"Top Bush officials" dined w/ Abramoff's people (Norquist), lobbyists

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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.

The Indian tribes' participation in the ATR dinners and the White House visits underscores the long and successful political partnership that Norquist and Abramoff have maintained since the early 1980s, when Norquist managed Abramoff's successful campaign to be chairman of the College Republicans. The pair's friendship and political ties continued through the '80s as they worked on conservative causes. It blossomed in the decade after the GOP captured Congress in 1994 and Abramoff began his meteoric rise as a GOP lobbyist and fundraiser.

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"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.