And the beat goes on....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/23/griles.abramoff.ap/index.html


Ex-Interior deputy pleads guilty in Abramoff probe
POSTED: 1:41 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2007
Story Highlights
. J. Steven Griles highest-ranking Bush official convicted in Jack Abramoff
scandal
. Ex-deputy interior secretary pleads guilty to obstruction of justice in
Senate probe
. Griles admits he lied to Senate about relationship with convicted lobbyist
. Abramoff sought Griles' intervention at agency on behalf of Indian tribal
clients


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded
guilty Friday to obstruction of justice in a Senate committee's
investigation, becoming the highest-ranking Bush administration official
convicted in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.
The former No. 2 official in the Interior Department admitted in federal
court that he lied to the Senate about his relationship with convicted
lobbyist Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at the agency
on behalf of Abramoff's Indian tribal clients.

Griles pleaded guilty to a felony charge for testifying falsely before the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee on November 2, 2005, and during an earlier
deposition with the panel's investigators on October 20, 2005.

"I am sorry for my wrongdoing. I fully accept the responsibility for my
conduct and the consequences it may have," Griles said in a statement. "When
a Senate committee asks questions, they must be answered fully and
completely, and it is not my place to decide whether those questions are
relevant or too personal. I apologize to my family, my friends, the
committee and its staff."

In court, he was asked: "Do you acknowledge that these were materially false
statements about your relationship with Mr. Abramoff?"

"Yes, your honor," Griles replied to U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal
Huville.

Under the plea agreement, federal prosecutors agreed to propose no more than
a 10-month prison sentence for Griles -- the minimum they could ask for
under sentencing guidelines -- that would allow him to serve half that time
in prison and half either in a halfway house or under house arrest.

Sentencing is set for June 26.

Deal doesn't require Griles' cooperation in probe
Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of President Bush's
energy policies, acknowledged concealing that his relationship with Abramoff
had been unique -- because of their introduction through Griles'
then-girlfriend, Italia Federici.

Prosecutors dropped earlier allegations that Griles did anything improper to
help Abramoff or gained anything of value from the former Republican
lobbyist. The agreement does not require Griles to help investigators with
their grand jury probe.

Griles and Abramoff met on March 1, 2001, through Federici, a Republican
environmental activist. One week later, Griles, who had been serving on
Bush's transition team for Interior, was nominated by the president as
deputy to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Second in rank only to Norton, Griles effectively was Interior's chief
operating officer while at the agency between July 2001 and January 2005,
and its top representative on Vice President ***** Cheney's energy task
force.

Griles lives in Virginia with Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who until January was an
assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's
environmental division.

The AP reported in February that Wooldridge, as the nation's environmental
prosecutor, bought a $980,000 vacation home last year with Griles and Donald
R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months
later, she signed an agreement giving the company more time to clean up air
pollution at some of its refineries.

Former official admits to obstructing investigation
In government papers, Griles acknowledges he obstructed the Senate
committee's investigation into Abramoff and his associates' dealings with
Indian casino clients. Griles admits he testified falsely four times to the
committee and once to the panel's investigators.

Abramoff persuaded his Indian clients to pay him tens of millions of dollars
to influence decisions coming out of Congress and the Interior Department.
Part of his pitch to clients was that he had serious pull at the department,
especially with Griles.

Awaiting sentencing in the bribery scandal, Abramoff already is serving six
years in prison for a bogus Florida casino deal. Others convicted so far in
the wide-ranging, influence peddling include former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio,
and former White House official David Safavian.

Abramoff's ties to at least three other current or former Republican
lawmakers have come under scrutiny in the probe: Rep. John Doolittle of
California, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and former Sen.
Conrad Burns of Montana.

The extent of Abramoff's reach at Interior is still somewhat unclear. The
court papers echo the Senate committee's account of events.

Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give $500,000 to Federici's Council
of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy from March 2001 to May 2003, about
the time when Griles and Federici ended their romantic relationship. They
began dating in 1998.

Federici co-founded the advocacy council with Norton -- before Norton joined
the Bush administration -- and with Grover Norquist, a conservative GOP
activist, college friend of Abramoff's and a close ally of Bush's.

Griles' office calendars, obtained through Freedom of Information Act
requests, show frequent meetings with Federici occurring within days of them
being discussed in e-mails between Federici and Abramoff.

Abramoff also sent e-mails to aides about meetings with Griles that don't
appear on Griles' office calendars. Federici and Abramoff regularly
exchanged e-mails from 2001 through most of 2003, seeking meetings with
Griles or favors from him.

Griles routinely passed on departmental information to Federici, who passed
it on to Abramoff, according to e-mails and other evidence obtained by the
Senate committee.

Griles acknowledged in the plea agreement that he lied when he told the
Senate committee that it was "outrageous and is not true" that Abramoff had
any special access to him at Interior and that no "special relationship"
existed between them. He also conceded that he misled the committee's
investigators when he told them his relationship with Abramoff was "no
different" than with other lobbyists.

Griles now admits those statements were untrue because Abramoff was the only
lobbyist he ever met while at Interior through a woman that Griles was
dating. Griles and Federici had a romantic relationship between 1998 and
mid-2003, the documents say. They met through Norton, for whom Federici once
did campaign work.

Griles lied in trying to "conceal the true nature" of how he met Abramoff
and "did not testify fully and truthfully" about his relations with Federici
or Abramoff's access to him, the documents say.

The Justice Department says Federici's introduction gave Abramoff "more
credibility as a lobbyist than Abramoff ordinarily would have had with
Griles," quickly putting them on terms "that ordinarily would have taken
years to develop."