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The Daily Muck
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said yesterday that he was prepared to go to court if the White House did not comply with subpoenas the committee issued for information pertaining to the firing of US attorneys. The White House has claimed executive privilege over documents and over testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. (Associated Press)
While the Environmental Protection Agency was considering a waiver that would allow California to implement restrictions on vehicular greenhouse gas emissions, the Transportation Department lobbied against granting the waiver by phoning lawmakers. Emails provided by the Transportation Department show that its employees called lawmakers from states reliant on auto industries and recommended contacting the EPA to say the waiver would hurt the domestic auto industry. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said that the Transportation Department’s actions were inappropriate and possibly illegal. (USA Today)
The transcript for plea hearings for Thomas Kontogiannis, who pled guilty to bribery charges for his involvement in the Duke Cunningham scandal, will remain sealed following a decision by a federal appeals court on Saturday. Federal prosecutors filed to keep the hearings classified. Kontogiannis is expected to be a witness in the trials of his nephew John Michael and defense contractor Brent Wilkes. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
A federal judge ruled last Friday that the chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of Noxubee County in Mississippi, which is in charge of administering Democratic primaries in the county, violated the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against whites. It was the first such action by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in the history of the act. (Washington Post)
Kanatjan “Ken” Alibekov, a former Soviet scientist who defected to the United States, became a leading and influential figure in Washington D.C. as an expert on bioterrorism with inside knowledge of the Soviet smallpox and anthrax programs. The LA Times has probed into Alibekov’s influence and found that many scientists doubt his credibility. Many suspect he might have overblown the threat of bioterrorism for personal gain. Alibekov has used his position on the Hill to funnel contracts worth millions of dollars towards companies that employ him. (LA Times)
Rachel Brand, a Justice Department official in the Office of Legal Policy who was a possible replacement for the fired US Attorneys, resigned on Friday. Brand was eyed to replace Michigan USA Margaret Chiari and served as associate counsel to President Bush. No reason for her departure was given. (Associated Press)
New Mexico attorney Patrick Rogers, who pressed for the removal of fired USA David Iglesias, was an officer for the non-profit group American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund, which aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pushing for tougher voter identification laws. Iglesias said his dismissal was politically motivated because he refused to bring voter fraud charges in cases where he thought there was little evidence. (McClatchy)
The family business might become a liability for likely Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, as The New York Times takes a look at Thompson's sons Tony and Daniel, who began lobbying almost as soon as the elder Thompson took office as a Tennessee senator. Both sons had scant qualifications but still managed to become lobbyists, although only at the state level. Tony Thompson insists he did not "trade on his father's name." (New York Times)
The Food and Drug Administration’s top officials failed to disclose meetings on their calendars for the past several years, including meetings with drug company executives, lobbyists, and patient groups. (Associated Press)
Comments (8)
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on July 2, 2007 10:17 AM:I think Greg Gordon's McClatchy story, "Was campaigning against voter fraud a Republican ploy?", deserves its own post. It wasn't just about David Iglesias getting nailed by American Center for Voting Rights director and secretary, Patrick L. "Pat" Rogers.
Gordon is charging that the DOJ coordinated election strategy with the Republican Party:
*Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.
*The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.
*The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.
What Greg Gordon didn't cover was the Free Enterprise Coalition, another GOP front that spent almost $2.5 million on election-related legal expenses between 2004 and 2005. 2006 expenditures are not available.
The Free Enterprise Coalition funded a civil RICO lawsuit in Ohio against ACORN, ACT, the NAACP National Vote Fund and the AFL-CIO in December 2004 which was withdrawn in June 2005.
The American Center for Voting Rights used the Ohio lawsuit as evidence of a national conpsiracy on the part of ACORN et al to register fraudulent voters in its infamous Ohio report submitted to Congress and the DOJ.
Alex Vogel, a big time GOP operative quoted in the McClatchy story, was involved in both the Ohio lawsuit and the Ohio report. In other words, the lawsuit and the report was a coordinated GOP effort to discredit ACORN et al.
An unanswered question is whether the DOJ opened any investigations into ACORN or anyone else based on the ACVR's bogus Ohio report.
BTW, David Iglesias talked at length about Rogers and the ACVR in a TruthOut video interview a few weeks ago. Worth watching, imo.
Crust wrote on July 2, 2007 10:22 AM:One of Fred Thompson's sons, 'Tony Thompson insists he did not "trade on his father's name." Are we supposed to assume from omission that Daniel Thompson did trade on his father's name? (Then again the current President traded on his father's name as was shown in a memorable scene in Farenheit 9/11.)
I'd be interested to hear more about Thompson's lobbying for the Garn Act of 1982 that lead to the S&L crisis of the late 80's.
Crust wrote on July 2, 2007 10:25 AM:Fascinating comment as usual, Mrs. Panstreppon.
eliot wrote on July 2, 2007 10:37 AM:Jason Leopold did an interview with Paul Charlton that just went up over at truthout. It's another video interview.
Here's the link
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070207J.shtml
Crust wrote on July 2, 2007 10:41 AM:If you read the article even the case that Tony Thompson didn't rely on his father's name is rather artful. From the article:
"Rather than relying on his father, Tony Thompson relied mainly on political contacts in Tennessee he had made campaigning for his father, Mr. Mathews [his boss] said."
So he didn't rely on his Dad's name. He just went to contacts from his Dad's campaign? In other words, one assumes, campaign contributors and people who worked for or with his Dad.
And he (like his brother) had at best minimal independent qualifications. Hmmm....
And this is priceless:
'Paul C. Light, a professor of government at New York University who worked closely with Senator Thompson on campaign finance and ethics proposals, said that lobbying by a family member was “an ugly practice no matter who the senator is, because it creates the appearance that his family is exploiting his stature and position.”'
I wonder if Thompson will hire Light again after that quote? I'd hate to hear what an ethics consultant who doesn't have close ties to Thompson says...
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on July 2, 2007 12:48 PM:Thanks, Crust. The crap that the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) pulled is almost unbelievable.
Read this 8/2/05 ACVR press release about election fraud in Philadelphia from its 8/05 report submitted to Congress:
http://press.arrivenet.com/politics/article.php/677278.html
"Summary Of Philadelphia Findings:
-- Republican volunteers violently intimidated by union members, who assaulted the volunteers' vehicle and chased them in traffic..."
"Violence against GOP volunteers in Philadelphia addressed on page 29; City vote fraud/election irregularities section begins on page 62..."
A junior GOP operative named Eric Wang wrote an article for his school newspaper about being attacked by union goons on Election Day in Philadelphia in 2004. The article was included as "evidence" in the ACVR report.
Wang and his associate, an Indiana lawyer, had some kind of minor run-in with two members of the Philadelphia Building Trades, AFL-CIO, on Election Day because there are three different police reports from that day including one filed by one of the so-called union goons.
Wang's story was total bullshit. He claimed that he and his unnamed associate, an Indiana lawyer, were attacked by an all-white mob. One of the so-called union goons named in the police report is a black man named Bernard Griggs.
If Wang can't tell the difference between a white union goon and a black one, why would anyone believe anything else he said about that day?
I did a TPM Cafe post about Wang's story, link below, and decided that Bernard Griggs and the other so-called union goon, Fred Cosenza, should sue Mark "Thor" Hearne and everyone else associated with the ACVR for slander.
Hearne submitted the ACVR report to Congress in which Griggs and Cosenza are protrayed as union goons by name but Hearne never asked Griggs and Cosenza for their side of the story.
Nice, huh?
SPENCER ADAMS wrote on July 2, 2007 1:37 PM:Secrecy News has another terrific line-by-line analysis of the Executive Order that Addington uses as Cheney's defense of his refusal to turn over, well... anything, to be brief:
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE VP'S CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY
The White House press office and some Bush Administration critics are
insisting that the 2003 executive order on classification policy
endowed the Vice President with a unique status and classification
powers identical to those of the President himself.
But that's not what the executive order says.
"In this executive order the President is saying that the Vice
President is not different than him," said White House press secretary
Dana Perino on June 25.
"The executive order on classified national security information --
Executive Order 12958 as amended in 2003 -- makes it clear that the
Vice President is treated like the President and distinguishes the two
of them from 'agencies'," wrote David Addington, the Vice President's
chief of staff in a June 26 letter to Senator Kerry.
Similarly, New York Times columnist and Bush critic Frank Rich wrote
yesterday that in 2003 "every provision [in the executive order] that
gave powers to the president over classified documents was amended to
give the identical powers to the vice president."
Mr. Rich claimed that "this unprecedented increase in vice-presidential
clout" has "special importance" for understanding the Iraq war, the
Valerie Plame case and more.
"By giving Mr. Cheney the same classification powers he had, Mr. Bush
gave his vice president a free hand to wield a clandestine weapon: he
could use leaks to punish administration critics," wrote Mr. Rich.
From an opposing political perspective, Byron York of the National
Review wrote last year that the revised executive order constituted an
"enormously consequential expansion of vice-presidential power."
More soberly, the Congressional Research Service reported in a memo to
Rep. Henry Waxman that "Among the modifications made by the new
[executive] order were the vesting of the vice president with authority
coequal to that of the President to security classify information
originally."
And I myself wrote in Secrecy News last year that the language of the
2003 executive order "dramatically elevates the Vice President's
classification authority to that of the President."
On closer examination, none of this appears to be correct.
The text of the 2003 executive order does not grant any new
classification authority to the Vice President beyond that which he
already possessed as one of some two dozen officials authorized by the
President to classify information originally at the Top Secret level.
Like those other officials, the Vice President was already authorized
to classify information within the scope of the executive order, and to
delegate his authority to others. No additional classification powers
were provided in the new order.
A line by line comparison of the Bush executive order with the prior
order, indicating what was added and what was deleted in 2003, shows
that every classification authority granted to the Vice President was
also granted to other agency heads, such as the Secretary of Defense or
the Secretary of State, and was also possessed by the Vice President
himself in the past.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eo13292inout.html
Mr. Addington and the White House press office argue that the mere
juxtaposition of references to the President and the Vice President in
the text of the 2003 Bush order -- such as in section 1.3(a)(1) --
somehow translates into new status for the Vice President. But again,
no such status or new authority is articulated in the order.
To the contrary, the Director of the Information Security Oversight
Office, who is charged by the President with implementing and
overseeing the executive order, concluded that an interpretation of the
order which treats the Office of the Vice President as entirely distinct
from other executive branch entities is not consistent with a "plain
text reading," as he wrote to the Attorney General.
Fundamentally, the Vice President's classification authority is not and
Phoenix Rising wrote on July 2, 2007 5:22 PM:cannot be identical to that of the President. The President's authority
is inherent, stemming from his status as commander in chief of the armed
forces; the Vice President's authority is derivative. Likewise, and for
the same reason, the President can alter the provisions of the executive
order at a moment's notice; the Vice President cannot.
One change that was made to the newest Executive Order was a change in the definition of "Agency". A different section of the U.S.C was used for the definition - the old section included "the Executive Office of the President", but the newly cited one doesn't. However, the new order lists separately the new categories of military departments and "any other entity" that might come into possession of classified material.
That last bit surely covers both the President and Vice-President.