BREAKING: Former Bush official David Safavian has been found guilty

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/20/lobbyist.probe.ap/index.html

Former Bush administration official David Safavian has been found guilty in the first trial to emerge from the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, The Associated Press reports.

Edited to add new link:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Lobbyist-Probe.html?hp&ex=1150862400&en=92410b51df1c441d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The jury has reached a verdict in the trial of David Safavian, a former Bush administration official accused of covering up assistance he provided to Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

The verdict was to be delivered to U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman within the hour.

Jurors were in their fifth day of deliberations when they alerted court officials that a verdict had been reached.

The panel of 10 women and two men were considering whether Safavian is guilty of obstruction and making false statements.

Safavian, the former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, was accused of concealing from GSA ethics officials, the GSA inspector general and Senate investigators his assistance to Abramoff.

Abramoff wanted to buy, lease or redevelop two government properties, including the Old Post Office in downtown Washington, that are under the control of the GSA.

YES!

Very cute.

:hi:

She gets mad when I swear but I tell her " Listen Motherfucking Hello Kitty Mama Is Pissed Off." :evilgrin:

Hilarious!

:rofl:

hope you and the family are doing good. :party:

Watching Germany V Ecuador and having a cool drink. It is quite warm here today.:hi:

:toast:

Im sure Mrs Lochloosa could give you a free pass for a week or two...:evilgrin:

I here there is some good wine there.

Keeps Binka fit and fiesty! Hey we are hijacking the thread...maybe we should get a room?

:evilgrin:

Will be interesting to see which crook will be the last to be convicted.....

But I thought the would have reached a decision quicker too.

bites the dust!!

Hopefully the first of many. Don't forget this is the first guilty verdict of a person inside the admin. Before he is sentenced there will be deals made, and it's too early for the syndicate to start pardoning people. He has to save the pardons for the big cheeses.

he'll be pardoned in no time!

over at firedoglake:




http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/20/safavian-found-guilty/

will be, how long it takes for the sentencing phase of the trial and when he is ordered to report to prison.

of the Bush crowd. Pardon the cronies who get convicted.

Let's see them work their way up, hopefully.

When they hold his TEST-I-CULES to the flames I am sure he will tell a whales tale. I'm thinking Abramoff is a regular Jonah if you catch my drift. The tide is a turnin and the pukes are set to be burnin! WOOT!

Talk about the MSM basically ignoring a story. This is HUGH.

KO gets his teeth into this one. I think KO and RFK should be hiring bodyguards.

But it is on the front page of the NY Times website.

:hi:

full of crooks and wack job bigots. Eccchhh... bleh.

We have plenty of dirt on these guys and gals.

There's a lot more to it with Safavian and Abramoff than just a few rounds of discounted golf. This is the tip of the iceberg of a multibillion dollar DOD, CIA and Homeland Security contracting scandal, through which Safavian was a conduit for big GOP cronies and corporate contributors.

According to the Federal Times: http://www.federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1130126

Safavian’s arrest comes less than a year after a high-level Air Force procurement official, Darleen Druyun, went to prison for trading favorable multibillion-dollar contracts for a top job with Boeing Co. It also comes as the federal contracting community is trying to rectify a pattern of shoddy contracting detailed in a series of inspector general audits in the past three years. And it comes a year after Congress and federal auditors announced they were looking into allegations of improper contracting and price gouging by companies engaged in the Iraq reconstruction effort.

Government contracting expert Dan Guttman, a fellow at the Washington Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University, said Safavian’s arrest couldn’t have come at a worse time. “We’ve got a bunch of perfect storms here with Iraq and Katrina,” he said.

Neal Couture, executive director of the National Contract Management Association, agreed. “At a time when the federal procurement system is already strained to its limits in support of the war in Iraq . . . that’s just not a good place to be,” Couture said.

Happy, justice dance.

:woohoo: