Records of Abramoff's White House visits (to be released, at last)

[Robbien]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Secret Service has agreed to turn over White House visitor logs that will show how often convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff met with Bush administration officials — and with whom he met.

<snip>

The president has said he does not know Abramoff personally. When a photo of Bush with Abramoff surfaced earlier this year, the president said he has his picture taken with "a lot of people." In the 2001 photo, Bush is shaking hands with a leader of an Indian tribe. Abramoff is in the background.

A few days after Bush made the remarks about the photo, Abramoff expressed surprise in e-mails to a magazine editor about the president's faulty memory. Abramoff told the Washingtonian magazine that he had met with Bush nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to joke with him. Three former business associates of Abramoff also told The Associated Press that Abramoff often mentioned White House adviser Karl Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/base/politics-7/1146514469255530.xml&storylist=washington

Judicial Watch filed suit in February after the Secret Service failed to respond to its request under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The release date is supposed to be no later than May 10th.

[Scout1071]

1. Hallelujah.

Any chance they will be the real records?

Maybe they are throwing Rove under the bus before the Fitzgerald Express steamrollers right over him?

[kainah]

2. I'll believe it when I see them n/t

[UpInArms]

3. related: White House Cautions on Abramoff Logs

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=2&u=/ap/20060502/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_abramoff

Secret Service's records documenting convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's contacts with Bush administration officials may not reveal all such meetings, the White House said Tuesday.

The Secret Service has agreed to turn over White House visitor logs showing when Abramoff met with administration officials — and with whom. But presidential spokesman Scott McClellan cautioned reporters from viewing the release as all-inclusive.

"I don't know exactly what they'll be providing, but they only have certain records and so I just wouldn't view it as a complete historical record," McClellan said.

<snip>

The president has said that he does not know Abramoff personally, but Abramoff told the Washingtonian magazine that he had met with Bush nearly a dozen times and that the president knew him well enough to joke with him.

McClellan has said that Abramoff attended Hanukkah receptions at the White House in 2001 and 2002, and some additional staff-level meetings. "But I said I couldn't rule out that there might be other large events that may have taken place that he attended, but that's what I know and that still stands," McClellan said.

...more...

They know that the records are incomplete and they are going to continue to lie about it.

[orleans]

4. at least it's a beginning...and now if we can

get some answers as to why gannon was in the white house nearly 200 times, and not logged out many of those times, and who he was seeing, and the business he had with ??? whoever was the lucky fella!