Bush picks Abramoff prosecutor for federal judgeship, removed from case

Washington — The investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a provocative new turn Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.

The prosecutor, Noel Hillman, is chief of the department’s Office of Public Integrity, and the move ends his involvement in an investigation that has reached into the administration as well as into the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.

Democrats swiftly questioned the move’s timing and called for a special prosecutor as Bush faced a barrage of questions about why he would not make public "grip and grin" photographs of himself with Abramoff. The photographs apparently show Bush and Abramoff smiling at White House Hanukkah parties and Republican fundraising receptions.

Bush’s view, which he offered at a news conference Thursday morning that was peppered with questions about Abramoff, was that the photographs were so common as to be almost meaningless and that it was part of his job "to shake hands with people and smile." He said he couldn’t remember posing for the pictures, or, for that matter, even meeting Abramoff.

The White House, which announced Bush’s selection of Hillman in a routine e-mail message Wednesday afternoon that included 15 other nominations to judgeships and federal jobs, dismissed the calls for a special prosecutor.

"It’s nothing but pure politics," said Scott McClellan, the White House secretary. "The Justice Department is holding Mr. Abramoff to account, and the career Justice prosecutors are continuing to fully investigate the matter."

Special prosecutors have not been especially welcome at this White House, where Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the CIA leak case, is more than two years into an investigation that has resulted in the indictment of a top vice presidential aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and has left Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, in legal limbo.

Hillman’s departure from the Justice Department creates a vacancy at the top of the Abramoff investigation only three weeks after Abramoff, once one of the city’s most powerful Republican lobbyists and a major fund-raiser for Bush, announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify against others, possibly including members of Congress.

A former senior White House budget official, David Safavian, has been indicted in the case on charges of lying about his contacts with Abramoff, a former lobbying partner. The Justice Department’s plea agreement with Abramoff makes clear that prosecutors are investigating several members of Congress and other public officials who accepted gifts from the lobbyist in exchange for official acts.

Colleagues at the Justice Department say Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two years ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on allegations that Abramoff defrauded Indian tribe casinos out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation, given the large number of public officials who may be implicated.

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