Despite repeated denials from the Bush administration about its ties to Jack Abramoff, the notorious ex-lobbyist did have close relationships in the White House and was able to achieve his goals using those connections.  No surprise, really, considering Abramoff's staff considered Mehlman a "rock star".  The Washington Post has more:

If lobbyists find the path to their clients' riches obstructed by an implacably hostile federal official, they might achieve success by an end run or an appeal to more senior authorities. But a more extreme solution -- if the foe has high-level support -- is to pull strings at the White House and orchestrate the official's removal.

That option was chosen by Jack Abramoff and his colleagues at the Washington office of Greenberg Traurig in the Bush administration's early days, to oust Alan Stayman from a State Department negotiating job. Stayman had earned their ire by advocating labor reforms in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate where Abramoff's clients wanted to keep paying immigrants less than the federal minimum wage to work in textile factories.

Stayman was supported by James A. Kelly, who was a White House aide to President Ronald Reagan and served as the State Department's assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific from 2001 to 2005. Kelly, citing ongoing negotiations with Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, told his department's personnel office on May 1, 2001, that he wanted Stayman to remain for two more years.

But Abramoff's path to success in what an aide called "the Stayman project" is spelled out in a set of internal White House, State Department and Greenberg Traurig e-mails provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and made public last week.

Providing a rare glimpse of high-level, behind-the-scenes string-pulling, they show how Abramoff, now serving a prison term for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, relied on key White House contacts, including Susan Ralston, executive assistant to political adviser Karl Rove; Monica Kladakis, then deputy White House personnel chief; and Ken Mehlman, then the White House political director.

The Politico reported that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is not getting Abramoff-related documents from the Bush administration:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) says the White House is improperly withholding roughly more than 600 pages of documents related to imprisoned former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and he wants them handed over to his committee by Nov. 6.

In a letter today to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Waxman said, "The White House is withholding hundreds of pages of documents about the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff on the grounds that these documents involve internal White House deliberations. Unless the president is prepared to assert executive privilege over these documents, they should be turned over to the Oversight Committee without further delay."

According to Waxman, current and former White House officials are refusing to cooperate with his committee's ongoing probe into Abramoff's dealings with the White  House.

Why would the Bush administration refuse to cooperate over its relationship with Abramoff?  Spokespersons for the Bush White House have continually downplayed the interactions between Bush, his staff and Abramoff.  But, the Bush staff did work closely with the Abramoff team.  In fact, the Abramoff crew considered then-White House Political Director Ken Mehlman a "rock star."

And then, the President did meet Abramoff:

LIke most observers, the editorial writers at The New York Times are finding it difficult to understand why the Bush administration and the RNC can't find all the e-mails from White House staffers.  The Bush administration had a legal obligation, under the Presidential Records Act, to preserve those communications.  That seems not to have been a concern:

The post-Watergate law requiring the preservation of presidential records has proved to be no match for the Bush White House’s stealthy use of back-channel e-mails via the Republican National Committee’s computer system. Congressional investigators have discovered that while 88 White House staffers had accounts over at the G.O.P. computer banks, there are no e-mail archives to be found for 51 of them.

Congress has demanded that the White House and the R.N.C. provide the full e-records as it tries to figure out the story of the political purge of United States attorneys. Claims by the White House and the R.N.C. that they’re trying their best to comply are increasingly hard to believe, and we strongly urge Congress to continue the search.

We strongly urge Congress to continue the search, too.  Strongly. 

Rep. Henry Waxman wants answers about the relationship between Jack Abramoff and officials in the Bush White House.  There was a very tight relationship.  You may recall that Abramoff's team considered the White House Political Director Ken Mehlman a "rock star."   CREW's Melanie Sloan said, "Mehlman was clearly doing Abramoff's bidding" and should be investigated for accepting bribes.  Also, don't forget, Abramoff and Karl Rove have in common the same assistant, Susan Ralston.  Waxman's been looking at the Abramoff-Bush staff connections for awhile, but now that he's Chair of the Government Reform Committee -- with subpoena power -- things should get interesting:

The Government Reform Committee released a report last year saying that Abramoff and his associates had 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials between January 2001 and March 2004.

But Waxman, who became committee chairman in January after Democrats retook control of Congress, says important questions remain unanswered. These include whether White House officials paid for sports and concert tickets and meals they got from Abramoff and his associates, and whether they took official actions as a result, Waxman says.

Abramoff last year pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges and admitted defrauding his clients. A two-year investigation into his influence peddling has led to the conviction of a congressman along with 10 former House aides and Bush administration officials. One sitting congressman, GOP Rep. John Doolittle of California, remains under investigation.

Susan Ralston, a key aide to presidential political strategist Karl Rove who had worked for Abramoff, resigned last October after the Government Reform report showed she had extensive contacts with Abramoff.

Waxman wants Ralston to testify, but she is refusing to do so without a grant of immunity, according to a memo Waxman released last month after lawyers for his panel questioned her in private. Meanwhile Waxman wants to talk to others.

According to Hotline, Ken Mehlman, the outgoing Chair of the Republican Party included strong language about ethics in his final speech to the RNC today:

On ethics, Mehlman will say that the GOP "must – must – hold its elected officials … its candidates … its staff … everyone … to the absolute highest ethical standards." Mehlman: "If there are Republicans for whom influence or power or money have become more important than serving the public and the nation, then let me make it perfectly clear: we don’t want you."

Interesting timing since just yesterday the GOP Senate killed the ethics bill.

Since Mehlman is so concerned about ethics, maybe he will finally explain his relationship with Jack Abramoff. To the Abramoff lobbying team, Mehlman "was a rock star" when he worked at the White House.

Today, Media Matters examines the way Ken Mehlman has changed the story of his relationship with Jack Abramoff. The explanations have become more tortured as more evidence unfolds about the way the two interacted. A disturbing pattern has been exposed by Salon magazine:

The e-mails show that Mehlman was not only familiar with Abramoff, but might have been his go-to man within the White House. "Everyone would appreciate it if you would contact Ken only and not others here at the WH," reads one message to Abramoff from Bush advisor Karl Rove's assistant Susan Ralston, "because they just forward it to him anyway." And a comparison of the timing of specific e-mails with the timing of specific checks written by Abramoff clients suggests what Abramoff was expected to deliver in return.

More than once, Abramoff asks for a favor, Mehlman fulfills the request, and then one of Abramoff's wealthy Indian tribe clients sends a political donation to a GOP cause. In return for a favor, Abramoff seems to have helped Mehlman with his own special project, a tight, scandal-marred Senate race in New Hampshire. On one occasion, Mehlman even appears to have arranged for the firing of a particular federal employee at Abramoff's request.

That behavior should draw the interest of investigators according to CREW's Melanie Sloan:

"Mehlman was clearly doing Abramoff's bidding," Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, noted after reading the report. She says these latest revelations "strongly suggest that Mehlman ought to be under investigation for accepting bribes just like members of Congress are."

Those members of Congress would include Bob Ney who was in court last week to plead guilty to federal bribery charges.

Media Matters documents Mehlman's changing story on his relationship with Abramoff.  It's an "inconsistent tale."

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times had a blockbuster article yesterday that examined the very close working relationship between Jack Abramoff and top White House staffers. In fact, Abramoff had the White House Political Director, Ken Mehlman, doing his bidding. The Times highlighted e-mail exchanges that resulting in the firing of a State Department staffer, Allen Stayman, who was involved in labor issues in the Northern Mariana Islands:

"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.

The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.

There is still much more to this story. The Times notes that Mehlman may have received concert tickets from Abramoff. Mehlman was also involved with arranging contributions:

The e-mails disclosed in the House report showed that Mehlman was involved in a variety of matters of interest to Abramoff, one of which bore fruit for the lobbyist after he discussed delivering campaign contributions to GOP causes.

Tony Rudy, a onetime aide to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), referred to Mehlman on Nov. 9, 2001, as a "rock star" after Mehlman agreed to "take care of" the Choctaws' jail, despite a Justice Department finding that the tribe's existing jail was adequate.

Several days after that meeting, on Nov. 13, Rudy recommended a $15,000 contribution to the Republican National Committee. "Let's give the check to Ken Mehlman at the White House," wrote Rudy, who later pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the broader investigation.

On Nov. 15, campaign finance records show, the tribe gave $10,000 to the RNC. Overall, the tribe gave $120,000 in the 2002 election cycle to Republican committees and $95,000 to Democratic committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Abramoff's White House ties clearly run much, much deeper than the White House has admitted.

The Denver Post follows up on all the questions raised by the recent House report on the contacts between Jack Abramoff and the White House. Noting the discrepancies between what Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman have said about their relationships with Abramoff and what the records exposed, the Post thinks questions need to be answered:

The report asks: To what extent were executive branch officials influenced by Abramoff's elaborate schemes? And what reforms would better protect the integrity and improve the transparency of governmental processes and decisions?

Those are important questions, yet the administration has seemed oddly detached from the affair. Given President Bush's 2000 campaign promise to restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office, you'd think the White House would be more forthcoming with answers.

We think those are good questions that need answers, too.

More from Newsweek. Clearly, the full extent of the relationship between Ken Mehlman, who was the Political Director at the White House before becoming chair of the Republican National Committee, and Jack Abramoff has yet to be fully explained:

The e-mails show Rove's then chief political deputy, Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, had his own repeated contacts with Abramoff—in stark contrast to previous public statements. According to the new records, Abramoff and his associates turned to Mehlman in their bid to obtain $16.3 million in federal funds from the Justice Department to build a jail for the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, an Abramoff client. In one e-mail, Abramoff associate Tony Rudy described to Abramoff a meeting he had with Mehlman about the subject. "Mehlman said he would take care of this," Rudy wrote. "He was a rock star." After Justice later approved funding for the Choctaw jail, another Abramoff associate e-mailed a colleague: "Those guys should get anything they want for the rest of the time they're in office ... Opening Day tickets, Skins v. Giants, oriental massages, hookers, whatever ... " Mehlman denied any wrongdoing. "The job of the political director is to meet with interested parties—in some cases, political supporters—and hear them out," he said Friday. Of the events described in the report, Mehlman said, "It was all stuff that was aboveboard. All stuff that was appropriate."

Ken's a "rock star" who can have anything he wants. Sure looks like Mehlman was Abramoff's guy in the White House...or one of them anyway. There is more to this story.

A respite from the Foley scandal to re-visit one of the other leading scandals in Washington: the corruption surrounding Jack Abramoff.  Last week, we learned that there were 485 contacts between White House staffers. 

Newsweek is reporting that some of those contacts between Abramoff and Karl Rove's assistant, Susan Ralston (who worked for Abramoff before Rove) may have violated White House ethics rule:

The folks around Karl Rove are on the hot seat again. The White House has launched an internal ethics inquiry into one Rove aide in response to new e-mails showing that Rove's office had far more extensive conduct with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff than previously acknowledged. The e-mails, obtained by a House committee, show that Rove's executive assistant, Susan Ralston, may have violated a White House ban on accepting gifts worth more than $20 from lobbyists. At the same time, Ralston—who previously worked for Abramoff—was helping the lobbyist and his associates set up meetings with Rove and providing them with inside info about presidential appointments and White House decision making, including at least one matter relating to a business deal in Iraq for an Abramoff client, the e-mails show. Ralston also discussed future business opportunities with Abramoff, such as her plan to help him capitalize on the "rush to get lucrative government contracts" being awarded by the Department of Homeland Security—another possible breach of ethics rules.

Ken Mehlman has some questions to answer in this case, too.