The Foley Coverup Timeline
The Foley Coverup Timeline
On Friday, Sept. 29, 2006, Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress after ABC News published inappropriate emails and sexually explicit instant messages that Foley sent to underage boys.
Subsequently, it’s become clear that Congressional leadership “knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues.” Here is a timeline of the coverup, based on published reports:
2000 — Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) informed of improper Foley Internet messages that made a page feel uncomfortable with the direction Foley was taking their email relationship. Kolbe claims he never personally confronted Foley, but rather recommended that the complaint be passed along to his office. [Washington Post, 10/9/06; Arizona Republic, 10/11/06]
2001 — A Republican staff member warns pages “to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley.” A former page says that they were told “don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff.” [ABC, 10/1/06]
2003 — Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) has sexually explicit IM exchanges with an underage boy who worked as a Congressional page. [ABC News, 9/29/06]
2003 — Foley’s former aide Kirk Fordham told The Associated Press that “when he learned about Foley’s inappropriate behavior toward pages, he had ‘more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene,’ alluding to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert’s office denied the explosive allegations.” [CBS News, 10/5/06]
APRIL 2003 — Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupts a House vote on the 2003 Iraq supplemental to “engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page.” [ABC, 10/3/06]
SUMMER 2005 — Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) sends inappropriate emails to another former Congressional page. [CREW]
SEPTEMBER 2005 — Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), who sponsored the page, learns “of the e-mails from a reporter.” [AP, 9/29/06; CQ, 9/30/06]
FALL 2005 — “Tim Kennedy, a staff assistant in the [Speaker J. Denis Hastert's] Office, received a telephone call from Congressman Rodney Alexander’s Chief of Staff who indicated that he had an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House page…[Mike] Stokke [Deputy Chief of Staff for Speaker Hastert] called the Clerk and asked him to come to the Speaker’s Office so that he could put him together with Congressman Alexander’s Chief of Staff.” [Hastert Statement, 9/30/06]
LATE 2005 — Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Chairman of the House Page Board, “was notified by the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program, that he had been told by Congressman Rodney Alexander (R-LA) about an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House Page.” Shimkus interviewed Foley and told him “to cease all contact with this former house page.” He did not inform Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI), the only Democrat on the House page Board. [Roll Call, 9/29/06]
EARLY 2006 — Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) talks Foley into running for another term. Bob Novak reported, “A member of the House leadership told me that Foley, under continuous political pressure because of his sexual orientation, was considering not seeking a seventh term this year but that Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), talked him into running.” [New York Post, 10/4/06]
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006 — Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), whose office first received the complaint from the page, told Boehner about Foley’s inappropriate e-mails, and Boehner sent him to Tom Reynolds. Alexander tells Reynolds about “the existence of e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander’s.” Reynolds tells Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) about the emails and his conversation with Alexander. [Reynolds Statement, 9/30/06; Roll Call, 9/30/06; Hastert Statement, 9/30/06; Chicago Tribune, 10/3/06]
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President Bush fired Colin Powell.
President Bush fired Colin Powell.
“On Wednesday, November 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point. ‘The president would like to make a change,’ Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words ‘resign’ or ‘fire.’ … Bush wanted Powell’s resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.”
Bush Officials May Have Covered Up Rice-Tenet Meeting From 9/11 Commission
Bush Officials May Have Covered Up Rice-Tenet Meeting From 9/11 Commission
[Our guest blogger, Peter Rundlet, was a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission.]
Most of the world has now seen the infamous picture of President Bush tending to his ranch on August 6, 2001, the day he received the ultra-classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) that included a report entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.” And most Americans have also heard of the so-called “Phoenix Memo” that an FBI agent in Phoenix sent to FBI headquarters on July 10, 2001, which advised of the “possibility of a coordinated effort” by bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools.
As a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, I became very familiar with both the PDB and the Phoenix Memo, as well as the tragic consequences of the failure to detect and stop the plot. A mixture of shock, anger, and sadness overcame me when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10, 2001:
They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and “sounded the loudest warning” to the White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.
Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, “They felt the brushoff.”
If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know. Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation — questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the Commission been told about this significant meeting. Suspiciously, the Commissioners and the staff investigating the administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the meeting. As Commissioner Jamie Gorelick pointed out, “We didn’t know about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it.”
The Commission interviewed Condoleezza Rice privately and during public testimony; it interviewed George Tenet three times privately and during public testimony; and Cofer Black was also interviewed privately and publicly. All of them were obligated to tell the truth. Apparently, none of them described this meeting, the purpose of which clearly was central to the Commission’s investigation. Moreover, document requests to both the White House and to the CIA should have revealed the fact that this meeting took place. Now, more than two years after the release of the Commission’s report, we learn of this meeting from Bob Woodward.
Was it covered up? It is hard to come to a different conclusion. If one could suspend disbelief to accept that all three officials forgot about the meeting when they were interviewed, then one possibility is that the memory of one of them was later jogged by notes or documents that describe the meeting. If such documents exist, the 9/11 Commission should have seen them. According to Woodward’s book, Cofer Black exonerates them all this way: “Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork about the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.” The notion that both the 9/11 Commission and the Congressional Joint Inquiry that investigated the intelligence prior to 9/11 did not want to know about such essential information is simply absurd. At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an outrage. Very possibly, someone committed a crime. And worst of all, they failed to stop the plot.
– Peter Rundlet
Rep. Reynolds confirms: Hastert knew.
Rep. Reynolds confirms: Hastert knew.
Roll Call reports that Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) issued a statement today in which he said that he informed Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) in early 2006 of allegations of improper contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) and at least one former male page. “Hastert’s response to Reynolds’ warning remains unclear. Hastert’s staff insisted Friday night that he was not told of the Foley allegations and are scrambling to respond to Reynolds’ statement.”
ThinkFast: September 30, 2006 — ‘State of Denial’ Edition
ThinkFast: September 30, 2006 — ‘State of Denial’ Edition
Woodward quotes Iraq war commander Gen. John Abizaid telling two retired generals in 2005, “We’ve got to get the [expletive] out.” In March 2006, Abizaid visited Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and “indicated he wanted to speak frankly. According to Murtha, Abizaid raised his hand for emphasis, held his thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch from each other and said, ‘We’re that far apart.’”
In February 2005, two weeks after Condi Rice became secretary of state, her top aide Phillip Zelikow “presented her with a 15-page, single-spaced secret memo” summing up his fact-finding trip to Iraq. “At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change,” Zelikow wrote.
Woodward writes, in those moments “where Bush had someone from the field there in the chair beside him [in the Oval Office], he did not press, did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought. The whole atmosphere too often resembled a royal court, with Cheney and Rice in attendance, some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all.”
In a seven-page memo in July 2004, a “longtime friend” of Donald Rumsfeld, Steve Herbits, described Rumsfeld’s “style of operation”: “Indecisive, contrary to popular image. Would not accept that some people in some areas were smarter than he. . . . Trusts very few people. Very, very cautious. Rubber glove syndrome — a tendency not to leave his fingerprints on decisions.”
“Woodward said he pushed repeatedly to interview Bush,” Howie Kurtz writes. “But White House counselor Dan Bartlett and national security adviser Stephen Hadley, after a period of cooperation, told him an interview was unlikely and then stopped returning his calls,” which Woodward attributes “to Bush’s declining popularity.”
White House Falsely Claimed Rove Only Had A ‘Casual Relationship’ With Abramoff
White House Falsely Claimed Rove Only Had A ‘Casual Relationship’ With Abramoff
A House Government Reform Committee report documents at least 82 contacts between Karl Rove’s office and Jack Abramoff’s lobbying team. The Committee describes at least ten “direct contacts” between Abramoff and Rove, seven of which were instances of lobbying.
And yet, Karl Rove told Scott McClellan that his relationship with Abramoff was “more of a casual relationship” than a business one.
MCCLELLAN: Yes [Rove] knows Mr. Abramoff. They are both former heads of the College Republicans. That’s how they got to know each other way back — I think it was in the early ’80s. And my understanding is that Karl would describe it as more of a casual relationship than a business relationship. That’s what he has said. [White House Press Briefing, 1/17/06]
But excerpts from the House report indicate that there was an extensive business relationship between Rove and Abramoff:
On March 6, 2001, Abramoff wrote in an e-mail to Dennis Stephens that he had a “great meeting” with Karl Rove to discuss an appointment to the Department of Interior. (p. 33)
On April 5, 2002, Abramoff sent an e-mail to his assistant asking the assistant to add to his schedule “a Karl Rove/SagChip breakfast on the 16th at 8 am. Location tbd.” According to the documents, this was an event with Karl Rove and “tribal representatives and leaders” from the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. (p. 37)
In one e-mail to a client, Abramoff expressed the view that Rove did not want to be perceived publicly as taking actions that benefited Abramoff. … “It gives me a lot of cover, which is one of the things Karl was worried about. It does not benefit them to be doing stuff on this publicly for me, as you can imagine, and he was really worried that we would cause a NYT like piece.” (p. 38)
Hastert knew.
Hastert knew.
From the the Washington Post:
The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley’s GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some “contact” between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him “we’re taking care of it.”
It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged e-mails between Foley and the boy.
Josh Marshall has much more on this story.
Hastert: Liberals Want To Take ‘The 130 Most Treacherous People In The World’ and ‘Release Them Out In The Public’
Hastert: Liberals Want To Take ‘The 130 Most Treacherous People In The World’ and ‘Release Them Out In The Public’
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said earlier this week that liberals wanted to “coddle” terrorists. Asked about his comments today on Fox News, Hastert expanded his criticisms. According to Hastert, liberals want to take “the 130 most treacherous people, probably in the world…and release them out in the public eventually.” Watch it:
Transcripts: More »
REPORT: Rep. Mark Foley Resigns From Congress, Fears More Emails Exist
REPORT: Rep. Mark Foley Resigns From Congress, Fears More Emails Exist
CNN’s Dana Bash reported just now:
CNN has learned, according to GOP sources, that as you said, Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida has decided not to seek reelection. … Foley did admit to a spokesperson that he had that e-mail exchange with the boy, but absolutely flatly denied that that was an inappropriate e-mail exchange. Now, a GOP source tells us now that essentially Foley is worried that there are other potentially politically damaging e-mail or other messages that may be out there and he has concluded that it’s probably best for him not to seek reelection from Florida. That is what we’re told.
Yesterday, ABC News, AmericaBlog, and Raw Story released a series of questionable emails between Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) and a 16-year-old male page. In the emails, sent from Foley’s personal account, Foley “asks the young man how old he is, what he wants for his birthday and requests a photo of him.” Foley is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus.
ABC News reported earlier today:
ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.
“Afraid not.”
“Afraid not.”
In answer to an inquiry on whether he had accepted gifts from Jack Abramoff, White House political adviser Karl Rove simply replied, “afraid not.” The NYT reported this morning, “Rove and his aides sought Mr. Abramoff’s help in obtaining seats at sporting events, and that Mr. Rove sat with Mr. Abramoff in the lobbyist’s box seats for an N.C.A.A. basketball playoff game in 2002.”
GM Hires Fox News Mouthpiece Sean Hannity As Spokesman
GM Hires Fox News Mouthpiece Sean Hannity As Spokesman
General Motors has hired right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity to be the lead spokesman for a car giveaway campaign called “You’re a Great American“:
To stimulate consumer interest in its line of American-built cars, General Motors has turned to radio and Sean Hannity. … Hannity will serve as the spokesperson for GM’s You’re A Great American Car Give-Away, offering radio listeners the chance to pick and win one of five GM vehicles.
Hannity’s hiring comes as GM launches a new patriotic-themed ad campaign. The ads for GM’s Chevrolet Silverado include the slogan “Our country, our truck” and feature images of Rosa Parks and hurricane-damaged houses:
Hannity has a long history of divisive remarks and has repeatedly questioned the patriotism of his political opponents:
– Hannity said a Democratic victory in the midterm elections could be a “victory for the terrorists”
– Hannity said that “making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker” is “worth … dying for.”
– Hannity defended Ann Coulter’s attack on the widows of 9/11 victims, whom Coulter described as “broads” who were “enjoying their husbands’ deaths.”
– Hannity compared voting for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to voting for terrorist groups Hamas or Hezbollah.
GM should not make Sean Hannity the face of its promotions.
UPDATE: Read GM’s response.
HUD Spokeswoman Admits Making Stuff Up To Spin Alphonso Jackson Controversy
HUD Spokeswoman Admits Making Stuff Up To Spin Alphonso Jackson Controversy
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spokeswoman Dustee Tucker repeatedly misled the press about HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson’s April 28 speech in Dallas, where he admitted canceling a government contract with a business because the CEO was critical of President Bush.
In the HUD Inspector General’s (IG) report, which has not been made publicly available, Tucker admits to misleading the press by making up statements, as well as stating things as “fact” that were actually assumptions. Some examples from the report reviewed by ThinkProgress:
– On May 2 or May 3, the Dallas Business Journal (DBJ) called Tucker and inquired whether the contractor incident in Jackson’s story actually happened. Tucker replied, “I can’t speak to a hypothetical, you know. You’re speaking about a verbal agreement.” But according to p. 17 of the HUD report, when asked if she had “made up” the “concept of a verbal agreement,” Tucker acknowledged she had: “Yes. I probably did when I responded to her.”
– On May 9, Tucker told the DBJ that Jackson’s story was “not a true story. It’s a made-up story.” But Tucker didn’t know it was made up. In her testimony to investigators (p. 20), “Tucker acknowledged that, in her meeting with JACKSON, JACKSON ‘never said the entire thing is made up.’ Tucker further acknowledged, ‘that was my assumption.’”
– On May 9, Tucker told the Dallas Morning News that the contractor who criticized Bush in Jackson’s story “was aggressive and combative.” But according to the HUD report (p. 18), Tucker later admitted that “she did not know if there was, in fact, a real person who was ‘aggressive and combative,’ but ‘assumed’ there was.”
Tucker’s actions don’t seem out of the ordinary in HUD communciations department. Cathy MacFarlane, Assistant Secretary in the Office of Public Affairs, also testified, “And with all I have to do, I am not really interested in finding out the facts. I don’t have enough time to get into contracting facts” (p. 23).
“The CIA’S top counterterrorism officials
“The CIA’S top counterterrorism officials
felt they could have killed Osama Bin Laden in the months before 9/11, but got the ‘brushoff’ when they went to the Bush White House seeking the money and authorization,” Bob Woodward reports in his new book. In an “urgent” July 2001 meeting with Condi Rice, CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism head Cofer Black “went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and ’sounded the loudest warning’ to the White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden. Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, ‘They felt the brushoff.’“
FACT CHECK: White House Falsely Claimed Abramoff Had ‘Very Few’ Meetings With Staff
FACT CHECK: White House Falsely Claimed Abramoff Had ‘Very Few’ Meetings With Staff
A House Government Reform Committee report establishes — based on e-mail messages and other records subpoenaed from criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s lobbying firm — that at least 485 contacts occurred between Abramoff’s lobbying team and White House officials between 2001 to 2004.
The Committee documents 13 instances of Abramoff personally meeting with White House staff. Abramoff billed his clients for 32.3 hours for time spent with White House staff.
Last January, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan repeatedly misled the public as to the extent of the relationship between the White House and Abramoff, suggesting there had only been “a few staff-level meetings.”
QUESTION: How about the logs of the people, how many times he came into the White House?
MCCLELLAN: I’m checking into that. I said he’d check into that. I think someone asked that question the other day. I think it is very few times that he has been here in addition to any holiday receptions. [White House Press Briefing, 1/4/06]QUESTION: Do you have an update for us on the Abramoff visits to the White House beyond the three parties that he attended?
MCCLELLAN: Well, I indicated yesterday that I think there were a few staff-level meetings. But, no, I’m making sure that I have a thorough report back to you on that. And I’ll get that to you, hopefully, very soon. [White House Press Briefing, 1/5/06]QUESTION: Can you be more specific about the contacts with the senior staff? You said you were going to get back to us on that.
MCCLELLAN: No, I did check. There were a few staff-level meetings. I think I previously indicated that he attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House. It is actually one two Hanukkah receptions that he attended. … My understanding from the check that we did was that there are just a few staff-level meetings in addition to those. [White House Press Briefing, 1/17/06]QUESTION: Why not — why are you guys resistant to open this here? What is there to hide, or why not just say, here are the contacts he had, here are the issues he talked about when he came to the White House, here are the people…
MCCLELLAN: Well, I did do a check, and I indicated to you exactly what I just told you. I indicated to you that there were a few staff-level meetings that he attended at least — he attended two holiday receptions, in 2001 and 2002. [White House Press Briefing, 1/23/06]
Sen. James Inhofe Lashes Out At CNN, Grossly Distorts Global Warming Science
Sen. James Inhofe Lashes Out At CNN, Grossly Distorts Global Warming Science
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has responded angrily to yesterday’s CNN segment debunking his diatribe against global warming science. His rebuttal is shockingly dishonest. Here’s a sample:
[CNN's Miles] O’Brien also claimed that the “Hockey Stick” temperature graph was supported by most climate scientists despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences and many independent experts have made it clear that the Hockey Stick’s claim that the 1990’s was the hottest decade of the last 1000 years was unsupportable.
Actually, that National Academy of Sciences just released a study supporting the so-called “Hockey Stick” study (by Mann et. al). Here’s an excerpt from the report:
The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence…Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. [pg. 3-4]
The National Academy of Sciences did note that “less confidence” can be placed in the conclusion that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade” because “not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.” This is a scientific reality. But, unmistakably, the NAS study bolsters the “hockey stick” and, more importantly, the fact that global warming is real and caused by human activity.
Inhofe protested that, contrary to O’Brien’s report, he did agree to be interviewed by CNN about his global warming claims. What he didn’t mention was that he agreed to be interviewed by right-wing CNN host Glenn Beck, who said of An Inconvenient Truth, “It’s like Hitler. Hitler said a little bit of truth, and then he mixed in ‘and it’s the Jews’ fault.’”
ThinkFast: September 29, 2006
ThinkFast: September 29, 2006
“The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there,” according to Bob Woodward’s new book.
Woodward also claims “Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms,” and that Bush said as recently as November 2003, “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the authoritarian Central Asian ruler who has cracked down on human rights and quashed other political freedoms in his country, will meet with President Bush at the White House today. Nazarbayev also was hosted at the Kennebunkport estate of former President George H.W. Bush. “Nazarbayev has suffered no consequences for his rejection of the democracy agenda.”
“Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.”
$16 billion: The amount Iraq has lost in potential foreign oil sales “over two years to insurgent attacks, criminals and bad equipment.” Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen found “Iraq also is paying billions of dollars to import refined petroleum products it needs.” More »
65 percent.
65 percent.
Number of Americans who believe Iraq is in a civil war, up from 56 percent in April, according to a new CNN poll.
McCain’s macaca moment.
McCain’s macaca moment.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who recently mended fences with that “agent of intolerance” Rev. Jerry Falwell, appears in and narrates a new ad for Sen. George Allen (R-VA).
Rice’s Strategy on Genocide: Stay The Course
Rice’s Strategy on Genocide: Stay The Course
The genocide in Darfur has killed at least 255,000 people — the equivalent of nearly two times the number of U.S. forces now in Iraq.
Yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a major speech on the issue to the Africa Society. Rice announced no new commitments or policy proposals to end the violence. Instead, she bragged that Bush officials are “bend[ing] every fiber of our being to ease the suffering of people of Darfur.”
That is flatly false. As Darfur expert John Prendergast has detailed, the administration “has made some noise about Darfur over the last two years,” but has repeatedly failed to act. Some key instances:
No real funding for peacekeepers: The United States, along with the Europeans, “have left the African Union force in Darfur in a state of limbo, not giving it the requisite resources and political support needed to protect the people of Darfur.”
No targeted sanctions on genocide leaders: The United States “crafted a U.N. Security Council resolution that authorized targeted sanctions in early 2005, but has since imposed sanctions on only one regime official, a retired air force commander. This leaves Khartoum with the correct impression that there will be no accountability.”
Hundreds of White House/Abramoff contacts revealed.
Hundreds of White House/Abramoff contacts revealed.
A draft bipartisan House committee report has found “hundreds of contacts between top White House officials and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates” which “raise serious questions about the legality and actions” of those officials. “Bush administration officials repeatedly intervened on behalf of Abramoff’s clients,” Roll Call reports.
UPDATE: Watch ABC’s report on the new contacts from World News Tonight.
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