Chickens roosting

The Washington Post, ignore the byline, has another long piece today about Jack Abramoff's lobbying shenanigans, this time involving one J. Stehen Griles, ex-No. 2 at Interior.

Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff claimed in e-mails sent in 2002 that the deputy secretary of the interior had pledged to block an Indian casino that would compete with one of the lobbyist's tribal clients. Abramoff later told two associates that he was trying to hire the official.

A federal task force investigating Abramoff's activities has conducted interviews and obtained documents from Interior Department officials and Abramoff associates to determine whether conflict-of-interest laws were violated, according to people with knowledge of the probe. It can be a federal crime for government officials to negotiate for a job while being involved in decisions affecting the potential employer.
The two former Abramoff associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are under scrutiny in the investigation, said Abramoff told them in late 2003 that he was trying to arrange for his firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP, to hire J. Steven Griles, then deputy interior secretary. Federal investigators are interested in those discussions and in job negotiations Abramoff may have had with a second department official, according to sources.

For more on Griles, a transcript from an enlightening "NOW" segment on him is here. The people running our government are truly for sale to the highest bidder. With the titanic corruption of these megalomaniacs further revealed daily, one is forced to wonder how honest conservatives can vote for the kleptocrats who lead the Republican Party and then get up and look in the mirror the next day. It will take a generation to repair the damage these sociopaths are inflicting on my country.