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    When George Met Jack
    By Adam Zagorin and Mike Allen
    Time

    Sunday 22 January 2006

White House aides deny the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's 0amore to the story.

    As details poured out about the illegal and 0aunseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the 0ascandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days 0awith questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary 0aScott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday 0areceptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever 0ameeting him," McClellan said.

    The President's memory may soon be unhappily 0arefreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact 0abetween them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to 0aprovide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day 0aeventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a 0afear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the 0aPresident with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct 0apresidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President 0aBill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the 0amid-1990s.

    In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with 0aAbramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then 0achairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, 0awho is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush 0agreeted him as "Jefe," or "chief" in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. 0aThe shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos 0aare of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of 0ahis five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children 0awith Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten 0alobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early 0astages.

    Most of the pictures have the formal look of 0aphotos taken at presidential receptions. The images of Bush, Abramoff and one of his sons appear to be the 0arapid-fire shots - known in White House parlance as clicks - that the President snaps 0awith top supporters before taking the podium at fund-raising receptions. Over 0afive years, Bush has posed for tens of thousands of such shots-many with people he does not know. Last month 9,500 people attended holiday receptions at 0athe White House, and most went two by two through a line for a photo with the 0aPresident and the First Lady. The White House is generous about providing copies-in 0asome cases, signed by the President-that become centerpieces for "walls of fame" throughout status-conscious Washington.

    Abramoff knew the game. In a 2001 e-mail to a 0alawyer for tribal leader Lovelin Poncho, he crows about an upcoming meeting at the White House that he had 0aarranged for Poncho and says it should be a priceless asset in his client's 0aupcoming re-election campaign as chief of Louisiana's Coushatta Indians. "By all means mention [in the tribal newsletter] that the Chief is being asked to 0aconfer with the President and is coming to Washington for this purpose in May," Abramoff writes. "We'll definitely have a photo from the opportunity, 0awhich he can use." The lawyer had asked about attire, and Abramoff advises, "As to dress, probably suit and tie would work best."

    The e-mail, now part of a wide-ranging federal 0ainvestigation into lobbying practices and lobbyists' relationships with members of Congress, offers a 0awindow into Abramoff's willingness to trade on ties to the White House and to 0ainvoke Bush's name to impress clients who were spending tens of millions of 0adollars on Abramoff's advice.

    Abramoff was once in better graces at 1600 0aPennsylvania Avenue, having raised at least $100,000 for the President's re-election campaign. During 2001 0aand 2002, his support for Republicans and connections to the White House won 0ahim invitations to Hanukkah receptions, each attended by 400 to 500 people. 0aMcClellan has said Abramoff may have been present at "other widely attended" events. He was also admitted to the White House complex for meetings with 0aseveral staff members, including one with presidential senior adviser Karl Rove, 0aone of the most coveted invitations in Washington.

    Michael Scanlon, who is Abramoff's former partner 0aand has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a Congressman, in 2001 told the New Times of Fort 0aLauderdale, Fla., that Abramoff had "a relationship" with the President. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he 0awould have one," Scanlon said. Nonsense, say others. A former White House 0aofficial familiar with some Abramoff requests to the White House said Abramoff had 0asome meetings with Administration officials in 2001 and 2002, but he was later 0afrozen out because aides became suspicious of his funding sources and annoyed 0athat the issues he raised did not mesh with their agenda. A top Republican 0aofficial said it was clear to him that Abramoff couldn't pick up the phone and 0areach Bush aides because Abramoff had asked the official to serve as an 0aintermediary.

    The White House describes the number of 0aAbramoff's meetings with staff members only as "a few," even though senior Bush aides have precise data about them. McClellan will not give details, saying he doesn't "get into 0adiscussing staff-level meetings." During a televised briefing, he added, "We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition." Pressed for particulars 0aabout Abramoff's White House contacts, McClellan said with brio, "People are insinuating things based on no evidence whatsoever." But he said he cannot "say with absolute certainty that [Abramoff] did not have any other 0avisits" apart from those disclosed. Another White House official said, "The 0adecision was made don't put out any additional information." That reticence has been eagerly seized upon by some Democrats. Senate minority leader Harry 0aReid of Nevada wrote to Bush last week to demand details, saying Abramoff "may have had undue and improper influence within your Administration."

    Garza, the bolo-wearing former chairman of the 0aKickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, has fond memories of his session with Bush, which he said was held 0ain 2001 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. 0aAccording to e-mails in the hands of investigators, the meeting was arranged with 0athe help of Abramoff and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax 0aReform. In an April 18, 2001, e-mail to Abramoff, Norquist wrote that he would be "honored" if Abramoff "could come to the White House meeting."

    Garza-known in his native Kickapoo language as 0aMakateonenodua, or black buffalo-is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from 0ahis tribe. Through his spokesman, Garza said that during the session, Bush 0atalked about policy matters and thanked those present for supporting his agenda, 0athen took questions from the audience of about two dozen people. Garza told 0aTIME, "We were very happy that Jack Abramoff helped us to be with the President. Bush was in a very good mood-very upbeat and positive." No evidence has emerged that the Bush Administration has done anything for the Kickapoo at 0aAbramoff's behest.

    Three attendees who spoke to TIME recall that 0aAbramoff was present, and three of them say that's where the picture of Bush, Abramoff and the former 0aKickapoo chairman was taken. The White House has a different description of the 0aevent Garza attended. "The President stopped by a meeting with 21 state 0alegislators and two tribal leaders," spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Available records show that Mr. Abramoff was not in attendance."