Abramoff came up through GOP ranks with Norquist and conservative Christian leader Ralph Reed. All enjoyed unfettered access to Bush and worked closely with Bush’s Machiavellian political advisor Karl Rove.
In 2001, Abramoff recommended one of his key assistants, Susan Ralston, to Rove, who was looking for a new key advisor. She is still with Rove.
In 2003, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a Seattle radio host and activist, urged friends and colleagues to send campaign contributions to Bush via Abramoff, often praising the lobbyist on his show as “a good and personal friend of the President.”
“While White House aides now speak privately (and anonymously) about the need to clean up Congress in the wake of lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s guilty pleas in an influence-peddling scandal, there’s no sense of them taking the lead on what used to be a signature issue—before they came to Washington,” writes Wolfe and Bailey. “One reason may be their own reluctance to acknowledge their own ties to Abramoff, the one-time master of the lobbying universe.”
from http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2086.htm
