Woo vs. Harmon - Witness J. Steven Griles

David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE KSC

U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

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DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

J. STEVEN GRILES

Deputy Secretary of Interior.

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
E-Mail: webteam@ios.doi.gov

June 26, 2007

Former Interior Department Official
Will Go to Jail for Obstructing
Abramoff Investigation

Jason Ryan Reports:

Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and must pay a $30,000 fine after pleading guilty to obstructing a congressional inquiry into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"In pleading guilty, Griles admitted that he knowingly and willfully lied and concealed material information from senators and Senate investigators about the unique relationship that he had with Abramoff immediately prior to and during his tenure as DOI Deputy Secretary," according to a Department of Justice statement.

Abramoff and lobbyist Michael Scanlon have pleaded guilty to bilking two Indian tribes out of millions of dollars for their lobbying work.

The links between Griles and Abramoff focus on Italia Federici, the president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Abramoff had directed his tribal clients to donate as much as $250,000 to CREA to help the Interior Department with several projects and studies. It is unclear if those projects ever existed.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee issued a report on their investigation and noted, "Abramoff apparently had his clients contribute to CREA, described by CREA president Italia Federici as a 'mom and pop' operation, because he believed that Federici would help him possibly influence tribal issues pending at the Department of the Interior."

While not mentioned by name in the criminal charge against Griles, Federici has been identified as "person A," according to law enforcement officials.

According to the information,"As a result of defendant James Steven Griles' personal and romantic relationship with Person A, Person A's introduction of Abramoff to defendant Griles gave Abramoff more credibility as a lobbyist than Abramoff ordinarily would have had with the defendant and facilitated the building of a professional relationship between Abramoff and the defendant that ordinarily would have taken years to develop."

Federici also pleaded guilty this month to obstructing the investigation and tax evasion and faces a maximum of five years in jail. She is scheduled to be sentenced in November.

"The Senate Committee focused on the following areas of inquiry, among others, concerning defendant James Steven Griles' tenure as DOI Deputy Secretary: the level of access Abramoff had to defendant Griles; the nature and extent of the defendant's relationship and dealings with Abramoff," the criminal information against Griles noted.

According to a court document, during his Nov. 2, 2005 testimony at a public hearing held before members of the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Griles "knowingly and intentionally made a series of materially false and fictitious declarations to, and withheld material information from, Senators and Senate investigators in response to questions about the true nature and extent of defendant Griles' relationship with Person A."

ABC News Blogs

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June 27, 2007

Love sent J. Steven Griles to prison

"Love is a many-splendored thing” -- unless you're under investigation by the feds. Then it can be quite a nuisance.

Had J. Steven Griles not been busy with so many lady friends while serving as the No. 2 official in the Interior Department, he probably wouldn't have scored a date yesterday with another woman: Judge Ellen Huvelle of U.S. District Court, who sentenced Griles to 10 months in prison for obstructing an investigation into the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Griles asked Abramoff for favors for the women in his life, prosecutors said, and in exchange helped Abramoff's clients with their government business. One of Griles's girlfriends, Italia Federici, got $500,000 for her nonprofit from Abramoff's Indian tribes.

"I concealed the nature and extent of my true relationship with Italia Federici," Griles confessed to the judge yesterday in a statement interrupted by stifled sobs. Choking out the words, a burly, red-faced Griles told Huvelle that "this has been the most difficult time in my life. My guilty plea has brought me great shame and embarrassment."

And the shame wasn't about to end. "Even now, you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," the judge told him, giving him twice as much time behind bars as prosecutors had recommended. "You went far beyond keeping your relationship with Ms. Federici a secret."

Some romantics shower their women with wine and roses. Griles did better than that. Prosecutors said he asked Abramoff to fund a charity proposed by one woman he was dating. They said he asked Abramoff to get his law firm to hire two other women he was dating. And then there was all that Abramoff tribal money that went to Federici. Two decades Griles's junior, she was the one who introduced the two men and eventually helped with the Abramoff probe after pleading guilty to tax and perjury charges.

When the Interior Department's inspector general looked into his dealings with lobbyists, Griles, a former mining lobbyist, sought the counsel of Sue Ellen Wooldridge, another woman in the department. Wooldridge, who later joined the Justice Department, became Griles's third wife in March, three days after his guilty plea."

http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/003632.asp

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Earth Shakers: The Counter-Enviro Power List

J. Steven Griles: Lobbyist

By Jason Stevenson, Assistant Editor, Outside Magazine

The former number two at the Interior Department under Gale Norton, Griles, a 57-year-old from Halifax County, Virginia, has moved in and out of government for more than 20 years, becoming a prime example of Washington's revolving-door syndrome. On February 1, just days after leaving his post as deputy secretary of Interior, Griles took a job as a principal at Lundquist, Nethercutt and Griles, a powerful Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm that represents major energy corporations such as BP and Exelon.

Griles first came to the department in 1981 under Interior Secretary James Watt, during the Reagan administration, serving as deputy director for the Office of Surface Mining. In the 1990s, he worked for the D.C.-based energy lobbying firm National Environmental Strategies.

In 2001, as deputy secretary, Griles became instrumental in streamlining regulations to speed the approval process for mountaintop-removal coal mining. The practice, which environmentalists and Appalachia residents refer to as "an environmental apocalypse," involves blasting away mountaintops, leaving behind tons of potentially toxic rubble and sludge. Griles also supported a new rule allowing mining companies to dump the debris in nearby waterways; some 1,200 miles of Appalachian streambeds have already been buried by the procedure.

SOUND BITE: "Griles allowed the coal industry to rape the people and the environment of Appalachia," says Judy Bonds, director of the Whitesville, West Virginia-based environmental group Coal River Mountain Watch. "He either thinks we're second-class citizens or he doesn't even know we exist."

NEXT UP: Expect this regulator-turned-industry-power-broker to continue lobbying for the energy business.
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September 25, 2002

GROUPS DEMAND THAT BUSH OUST #2 AT INTERIOR OVER ETHICS VIOLATIONS

RELEASE DOCUMENTS REVEALING J. STEVEN GRILES INVOLVED IN DECISIONS BENEFITING ENERGY COMPANIES THAT WERE HIS CLIENTS

Washington, D.C. - Friends of the Earth and the Citizens Coal Council today called on President Bush to fire J. Steven Griles, a former energy lobbyist who is now Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department, for violating his ethics agreement.

The groups cited calendars they obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing that Griles met with his former energy company clients and worked on particular issues that benefit them, as reported in a page-one story in today's Washington Post.

Griles was a lobbyist for over 40 coal, oil, gas and electric companies and trade associations before President Bush named him to the Interior post.

Griles sold his lobbying firm and signed a recusal agreement pledging that while at Interior he would not be involved in "any particular matter involving specific parties in which any of my former clients is or represents a party."

In May 2002, Friends of the Earth caught Griles violating his recusal agreement after he attempted to pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change its analysis criticizing a coal bed methane project in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana.

Before his appointment to the Interior Department, Griles worked as a lobbyist on behalf of several coal bed methane companies involved in drilling gas wells on public lands in the basin.

"Once again we've caught Griles lobbying and meeting with his corporate polluter buddies and violating his ethics agreement," said Kristen Sykes, Interior Department Watchdog for Friends of the Earth. "President Bush should clean up the dirty corporate influence at the Interior Department by firing Griles immediately."

Doyle Coakley, Chairman of the Citizens Coal Council and a resident of West Virginia, said:

"Griles is another example of a backroom dealer in the Bush administration who thumbs his nose at the public trust and helps greedy coal companies damage the environment. The president must get rid of people who have conflicts of interest. We deserve honest government, not government by and for the big energy companies."

In the 1990s, Griles represented several coal mining interests including Arch Coal, the National Mining Association and Pittston Coal Company. Many of these companies are clients of National Environmental Strategies, which bought out J. Steven Griles and Associates and retained Griles as a vice principal and lobbyist. The firm is paying Griles $284,000 a year over the next four years for the sale of his client base.

DETAILS OF GRILES MEETINGS WITH ENERGY COMPANIES

The calendars that Friends of the Earth and the Citizens Coal Council obtained show that from July 27, 2001, to February 20, 2002, Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles:

> Met at least seven times with his former clients, including the National Mining Association and the Edison Electric Institute, and at least once with his former lobbying firm, National Environmental Strategies.

> Met at least 15 times with either companies that belong to the National Mining Association or with administration officials to discuss issues concerning those members; including nine meetings with or about Peabody Energy and two meetings with the West Virginia Coal Association, a proponent of mountaintop removal mining,

> Met at least 16 times with former industry clients and administration officials to discuss the rollback of air pollution standards for power plants, oil refineries and industrial boilers. Discussions included the New Source Review rule, pending air pollution legislation and issues such as mercury.

> Met at least 12 times with administration officials and coal companies to discuss mountaintop removal strip mining. In May, the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA issued a major rule that weakened the Clean Water Act rules. The new rule legalizes the longstanding practice of mountain top removal mines that dump millions of tons of mining waste into streams. A federal judge, however, has blocked this rule from taking effect at coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia.

The Deputy Secretary assists the Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton in the discharge of Secretarial duties and serves as Acting Secretary in the absence of the Secretary. With the exception of certain matters reserved by the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary has the full authority of the Secretary....

Friends of the Earth - Campaigns

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J. Steven Griles is expected to testify regarding his business, professional and personal relationships with Jack Abramoff, Gale Norton; Carol Muranaka; Leonard Millman, R. James “Jim” Nicholson, Invesco; Norm Brownstein; J.C. Shannon; Dan Inouye; The Bureau of Indian Affairs; Robert Rubin; Henry Paulson; The Nature Conservancy; Oprah Winfrey; Jean Rolles; Dan Akaka; Claude Allen; Ted Stevens; Ed Case; Suzanne Case; Steven Case; Chris Yuen; Linda Lingle; Peter Savio; Benjamin Cayetano; John Waihee; George Ariyoshi; Judge Barry Kurren; Faye Kurren; Tesoro Petroleum; Bert Kobayashi; Glenn Taguchi; Kamehameha Schools; Dee Jay Mailer; Maui Planning Commission; Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources; Colbert Matsumoto; Judith Neustadter Fuqua; Bill Mills; Wayne Minami; Jean Rolles, Outrigger Hotels; Eric Yeaman; Peter Baldwin; David C. Cole; Samuel Cooke; Walter A. Dods; Stanley Hong; Lawrence M. Johnson; Summit Communications; Robert Kihune; Sandwich Isles Communications; Haunani Apoliona, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell; Karl Rove; Tom DeLay; Henry Kissinger; Michael Scanlon; Italia Federici; Bill Frist; Micah Kane; Dept. of Hawaiian Homelands; Michael McKenzie, Barack Obama, Mark Hemmeter, Hank Brown, Donald Evans, Carl Icahn, Henry Kravis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., TXU, Texaco-Chevron, and others to be named upon discovery.