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Lies to White House Officials Key to Kerik Case

A significant portion of the federal criminal case against former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik involves alleged lies Kerik told White House officials in both written and oral statements when he was seeking positions in the Bush Administration.

So far, there have been no reports of the White House receiving, let alone complying with, grand jury subpoenas in the Kerik case. However, a review of the indictment suggests that the White House may have turned over a number of records to federal investigators in addition to perhaps making current and/or former officials available for interviews with federal investigators and possibly for testimony to a grand jury.

How extensive was the White House's cooperation with the federal criminal investigation of Kerik? Will we see White House officials testifying at trial about their conversations with Kerik?

The indictment lays out a number of alleged lies told by Kerik to White House officials. False statements comprise seven counts of the sixteen-count indictment, including statements Kerik made to three unnamed White House officials, identified in the indictment as White House Official A, B and C, respectively.

---On October 29, 2002, the indictment says, Kerik fibbed to a "White House Official A" when he was applying for a position on an advisory committee to the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. The feds say that Kerik lied about having no household help (the famous nanny) and about various shady deals (he left out that a mob-tied company paid to renovate his apartment and that a Brooklyn businessman had loaned him $250,000).

---He allegedly lied again on a December 19, 2002 questionnaire from the White House counsel's office about the nanny, apartment, and the loan.

---And in October of 2003, following his short stint with the Coalition Provisional Authority running Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, he lied on an executive Confidential Financial Disclosure Report about that same loan.

---Then in November through December of 2004, while he was being vetted to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, he made "various false and misleading statements" in an email to "White House Official B" about his relationship to the mob-tied company, according to the indictment. He also lied to a "White House Official C," the indictment says, about his ties to the company.

The White House's apparent cooperation with the investigation has so far gone unnoticed, even though it's remarkable any time this White House turns over any its own records. "The nature of executive privilege is that it's discretionary," Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy told me. "But this White House has been extremely jealous of it's prerogative.... If they had declined to waive the privilege in this case, no one would have been very surprised."

As far as we can tell, no one has asked the White House yet about the extent of its involvement in the investigation. But we are, of course, curious.


10 Comments

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Ummmm...

What jumps off the page here:

They can find no reason to share any info on the dismantling of the U.S. Constitution, but let some moron fib to their faces...hoo boy, they're gonna take that sucker DOWN! And give it ALL up!

Disgusting.

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Does the WH want to torpedo Giuliani's campaign? He seems to be the most likely to carry out Bush/Cheney's neocon fantasies. But maybe Bush wants Hillary to be the next president so the GOP can again blame a Clinton for the future fallout from Bush's failed adventures.

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Wow, they're starting to eat their own!

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jeffgee wrote on November 12, 2007 4:57 PM:
Does the WH want to torpedo Giuliani's campaign? He seems to be the most likely to carry out Bush/Cheney's neocon fantasies. But maybe Bush wants Hillary to be the next president so the GOP can again blame a Clinton for the future fallout from Bush's failed adventures.

Either that or they believe it would be better to let it all out early in the campaign, and hope/pray that nobody will remember any of this by next year.
I guess it makes sense, considering the proverbial short attention span of the American public and the post-Holiday hangover most of us will be under after the latest news on the U.S economy...!]

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So do we know if the nanny existed? An article in the NY Times led us to believe that there was no nanny, but the indictment seems to think she existed. He could use her non-existence as a defense, but he'd have to admit that he lied when he withdrew his name.

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Will Rudy's buddy Mukasey make sure justice is served? I doubt it.

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I'm suprised they didn't claim natl secrty and tell the grand jury to ferk itself.

The fallout of their cooperation with law enforcement may be greater than even they suspect.

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The cardinal sin, embarrassing the Pres. Sentence: Death

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Just picked up the item on Feinstein at HuffPo. I wonder how close she lives to Pelosi in The City called San Francisco.
Must be rather close, I imagine.

Good ol' Diane Lieberman Feinstein! Yes,
she done got herself 'illuminated' during her conversation with Shrub on Air Force One enroute west. Thence she votes to affirm a racist homophobe to the federal bench plus the new attorney general.

Dan White must have shoved some sort of capsule up her butt, set to dissolve in 30 years.

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WH gave up Kerik because it had to. A B & C that Kerik lied to in WH realized this was a serial liar and did not deserve the price it wld take to cover for him, and was potential dynamite. Also IRS was involved. It had probably gone too far.

My hunch is Murdoch is totally and financially for Guiliani and Bush has to keep his hands off him.. Kerik is the lamb. No one goes against King Maker Murdoch.

Rudy knows his protection with Murdoch is ironclad so he continues to evade,and his serial lying will not stop here.

There is more. Rudy's consultancy biz will show this. Follow the money.
Lawsuit against Rudy for money laundering
spoken about at TPM in offshore deals gone sour hint at the hidden nature of his dealings. Also look into Dubai, et al and mob arranged gambling operations in mid east developing now.

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