Hearing Friday for Abramoff associate (Ex Bush Admin David Safavian)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11976525/

The influence-peddling scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff heats up again on Friday when a former Bush administration official and associate of the disgraced lobbyist appears at a pretrial hearing in federal court.

David Safavian, the White House's former top procurement official, is charged with misrepresenting his connections with lobbyists — specifically, Abramoff — while working at the General Services Administration.

A key event was a lavish golf junket to Scotland in 2002, mostly paid for by a charity Abramoff controlled. Among those who went on the trip was Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed Jr.

<snip>

Safavian sought clearance from a GSA ethics official prior to the Scotland trip, but prosecutors say he did not tell the official about Abramoff's attempts to acquire federally owned properties controlled by the GSA, or about the help Safavian was providing to Abramoff in those efforts.

[AlinPA]

1. If he were a Clinton White House staffer (or in any Dem administration),

the Bush**-Rove controlled media would be all over this story and would have covered it daily for the last 6 months.

[gratuitous]

3. Got that right

If this was a Clinton staffer (and remember, for all the investigating done of the Clinton White House, they finally "nailed" Ron Brown post mortem for accepting two Redskins tickets), we'd know where he'd gone to school, where his kids go to school, everyone who's ever known the guy and on and on.

But there's been no publicity (by comparison) about Safavian, a high level operative in the Bush White House. We don't know anything about what he did, who he worked with, who else might be implicated by his corruption, nothing. In fact, there's been no lengthy investigation of Safavian, and it's still a little mysterious to contemplate that he was indicted at all. I mean, just how corrupt does a guy have to be that you can bring him up on criminal charges without even looking very hard?

[stop the bleeding]

2. This should make things a little more interesting for the WH / Abramoff

connections.:popcorn: