Lobbyists: Sports Tickets and Springsteen—The E-Mail Trail

Lobbyists: Sports Tickets and Springsteen—The E-Mail Trail
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.


Oct. 9, 2006 issue - The folks around Karl Rove are on the hot seat again. The White House has launched an internal ethics inquiry into one Rove aide in response to new e-mails showing that Rove's office had far more extensive conduct with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff than previously acknowledged. The e-mails, obtained by a House committee, show that Rove's executive assistant, Susan Ralston, may have violated a White House ban on accepting gifts worth more than $20 from lobbyists. At the same time, Ralston—who previously worked for Abramoff—was helping the lobbyist and his associates set up meetings with Rove and providing them with inside info about presidential appointments and White House decision making, including at least one matter relating to a business deal in Iraq for an Abramoff client, the e-mails show. Ralston also discussed future business opportunities with Abramoff, such as her plan to help him capitalize on the "rush to get lucrative government contracts" being awarded by the Department of Homeland Security—another possible breach of ethics rules.

The e-mails show Ralston peppering Abramoff with requests for small perks and favors. "Can we get the row A seats for the 12/22 Caps game?" she asked Abramoff in a Dec. 22, 2001, e-mail about an upcoming Washington Capitals hockey game. "Need 4 for O's on 8/23 and 4 for Springsteen if possible," she wrote the lobbyist on July 26, 2002. Ralston's lawyer declined to comment. A former associate said Ralston may argue that though she apparently never paid for any of the tickets, she did not violate the ethics rules because of an exemption for officials who have a "pre-existing" and personal relationship with the lobbyist. "She was not looking at [Abramoff] as a lobbyist," said the former associate, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities. "She was looking at him as a friend."

The e-mails show Rove's then chief political deputy, Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, had his own repeated contacts with Abramoff—in stark contrast to previous public statements. According to the new records, Abramoff and his associates turned to Mehlman in their bid to obtain $16.3 million in federal funds from the Justice Department to build a jail for the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, an Abramoff client. In one e-mail, Abramoff associate Tony Rudy described to Abramoff a meeting he had with Mehlman about the subject. "Mehlman said he would take care of this," Rudy wrote. "He was a rock star." After Justice later approved funding for the Choctaw jail, another Abramoff associate e-mailed a colleague: "Those guys should get anything they want for the rest of the time they're in office ... Opening Day tickets, Skins v. Giants, oriental massages, hookers, whatever ... " Mehlman denied any wrongdoing. "The job of the political director is to meet with interested parties—in some cases, political supporters—and hear them out," he said Friday. Of the events described in the report, Mehlman said, "It was all stuff that was aboveboard. All stuff that was appropriate." Rove himself apparently knew the rules: when Abramoff offered skybox tickets to an NCAA basketball game, he wrote a check for them.

Still, the game gave Abramoff a chance to discuss other matters with Rove. After being e-mailed by an old friend who was a militant Israeli settler, Abramoff responded: "I was sitting with Karl Rove, Bush's top advisor, at the NCAA basketball game, discussing Israel when [your] email came in. I showed it to him. It seems that the President was very sad to have to come out negatively regarding Israel but that they needed to mollify the Arabs for the upcoming war on Iraq. That did not seem to work anyway. Bush seems to love Sharon and Israel, and thinks Arabfat [sic] is nothing but a liar. I thought I'd pass that on."

—Michael Isikoff and Holly Bailey