A judge threw out part of a charge against former Bush administration official David Safavian in the first trial related to the Jack Abramoff scandal:

The judge threw out language from the indictment that said Safavian lied by telling a GSA ethics officer Abramoff had no business with the GSA and was not seeking to do business with the agency. There was no evidence during the trial that Safavian ever made such statements to the GSA, Friedman said. The judge left intact the remainder of the count that Safavian concealed his assistance to Abramoff, and deletion of the language was expected to have little substantive impact.

This move is “inconsequential” to the outcome of the case.