Way back on Jan. 4, Scott McClellan promised reporters a “thorough report” on Jack Abramoff’s [tag]White House[/tag] contacts “very soon.” That, of course, never happened, but we’ve slowly begun to learn about the access the disgraced lobbyist had to the White House anyway.
In May, the [tag]Secret Service[/tag] released logs showing just two [tag]Abramoff[/tag] visits to the White House. The disclosure was best described as “a joke,” which failed to reflect Abramoff meetings that were already in the public record. Asked to explain why the records were woefully incomplete, a White House spokesperson said she could “offer no explanation.”
Yesterday, we learned a little bit more. There are two elements to consider: 1) the more complete picture of Abramoff’s generous access to the Bush gang; and 2) when the news was released.
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff had a half-dozen White House appointments in the early months of the Bush administration, according to logs released yesterday by the U.S. Secret Service.
The appointments included a meeting with a domestic policy aide to Vice President Cheney and a meeting in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives attended by about 40 people. The logs also reflect that Abramoff attended one or more social events, as well as a gathering of Indian tribal officials and state legislators at which President Bush appeared. […]
The new data, combined with the two visits disclosed in May, show that Abramoff had appointments to attend White House events or meetings on seven occasions — six in 2001 and a seventh in January 2004, on Inauguration Day. The Secret Service said the data reflect appointments but “do not necessarily reflect actual visits to the White House complex.”
It hardly comes as a surprise that an admitted felon had more appointments with the Bush White House than the Bush gang was willing to let on. It comes as even less of a surprise that the news was released late on a Friday afternoon.
It is, after all, the Friday-Night Presidency.
* In 2004, [tag]Bush[/tag] released documents relating to his National Guard service (or lack thereof) five times. In each instance, he waited until late on a Friday afternoon.
* When the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into the Valerie Plame scandal, the announcement came late on a Friday night.
* When Bush circumvented the Senate to appoint Bill Pryor and Charles Pickering to the federal bench, he waited for late-Friday afternoons.
* Bush agreed to testify before the 9/11 Commission, so long as Dick Cheney would be there by his side. He announced his intentions on a late-Friday afternoon.
* When Bush’s Commerce Department announced that household incomes had declined for three years in a row and 1.7 million people had fallen into poverty, they released the data on a late-Friday afternoon. (It was the first time any administration had released the annual data on a Friday.)
* Many suspected that the Bush administration would eliminate requirements on the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants and refineries to make anti-pollution improvements as they upgrade facilities, but when the announcement finally came, it was released on a late-Friday afternoon.
* When the administration said it wanted to remove Clean Water Act protections from up to one-fifth of the nation’s streams, ponds, lakes, mudflats, and wetlands, it said so late on a Friday afternoon.
* Bush fired Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, and Army Secretary (and former Enron executive) Thomas White on late-Friday afternoons.
* When John Ashcroft’s Justice Department had to tell administration officials to preserve papers related to Enron, they waited to issue the directive until late on a Friday afternoon.
* The White House announced its opposition to an investigation into Karl Rove’s work with companies in which he held stock on a late-Friday afternoon.
* The Pentagon waited until shortly after the network news broadcasts had ended on a Friday afternoon to announce the results of its investigation into the mishandling of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay.
* Rumsfeld announced his intention to hide unseen Abu Ghraib photos on a Friday afternoon.
The Late-Friday-Media Trick has been around since before Bush took office, but no one has ever abused this practice like these guys.