Bush can't remember meeting Abramoff, just like Rumsfeld can't
remember his grip and grin sessions with Saddam!
Bush picks Abramoff prosecutor for federal judgeship
Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times
Friday, January 27, 2006
Washington -- The investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced
Republican lobbyist, took a provocative new turn Thursday when the
Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step
down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by
President Bush.
The prosecutor, Noel Hillman, is chief of the department's Office of
Public Integrity, and the move ends his involvement in an
investigation that has reached into the administration as well as into
the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.
Democrats swiftly questioned the move's timing and called for a
special prosecutor as Bush faced a barrage of questions about why he
would not make public "grip and grin" photographs of himself with
Abramoff. The photographs apparently show Bush and Abramoff smiling at
White House Hanukkah parties and Republican fundraising receptions.
Bush's view, which he offered at a news conference Thursday morning
that was peppered with questions about Abramoff, was that the
photographs were so common as to be almost meaningless and that it was
part of his job "to shake hands with people and smile." He said he
couldn't remember posing for the pictures, or, for that matter, even
meeting Abramoff.
The White House, which announced Bush's selection of Hillman in a
routine e-mail message Wednesday afternoon that included 15 other
nominations to judgeships and federal jobs, dismissed the calls for a
special prosecutor.
"It's nothing but pure politics," said Scott McClellan, the White
House secretary. "The Justice Department is holding Mr. Abramoff to
account, and the career Justice prosecutors are continuing to fully
investigate the matter."
Special prosecutors have not been especially welcome at this White
House, where Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the CIA leak
case, is more than two years into an investigation that has resulted
in the indictment of a top vice presidential aide, Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, and has left Karl Rove, the president's chief political
adviser, in legal limbo.
Hillman's departure from the Justice Department creates a vacancy at
the top of the Abramoff investigation only three weeks after Abramoff,
once one of the city's most powerful Republican lobbyists and a major
fund-raiser for Bush, announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify
against others, possibly including members of Congress.
A former senior White House budget official, David Safavian, has been
indicted in the case on charges of lying about his contacts with
Abramoff, a former lobbying partner. The Justice Department's plea
agreement with Abramoff makes clear that prosecutors are investigating
several members of Congress and other public officials who accepted
gifts from the lobbyist in exchange for official acts.
Colleagues at the Justice Department say Hillman has been involved in
day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began
almost two years ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on
allegations that Abramoff defrauded Indian tribe casinos out of tens
of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the
department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a
generation, given the large number of public officials who may be
implicated.
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