NYT CAPTION: President Bush shaking hands in 2001 with Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas. In the background at left is the lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Karl Rove, the president’s top adviser, is at the right. (Image resized, cropped on the left to fit window.)
Raw Story has linked to the new Time magazine story (which has the same image in color, with Abramoff’s face circled).
Karen Backman on the DFW list sent the NYT story, also published today (Feb. 11), which is by PHILIP SHENON and LOWELL BERGMAN (of “60 Minutes” fame, and now with Frontline PBS, among other projects).
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — After weeks in which the White House has declined to release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small, partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr. Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001.
By itself, the picture hardly seems worthy of the White House’s efforts to keep it out of the public eye. Mr. Abramoff, a leading Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public officials, is little more than a blurry, bearded figure in the background at a gathering of about two dozen people.
But it provides a window, albeit an opaque one, into Mr. Abramoff’s efforts to sell himself to Indian tribes as a man of influence who could open the most secure doors in Washington to them. And it leaves unanswered questions about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were supporting Mr. Bush’s 2001 tax cut plan.
The White House confirmed the authenticity of the photograph. It was provided to The New York Times by the Indian chief, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of southwest Texas. Mr. Garza, who is under indictment on federal charges of embezzling money from his tribe, said he was eager to demonstrate that he had “nothing to hide” in his dealings with the White House and Mr. Abramoff. … read all.
If I note more in the story, I’ll add it. As I post this, I haven’t had a chance to read either the NYT or Time magazine story in full.
Your HTML has the following error in the bodytext:
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Here is the link I am trying to post, without html.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0104-05.htm
WITH html
The New American System of Justice
I have been unable to post two diaries because of this. I posted it elsewhere and it was fine.
Help. Someone check the link properties by right click for me.
The second link — your embedded link — works just fine.
It just gives me the message when ever I try to submite. I have fixed it over and over, tried it without html…I am using the Photobucket link for the picture, so it should work.
are you trying to post an image, or a link?
Send me the full tags.
I will send them now. One is a link and one an image, the image is from photobucket. The error seems to refer to the link. I used the picture link today with no problem elsewhere, there at Renee’s blog. So it must the link.
Will send both.
Great! And let’s communicate by e-mail from hereon out. Thanks.
.
Timoteo Garza – the Casino Politico – Craps Out
(The Texas Observer) 2-4-2005
AUSTIN Texas — Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt adopted these rules over the objections of several state leaders, including Texas Governor George W. Bush, who argued that Babbitt’s rules exceeded his legal authority. Less than two years after Babbitt adopted these rules, the big chief in Austin became the big chief in Washington.
Chief Bush then began enforcing the Babbitt rules he once decried. Last year, Bush’s Interior Secretary notified Texas that she would use Babbitt’s rules to process the Kickapoo gambling application. Texas Attorney General Abbott retaliated by filing a lawsuit against the Interior Secretary. That pending federal lawsuit echoes Bush’s gubernatorial claim that the Interior Secretary lacks independent authority to process the Kickapoo gaming application. One of many U.S. attorneys of record defending the Bush administration from this lawsuit is U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, the same Bush appointee who is prosecuting the old Kickapoo regime.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Additional A/B photos scrubbed from a website, allegedly at WH request – found on the Internet Archive cache HERE.
Peace
.
The president’s spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that the presence of the lobbyist and Mr. Raul Garza at the meeting, which was organized to thank a group of state legislators who supported the president’s 2001 tax cut program, did not suggest that Mr. Abramoff had any special influence at the White House.
Mr. Bush has said he cannot recall having met Mr. Abramoff, though the White House has not disputed accounts that Mr. Abramoff visited the White House on several occasions.
Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Abramoff’s name had not appeared on the invitation list of the May 2001 meeting and that it was unclear how the lobbyist had entered the White House grounds.
A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff had no comment on the photograph or on his contacts with Mr. Garza.
It is not clear how Mr. Abramoff might have gotten Mr. Garza included in the president’s meeting. White House records show the meeting was also attended by Grover Norquist, a friend of Mr. Abramoff’s who is a leading conservative strategist and president of the group Americans for Tax Reform, which was helping to rally support for Mr. Bush’s tax cuts.
A spokesman for Mr. Norquist declined to comment on Mr. Norquist’s involvement in the meeting.
(Bloomberg) Jan. 22 — White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said last week that Abramoff attended White House Hanukkah receptions in 2001 and 2002 and ”a few staff-level meetings”. McClellan refused to say who Abramoff met with or what the meetings were about.
Abramoff, 46, pleaded guilty Jan. 3 to conspiracy to corrupt public officials and has agreed to cooperate in a federal investigation into influence peddling in Washington.
Fund Raising
Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for Bush’s 2004 campaign, qualifying him for the ”Pioneer” donor club.
Garza’s meeting with Bush took place in 2001 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. Garza said the session was arranged with the help of Abramoff and Grover Norquist, a Republican activist, the magazine reported.
Garza’s tribe owned a casino in Bush’s home state of Texas, and there is no indication the administration acted to benefit the Kickapoo tribe at Abramoff’s behest, Time said.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
It’s also now up at Yahoo! News. Go rate it up to keep it out there where the sheeple will see it. Once again, prrof that the liars just keep on lying and spinning away. How much more proof does an independent council need to put these fuckers away?