Thread: The pimping of the President - Abramoff/Norquist

The pimping of the President - Abramoff/Norquist

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/

Jan 5, 2006
TheTownCrier Exclusive


The following article is an oldie, but has some pertinent information on the relationship of Jack Abramoff (Just indicted and admitted guilt), super lobbyist and Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform), the White House right hand man on immigration.

The White House issued this statement, "McClellan said Bush does not know Abramoff personally, although it's possible that the two met at holiday receptions. Abramoff attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House, the spokesman said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104/ap_ ... MlJVRPUCUl

The Pimping of the Presidency

Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist Billing Clients for Face Time with G.W. Bush

BY LOU DUBOSE The Texas Observer

Four months after he took the oath of office in 2001, President George W. Bush was the attraction, and the White House the venue, for a fundraiser organized by the alleged perpetrator of the largest billing fraud in the history of corporate lobbying. In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,� delivering at least $100,000 in bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Abramoff’s White House guests were the chiefs of two of the six casino-rich Indian tribes he and his partner Mike Scanlon ultimately billed $82 million for services tribal leaders now claim were never performed or were improperly performed. Together the six tribes would make $10 million in political contributions, at Abramoff’s direction, almost all of it to Republican campaigns of his choosing. On May 9, 2001, when he ushered the two tribal chiefs into the White House to meet the President, The Washington Post story that would end his lobbying career and begin two Senate Committee investigations was three years away. (When the Post story broke in February 2004, however, Abramoff and Scanlon, a former Tom DeLay press aide, were already targets of a U.S. Attorney’s investigation in Washington.)

Abramoff brought the Coushatta and Choctaw chiefs to Washington at the request of Grover Norquist. Norquist is founder and director of Americans for Tax Reform, the advocacy group committed to slashing taxes until the federal government is so small you “can drown it in the bathtub.â€? Norquist started ATR in 1985. His power increased exponentially in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and he collaborated with then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay to launch the “K Street Projectâ€?â€â€

Everyone, you're going to need to know about this relationship with Abramoff and Norquist. Norquist is Bush's man on amnesty and hold power with the White House. He's dirty and he's powerful. If we get an amnesty it will be because of Grover Norquist.

Read more here:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content ... lineonly01

snip.....
How and when did Norquist become so central to the conservative movement?

It was a gradual process. When he took over Americans for Tax Reform, in 1985, he was only twenty-nine. He’s almost fifty now, and his political influence has grown steadily over the years. The thing that made his career was the tax pledge, which he wrote himself. George H.W. Bush signed the pledge in 1988, but two years later he increased taxes in a deficit-reduction deal with the Democrats. Norquist and other conservatives were furious. In 1992, when Bush was defeated, a number of people said it was because he had broken his promise on taxes. Suddenly, Norquist was a serious player in Washington. Then, when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Norquist was close to Newt Gingrich, and he helped to promote the Contract with America. That’s when Norquist started his Wednesday meetings. After Gingrich fell, in 1998, Norquist got lucky again. Karl Rove, George W.Bush’s campaign manager, invited him down to Texas to meet with the putative presidential candidate. Bush, Jr., was running as a tax cutter, and he wanted Norquist’s endorsement to prove that he wasn’t like his father. That’s what Norquist thinks, anyway, and he’s probably right. He started coöperating with Rove, which added to his growing reputation as a power broker, especially when Bush was elected.

But Norquist also remains tightly connected with ordinary grassroots conservatives, especially young ones, who don’t have powerful connections in Washington.

That’s the reason that he’s so successful. He straddles the world of policymakers and activists. To people like Rove, he’s a useful link to the conservative base of the Republican Party, which always suspects that it is about to be sold out. Although he occasionally criticizes President Bush’s policies, he’s generally supportive, and the White House knows he will usually defend it to other conservatives. When you are in the Administration, you are inevitably cut off, to some extent, from what is happening outside. Norquist helps the White House stay in touch with its core support, and he also lets the policymakers know what ordinary conservatives are saying.