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David Hossein Safavian (born August 4, 1967) is a Republican lawyer and former Chief of Staff in the United States General Services Administration (GSA). He is a figure in the Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal. In 2004, he was an employee of the Office of Management and Budget when he was arrested and charged with crimes in connection with the Abramoff corruption scandal. He was convicted on October 27, 2006, and sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, on June 17, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously reversed Safavian's convictions, and ordered a new trial. On December 19, 2008, at his retrial, he was again convicted of perjury. == Career prior to GSA== An Iranian-American from Grosse Ile, Michigan, Safavian graduated fifth in his class at Detroit College of Law. He also studied at Loyola University Maryland, Georgetown University Law Center, Michigan State University College of Law, and Saint Louis University. In Michigan, he served as an aide to Congressmen Robert William Davis (R-MI) and Bill Schuette (R-MI), and still later he worked for the lobbying firm of Janus-Merritt Strategies. Safavian was a longtime friend of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In the mid-1990s, the two worked at the Washington-based lobbying firm of Preston Gates & Ellis. There they brought in millions to the firm while working on the Mississippi Choctaw tribal account. The pair were members of a team, reports CNN, “that was lobbying to keep the Northern Mariana Islands (US territory ) free from certain US labor and immigration laws.” In 1997, Safavian and Grover Norquist founded a lobbying firm, the Merritt Group, which was renamed Janus-Merritt Strategies (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 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 Indians, and the National Indian Gaming Commission. Safavian also registered as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan, the government of Gabon, and Pascal Lissouba, the former president of the Republic of the Congo. 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 that would have made online gambling a federal crime. Coalition members included the American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Concerned Taxpayers, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 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, was Norquist's activist group.〔 An Oct. 12, 2006 Senate Finance Committee report〔http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7ukQbS4t1zMJ:www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3626/1/3%3FTopicID%3D〕 concludes most of these organizations abused their tax exempt status. In January 2001, Safavian left Janus-Merritt to become Chief of Staff for Representative Chris Cannon. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「David Safavian」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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