David Safavian
Encyclopedia
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
(GSA) and a figure in the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal.
In 2004, he was an employee of the Office of Management and Budget. He was arrested and charged with crimes in connection with the Abramoff corruption scandal. He was convicted and, on October 27, 2006, sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, on June 17, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
unanimously reversed Safavian's convictions, and ordered a new trial. On December 19, 2008, at his retrial, he was again convicted.
Career prior to GSA
An Iranian-American from Grosse Ile, Michigan, Safavian graduated fifth in his class at Detroit College of Law. In Michigan, he served as an aide to Congressmen Robert William DavisRobert William Davis
Robert William "Bob" Davis was an American politician from the state of Michigan. He represented the state's 11th congressional district, which at that time included the Upper Peninsula and a large portion of Northern Michigan, in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 until...
(R-MI) and Bill Schuette
Bill Schuette
William Duncan "Bill" Schuette is an American Republican politician and the current Attorney General of the U.S. state of Michigan.-Early life:...
(R-MI), and still later he worked for the lobbying firm of Janus-Merritt Strategies
Janus-Merritt Strategies
Janus-Merritt Strategies was a lobbying firm founded in 1997 by conservative activist Grover Norquist and then-lawyer David Safavian, who later became better known as the chief of staff in the General Services Administration and for his conviction in the Abramoff-Reed Indian lobbying scandal.-...
.
Safavian was a longtime friend of lobbyist Jack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff is an American former lobbyist and businessman. Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine...
. In the mid-1990s, the two worked at the Washington-based lobbying firm of Preston Gates & Ellis
Preston Gates & Ellis
Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP, also known as Preston Gates, was a law firm with offices in the United States, China and Taiwan. Its main office was in the IDX Tower in Seattle, Washington...
. There they brought in millions to the firm while working on the Mississippi Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
tribal account. The pair were members of a team, reports CNN, “that was lobbying to keep the Northern Mariana Islands
Northern Mariana Islands
The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines...
[a US territory] free from certain US labor and immigration laws.”
In 1997, Safavian and Grover Norquist
Grover Norquist
Grover Glenn Norquist is an American lobbyist, conservative activist, and founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform...
founded a lobbying firm, the Merritt Group, which was renamed Janus-Merritt Strategies
Janus-Merritt Strategies
Janus-Merritt Strategies was a lobbying firm founded in 1997 by conservative activist Grover Norquist and then-lawyer David Safavian, who later became better known as the chief of staff in the General Services Administration and for his conviction in the Abramoff-Reed Indian lobbying scandal.-...
(and is sometimes referred to as "Janus Merritt" or simply "Janus"). The tenor of the firm was fiercely ideological. "We represent clients who really do have an interest in a smaller federal government," Safavian told Legal Times
Legal Times
Legal Times is a weekly legal newspaper based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by ALM....
in a 1997 interview. "We're all very ideologically driven, and have a bias in favor of free markets." He went on: "We're not letting people who offer us money change our principles."
The firm's clients included businesses like BP America, the U.S. division of British Petroleum. There were foreign companies like the Corporacion Venezolana de Cementos and Grupo Financiero Banorte. There were gaming interests, including Indian tribes: the Saginaw Chippewa - a client the firm shared with Jack Abramoff, the Viejas band of Kumeyaay
Kumeyaay
The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai, Kamia, or formerly Diegueño, are Native American people of the extreme southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. They live in the states of California in the US and Baja California in Mexico. In Spanish, the name is commonly spelled...
Indians, and the
National Indian Gaming Commission
National Indian Gaming Commission
The National Indian Gaming Commission is an independent federal regulatory agency within the Department of the Interior. Congress established this agency through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. The agency has the duty to "promulgate such regulations and guidelines as it deems...
. Safavian also registered as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, the government of Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
, and Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba
Pascal Lissouba was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo from August 31, 1992 to October 15, 1997. He was overthrown by the current President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war....
, the former president of the Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...
.
In 1999, Safavian founded the Internet Consumer Choice Coalition, a nonprofit one purpose of which was to fight a bill authored by Republican Arizona senator Jon Kyl
Jon Kyl
Jon Llewellyn Kyl is the junior U.S. Senator from Arizona and the Senate Minority Whip, the second-highest position in the Republican Senate leadership. In 2010 he was recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for his persuasive role in the Senate.The son...
that would have made online gambling a federal crime. Coalition members included the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, the Association of Concerned Taxpayers, Citizens for a Sound Economy
Citizens for a Sound Economy
Citizens for a Sound Economy was a conservative political group operating in the United States, whose self-described mission was "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and less regulation." In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy split into two new organizations, with Citizens for a Sound...
, the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government...
, the Interactive Services Association, the Small Business Survival Committee, and the United States Internet Council. Some coalition members—the Interactive Services Association, for one—were also clients of Safavian's. Another, Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform is an advocacy group and taxpayer group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax...
, was Norquist's activist group. An Oct. 12, 2006 Senate Finance Committee report concludes most of these organizations abused their tax exempt status.
In January 2001, Safavian left Janus-Merritt to become Chief of Staff for Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Chris Cannon
Chris Cannon
Christopher Black "Chris" Cannon was a member of the United States House of Representatives, for the Republican Party, representing the third district of Utah from 1997 - 2009....
.
Federal positions
In early 2002, Safavian began looking for a new job. On February 4, 2002, he sent lobbyist Jack AbramoffJack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff is an American former lobbyist and businessman. Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine...
his resume, receiving a very positive response five days later. In mid-April, Safavian interviewed at Greenberg Traurig
Greenberg Traurig
Greenberg Traurig LLP and Greenberg Traurig PA is an international law firm based in Miami, Florida.The firm has approximately 1,800 attorneys and governmental professionals in 32 locations in the United States, Europe and Asia. Its founding office is in Miami, Florida with its largest office in...
, the firm that employed Abramoff. Soon after that he got an offer for a job at the U.S. General Services Administration
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
(GSA). On April 30, he wrote to Abramoff: "my gut is telling me to take the GSA job before joining up with you and your band of merry men."
On May 16, 2002, GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry named Safavian as Senior Advisor and Acting Deputy Chief of Staff at the GSA. He took the place of Angela Styles, an advisor known for challenging Congressional pressure to award contracts. "The most serious challenge to Styles came from Rep. Tom Davis
Thomas M. Davis
Thomas Milburn "Tom" Davis III was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Virginia's 11th congressional district in Northern Virginia. Davis was considering a run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by five-term incumbent and fellow Republican John...
(R.-Va.), the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee
United States House Committee on Government Reform
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is a United States House of Representatives committee that has existed in varying forms since 1816....
."
Two months later, Safavian was named Chief of Staff of the GSA to replace Brian Allan Jackson, who was leaving the agency to pursue an MBA from Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
.
On November 4, 2003, President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
announced Safavian's nomination to be the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President., where he set purchasing policy for the entire government.
Indictment, trial, conviction, reversal by the court of appeals & sentencing
Arthur Raymond Randolph
Arthur Raymond Randolph is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to the Court in 1990 and assumed senior status on November 1, 2008.-Biography:...
, Harry Edwards
Harry T. Edwards
Harry Thomas Edwards is a United States federal judge.Born in New York, New York, Judge Edwards received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1962, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society. He received a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School in 1965 and practiced law in Chicago for...
, and Judith Rodgers of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 17, 2008.
The three judge panel of the court of appeals found that the Department of Justice had vastly overreached in charging Safavian. Moreover, the appeals court found that the trial court had committed reversible error by allowing the Justice Department to use the equivalent of expert witness testimony, but did not grant Safavian with the same latitude. Because Safavian's defense was unfairly limited, the court overturned all four convictions. In doing so, double jeopardy applies to at least one charge and an additional specification. This leaves only three of the original five charges in which the prosecution can retry Safavian. The unanimous opinion, written by one George H.W. Bush appointee (Randolph), a Carter appointee (Edwards), and a Clinton appointee (Rogers) can be found at: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200806/06-3139-1121949.pdf.
On October 16, 2009 Safavian was sentenced to a year in prison for lying about his association with Jack Abramoff by U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman
Paul L. Friedman
Paul L. Friedman is a US District Court Judge in Washington, D.C.-Education:Friedman was born in Buffalo, New York. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1965, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of Zeta Beta Tau. He received a J.D...
. Judge Friedman is deferring his prison reporting date to allow him to be with his wife when she delivers their child.
See also
- Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandalJack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandalThe Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal is a United States political scandal relating to the work performed by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on Indian casino gambling interests for an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff and Scanlon...
- List of positions filled by presidential appointment with Senate confirmation