Yesterday marked Day 15 since Scott McClellan promised the White House press corps a “thorough report” on Jack Abramoff’s staff-level contacts “very soon.” Were reporters able to glean any new information yesterday? Not so much.
Q: And going back to the Abramoff investigation, do you have an update for us on any records of phone calls or emails between staff members and Mr. Abramoff, or photos of the President with him?
McClellan: No, as I indicated yesterday, we’re not going to engage in some sort of fishing expedition. […]
Q: Scott, you said a few minutes ago you weren’t going to do a fishing expedition on any contacts Abramoff might have had with White House people. But some of his lobbying firm billing records and emails and other things that are emerging in this case suggest some specific meetings with White House officials, including an aid to the Vice President. Have you had any opportunity, or will you take the opportunity to sort of compare those records with anything —
McClellan: No, I mean, the gentleman you bring up, Mr. Abramoff, is someone that is being held to account by the Department of Justice.
As the transcript shows, the Bush gang has not yet come up with an excuse for hiding information about Abramoff’s White House dealings. Unfortunately for them, the usual dodges don’t apply.
Under most circumstances, when it comes to meetings at the White House that Rove & Co. want to keep secret, the typical response is that it’s important that the president be able to speak “candidly” with advisors and staff, so meeting notes, list of attendees, dates, etc. need to be kept under wraps. But this doesn’t apply to Abramoff. They don’t want to share information about his meetings because, well, they just don’t.
Slate’s John Dickerson said the pressure on the White House has to continue.
In this case, the White House isn’t protecting its sensitive decision-making process; it’s merely shielding itself from embarrassment. Congress may not have a legal right to demand records of meetings, but under the circumstances, Bush should voluntarily relinquish them to the public. Taxpayers may not have a right to sit in on every meeting and read every memo, but they should know whether Abramoff succeeded in putting his interests ahead of theirs inside the White House as well as Congress. The Bush campaign returned Abramoff’s donations to help remove the stink. But it won’t be able to fully fumigate until officials let us know who they met with and why.
Of course, the White House may very well just wait to see if the media gets bored and moves onto something else.
Paul Krugman, among others, would like to make sure that doesn’t happen.
It’s interesting, though, that Scott McClellan has announced that the White House, contrary to earlier promises, won’t provide any specific information about contacts between Mr. Abramoff and staff members.
So I have a question for my colleagues in the news media: Why isn’t the decision by the White House to stonewall on the largest corruption scandal since Warren Harding considered major news?
It’s clearly a fair question. The press briefings have had some contentious exchanges over McClellan’s attempt to cover up Abramoff’s White House ties, but as Eric Umansky noted this morning, the combined number of articles on McClellan’s stonewalling in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal is zero.