Pictures may embarrass Bush

2006-01-23 09:46

Washington - Pictures showing George W Bush with a disgraced lobbyist may embarrass the US president as he attempts to distance himself from Washington's newest corruption scandal, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

The magazine said that it had seen five pictures of the president together with Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist who on January 3 pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion linked to his Washington lobbying activities.

Abramoff's agreement to co-operate with federal investigators has sent chills through Washington Republicans who have been at the receiving end of his largesse, with a number of Republican congressmen believed implicated by his testimony and that of his aides.

While Time was unable to publish any of the photographs - whose existence was also reported by Washingtonian magazine - it characterised them as mostly formal pictures taken at White House receptions, where the president often does not even know the person he is being photographed with.

However, one picture shows Bush together with Abramoff and a Texas Kickapoo Indian tribe leader, significant because Abramoff's use of Indian tribe money to gain favour with Republican politicians lies at the centre of the lobbying scandal.

Abramoff was also honoured in 2004 as a major fund-raiser for Bush's re-election campaign.

On January 8, Time reported that the White House was sweeping its records to see if any photographs of the two existed, in hopes of overcoming possible efforts to implicate Bush in the biggest corruption scandal to hit Washington in decades.

"The president does not know him, nor does the president recall ever meeting him," White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said of Abramoff.

- AFP