Pacific Views

Griles Pleads Guilty

This guy ...

The scandal over the government's top environmental prosecutor's purchase of a vacation home with an oil lobbyist isn't dying down ...

... Conoco-Phillips' poodle in the Bush administration's Interior Department, has admitted to corruption charges, not that this has interrupted Bush administration attempts to curb federal oversight roles, as the Sierra Club's Carl Pope points out:

Stephen Griles, the former Deputy Secretary of the Interior, has pleaded guilty for lying about his cozy relationship and influence peddling on behalf of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

... "The Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy" (CREA). Abramoff's clients gave Federici money, Griles and Norton did Abramoff's clients favors, and Federici spent the money on -- well, we're not quite sure, but in at least one case on helping lobby for the Administration's plan to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

You might think that having the number two guy at Interior go to the slammer would serve as a cautionary warning to the Administration -- but no. Instead, Bush is eagerly racing to make certain that it's harder for these kinds of corrupt arrangements to be exposed. Over at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of the Inspector General is facing a ten-percent cut in its program, even though Congress just gave the IG more money. Senior auditors and criminal investigators are being forced into early retirement; branch offices may be closed; technical specialists who retire or resign will not be replaced. ... (h/t Grist)

The skinny:

... Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of President Bush's energy policies, is the ninth person convicted in a continuing Justice Department probe. The government is still actively investigating other public officials linked to Abramoff, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Abramoff's ties to at least three other current or former Republican lawmakers have come under scrutiny in the criminal probe: Rep. John Doolittle of California, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and former Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana. None of them has been charged; all have denied wrongdoing. One former House member, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, already is serving a jail term on a guilty plea. ...

As emptywheel noted last year, it's hard keeping track of all the criminal Republicans, and as she points out today, criminal Republicans have been doing a good job of working to silence anyone who dares investigate them, like Carol Lam. But as Pope says towards the end of his post, Rep. Waxman seems good to go with taking on the oversight jobs the Republicans have left vacant; so godspeed, Rep. Waxman, that's going to be a boatload of work.

Posted by natasha at March 23, 2007 05:16 PM | Corruption & Graft | TrackBack(0) | Technorati links |