Safavian admits to mistakes

Safavian admits to mistakes
Abramoff trip, e-mails bad ideas, he testifies.

Published Monday, June 5, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Bush administration official David Safavian testified today that he wouldn’t have taken a golfing trip to Scotland arranged in 2002 by Republican influence peddler Jack Abramoff "if I had known what I know now."

Testifying in his own defense in U.S. District Court, Safavian added, however, that "it took a Senate investigation to get out the information I didn’t have at the time" about Abramoff’s intentions and plans for projects with General Serve Administration properties.

Safavian, the former chief of staff at the GSA and chief federal procurement officer in the White House, had said earlier that he decided to testify in his own defense because he was tired of "taking grenades" for 10 months and wanted "to explain my side."

After Safavian, defense attorney Barbara Van Gelder might call one additional witness, but the case was expected to go to the jury by tomorrow.

On Friday, Safavian denied he had ever tried to conceal from ethics officials and investigators the assistance he gave his ex-partner Abramoff concerning two federal properties in 2002.

He also replied "no, no, no" when his lawyer asked whether he’d ever given the disgraced lobbyist any information on bidding.

Abramoff pleaded guilty this year to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy.

Safavian did express regret over two e-mails he sent Abramoff about the GSA’s plan to redevelop the Old Post Office in Washington, a project Abramoff hoped to help an American Indian tribe client obtain.

"It was not a brilliant move" to forward and internal government e-mail describing another official’s opposition to the GSA’s plan, and it was probably inappropriate to send another e-mail to Abramoff saying, "We’re gonna have to roll this idiot," Safavian testified. He blamed those errors on his inexperience in the executive branch.

He also gave Abramoff information and advice about the GSA’s White Oak property in Maryland, which the lobbyist had wanted to buy or lease for a school he had founded.

Within weeks of giving advice on the two GSA properties, Safavian joined a weeklong trip arranged by Abramoff to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and then to London. Safavian insisted he though his $3,100 check to Abramoff in departure paid all his costs, including chartered jet fare. Prosecutors say the trip cost more than $130,000 for the nine participants.

GSA and Senate investigators have testified they would have wanted to know about the advice. GSA officials testified that knowledge could have altered decisions to permit the trip and to close an investigation of it.