Ex-aide for Cannon, White House guilty of lying

WASHINGTON — A former White House aide was convicted Tuesday of lying to government investigators about his ties to the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in the first trial to result from the influence-peddling inquiry centered on Abramoff.

The former aide, David H. Safavian, who resigned from the White House budget office days before his arrest last September, was convicted of four counts of lying and obstruction of justice in his statements to investigators about Abramoff and about a 2002 golf trip to Scotland that the lobbyist arranged for Safavian and others. Safavian, who is a former aide to Utah Republican representative Chris Cannon, was acquitted on an additional obstruction charge.

The verdict was hailed by Justice Department officials as a victory in their wide-ranging criminal investigation of the lobbying operations run by Abramoff, a Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to bribe public officials, including members of Congress, and is cooperating with prosecutors.

The criminal inquiry has created alarm on Capitol Hill, with several Republican lawmakers facing difficult re-election battles this November because of questions about their ties to Abramoff. Congressional aides said the influence-peddling scandal was a major factor in the decision of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader and an ally of Abramoff, to retire from politics this year.

Safavian, 38, who was a member of Abramoff's lobbying staff before joining the Bush administration, showed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were read in U.S. District Court in Washington. He could be imprisoned for 20 years on the four counts, although federal sentencing guidelines suggest that he will face a much lighter sentence.

After four days of deliberation, the jury agreed with prosecutors that Safavian had lied to investigators when he insisted there was no ethical conflict in joining Abramoff's August 2002 golfing trip to Scotland since, Safavian said, the lobbyist did "no business" with the General Services Administration. Safavian was then the chief of staff of the agency, which functions as the government's real-estate manager.

The jury saw e-mail message traffic from the summer of 2002 in which Abramoff repeatedly asked Safavian for help in acquiring two real estate parcels that were controlled by the GSA, including the Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, close to the White House. Safavian arranged a meeting at the agency for Abramoff's wife to discuss the properties on the day before he left for Scotland.