Justice Department Didn't Act on Warning About Abramoff Client

[papau]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=IP7L4T07SXKX

Justice Department Didn't Act on Warning About Abramoff Client(culture of corruption?)

By Jonathan D. Salant
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Justice Department never acted on a post-Sept. 11 proposal, contested by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, calling for increased federal control over immigration to the Mariana Islands.

The agency reassigned the two officials who produced a 34- page report that contained the proposal, and House members of both parties who oversee the Homeland Security and Justice departments said they were never told about it. The 2002 report, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News, warns that continued local control over the Marianas' borders will ``seriously jeopardize the national security'' of the U.S.

Abramoff, whose law firm was paid $3.5 million by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, to lobby between 1998 and 2002, tried to block the report, according to an e-mail released this month by House Democrats.

Abramoff is under investigation by a Justice Department-led task force and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for his lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes and other clients. In a separate case, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida in August in connection with his purchase of a casino cruise company.

Representative George Miller, a California Democrat, said he believes Abramoff was involved in quashing the Mariana Islands' report. <snip>

[readmylips]

1. John Ashcroft and Abranoff...buddies in crime..

Nothing about John Ashcroft surprises DU people.