Abramoff Returns

Abramoff Returns

Jack Abramoff lives! When’s the last time you heard his name? Washington had almost forgotten the disgraced lobbyist.

Luckily the Secret Service hadn’t. New logs released over the weekend show that Abramoff visited the White House a half-dozen times in the early days of the Bush Administration. Previously the White House claimed Abramoff had only been there twice. But the Justice Department explained that the Secret Service had quote “unexpectedly discovered” Abramoff’s other appointments.

Still, something is missing from this picture: the Congressmen Abramoff bought and used.

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Jack Abramoff lives! When’s the last time you heard his name? Washington had almost forgotten the disgraced lobbyist.

Luckily the Secret Service hadn’t. New logs released over the weekend show that Abramoff visited the White House a half-dozen times in the early days of the Bush Administration. Previously the White House claimed Abramoff had only been there twice. But the Justice Department explained that the Secret Service had quote “unexpectedly discovered” Abramoff’s other appointments.

Still, something is missing from this picture: the Congressmen Abramoff bought and used.

When Abramoff plead guilty to bribery charges last January, press reports indicated that over a dozen Congressmen might be implicated. The Wall Street Journal put the number at sixty. Since then, not one has been charged. Aides have copped deals. A top Bush Administration official, David Safavian, was recently convicted for lying to investigators.

But I’m still waiting for the top guns to fall on Capitol Hill.

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Between the reemergence of right-wing red-baiting and Donald Trump’s use of the chilling National Security Presidential Memorandum–7 to criminalize left political organizing, we’re seeing McCarthyism reborn before our eyes.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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