As a result of the excellent work by the folks over at Judicialwatch.com, the Secret Service was compelled to produce the White House logs detailing the visits by Republican felon Jack Abramoff since January 1, 2001.
The original court order mandating the release of these documents can be found here. Of course, the backpeddling and fumbling had begun over a week ago when Puffy McMoonface declared that:
“I don’t know exactly what they’ll be providing, but they only have certain records and so I just wouldn’t view it as a complete historical record.”
But alas, the documents have been released, and surprise, surprise, they are totally incomplete.
More below:
TWO FUCKING VISITS??? That is it? What type of national security breach is it when people come and go without being signed in or out? How can we have people roaming the halls of the White House without being signed it? Are the Busheviks living with a pre-9/11 mindset? This isn’t even plausible as far as what is going on.
How much fucking bullshit is this? Well, as pointed out by bink at DKos, Abramoff was on the White House transition team back in 2000, and clearly had to have been in the White House more than once during 2001. Not to mention the fact that the secret service logs from the Clinton years have details such as who requested the visit, the room number visited and the “visitee”, while these documents show none of that information.
Commentary from TPM Muckraker here as well as here. (hat tip to AlyoshaKaramazov at DKos). Interestingly, it notes that the three visits that Abramoff and the White House ADMITTED TO are not even on this log. Oh, not to mention the fact that the May 2, 2006 transcript from Countdown shows that there were over 200 visits by Abramoff and “his lobbying team”.
The records are supposed to show when he was at the White House, who signed him in and who he visited. And you know that there is much that is hidden, since we know of many times that the entry and/or exit times were missing from the visitor logs when GannonGuckert visited the White House (not to mention the extremes that this administration will go to in order to “protect national security”).
Additionally, the DNC has filed suit to have the records of visits by Abramoff cronies and soon-to-be-Republican felons also released. These records would be for visits by Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and other fine upstanding citizens.
According to the release on judicialwatch’s website, there were only 4 times that he was logged in as a visitor, even though it was previously reported that he had visited dozens, if not up to 100 times.
Per the release on the website,
According to the “U.S. Secret Service Access Control Records Report,” Abramoff visited the White House on two occasions. On January 20, 2004, Abramoff entered the White House at 10:42:20 a.m. and exited at 11:29:34 a.m. On March 6, 2001, Abramoff entered the White House at 16:23:35 p.m. and exited at 16:49:50 p.m. The documents provide no further information on the nature of these meetings. White House Secret Service logs previously obtained by Judicial Watch from the Clinton administration provided additional details such as the “Visitee” and “Room Number,” along with the name of the person who requested the visit. The Secret Service had agreed to provide the documents without redaction. Moreover, the two documents provided are not consistent with each other in terms of format and content.
Not only that, but it appears that the format of the logs are inconsistent with others previously released, and clearly this not only goes against all other information that was previously available but is more of the “fuck you” attitude and disdain that this administration has for We the People.
JudicialWatch’s release continues:
“At first glance, these documents seem incomplete when compared to other White House visitor logs obtained by Judicial Watch. We therefore have reason to believe there are additional details about Jack Abramoff’s visits to the White House that have not been disclosed,” said JW President Tom Fitton. “However, now we know there are at least two visits by admitted felon Jack Abramoff that the White House must explain. What was Jack Abramoff doing at the White House? With whom did he meet? The public deserves to know answers to these questions.”
Yes, we do deserve to know the answers.
A legal question – since it is evident that this is not in accordance with the court order, why can’t the Secret Service responsible for releasing these documents be held in contempt of court? Or, if the visits were not properly logged, do we have a violation of White House protocol and security violations?
