in 1997 (PDF file) lists Pizzella as "Director of Coalitions" for Chelsea Commercial, a purported Bahamas based organization lobbying for Russian trade liberalization. The Washington Post revealed last April that Chelsea Commercial appeared to have been little more than a front group for a Russian oil and gas company, Naftasib.

Chelsea Commercial, according to the Post, underwrote a trip taken by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Pizzella colleague Jack Abramoff by funneling money through a Washington nonprofit. The nonprofit paid for a trip taken by DeLay along with Abramoff and former DeLay aide Ed Buckham during which the lobbyists met with DeLay and key Russian officials.


**********

we need find out more about this: Chelsea Commercial

[stop the bleeding]

8. Kicking

[BuyingThyme]

9. I wonder what happens on a "Think Tank Trip."

Does it involve under-aged prostitutes?

[BuyingThyme]

11. ..

[stop the bleeding]

12. created link in the LBN on this and have people researching info

right now, you may want to check it out for reference.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=edit&forum=102&topic_id=2037218&mesg_id=2037218

[BuyingThyme]

14. It looks like you pasted an edit link.

[stop the bleeding]

15. oops here is a better one - this fell off the radar today because of

Alito

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2037218&mesg_id=2037218

[donkeyotay]

13. Recall the recent Pombo legislation opening public lands to private

enterprise? So, that little bit of bidness also links back to Abramoff. Big surprise - the media is missing the story. This is the Mother of All Corruption Scandals. This was organized crime carried out using military standards of war, an inside operation that hid behind free enterprise, religion, and national security, a treasonous assault exploiting democracy. This isn't a few bad apples in the GOP, this is an organized crime. RICO. Clean out the foreign accounts and then hang em.

[BuyingThyme]

16. kcik

[BuyingThyme]

17. kcik

[BuyingThyme]

18. kcik

[Sydnie]

19. Kick n/t