It was bound to happen sooner or later. Fortuitous that it comes before the election...

Rove Aide Linked To Abramoff Resigns
A top aide to WH strategist Karl Rove resigned yesterday after disclosures that she accepted gifts from and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the influence-peddling scandal. Susan B. Ralston submitted her resignation to avoid causing political damage to pResident Bush a month before the midterm elections, officials said. "She did not want to be a distraction to the WH at this important time," said WH spokeswoman Dana Perino... (No distraction at all, yeah right!)

A congressional report showed last week that Ralston accepted sometimes-pricey tickets to nine sports and entertainment events from Abramoff while she provided him with inside White House information. The bipartisan report said there is no evidence that Rove knew of or approved of Ralston's actions, and sources said yesterday that the White House was surprised by the report's revelations. The WH counsel's office conducted a review of the report, but with Ralston's departure it closed its inquiry yesterday. "Nothing more will come from the report, no further fallout from the report," Perino said....

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...The sprawling Abramoff investigations have triggered prosecutions on Capitol Hill and on K Street, but Ralston's resignation brought the scandal into the White House proper. The only other White House official caught up in the probe has been David H. Safavian, the procurement chief for the Office of Management and Budget, who was convicted in June of lying about his ties to Abramoff. As right hand to the president's most important adviser, Ralston was closer to the center of the Bush operation. She was a key organizer of presidential events, coordinating with White House political, scheduling, advance and public liaison offices. "She will be missed because she solves problems, and finding people in government who solve problems" is rare, a colleague said.

Ralston, who earned $122,000 a year, had been a minor player in the scandal for more than a year, but it was not until her e-mails with the lobbyist were released by the House Government Reform Committee last week that her role became known...

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As a former Abramoff assistant, Ralston played intermediary between the lobbyist and Rove. The congressional report found 66 Abramoff contacts with the White House, more than half of them with Ralston. In addition, Abramoff's lobbying colleagues contacted Ralston 69 times. On Oct. 21, 2001, Ralston e-mailed Abramoff that Rove had read an Abramoff memo about a political endorsement in the Mariana Islands governor's race, a little-noticed election but one important to Abramoff because he had lucrative clients there. Ralston reported to Abramoff that Rove had agreed, writing the next day: "You win :)."...

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