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Ney Aide Was Cooperator Extraordinaire
Which former aide to Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) was the more formidable cooperator?
Will Heaton was sentenced to just two years probation as a reward for the effort (e.g. wearing a wire, taking documents) the young chief of staff put into nailing his boss over to the feds. Ney eventually pled guilty to corruption charges and was sentenced to thirty months in prison.
But Neil Volz, Heaton's predecessor who left to work for Jack Abramoff, might have the greater claim. Despite the fact that Volz played both sides of the fence (essentially working for Abramoff when he was still Ney's aide and then moving over to help Abramoff bribe his former boss and other pols), prosecutors are recommending that he also receive no jail time, but instead get house arrest. That's because, as The Hill reports, Volz has been pulling overtime as a cooperator, not only dishing information on Ney, but also serving as a sort of consultant for investigators on how Capitol Hill works:
In February 2006, he began providing “unlimited cooperation in dozens of debriefings, and his cooperation was substantial, especially in connection with the investigation and prosecutions of Ney, Heaton and [General Services Administration chief of staff] David Safavian,” according to the document.In the memo, prosecutors said Volz “has spent and continues to spend countless hours providing information about other matters under investigation by the Department of Justice, as well as insight into how staff members and lobbyists conduct business before Congress and the Executive Branch.”
They also said that Volz’s cooperation is ongoing, and could involve other separate DoJ investigations. His cooperation could help prosecutors snare other lawmakers under FBI investigation and those who prosecutors believe may be implicated in the Abramoff bribery scandal.
Comments (10)
theswan wrote on August 31, 2007 6:47 PM:Republican investigations don't mean much..
Democratic lawyers don't do much.
The people are just not represenated.
And you pay the bill.
theswan wrote on August 31, 2007 6:48 PM:Republican investigations don't mean much..
Democratic lawyers don't do much.
The people are just not represenated.
And you pay the bill.
Anonymous wrote on August 31, 2007 8:20 PM:If a commoner, say, is robbing a home, and the homeowner dies of a heart attack from fear, the commoner can be held and prosecuted for the death of the homeowner.
A Congressman, however, can receive bribes, giving aid to a corporation involving the deaths of thousands and the destruction of a nation, besides the fraudulant misappropriation and loss of millions of taxpayers hard earned money and.... 30 months in prison.
The pigs have already taken over the farm, folks...
Roberta wrote on September 1, 2007 1:32 AM:Volz is clearly a patriot. He saw that what everyone he was working for was crooked, and he came forward with information the moment he knew there was wrongdoing.
Oh, wait a minute. He started cooperating in February 2006.
And Volz worked for Ney from 1995 to 2002. And then he went to work for Abramoff until they all got busted. And he testified about lobbying abuses and bribes taken by Ney from 2000 to 2004.
Where's the Rove machine when you need it? He'd be able to sell Volz as a patriot.
nellieh wrote on September 1, 2007 8:33 AM:Roberta,
Anonymous wrote on September 1, 2007 11:31 AM:You don't need the Rove machine. The prosecutors seem to be doing the job themselves. I don't think they are threatening them with enough jail time for co-operation and LESS JAIL time for it.
Code word - wrong. As in the Congressmen and/or staff can do no "wrong" unless it is pedophile or homosexual sex.
We need more rewards and rock solid protection for effective whistle blowers.
Take note of those who fight against whistleblowers.
Anonymous wrote on September 1, 2007 3:26 PM:The only thing that will work is if we INSIST that the only way any democrats or republicans will ever be reelected is if REAL consequences (this means better ethics and legal laws are put into place for all of them.
How about taking away retirement and benefits for those who find it necessary to defraud their employers (I believe, at one time, this was "We the People").
How about the actually people taking the bribes pay the consequences, rather than the just voted in law which puts all the consequences on the lobbiests (duh... how difficult is it to find a new lobbiest to take the old one's place?).
Unless we effectively get folks in there who insist on REAL morals and integrity, we will continue to slide downhill.. faster and faster...
Right now, we have a bunch of cons in Washington and a bunch of folks out here that still believe we have to vote for cons or the sky will fall. Sorry folks but the sky has already fallen for hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children who got caught up in our nation's leaders' greed for power and money... IMHO
JD21 wrote on September 1, 2007 10:02 PM:Oh now our frops are soooo sorry. Look at this article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5602.html Politico says they have a new strategy. It's to actually hold the incompetent lawbreakers among them accountable. Uh huh. There would be how many left? Zero.
And they are indignant over Craig. Indignation from Fox Republican officials and politicians (frops)? You MUST be kidding me. What about the illegal warrantless spying? What about the illegal politicization of the Justice Department, with our lying purging personal lawyer to Bush and now ex-Attorney General? What about the TORTURE! For heavens sake, if somebody told me I'd be writing about rampant torture condoned by our President 7 years ago I'd have told them they must be on crack. What about the lies to goad us into needless wars? Now our President is stuck on Iran - only problem is that way more foreign fighters caught in Iraq, to the tune of 50%, are from Saudi Arabia. It's the wrong country once again for our incompetent crooked frops.
So you tell me the frops are indignant over an attempted blowjob. Again. I tell you they haven't learned a thing. They haven't learned a single thing. They are hopeless. The sooner we can vote all of them out the better.
JD21 wrote on September 1, 2007 10:23 PM:Now that the Democrats finally have some power, I hope the Democrats didn't actually take August off again like our "wartime" Vacationer in Chief. Bush's sloth, his treatment of the most important job in America as a sinecure, and his low mental ability to the point where he jokes he can't even speak English, are giving the Dems an opportunity. Especially now that Bush's brain, aka Turdblossom, has been excreted from the white building.
And one of these replacements is going to finally realize that doing the right thing with his newfound power is the only non-morally treasonous thing to do that won't make him go down in infamy with the rest of the Bush Fox Republican bunch.
Maybe it will be Acting Attorney General Paul Clement. He's actually an impressive guy. He's one of those guys who got into Harvard on merit, as opposed to as a legacy seeking to avoid Vietnam like our Chickenhawk in Chief. And he was on the Harvard Law Review. Okay he clerked for Scalia, but even Scalia is not corrupt. Clement excelled in private practice at K&E arguing many cases before the Supreme Court. Does Clement want to be seen as a continuation of one of the most crooked Attorney Generals in American history? There are some hopeful signs he doesn't. I'd give it even odds Clement sticks his neck out for Justice as the head of that department. That is if he has the chance before Bush can shove in another one of his lackeys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clement
johnnydoughey wrote on September 2, 2007 3:30 AM:RE:
Posted by: JD21
Date: September 1, 2007 10:02 PM
I read that article. The Republicans, just like the Democrats, are now flu9ffing out their feathers crowing about cleaning up their party and pushing new ethics regs...
This is a bunch of *$%#@#^&!
Both parties do nothing but protect their own interests. Both parties cover up anything which may look bad for them. They will stick up for them right until the pasrty may have to pay a penalty. This is not helping the public and certainly has nothing to do with ethics or party integrity... it's nothing more than CYA... the ONLY thing EITHER party is really good at, anymore.
The crisis our nation seems to be going through at the present time, though, cannot be blamed on our representatives. If you take a good, unbiased look at the folks who have been and currently are running for public office, most of them have already been caught in misinforming and actually lying openly on video. Others have been caught passing laws with no concept of the effects. Some of these people did not even bother to take time to read intelligent reports before sending OTHER people to their deaths. One person even now says they didn't really think voting to go to war was an actual vote to go to war. Instead, this person who NEVER believed Bush, believed him for this one incident.
My point is: It's really not difficult to catch these folks smiling, lying, and asking for our votes at the same time, and you know what? After knowing they are lying to us, we vote them into office... and get mad when they continue to lie to us...
We are the ones destroying our democracy... we just don't want to take responsibility for it. We would rather blame the crooks we put into office... already knowing they are crooks... IMHO