Abramoff, White House Tied to Firing of Official

the White House: Ken Mehlman, who acted on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff. E-mails recently made public disclose that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor reforms in that U.S.

commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority. "Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington, D.C.

The latest of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has so far been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.The e-mails, disclosed by the House Government Reform Committee, show how Abramoff managed to manipulate the system through officials such as Mehlman, now the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Doing so, the service of his clients.

The report found more than 400 lobbying Besides the Stayman matter, the newly disclosed e-mails reveal Mehlman's role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary. Mehlman also helped gubernatorial ticket in the U.

S. Territory of Guam. over Capitol Hill and the GOP.

A Senate subcommittee concluded that The scandal has touched just one West Wing staffer, Susan Ralston, with the Abramoff team, including discussions about Stayman, the former State Department official. But he said such interactions were part of his job as White House political director. "I was a gateway," Mehlman said in an interview.

"It was my job to talk to political supporters, to hear their requests, and hand them on to "I know Jack," Mehlman said. "I certainly recall that if he and others wanted to meet I would have met with them, as I would have met with lots of people." Mehlman, a Baltimore native and graduate of Harvard Law School, has in 2003.

He built the party's highly effective grass-roots get-out-the-vote strategy, managing President Bush's 2004 re-election House, lobbying for government actions at Abramoff's behest, even when The senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., points to e-mails suggesting that, in the midst of negotiations over whether to fire Stayman, Mehlman requested than $20 from a person doing business with the government, although there are exceptions.

Ethics officials typically consider such suite event, which in this case was $133 a piece, according to Waxman's "Please tell me we can fit 2 more in for Friday," lobbyist and Abramoff partner Kevin Ring wrote to Abramoff. "Ken Mehlman of the White House apparently wants to go." On the day before the concert, been "sent to our conduit.

" On an unrelated topic, a Labor Department appointment, Ring added that he "will talk to Mehlman at the concert tomorrow night." concert. Mehlman said he did not recall it.

"I've been to several U2 concerts, but I don't know whether I went to that one," he said. fundamental ethics regulations and the law." "There are serious questions that Mr.

Mehlman needs to address with candor and that involved in a variety of matters of interest to Abramoff, one of which : L.A. Times any time, anywhere on your mobile device.

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