When the White House nominated Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) to succeed Ken Mehlman as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, some wondered why they'd exchanged one man with a Jack Abramoff problem for another.

The RNC won't vote to approve Martinez until January. But we hear that new revelations about Martinez's ties to the now-imprisoned Abramoff are due to be released before that happens. If that happens, and it jeopardizes Martinez's bid to lead the GOP, the party could face some serious questions about why it can't seem to find a qualified, muck-free leader.

As we've noted before, Abramoff had aggressively courted Martinez when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of his tribal clients. In his guilty plea, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) admitted to lobbying Martinez on Abramoff's behalf. And when Martinez launched his Senate bid in 2004, Abramoff co-chaired a fundraiser that netted him $250,000. Martinez has said that he never met Abramoff when he was Secretary of HUD. But it seems there's more to that tale.

Ken Mehlman, of course, despite his protestations to the contrary, was close to Abramoff -- so close that Abramoff's associates referred to him as their "rock star" for his many favors on their behalf.

"Abramoff Reports to Prison; Officials Focus on Reid, Others," was the headline of an ABC story yesterday reporting that Jack Abramoff, the convicted lobbyist, was dishing dirt on a handful of Democratic senators, Harry Reid (D-NV) in particular.

"Abramoff has offered testimony [to investigators] about his contacts with 'six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators,'" ABC News reported, citing "sources close to the federal investigation." One "source close to the investigation" told ABC that $30,000 in contributions to Reid from Abramoff's tribal clients "were no accident and were in fact requested by Reid."

The report was surprising, particularly given that in the thousands of pages of Abramoff's emails, billing records and other documents released over the past two years, there's little evidence that the Republican lobbyist or his team worked very hard to persuade Democratic lawmakers to support their clients, legally or illegally.

Curious to learn more, we called a number of Abramoff's former colleagues from his heyday at the Greenberg Traurig lobby firm to see how the story struck them.

"Jack has not met eight Democrats in Washington," one lobbyist told us.

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Jack Abramoff appears to have survived his first night in prison. And it's a good thing! He's likely to have some great bunkmates before long.

First, Abramoff may soon get to enjoy the company of good friend David Safavian, the White House appointee who was recently sentenced for three felony convictions stemming from his involvement with the disgraced superlobbyist. Safavian's lawyers are said to have requested their client be held at the same Cumberland facility. Their second choice is reported to be a similar prison in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Even if Safavian doesn't show up, Abramoff can look forward to the company of Larry Franklin, the Pentagon employee convicted of spying for Israel. Franklin has been sentenced to 12 years at Cumberland, although he's serving as a government witness in other cases to get that shortened. According to Forward correspondent Nathan Guttman, who's been following his case from the beginning, Franklin is likely to arrive at "FCI Cumberland," as the prison is known, in the late spring of 2007, after his cooperation is complete.

In the meantime, Jack -- onetime owner of Signatures Restaurant and Stacks Deli -- can make small talk with fellow inmate Gholam Kowkabi, also a onetime Washington restauranteur. Kowkabi, former owner of D.C. eateries Sole Restaurant, Restaurant Piccolo, Alamo Grill and Tuscana West, is doing an 18-month stretch for failing to pay nearly $2 million in city taxes.

Abramoff might also get to critique the writings of William Hurwitz, a pain physician doing a 25-year sentence for dozens of "narcotic-prescribing related charges," as Modern Healthcare described them. (Defenders say Hurwitz "aggressively" overprescribed painkillers to patients without proper supervision.) Since being locked up, Hurwitz took to writing poetry. It's not clear if he's presently at Cumberland, however; earlier reports had him held in Arlington, and the Bureau of Prisons prisoner locator shows him as "in transit."

In an email to friends, convicted ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff bemoaned his fate -- to spend the next several years of his life in a minimum security prison within visiting distance for his family.

"This nightmare has gone on for almost three years so far," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Associated Press, "and I expect we are not even half way through."

(It's not clear why the former GOP power broker, who faces at least nine years in prison, thought his "nightmare" might end in three years.)

Abramoff told friends that "unfortunately, things are going to get worse (starting today no doubt) before they get better," a reference to this first day of his imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md.

Very early this morning (by bloggers' standards), Jack Abramoff entered the Federal Prison Camp in Cumberland, Maryland, where he is likely to spend at least the next nine-and-a-half years of his life.

What will he do there? His meetings with investigators and prosecutors won't stop -- the prison was chosen because of its proximity to D.C., so he would be convenient for frequent visits from the Feds. The AP details what he'll be up to besides those visits:

Stephen Finger, executive assistant at the prison, said all inmates work while there. Incoming inmates such as Abramoff typically are assigned to menial jobs such as food service work. Finer said that inmates can work their way up from low-level jobs paying 12 cents an hour to better positions paying up to 40 cents an hour.

No doubt Abramoff will climb the ladder quickly.