Ooops

Time Magazine has apparently done the heavy lifting and come up with what Scot McClellan assured us couldn't possibly exist. Photos of President Bush with Dirty Jack Abramoff.

Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them.

Time is quick to point out that these "clicks," as they are called, are very common, and presidents pose briefly for thousands of them each year. The scenes where they are set could very well be from large, not very personal publicity events, and don't definitively prove that Jack was in any intimate sit-downs with Bush. But they may still prove iconic in the public's perception of the White House's relationship with the discredited lobbyist.

There are also photos and further revelations about a Bush meeting with an Indian tribe client of Abramoff which won't sit well with the previous White House spin:

Abramoff knew the game. In a 2001 e-mail to a lawyer for tribal leader Lovelin Poncho, he crows about an upcoming meeting at the White House that he had arranged for Poncho and says it should be a priceless asset in his client's upcoming re-election campaign as chief of Louisiana's Coushatta Indians. "By all means mention (in the tribal newsletter) that the Chief is being asked to confer with the President and is coming to Washington for this purpose in May," Abramoff writes. "We'll definitely have a photo from the opportunity, which he can use." The lawyer had asked about attire, and Abramoff advises, "As to dress, probably suit and tie would work best."

Abramoff will take a lot of rats with him when his ship finally finishes sinking. And they may not all live on Capitol Hill.