Wampum

Earlier this week, various news organizations ran with yet another Abramoff-related tidbit; this time, the ax fell on Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Resources. From the Stockon Record:

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, says he never worked with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in his 14 years in Congress, but billing records suggest at least two interactions between the two in 1996.

...

Abramoff's billing records show he and Pombo talked - it is unclear whether the meeting was face-to-face or by phone - on Sept. 10 and Nov. 21, 1996. The topic was the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S.-controlled archipelago in the Pacific.

Former Pombo staffer William Dennis Stephens, who worked with Abramoff at the time, had at least 11 other contacts with either Pombo or his staff, the records show.

Now, I've known for ages that Pombo knew Jack, and vice versa, so the news that there were billing records was not surprising. Besides, the House Committee on Government Reform released a bi-partisan report last week, which included Abramoff's billing records, so why is this even considered newsworthy? Abramoff met with lots of Congressmen - he was a lobbyist, after all.

But about those billing records. See, I went back to the House Committee on Government Reform report and, lo and behold, found no billing records prior to 2000 among those released with the report. Abramoff's contacts with Pombo apparently occured in 1996, when Pombo was merely a junior member of the Committee. Besides, as I pointed out previously, the House Reform report had all mention of current members of Congress redacted, leaving only the 400+ contacts between Executive Branch officials as "evidence".

So whence did these unredacted billing records arise? According to the Record:

Copies of the records have been circulating for months, but none linked Pombo directly with Abramoff. The Record obtained this set of records late last week.

Obviously, the unredacted records are being used as a weapon, but by whom, and for what reason? Inquiring minds want to know. Or at least I do.

Addendum: I've thought about this a bit more since I posted. As I've said before, there is obviously some intra-party struggle going on in the GOP. Last week's release of the Reform report was clearly a slap at the White House. So if someone wanted to slap back, but not land a mortal blow, the release of ten-year old billing records which could be fairly easily disputed (Pombo's staff claims one purported meeting would have occured over Thanksgiving break, but Pombo was back in this district) would be such slap. I'm positive that more recent records show many, many more meetings, and when Pombo was in a position of power (Chairman) to actually do something. But it was meant merely to be a warning shot, though it's still not clear, by whom. The White House? Or perhaps someone who has used these documents to his advantage over the last 2.5 years, and was planning on their continued efficacy for at least through the 2008 pre-primary period.