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NM GOP Lawyer Cited In Iglesias Firing Is Back Pushing Bogus Voter Fraud Claims
The evidence is growing that the FBI's investigation into ACORN is just the latest iteration of the unprecedented politicization of the Department of Justice that was exposed in the US attorney firings scandal.
Rep. John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, today released a second letter about the FBI probe to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Conyers
noted that the New Mexico GOP last week held a press conference where it publicly named people it said had voted fraudulently in a Democratic primary in June, as part of an ongoing FBI investigation into voter fraud. (ACORN appears to have subsequently shown that those voters were in fact valid.)
And Conyers goes on to make a great catch. He notes that "New Mexico lawyer Pat Rogers -- described in the local press as 'an attorney who advises the state GOP' -- is apparently playing a key role in pressing these current claims." (Conyers is referring to this Associated Press report.)
Conyers continues:
Mr. Rogers, however, appears repeatedly in the report on the U.S. Attorney firings, prepared by the Department's Office of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility, which documented his actions making flawed claims of voter fraud and bringing unwarranted pressure to bear on law enforcement officials, including Mr. Iglesias, in 2006.
In other words, one of the very same New Mexico GOP activists who was found in the OIG report to have tried to pressure David Iglesias to bring bogus voter-fraud prosecutions is still on the case, and has now helped to get a new federal investigation launched just weeks before the election.
And remember: the OIG report definitively concluded that Iglesias was fired as New Mexico's US attorney for his reluctance to follow up on politically motivated voter-fraud claims, made by local Republicans including Rogers.
There's a broader point worth making too: It's looking more and more like New Mexico is ground zero for the FBI's new investigation. (Remember that the Wall Streeet Journal had reported back on October 9 -- a good week before the news of a nationwide FBI probe broke -- that the bureau was looking into voter fraud in New Mexico.) And given what we saw happen to Iglesias, the FBI's focus on the state, apparently in response to GOP complaints, is further evidence that what's happening in 2008 has as a lot in common with what happened in 2006.
Josh
Zachary
I wonder if the FBI will ultimately bust Rogers for making false claims/lying to the FBI.
Couldn't happen to a nicer fruit-loop: he should be off the street with a "Duh? Is this earth yet?" face like that.
October 20, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
John McCain in spreading youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1exiyBYnJ00
October 20, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It sure is heartening to see how the TV News readers are spending so much time on this major story, where the Republicans are using the national police, the FBI, to intimidate people wanting to vote for the first time. ACORN will be seen as heroes by all out there in TV land after this great coverage.
I'm writing this before watching the TV news tonight, but I feel confident I will see the coverage I speak of.
October 20, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Bush is doing this to get even with McCain---by embarrassing him.
October 20, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing they do is for only one reason. And howevermuch they despise McShame, they prefer holding power to losing, so they aren't doing anything to undermine McLame's chances. In fact, everything they do is to the opposite end: the vote-flipping happening in W. VA has been going to McSame, not to Bush or anyone else.
October 21, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the possible significance of New Mexico:
The states Kerry won in 2004 plus Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico equal an Obama victory (273 electoral votes; 270 are needed to win).
Take New Mexico out of that equation, and it leaves Obama with 268 electoral votes -- meaning McCain wins.
Granted, a lot of other things would have to go right for McCain to pull that off. But it's one of their few paths to victory, so they are working it hard.
October 20, 2008 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I bet a number of TPM Muckraker readers remember Patrick J. (Pat) Rogers and GOP lobbyist, Mickey Barnett, as having met with Monica Goodling in June 2006 to complain about USA David Iglesias.
But not many people know that Pat Rogers was secretary and director of the American Center For Voting Rights. In fact, the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) identified Rogers as a "private attorney" when he testified in March 2006 about voter registration fraud in New Mexico.
The EAC's 12/06 report, "Election Crimes: An Initial Review and Recommendations For Future Study", is a hoot, given the participants. The working group of consultants included Benjamin L. Ginsburg of Bush/Cheney and Swift Boat fame and Mark "Thor" Hearne, one of the founders of the infamous American Center For Voting Rights.
In addition to Pat Rogers who was not identified as an officer and director of the ACVR in the EAC report, ACVR counsel Jason Torchinsky and ACVR executive director Robin DeJarnette testified about election fraud. Talk about stacking the deck!
Jason Torchinsky now is a attorney with Holtzman Vogel, owned by notorious GOP operatives Alex Vogel and Jill Holtzman-Vogel. Before joining Holtzman Vogel, Torchinsky was an attorney in the DOJ Civil Rights Division and a deputy counsel for Bush-Cheney '04. At one point, he worked for Gonzales at the White House.
Alex Vogel was not only a founder of ACVR, he was also active with Free Enteprise Coalition, another shadowy GOP front which, among other nefarious activities, funded a bogus 12/04 RICO civil lawsuit against ACORN, Project Vote and the NAACP. The now-defunct FEC was led by disgraced Louisiana congressman, Robert Livingston.
This year, Holtzman Vogel is operating behind the scenes on behalf of GOP fronts, the American Future Fund and Vets For Freedom.
October 20, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's call it a Fascist/Nazi cabal, okay? Unless you'd prefer the slightly less-radical America-hating KKK.
October 21, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hoping that after these political hacks are indicted, prosecuted and inprisoned...they will also be disbarred for life...
October 20, 2008 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The scathing attack on ACORN in the fall of 2006 was most certainly planned and coordinated by the GOP.
10/25/06: Senator Charles Grassley(R-IA)issued a press release in which he compared ACORN's activities to Jack Abramoff's abuse of tax-exempt organizations.
Grassley said he was prompted to investigate ACORN after reading news stories and FEC and Florida court filingsa about ACORN's activities.
Included in Grassley's press release was a copy of a letter he sent to ACORN in which he demanded that ACORN provide a vast amount of financial and administrative data electronically within 9 days, the deadline being 11/3/06.
For example, Grassley wanted the name of every single ACORN employee, contractor and volunteer for the four-year period beginning in 2002.
11/1/06: Instead of issuing a press release or holding a press conference to announce the indictment of the ACORN Four, Missouri USA Bradley Schlozman sent PDF copies of the indictments (one of which named the wrong person) to select members of the media along with this statement by Don Ledford, the office's PIO, reprinted here in its entirety:
Attached are four separate indictments returned this afternoon by a federal grand jury in Kansas City. All of these defendants are KC residents who were employed by ACORN. US Attorney Bradley J. Schlozman is not available for interviews, but issues the following statement:
Those who commit fraud in the electoral process dilute the votes of their fellow citizens and undermine the integrity of our democratic system. The Department of Justice will not allow such fraud to go unpunished.
This national investigation is very much ongoing.
11/01-11/03/06: According to Lexis-Nexis, several right bloggers affiliated with Newstex including Atlas Shrugs make note of the ACORN indictments.
11/03/06: The Wall Street Journal editorial board publishes a scathing attack on ACORN despite the fact that the WSJ news department did not deem the ACORN Four story worthy of national attention and thus made no mention of it.
What no one has mentioned recently is that Richard B. Berman, a DC lobbyist, and his firm, the Berman & Company, were paid $1.8 million in 2005 to attack ACORN through a 501(c)(3)entity, the Employment Policies Institute Foundation (EIN#52-1902264). Prior to 2005, the "foundation" had been paid a million dollars annually to attack ACORN, according to 990s available online.
Incredibly, a big anti-ACORN corporation, possibly Walmart, was allowed to take a $1.8 million tax deduction for essentially hiring a lobbyist to rail against an organization for promoting the welfare of poor people.
The "foundation" website is still online but Richard Berman hasn't filed a 990 since 2005.
Some of Berman's anti-ACORN websites:
www.RottenAcorn.com
www.LivingWage.org
www.MinimumWage.org
www.GatewayJobs.org
www.ECON4U.org
www.LivingWageResearch.com
Is Richard Berman and Berman & Company spearheading the campaign against ACORN this year? Not a stretch of the imagination, that's for sure. DCI just got bagged for taking $2 million under the table from Fannie Mae to lobby Republican senators.
Where are the so-called Employment Policies Institute Foundation's 2006 and 2007 990s? Who's getting the big tax breaks for attacking ACORN?
Inquiring minds want to know.
October 21, 2008 1:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Block the Vote
Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?
These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote
http://crooksandliars.com/cernig/assault-democracy#comment-889433
Friends don’t ask friends to vote on Provisional Ballots!
Why doesn’t the FBI investigate this?
October 21, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I feel it necessary to make several points here:
The ACORN issue is recurring and demonstrably bogus, and the US Attorney firings were an unprecedented politicization of our justice system that were indicative to a much greater threat to our system of governance.
That being said, going after Pat Rogers is going after the wrong person, and ironically borders on guilt-by-association.
I am a Democratic political operative in New Mexico, and I have known Pat for many years; indeed, as he is the head attorney for the Republican Party of New Mexico, I have even faced him in court.
Two years ago, the Democratic Party of New Mexico started receiving reports of Democratic voters (mostly in Bernalillo County) receiving election weekend calls telling them where their precinct was. The problem was that these calls were coming from the campaign of GOP-incumbent Congresswoman Heather Wilson, and were universally telling the Democratic voters the wrong voting locations. Thus, on the day before election day, we found ourselves spending ten-and-a-half hours in a courtroom attempting to get an injunction against such behavior. Pat was the defending attorney for his party.
It should be noted that we lost; Pat made a much better case, and he did so honestly.
Outside the courtroom, I work with Pat Rogers frequently, as he is a board member of the Foundation for Open Government. FOG is a non-profit organization responsible for citizen advocacy of open meetings and records laws, and is directly responsible for the fact that New Mexico now has the broadest such laws in the country. Pat was instrumental in that fight. It is actually an incredibly liberal organization.
When FOG founder Bob Johnson (a highly decorated Associated Press reporter who had been the AP bureau chief in Dallas in 1963 and in Munich in 1973) died, Pat was asked to speak at the funeral.
This brings me to the U.S. Attorney scandal. Did Pat Rogers lodge a complaint about David Iglesias? Yes. Was Iglesias fired essentially for refusing to partake in the current attempts to disenfranchise voters? Almost certainly. However, if you look at the reports, Pat's complaint was completely unrelated, and came up because it was the excuse the administration came up with to attempt to justify their firing of Mr. Iglesias - a paradoxical move in light of their insistence that the attorneys fired all served at the pleasure of the President.
When it came time to appoint Mr. Iglesias' replacement, who was the first person the Bush administration appointed? Pat Rogers... WHO TURNED DOWN THE JOB.
That should be emphasized. He rejected a job that he was imminently qualified for because of the taint of politicization and because his name had already been dragged into the whole mess.
As for the current issues, I have not yet spoken to Pat personally in this matter, even though I am heavily involved in the fight (as always) against New Mexico GOP attempts at disenfranchisement. Pat, by contrast, only attended a press conference. While the statements of that press conference have now proven to be almost universally false, Pat was not the one who made them.
Pat Rogers and I disagree on many things; indeed, aside from our position on open government, we disagree on almost everything. But I consider him an honest man and a good friend, and I will readily stand between him and any attempts by my own party to discredit him.
October 21, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll believe Pat Rogers is as you say when he ceases making false accusations against ACORN. Or do you deny that also?
October 21, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I do, to a limited extent. Pat Rogers didn't speak at the press conference the New Mexico GOP held to make their false claims about ACORN; when the GOP spokesperson was asked a question by the Associated Press reporter present, the response was that they would have to refer to their legal counsel... who would be Pat. All he has actually said with regards to this case is that the suspected ballots have been turned over to the Bernalillo County DA and the state AG, which is a factually correct statement. Of course, neither DA Brandenberg nor AG King is likely to find that any wrongdoing has occurred, since no evidence exists.
I have not asked Pat about his personal position on these accusations this time around, but based upon past arguments on this very issue (we deal with similar ones almost constantly around here, including a recent Federal court case in which we found ourselves on the same side, defending a middle ground that neither party is really happy with), I am willing to bet that he does in fact believe that some level of registration fraud is occurring. While we may disagree with him, a falsehood is not necessarily a lie if the one making the statement believes it to be true. Incorrect, yes, perhaps even ignorant by some standards, but not the mark of a liar.
October 21, 2008 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's good to see folks pushing back against these damn Republicans. They've had it their way for much too long. Keep up the good fight...!
http://www.fedup.com
October 21, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I saw a very interesting exchange with Bill Moyers yesterday featuring Mark Crispin Miller. I think it's a must see on this subject.
"Mark Crispin Miller is a Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He is the author of several books, including BOXED IN: THE CULTURE OF TV; THE BUSH DYSLEXICON: OBSERVATIONS ON A NATIONAL DISORDER; CRUEL AND UNUSUAL: BUSH/CHENEY'S NEW WORLD ORDER and FOOLED AGAIN: THE REAL CASE FOR ELECTORAL REFORM.
He is also the editor of LOSER TAKE ALL: ELECTION FRAUD AND THE SUBVERSION OF DEMOCRACY, 2000-2008. His essays and articles have appeared in many journals, magazines and newspapers."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10172008/profile.html
October 21, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink