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Raw Story: Abramoff had White House 'agreement'
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Filed Under: Abramoff Scandal

"Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff told his colleagues at his former law firm that he had an “agreement” regarding communications with a former assistant to then-Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, perhaps the most substantial documented tie between Abramoff and the White House to date.

In the email, dated Feb. 27, 2001, Abramoff reprimands a colleague who asked him to use Susan Ralston – Special Assistant to the President George W. Bush and then-Bush senior adviser Karl Rove – to arrange a meeting with the President for one of his clients.

In response, Abramoff writes that Ralston and he have an “agreement with her as to what we are going to ask her and when.”

Prior to joining the White House staff, Ralston was Abramoff’s assistant at the lobbying giant Greenberg Traurig. Prior to Greenberg, she had also worked with Abramoff at the lobbying shop Preston Gates & Ellis.

“This is not the proper way to go about this,” Abramoff writes when a colleague suggests that he approach Ralston himself about setting up a meeting for a client and the President, through Rove. “Susan is not going to be able to do things like this, and we have an agreement with her as to what we are going to ask her and when.”

The email was obtained by RAW STORY from an individual close to the federal investigation that has netted Abramoff, several of his staff, members of Congress and Bush Administration officials in a wide-ranging bribery probe. Coming just a month after the Bush Administration took office, it suggests that Abramoff's relationship with the White House began earlier and was more substantial than has previously been disclosed."

Get the Story:
Abramoff said he had agreement with White House aide just a month after Bush took office (Raw Story 11/17)