[DEBATE] : Abramoff's White House "Fruit"

[Riaz K Tayob]

Abramoff's White House "Fruit"

Monday 09 June 2008

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by: Nick Baumann, Mother Jones

photo
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
(Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)

    Despite administration denials, superlobbyist-turned-felon Jack 
Abramoff did have political traction in the White House, according to a 
damning draft report released Monday by Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-Calif.) 
House government oversight committee. Among the findings: Before he was 
disgraced, Abramoff provided gifts and meals to White House officials, 
met with President George W. Bush at least six times, and influenced a 
State Department dismissal and a presidential political endorsement.

    While the draft report does not allege that Abramoff influenced any 
decision taken by President Bush himself, the latest revelations seem to 
confirm the conclusions of an earlier oversight committee report 
sketching out Abramoff's influence in the White House. The first report, 
issued in September 2006, used billing records and emails from 
Abramoff's firm as its main sources of information. White House 
spokeswoman Dana Perino subsequently attacked the first report for being 
based on "fraudulent" records, and then-White House spokesman Tony Snow 
claimed Abramoff "got nothing" from his efforts at 1600 Pennsylvania.

    Instead of giving up in the face of the administration's attacks on 
the committee's first report, Rep. Waxman requested the White House's 
own information about its contacts with the superlobbyist. The White 
House's own records confirmed what Tony Snow had denied: Abramoff often 
got what he wanted from the White House, even when what Abramoff wanted 
went against the advice of the president's own party. In the new report, 
the committee hammers the administration for allowing its 
representatives to initially mischaracterize Abramoff's relationship 
with the White House: "the White House failed to conduct even the most 
basic internal investigation of the White House relationship with Mr. 
Abramoff before making public statements characterizing the connection 
between Mr. Abramoff and the White House."

    The latest findings strongly imply that Abramoff's success was at 
least partially due to his use of what one administration official 
referred to as "fruit": Gifts including meals and sports tickets. 
According to the White House documents and testimony, White House 
officials asked for or received tickets from Abramoff associates on 21 
confirmed occasions. The report says:

    The White House documents corroborate that White House officials 
joined Abramoff team members for expensive meals and that White House 
officials were offered and accepted expensive tickets to sporting and 
entertainment events from Abramoff associates. In fact, the White House 
documents contain numerous examples of tickets offered to White House 
officials that were not reflected in the [documents the 2006 report was 
based on].

    Whether or not the "fruit" was actually part of a quid pro quo, the 
new findings make clear that Abramoff got results for his White House 
lobbying efforts. Perhaps Abramoff's greatest success in lobbying White 
House officials was to force the dismissal of Alan Stayman, a State 
Department employee. Stayman was in charge of the federal government's 
relationship with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a 
major Abramoff client. Stayman had taken actions in a previous 
government job that displeased the CNMI government. The CNMI, and, by 
extension, Abramoff, wanted him gone. According to the committee's 2006 
report:

    Stayman was an official in the Department of the Interior's Office 
of Insular Affairs during the 1990s who advocated labor reforms for the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands that Abramoff opposed on 
behalf of his client, which was the Commonwealth.

    The committee's latest report corroborates the 2006 report's 
information about the firing of Alan Stayman. Three pieces of evidence 
highlighted in the new report indicate that Stayman's firing was 
politically motivated (i.e., came from the White House). The first is a 
deposition by Monica Kladakis, then-Deputy Associate Director in the 
White House Office of Presidential Personnel (OPP), in which Kladakis 
confirmed, according to the report, that "OPP became involved in Mr. 
Stayman's removal after White House officials were contacted by Mr. 
Abramoff's team." The second piece of evidence is a July 2001 e-mail in 
which Stuart Holiday, then-Associate Director of OPP, says: "We pulled 
the plug on [Stayman]." Finally, according to the report, "in the 
internal White House communications about Mr. Stayman's case, White 
House officials repeatedly noted they would be giving status reports to 
Abramoff lobbyists." The new evidence corroborates the information from 
Abramoff's firm's records, which include a report by an Abramoff 
associate that then-White House political director had promised to get 
Stayman "fired."

    The White House documents highlighted in the new report seem to 
indicate that, like the fired U.S. attorneys, Stayman was dismissed 
despite good reviews from his superiors and general support in the State 
Department for extending his tenure. A 2001 memo from James Kelly, the 
Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, 
asked that Stayman remain in his position "until at least November 4, 
2003." And Kladakis testified that Kelly had been "very upset at the 
idea of us having Stayman leave."

    The White House documents in the new report also provide evidence 
that the White House sought Abramoff's input when making decisions about 
political appointments to the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA), which, 
according to its website, "has administrative responsibility for 
coordinating federal policy" in the Pacific island territories where 
Abramoff had clients. In one example, Matthew Schlapp, the Director of 
the White House Office of Public Affairs from 2003 to 2005, asked a 
White House staffer to send an Abramoff associate the resume of a 
candidate for a position at OIA. The same day, Schlapp sent then-Karl 
Rove assistant (and former Jack Abramoff assistant) Susan Ralston an 
email. In the email, Schlapp told Ralston that he had asked the Abramoff 
associate to "check out" the candidate for the OIA position. As it 
turned out, Mr. Abramoff opposed the candidate, who did not receive the 
appointment.

    In addition to orchestrating Stayman's removal and influencing OIA 
personnel decisions, Abramoff got the White House to agree to refrain 
from endorsing the Republican candidate in CNMI gubernatorial election. 
(Abramoff supported a third-party candidate). According to the 2006 
report, Abramoff's efforts prompted Ralston, Karl Rove's assistant, to 
email Abramoff, writing, "You win :) . KR said no endorsement."

    Perhaps most shockingly, the new report provides evidence that 
Abramoff's preferences even took precedence over those of the Republican 
National Committee, which supported endorsing the GOP candidate. 
According to the report, on October 17, 2001, an Abramoff associate 
emailed Matthew Schlapp and Ken Mehlman (then the director of the White 
House Office of Political Affairs). The Abramoff associate asked Schlapp 
and Mehlman for a "huge favor": that the White House avoid endorsing the 
GOP candidate in the CNMI gubernatorial election. In a follow-up email, 
the Abramoff associate sent Schlapp background on the gubernatorial 
candidate Abramoff wanted the White House to avoid endorsing. Mehmlan 
got right on it:

    Mr. Mehlman forwarded the [Abramoff associate's] request to Leonard 
Rodriguez, who worked under Mr. Mehlman in the Office of Political 
Affairs, instructing, "Please advise on whether to do this or not, 
reaching out to the relevant people at the RNC." Mr. Schlapp forwarded 
the background [on the candidate] to Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez then 
followed up with the RNC, was told that the RNC's Western Regional 
Political Director "strongly recommends that [the candidate] receive an 
endorsement from President Bush," and forwarded this information to Mr. 
Mehlman and Mr. Schlapp.

    Needless to say, the recommendation of the RNC's Western Regional 
Political Director was ignored: No endorsement came. Despite 
administration officials' denials, it seems that in the Bush White 
House, Jack Abramoff and his clients had more pull than the President's 
own party.