White House aides deny the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's more to the story As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.
The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s. -
Time.com--------
Former partner Michael Scanlon, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a Congressman, is quoted telling the New York Times in 2001 that Abramoff had "a relationship" with the President. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one."
The President has denied knowing the 6'5" yarmulke-wearing man who was at 3 Hanukkah receptions, and raised over $100,000 for him.
Raul Garza Sr., former chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas who is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe and was an Abramoff client, is in one picture with Bush, Abramoff, and some others, remembers the meeting and photo with Bush and Abramoff, describing Bush as "in a very good mood--very upbeat and positive." The White House denies that Abramoff was present.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't at least one war started on less evidence? Despite White House denials, there is a photo showing Bush and Abramoff together, the statement of a man in the photo, and pictures of Bush with Abramoff's sons. "Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages."
And the White House still denies that Bush, 5'10 1/2" tall, knew the 6'5" man (with yarmulke on) who was in the photos with him. Well, I admit that it is possible that Bush didn't see the Yarmulke, but I suspect he really did notice the man and his sons.
