The long arm of the law is just a little too short to push Sheriff Ricky Headley from office.
A grand jury recently indicted Headley on thirty-seven drug related charges, among them twenty-one felony counts that include dispensing drugs illegally and official misconduct. That's an increase from the original indictment, which included just two counts of wearing his uniform and driving his official vehicle while illegally obtaining prescription meds. Ricky, the sheriff for Williamson County, Tennessee, is facing expulsion from his job if found guilty of a felony; his trial is set for next July.
Until then, Ricky is sitting tight as sheriff. And, much to the chagrin of locals, there's nothing anyone can do about it. In almost every case of police abuse, the accused officer is put on leave pending a resolution of his case. That would be true even for Ricky's deputies, but not Ricky himself. As an elected official, no one can make Ricky do anything (with the exception of the state attorney general, who has not signaled an interest in the case). Local officials can't force him to step down, nor can they require him to take leave from his position. They can't even take away the car in which he allegedly made his drug runs.
Ricky has pleaded not guilty on all charges and says he intends to serve out the rest of his term (until 2010). And since he is all cleaned up (Ricky spent less than a month in rehab for his addiction to prescription drugs), he sees no reason not to be back out there enforcing the law. And so far, it doesn't look like he's going to change his tune.
This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department. The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown that much was amiss in the Department, and with the danger of retaliation very real, the committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses there. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."
But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:".
Only the email addresses were exposed; none of the names or other identifying information of the whistleblowers was revealed. The blunder, however, was noticed by a number of people who had used the website form and received today's email. One disgruntled recipient replied to the entire list of whistleblowers angrily complaining about the snafu; two others forwarded the committee email to TPMmuckraker with similar complaints.
Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.
A committee spokesperson emailed the following statement in response to TPMmuckraker's questions:
The tip line was created to be a confidential method for Justice Department employees to provide the Judiciary Committee with information that might aid the Committee in its ongoing investigation of politicization at the Justice Department. Because of the confidentiality agreement, the Committee will not discuss any emails sent on this tip line. A technological error in a recent communication inadvertently disclosed certain email addresses. The Committee has not begun its review of the emails, and does not know if any of them are in fact from Justice Department employees as opposed to private citizens expressing more general views. The Committee apologizes for any concern this error may have caused, and is making every effort to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line.
It's not immediately clear whether the mistake will lead to the exposure of those who had contacted the committee. There are more than 150 recipient addresses revealed in the email. Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney.
The purpose of today's mis-sent email was, ironically enough, to announce careful new procedures about to be put in place by the committee for reviewing the tips received through the committee's website. No one on the committee or any staff has reviewed any of the tips, pursuant to an agreement reached between committee Democrats and Republicans. Only "Members of the Judiciary Committee, and Committee staff specifically designated by the Democratic Chairman or Ranking Republican Member, will have access to the e-mails, and they are prohibited from removing any e-mail from Committee offices," today's email read. "This message is also to advise you that you have three business days... to notify us if you wish to withdraw your e-mail rather than have it reviewed by the Committee under these procedures."
Defense contractor Brent Wilkes emphatically denied bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham Friday as he took the stand in his trial, which had been suspended while wildfires ravaged San Diego County.
Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, surprised prosecutors by calling Wilkes on the first day of trial in a week. The lawyer had not warned them he would be calling his client to the stand, and had not hinted in earlier hearings that Wilkes would testify in his own defense.
"Did you ever bribe him?" Geragos asked Wilkes, who took the stand in a gray suit.
"No, I didn't," Wilkes replied.
Presumably Geragos' direct examination was a little more elaborate than that. We're eager to hear more.
Update: The updated AP story has a lot more detail. Wilkes denied ever paying for or having sex with the prostitute who testified against him earlier in the trial. Flatly denied it. And there was this precious exchange:
You know what Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell thinks of open debate about intelligence matters. After all, he's said repeatedly that public discussions of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act have a direct result: "some Americans are going to die."
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has reversed the recent practice of declassifying and releasing summaries of national intelligence estimates, a top intelligence official said Friday.
Knowing their words may be scrutinized outside the U.S. government chills analysts' willingness to provide unvarnished opinions and information, said David Shedd, a deputy to McConnell.
He told congressional aides and reporters that McConnell recently issued a directive making it more difficult to declassify the key judgments of national intelligence estimates, which are forward-looking analyses prepared for the White House and Congress that represent the consensus of the nation's 16 spy agencies on a single issue. The analysis comes from various sources including the CIA, the military and intelligence agencies inside federal departments.
Referring to the public release of the reports, Shedd said during a Capitol Hill briefing: "It affects the quality of what's written."
Earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced that he'll be voting against confirming Michael Mukasey as attorney general. Today, over at The Huffington Post, he explains why -- with no weaseling:
Mukasey should not be confirmed because he could not muster a simple, straightforward answer at his confirmation hearing when he was asked the simple, straightforward question: Is the president of the United States required to obey federal statutes? "That would have to depend," he weaseled, "on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country."
The mad proliferation of Blackwater investigations continues.
Earlier this week, House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) accused Blackwater of hiding "tens of millions of dollars, if not more" in Social Security, Medicare and retirement taxes by classifying its security guards in Iraq as independent contractors.
Today, Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) piled on, asking for investigations of Blackwater's alleged tax dodge.
Obama and Durbin asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson for a full investigation and audit of the company's tax setup. Noting that legislation they introduced earlier this year would forbid contractors from using this kind of loophole, they write (the full letter is below):
It is difficult to fathom how Blackwater employees in Iraq can be considered independent contractors. They are trained by Blackwater, paid by Blackwater, and told whom to guard by Blackwater. These are not independent small businessmen establishing their own individual working relationships with those they are hired to protect.
As for Kerry, he wants the Senate Finance Committee, of which he's a member, to dig in and investigate too. So he wrote Chairman Max Baucus (R-MT) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to request an investigation.
All of the senators don't think much of Blackwater's reliance on a determination by the Small Business Administration that they could classify guards as independent contractors. First of all, as Spencer reported earlier this week, the SBA determination only dealt with an employee in Guam. More importantly, the SBA says it carries "no legal weight."
Unfortunately for Blackwater, Kerry is also the Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and he's on the case. Now he wants Blackwater to explain what the SBA finding has to do with anything. His letter to Prince, sent today, is also below.
Better late than never. Three weeks ago, we reported that the House leadership seemed to be wavering in its pursuit of contempt citations for White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers. Both of them, remember, refused to even show up in response to a House Judiciary Committee subpoena relating to the U.S. attorney firings.
But now things seem to be moving along again. The Politicoreports that vote counting has begun and quotes a House aide as saying that a vote is likely in the next couple of weeks.
The committee passed the resolutions in July, and once the House votes on them, they would be referred to the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. What happens then will be, to say the least, interesting. Michael Mukasey was a noncommittal on that question during his confirmation hearing last week. And the Miers and Bolten contempt citations aren't likely to be the only ones.
The Dems are apparently confident that they could easily pass the resolutions despite no likely Republican crossovers. For his part, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has put the emphasis on institutional integrity, rather than subjecting Harriet Miers to a frog march:
Conyers said the contempt battle was not aimed at seeking criminal sanctions against Bolten and Miers personally, but would nonetheless surely spark a long legal fight over the reach of executive privilege.
“Remember – no handcuffs,” Conyers said in an interview Thursday, noting that contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor.
Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) superstar white collar defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan made Washingtonian'slist of most influential DC law and lobbying types.
Sullivan's other famous clients had included Oliver North and several Duke lacrosse players. And what drives this successful lawyer? He's pretty up front:
“By the time somebody comes to me, they are pretty far up the creek,” Sullivan has said. “The good thing is they will pay almost anything.”
Last week Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) called for the Justice Department's voting rights chief John Tanner to be fired. And in written questions to attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey this week, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) asked Mukasey to review Tanner's record and consider whether he ought to be canned.
In the question, Kennedy noted Tanner's reasoning that voter ID laws actually discriminate against whites because "'minorities don't become elderly the way white people do.'" The "remarks display a shameful lack of understanding and sensitivity that is unacceptable in the person charged with enforcing the nation’s laws against voting discrimination," he wrote.
Tanner will appear before a House judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday, where he's sure to be questioned about those remarks, others where he said that African-Americans tend to carry picture ID because of racial profiling, and his role in whitewashing a Justice Department review of Columbus, Ohio voting problems in the 2004 election and forcing through approval of a controversial voter ID law in Georgia -- among other things. It's not going to be a fun hearing for Tanner. The chairman of that subcommittee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), called on Tanner to resign yesterday.
"The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division has failed miserably in its responsibility to enforce the Voting Rights Act during this Administration," Sen. Kennedy said in a statement. "The latest shameful revelations from the Section drive home the urgent need for the next Attorney General to install strong leadership to allow the Voting Section to return to its historic role in ensuring access to the ballot."
Bad news for Ben Stevens. Another Veco executive testified in federal court to paying the one-time state Senate President, and son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), $250,000 in bogus consulting fees.
Former Veco vice president Rick Smith's testimony came during the trial of state Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK), accused of accepting bribes from Veco and unsuccessfully trying to get the company to pay off his $17,000 credit card debt. Veco's Bill Allen previously testified about the bogus consulting fees paid to Stevens, in yet another, earlier Alaska corruption trial.
Kohring's lawyers have long argued that their client was unfairly netted in an investigation shooting for the two Stevenses. One even told investigators they "dun got the wrong man." While the younger Stevens was paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars in monthly retainer fess for his lobbying services while in office, Kohring has been charged with accepting $2,600 in cash.
The FBI raided Ben Stevens' legislative office last year, but he has not been charged with a crime.
Yesterday, the White House finally agreed to turn over those warrantless surveillance documents that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been seeking for so long. Now the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is pressing for a response to another age-old request: documents relevant to the administration's interrogation policy.
Earlier this week, the White House turned over what Leahy describes as "four previously undisclosed documents" relating to the administration's torture policy. All of them, however, precede Alberto Gonzales' tenure as attorney general. So in a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding today (reproduced below), Leahy requested documents from that murkier era, including the 2005 and 2006 Office of Legal Counsel opinions reported by The New York Times earlier this month (both opinions were signed by OLC acting chief Steve Bradbury). Leahy's House counterpart Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has also requested those. Leahy notes in the letter, which is co-signed by the panel's ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), that they made general requests for this stuff a year ago.
Leahy also presses Fielding to release an unclassified version of a March 13, 2003 memo by John Yoo to William J. Haynes, the Pentagon's general counsel. In his book The Terror Presidency, former OLC chief Jack Goldsmith describes the memo as similar to the infamous "Bybee Memo" (pdf), saying that it contained "abstract and overbroad legal advice" which led to the department adopting specific techniques that "contained elaborate safeguards." Goldsmith later withdrew and replaced that analysis. After years of opposition from Democrats over Haynes' role in approving those techniques, the administration finally withdrew Haynes' nomination to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in January of this year.
By Adrianne Jeffries and Peter Sheehy - October 26, 2007, 9:52AM
Three months after Logistics Health Inc. hired a Bush appointee who had supervised military health programs at the Pentagon for six years, Logistics won a $790 million medical services contract. Logistics, which is headed by Bush’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, was underbid by two other companies but still won the contract. The two competing firms have filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Office. (LA Times)
Just last month, Senator Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) former senior aide Kay LiCausi, now a political consultant, was honored as one of the “top forty business people under the age of forty” by NJBIZ magazine. Now, federal investigators are scrutinizing LiCausi’s lobbying contracts with organizations aided by Menendez. (Harpers)
Two former top executives of DBH Industries, the leading supplier of body armor to the U.S. military, falsely inflated the value of the inventory of DHB's top product, the Interceptor vest, according to charges brought yesterday. The two were also indicted on charges of insider trading and tax evasion in a scheme that earned them almost $200 million and could earn them up to 70 years in prison. (CBS)
If you're a corrupt pol looking for lessons in the Duke Cunningham story, you've found dozens. Don't make a bribe menu, first and foremost. But it's also probably not a good idea to shoot a video of your Hawaii vacation with your (alleged) briber.
Prosecutors entered the following 90-second video into evidence last week during the trial of Brent Wilkes. In it, you can see Wilkes, his nephew Joel Combs (who's testifying against his uncle), and Duke himself silently weaving in and out of coral reefs. And one diver, just to drive home who the trip was all about, is swimming around with a large rock with "DUKE" on it. You can see him in the image above handing it to the man himself.
Ah, the memories. Seth Hettena, the author of a book on Cunningham, Feasting on The Spoils, posted the video on his blog, where he's been covering the trial:
Duke lumbers into view at about the fifty second mark. And of course that's Wilkes at the end there, suddenly bursting out with "Bali Hai!" on the deck of the boat. This is the same guy known at his company for suddenly yelling "Boom shaka laka!" and "Yeah, baby!" when he got good news (like, say, Duke had delivered millions in earmarks). Not so hard to imagine.
This is the same 2003 trip, of course, where Wilkes treated Duke to prostitutes on two consecutive nights. At least they had the good sense not to add a "Goofing Around in A Hot Tub" section to the vacation video.
Before the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wasn't shy about saying what he thought of Michael Mukasey: "I like him." And the attorney general nominee breezed through the first day of questioning. But day two got rough. And now the chairman seems to be wavering in his support of Mukasey. From the AP:
Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination for attorney general ran into trouble Thursday when two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture.
"It's fair to say my vote would depend on him answering that question," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters late Thursday.
"This to me is the seminal issue," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, another member of Leahy's panel. Asked if his vote depends on whether Mukasey equates waterboarding with torture, Durbin answered, "It does."
Leahy has refused to set a date for a vote on Mukasey's nomination until he clarifies his answer to that question.
Separately, a Democrat familiar with the panel's deliberations said Mukasey may not get the 10 committee votes his nomination needs to be reported to the Senate floor with a favorable recommendation unless he says, in effect, that waterboarding is torture.
The issue, of course, is Mukasey's "massive hedge" of an answer to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-RI) question about whether waterboarding is torture (watch the exchange here). Earlier this week, the Democrats on the committee penned a letter to Mukasey, giving him a primer on the old torture technique and asking again for an answer. His confirmation might depend on it.
Condoleezza Rice took pains to insist today that the U.S. "would not support a policy that would prevent investigations" in Iraq of government officials for corruption charges. But she repeatedly demurred from passing judgment on a decree signed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office manager, which was provided to the House oversight committee by former top corruption judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi. In that document, Maliki informs corruption judges that his approval is required before bringing charges against practically any senior government official. Here's the document (pdf), signed April 1, 2007:
Peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you!
It has been decided not to refer any of the following parties to the court until approval of His Excellency, the Prime Minister, is obtained:
1. Presidential Office
2. Council of Ministers
3. Current and Previous Ministers
With appreciation
Signed by
Dr. Tariq Najim Abdullah
Prime Minister's Office Manager
At a few moments during the hearing, both Rice and ranking Republican Tom Davis (R-VA) suggested that maybe Maliki was trying to referee a bureaucratic dispute between Iraq's numerous anti-corruption agencies. Hands-on management style and all that. That still wouldn't explain all the murder and torture of corruption judges, but otherwise, the explanation is perfectly sound.
After over a year of demands, four months of subpoenas and an immeasurable amount of acrimony and mutual distrust, the White House has finally agreed to let Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) -- and possibly even the whole Senate Judiciary Committee -- review the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance program. Apparently politics can compel what subpoenas can't. Congressional Quarterly:
The White House has offered leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee access to legal documents related to the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, senators said Thursday.
But Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said while the White House had offered the documents to both him and the panel's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, he was pushing for the entire committee to receive access to the documents.
The Bush administration is asking Congress to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged role in the NSA program.
A Judiciary Committee aide had said the panel was holding off on a markup of legislation rewriting the rules for electronic surveillance until it received access to those documents, which pertain to the legal foundation of the NSA program.
Two Senators on the judiciary committee who saw the documents via their seats on the intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ultimately voted for retroactive telecom immunity. Could Specter and Leahy possibly be next? Stranger things have happened -- like, for instance, the disclosure of these documents to the judiciary committee leaders. The committee will hold a hearing on the surveillance legislation Wednesday.
Man, is it a good thing Condoleezza Rice expressed "regret" that State waited until last month to start reviewing its relationship with Blackwater. And it's particularly nifty that she isn't "personally following" every little multi-million dollar discrepancy, shenanigan or blooper. Because then she might have to explain why State Department officials, back in 2005, chatted in internal e-mails about how Blackwater was killing Iraqi civilians and yet were outside the law:
Internal State Department e-mails, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, show top officials were extensively briefed about repeated incidents of Blackwater security guards killing innocent civilians more than two years ago. ...
Yet, the e-mails show that State Department officials had extensive knowledge of a growing problem in the summer of 2005, and complained about a lack of a compensation program for civilian victims.
"Obviously it is not pleasant meeting with these individuals with nothing more to offer than apologies, condolences and vague promises," wrote a State Department security officer based in al Hillah, Michael Bishop, to his superiors at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Two years later, the State Department recommends making appropriate "condolence or compensation" payments, as well. And Iraqis love that!
Krongard, recall, is the State Department inspector general accused by his own subordinates of scuttling Iraq-related corruption investigations and then retaliating against his accusers for snitching to Henry Waxman. (Allegedly!) Pointing to the hearing's cavalcade of State-related corruption problems -- cost overruns on building the U.S. embassy in Baghdad; lax supervision of a $1.2 billion DynCorp contract to train Iraqi police; that whole Blackwater thing -- Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) asked if perhaps having a more "vigilant" IG might have been helpful.
Rice's answer? Nah, not really.
Krongard, she said, "very much" wants to respond to the committee's "allegations against him," and she all but promised he'll finally testify. But she emphasized that, in several cases -- the DynCorp controversy, for instance -- the State Department had uncovered for itself the extent of corruption-related problems in Iraq and either provided that information to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, or took action itself. Sometimes, even, Krongard's "very active" office contributes to "how we find things."
Why Rice thinks it's exculpatory that the State Department is aware of billions of dollars worth of corruption problems despite the problems' persistence is, well, a bit unclear. But take that, Waxman! Every now and then, Krongard actually does his job.
Maybe the corruption trial of former state legislator Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) is really a call for healthcare reform. Kohring learned the age-old HMO lesson (never, ever go out of network) the hard way and ended up begging Veco executives for cash when faced with collection agency calls.
Kohring says a spinal surgery in 2002 at the Mayo Clinic, which wasn't on his health plan's preferred provider list, set him back thousands of dollars. One credit card still had a $17,000 balance in March 2006. With collection agencies harassing him and his house, worth about $100,000, not selling, he approached Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith with an idea. He would lobby other state lawmakers to support a piece of pipeline legislation in exchange for some cash. He never received the $17,000.
Kohring's lawyer has argued prosecutor's nabbed his small fish client when they should have been pursuing the big fish: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and former state Senate President Ben Stevens. The lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors: "You dun got the wrong man." Father and son Stevens, who are both under investigation for their connection to Veco, have not been officially accused of wrongdoing (yet), but Kohring is charged with accepting $2,600 in cash and lining up a Veco summer internship for his nephew worth $3,000.
It took two different questioners -- and a reversal of her initial position -- but Condoleezza Rice finally acknowledged that State should have acted earlier to rein in Blackwater. "I certainly regret that there was not the oversight that there should have been," she said. Was that so difficult?
Condoleezza Rice knows deep down that she wants the State Department to cooperate with the House oversight committee's investigation of Iraqi corruption issues. She just wants to make sure that sources and methods are protected, and that the committee stays discreet, she said during today's hearing.
Unfortunately, obscure bureaucrats like State's Joel Starr have told the committee that it can't publicly discuss things like "Broad statements/assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability/determination of the Iraqi government to deal with corruption, including allegations that investigations were thwarted/stifled for political reasons."
"I didn't make this directive," Rice said when Rep. Pat Lynch (D-MA) read it to her. "Consider it rescinded." Whether that'll make a difference is unclear: Rice still wants to discuss most aspects of corruption in closed session.
Waxman asked the bottom line question: is corruption cash from the Iraqi government funding attacks on the U.S.? No more retreating behind requests for a closed session or pleas to request sources and methods.
Rice: "There are militias being funded by multiple sources, including people who are able to use the Iraqi system to bring funding to their militias, yes, especially in the south." She said, however, that it would get worse if Iran could fund Shiite militias unimpeded in the wake of a U.S. withdrawal.
How well are the State Department's anti-corruption efforts in Iraq managed? Don't ask Condoleezza Rice.
Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) laid it all out. Not only are there duplicative U.S. offices in Baghdad to oversee anti-corruption efforts -- the Anti-corruption Working Group and the Office of Accountability and Transparency, to name two -- but coordination is so bad that the OAT for months boycotted the meetings of the AWG. Rice said she was "not aware" of that.
Another point she wasn't aware of: OAT has had, according to Rep. Tierney, four acting or permanent directors in the past ten months alone. The most recent one isn't a diplomat or a trained anti-corruption official at all, but rather a "paralegal" who works at the U.S. embassy. "I should get back to you with a sense of how we manage these programs," she replied.
Even as she accepted the resignation of State's security chief Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice quietly promoted two senior staffers who directly oversaw controversial Blackwater security operations, sources tell ABC News....
Current and former officials were outraged.
"It is ironic; on the day the assistant secretary for DSS resigns, the two people with oversight responsibility for the program get promoted," said one current State Department official who asked not to be named....
"They both got promoted in the face of all this mismanagement and controversy -- talk about government B.S.," said another. "What does it say when State promotes the two people into DS' most senior positions, when if they had properly managed the programs under the responsibility, we wouldn't be in this mess?"
So much for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ending State's recent stonewalling of the House oversight committee. Rice is testifying this morning about corruption in Iraq, a subject that the committee has been digging into for months. She's just not saying much:
Is Rice aware of ex-corruption Judge Rahdi Hamza al-Radhi's statement that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued "secret orders" to stop his investigations? "The questions you're asking get into areas where there are concerns about exposure of sources." She said that while "no one is more concerned" about corruption than the State Department, she isn't "personally following every investigation."
Well, asked Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), did Maliki obstruct a corruption investigation of Maliki's cousin, the ex-transportation minister, as Radhi testified? It turns out she "can't comment." While Rice said she would review the case -- even though Waxman personally gave documents on Radhi's charge to one of Rice's subordinates -- "nothing is to be gained by speaking prematurely."
By Adrianne Jeffries and Peter Sheehy - October 25, 2007, 9:51AM
According to transcripts released by the US Court of Appeals, Abdallah Higazy confessed to a crime he did not commit because the FBI threatened his family with torture in Egypt. According to Andrew Sullivan, “the Court tried to keep this part of the judgment classified, yanking it from the official site after mistakenly posting it - but not till the interrogation details were exposed. Higazy's false confession - that he was using a radio transmitter in his hotel room to converse with terrorists in airplanes - was rendered moot by the owner of the transmitter, an airline pilot who had also stayed in the room, subsequently claiming it from the hotel as his own. But that didn't stop the threat of torture. And that didn't stop the conviction.” (Atlantic, “The Daily Dish”)
The U.S. State Department believes in second chances when it deals with problematic private contractors. First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., the firm attempting to complete the massive U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad, is part of team that recently won a $122 million State Department contract to build a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia. Never mind the massive construction defects, allegations of criminal misconduct, forced labor, and cost overruns in the Baghdad project, the Kuwaiti company is run by a Lebanese businessman who is an ally of Syria and the Iranian-backed Islamic militant group Hezbollah. (McClatchy)
Secretary Rice admitted yesterday that the U.S. government was a poor host to a Canadian citizen (Maher Arar) whom it sent to Syria where he was allegedly tortured. Rice clarified the U.S. position in this case of mistaken extraordinary rendition by stating, “we do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured.” (New York Times)
The U.S. government has spent $38 million dollars on a computerized accounting system to help the Iraqi government move beyond Saddam Hussein's bookkeeping methods but now the project is on hold because the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad prefers paper. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, stated that “nobody noticed” when the information system was inoperable for an entire month because nobody uses it to produce reports. (Washington Post, New York Times)
Paul von Zielbauer and James Glanz of The New York Times provide a fascinating glimpse into the maze of stacked trailers that comprise Blackwater's Green-Zone compound. It says a lot that the compound is surrounded by 25-foot high concrete barriers topped with razor wire inside the safest place in Iraq: denizens liken it to a minimum security prison. Outside is the enemy. Not merely insurgents, infuriated Iraqis, and disdainful Iraqi government officials, but frustrated U.S. troops, unreliable diplomats and FBI inquisitors delving into the company's mistakes in last month's Nisour Square shootings.
The bunker mentality, however, may be dissipating. Some Blackwater officials were openly critical of the company's actions to the Times reporters:
“Some guys are thinking that it was not a good shoot, that it was not warranted,” said one Blackwater contractor, using military jargon for an episode that results in a wrongful death. “I don’t think there was criminal intent involved. I just think it was the application of the use of deadly force gone horribly wrong.”
He added, “To mitigate one threat, 17 people had to die?”
Blackwater is continuing its aggressive public-relations push. And it needs your help.
Earlier today, the company sent out an e-mail to supporters urging them to contact their Congressional representatives (who are otherwise misinformed by "negative propaganda") and get the word out about Blackwater's value to U.S. national security. The email is posted in full below.
The private security industry is trying to make sense of the announcement today from Baghdad that the Iraqi government is revoking a CPA-era edict, known as Order 17, immunizing contractors from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Some believe that the State Department will succeed in an anticipated attempt to prevent Americans from appearing before an Iraqi judge, while warning that if a full revocation succeeds, American companies or individual contractors might simply up and leave Iraq rather than potentially face charges in an immature justice system.
Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association -- otherwise known as the private-security lobby -- took a cautious approach, saying he wanted to reserve judgment until the State Department and the Pentagon made its views known. But he pointed out that most contractors -- not just security contractors, but contractors involved in reconstruction, as well -- hire Iraqis to do significant amounts of grunt work, which westerners supervise. "If you say anyone not Iraqi is now under Iraqi law -- such as it is -- you'll lose a lot of oversight and management capabilities," Brooks says. That's because he expects his member organizations on the ground in Iraq to either shed their American staff or experience difficulty recruiting Americans to go to Iraq in the future. "It would be enormously risky to stay. Individual contractors would have to take a hard look" at remaining in Iraq.
That's how private-security expert P.W. Singer sees it as well. Two models for Iraq security contracting exist: what Singer calls the ArmorGroup model, where Americans supervise Iraqis and so-called "third country nationals," who are neither Iraqi nor American; and the Blackwater model, where nearly all aspects of the job are filled by Americans. (Blackwater's workforce in Iraq is 80 percent American, according to the company.) "One corporate response could be a shift more and more towards model one," Singer says.
You're used to the usual humdrum charges that the Justice Department's voting rights section has been turned to the aim of voter suppression, rather than voter protection. So count this as a new variety of alleged corruption.
As reported by Al Kamen in The Washington Post today, "the acting deputy director of the section, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, has been accused of collecting a $64 per diem, including on weekends and the Fourth of July, while spending half of June and most of July and August with her husband and kids at their beach house on Cape Cod."
You can read the referenced complaint here, which is addressed to the Justice Department's inspector general. The most sensational accusation, to be sure, is not that Lorenzo-Giguere managed to get paid while staying at her beach house, but that the Department "files lawsuits not because of the merits of the underlying claims but because the venue of the targeted defendant allows Ms. Lorenzo-Giguere to compel taxpayer funding of her annual summer retreat to Cape Cod."
The author of the complaint (redacted in the version TPMmuckraker obtained) notes that certain motions by Lorenzo-Giguere raised arguments "the United States had never raised in similar circumstances in any other litigation." Both lawsuits referenced in the complaint dealt with alleged discrimination against Spanish-speaking voters; the section has pursued a large number of such cases, while virtually abandoning the section's traditional emphasis on protecting African-American voters.
A Department spokesman told Kamen, "The Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the allegations, and upon conclusion of the investigation the Department will take appropriate action."
Only 38 days after the Nisour Square shootings and a myriad of sub-scandals and related controversy, and someone at the State Department has finally lost his job. ABC News reports that Richard Griffin, the top diplomatic security official at Foggy Bottom, has agreed to resign after Amb. Patrick Kennedy's recommendations on overhauling State's relationship with its security contractors amounted to a tacit rebuke of his tenure.
The AP, reporting on an internal e-mail announcing the resignation, adds:
"He read his letter of resignation at the weekly Diplomatic Security staff meeting," said the e-mail, which was read to The Associated Press by one its recipients. "There was no detailed reason provided and no effective date identified at this time."
When testifying to the House oversight committee earlier this month about contractor operations, Griffin copped an attitude. As Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) pressed him on why the State Department helped Blackwater evacuate a contractor who'd drunkenly killed an Iraqi vice president's bodyguard, Griffin all but told Waxman that he wouldn't answer questions about it:
Here's video from yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on selective prosecutions, where ex-Gov. Don Siegelman's (D-AL) was the marquee case:
As we reported yesterday, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) made a hard run at Jill Simpson, the Republican lawyer who's testified that Alabama Republicans often chattered about how the Justice Department and local U.S. attorneys would take Siegelman down. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) rose to her defense, and Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney himself and lawyer for Siegelman, testified that the case took on a new life in 2005 after officials in Washington got involved.
You can see video of former attorney general Dick Thornburgh's testimony here.
Update: This post originally mistakenly identified Davis as a Republican.
The trial of Brent Wilkes is on temporary hiatus due to the wildfires, but we've got your Duke Cunningham fix anyway.
Unfortunately, it seems a sure thing now that Cunningham himself won't testify at the trial. As a kind of substitute, here's (mp3) audio of the phone conversation that ended his Congressional career. It's available through the website for The Wrong Stuff, the book on Cunningham by the Copley News team that broke the story.
In early June of 2005, Copley reporter Marcus Stern came across records for Cunningham's now-infamous way-above-market house sale to defense contractor Mitch Wade (Wade himself sold the house months later for a loss of $700,000). And during that phone call, Stern got the other half of the quid pro quo he was looking for: Cunningham's admission that he'd written letters to help Wade's company MZM score contracts (that's at about the five minute mark). Four days later, Stern's story came out; five months later, Cunningham pleaded guilty.
It's a little bit of journalistic history and a lesson (if you needed one) that just because someone keeps his cool, it doesn't mean he's not lying. Take a listen.
The metaphorical statue of L. Paul Bremer III has come crashing down. Today the Iraqi government formally revoked one of the Coalition Provisional Authority's enduring vestiges -- a decree of immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts for U.S. security contractors.
The Iraqi government announced on Wednesday that it has decided to formally revoke the immunity from prosecution granted to private security companies operating in the war-ravaged country.
"The cabinet held a meeting yesterday and decided to scrap the article pertaining to security companies operating in Iraq that was issued by the CPA (Coalition Provision Authority) in 2004," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
"It has decided to present a new law regarding this issue which will be taken in the next cabinet meeting."
Expect a massive controversy to follow. What will the State Department do if Iraqi judges issue arrest warrants for American contractors? Will heavily-armed contractors submit to Iraqi warrants, or will they openly defy the law of an allegedly sovereign country? More to come.
Looks like the impasse between the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the State Department over Iraq corruption might be breaking. The Cryptreports that Rice might go before the panel tomorrow:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Goverment Reform Committee Thursday to answer questions about corruption within the Iraqi government, the possibility of political reconciliation in that war-ravaged country and the department's controversial security contract with Blackwater USA, according to a release from the committee.
Oversight Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has been pressing Rice and other agency officials for months to testify about corruption and the department's contract with Blackwater. According to the release, committee members will also be asking about allegations of misconduct in the construction of the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad.
Contacted for confirmation, a State Department spokeswoman would only say that there might be an announcement later today on the subject of Rice's potential testimony.
Update: Waxman's office has sent out a press release announcing Rice will appear tomorrow morning before the committee.
Rudy’s adviser has a special touch with kids. Just months after Monsignor Alan Placa, a priest, “ was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties,” Giuliani asked him to join his consulting firm. The priest, who officiated Giuliani’s second wedding (#2 was Donna Hanover), is still employed by Giuliani Partners. Giuliani has stated, "I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him.” (ABC, “The Blotter”)
Another addition to our great list of disappearing information! The White House removed scientific references from Congressional testimony by the Centers for Disease Control that pointed out the potential health risks of climate change. A CDC official speaking on condition of anonymity asserted that the CDC report "was eviscerated." Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has called for the immediate release of the uncut CDC statement. (LA Times)
Monday’s mistrial in a terrorism case against an Islamic charity is reflective of its low conviction rate in terrorism cases since 9/11. Critics say the government has been using bad judgment by bringing weak cases and relying on stale evidence. But a former federal prosecutor said failures are due to the fact that juries “are demanding strict proof” these days in terrorism cases. (New York Times)
Seriously this time: Ambassador Patrick Kennedy has unveiled his recommendations on the State Department's relationship with security contractors DynCorp, Triple Canopy and Blackwater. They represent a step back from Defense Secretary Bob Gates' reported suggestion that the military take control of State's security contractors and instead emphasize greater oversight of the existing system.
The Washington Postreports that Kennedy concluded that there's no alternative to contracting security for U.S. diplomats. The military doesn't consider that mission "feasible or desirable," preferring to actually fight the war. That leaves bolstering oversight as the department's option -- something that's been sorely lacking, as Special Inspector General for Iraq Stuart Bowen found. Bowen released a report yesterday finding that only seventeen State Department officials oversee the hundreds of security contractors working on a billion-plus dollar contract to train the Iraqi police -- and, earlier this year, that oversight office consisted of a whopping two people.
As spoofed yesterday, Kennedy's recommendations do include cultural-awareness training. But more substantively -- and significantly for the contracting industry -- Kennedy recommended that State begin a dialogue with the Justice Department and Congress to clarify the legal rules under which contractors operate overseas. That contradicts both Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, who has repeatedly that he has a clear "understanding" of his company's legal responsibilities, and George W. Bush, who has threatened to veto a House measure passed earlier this month that allows alleged contractor misdeeds overseas to be tried in U.S. courts. "We don't see the clarity here," Kennedy told reporters.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday ordered new measures to improve government oversight of private guards who protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, including extensive cultural awareness training for contractors.
The AP got an advance description of the recommendations made by Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, Rice's adviser on contractor oversight. But TPMmuckraker goes a step beyond. We've got an advance look at the cultural-awareness lesson plan for Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp.
Here's video of former attorney general Dick Thornburgh telling a house judiciary subcommittee this morning why he thinks U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh Mary Beth Buchanan has singled out his client Dr. Cyril Wecht because he's a Democrat:
It took a week after his committee was allowed to review documents related to the legality of the administration's warrantless surveillance program, but Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) publicly urged the White House to give the Senate and House judiciary committees the same access. "It's past time that the Administration provide all committees of jurisdiction with access to these documents so they too can make informed decisions about critical national security programs," he said in a press release this afternoon.
Rockefeller has come under attack from civil libertarians for drafting a surveillance bill granting retroactive legal immunity for telecom companies and yanking the FISA Court from its oversight role of surveillance of foreign-to-domestic communications.
The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday reiterated its demand for the documents it subpoenaed three months ago. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) said "it is wrongheaded to ask Senators to consider immunity without their being informed about the legal justifications purportedly excusing the conduct being immunized." Indeed, Rockefeller's press release demonstrates their point. Its concluding sentences:
Finally, Rockefeller noted that the larger issue of whether the Administration acted illegally in authorizing its warrantless surveillance program is still an open question. The committee will continue its efforts to understand the legal underpinnings of the program.
So, in other words, Rockefeller just blessed a program that he can't yet certify is legal; and included in his blessing a blanket promise of immunity for companies that he can't say didn't break the law. "Wrongheaded" seems like a bit of an understatement.
A former lawyer for Don Siegelman (D-AL) told the House Judiciary Committee today that his client's case took a "180 degree" turn in 2004, after Justice Department officials in Washington told local prosecutors to take another look at the case -- from top to bottom.
According to former US attorney for Alabama Doug Jones, in the summer of 2004 prosecutors told him the case was going nowhere. By October 2004 the case against Siegelman had been dismissed. But one month later, in a surprising turn of events, Washington officials told local prosecutors to give it another shot, Jones testified today. By early 2005 it was as if the case was starting from scratch, Jones said, calling it "completely stunning" and a "complete reversal" from what the defense had been told just months before.
Jones is certain, he said, that Washington DOJ officials played an "integral" part in the renewed investigation. Jones represented Siegelman at the time, though he did not represent him at trial.
Many Democratic members deferred their time to Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) during today's Judiciary Committee hearing on allegations of political prosecutions so that he could dig into the case of ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL).
Davis, who is convinced that the system worked against Siegelman for political reasons, took a stand for Republican lawyer Dana Jill Simpson this afternoon, responding to Rep. Randy Forbes' (R-VA) assertion that the Department of Justice should investigate her. Davis argued that there is no evidence directly disproving testimony Simpson gave House investigators.
In fact, Davis points out, Simpson offered evidence that undermines the three affidavits Forbes produced this morning. In her original affidavit and in testimony to House investigators, Simpson claimed that she was on a call in 2002 where a local Republican operative, Bill Canary, said Rove had been in touch with the Justice Department about a Siegelman investigation. The three sworn statements from men who Simpson says were also on that call, the son of Gov. Bob Riley (R-AL), Riley's 2002 campaign lawyer and an Alabama Republican, Terry Butts, all claim that the call never happened. But Davis pointed to the phone record (available here) Simspon gave House investigators showing she had made an 11-minute call to Riley's law offices on the day she claims.
Six months ago, Davis said towards the end of the hearing, he had faith in the justice system. But following the revelations of the U.S. attorney scandal and those from the Siegelman case, he said he's no longer so sure politics didn't come to play an important role in prosecutorial decisions under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
"I cannot sit here today and say to to you that I have confidence that the system worked in a fair and just manner in this case," Davis said.
In response to Michael Mukasey's professed ignorance as to what waterboarding is, all eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have sent Mukasey a detailed primer on the centuries-old torture technique. It includes some surprising historical details: did you know, for instance, that during the occupation of Japan, the U.S. prosecuted Japanese soldiers who waterboarded U.S. POWs?
You can read the letter here. But we thought we should do our part to educate Mukasey as well. So here's a waterboarding reenactment, courtesy of Keith Olbermann:
The Senators write, "Please respond to the following question: Is the use of waterboarding, or inducing the misperception of drowning, as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?" During the hearing, Mukasey would only reply: "If it amounts to torture, then it is not Constitutional."
Dick Thornburgh, the Republican former attorney general under George H.W. Bush, didn't mince words in his testimony before a House subcommittee today.
The case against his client Dr. Cyril Wecht, he said, is a raft of "nickel and dime transgressions" that include using the county coroner's office fax machine for personal business. It's far from the type of case normally constituting a federal corruption case, he argued, since there's "no evidence of a bribe or kickback" and no evidence that Wecht traded on a conflict of interest.
(Update: You can see video of Thornburgh's testimony here.)
So why was the case brought? Wecht is a high-profile Democrat, "an ideal target for a Republican U .S. Attorney trying to curry favor with a Department which demonstrated that if you play by its rules, you will advance," Thornburgh said, referring to the U.S. attorney firings scandal. Put that together with the fact that U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh Mary Beth Buchanan has prosecuted "not one" Republican, while prosecuting Democrats in a "highly visible manner," and you have your conclusion.
Beyond the politicization of the Justice Department, Thornburgh said the root of the problem lay in vague criminal statutes that allowed prosecutors to pursue charges for things that should not rise to the level of a felony. There's an "opportunity for abuse" with those laws, he said, that Congress might consider amending through legislation. He pointed to the appellate court's decision in the controversial case of Wisconsin bureaucrat Georgia Thompson, where the judges made a similar suggestion.
The only Republican to make a concerted attempt to discredit Thornburgh was Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL), who called his testimony "the most pathetic example of... innuendo and hearsay" that he'd ever seen. He then shifted gears to say that it was "totally ridiculous" to think that the President would have called up Buchanan and ordered that Wecht be prosecuted because he's a Democrat. Thornburgh countered that he'd never said that and that Keller "should be embarrassed for misciting the record." He didn't have personal knowledge that the case against Wecht was pursued for political reasons, he said, but there was a "set of facts" that led him to that conclusion.
Why did Buchanan "go to such lengths?" he asked. "Measured against the backdrop of nationwide actions of a similar ilk,... I can only come to the conclusion that the prosecution was politically motivated."
Frontline does it again. Fresh after the documentary show's penetrating look at Dick Cheney's pet legal theories, it travels to Tehran to explore the slowly building crisis between the U.S. and Iran. In doing so, Frontline pulls off a real coup, presenting the first-ever televised interview with Mohammed Jafari, a Qods Force commander and deputy leader of Iran's national security council.
Jafari isn't a household name, but in U.S.-Iranian relations, he's a big deal. Earlier this year, the U.S. raided the Iranian consulate in Erbil in an attempt to capture him, but Jafari wasn't at the consulate during the raid. Frontline describes him as one of the architects of Iran's Iraq policy -- which, the U.S. alleges, includes providing weapons to anti-American insurgent and militia groups -- and had the raid succeeded, U.S.-Iranian relations could very well have reached a crisis point.
In the documentary, Jafari promises retaliation against any U.S. military strike on Iran:
You will not find a single instance in which a country has inflicted harm on us and we have not responded. So if the United States makes such a mistake, they should know that we will definitely respond. And we don't make idle threats.
He's joined in that sentiment by Hossein Shariatmadari, a mouthpiece for "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i:
As the Supreme Leader has said, if we're attacked we will threaten all American interests around the globe. The first step would be that all areas in Israel are in reach of our missiles, I mean there is not a single place in Israel outside the range of our missiles.
As Josh flagged, CIA Director Michael Hayden recently sat down with Charlie Rose for a two-part interview (the second part of which airs tonight). You'll be relieved to know that CIA has never made any mistakes in detentions, interrogations or renditions, and certainly not during Hayden's year-plus as director. Nor has the director made a mistake in examining the activities of John Helgerson, the CIA's inspector general, who himself was subjecting detentions, interrogations or renditions to review.
According to Hayden, his look into Helgerson's activities are no more than "a management review" -- "inquiry is the big and wrong word here," he said -- to see whether complaints made by the legal counsel's office and the CIA's clandestine operatives about Helgerson's fairness were merited. Hayden didn't say anything about whether such a management review will have a chilling effect on the IG's ability to conduct internal scrutiny of CIA programs, as many veteran intelligence watchers suspect. But not to worry: after all, the CIA doesn't make mistakes. (Except when it does.)
Hayden said that his special adviser, Robert Dietz, conducting the five-month-old Helgerson review, will wrap up work next week. Don't expect Dietz's report to be public.
Way Way Way Late Update: Here's the video from Hayden's chat with Rose:
This morning the House Judiciary Committee is taking a look at allegations of political prosecutions at the Department of Justice, including the case of former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL), who has long claimed his party affiliation triggered the charges against him.
Noticeably absent today is the key witness, Dana Jill Simpson, who offered traction to Siegelman's claims that politics were behind his case. Simpson claimed in an affidavit that during a 2002 Gov. Bob Riley (R-AL) campaign phone call, she heard that Karl Rove had a hand in a Siegelman investigation. A few weeks ago, Simpson met with House investigators and offered more expansive testimony about her knowledge of the case.
Alabama Republicans, including Riley's son, Rob Riley, have attacked Simpson's character, particularly for saying more to investigators than she did in her affidavit. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) voiced the same complaint this morning during the judiciary hearing, accusing Simpson of "contradicting" herself during the interview with investigators. He went even further, saying that she'd "shredded" her credibility "beyond repair," called her allegations "fabrications" and said that the Justice Department should investigate her.
Update: An excerpt from Forbes' opening statement is below.
Testifying alongside former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and a lawyer for Don Siegelman at the House Judiciary Committee's hearing this morning on selective prosecutions is Prof. Donald Shields, the co-author of a study on federal investigations of Republicans and Democrats.
Shields' study, first reported back in February, looked at reports of investigations throughout the country. The study found that Democrats were investigated far more than Republican officeholders.
You can see Shields' opening statement for the hearing here, which draws on an update of the study. The key to his findings, he says, is a much higher rate of “below the radar” prosecutions of state and local officials.
A new control group study of investigations by state and local law enforcement, he says, found no such disparity: "Their investigation rates mirrored the national percentages: of 50 % Democrats, 41 % Republicans and 9% Independents/Others."
But "when it comes to investigation and indictment of local officials by the [Department of Justice], the numbers are staggeringly disproportionate: 80% Democrats; 14% Republicans; and 6% Independent – that's 5.6 Democrats investigated for each Republican: 5.6:1 when the ratio should be 1.2:1."
Inside Roll Call's (sub. req.) overview of legislative maneuvers on the two Democratic surveillance bills is this bit of analysis about how the Senate Judiciary Committee will lose influence over the Senate bill if it doesn't mark up what the intelligence committee has reported out:
If Judiciary doesn’t act on anything, the panel could forfeit its right to weigh in and the Rockefeller measure would proceed as-is to the Senate floor. (There’s no guarantee Reid would bring it up if that happened, however.)
“If [Judiciary members] want to stay in the game, they’re going to have to mark something up,” pointed out one civil liberties activist.
The panel's top senators, Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), suggested yesterday that the committee might not act on the intelligence committee's bill if the White House doesn't allow it to see documents outlining the legal basis for the Bush administration's surveillance program. But that implicit threat might backfire. To be out of the legislative process over surveillance programs that Judiciary has struggled for nearly two years to oversee would be a huge blow to the committee's prestige. Furthermore, it might be a missed opportunity to modify what civil libertarians consider the bill's excesses, including retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies and a diminished role for the FISA Court over foreign-to-domestic surveillance.
The government’s largest terrorist financing case ended yesterday in a mistrial. The prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation was supposed to be a high profile win for the Justice Department. The case has been controversial since allegations surfaced that a "summary of wiretapped conversations attributed inflammatory anti-Jewish statements to members of the charity that were not found in the actual transcripts of the conversations.” (US News & World Report)
Is Blackwater heading south? To the border, that is. Blackwater is planning on building a massive 824-acre military training site just eight miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. According to Salon, Blackwater executives have “lobbied the U.S. government since at least 2005 to help train and even deploy manpower for patrolling America's borders.” (Salon)
A NASA spokesmansaid that denying the Associated Press’s request to see a database on safety lapses in U.S. aviation on the grounds that it might scare the public "was probably not the best thing to do." NASA will review the AP’s request, submitted 14 months ago, and will release a final report after they analyze all the data. (The Washington Post)
Mitt Romney’s make-over is proving expensive. Harper’s Magazine is reporting that Romney “has employed more than a hundred different consultants, making combined payments to them of at least $11 million—roughly three times the amount spent by John McCain or Rudy Giuliani.” But even with all this money for branding, or perhaps because of it, “the image of slickness is heightened by Romney’s appearance and persona” and “the problem of phoniness can never be far from the brain.” (Harpers)
Ambassador Patrick Kennedy has finally delivered his assessment of the State Department's relationship with security contractors in Iraq to Condoleezza Rice. Behind closed doors yesterday, the ambassador, who was tasked with making a comprehensive review of State's contractors following the Nisour Square shooting, told the secretary of state that there were serious problems "with virtually every aspect of the department’s security practices, especially in and around Baghdad, where Blackwater has responsibility," reportsThe New York Times.
Combined with today's report from Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, that finds an "environment" conducive to waste and fraud in the oversight of DynCorp's $1.2 billion Iraq contract, it's easy to see why one State Department official told the paper that the department's contracting process is caught in "a perfect storm of bad events."
Among Kennedy's recommendations is to create a "special coordination center" with the U.S. military to ensure that contractor movements within a military commander's area of operations don't conflict with the commander's orders. It's unclear whether that means the military would actually control contractor operations, as Defense Secretary Bob Gates is reportedly considering, but it would move Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy contractors out of the exclusive control of the State Department for the first time. When Gates returns from his European trip, he and Rice will discuss the future of State contractors in Iraq.
In a great understatement, Kennedy also recommends closer coordination with the Iraqi ministries:
“They don’t have the right communications, they don’t have the right procedures in place, and you’ve got people operating on their own,” said one official who has been briefed on the report but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been released yet. “This is not up to the degree it should be.”
And, needless to say, they're also vulnerable to being murdered by drunken Blackwater contractors during rip-roaring Green Zone Christmas parties.
Earlier today, Blackwater's Anne Tyrrell disputed an allegation from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) that the company has committed tax fraud by classifying guards as independent contractors instead of employees with the following statement:
The U.S. Small Business Administration has determined in an official finding applying "the criteria used by the IRS for Federal income tax purpose," that "Blackwater security contractors are not employees."
But according to the Small Business Administration, that's not exactly true.
SBA spokeswoman Christine Mangi says that SBA did make such a determination -- on November 2, 2006. But it was in reference to a dispute about who was a company employee on a project to provide services to Navy vessels in Guam, not Iraq. The ruling, she says, "was for this particular procurement," not an SBA finding about Blackwater personnel in general, contrary to the suggestion of Blackwater's response to Waxman.
Furthermore, Mangi explains, the IRS hardly has to defer to the SBA determination about who's an independent contractor and who's an employee. "Our findings are for the sole purposes of our small business contracting programs and, to the best of our knowledge, carry no legal weight outside of our programs," she says.
Tomorrow morning the House Judiciary Committee will hold a heading on whether politics spurred a series of prosecutions, focusing on the cases of Cyril Wecht and former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL).
Unfortunately, Dana Jill Simpson, the Republican lawyer who has given sworn statements that implicate Karl Rove in the decision to prosecute Siegelman is not on the witness list.
Siegelman's legal team has long-maintained that the decision to prosecute the former Democratic governor was an assault from Republicans in the state with connections at the Department of Justice. One of Siegleman's former lawyers and former US attorney for Alabama, Doug Jones, is set to testify tomorrow. Jones already told House investigators that in 2004 lawyers in Montgomery mentioned that when the case against Siegelman stalled, they were told by Justice Department officials in Washington to "take another look at everything." Jones gave the same story to The New York Times last month.
It's not just Blackwater! Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has another State Department security contractor in his sights -- industry pioneer DynCorp, which, in addition to guarding diplomats in northern Iraq, has reaped over $1 billion from State since 2004 to help train the Iraqi police.
Corruption and mismanagement in the Iraqi police is an old story. The U.S.'s special inspector general for Iraq, Stuart Bowen, told Waxman's House oversight committee earlier this year that DynCorp had significantly overbilled the State Department. But the extent of the misconduct is unknown: department officials have failed for months to provide documentation about the origins and terms of the contract to the committee, despite numerous promises. Making matters even fishier, State representatives told Waxman's staff that a single official handles all DynCorp contracts with the department and has for a decade -- far longer than is typical in agency-contractor relationships.
Waxman wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today to remind her that the committee wants the documents on the DynCorp contract that the department promised it in May. There's an urgency here: last month, a commission headed by Marine General James Jones found the Iraqi police in serious disarray.
Tomorrow, Dick Thornburgh, the attorney general for the final year of George H. W. Bush's presidency, will testify to Congress about his experience of the politicization of the Justice Department.
Thornburgh's run-in with Alberto Gonzales' DoJ came via the case of Dr. Cyril Wecht, a celebrity forensic pathologist, prominent Pennsylvania Democrat, and up until his indictment on a raft of fraud charges, coroner of Allegheny County. Thornburgh is one of Wecht's defense lawyers, and his complaints stem from what he's called the "sheer intensity" of the investigation, which involves relatively minor accusations that Thornburgh says should have been handled by the state ethics commission.
As a means of showing the relative triviality of the charges (the 84-count indictment doesn't put a price tag on Wecht's fraud), Wecht's lawyers have calculated that the cumulative cost for the 37 charges in the indictment that involve improperly charging the county for gasoline and mileage costs add up to $1,778.55. The most colorful of the charges, of course, involve the elaborate body snatching scheme: prosecutors allege that Wecht gave a local Catholic university unclaimed bodies in exchange for laboratory space.
The source of the investigation's "intensity" is U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh Mary Beth Buchanan, a member of the DoJ's inner circle who played a role in the U.S. attorney firings. It's not the first time that Buchanan has drawn fire. During the heat of the scandal, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the district (from 1995-2000, before Buchanan took over) publicly called on Buchanan to resign because of "the extent to which she has looked to Washington for direction and political advancement." Or to put it in plainer terms: Buchanan has prosecuted a number of Democrats but no Republicans.
According to Wecht's lawyers, Thornburgh among them, Buchanan's office was single-minded in their pursuit of their high-profile quarry. Although Wecht holds the modest position of county coroner, he's a prominent Democrat in the state, even once running for the Senate in 1982. And it's only a minor exaggeration to say that he's made an appearance in just about every well-known murder case in the past 30 years, including O.J. Simpson, JonBenet Ramsey, Vincent W. Foster Jr., Martha von Bülow, not to mention Elvis Presley and both Kennedy brothers.
Here's Thornburgh's story, which he laid out in an affidavit this summer and will tell to the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow. Not long after Thornburgh began representing Wecht in the summer of 2005, Buchanan began pressing to indict him on a number of fraud charges. Finally, in December, she sent him a target letter, usually a sign of imminent indictment.
Another day, another letter from top Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) demanding the warrantless surveillance documents they subpoenaed from the White House and the Justice Department 100 years ago.
Last week, the White House released the judiciary committee's long-sought material -- documentation of the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance program -- to the Senate intelligence committee instead. That committee was about to complete draft legislation of a new surveillance bill, and the White House desperately wanted to include a provision granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that complied with the warrantless surveillance program. The White House conditioned access to the documents on a willingness to grant immunity. Sure enough, quid met quo.
Only judiciary committee members, cut off from the documents, didn't appreciate the White House conditioning access to the documents on providing immunity, which Leahy and Specter say "would turn the legislative process upside down." After all, there is the small matter of a subpoena here. In their latest letter today to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, the two senators remind the White House that the path to approving the bill runs through their committee, which will mark up the bill ahead of next month's scheduled floor debate. "If the Administration wants our support for immunity, it should comply with the subpoenas, provide the information, and justify its request."
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell just released the following statement in response to Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) allegations that Blackwater has committed tax evasion:
Chairman Waxman has released a new thirteen page letter alleging that Blackwater cannot treat its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan as “independent contractors,” and contends that they must be treated as employees for IRS purposes. The Chairman’s contention is incorrect.
It just gets worse and worse for Blackwater's relationship with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Today, committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) accused Blackwater CEO Erik Prince of hiding "tens of millions of dollars, if not more" in Social Security, Medicare and retirement taxes by classifying its security guards in Iraq as independent contractors. In a letter (pdf) to Prince, Waxman also called a financial settlement reached with one such former independent contractor "deplorable." The settlement required that the ex-guard not disclose a March 2007 IRS ruling that Blackwater's tax records were out of whack; and the guard was specifically prevented from disclosing that to any "politician" or "public official."
Either last year or early this year (it's not clear from the letter), a former Blackwater guard sought to determine whether the tax code designates him a Blackwater employee, which would entitle him to compensation for the money he spent paying his own taxes in 2005. The company received the IRS arbitration (pdf) in March: the services rendered by the ex-guard for the company in Iraq qualified him as an employee. That would explain why the non-Blackwater private guards in Iraq on the same State Department contract, working for DynCorp and Triple Canopy, work as full-time employees of their companies, which take care of their tax liability.
In testimony earlier this month to the committee, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince described the company's decision to classify Blackwater's guards as independent contractors as a "model that works," preferred by the guards for providing flexibility. He did not mention the IRS ruling in his sworn testimony, despite questions from Washington, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton into Blackwater's hiring practices.
What's an FBI investigation between friends? Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) buddies in the Senate are standing by him.
And by standing by him, I mean contributing thousands of dollars to his re-election campaign, the AP reports.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch led the way, donating $10,000 from his political action committee and another $4,000 from his campaign fund. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Kit Bond of Missouri each added $10,000 from their political action committees, according to campaign reports released Friday....
Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's political action committee donated $5,000 and Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard's campaign chipped in $4,000. In all, the Stevens campaign raised more than $463,000 since July 1, making it one of the senator's most successful fundraising quarters.
Surprising? Probably not, considering a recent report from Marketplace radio that chronicles how two charities with ties to Stevens bring members of Congress to Alaska for lavish fishing tournaments. The trips would normally cost $1,000 a night, but thanks to the generosity of a series of PACs and non-profits backed by lobbyists, lawmakers don't spend a dime. The law also shields Stevens' campaign from having to disclose who attends.
The former lead prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay (Air Force Col. Morris Davis) is complaining about the pressure he felt to bring high profile, “sexy” cases in advance of the 2008 election. Davis was also concerned about the use of classified evidence and an emphasis on expediency over thoroughness in the Gitmo cases. He added: "no matter how perfect the trial is, if it’s behind closed doors, it’s going to be viewed as a sham.” (Washington Post, New York Times)
The FBI has been called in to clean up after the CIA. In the terrorism cases against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and 14 other accused Al Qaeda leaders being held at Guantanamo Bay, the FBI has stepped in to bolster the cases for upcoming war crimes tribunals. Much of the CIA obtained evidence is believed to be inadmissible, and officials fear that evidence obtained through torture will shift the focus of the trials. (LA Times)
Senators Orin Hatch (R-UT), Trent Lott (R-MS), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), and Kit Bond (R-MO) have all donated thousands of dollars from their political action committees to Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) despite the fact that Stevens faces a looming FBI corruption probe. According to AP, “the Stevens campaign raised more than $463,000 since July 1, making it one of the senator's most successful fundraising quarters.” (AP)
How did Blackwater end up guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq? The answer's becoming clearer.
The Washington Postreported yesterday that the State Department, under the gun to create an embassy security staff after the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded in June 2004, decided to stick with the CPA's Blackwater bodyguards, awarding the firm a no-bid contract. That much State Department logistics official William H. Moser told Congress earlier this month. But the Post supplies a wealth of detail about just how dependent State is on security contractors for conducting diplomacy in war zones.
State's diplomatic security service (DS) is too small to protect the hundreds of U.S. embassy personnel in Baghdad: only 1400 agents exist to operate in over 300 diplomatic offices domestically and abroad. That's just barely more than the 1000 or so Blackwater operatives in Iraq alone. Little wonder that last month, the company received another $112 million contract for Iraq security, which surges the number of Blackwater guards by over 200 and expands its helicopter fleet.
In previous conflicts -- Vietnam, for instance -- U.S. diplomats were guarded by U.S. soldiers. But the U.S. sent up to a half million troops during the Vietnam war, supplied by a draftee military. With the end of the draft and subsequent troop reductions, State had to turn to the dawning security-contractor industry, first hiring former industry leader DynCorp to protect Jean-Bertrand Aristide when the U.S. returned him to power in Haiti in 1994. Instead of expanding DS personnel or arguing that diplomatic security was a job for the U.S. military, State took the easier route of purchasing it on the (not always) open market. That was a choice that suited Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld well, as Rumsfeld believed the military had more important work to do. By 2002, Blackwater was on the ground in Afghanistan, guarding Hamid Karzai.
One lingering question is how Blackwater managed, in only 10 years of existence, to top former security-industry giants DynCorp and Triple Canopy in Iraq and elsewhere. Erik Prince, Blackwater's CEO, insists that the company hasn't benefited from his family's deep GOP connections. The piece doesn't exactly answer that question. But it does reveal that Blackwater has learned that sometimes it pays to get the competition on its side:
Thanks to Alberto Gonzales, it will be a long time for the Justice Department before prosecutors can pursue a Democrat without suspicion. The case against State Senator Matt McCoy (D-IA) is another one of those prosecutions now mediated through the lens of the politicization of the Department.
Matt McCoy was indicted last March on one count of extortion, and he is set for trial next week. McCoy's business partner, Tom Vasquez, installs security systems for elderly citizens. When Vasquez sought to install his product for clients with Medicaid, McCoy allegedly threatened to block the deal (by getting the state Medicaid office to remove the business as a Medicaid vendor) unless he received $100 for each installation. Federal authorities claim that McCoy collected over $2,000 before December 2005, and they have recorded ten hours of conversation between the two men as evidence.
When the case first broke, pundits cried foul, citing the brewing U.S. Attorney scandal as evidence that the prosecutor was reaffirming his status as a "loyal Bushie." Local pundit David Ypsen noted that the prosecutor is a strong social conservative who was slated earlier this year to emcee an event for the Iowa Christian Coalition. Needless to say: "Active involvement in ideological political action groups like that is rare for U.S. attorneys in Iowa — and even the Justice Department higher-ups seemed to think better of it."
Now, with only a week until the trial begins, McCoy is echoing the cry. In a filing this week, his attorney seeks to have the case dismissed on grounds of prosecutorial abuse. According to court documents, the government withheld from the grand jury taped conversations in which McCoy explicitly told Vasquez that he would not suffer retribution if he didn't share his earnings. The filing also accuses the government of intercepting emails between McCoy and his attorney, as well as surreptitiously paying Vasquez to cooperate in the prosecution (even offering him a bonus if the case returned a guilty plea).
The government has yet to respond to McCoy's call for an investigation. But McCoy has not shied way from accusing his accusers. Earlier in the year, McCoy, who is openly gay (after being outed by an arch-conservative lawmaker on the Iowa Senate floor), claimed, "I have been a continuous target of groups targeting gays to advance their own agendas of intolerance and hate. Clearly, there is significant speculation about what has motivated federal officials to take this action against me." But McCoy has backed down from that accusation, at least, saying "since then, I honestly have to say, I have found no evidence to support some of the thoughts that I had at the time that I shared with the media." So for now, McCoy's suspicion is confined to whether prosecutors only went after him because he's a Democrat.
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Stevens' Lawyer Makes List of Most Powerful DC Lawyers
Kennedy Asks Mukasey for Review of Voting Rights Chief
2nd Veco Exec Testifies to Paying Ben Stevens $250K in "Fees"
Leahy Asks Again for Torture Docs
The Daily Muck
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Fighting Discrimination: It's A Day at The Beach
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Hayden: Probe of IG Is Just a 'Management Review'
Profs Update Study on Political Prosecutions
Today's Must Read
Waxman Wants State Dep't DynCorp Documents
Waxman Accuses Blackwater of Millions in Tax Fraud, Cover-Up
GOP Senators Give Big to Friend in Need
All Muck is Local: Iowa
