They Made Me Do It

I'm as anxious as anyone to find out just how inclusive Abramoff's skybox of iniquity really was. I, too eagerly await documentation that he and shrubya were a little closer than "don't know him;" after all, we know it's out there. We also know that shrubya really doesn't want us to see the pictures.

In his press conference today, President Bush suggested that the existence of photographs of himself and Jack Abramoff are no big deal and generally pooh-poohed the press's focus on the story. But our reporting suggests that the White House is actively involved in covering up and possibly destroying photographic evidence of the two men together.

Earlier this month, we were alerted to the existence of a series Abramoff photos at the website of Reflections Photography, a studio that does photo shoots for many Republican political events and sells copies to the individuals who attended the events and other members of the public through an online photo database. Reflections was an official photographer for Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign events and for the 2005 inauguration.

One of those photos was of Abramoff and Ralph Reed at a party for the launch of Reed's Century Strategies DC office in 2003. We contacted Reflections Photography and purchased the rights to publish that photograph and did so on January 11th.

Things weren't so simple with the late 2003 photograph of Jack Abramoff and President Bush.

Despite the apparantly meticulous scrubbing of these images, the blogosphere has been treated to umpteen "Bush/Abramoff Pics Here!" posts. Yes, little blogger; you were the first to find these thoroughly disappeared pictures of Bush/Abramoff...on the internets. It's quite maddening. I'm sure it makes metajesus weep.

So, please, let the record show that this is NOT Abramoff:



It's Rick Renzi (seen at the link with Katherine Harris). This, however, is a pic of Abramoff (background, far left) at an event with shrubya:



It's not much, but it's what there is for now, apparently. So now that we do have a shrubya/Abramoff picture out there, can we finally put to rest the "BREAKING!!" pic posts? Please?




Tags: Abramoff, corruption, lobbyist, Bush