Records Show Bush Met Disgraced Lobbyist Abramoff Three Times More Than He Said

The latest new example of why President George Bush suffers from a huge credibility gap: it now turns out that, despite the White House’s denials and Bush’s comments that he barely knew the guy, Bush met with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff three times more than he originally admitted.

ABC NEWS reports:

The White House had stronger ties to disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff than it has publicly admitted, according to a draft congressional report released Monday.

President Bush met Abramoff on at least four occasions the White House has yet to acknowledge, according to the draft report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

And White House officials appeared as comfortable going to Abramoff and his lobbyists seeking tickets to sporting and entertainment events, as they did seeking input on personnel picks for plum jobs, the report found.

President Bush himself met Abramoff on at least six occasions, the report said, citing White House documents; the White House had previously acknowledged only two.

Public Record adds:

But hundreds of pages of documents released Monday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee show that Abramoff communicated with former White House political adviser Karl Rove, and Rove’s deputies in the White Office of Political Affairs, regularly about the administration’s domestic agenda and succeeded in getting the White House to fire a State Department official. Rove described Abramoff as a “casual acquaintance.”

Although [Rep. Henry] Waxman said his investigation was hampered by six unnamed individuals, three of whom were White House officials, who asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege, his staff uncovered information that documents 485 lobbying contacts between Abramoff and White House officials between January 2001 and March 2004, including 170 meetings over meals and 16 meetings over drinks with White House officials, 156 of which Abramoff billed to his clients.

This actually confirms some earlier reports. For instance, in some emails Abramoff was reported to have said that he met Bush in at least a dozen settings. Bush himself had said:”“You know, I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don’t know him.”

To add an extra twist to the story, the White House press secretary who gave the original misleading account was Scott McClellan, presently a best-selling author and Bush administration unfavorite with his new anti-Bush memoir. And the White House spin on this is predictable. ABC again:

When questions were first raised about Abramoff’s connection to Bush officials in January 2006, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had personally met Abramoff on just two occasions, both at White House Hanukkah receptions.

McClellan told reporters there had also been “a few staff-level meetings” between officials and Abramoff and his team, but declined to provide more information.

That number was significantly higher, White House lawyer Emmet Flood indicated in correspondence to committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., two years later, according to the draft report. Flood’s letter identified six photographs of Bush with Abramoff or Abramoff’s family members, which the White House provided.

And the White House response?

It’s predictable that they’d say “Photos schmotos, he gets his picture taken with a lot of people!” which would skirt the original insistence given to the press that Bush barely knew the guy and only bumped into him twice. So here it is:

“Give me a break,” responded White House spokesman Tony Fratto when asked about the apparent discrepancy. “Do you know how many people get their picture taken with the President of the United States?”

If you analyze the response, it makes it sound like those asking why it now turns out Bush & Co had a lot more dealings with the disgraced lobbyist than they admitted were unreasonable reporters rather than reporters doing their jobs (which is trying to get an answers). The response attempts to belittle the original Bush statement: who cares if he originally said he barely remembered him? So? Maybe he didn’t remember six times or any other contacts? How could you people in the press be so partisan and raise this issue!

McClellan, now publicizing his kiss-and-tell memoir, “What Happened,” did not respond to a request for comment made to his publicist. “What Happened” does not mention Abramoff.

This latest development is part of a Bush White House pattern. The administration first makes an assertion or a denial, usually implying that that not accepting it as the truth shows that someone is a Democratic partisan or has an ax to grind. But it increasingly has turned out that l later on the critics were correct and the administration had been either making inaccurate assertions, only giving out information that bolstered its argument, or indulged in some later called outright fibs.

As a result, the Bush administration’s credibility gap is likely to go down in history as being worse than the credibility gaps of the Democratic Johnson and Republican Nixon administrations. It’s all the more reason why presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain might accelerate his efforts to put some distance between himself and Bush.