Interior Official Admitted to Obstructing Justice

Interior Official Admitted to Obstructing Justice



March 2007 – Former Deputy Interior 
Secretary James Steven Griles pleaded guilty today in federal 
court to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack 
Abramoff corruption investigation. Griles, a former lobbyist 
for mining and oil industries, is the highest ranking Bush 
administration official caught in the Washington lobbying 
scandal. 
Griles pleaded guilty to "lying to the Senate about his 
relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff ...in 
testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 
November 2005 and in an earlier interview with panel 
investigators." 
The Senate committee was investigating, among other things, 
the level of access Abramoff had to Griles while he was 
serving as DOI deputy secretary. 
Griles now admits he obstructed the Senate Indian Affairs 
committee's investigation into Abramoff and his associates' 
dealings with Indian casino clients. 
Former Deputy Interior Secretary James Steven Griles 
Abramoff's Indian clients paid him millions of dollars to 
influence decisions coming out of Congress and the Interior 
Department. Abramoff told them that he could influence 
decisions made at the department, especially by Griles. Now 
awaiting sentencing in the bribery scandal, Abramoff is 
serving six years in prison for a fraudulent Florida casino 
deal. 
Friends of the Earth, which worked to expose ethical lapses in 
the Department of the Interior, said today that Griles' guilty 
plea vindicates their efforts. 
"Steven Griles was the poster boy for corruption and influence 
peddling in the Bush Interior Department," Friends of the 
Earth said in a statement. "He led a rogues gallery of oil, 
gas and mining lobbyists-turned political appointees who used 
their jobs at Interior to advance the agenda of their former 
industry clients." 
The environmental group said Griles' guilty plea "should mark 
the beginning - not the end - of efforts to clean house at the 
Department." 
Griles, 59, of Falls Church, Virginia, entered his guilty plea 
this morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of 
Columbia, before District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. 
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Griles faces a maximum 
sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but 
prosecutors have agreed to ask the court to impose a sentence 
of 10 months in exchange for the guilty plea - five months in 
jail and five months in a halfway house or in home detention. 
Sentencing is scheduled for June 26, 2007. 
Between July 2001 and January 2005, Griles was the second 
highest-ranking official within the Department of the 
Interior, directly reporting to Interior Secretary Gale 
Norton. 
According to court documents, Griles and Abramoff met on March 
1, 2001, five weeks after President George W. Bush took office 
for his first term. 
They met through Italia Federici, a Republican environmental 
activist whom Griles had been dating, identified in the 
charging document filed by prosecutors this morning, as 
"Person A." This person was also the founder of a "purported 
tax-exempt organization" for which Griles had actively 
assisted in raising funds before he became DOI deputy 
secretary, the document states. 
A week later, Griles, who had been serving on Bush's 
transition team for the Interior Department, was nominated by 
the president as deputy interior secretary, the department's 
chief operating officer. In that position, Griles represented 
the department on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task 
force. 
Emails released as part of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee 
investigation of Abramoff's lobbying activities detailed 
contacts Griles had with Abramoff or Federici. 
"Both before and during Griles' DOI tenure, Abramoff sought 
and received - directly and through Person A - Griles' advice 
and intervention on various matters within the jurisdiction of 
DOI that directly affected Abramoff and his clients," the 
charging document states. 
The court documents show that, beginning soon after Person A 
introduced Abramoff to Griles, Abramoff and certain of his 
Native American tribal clients became "significant donors to 
the purported tax-exempt organization which this person 
founded and operated." 
"Ultimately, Abramoff personally and through his Native 
American tribal clients donated a total of $500,000 to the 
person's organization between March 2001 and May 2003." 
Prosecutors dropped earlier claims that Griles did anything 
improper to help Abramoff or gained anything of value from the 
former Republican lobbyist and restricted their charges to 
obstruction of justice. 
The plea agreement does not require Griles to help 
investigators with their ongoing grand jury probe of 
Abramoff's activities by providing information about the 
involvement of others. 
Among those who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the 
scandal besides Abramoff are former Ohio Republican 
Congressman Bob Ney and David Safavian, former deputy director 
of the White House Office of Management and Budget. 
Griles lives in Virginia with Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who until 
January was an assistant attorney general in charge of the 
Justice Department's environmental division. 
Wooldridge, 46, served as Norton's deputy chief of staff, then 
as a Interior Department solicitor before moving to the 
Justice Department in November 2005. 
She resigned from the Justice Department days after her 
colleagues in the criminal division met with Griles' lawyer to 
lay out their case against him. 
The AP reported in February that Wooldridge, as the nation's 
environmental prosecutor, bought a $980,000 vacation home last 
year with Griles and Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington 
lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months later, she signed an 
agreement giving the company more time to clean up air 
pollution at some of its refineries. 
Environmental groups sounded the alarm about Griles' illegal 
activities early in his tenure at the Department of the 
Interior. 
By June 3, 2003 a coalition of environmental and government 
ethics organizations asked then U.S. Attorney General John 
Ashcroft to launch a criminal investigation into Griles' 
conduct. 
The organizations said Griles had failed to abide by recusal 
agreements that he made to protect the public from his former 
associations with oil and mining companies. Instead, they 
claimed Griles played a key role in several decisions that 
have directly benefited his former employer and clients. 
They contended Griles had not been forthcoming about the 
nature of the $284,000 he was receiving annually as part of a 
four year, $1.1 million deal with his former employer National 
Environmental Strategies, NES, a firm that lobbies on behalf 
of oil, gas and coal interests. 
In addition, the organizations wanted to know if Griles made 
false statements to Congress about the NES deal during his 
confirmation hearing. 
Griles denied these allegations. Interior Department Press 
Secretary Mark Pfeifle told the Environment News at 
the time that "these are baseless charges from partisan 
special interest groups." 
Pfeifle said the NES agreement was fully reviewed and approved 
by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and that Griles has 
"diligently complied with his recusal obligations." 
But the groups were not persuaded, and their letter to 
Ashcroft requested the appointment of a Special Counsel to 
investigate possible violations of criminal and civil conflict 
of interest laws, citing the need for a nonpartisan, grand 
jury investigation. 
The Abramoff lobbying case now is being investigated by a task 
force of federal agents including special agents of the DOI 
Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation. 
"The foundation of good government rests on the faith 
Americans take that our public officials act in our 
interests," said Assistant Director Chip Burrus, FBI Criminal 
Investigative Division. "Steven Griles' role in obstructing 
the U.S. Senate's investigation into the corruption scandal 
surrounding former lobbyist Jack Abramoff is unacceptable. 
When a public official violates the public trust, confidence 
in government suffers. The FBI will continue to work with our 
partners to restore the confidence in government to which 
Americans are entitled." 
In commenting on today's guilty plea, Interior Department 
Inspector General Earl Devaney said, "I am most proud of the 
willingness of the many current and former department 
employees who told the truth about this top Interior official, 
sometimes at great risk to their own careers." 
Devaney said, "I am confident that the Griles conviction will 
serve as a warning to other government officials that when 
they intentionally make false statements or otherwise engage 
in misconduct, they will be vigorously prosecuted." 





 

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