Bush downplays Abramoff photos, again defends NSA eavesdropping

01/26/2006

By Finlay Lewis
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
3:05 p.m. January 26, 2006

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush on Thursday dismissed White House photos with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff as an innocent “grip-and-grin” encounter, as he sought to minimize damage to Republican candidates in the fall congressional elections from a spreading lobbying scandal.

“I don’t know him,” Bush insisted as the White House continues to try to keep its distance from the scandal.


Amid GOP concerns about losing their congressional majorities, Bush used a hastily called morning press conference in advance of next week’s State of the Union address to restate his defense of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program and the administration’s response to hurricane Katrina’s devastating assault on the Gulf Coast.

Insisting once again that NSA covert eavesdropping is legal, the president signaled that he would oppose congressional attempts to change the program if the effort appears likely to compromise the program launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

With Democrats pounding their Republican opponents for corruption and threats to civil liberties, Bush mounted an aggressive defense in an effort to deflect questions from the White House. But he said he would cooperate with federal prosecutors in a spreading probe of Abramoff’s use of bribes to advantage his lobbying clients.

Earlier this month, Republican Party officials said Bush would donate $6,000 in Abramoff’s personal 2004 campaign contributions to the American Heart Association. All told, the one-time super-lobbyist steered about $100,000 in contributions to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

“There’s a serious investigation going on by federal prosecutors,” Bush declared during the 46-minute question-and-answer session. “If they believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they’ll come and look, and they’re welcome to do so.”

He also insisted that he attempts to keep his distance from lobbyists and called for constraints on earmarks – the practice of lobbyists using ties to key lawmakers to win money or contracts for their clients without legislative scrutiny.

Taking aim at a lobbying culture that led to the conviction and resignation of former California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Bush said, “This is about earmarks and people making, you know, special deals in the budget. ... There needs to be earmark reform.”

Pressed about the Abramoff photos and his own exposure to lobbyists, Bush conceded that the pictures demonstrated that he had met the convicted felon but insisted he couldn’t remember the occasion and asserted, “I don’t know him.”

He teased a reporter about having posed for a presidential picture with him at a White House holiday party, as he cited one estimate that he had to stand still for as many as 9,000 photos during the Christmas season.

“It’s part of the job of the president to shake hands ... with people and smile,” Bush remarked.

Appearing a day after he had delivered a stout defense of the eavesdropping program during a visit to the nearby NSA headquarters, Bush offered what may be a preview of how he would strike back at Democrats who criticize the high-tech snooping operation. The primary targets are said to be e-mail and telephone traffic, linked to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, that flow across U.S. borders.

Referring to a recent videotape of al-Qaeda’s fugitive leader, Bush said, “We’re at war with an enemy that wants to hit us again. Osama bin Laden made that clear the other day, and I take his words very seriously. And I also take my responsibility to protect the American people very seriously. And so we’re going to do what is necessary – within the Constitution and within the law and at the same time guaranteeing people’s civil liberties – to protect the people.”

He reiterated the administration’s contention that it might have aborted the assaults on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon if the warrantless surveillance program had been in place prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Two of the airliner hijackers were in San Diego while the attack was being plotted.

Referring to the nation’s second ranking intelligence official and former head of NSA, Bush declared, “Michael Hayden said that because he believes that had we had the capacity to listen to the phone calls from those from San Diego, elsewhere, we might have gotten information necessary to prevent the attack.”

Previewing next week’s speech, Bush argued in favor of making permanent the time-limited tax cuts that were enacted in his first term, including reductions in investment taxes.

Saying he has “one more off-year campaign in me,” Bush spoke with relish of the prospect of stressing his signature issue as a tax-cutting president when he hits the stump next fall one final time before retiring from the presidency three years from now.

“I think raising taxes will hurt the economy, and that’s a debate I look forward to having with the people as we get close to the 2006 elections,” Bush said, as he mocked Democrats and others who argue that the struggle to balance the budget could be aided if the earlier tax cuts were allowed to expire.

“That’s not how it works,” Bush said. “They’re going to raise your taxes and they’re going to continue to expand the government.”

He indicated that he would ask Congress to approve tax breaks designed to help individuals and families shoulder health care costs at a time when employers are cutting back on insurance coverage.

He defended the administration against critics who say that its recovery plan would abandon poor people whose homes in New Orleans’ low-lying neighborhoods were ruined.

The $85 billion congressional appropriation for helping to rebuild the storm-ravaged areas is “a significant commitment to the people whose lives were turned upside down ... by that hurricane,” he said.

He also suggested that the city and the state of Louisiana have been tardy in coming up with a rebuilding plan.

Answering critics who say the military has been stretched too thin by the war in Iraq and its other commitments, Bush declared that the armed forces have the capability of achieving victory in Iraq and defending U.S. interests in areas of strategic importance such as the Far East.

Emphasizing the promise of greater reliance on technology as the military undergoes a process of transformation, Bush asserted, “The things I look for are the following: morale, retention and recruitment. And retention’s high. Recruitment is meeting goals. And people ... feel strong about the mission.”