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The Philadelphia Jewish Voice |
Top Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe
David Safavian, who until Friday headed the "obscure
but extremely
important" federal
procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
was arrested yesterday, accused
by federal agents of "lying
and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack
Abramoff's dealings with the federal government." In his position at
the OMB, Safavian set purchasing policy for the entire government, and "had
recently been working on developing
contracting policies for the multibillion-dollar relief effort after Hurricane
Katrina." His arrest -- the "first criminal complaint filed
against a government official" in the ongoing Abramoff probe -- exposes a
thicket of corruption involving Abramoff, leaders of the right-wing movement
like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, and public officials at the very highest
levels of government, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).
LYING ABOUT ETHICS TO SEND KICK-BACKS TO
ABRAMOFF: The complaint filed by the FBI accuses Safavian of making
"repeated
false statements to government officials and investigators" about a golf
trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002, when Safavian was chief of staff at
the Bush administration's General Services Administration. In that position,
"ethics rules flatly prohibited the receipt of a gift from any person
seeking an official action by the agency," and before the golf trip,
Safavian assured GSA ethics officers in writing that Abramoff "has
no business before GSA." In truth, Safavian was already actively
assisting Abramoff "acquire control of two federally managed properties in
the Washington area;" a 40-acre plot that became the campus for a
Hebrew school Abramoff founded, and office space that Abramoff was seeking
to lease for his Indian tribal clients. Indeed, on the very same day
Safavian sent the letter to the GSA ethics office, "he sent an e-mail to
Abramoff from his home computer, advising him how to 'lay out a case for this
lease.'" The day before he departed to Scotland, Safavian "arranged a
meeting for Abramoff's wife and business partner with officials at GSA" to
tour of one of the properties -- a tour that Abramoff suggested after being
shown a map of the space in Safavian's office. And in an email to a colleague,
Abramoff himself explained why he'd invited Safavian on the golfing trip: "Total
business angle. He is new (chief of staff) of GSA."
TRAINED BY THE MASTER: "Like
Abramoff, Safavian
is a veteran Washington player," the Washington Post reports. The two
worked closely together at the lobbying firm Preston, Gates & Ellis,
where "Abramoff
schooled Safavian" and where they "jointly represented a broad
swath of gambling interests." The two also
held Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure (part of the Shaw
Group) as a client, which is now represented by former FEMA chief and 2000
Bush-Cheney campaign manager Joe
Allbaugh. (The Securities and Exchange Committee has launched an
investigation into the Shaw Group for possible
accounting irregularities, Newsweek reported this weekend. Shaw scored a
$100 million no-bid Katrina contract "before the flood waters
receded.") Safavian moved on to found Janus Merritt, a top-end lobbying
firm, with "Abramoff's
college roommate and conservative maverick Grover Norquist."
THE BUSH CONNECTION: Some of Jack
Abramoff's most heinous work was on
behalf of the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory
between Hawaii and the Philippines. Human "brokers" bring thousands
there to work as sex slaves and in cramped sweatshop garment factories where
clothes (complete with "Made in USA" tag) are made for several brand
names. Working with Safavian, Abramoff lobbied various public officials,
particularly Rep. Tom DeLay, to prevent any crack-down on the worker abuse on
the island. In January 2001, when President Bush entered office, Abramoff wrote
island officials, "Our standing with the new administration promises
to be solid as several friends of the [Marianas] will soon be taking
high-ranking positions in the Administration." He was right. Two members of
Abramoff's lobbying team subsequently received positions in the Bush White
House, one as assistant secretary of labor, and another -- David Safavian -- as
chief of staff to the General Services Administration. In the first 10 months of
Bush's presidency, Abramoff and his lobbying team "logged nearly 200
contacts with the new administration." They pressed for "friendly
hires" and lax labor laws with officials as high up as Attorney General
John Ashcroft and policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and it
apparently worked: the islands "fended off proposals in 2001 to extend
the U.S. minimum wage to island workers and gained at
least $2 million more in federal aid from the administration." By
mid-2003, Abramoff "had raised at least $100,000 for Mr. Bush's re-election
campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed 'pioneers.'"
THE MIKE BROWN OF CONTRACT PROCUREMENT:
Two weeks after Safavian was confirmed in June 2004, Steven Kelman, the federal
procurement administrator under President Clinton, told Government Executive
magazine that Safavian "doesn't
have a lot of background in procurement, so the hope is that he's a good
learner." Allan Burman, another former procurement chief, agreed: "I
don't know where David Safavian comes out on [acquisition reform]." Even
Angela Styles, who held the top acquisition post in the Bush administration
until September 2003, said Safavian had "no
apparent philosophy" on procurement issues.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Safavian's arrest also
places a spotlight on his wife, Jennifer
Safavian, who works for Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA). Davis chairs the House
Government Reform Committee, and Jennifer Safavian serves as chief counsel for
oversight and investigations (she reportedly "has signed a recusal
agreement that will keep her from looking into OMB and procurement
matters"). Nevertheless, according to Hill columnist Josh Marshall, Rep.
Davis pushed through several "made-to-order crony-empowerment (a.k.a.,
contracting deregulation and streamlining) provisions" in the Katrina
emergency funding bills. When David Safavian was first nominated, the Federal
Times warned that if he were confirmed, "it would be difficult to believe -
if only because of appearances - that he or his wife's committee is acting
independently of the other as each tends to the integrity of the federal
procurement process."