All over town bad cases of Abramnesia are breaking out. It seems nobody knows Jack anymore. But
they did.
Connecting Abramoff to Bush and the White House or to the GOP Leadership (new and old and going back to 1980) is like an episode of Columbo. You know who did it. The mystery is how they did it.
Well, Boehner's election leads to a valuable clue. His long-time Chief of Staff (and Campaign Manager when he won his seat) is now a top aide to Karl Rove and runs the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Since I first wrote about this link here, the Rove/Boehner/Abramoff/Jackson connection has gotten some attention.
Today the AP tied Jackson to an Abramoff junket to Saipan. But there may be a Big Lie in the report.
To the jump.
Before I get to the
Big Lie, I wanted to take a moment to offer some more evidence of the importance of the
Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) in the Abramoff scandal and overall Bush policies.
This is the group that does the dirty work. Think of a coven of Lee Atwater acolytes meeting everyday to decide the talking points, the swiftboating and the lies to prop up the failed policies and incompetence of the Bush/GOP agenda. They are guided in this dark art by Karl Rove and his understudy, Barry Jackson the head of OSI.
Here is the Barry Jackson profile from a June 2001 National Journal article about the key players in the Bush White House:
Barry Jackson
Director of Strategic Initiatives
202-456-2108
Although its initials sound like those of some sort of Cold War intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Initiatives, headed by Jackson, is responsible for coordinating the planning and development of long-range strategies for achieving presidential priorities. Jackson said that his office "serves somewhat as a think tank" in the White House, where staffers are frequently absorbed in short-term goals and daily events. During the campaign, he worked on the Republican National Convention program, and he first worked with Rove when he orchestrated the 25-state barnstorming tour of GOP governors who stumped for Bush two weeks before the election. Jackson was also one of the legions of Republican operatives who traveled to Florida during the recount battle. Jackson, 40, was a former longtime top adviser to Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. He helped organize and implement the 1994 House Republican campaign manifesto, the Contract With America. Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Iowa (Iowa City).
About that Florida recount thing, a July 30, 2001 profile of Ed Gillespe in the New Republic ( The Insider; The most powerful Bushie you've never heard of.) included these addition details about Jackson's role (emphasis added):
On election night, Gillespie worked his contacts at the networks, scolding them for calling states too early for Gore. After the election he headed for Miami, where he became a familiar figure to anyone covering the recount: a tall, lanky man in a dark suit with a cell phone attached to his ear, constantly pacing the eighteenth floor of the Clark Center where officials were counting ballots.
He participated in regular conference calls with Rove to develop message and strategy, and helped orchestrate--with Barry Jackson, a friend and Hill colleague who served as political director for the Contract With America and is now a top Rove aide--the campaign against Florida hand counts that culminated in the GOP mini-riot on November 22 at the Clark Center and in the canvassing board's decision to stop the recount. [snip]
Three weeks later, George W. Bush was the president-elect.
While I could not find it online, the article is worth finding as it is filled with Abramoff related details and will help nail Gilllespie's ass to the wall one day. But I digress.
Jackson was rewarded for his work in the Bush Campaign. He moved to Roves inner circle and began running the OSI. This was a new entity created by Rove. The Center for the Study of the Presidency in Sept. 2002 explained the OSI in the Presidential Studies Quarterly:
The OSI, led by Bush confidant Karl Rove, was designed to think ahead and devise long-term political strategy. "It is an effort to solve the problem that consistently dogs White House staffs: the pressure to respond to unexpected events and to react to daily news cycles, which causes presidential advisers to lose sight of the big picture" (Milbank 2001a, A1). [snip]
The unique feature of the OSI was that the president's leading political adviser was in charge. George H.W. Bush relied on the strategic advice of Lee Atwater but did not provide him with a White House perch. Atwater resided at the Republican National Committee until health problems forced him to resign. After Atwater's death, the absence of political insight and strategy became a serious weakness in the administration and the reelection campaign. [snip]
The Bush administration clearly took a different approach by thoroughly integrating Rove into the White House chain of command. Though Rove was a polemic figure in the early days of the administration, if his office has the capacity to create a successful long-term governing strategy, particularly in the aftermath of September 11, it will have been a sensible organizational solution to a persistent presidential problem. Prospects for success, however, are dim. According to one aide in the post-terrorism crisis period, "You can't predict events more than 72 hours out at most... We pretty much have a game plan for next week, but that could change" (Milbank and Graham 2001, A4). Clearly, these events have and will continue to pose great challenges for Rove and his new office.
But of course you can manipulate the news cycle and that will take you a long way. And Karl has made deception a cornerstone of the Bush White House. It is about political spin and control.
The Office of Strategic Initiatives is the Bush White House think tank of lies.
It is where the messages are crafted and dispersed through a network of GOP politicians, talking heads and lobbyists (like Jack and Ed Gillespie).
An item from the Nov. 19, 2005 National Journal show's how the OSI works:
Drumsticks and Prescription Drugs
Faced with reports that seniors are wary of the new Medicare prescription drug program, and looking to counter vocal Democratic criticism, the White House has asked friends on K Street to use the Thanksgiving holiday to explain the program to family members and friends, and to help those who are eligible enroll. The administration is also encouraging lobbyists to talk up the prescription program with GOP lawmakers and their staffs. At a November 10 meeting, officials from the White House and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services briefed 20 to 30 lobbyists on how the program works and how to sign up. They also previewed the public service announcements and nationally televised town hall meeting planned for the holiday weekend.
One lobbyist thought that administration officials called the meeting because they "don't want the perception to take hold that they aren't aggressively promoting [the new benefit], or that it's overly complicated." Another called the session "a well-rounded tutorial on how to be an echo chamber for the White House and the administration."
According to participants, White House Director of Public Liaison Rhonda Keenum opened the hour-long meeting. Other speakers were CMS Administrator Mark McClellan; Julie Goon, CMS director of Medicare Outreach; and Kathleen Harrington, director of the CMS Office of External Affairs. Barry Jackson, head of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, closed the session.
Now, as I've mentioned in past Diaries, Jackson was the point man for many policies, like Medicare Part D and Social Security Reform. I'm sure that last November was not the first time the OSI used a conference call to get Lobbyists behind a policy or to get out talking points.
I'm sure they've done this since the beginning. There may have been hundreds of these calls. And you can be certain that Jack Abramoff was a key player on these calls up to that moment when the Washington Post ran their Abramoff story in Feb. 2004.
That is a rich new source of Abramoff/White House links. Jack did not have to be physically at the White House complex for every policy meeting. He could phone in. And I'm sure that the Bush team reached out to him, just like they did in Florida
In a release last year, Greenberg dubbed themselves "the international law firm that successfully represented President George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election litigation."
Four of Abramoff's colleagues--all of whom have left Greenberg in the wake of investigations surrounding Abramoff's activities--were foot soldiers in the Florida recount. Two of them bragged of their recount work on their official online Greenberg biographies, which have since been removed.
Gee, I wonder if Jack and his "A-Team" worked with Ed, Karl and Barry to close down the recount? Yes, I think they did.
So more Abramoff/White House connections are coming out every day and Barry Jackson and the OSI are key to making the connection. That must be why the AP story reports that Barry Jackson never took that Abramoff Junket to protect Saipan Sweatshops back in 1996:
A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner made plans to take a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff's firm show.
Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan when he was Boehner's chief of staff, but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday. [snip]
According to bills from Abramoff's former lobbying firm to the Marianas government, Abramoff's staff contacted Boehner's office about island issues at least 10 times in the first four months of 1996. [snip]
Typically, the contact was made by David Safavian, who later became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in the Office of Management and Budget. Safavian recently was indicted on charges of obstructing investigations of his ties to Abramoff. Safavian was the first administration official indicted in the Abramoff scandal.
On March 15, 1996, two weeks before the Saipan trip, Abramoff's lobbying records show Safavian went over trip plans with Jackson and Mimi Simoneaux, then spokeswoman for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. On April 1, the day the congressional aides flew to the Marianas, Safavian called Boehner's office "to ascertain the location of B. Jackson." Abramoff's employee called about Jackson again the following day.
Jackson does not recall why he decided not to make the trip, given that it occurred 10 years ago, Healy said.
So, today Jackson says he did not make the trip. But an article from April 17, 1996 in The Hill reported that he was there:
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Native American and Insular Affairs, is furious that a group of seven House staffers, including five GOP leadership aides, took a five-day trip during the recess to the Pacific island of Saipan, a U.S. territory, without his knowledge. [snip]
The other staffers are: Kerry Knott , David Hobbs and Horace Cooper, all top aides to Armey; Barry Jackson, chief of staff to Republican Conference Chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio); April Lassiter, chief communications and policy adviser to DeLay, and Matt Miller, chief of staff to Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.).
But Knott, a spokesman for the seven staffers, defended the trip. "It was clearly not a junket," Knott said. "They're dealing with serious issues in the Mariana Islands. They're an unusual part of the United States. Their reason for inviting staffers is to educate more people on what they're doing out there." [snip]
Knott told the Pacific Daily News, a local paper in the Mariana Islands, that his report for Armey would support allowing the commonwealth to keep control of its immigration policy , the local government's position.
It is not clear from the reporting if the AP has ALL of the records from CNMI. Perhaps Barry didn't make the trip, but then why did 1996 reporting place him there? We'll need more facts to reconcile these versions. It could just be another case of Abramnesia. I believe with a little digging, and more hard evidence, Barry will remember his trip to the South Pacific.
So the Big Lie in the AP story is the same one everybody in the GOP is selling these days: I didn't know Jack.
But they did. And it is time to make the connections.
In every race and every discussion about the GOP and their Culture of Corruption.
Abramoff is theirs.
2006 is now. It is way past time to take our country back.
Let's do it.
And please take a moment to demand a Special Prosecutor for all things Abramoff. We can not trust the Bush Team to investigate this scandal.