February 28, 2020
President Trump has pardoned David Safavian, the Iranian-American caught up in the biggest scandal during the George W. Bush Administration.
The 11 pardons and commutations Trump issued February 18 included a pardon for Safavian, 52, a Republican Party activist and top official at the General Services Administration (GSA) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the George W. Bush Administration. Safavian was the highest ranking Iranian-American in the administration at the time of his arrest.
Safavian served time in federal prison for lying about his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff in a high-profile scandal exposed in 2005. It related to fraud perpetrated on Native American tribes who were seeking to develop casino gambling on their reservations. The lobbyists charged the tribes an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff grossly overbilled the clients. In one case, he secretly orchestrated lobbying against his own clients in order to force them to pay for more of his lobbying services.
In the course of the scheme, the lobbyists were accused of illegally giving gifts and making campaign donations to legislators in return for votes or support of legislation. Representative Bob Ney (Republican of Ohio), who had served in Iran with the Peace Corps and spoke Farsi, was directly implicated, forced out of office, convicted of crimes and sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison. Safavian was caught up in the investigation, though the charges against him did not involve the casino lobbying.
After a five-year federal investigation, Safavian was convicted in late 2008 on four counts relating to a golf trip he took with Abramoff in 2002. The former head of federal procurement policy at OMB was found guilty of obstructing a GSA investigation, lying on a financial disclosure form and two counts of making false statements.
While serving as GSA’s chief of staff, Safavian was invited by Abramoff to attend a golf excursion to Scotland and London. He sought the advice of GSA’s general counsel about the propriety of going on the trip, attesting that Abramoff “did not have business with GSA.”
But Abramoff had lobbied Safavian for help in purchasing or developing two GSA properties. One of them was the Old Post Office building in Washington, which later became the Trump International Hotel.
In a statement announcing the pardon, the White House noted that Safavian became active in the issue of criminal justice reform efforts after his incarceration. “Having served time in prison and completed the process of rejoining society with a felony conviction,” the statement said, “Mr. Safavian is uniquely positioned to identify problems with the criminal justice system and work to fix them.”
The White House also noted the District of Columbia had restored Safavian’s license to practice law, and that his pardon was “supported by several prominent individuals,” who included major contributors to the Trump campaign.
Safavian is now the general counsel for the American Conservative Union, a long-standing conservative advocacy group.
Safavian was born into an Iranian-American family in Grosse Ile, Michigan. He attended private schools and graduated fifth in his class at Detroit College of Law.
After college, Safavian became politically active, serving as an aide to two Michigan Republican congressmen before shifting to lobbying.
In the mid-1990s, Safavian became friends with Abramoff when the two worked at the Washington-based lobbying firm of Preston Gates & Ellis. They brought in millions of dollars in revenues to the firm while working on the Mississippi tribal account.
In 1997, Safavan and Gro-ver Norquist founded a lobbying firm that promoted Republican ideology. “We represent clients who really do have an interest in a smaller federal government,” Safavian told Legal Times in a 1997 interview. “We’re all very ideologically driven, and have a bias in favor of free markets.”
On May 16, 2002, GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry named Safavian as Senior Advisor and Acting Deputy Chief of Staff at the GSA. Two months later, Safavian was named Chief of Staff.
In 2003, Bush named Safavian as Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy in the White House with the responsibility to set purchasing policy for the entire federal government.
Safavian was indicted October 5, 2005. On October 16, 2009 he was sentenced to a year in prison for lying about his association with Abramoff by US District Judge Paul L. Friedman, who deferred the prison reporting date to allow Safavian to be with his pregnant wife when she delivered their child.