"Face time with Bush or Rove" Abramoff and Norquist

[itzamirakul]

I found the following article buried somewhat in the middle of the Sunday New York Daily News.
The newspaper is online at www.nydailynews.com but I don't know that this article is online.
I'm posting it because I thought some DUers might find it of interest.


New York Daily News
Sunday, June 25,2006
Associated Press

E-mails link lobbyist to White House

WASHINGTON - Wanted: Face time with President Bush or top adviser Karl Rove. Suggested donation: $100,000. The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

<snip>
Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations.

<snip>
"Can the tribes contribute $100,000 for the effort to bring state legislatures and those tribal leaders who have passed Bush resolutions to Washington?" Norquist wrote Abramoff in one such e-mail in July 2002.

<snip>
"When I have funding, I will ask Karl Rove for a date with the President," Norquist wrote in the e-mail.

<snip>
After a 2001 meeting with Bush, the tribes got to meet him at the White House again in 2002 and then donated to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, or ATR.

Spokesman John Kartch claims that no one from ATR ever assisted Abramoff in getting meetings for money.

White House spokeswoman Erin Healy says, "We do not solicit donations in exchange for meetings or events at the White House."

[leftyladyfrommo]

1. Who on earth would pay for "face" time with Rove and Bush?

They are both hideous.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. that last line is HILARIOUS!

isn't Norquist doing the "soliciting" for THEM?

even if he isn't, the WH doesn't DO the soliciting; it's the other way around

duh.....

[itzamirakul]

3. What Abramoff and Norquist and all of those people they have

named have done is criminal, yet these folks are still walking around free. In fact, most of them know they will serve little or no time.

What's the deal about allowing these men "time to get their affairs in order" before they are sentenced?
When is the last time you ever heard about a drug dealer getting time to put his affairs in order before being incarcerated?

To my way of thinking, the months that are allowed between the guilty verdict and the date that the actual sentence is handed down is so that the public will forget its anger toward these political criminals and therefore will not complain when the sentence is so much lighter than deserved.

Ken Lay is not going to spend much time, if any, behind bars. Somehow, even though he is not in jail right now, this period right now may be included in his "time served" total. I'll bet the same thing happens with Abramoff and Norquist. Between the two of them they will not spend five years in jail. They are going to get off the hook because they ratted other people out...but what good did THAT do? No one that they snitched on is going to be punished either.

And although Bush met with these people on more than one occasion, our Democratic leaders are not calling him on it in loud, uncompromising terms!