From The Associated Press, 3/8/06:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_abramoff
Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff
WASHINGTON -
Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well
enough to joke with him about weightlifting.
"What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him.
The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff.
Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10
or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the
president and first lady.
"He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever
met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April
issue being released this week.
"Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"
Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former
partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear
they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a
multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in
2000.
Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into
his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration.
"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said of Abramoff on
Jan. 26.
"I've had my picture taken with a lot of people."
"I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy,"
Bush added.
"I don't know him."
A few days later, Abramoff wrote to Washingtonian magazine that he had
met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew
him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.
Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he once was invited to Bush's Texas
ranch where he would have joined with other big Bush fundraisers.
Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, said he didn't go because the event fell on
the Sabbath.
The lobbyist said that when Bush made a speech to fundraisers in 2003,
he sat just a few feet from the president.
Abramoff, the only lobbyist on the dais, was seated between Republican
Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Three former associates of Abramoff have told The Associated Press the
lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House
through its deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove.
Asked about the former Abramoff associates' accounts, the White House
said Rove and Abramoff were leaders of a young Republicans group
decades ago.
"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s,"
White House spokeswoman Erin Healy has said.
"Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."
According to Vanity Fair, Rove's relationship with Abramoff was
deeper.
After Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administration
assistant, assumed the same post with Rove at the White House, where
Abramoff met with Rove at least once, the magazine said.
Rove dined several times at Abramoff's former restaurant in
Washington, Signatures, and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box of
the NCAA basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the
game at Abramoff's side, Vanity Fair reported.
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But Bush doesn't know Abramoff, ya understand.
Harry
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