Abramoff and the White House

Okay, let's forget about the 5 silly photos everyone wants to see. Here's a real scandal for everyone to sink their teeth into.

David Safavian, a former top procurement officer, provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian.

The government had planned to suspend Tyco because of alleged criminal conduct by former Tyco executives.

After advising Abramoff about the internal deliberations at GSA, Safavian suggested to Abramoff what arguments Tyco should make when it appealed the suspension decision, the court papers in Safavian's federal court case say.

Once tipped off by Abramoff, Tyco hired an outside law firm and successfully petitioned the government to lift the suspension and allow Tyco to continue to perform on government contracts.

The law firm outlined "the many steps that Tyco had taken, including to bring on a new board of directors, a new CEO and new corporate senior management," Tyco said in its statement.

Safavian faces trial on charges that he lied and obstructed investigations into whether he aided Abramoff in efforts to acquire GSA-controlled property around the nation's capital.

Safavian is accused of concealing from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the GSA when Safavian joined the lobbyist on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002. At the time, Safavian was GSA's chief of staff. He became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in November 2004.

So, at last we are getting to the meat of the scandal. I don't think we should let a few photos overshadow this sort of corruption.