Interior Investigation Heats Up
We were on the money and ahead of the curve when we reported last summer that former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles was a person of interest to the Justice Department's task force on Jack Abramoff lobbying corruption. It turns out that Griles has been informed he is now a target of the probe, and CBS News has learned, he is likely to face criminal charges in the next few weeks.
"We are shocked and disappointed at this turn of events," says Barry Hartman, Griles' attorney. "No one has suggested that Mr. Griles ever took anything of value from Mr. Abramoff or any other lobbyist, and he never did."
When Griles was grilled by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in late 2005, he steadfastly denied doing any favors for Republican uber-lobbyist Abramoff, who pocketed millions in lobbying fees from Indian tribes possessing or coveting lucrative casino licenses doled out by Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The Senate committee chaired by John McCain concluded in a report last June it was "without a good faith basis for concern that Griles may have been untruthful with the Committee" and that Abramoff had "simply exaggerated his access to Griles to his clients".
But attorney Hartman telegraphs worry that Griles might be accused of false statements, such as about conversations with Abramoff about employment after government. Hartman tells us Griles was denied access to documents that might have refreshed his recollection of "thousands of meetings with representatives of environmental, business, and public organizations" he held while the number-two official in a cabinet department during President Bush's first term.
"He repeatedly asked for documents to help him answer as fully as possible but was refused. We know now that documents covering the subjects of the questions that might have helped Mr. Griles remember specific events were withheld from him," Hartman says.
The Senate committee's investigation released a plethora of Abramoff & Co. E-mails suggesting that Griles' friend Italia Federici was Abramoff's entrée to Interior. Federici is president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a group she co-founded with former Interior Secretary Gale Norton and which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from Abramoff and his clients. CREA's days as a player at Interior appear over; its address is an expired mailbox at a UPS store in downtown Washington, D.C. Federici is also under investigation.
Griles, a former mining executive, is now an energy industry lobbyist in Washington. Norton just took a job as an adviser for Shell Oil.
Abramoff is serving a six year prison sentence for a fraudulent Florida casino deal and awaits sentencing for the Washington bribery scandal. In addition, the criminal investigation has yielded convictions of his business partner, one former congressman, several congressional staffers, and one Bush administration official.