So today Gale Norton, the Interior Secretary, resigned abruptly from Bush’s cabinet today. For those who are not familiar with her ties to Abramoff, I thought it would be time to highlight some of them.

First up is this nice article from the Boston Globe on 11/4/2005:

WASHINGTON — Investigators have unearthed e-mails indicating that Representative Tom DeLay’s office tried to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff get a high-level Bush administration meeting for Indian clients, an effort that succeeded after the tribes began making a quarter-million dollars in donations.

Tribal money went both to a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the Cabinet secretary Abramoff was trying to meet, as well as to DeLay’s personal charity.

This group is the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. During Senate hearings last year, John McCain had subpoenaed Italia Federici, who is the head of the group. Federici did not respond to the subpoena. At question was $250,000 that the Coushatta tribe had donated to Federici’s group.

Now that there is a little history out there on the Norton/Abramoff relationship and her sudden decision to resign, we could very well be looking at indictments coming out in the near future. Of course Norton isn’t the first in the White House to resign over Abramoff. Don’t forget David Safavian, who was indicted last year. He also resigned from the administration on a Friday. The following Monday he got his 5 count indictment.