Ill. FBI press release on Gov. Blagojevich
Opening Arguments in Safavian Retrial
Government Executive has a story about the first day of former GSA contracting official David Safavian's retrial. Here's an excerpt:
Prior to the trip, Safavian solicited the opinion of a GSA ethics officer about the appropriateness of accepting free travel from Abramoff. Safavian told the ethics officer that Abramoff "did not have business with GSA" and that he worked only on Capitol Hill.
The ethics officer wrote that Safavian could accept the trip for free. Nonetheless, before the trip began, Safavian wrote Abramoff a check for $3,100, a figure Abramoff allegedly suggested would cover Safavian's portion of the costs.
"Safavian was the only person who wanted to pay his fair share," Sauber said.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Safavian knew $3,100 would not cover his portion of the excursion, which ultimately cost a combined $150,000.
Edmonds added that Abramoff's "lobbying" of Safavian for the two GSA properties was tantamount to doing business with the agency. That information, he said, should have been passed along to the ethics officer before the trip.
"The evidence will confirm the simplicity of this case," Edmonds said. "It's about a public official lying about what's going on."
The information Safavian shared with Abramoff was not secret, nor was it valuable, defense attorneys said. The post office was not up for bids and the White Oak land was highly contaminated and was not suitable for a school, they noted.
Safavian's attorneys maintained that Abramoff did not have business with the GSA because the lobbyist did not have a contract with the agency. Sauber plans to call government witnesses who will corroborate Safavian's interpretation of "doing business."
You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://www.iecjournal.org/iec/atom.xml. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.
