As we mentioned last week, former Karl Rove assistant and Jack Abramoff aide Susan Ralston is angling for immunity from the House Committee on Overight and Government Reform. It now appears that she is definitely willing to testify, and indeed does have information of interest...but first she wants that immunity.
During a May 10 deposition with Ralston, her attorney, Bradford Berenson, told investigators for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that she "has material, useful information" about contacts between Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, according to a memo sent to committee members Tuesday by the committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California.
Berenson also said Ralston has useful information about the use of outside Republican National Committee e-mail accounts by White House staffers, which is also the subject of a congressional probe, according to the memo.
However, Ralston will only be "comfortable going forward" if she is given a grant of immunity, Berenson told investigators, according to the memo.
Ralston was Abramoff's executive assistant until 2001, when she went to work for Rove on Abramoff's recommendation. More than half of the contacts between Team Abramoff and the White House were made through her. I can't wait to hear what she has to say.
Go ahead and get familiar with the name Susan Ralston - Robert Novak seems to believe she may soon cause some problems for Karl Rove.
You see, Susan Ralston used to be an assistant to Jack Abramoff, and in 2001 he recommended her for the position of executive assistant to Karl Rove. She got the job and became Rove's gatekeeper - a very sensitive position, to be sure. And now she's requesting immunity before Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
For Waxman, she is a link between the disgraced, imprisoned Abramoff and Rove, a principal political target of the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Novak implies she may be seeking immunity for her own protection, and that she very well may not have the incriminating information Waxman is seeking. He may be right...but the situation definitely bears watching.
Score one for the good guys.
A federal judge has ordered the White House to release two years' worth of visitor logs outlining visitors to Vice President Dick Cheney's office and residence.
The order, by District Judge Ricardo Urbina, orders the Secret Service to give up the records by Oct. 27 or identify them and justify why they should not be released.
This comes three months after The Washington Post asked the White House for visitor logs covering people visiting Cheney, his legal counsel, chief spokesman and other aides. The Secret Service refused to handle the request, and attorneys representing the federal government called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."
"Fishing expedition?" That old dog won't hunt.
(Whoops. I probably shouldn't write the words "hunt" and "Dick Cheney" in the same blog post! Somebody might get ideas.)
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