There is a God

WASHINGTON – Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty Friday to obstruction of justice, becoming the ninth person and the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Second in rank only to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Griles effectively was Interior’s chief operating officer while at the agency between July 2001 and January 2005, and its top representative on Vice President Cheney’s energy task force.

Griles, 59, lives in Falls Church, Va., with Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who until January was an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s environmental division. They began dating in February 2003, when Wooldridge was Norton’s deputy chief of staff and counselor. Wooldridge became Interior’s top lawyer and counseled Griles on ethics matters.

The AP reported in February that Wooldridge, who became the nation’s environmental prosecutor in November 2005, bought a $980,000 vacation home last year with Griles and Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months later, she signed an agreement giving the company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries.

yahoo