Mehlman and Abramoff

I'm not going to spend too much time on the new revelations about Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, and Jack Abramoff, because sites like TPM Muckraker will have this covered nine ways to Sunday by people who blog for a living, but I do want to highlight this.

There's already a lot of evidence out there that Ken Mehlman was Jack Abramoff's prime favor man in the White House -- but this new congressional report provides the most damning example yet.

From The Washington Post:

One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP.

So in exchange for political contributions, Mehlman made sure the Choctaw got their $16 million contract. I believe that's called a quid pro quo.

It's by no means the only example of Mehlman's favors.

The point here, once again, is to remind everyone that the Jack Abramoff saga really is a Republican scandal. The presence of one party-switching former DINO doesn't change that. In a way, that reinforces it. Ralph Hall was given the chance to save his political hide by formally joining the party that he'd been a spiritual member of for well over a decade. You weren't a friend of Jack Abramoff unless you were a friend of Tom DeLay. Is anyone surprised that means you had to be a Republican?

UPDATE: Funny, isn't it, how many people who think not putting bad stuff in writing seem to forget that email is forever? Good thing for the forces of truth and justice, but man, is that dumb.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 29, 2006 to Scandalized! | TrackBack