Bush administration. In 2001, Abramoff was a member of the Bush administration's 2001 Transition Advisory Team assigned to the Department of the Interior. Abramoff befriended the incoming Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles. The draft report of the House Government Reform Committee said the documents – largely Abramoff's billing records and e-mails – listed 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years, including 10 with top Bush aide Karl Rove. The report said that of the 485 contacts listed, 345 were described as meetings or other in-person contacts; 71 were described as phone conversations and 69 were e-mail exchanges. In the first ten months of 2001, the Abramoff lobbying team logged almost 200 contacts with the Bush administration. He may have used these senior level contacts to assist in his lobbying for Indian tribes concerning tribal gaming. The Department of the Interior has Federal regulatory authority over tribal affairs such as tribal recognition and gaming. From 2000 to 2003, six Indian tribes paid Abramoff over $80 million in lobbying fees. The Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs has authority over policy and grants to US territories such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). This may have assisted Abramoff in lobbying for textile interests in the islands. U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and DeLay also heavily lobbied the CNMI for opposing the minimum wage. Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of Gabon, Omar Bongo, to arrange a meeting with Bush and directed his fees to an Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm, GrassRoots Interactive. Bongo did meet with Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004. There has been no evidence in the public record that Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting, or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon. White House and State Department officials described Bush's meeting with Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine. The officials said they knew of no involvement by Abramoff in the arrangements. Officials at Gabon's embassy in Washington did not respond to written questions. Susan Ralston, Rove's assistant since 2001, previously worked as an administrative assistant for both Abramoff and Reed. According to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between Mahathir and Bush, allegedly at the direction