[theknife]

David Safavian, the chief of the White House's federal procurement office official who resigned several days before his arrest has apparently had the additional distinction of being a lobbyist for clients associated with Hamas and Hezbollah - groups the US has designated as terrorist organizations and therefore, with whom the US is at war:

Arrested ex-official initially didn't tell panel about work
Susan Schmidt, R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Washington -- David Safavian, the Bush administration official arrested Monday, initially failed to disclose lobbying work he had done for several controversial foreign clients when he went before a Senate panel last year to be confirmed as chief of the White House's federal procurement office.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held up Safavian's nomination for more than a year, in part because of lawmakers' concerns about lobbying work for two men later accused of links to suspected terror organizations, according to committee documents. The Senate panel nevertheless approved him unanimously, and the Senate followed suit on Nov. 21, 2004.

Safavian was arrested Monday on charges of lying and obstructing an investigation into former powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. Safavian resigned his government post Friday. Tuesday, his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Senate approval of Safavian occurred two months after the Washington Post disclosed Safavian's participation in an August 2002 golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff. That trip was central to the criminal complaint against Safavian unsealed Monday.

Tuesday, a spokeswoman for committee chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the review of Safavian's background had been thorough.

The record of Safavian's confirmation shows extensive questioning by the committee staff about his alleged lobbying for local Muslim leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in October 2000 made widely publicized comments supporting Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, at a rally in Lafayette Park.

Lobby disclosure forms originally filed by Safavian's firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, show that it represented Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, until 2001. Alamoudi has since been convicted and imprisoned for accepting money from the Libyan government as part of an alleged plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Janus-Merritt Strategies changed its lobby disclosure forms in 2001 to indicate that its client was not Alamoudi but Jamal Barzinji. In March 2002, Barzinji was named in a search warrant affidavit filed by a Customs Service official as "the officer or director" of a group of entities in Northern Virginia "controlled by individuals who have shown support for terrorists or terrorist fronts." No charges have been filed against Barzinji, and he has denied any wrongdoing.

Safavian told the committee in an April 16, 2004, letter that he and his firm had never done any work for Alamoudi. He said the firm had lobbied at Barzinji's request to gain U.S. support to free the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned for six years.

Safavian also told the committee that he had "overlooked" two other clients while preparing his initial submissions for the OMB position. He did not initially mention work as a registered foreign agent for Gabon, a country persistently rated by the United States as having a "poor" human rights record, or his work as a registered foreign agent for Pascal Lissouba, the former president of the Republic of Congo who has been tried in absentia for treason and embezzlement.

Safavian, former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, is charged with three counts of making false statements and obstructing a GSA investigation into his ties with Abramoff. Before joining the government, Safavian worked as a lobbyist with Abramoff, then founded Janus-Merritt Strategies with antitax crusader Grover Norquist.

edit:

Originally Posted by albed

unlike the Clinton years those don't involve foreign nations...

no, just terrorist groups.