ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Read This: Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired

Over the weekend, Peter Wallsten wrote a must-read piece in the LA Times that details the cozy relationship between the Republican Party and convicted felon Jack Abramoff. How far did it go? Enough that Abramoff was able to get at least one government official fired for going after his clients:

For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.

Now he knows.

Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

[...] “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.

Mehlman, as you may know, is now the head of the Republican National Committee.

Read the piece here.