Time confirms Bush/Abramoff photos

The five photos reported by the Washingtonian that feature Bush meeting on various occasions with Jack Abramoff and his family have been confirmed as the genuine article. And Time also claims to have seen a sixth.

"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. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

Gracias to Mil Apodos for bringing this to my atención.