Out of curiosity, who prosecutes election financing crimes? I don't know if this is a crime, but Bush apparently overspent by $40 million on his 2004 campaign:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201861.html
(found via Carpetbagger)

I wonder if that's the end of the bambozzlement, or if other Republicans used the same technique ("hybrid" ads to share expenses with RNC or other organizations) to deflate how much they actually spent.

mini kkarl

...Adding, there are lots of other cases out there that just seemed to quietly disappear or somehow get sidetracked. I think we're seeing the tip of the iceberg here -- after all, if you're willing to exert that much control over the Judiciary, why not mold it as much as possible in other ways? Folks have already mentioned the Microsoft anti-trust case, the Tobacco settlement, various Abramoff-related cases, etc. I was just thinking about Enron; did that spark this? It was early enough to be a prime motivator, especially if you're in tight with the principals. And that had to be a hit for Republican party receipts.

In fact, many of the scandals covered have hit them in the pocketbook. That machine runs on money, and it's organized in such a way that it needs a few big sources of cash and influence to keep it moving. I've wondered about this before and perhaps I'll devote some time to the research myself, but I wonder how much money has been either a.) returned by Republicans, or b.) been denied to them by all these scandals.

I think that this may come down to money and influence, with one feeding off the other. The political force to get it implemented is motivated by the "value" issues to vote, but the whole purpose of the thing is to keep the machine moving.

Just another Lewis "Scooter" Libby, more or less, perhaps more.

Don't forget the KY Kyle!

In May 2004, the IRS filed a general tax lien against Kyle Sampson in Washington DC. But sometime around November 2004, Sampson and his wife bought a $425k house in Arlington VA.

I think I read that Sampson has four children so it is unlikely that his wife works full-time.

I am not so much interested in Sampson's personal life as I am in whether he is being compensated by parties other than the DOJ.

Besides being Chief of Staff for Gonzales, Sampson is the Chairman of the DOJ Intellectual Property Task Force. I am curious about how much power Sampson wields in that position. Sampson became chairman when his predecessor, David Israelite, left the DOJ to become CEO/president of the National Music Publishers' Assn.

I am curious, too, about the law firm Sampson worked for in Salt Lake City before he joined Senator Hatch's staff. The name of the firm is Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless.

I found one article written by Sampson when he was with Parr Waddoups. His argument against Miranda rights was published by the Desert News on 3/30/99 .

According to an 8/12/06 WP story about faith-based interns in Washington DC, Kyle Sampson was a 1991 intern in a program sponsored by Brigham Young
University. BYU, of course, is associated with the Church of Latter Day Saints.

As an aside, I came across a 4/12/05 Salt Lake Tribune story about the increasing influence of Mormons in Washington DC which mentioned Sampson. Sampson told the Tribune that he and John Ashcroft had "long talks about God, mercy and justice".

According to the Tribune, Mormons are disproportionately represented in the Central Intelligence Agency, which has long sought out Latter-day Saints with language skills. Who knew?

Based on a 1/4/02 Robert Novak column about career federal prosecutor, Charles LaBella, Sampson may have made some enemies on his way up the ladder.

From the Novak column:

"NEARLY THREE years ago,career federal prosecutor Charles LaBella became a hero for Republicans, martyred by the Clinton administration's politicized Justice Department. Because he sought independent prosecution of Clinton-Gore
campaign abuses, LaBella was denied promotion to be U.S. attorney in San Diego. But now that Republicans are in power, why has he not been named to the post he still wants to fill?...

White House staffers, uninterested in the women, really wanted Jeff Taylor -- a Justice Department lawyer who has been working in the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Kyle Sampson, a former Hatch aide who now works in the White House, along with Berenson has kept the LaBella nomination from getting to the president's desk.

Hatch himself, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, denied to me that he is supporting Taylor or blocking LaBella. But he has told others that Justice Department professional staffers report that LaBella is not a team
player. Hatch has also suggested in private that a solution might be making LaBella the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, perhaps on the theory that team
players are less needed there..."

Carol Lam got the USA-SDCA job that LaBella wanted. Interesting.

From a 7/17/02 profile of Sampson in the Desert News:

"...He says the pace of the job is very similar to that portrayed on the popular television show "The West Wing" except that he and other staff members don't walk around as much.

"We just shoot off an e-mail," Sampson said."

And thank goodness for that!

Is it just me or does Kyle Samson look like Karl Rove? Could it be that Samson was a neo-con cloning experiment gone wrong and now he may turn rogue against his masters?

I just hope congressional questioners ask Kyle Sampson:

Exactly what did Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales know, and when did they know it, concerning Mark Foley, a fellow neo-con Republican, who had a sexual predilection for young House pages?

And what did and when did George W. Bush and Dick Cheney know?

(Note: in early 2006, Karl Rove "talked" Mark Foley (R-FL) into running for another term in office, even as the House Republican leadership was covering for Mark Foley's sexual predatory practices, as they'd been doing for years)

And did Alberto Gonzales, after Foleygate broke with a fury into pre-election news last October, use his position as Attorney General to get as many Republican-appointed federal prosecutors as possible to bring bogus voter fraud cases against Democrats in an attempt to replace negative news coverage of Foleygate with negative news coverage of alleged Democratic improprieties?

Is this why the Gonzales-controlled Justice Department is stonewalling (obstructing justice?) in not releasing all the emails related to the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys last December, two months after Foleygate severely hurt Republican chances in the November elections?

And how does Alberto Gonzales resolve the contradiction between his statement the other day that he wants to keep his job so he can go on protecting the kids, when the FACT is, he and Karl Rove, being chief White House political strategists, MUST have known about Mark Foley's sexual predatory practices long before the late September 2006 revelations about his activities?

So many questions, and so few answers...so far.

Gonzales cannot and will not resign any time soon. Why? Because if he does, he will be called, just like Sampson, to testify at a Congressional hearing on this issue UNDER oath and he won't have any claims to "separation of powers", "executive privilege", "ongoing investigations" or any other such shenanigans to hide behind.

I repeat, don't expect this man to resign any time soon. With the Dem's in power, he will not be able to graciously fall on his sword and get a golden parachute to Georgetown like Tenet and Feith. Plus, I don't know much about his net worth, but I doubt he is a wealthy man. He has been working as a govt. lawyer for the last couple decades for Bush in Texas and Washington. In that capacity, he can't have side gigs like Rove to bank up a fortune on paid speaking tours and consultant fees. He needs to stay at DOJ because he needs the indemnification of the Federal government represent him in court. Once he leaves, he will need to pay his own lawyers and I am sure it will be expensive considering the investigations and hearings that he will have to face.

I'm still trying to figure out why the IRS slapped a lien on Sampson in 2004.

I would have thought Sampson was on salary since he got out of law school. If he had no income other than wages, Sampson probably overstated his deductions if he underpaid his income taxes.

Maybe Sampson had undeclared income that the IRS found out about. If he did, I wonder where it came from.

You have to go some before the IRS puts a lien against you for unpaid taxes. The IRS is pretty good about offering alternative payment plans to tax delinquents.

Curious.