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The AP has yet again run a hit piece trying to link any scandal it can to Bush. This chart shows that he was not a bush aide.

The Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned the conviction of former Bush administration official David Safavian, who was entangled in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and ordered that he should be given a new trial.

WASHINGTON - The government is pushing for three years in prison for a former Bush administration official found guilty of covering up his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The prison time could be years less than what David Safavian, former chief of staff of the General Services Administration, was initially expected to face for lying and hiding details of his connections with Abramoff from investigators and lawmakers. Federal prosecutors calculated that Safavian's sentence should be between 30 and 37 months, based on federal guidelines, and asked that he be sentenced "at the high end of that range." Safavian could...

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service on Friday revealed four more visits to the White House in 2001 by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including one to see a domestic policy aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. The newly released records of Abramoff's access to the White House bring the total number of his known visits to seven. One Abramoff White House visit, according to Secret Service logs, was on April 20, 2001, to see Cesar Conda, at the time Cheney's assistant for domestic policy. Five days after the Conda meeting, one of Abramoff's former lobbying colleagues, Patrick Pizzella, was nominated by...

In 50-plus months, Nevada voters will march to the polls and replace Sen. Harry Reid, thus ending one of the longer, more powerful political runs in state history. When it happens, political wiseguys will remember that Sen. Reid's undoing came early in his last term when he became a big shot in the Democratic Party and quickly morphed into someone Nevada voters did not recognize -- his political girlfriend in the House, uber-liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. Advertisement Now, I know that some will take issue with this scenario. They will suggest that because the Review-Journal has been a...

WASHINGTON - A jury Tuesday convicted a former Bush administration official of four counts of lying and obstructing justice in the first trial to be held in connection with the influence-peddling scandal of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Jury convicts ex-Bush official in Abramoff probe By PETE YOST Associated Press WASHINGTON — A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty today of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer. The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London. Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the...

WASHINGTON - Jurors in the David Safavian trial completed their first day of deliberations Wednesday without deciding whether the former Bush administration executive covered up assistance he gave Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. The jury of 10 women and two men is weighing charges that while Safavian was the General Services Administration's chief of staff, he obstructed justice and made false statements. He is accused of concealing from GSA ethics officials and Senate investigators how he helped the disgraced lobbyist try to buy or lease two government properties. In the first trial to arise from the Abramoff scandal, the jury deliberated...

WASHINGTON - A federal court jury in the first trial of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal was sent home four hours after beginning deliberations Tuesday so the judge could consider whether to dismiss a juror for misconduct. Former Bush administration official David Safavian is charged with concealing from ethics officials and investigators that he assisted Republican influence-peddler Abramoff's efforts to obtain two government properties. The jury of 10 women and two men had selected a foreperson but had not even received their written copies of jury instructions nor begun any substantive deliberations when the problem arose. Prosecutors argued that a...

WASHINGTON - A prosecutor said Monday that a Bush administration official chose the interests of lobbyist Jack Abramoff over those of the public and should be convicted of covering up what he had done. David Safavian, the former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, "was trying to hide a secret, inappropriate and unethical relationship with Mr. Abramoff," prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds told a federal jury in final arguments. Edmonds said that every public official has "moments of truth" in which he can act ethically or unethically and that Safavian failed the test by lying to the GSA's ethics officer,...

WASHINGTON - Former Bush administration official David Safavian testified Monday that he wouldn't have taken a golfing trip to Scotland arranged in 2002 by Republican influence peddler Jack Abramoff "if I had known what I know now." Testifying in his own defense in U.S. District Court, Safavian added, however, that "it took a Senate investigation to get out the information I didn't have at the time" about Abramoff's intentions and plans for projects with GSA properties. Safavian, the former chief of staff at the General Services Administration and chief federal procurement officer in the White House, had said earlier that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors said on Wednesday that a former Bush administration official lied to investigators and hid his ties to Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of an influence-peddling scandal. In opening statements at the first trial in connection with the Abramoff scandal, prosecutors tried to paint David Safavian as a liar while his lawyer denied the charges and accused the government of basing its case on "guilt by association." Justice Department lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Safavian took advantage of his position to help his friend, a former top Washington lobbyist with strong ties to leaders in...

SAMI AL-ARIAN ADMITS CONSPIRACY IN PLEA AGREEMENT " There is no conspiracy to support terrorism ."  - Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for Tampa chapter of Council on American Islamic Relations From what I’ve been able to gather, there seems to be enough evidence to prove a web of conspiracy . Let’s have a look and see if that’s true! American Muslim Council (AMC)1. Former Spokesman: Faisal Gill.2. Founder: Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi.3. Former Director: Erik Vickers 1. Faisal Gill Former spokesman for the American Muslim Council (AMC) Former director of government affairs for the Islamic Free Market Institute (Islamic Institute) in Washington, D.C.,...

WASHINGTON - A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday. The prosecutors hope to use the e-mails in the criminal case against David Safavian, who is accused of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with investigations of an Abramoff-sponsored golf outing to Scotland in August 2002. The e-mails show that Abramoff and Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, were in frequent contact, played golf often and traded workplace gossip. Abramoff showered...

The Bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an Abramoff client, newly filed court papers say. David Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud in a burgeoning bribery probe centered on Capitol Hill but also involving the Interior Department. The White House is refusing to release photographs...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration’s former chief procurement official was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements and obstructing investigations into high-powered Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The five felony counts in the indictment charge David H. Safavian with obstructing Senate and executive branch investigations into whether he aided Abramoff in efforts to acquire property controlled by the General Services Administration around the nation’s capital. Both probes looked into an August 2002 golf outing that Safavian took to Scotland with Abramoff, former Christian Coalition executive Ralph Reed, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and others. Safavian, a...

The rise and fall of an Islamic Institute alumnus. Last Monday, David Hossein Safavian, a high-ranking White House official and pal of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, was arrested in a federal corruption case involving lobbying bad boy Jack Abramoff. According to the FBI, Safavian repeatedly lied to federal investigators in order to cover up Abramoff’s shady dealings. He not only bent ethics rules to accompany Abramoff on a 2002 golf junket to Scotland; he also used his position as chief of staff at the General Services Administration to deliver GSA-managed land into the lobbyist’s hands. But Safavian's not just tied...

WASHINGTON - The lawyer for a former Bush administration official arrested this week says authorities are using the charges to pressure her client to aid their investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. David Safavian was arrested Monday and charged with making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation relating to a 2002 golf outing to Scotland with Abramoff, former Christian Coalition executive Ralph Reed, Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, and others. Safavian hid from investigators that Abramoff had business before the General Services Administration, where Safavian was chief of staff in 2002, when they took their Scotland trip,...

WASHINGTON - A former Bush administration official was arrested Monday on charges he made false statements and obstructed a federal investigation into his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to court documents and government officials. David Safavian, then-chief of staff of the General Services Administration and a former Abramoff lobbying associate, concealed from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with GSA when Safavian joined him on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002, according to an FBI affidavit and the officials. At the time, FBI agent Jeffrey A. Reising said in the affidavit, a lobbyist — identified...