CHB: Bush often met with, and praised, corrupt lobbyist (Abramoff)

[sabra]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8013.shtml

Bush often met with, and praised, corrupt lobbyist
By DOUG THOMPSON

Although White House spokesliar Scott McClellan claims lobbyist/crook du jour Jack Abramoff only met with administration staff two or three times, the scandal ridden buyer of influence enjoyed frequent private meetings with President George W. Bush, who referred to Abramoff as “one of this administration’s greatest friends.”

...

A former DeLay staffer who is cooperating with the investigation into both Abramoff and the disgraced GOP leader’s activities, has told investigators that Abramoff and DeLay visited Bush at his ranch on at least four occasions in 2003 and 2004.

...

Abramoff kept a photo of he and Bush, shot at the Crawford ranch, in his office in Washington. The autograph from Bush said “to my great friend Jack.”

Dale Knally, a campaign worker in the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, recalls a meeting between Bush and Abramoff during a campaign stop in Florida.

“He put his arm around Abramoff and told us that ‘this man is one of this administration’s greatest friends,’” Knally recalls. Knally declined a job in the Bush administration and returned to school after the election and remembers some in the campaign privately calling Abramoff a “sleazeball.”

[MADem]

1. The RANCH!!! The RANCH!!!! Oh, PRICELESS!

"To my GREAT FRIEND JACK!!!!" That ain't the autopen at work, folks, that's HAND WRITTEN!!!!

This is gettin' good......someone needs to shake loose a copy of that picture!

[Glimmer of Hope]

3. I wonder if it was seized by authorities as part of their investigation!!!

[MADem]

11. Someone, somewhere HAS to have a pic of Jack in his office

...with that photo in the background...for starters. And nothing would surprise me--for all we know, Fitz could be using it as a screensaver.....!!!!!!!!

[CrazyOrangeCat]

12. If the photo really exists . . .

. . . you better believe the drones in black suits are scrambling to nab every copy.

[spanone]

17. Yes! and stored in the fireplace over the last cold spell.

[11cents]

2. "...a photo of he and Bush"?

I hope Doug Thompson isn't an "English Only" kind of guy, because if he is he's got some catching up to do.

A photo of Abramoff "clearing brush" would be nice.

[WarNoMore]

4. Speaking of Florida,

can't help wondering about any connections between Abramoff and Jeb.

[MissWaverly]

41. heard rumor that Abramoff has ties to Choicepoint

Choicepoint was the corporation that flushed all those felons off the voting rolls in
2000 in Florida, many of which had simply just gotten a traffic ticket, I have also heard
that Ashcroft now is getting paid to lobby for Choicepoint.

[starroute]

45. I know of Greenberg Traurig connections -- not Abramoff

A fellow named Fred Baggett is or was both the head of Greenberg Traurig's National Governmental Affairs Practice and the attorney for the Florida Association of Court Clerks, which was originally supposed to create a revised voter database after the 2000 fiasco. The deal with the clerks fell through under obscure circumstances, and the assignment was handed to Accenture instead.

See: http://www.sptimes.com/News/072901/Columns/Huge_voter_database_l.shtml

It isn't clear whether or not Baggett actually played a role in sabotaging the deal -- but this could be the source of the Abramoff/Choicepoint rumor.

[MissWaverly]

48. isn't it true that the law firm that represented bush in Florida

for the recount was never paid.

[DancingBear]

5. If this is indeed true, there are going to be a lot of "mea culpas" on DU

I'll be curious to see if indeed this picture turns up anywhere.

Many here feel that CHB does not deal in true facts, but instead works off the "sources say" page of gossipy journalism.

If they get this one right I for one will look at them differently. Right now I'm at about a "5" on the 1-10 believability scale, bit I'm always looking for reasons to increase my score. :)

[sabra]

10. I hear you.... though he does give a source for one of the points

in the report with Dale Knally.

[MADem]

13. I've met that guy, I don't KNOW him, but I did meet him once

He doesn't seem like a flake to me, and he seemed to know EVERYONE in the room. This was during the Clinton business, and he was on the other side of the issue during that time, so I was not predisposed to warm up to him. But in fairness, he did not seem unhinged or disconnected with reality, and he couldn't move more than a few feet without someone with Hill credentials coming up and chatting with him.

He used to be a staffer on the Hill under Reagan, and a lot of his fellow staffers have moved well up the food chain. I think he goes out of his way not to burn his friends, which results in light sourcing.

[onenote]

29. you've met "Dale Knally"? Really? Cause I'm dubious as to whether hes real

I just did a google search on the name Dale Knally and came up with nothing, nada, zilch. If this guy has been around since the Reagan days...hell, if this guy is a living breathing human...his name would show up somewhere on the 'net. Makes me wonder....

onenote

[MADem]

46. No, I've met Doug Thompson

I am not known to hang out with GOP low-level campaign operatives! From the article, it seemed that the Knally guy was fairly young. It is THOMPSON who used to be a staffer on the Hill, and a reporter for local and regional papers before that. He had a problem with hitting the sauce, but he is on the wagon nowadays.

[onenote]

47. thanks for clearing that up

onenote

[roguevalley]

43. he gave a mea culpa for being a repub. more than most, he apologized

and took responsibility.

[roguevalley]

42. he's been right too many times. I don't pick and choose when he's

to be believed or not. I read him and then google. He hates bush more than me.

[RufusEarl]

6. Great news, Buttttt

Don't forget the source! I keep hearing around here about CHB, and the lack of solid information. I hope it's true, but I would like to see the pictures or a second source.

[CrackpotAmerica]

50. Thank you for pointing that out...

I try to mention it about CHB whenever I encounter a thread citing it.

Remember, friends, credibility is more important than what we want to hear!

:grouphug:

[libodem]

7. Last week they claimed

* didn't quite know who Abramoff even was, let alone meeting with him.

[sabra]

16. watch Scotty spin this later, "oh you said Abramoff, I thought it was

Ibramoff..."

reminds me of this quote from the Birdcage:

Oh yes... Coldeman. The "d" is silent in America. It's Cole D'Isle au Man, or Cole of the Isle of Man, in France, where Armand's chateau is, Cold-e-man in Greece where Armand's work is, and finally the vulgar Coleman in Florida where Armand's home is, so actually, we don't know where we are until we hear our last name pronounced! Ahahahahahahaaaaa!

[bettyellen]

8. maybe David Gregory can bring up the Knally quote...

since he's not an "unnamed source"

[11cents]

14. He would have to find Dale Knally first, of course.

No hits for him on Google.

[bettyellen]

22. well, he has more resources than we do, i'm sure google

is just one of many. getting knally to repeat it may be tough though.
hell, i'm sure CHB would give up the contact info, since they named the name.

[onenote]

31. I'm betting that there is no "dale knally"

Not only does the name produce zero hits on google, even just the last name "knally" produces a big fat zero on opensecrets.org. I could be wrong, but at the moment there's no evidence he's anything other than a fictional creation of CHB.

onenote

[bettyellen]

32. my name turns up only dead people on geneaolgy pages, so....

you'd have to know my nickname to turn up anything that's actually me. and i've worked on 5-6 campaigns.
so there ought to be better ways than google. jeeze i hope so.
i don't know CHB except there's usually alot of unsourced rumours. have you seen cases in the past where they (or this writer) made up the names of non-existant people? why would they make up a name when they usually don't feel compeeled to name names? just curious, tks!

[onenote]

35. Knally is pretty unusual name

In fact, it appears to be pretty much non-existant as a name in the United States. Just seems a bit fishy. I have no idea whether making up names is part of CHB's regular m.o., although it appears that making up stuff would not be anything new for CHB.

Also, its my impression that this guy isn't supposed to be just some envelope stuffer. In my 30 plus years experience in DC, it would be unusual for such a person to never have given to any political campaign. But no one with the name of Knally (dale or otherwise) shows up in the records.

onenote

[bettyellen]

36. fair enough. i've heard alot of bad about CHB, because it's unsourced...

so this seemed a bit out of the ordinary. the reporter would be a real idiot for making up a name, i hope it's not the case.
the deal is, since the breakup of the phone company, it is a lot harder to find current records on people, so i wondered about that part of it.
dayum, wouldn't you love for that photo (if it exists) to get out though!
:hi:

[txindy]

38. Since Jack served as a conduit to Junior for $25K per meeting,

then I can well imagine that photo truly exists. Jack could point to it and indicate to a potential client just how close he is to Junior.

[onenote]

39. the photo wouldn't surprise me. Meetings at Crawford? Need more proof

Until I see evidence that Knally is a real person, statements attributed to him about Abramoff meeting chimpy in Crawford have rather limited credibility. But it would be very surprising to me if Jack didn't have one or more pics of him with Chimpy, even if they were taken at one of the "large" events the WH admits he attended.

Personally, it wouldn't surprise me if Jack didn't spend much time with chimpy. However, I expect he had a whole lot of meetings with Rove and the rest of the political operatives. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Scottie's suggestion that there only a handful of meetings between Rove and Abramoff comes back to bite him in the ass (if the WH can be forced to cough up records).

onenote

[bettyellen]

40. that photo would make the front page. i'm sure that's why there's a will

to believe.
hell, i just wish it all could hit the fan right now, before the country is damaged any further.
tks for the feedback!
B

[EC]

44. Why would a college aged campaigne WORKER show up on

a google search? That would be like one of us showing up in a search wouldn't it? It also says he went back to school, so there may be the place to look, or the GOP site if there is a list of campaigne workers from the 2004 campaigne.

[phoebe]

9. remember "at least 195 contacts" with the White House/Bush administration

in the space of 9 months..Wonder if he was at the ranch while Ariel Sharon was there - now THAT would be a story..

for those DU'ers that haven't seen this great article..

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

snip

The reception Abramoff's team received from the Bush administration was in stark contrast to the chilly relations of the Clinton years. Abramoff, then at the Preston Gates firm, scored few meetings with Clinton aides and the lobbyist and the islands vehemently opposed White House attempts to extend U.S. labor laws to the territory's clothing factories

snip

The documents show his team also 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.

snip

"We have worked with WH Office of Presidential Personnel to ensure that CNMI-relevant positions at various agencies are not awarded to enemies of CNMI," Abramoff's team wrote the Marianas in an October 2001 report on its work for the year.

snip

Abramoff and his wife each gave $5,000 to Bush's 2000 recount fund and the maximum $1,000 to his 2000 campaign. By mid-2003, Abramoff had raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed "pioneers."

[bettyellen]

23. wow, i missed that one. thanks.

[rainbow4321]

25. Chimp's top officials had dinners w/ those under investigation

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1001nj1.htm


About once a month since 2001, Grover Norquist has invited a top Bush administration official or a Republican congressional leader to dine with him and some 20 or 30 corporate lobbyists who help subsidize Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group that Norquist heads.

The dinners at Norquist's Washington, D.C., home aren't cheap: The lobbyists pay ATR between $10,000 and $25,000 a year for the privilege of attending several of the intimate get-togethers, which have featured the likes of White House political guru Karl Rove and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, according to several lobbyists who have attended.

ATR also boosted the interests of another big Abramoff client -- the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The government of the Marianas, a chain of Pacific Ocean islands that is a U.S. territory, has long fought against efforts by congressional Democrats to impose American minimum-wage and labor rules on the island nation's garment industry. According to sources familiar with ATR finances, the group sent Marianas officials a bill for $10,000 at least once in the mid-1990s for attendance at Norquist's tax policy dinners.

"The Marianas became a great cause celebre at the Wednesday meetings shortly after the Republicans took power," recalled Marshall Wittman, a onetime Christian Coalition lobbyist who now works for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

[seafan]

15. This part is interesting. We need more people like this to talk publicly.

snip from original article:

Dale Knally, a campaign worker in the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, recalls a meeting between Bush and Abramoff during a campaign stop in Florida.

“He put his arm around Abramoff and told us that ‘this man is one of this administration’s greatest friends,’” Knally recalls. Knally declined a job in the Bush administration and returned to school after the election and remembers some in the campaign privately calling Abramoff a “sleazeball.”

“That campaign taught me that I never wanted anything to do with the Bush administration or politics again,” Knally said. “No matter how many showers I took, I couldn’t wash away the stench.”

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8013.shtml

[wordpix2]

19. " I couldn’t wash away the stench."--Knally speaking of * campaign

Quote of the week!

[jsamuel]

18. No time for Cindy Sheehan, but plenty for Abramoff and his buddies

[Sadie5]

20. Well! Well! Well!

Somebody had to help Bush with all that brush clearing.

[Scout1071]

21. "Jack-off's doing a heckuva job"........

We must find the photo of them together at the ranch! Only "special" friends get invited to the ranch.

[Doctor_J]

24. Jackie boy, er, Mr. Abramoff

I don't remember meeting with him.

[sabra]

26. LOL - good one

[schmuls]

27. *, you are so busted!!

[Danieljay]

28. Capitol Hill Blue? Come on.....

show me a photo or something. I don't believe this rag.

[onenote]

30. pretty dubious stuff -- "dale knally"

CHB cites a former campaign worker named "Dale Knally". But I can't find any evidence that such a person exists on the planet. No references on google. No evidence of anyone with the last name "Knally" ever making a political contribution to anyone. I'd be careful about believing this one...

onenote

[troubleinwinter]

34. I'm with ya.

I found zero on google for this 'person'. Glad you checked political contributions.

[Beam Me Up]

33. Do you believe the New York Times?

If so, WHY?

[txindy]

37. Ah, so this was the source of the sonic boom I heard earlier.

I was wondering what that was. ;) Junior's world had just been rocked. Mightily, too.

Good times. Goooood times! :toast:

[jim3775]

49. There is a reason why none of the major blogs have picked up on this

Link

Just Sayin', I don't want to start a flamewar.