The
LA Times posted a major story this evening linking Jack Abramoff so closely to Ken Mehlman that it has to be wondered whether the RNC Chair can survive the revelations. The evidence is documentary--emails--and these have recently been released by a House committee. Republicans will have a fine time trying to impeach the credibility of this evidence.
The new scandal certainly cannot come at a worse time for the Republican Party, since the details will confirm for the public the idea that corruption reaches all the way to the top within the GOP. The behavior of Mehlman in question is pretty despicable on the face of it. Worse, some of it would appear to be illegal. And worst of all for everybody, Mehlman committed these acts while he was working as the White House political director.
The main charges are these:
* In 2001 Jack Abramoff decided that he wanted to get Allen Stayman fired from his State Department job. Stayman's sin? He was pushing to enact labor reforms on the Northern Mariana Islands. One of Abramoff's associates met with Ken Mehlman and then emailed Abramoff saying that Mehlman promised to get Stayman fired. Susan Ralston, Rove's disgraced staffer, also was involved in the "Stayman project". She sent Abramoff an email at one stage predicting that Stayman would be fired within 4 months, as indeed he was.
* At the same time that Abramoff was lobbying Mehlman to fire Stayman, Mehlman received tickets from Abramoff to a sold out U2 concert, worth over $260. That would be in violation of ethics rules which "prohibit officials from accepting gifts worth more than $20 from a person doing business with the government".
* Mehlman also had a "role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary".
* There appears to have been a quid pro quo for helping the Choctaws, in the form of a $10,000 donation to the RNC.
Tony Rudy, a onetime aide to former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, referred to Mehlman on Nov. 9, 2001, as a "rock star" after Mehlman agreed to "take care of" the Choctaws' jail, despite a Justice Department finding that the tribe's existing jail was adequate.
Several days after that meeting, on Nov. 13, Rudy recommended a $15,000 contribution to the Republican National Committee. "Let's give the check to Ken Mehlman at the White House," wrote Rudy, who later pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges as part of the broader investigation.
On Nov. 15, campaign finance records show, the tribe gave $10,000 to the RNC.
* Department of Justice was not happy about the boondoggle of a jail, but eventually relented to the lobbying campaign, which Mehlman took part in. Abramoff rewarded DoJ figures for playing along.
When Justice Department officials relented and released the money for the jail, giddy Abramoff associates planned to host agency officials in a suite for a Dave Matthews concert.
"I have the suite filling up with DOJ staffers who just got our client $16 million," one wrote. Another replied that the agency officials deserve any reward they want, "opening day tickets, Skins v Giants, oriental massages, hookers, whatever."
This should tie in well with attempts (well, my attempts at least) to revive the moribund Hookergate scandal.
* In 2002 Mehlman also intervened on behalf of Abramoff to get a White House endorsement of the Republican gubernatorial ticket in Guam.
Abramoff received a note from Ralston, then Rove's assistant, saying that Mehlman had gotten a quote from the White House for "your candidate." She also asked Abramoff to send his requests in the future to "Ken only."
Now, with evidence like that, how will it be possible any longer to convince anybody that Bush Co. did not know the extent and nature of Jack Abramoff's influence among White House staff? From Ralston's instructions, it sure appears like Rove was already trying to put some distance between himself and Abramoff already in 2002.
And the reason is that scandals like this were certain to come out some day.
Update [2006-10-15 1:13:37 by smintheus]:: As always, the first source for documentation is Henry Waxman's office. At this page, you'll find links to the Committee's report, clear introductions to the main issues from Waxman himself, a spreadsheet laying out the 485 lobbying contacts that Abramoff had with the White House, and PDFs with the texts of the emails that are under discussion in the LAT article. Waxman released this information about two weeks ago, though I did not notice it at the time (more's the shame). I've seen no news coverage of the Committee findings before today, so in that sense it may be news to the public.
Update [2006-10-15 1:33:26 by smintheus]: I see that when the Committee report first came out, PatsBard and kos both had posts on some aspects of the story. The details in the LAT piece seem to go well beyond the information that was dribbling out at the time. See also the comment here by dengre, who is looking for collaborators to help him sift through Abramoff's 2001 billing records. A worthy project; that's how blogs help to drive a story.
Update [2006-10-15 3:18:53 by smintheus]: For important back story on the conflict between Abramoff and Allen Staymen, see this Media Matters piece, which describes a prolonged campaign in the late '90s by Abramoff and his allies (at the Washington Times and the National Center for Public Policy Research) to destroy Stayman's career. See also this by Paul Kiel, who quotes more of the WaPo article from March 31, 1998 that Media Matters refers to (sorry, I don't have an on-line link to the WaPo story).
Let me emphasize that Mehlman and many of those who were involved in the "Stayman project" knew or should have known that Abramoff had been trying for years to get Allen Stayman one way or the other. They knew or should have known that it was about dominating the fiefdom of the Northern Mariana Islands. And they went along with the "project" never the less. It stinks.
Update [2006-10-15 21:6:21 by smintheus]: Unsurprisingly, news coverage of this scandal today has been poor. On CNN Wolf Blitzer asked Mehlman about the LAT allegation that Stayman was fired after Mehlman intervened on behalf of Abramoff. Blitzer's follow up questions, however, were desultory:
MEHLMAN: It is not true. And I'm not sure that those e-mails suggested that. First of all, I did not have the authority, as the political director, to fire anybody. It wasn't my decision. As political director -- now second of all, I also don't recall the specifics of this matter involving Mr. Stayman. But as a matter of course, and certainly the first term, I had, frequently, people come to see me with political issues they wanted talked about.
BLITZER: Including Jack Abramoff?
MEHLMAN: Or personnel issues that they wanted talked about. And when they would come see me, what I would do...
BLITZER: Jack Abramoff, also?
MEHLMAN: Again, I don't recall that specific matter that he came to me for, but I had a way of dealing with all these matters, which is to let the policy-makers or the personnel deciders know exactly what people said. And they made the decisions. What's interesting about this, though, Wolf, while I don't recall it specifically, I have seen some articles since then, since this came out. And what they suggest is that Mr. Stayman violated the Hatch Act, which is a federal law that prohibits employees of the government engaging in politics on their official clock. And it also suggests he may have been working with the DNC on some things. So while I certainly didn't have the authority to fire anybody and I don't recall this specific matter, it does appear, from what other news reports indicate that there was apparently cause for Mr. Stayman to be removed.
BLITZER: Because, in the L.A. Times, it quotes an e-mail from one of Abramoff's associates, as saying, "Mehlman said he would get him fired.
MEHLMAN: Yes, Mehlman didn't have that authority. Mehlman wouldn't say he had that authority. And remember, you're dealing with individuals who, as we know, have pled guilty to defrauding their clients by saying they did things they weren't able to get done. My job as a political director, and any job as a political director, is to hear from people, whether it's about personnel or about policy, and make sure that the policy-makers understand their concerns.
Rather than putting again to Mehlman the actual question, whether he intervened to encourage others to fire Stayman, and rather than asking why the emails don't support the interpretation that Mehlman had intervened, and rather than asking whether Mehlman had any actual evidence that Stayman was guilty of anything, Blitzer just changed the subject.
It is interesting to see Mehlman contradict the very point that I made at the end of the previous update--that it would have been virtually impossible that Mehlman did NOT know in 2001 that Abramoff had for several years already been waging a very public campaign to destroy Stayman's career. On CNN, Mehlman is insinuating that he learned about these charges only "since this came out," which is not only unlikely, it also requires us to believe that Mehlman doesn't read the Washington Times (which had led a witch hunt against Stayman, as Media Matters tracked).
In any case, it's clear Mehlman was dodging the question. His argument boils down to "I didn't have Stayman fired, but even if I did, Stayman probably deserved to be fired." It is the expected response of a guilty Republican: the smear.
MSNBC just posted a mediocre summary of the LAT allegations and Mehlman's CNN comments. Even the write up at Fox is a little more pointed. The Associated Press report provides relatively few details as well. And for the prize in utter cluelessness, there is this new interview with Mehlman at US News, which does not even raise the issue. We'll see what the morrow brings.
From Unbossed