Abramoff

Excerpts from a column by Joseph Trento (September 29, 2005)

They are sweating at the White House and it is not over the hurricane hangover. The wide-ranging investigation into republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff which now spans from planting his cronies in the White House to a mobbed up murder investigation over the gangland style shooting of the owner of a fleet of gambling ships, has everyone’s attention.

Our Justice Department sources tell us that one of the questions being examined is whether Abramoff and his colleagues were used to help spread cash among conservative ministers in the last several election cycles.

We have learned the arrest of 38-year-old David H. Safavian, an Abramoff friend and former lobbying partner who landed a job in the Bush Administration (most recently as head of procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget) is only the first casualty in a political scandal that could rival Watergate in the numbers of Presidential appointees caught in the Justice Department’s net. Safavian’s wife worked in a sensitive position on the Hill according to press reports.

Our sources in the FBI say that the probe is now looking far beyond Abramoff’s relationship with House Majority Leader Tom Delay and his staff. A local Texas probe has already resulted in Delay’s indictment on state charges. The real question people at the White House keep asking is is Abramoff about to make a deal with prosecutors and start talking about the politicians he knows so much about?

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