Wampum

Josh Marshall points out that the WaPo's new Republican activist blogger, Ben Domenech, has family connections with Jack Abramoff et al. Doug Domenech, Ben's father, was WH liaison with DoI:

Domenech Named To White House Post

Jan 11, 2002 -- Former Loudoun County Republican Committee Chairman Doug Domenech has been appointed White House Liaison for the Department of the Interior.

In July, he was appointed by President Bush to the position of deputy director of the Office of External and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of the Interior.

In his new role, he will act as an advisor in policy determining issues and matters related to non-career appointments in the department.

He has resided in Loudoun since 1989 and has been a long-time Republican activist, serving as the chairman of the GOP chairman for two years.

Prior to joining the administration, Domenech had a mix of government affairs and natural resource work experience. He worked for 12 years for the Forest Resources Association, a national trade association representing the forest products industry, serving as its southwestern division forester in Jackson, MS, and later its southeastern division forester in Charleston, SC. Prior to that, he was acting coordinator of the timber harvesting management program at Alabama A&M University and worked as a field researcher on a biomass energy project funded by the Department of Energy.

A 1978 graduate of Virginia Tech with a B.S. degree in forestry and wildlife management, Domenech was appointed to the Virginia board of Forestry by Gov. Jim Gilmore and was a member of Gov. Allen’s Commonwealth Competition Council.

So who else in Interior came from Virginia's resource management bureaucracy? How about J. Stephen Griles, #2 at Interior and close "friend" of CREA director Italia Federici. According the the White House's own biographical info, Griles was Executive Assistant Director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Economic Development from 1970 to 1981, and remained closely tied with the Department, in his subsequent years as a mining/forestry/oil&gas lobbyist.