RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman did so many favors for Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist's team viewed him as a "rock star."

In an email exchange from November 2001 (you can see it here), Abramoff associate Tony Rudy writes Abramoff, "Mehlman said he would 'take care of this.' He was a rock star." Abramoff replies: "He's great."

The two were referring to Mehlman's agreement to get Abramoff's client the Mississippi Choctaw millions in federal funds to build a new jail -- but Mehlman, who had Sabbath dinner at Abramoff's house and visited his restaurant Signatures, did more than that to gain rock star status.

In a January 2001 email (posted here), Rudy reports that Mehlman had agreed to get an Abramoff foe "fired" at the State Department. The House Report details other instances of Mehlman's help, such as providing Abramoff with a White House endorsement for Republican candidates close to Abramoff on Guam; and making sure that a Republican running in the Northern Mariana Islands did not get an endorsement in the governor's race there, since he was opposing Abramoff crony Ben Fitial.

The House Government Reform Committee has released hundreds of new emails from Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm pertaining to his and his associates' contacts with Administration officials.

We're scouring them now, and here's a good one. In an email exchange subject-lined "were you able to whack mccain's wife yet?" Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff discuss derailing the nomination of a woman named Angela Williams to an Interior post.

Williams was up for head of the Office of Insular Affairs in the Department of the Interior, which has authority over decisions affecting the Northern Mariana Islands, an Abramoff client.

With the White House's help, Abramoff's effort was successful. Ralph Reed emailed Abramoff, "talked to rove about this and I think I killed it." You can see the exchange here.

"Williams is married to former Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle, who was a Vietnam POW with Senator John McCain," according to Time.

There's already a lot of evidence out there that Ken Mehlman was Jack Abramoff's prime favor man in the White House -- but this new congressional report provides the most damning example yet.

From The Washington Post:

One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP.

So in exchange for political contributions, Mehlman made sure the Choctaw got their $16 million contract. I believe that's called a quid pro quo.

It's by no means the only example of Mehlman's favors.

In 2001, he made sure a State Department official wasn't re-nominated for his post -- the official, Allen Stayman was a long-time foe of Abramoff's.

And according to a report from the Justice Department's Inspector General, Mehlman ordered one of his suboordinates at the White House to keep Abramoff updated on issues related to Guam; Abramoff was keen to see the U.S. Attorney there replaced.

In March, Mehlman told Vanity Fair, "Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper."

The New York Times follows right behind Roll Call with details from an unreleased bipartisan congressional report on Jack Abramoff and the White House. The paper gives more details on the Karl Rove-Jack Abramoff relationship:

In October 2001, the report said, Mr. Abramoff asked the White House to withhold an endorsement from a Republican candidate for governor of the Northern Marianas Islands, an American commonwealth in the western Pacific where Mr. Abramoff had clients; Mr. Abramoff was backing another candidate.

On Oct. 31, 2001, the report said, [Rove assistant and former Abramoff employee Susan] Ralson sent an e-mail message to Mr. Abramoff that read: “You win :) KR said no endorsement.”

In March 2002, the report said, Mr. Abramoff contacted Ms. Ralson to offer tickets to Mr. Rove and his family for use of a skybox during the N.C.A.A. tournament at the MCI Center in Washington.

“Hi Susan,” Mr. Abramoff wrote in an e-mail message. "I just saw Karl and mentioned the N.C.A.A. opportunity, which he was really jazzed about. If he wants to join us in the Pollin box, please let me know as soon as you can.”

Ms. Ralston replied: “Karl is interested in Fri. and Sun. 3 tickets for his family?”

Mr. Abramoff responded: “Done. Does he want to go Friday night or Friday afternoon or both?” The report said that Mr. Rove offered to pay for the tickets, prompting Mr. Abramoff to propose that Mr. Rove pay $50 per ticket “payable to me personally.”

More, after the jump.

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More of Kane-and-Bresnahan's reporting from Roll Call (sub. req.):

During the period examined by the committee, Bush administration officials repeatedly intervened on behalf of Abramoff¹s clients, including helping a Mississippi Indian tribe obtain $16 million in federal funds for a jail the tribe wanted to build.

Abramoff was able to block the nomination of one Interior Department official using Christian conservative Ralph Reed as a go-between with Rove, according to e-mails between Abramoff and Reed.

Abramoff also tried to oust a State Department employee who interfered with their efforts on behalf of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, one of Abramoff¹s most lucrative clients.

The White House responds to the charges:

"The billing records that are the basis of this report are widely regarded as fraudulent in how they misrepresented the activities and influence of Abramoff," [White House spokeswoman Dana] Perino said. "There's no reason those records should be suddenly viewed as credible." Perino added that she was unaware of any link between Abramoff¹s lobbying and White House intervention in policy or personnel matters affecting his clients. "Not that I'm aware of as a result of a direct contact," Perino said.

Perino did not specifically address whether White House officials ever accepted meals or tickets from Abramoff. "We have high standards and expect them to be met," she said.

Roll Call's John Bresnahan and Paul Kane reports (sub. req.):

Hundreds of contacts between top White House officials and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates "raise serious questions about the legality and actions" of those officials, according to a draft bipartisan report prepared by the House Government Reform Committee.

The 95-page report, which White House officials reviewed Wednesday evening but has yet to be formally approved by the panel, singled out two of President Bush¹s top lieutenants, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, as having been offered expensive meals and exclusive tickets to premier sporting events and concerts by Abramoff and his associates.

In total, the committee was able to document 485 contacts between White House officials and Abramoff and his lobbying team at the firm Greenberg Traurig from January 2001 to March 2004, with 82 of those contacts occuring in Rove's office, including 10 with Rove personally. The panel also said that Abramoff billed his clients nearly $25,000 for meals and drinks with these officials during that period.

Developing. . .

A Texas congressman is denying charges he slandered a foreign sex slave at the behest of Jack Abramoff. But documents obtained by TPMmuckraker contradict the Republican's claims.

In November of 1997, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) publicly questioned the credibility of a teenage girl's claims that she'd been the victim of the sex trade in the Northern Mariana Islands. The statement, which Rep. Hall entered into the Congressional Record, was prepared by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist for the islands.

"[S]he wanted to do nude dancing," Hall's statement said of the fifteen-year-old girl. She had earlier told federal investigators that she'd been forced to work for a local nightclub in a nightly live sex show. You can read the entirety of Hall's statement here.

Press accounts at the time detailed how the girl had been taken from her parents in the Phillippines, and forced to perform sex acts on stage and before video cameras at a Northern Marianas sex club. A 1998 Department of Labor report confirmed those reports.

Hall's challenger in Texas' 4th District, history professor Glenn Melancon, has made the episode a campaign issue. "When investigators discovered child prostitution and forced abortions on the Mariana Islands, Congressman Ralph Hall was paid for covering it up and publicly attacking one of the raped children," read postcards his campaign distributed to voters.

Hall has called the charge an "outright lie." His office did not respond to our request for comment on this story. But records show that Abramoff's staff contacted Hall's office fifteen times in the two months leading up to his statement in the Congressional Record.

Hall has also denied being paid for making the statement, but oddly enough has revealed that "[Tom] DeLay gave him money 10 years ago," according the to the district's local paper, The Herald Banner.

DeLay was Abramoff's closest ally in Congress with regard to the Marianas. But Federal Election Commission records do not show contributions to Hall from DeLay or his PAC during that period. The former Majority Leader was known for routing donations through third parties to hide their origin. Hall was a Democrat at the time he says he took DeLay's money -- he switched parties in 2004.

Hall visited the Marianas islands on an Abramoff-sponsored junket in 1997, according to emails. The CNMI government later reimbursed Abramoff. In this photograph from the Marianas Variety, Hall is shown during that trip:

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While Jack Abramoff himself only scored seven visits to the White House -- at least, according to released records -- his friends and associates were more frequent guests. That's according to a payload of Secret Service records released last night by the White House.

Chief among those visitors were Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, both of whom worked with Abramoff to get him and his clients access to the administration.

Norquist got "was cleared for 97 visits to the White House complex between 2001 and 2006, including a half-dozen with the president," according to the records. Norquist's access was sure enough that he charged big money for meetings with Bush -- the price of admission was a hefty contribution to Norquist's nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform. Two of Abramoff's tribal clients coughed up $25,000 each for a meeting with Bush in May of 2001. In July of 2002, Norquist asked Abramoff for $100,000 to set up a meeting.

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Prosecutors working on the Jack Abramoff investigation have asked a federal judge to postpone setting a sentencing date for Tony Rudy, a close associate of Abramoff's, because his "cooperation will continue for the foreseeable future." It's the second time they've pushed the date back.

It's yet another sign that the Abramoff investigation is far from over, even after Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) guilty plea.

Rudy, who served as Tom DeLay's press secretary before moving to Abramoff's team, pled guilty back in March to one count of conspiracy. His cooperation is likely bad news for Ed Buckham, DeLay's longtime righthand man, whom Rudy implicated in his guilty plea for helping route Abramoff's bribe money to Rudy while he was still working with DeLay. As as we've noted many times before, Buckham, who ran his own lobby shop called Alexander Strategy Group, would be a big one to fall.

Rudy was set to meet with prosecutors and a judge Oct. 2, but prosecutors, in a joint motion with Rudy's lawyers, have asked that the date be postponed 90 days. That means that Rudy won't be sentenced until well into next year. He faces a sentence between two years and 30 months.

There he goes!

Sen. Conrad Burns' (R-MT) campaign manager has proudly announced that his boss has confirmed he is not a "target" of the Abramoff investigation.

As we've learned from previous scandal figures, that can only mean one thing: the investigators are making progress.

"The Department of Justice told Sen. Burns' counsel that no, in fact, he is not the target," Burns' spokesman said yesterday afternoon. The comments came after Time Magazine reported that a source "close to the investigation" said that Burns was getting "particular scrutiny" in the wake of Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) guilty plea.

It's a statement finely tuned to sound like Burns has been exonerated. But of course, it doesn't really mean anything except that prosecutors won't be knocking down his door tomorrow. As the Great Falls Tribune noted:

"Target" is a specific term indicating that a prosecutor or grand jury likely has evidence linking someone to a crime.

In other words, the Feds ain't got the goods. Yet.

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It hasn't gotten much attention, but Bob Ney's guilty plea released today contained dirt on at least one other politician.

In the document, Ney fessed up to lobbying Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), then a Bush cabinet official, on behalf of an Abramoff client. The official's department later acted favorably toward Abramoff's client, according to news accounts.

Ney admitted to arranging a January, 2003 meeting with Mel Martinez, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to "[advance] the interests of Abramoff's Native American Indian Tribal clients."

Ney told Martinez that his "number one priority as the newly installed Chairman of the Housing Subcommittee was Native American Indian Tribal housing," according to the plea.

Martinez has said he can't recall the meeting.

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According to lawyers for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who has admitted to a slew of corrupt activities while in office, the congressman has already entered an alcohol rehabilitation facility. Via the Hotline, a statement from Mark H. Tuohey III and William E. Lawler III:

Congressman Ney accepts responsibility for his actions, and we hope that the treatment he has begun will enable him and his family to face the future in a healthy and productive way.

Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) statement on his guilty plea:

As shown in papers filed in court, I have reached an agreement to bring the government’s investigation of me to an end. The agreement will enable me to accept responsibility for what I have done, to start repairing the damage I have caused and to start healing my family.

I have made serious mistakes and am sorry for them. I am very sorry for the pain I have caused to my family, my constituents in Ohio and my colleagues.

I know that this plea agreement will probably forever change the way people view my public service. I regret this very much because I hope and believe that I have helped people through my work, and I hope that someday the good I have tried to do will be measured along side the mistakes I have made.

These have been difficult times, and I appreciate more than I can describe the support, encouragement and friendship that people from inside and outside my District have given to me and my family over the past months.

I have gone through a great deal of soul searching recently, and I have come to recognize that a dependence on alcohol has been a problem for me. I am not making any excuses, and I take full responsibility for my actions. Over the years, I have worked to help others, but now I am the one that needs help. I am seeking professional help for this problem I am hopeful that with counseling, time and the support of my family and friends, I will be able to deal with my dependency.

A release just out from the Justice Department states that Ney's is a two count plea, and he's pleading to bad doings beyond Jack Abramoff.

This section in particular caught my eye:

In his plea agreement, Ney also admitted to charges that he had accepted thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from a foreign businessman. According to the documents filed today in court, in February 2003 and again in August 2003, Ney made two trips to London, during each of which he and members of his staff met with a foreign businessman who was hoping to sell U.S.-made airplanes and airplane parts in a foreign country. Ney agreed to help the businessman with obtaining an exemption to the U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of these goods to the foreign country, and Ney also agreed to help the businessman obtain a visa to travel to the United States. On February 21 and 22 and again on August 29, Ney and the staff members accompanying him each received thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from the businessman for use at private casinos in London. As a result, Ney eventually pocketed more than $50,000. Ney admitted that he never returned any of the free chips to the businessman and never shared with the businessman any of the money he had won as a result of the free chips.

The whole release follows. We'll have the docs up soon.

Update: Although the charges to which Ney has pled amount to a 10 year max sentence, his cooperation has lowered that to 2 years, 3 months.

Update: Here are the facts that Ney is pleading to, which you can also read about below.

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CNN's running the following banner on their site:

Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements as part of a deal in which he will cooperate with an influence peddling investigation, the Justice Department said.

So he will cooperate. More soon.

TPM Reader DM:

pretty much everyone who pleads guilty does so as part of some sort of deal, so i wonder, what were the terms of the deal? more broadly, assuming there was a deal, i wonder what motivated the prosecutors to offer ney a deal.

prosecutors offer plea deals for any number of reasons – resources, strength of their case, etc. the conventional wisdom is that bribery is notoriously difficult to prove. so maybe the prosecutors gave ney a deal because they didn’t want to roll the dice at trial. but the state does have four cooperating witnesses as well as pretty compelling circumstantial evidence.

which leads me to wonder. do you think prosecutors gave ney a deal for other reasons? in particular, is it possible ney is cooperating as well? if so, who might be the target?

Again, to see what prosecutors had in their arsenal, here's our primer on Ney.

The Justice Department has announced that Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher will be making a statement on a "public corruption case" at 10:30 AM. Justin's headed down to attend. More soon.

From The Cleveland Plain Dealer's blog:

Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney has agreed with the Justice Department to plead guilty to at least one criminal charge in a deal that could be announced as early as Friday, Capitol Hill sources said Thursday....

Capitol Hill sources close to Ney said the plea agreement was ready to be publicized on Thursday, but an announcement was delayed to avoid influencing a special election in Ney’s congressional district.

Stay tuned....

Update: For those of you who need reminding as to what Ney might be pleading guilty, here's a reminder.

Late Update: The AP reports:

The Republican officials said they were not certain whether Ney intended to admit guilt to more than one charge, or precisely what offense would be involved in any plea agreement. They said a prison sentence was not out of the question.

Two officials said Ney would admit to having filed a false disclosure report with the House of Representatives in connection with a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland that Abramoff paid for.

Yup, that trip to Scotland. The one that wasn't a junket.

A federal judge denied an appeal from former White House appointee David Safavian, who was convicted in June of four felony counts arising from the Jack Abramoff scandal.

"This Court concludes that there are no grounds for granting either defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal on any of the counts for which he was convicted," wrote Judge Paul Friedman, "or his motion for a new trial."

Safavian is scheduled for sentencing next month.

Where's Jack Abramoff when you need him?

Peter Dicks, the chairman of the London-based Sportingbet PLC, was arrested in New York late Wednesday as part of an increasing crackdown by U.S. authorities on internet gambling.

Sportingbet was a client of Jack Abramoff's* through 2004 and paid his firm a whopping $1.46 million for two years of work fighting off legislative attacks on internet gambling. But after Abramoff, things have gotten a lot tougher for the industry. In June of this year, the House finally passed a bill to severely restrict online gambling that Abramoff had fought for years. And law enforcement has started cracking down based on the laws already on the books; Dicks is the second web bet exec to be arrested by U.S. authorities in the last couple of months.

Lousiana state police are charging Dicks under a state law that prohibits computer gambling. It's just the sort of jam where a good lobbyist might be able to pull some strings. Too bad Abramoff is unavailable.

*Update/Correction: While Sportingbet was a client of Greenberg Traurig (Abramoff's firm) and represented by associates of Abramoff, Abramoff himself didn't represent the company.

A representative from the Tigua tribe of Texas, one of Jack Abramoff's former clients, says that he witnessed a clandestine meeting between the lobbyist and Karl Rove on the street just outside the White House -- and that Abramoff said he and Rove regularly met in such ways in order to stay below the radar.

The account comes in James Moore and Wayne Slater's new book "The Architect: Karl Rove and The Master Plan for Absolute Power." Schwartz told them that he was visiting Abramoff in Washington in March of 2002 when, in the midst of a conversation with Abramoff in the back seat of the lobbyist's car, Abramoff suddenly said "I gotta meet Rove."

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