Does The Washington Post have a statute of limitations on crooked behavior by its sources?

Little more than a year after the Post reported on hypocritical behavior by a conservative activist, the newspaper is quoting him as an expert -- on whether such behavior is wrong.

In October of 2005, the Post's Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi told the story of how Jack Abramoff had used conservatives Ralph Reed and Rev. Louis Sheldon (whom Abramoff and his colleagues called "Lucky Louie") to kill an online anti-gambling bill on behalf of his client eLottery, a company that sold lottery tickets online. eLottery footed the bill, paying thousands to Reed and Sheldon. To secure Sheldon's help, Abramoff had eLottery cut a $25,000 check directly to the Sheldon's group, the Traditional Values Coalition.

Yet today, the Post seems to have forgotten Sheldon's hypocritical fundraising.

Post reporter John Solomon's story revealed that Newt Gingrich's conservative political group was jump-started by a $1 million contribution from a Las Vegas casino executive. To prove that this would raise hackles among the values set, he quoted Sheldon saying that accepting "income" from "a vice" was an "issue," and that "I certainly could never have done that and I certainly can't encourage it."

Except, well, he did, of course. Oddly, the piece references the Post's reporting on Reed's acceptance of gambling money, but is silent on Sheldon.

J. Steven Griles, formerly the #2 at the Interior Department, has hired Washington D.C. attorney and political ethics expert Stanley J. Brand, reports Peter Stone of National Journal (not available online).

Griles, who was evidently Abramoff's inside man at the department -- and who may have lied to Congress to cover this up -- has been told by prosecutors that he is a target of the Jack Abramoff investigation. He's hired Brand, Stone reports, "in case Griles goes to trial." Griles already has another lawyer, Barry Hartman of K&L Gates.

In case? "Some lawyers believe that Griles may cut a plea deal," Stone gingerly notes.

Brand, an expert on congressional ethics, is on speed dial for most Washington reporters -- and the Abramoff scandal has been no exception.

In fact, he's already gone on record with his opinion of the affair: "When this is all over, this will be bigger than any [government scandal] in the last 50 years, both in the amount of people involved and the breadth to it... It will include high-ranking members of Congress and executive branch officials." So now Brand is finally getting a piece of the action.

This development leaves a gaping question for the Washington press corps: who are they going to call for comment if they have an Abramoff story now?

With a federal judge's order to serve 30 months in a minimum security prison, former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) has received the longest sentence to date in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

He doesn't face much competition -- yet. Only one other figure has been sent to do time, former White House official David Safavian. He was sentenced to 18 months for four counts relating to obstructing the Abramoff investigation. (He's currently living at home, pending appeals.) Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, was recently sentenced to 24 months' probation for accepting illegal gifts from Abramoff.

Of course, Ney won't hold the record for long. When Abramoff and his key co-consipirators are sentenced, they will likely receive several years apiece. Their sentencings have been delayed because they have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

When he's told them everything, prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence of between 9 1/2 and 11 years for the disgraced GOP superlobbyist himself. Abramoff business partner and confidante Michael Scanlon faces five years in prison and millions in fines once he tells all; former lobbyist (and onetime Ney chief of staff) Neil Volz could also face five years, though he'll likely get far less. Tony Rudy, another former Abramoff associate, will likely face a sentence of two to two-and-a-half years, depending on his cooperation.

It looks like J. Steven Griles, formerly the #2 at the Interior Department is a full-time target now.

The Washington Post reported last week that Justice Department prosecutors had notified him that he was a target of the Jack Abramoff investigation -- usually a sign that an indictment is coming down the pike -- and now Legal Times reports that he left his lobbying gig the same day. His firm's website is also down (though maybe it's just a coincidence); Griles was one of three partners at the firm.

The Times adds: "A source with knowledge of the investigation says prosecutors are exploring whether to charge Griles with lying to Congress and honest-services fraud." It would seem to be just a matter of time.

From The Plain Dealer:

Attorneys for former Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney today submitted 95 pages of letters from Ney's friends, family, and former staffers urging leniency for the disgraced congressman and citing the role of alcohol in his fall.

Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, submitted the letters to make the case that Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle should send Ney to a residential drug abuse treatment program when she sentences him tomorrow on charges of conspiracy and making false statements.

"Bob was a functioning alcoholic who could rarely make it through the day without drinking and would often begin drinking beers as early as 7:30 a.m.," said a letter from his former staffer and campaign manager Matthew Parker.

After narrowly winning reelection in his very conservative district, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) says he's reformed, but it sure doesn't look like he's really got religion.

He's firing his wife as his campaign fundraiser, he announced yesterday -- no longer will she, and by extension Doolittle himself, get a 15% cut of every contribution to his campaign. Not that there was ever anything wrong with this, no -- but for some reason the arrangement became a "concern and distraction to some of [his] constituents," as he wrote in an Op-Ed, revealing his reformation:

Because I believe it is proper for my wife to raise funds for my campaign, I encouraged her to step in at a critical time when her talents were desperately needed. I have appreciated her willingness to take time away from her other clients to provide a professional service to my campaign. However, because I recognize that this issue has been a concern and distraction to some of my constituents, I have retained an outside fundraiser to take over those duties.

Nope, no mea culpa there. And that "critical time when [his wife's] talents were desperately needed?" That was 2001 through the present. And during that critical, desperate time, he did not face a single credible election challenge prior to 2006. He outraised his opponent in 2004, for example, $935,907 to $2,300. Good thing his wife was there to share the pot.

Read more »

Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who accepted a host of bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has said before that drink made him do it.

Now his lawyer, in a request to the judge for lenience, repeated that again yesterday, and requested that "the Court specifically find that Mr. Ney’s alcohol addiction contributed to the conduct he has admitted." His lawyer added that "Mr. Ney would benefit from participation in the Residential Drug Abuse Program offered by the Bureau of Prisons during any term of imprisonment." (You can read the entire filing here.)

As Justin pointed out before, the residential program would remove Ney from the general inmate population and may ultimately reduce his sentence by up to a year. Prosecutors have recommended 29 months in prison for Ney. His sentencing will take place January 19th.

Yet another senator who lost re-election because of his ties to lobbyists is heading to K Street:

Former Sen. Conrad Burns, whose ties to lobbyists helped sink his re-election bid, has landed at a new workplace: a Washington lobbying firm.

Burns will work for his former chief of staff, Leo Giacometto, at the firm Gage, which has lobbied for Montana interests and several national technology companies, often making headlines for its connections to Burns and his staff.

Well, at least there Burns will be able to earn more than enough to pay his lawyers as prosecutors investigating the Abramoff scandal bear down... although he's still got plenty left over in his campaign fund.

Update: As anonymontucky comments below, Burns and Giacometto are under investigation by the FBI for Burns' earmarking shenanigans, as first reported by Roll Call (sub. req.).

From The Washington Post:

Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities, sources knowledgeable about the probe said.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that among the possible criminal charges being investigated is whether Griles made false statements to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005 about job discussions Abramoff initiated while Griles was deputy secretary.

So Griles, the former #2 at the Interior Department, is on the hook for being Jack Abramoff's inside man at the Interior Department, and then lying about it to Senate investigators.

Even though Griles' colleagues testified to the Indian Affairs Committee that Griles was oddly interested in Abramoff's clients while at Interior, and that he turned "purple" when challenged as to why, Griles told Senate investigators that he didn't have any particular involvement with Abramoff's clients. And even though Abramoff boasted to his fellow lobbyists in a 2003 email that Griles was cashing in and leaving Interior to join Abramoff's team, Griles told the committee that there had never been any such understanding. (For whatever reason, Griles ultimately did not join Abramoff, although he did land a lobbying gig elsewhere).

Griles is the most senior agency official known to be a target of the investigation so far. Other senior officials, like White House aides including Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, and Susan Ralston, have come under scrutiny, but Griles is the first to be in real danger of indictment. Of course, he wouldn't be the first administration official to go down in the Abramoff scandal for lying to investigators.

The Post adds another tantalizing tidbit: Griles' girlfriend, who used to be former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton's chief of staff, has abruptly resigned from her new post at the Justice Department.

From the AP:

A former Interior Department employee was sentenced to two years probation and fined $1,000 Tuesday for failing to report gifts he received from influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

Roger Stillwell accepted hundreds of dollars worth of football and concert tickets from Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Stillwell was with the Interior Department's insular affairs office, which handles issues involving the island government.

"It was never my intention to deliberately violate the law, but clearly I did so, and I extend my sincerest apologies to this court," Stillwell said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay handed down a relatively stiff penalty for the misdemeanor offense. Defense attorneys asked for six months probation and prosecutors did not oppose it because Stillwell cooperated in the Abramoff investigation....

Stillwell received four tickets to a Washington Redskins game and two tickets to a Simon and Garfunkel concert in 2003. The tickets had a face value of about $485 but prosecutors said they were worth about $2,300.

So what did Stillwell tell prosecutors? We'll have to wait to find out. Long live the Abramoff scandal!

... together at last.

What do you do when there are public records showing the details of visits by a corrupt lobbyist and his associates? If you're the Bush White House, you do what you do best: make them disappear!

From the AP:

The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House complex are not subject to public disclosure....

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the past, Secret Service logs have revealed the comings and goings of various White House visitors, including Monica Lewinsky and Clinton campaign donor Denise Rich, the wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who received a pardon in the closing hours of the Clinton administration.

The memo last spring was signed by the White House and Secret Service the day after a Washington-based group asked a federal judge to impose sanctions on the Secret Service in a dispute over White House visitor logs for Abramoff.

We've snagged a copy of the memo for you to read here.

The basic thrust is this: despite the fact that the Secret Service makes and keeps the visitor records, they're not really Secret Service records (even though they'd been treated that way in the past), they're White House records, and thus not subject to FOIA. Got that?

That's one more addition to our great disappearing info list. We're up to 29!

A moment of silence, if you please -- one year ago today, Jack Abramoff pled guilty.

A lot of things have changed since then. We've said goodbye to Reps. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Bob Ney (R-OH), Richard Pombo (R-CA), Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), and the Republican congressional majority. And now, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), once Abramoff's nemesis in Congress, is set to make another change, finally closing an egregious loophole Abramoff successfully protected for nearly a decade.

Read more »