Free Republic

DEL RIO — Except for two unresolved evidentiary issues, the stage is set for the August trial in federal court here of seven people accused of a wide range of crimes relating to the Kickapoo tribe. The charges, outlined in a 25-count indictment returned early last year, range from embezzlement to tax evasion to violating the civil rights of dissident tribal members. Among the accused are former state Rep. Timoteo Garza of Eagle Pass; his father, Isidro Garza Jr., a former Kickapoo tribal manager; and Raul Garza, a former trial chairman and the only Kickapoo charged. When the court-imposed deadline...

The White House yesterday confirmed the authenticity of a published photo showing President Bush with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and one of his Indian-tribe clients. The photo shows Bush shaking hands with Chairman Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Indian Tribe of Texas in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. A bearded Abramoff can be seen in the background, as political guru Karl Rove looks on. Garza provided the photo, which was taken by a White House photographer, and published in Time magazine and The New York Times. "We now know that Mr. Abramoff attended this...

After weeks in which the White House has declined to release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small, partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr. Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001. By itself, the picture hardly seems worthy of the White House's efforts to keep it out of the public eye. Mr. Abramoff, a leading Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public officials, is little more than a blurry, bearded...

Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush "has one of the best memories of any politicians (sic) I have ever met," Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, "The guy saw me in almost...