Oh, Heavens to Betsy—Bush in Bed with Abramoff

This was worth waiting for:

There’s a backstory that lurks behind Bush’s decision to stand by DeLay. It involves Greenberg Traurig, the firm that employed the powerful lobbyist who paid for palatial DeLay junkets, and Abramoff staffers, who were footsoldiers in the Florida recount. Greenberg Traurig has yet to receive more than $314,000 in legal fees charged to a Bush committee during the 2000 Florida recount, RAW STORY can confirm.

As a corporation, Greenberg’s unpaid tab represents a massive in-kind campaign contribution, far larger than anything that went unreported by DeLay. But it appears to be legal: corporations are allowed to donate any amount to the nebulous type of committee employed during the recount. It would, however, violate the committee's self-imposed $5,000 contribution limit from individual donors.

[…]

A White House official, who declined to be named, referred questions to the Republican National Committee.

“These are campaign issues,” the official said. “We work on doing the people’s business. The RNC handles all campaign-related [expenses].”

“We are funded through taxpayer funds, so we don’t deal with any campaign related issues,” the official added.

[…]

Bush has largely ducked the scandals surrounding Abramoff, but he was certainly a beneficiary of the lobbyist’s fundraising: Abramoff was a Bush Pioneer, raising more than $120,000 for the 2004 presidential campaign.

He had the largest lobbyist accounts of any Pioneer, at $26 million.

In his Greenberg Traurig biography, which has since been stripped, the firm wrote, “Jack is directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures and is one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates.”

Those close to Abramoff—including his partner Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay press secretary who is also being investigated for lobbying deals—bragged about their access to the president.

"Jack has a relationship with the President," Scanlon told the New Times Broward-Palm Beach in February 2001. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one."

This Abramoff stinks to high heaven, and now we find out his firm was involved in the Florida recount and donated $300,000+ to it in violation of Bush’s committee’s own $5,000 maximum rule. Complete garbage. Rank corruption. And the mainstream media will never, ever report it. Pfft.