In May, Franklin Foer wrote a good piece for The New Republic explaining that disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff had not only corrupted Republican lawmakers like Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, but the rest of the GOP establishment as well. Foer was more right than he probably realized.
Abramoff’s connections to the Bush administration had, up until now, been relatively weak. Not anymore.
The Bush administration’s top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government. It was the first criminal complaint filed against a government official in the ongoing corruption probe related to Abramoff’s activities in Washington.
The complaint, filed by the FBI, alleges that David H. Safavian, 38, a White House procurement official involved until last week in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002.
It also contends that he concealed his efforts to help Abramoff acquire control of two federally managed properties in the Washington area. Abramoff is the person identified as “Lobbyist A” in a 13-page affidavit unsealed in court, according to sources knowledgeable about the probe.
Until his resignation on the day the criminal complaint against him was signed, Safavian was the top administrator at the federal procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he set purchasing policy for the entire government.
Just what the Bush gang needed — another front-page blockbuster that makes the Republican establishment look like an organized crime family.
The more one looks at the details of this scandal, the worse it looks.
Here’s the story in a nutshell: Despite not having any relevant experience, Safavian was tapped to be the most powerful procurement official in the federal government, where he proceeded to do secret favors for Abramoff, his former employer. When a General Services Administration ethics officer asked about his surreptitious activities, Safavian lied about it.
And just to make this story truly hilarious, also consider the fact Safavian’s wife is — get this — the chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee. And what does that committee do? It oversees government procurement.
A few months ago, in an interview with Federal Times, a newspaper that focuses on the workings of the federal government, Safavian said, “[T]he best advice I’ve gotten was from my grandfather and that advice is that you’ve got to have ethics and integrity in everything you do, especially here in D.C.”
If this were fiction, I’d find it hard to accept because it’s too outlandish. And yet, this is all real. Bush’s America is a very strange place indeed.