First Photo of Bush and Abramoff

White House had initially said there was no record of disgraced lobbyist at 2001 meeting

By ADAM ZAGORIN AND MATTHEW COOPER/WASHINGTON

Posted Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006

Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a journalist friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush "has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, He "saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids." The White House, however, has continued to assert that the President had no recollection of ever meeting Abramoff. When TIME reported in January that it had viewed unpublished photographs of Abramoff with Bush, aides responded that the pictures meant nothing since the President is photographed with thousands of supporters and White House visitors every year.