Fast And Furious

Obama Has 'Full Confidence' In Eric Holder Ahead Of 'Fast And Furious' Hearing

Ryan J. Reilly | December 8, 2011, 1:05AM

While House Republicans gear up to grill Attorney General Eric Holder about what-he-knew-when about ATF's botched Operation Fast and Furious at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, the White House is signaling they're standing by the nation's top law enforcement officer.

"As the President has made clear, he believes Eric Holder is an excellent Attorney General who has his full confidence," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement to TPM on Wednesday.

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ATF

Emails: Bush-Era Embassy, Prosecutor's Office Approved ATF 'Gun Walking' Tactic

Ryan J. Reilly | October 14, 2011, 5:00PM

As House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) continues to try to pin the flawed "gun walking" tactic employed in Operation Fast and Furious on the Obama administration, it's becoming increasingly clear that problems with ATF's Phoenix division date back at least into the Bush era.

TPM has obtained the documents relating to another Bush-era ATF operation (on top of Operation Wide Receiver) which deployed the "gun walking" tactic. The development was first reported by Pete Yost of the Associated Press.

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Operation Wide Receiver

Issa: We'll Get To The Bottom Of Bush's Gun Walking Program Too (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | October 5, 2011, 12:09PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Anderson Cooper on Tuesday that he'll "get to the bottom" of "Wide Receiver" -- the "gun walking" program that took place during the George W. Bush administration.

"What we do know about Wide Receiver somewhat is: very small amount of weapons, much more intensive following," Issa said. "But we will in fact get to the bottom of whether or not this practice might have began, in a smaller way, under the Bush watch. We're not putting it past any administration and giving anyone a pass."

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Darrell Issa

Issa: Obama DOJ's Blame Bush Strategy In ATF Scandal 'Reeks Of Desperation'

Ryan J. Reilly | October 4, 2011, 5:50PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is trying to take the revelation that the Bush administration had a "gun walking" problem of its very own in stride.

"The committee has received some documents from the Justice Department about Operation Wide Receiver but Justice officials still have not made clear to committee investigators what did and did not take place in this operation," spokeswoman Becca Glover Watkins said in a statement to TPM.

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Alberto Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales Named 'Distinguished Chair of Law' By Belmont University

Jillian Rayfield | October 3, 2011, 6:03PM

Fmr. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President George W. Bush

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, last seen expressing "disappointment" in himself for failing to stop the politicization of the Justice Department honors program during the Bush era, has a new gig as the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law at Belmont University College of Law in Tennessee.

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Dick Cheney

Cheney: Tenet Resigned 'When The Going Got Tough' (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | August 25, 2011, 10:25AM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

Former Vice President Dick Cheney in his forthcoming book accuses former CIA Director George Tenet of being unfair to President George W. Bush by resigning in 2004 "when the going got tough."

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Scott Bloch

Scott Bloch Flip-Flops, Asks To Withdraw Guilty Plea

Ryan J. Reilly | February 11, 2011, 6:50PM

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

Former Bush administration official Scott Bloch, who originally pleaded guilty to contempt of Congress under a plea agree with the Justice Department, wants to reverse course after a judge ruled he had to spend at least a month in prison.

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Scott Bloch

DOJ Fights To Keep Bush Official Scott Bloch Out Of Prison

Ryan J. Reilly | February 7, 2011, 4:25PM

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

The sentencing of Bush administration official Scott Bloch was delayed today after federal prosecutors filed a last minute motion to try to save a plea deal they had worked out with the former head of the Office of Special Counsel that would prevent him from heading to prison.

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Scott Bloch

Judge Says Scott Bloch Must Spend At Least A Month In Prison

Ryan J. Reilly | February 3, 2011, 9:35AM

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

Today was supposed to be Scott Bloch's day in court and, given that he'd reached a deal with prosecutors and pled guilty to misdemeanor contempt of Congress, the outcome had seemed relatively certain -- he wasn't headed to prison. But a judge had other plans.

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U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

New White House Picks (Almost) Rebalance Civil Rights Commission

Ryan J. Reilly | January 27, 2011, 11:45AM

Roberta Achtenberg and Marty R. Castro

President Barack Obama on Wednesday appointed two new commissioners to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency best know recently for its partisan focus on investigating the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. The White House's move will rebalance what was intended to be a bipartisan panel which came under conservative control thanks to a move during the Bush administration to "game" the system.

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George W Bush

Report: Bush White House Violated Law By Using Gov't Resources To Support GOP in '06 Elections

Ryan J. Reilly | January 24, 2011, 8:51PM

Former President George W. Bush

George W. Bush's White House Office of Political Affairs violated the law by giving political briefings to political employees, concludes an Office of Special Counsel report issued Monday, nearly five years after the fact.

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House Judiciary

Rove Protege Tim Griffin Now On Judiciary Committee

Ryan J. Reilly | January 3, 2011, 1:45PM

A few years ago, Tim Griffin was a key figure in of the biggest scandals in the Bush administration. Democrats said -- and the Justice Department Inspector General later concluded -- that the Bush White House and Justice Department pushed out U.S. Attorney H.E. "Bud" Cummins III to give Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, a plum spot as interim U.S. attorney that would pad his resume.

Now Griffin, who was elected to Congress from Arkansas in November, has been named by House Republicans to be a member of the House Judiciary Committee -- the very same committee which took a close look at his own role in the scandal that ultimately lead to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

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John Ashcroft

Supreme Court Will Hear Whether Man Detained Without Charge Can Sue John Ashcroft

Rachel Slajda | October 18, 2010, 10:38AM

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear an appeal from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who claims he should be immune from a lawsuit brought by a Muslim U.S. citizen who was detained for two weeks without charge in 2003 as part of a terrorism investigation.

Ashcroft has claimed total immunity from the lawsuit. At question is whether he is entitled to such immunity, according to SCOTUSblog.

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Feisal Abdul Rauf

'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam Was A Bush-Era Partner For Mideast Peace

Megan Carpentier | August 12, 2010, 8:20AM

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Karen Hughes

Tuesday, Reps. Peter King (R-NY) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) called Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- best known for his work with multicultural Cordoba Initiative to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan -- a "radical" and criticized the Obama Administration for including him on a Middle East speaking tour. That tour, which includes stops in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, is designed by the public diplomacy office to explain to Muslims abroad what it's like to be a Muslim in America.

Outside of how getting constantly called a radical by American politicians busy flacking the proposed "Ground Zero mosque" for political purposes might affect Rauf's view of what it's like to be a Muslim in America, there's one other big problem with King's and Ros-Lehtinen's accusation: Rauf already represented America in this way, under the Bush Administration.

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U.S. Attorneys

AP: Case Closed In U.S. Attorney Firings With No Charges

Rachel Slajda | July 21, 2010, 3:21PM

Fmr. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

The AP is reporting that the Department of Justice has closed its investigation into the U.S. attorney firings and will not file any charges.

The Bush Administration spent several years fighting allegations that it had fired several U.S. attorneys for politically motivated reasons, and then ignoring subpoenas by Congress to testify about the firings. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned because of the scandal.

You can find past TPMmuckraker coverage of the scandal here and here, and a timeline here.

Bush Administration

Former Bush Official May Just Get Probation In Geeks On Call Case

Jillian Rayfield | July 21, 2010, 9:00AM

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

Scott Bloch, former U.S. Special Counsel in the Bush Administration, is facing a possible probation sentence this week after pleading guilty in April to misdemeanor contempt of Congress. Bloch is on trial in connection with his use of Geeks On Call to scrub his computer while he was under investigation for misusing his office.

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Torture

Bybee: CIA Used Some Techniques We Didn't Authorize

Rachel Slajda | July 16, 2010, 10:59AM

Jay Bybee

In House Judiciary Committee testimony released yesterday, former Bush DOJ lawyer Jay Bybee said he hadn't authorized all of the enhanced interrogation techniques the CIA used -- a point that is at the heart of the criminal investigation into the CIA's use of torture.

Bybee, one of the authors of the infamous torture memos that authorized the use of waterboarding and other techniques, testified before the committee in May.

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Torture

House Judiciary Commitee Releases Testimony From Torture Memo Author

Rachel Slajda | July 15, 2010, 3:08PM

Jay Bybee

The House Judiciary Committee today released the transcript of the testimony of torture memo author Jay Bybee.

You can get the full transcript here (PDF).

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Bush Administration

GAO Study Finds Improper Burrowing During Bush Years

Justin Elliott | June 29, 2010, 10:02AM

George W. Bush

A study by the Government Accountability Office has found seven instances of improper burrowing -- political appointees shifting to career civil servant positions in a given agency -- during the Bush Administration, though none of the seven occurred close to the 2008 presidential election.

Regular TPMmuckraker readers will remember our reporting on burrowing back in late 2008 when several Bush Administration officials made eyebrow-raising shifts to career positions.

The GAO did an exhaustive study of these so-called "conversions" from political to career positions between May 2005 and May 2009. It found 139 conversions in that period, with the most -- 32 -- occurring at the Justice Department, and the second-most, 17, occurring at the Department of Homeland Security. The GAO found the vast majority, 117, followed "fair and open competition" and proper procedures to ensure that the conversions were justified.

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Steve Biskupic

Bush-Era U.S. Attorney Cleared Of Allegations Of Politicized Prosecution

Justin Elliott | June 1, 2010, 6:03PM

George W. Bush and former US Attorney Steven Biskupic (inset)

The Justice Department's internal watchdog has cleared a Bush-era U.S. Attorney of wrongdoing in a years-old episode that sparked suspicions of politicized prosecution during the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal in 2007.

TPMmuckraker covered the story involving Steve Biskupic, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, back in 2007. To summarize, the case involved Biskupic's decision to prosecute a state government bureaucrat in a case that implicated Wisconsin's Democratic governor. When an appeals court slammed the prosecution's theory of the case as "preposterous," suspicions were raised, including by congressional Democrats, that Biskupic was attempting to curry favor with the Bush Administration and avoid being purged in the firings.

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Minerals Management Service

FLASHBACK: The Sex And Oil Scandals Of The Minerals Management Service

Justin Elliott | May 6, 2010, 2:12PM

An oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon accident, and the seal of the Minerals Management Service (inset)

Of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said it best on Tuesday: "In the Bush administration, these were the guys that were having sex orgies and pot parties and weren't showing up for work."

As the government agency that regulates offshore drilling, MMS is already under scrutiny for its handling of the rig that exploded and caused the oil spill. It's not yet clear whether there were missteps by the agency, though the Washington Post reported earlier this week that MMS' environmental impact assessments of the Deepwater Horizon rig had not considered the possibility of a major spill.

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Obama Administration

Pursuing Bush-Era Case, Obama DOJ Hits Times Reporter With Subpoena

Justin Elliott | April 29, 2010, 10:26AM

Pres. Obama and Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush

Following in the footsteps of the Bush Administration, President Obama's Justice Department has approved a subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen demanding he reveal sources for a chapter in his 2006 book about a botched CIA operation to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program.

Risen was first subpoenaed about the matter during the Bush Administration, in February 2008. The operation in question, described in Risen's State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, began in 2000, during the Clinton years.

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Scott Bloch

Ex-Bush Official Pleads Guilty To Contempt In Geeks On Call Case

Justin Elliott | April 27, 2010, 5:23PM

Geeks On Call and former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

Former Bush Administration Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch today pleaded guilty to misdemeanor contempt of Congress for withholding information regarding his use of Geeks on Call to scrub computers while he was under investigation for retaliating against employees.

Sentencing in U.S. District Court in Washington is scheduled for July 20. The Legal Times reports on one hiccup in the proceedings today:

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Scott Bloch

Former Bush Official Charged With Contempt Of Congress In Geeks On Call Case

Justin Elliott | April 22, 2010, 4:41PM

Geeks On Call and former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch was charged today with criminal contempt of Congress in connection with his notorious use of Geeks On Call to scrub his computer while under investigation for misusing his office, according to a court filing in federal court in Washington.

The "information" filed today alleges that, responding to a request from the House oversight committee, Bloch failed to "state fully and completely the nature and extent of his instructions that Geeks On Call perform 'seven level wipes' on his [Office of Special Counsel]-issued computers" and the computers of two other appointees in the office. That was in late 2006.

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Terrence Lakin

Birther Army Doc Gets Help From Fmr. GOP Hill Staffer And Ex-Senator's Foundation

Justin Elliott | April 14, 2010, 11:46AM

Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin and an image from the Web site of the American Patriot Foundation

The Birther Army doctor who is reportedly facing a court martial for refusing orders is getting crucial assistance from an ex-congressional staffer and Bush Administration vet with a colorful past as well as from a charitable foundation that was founded in 2003 by a Republican senator, originally to aid the families of slain soldiers.

When Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin announced in a YouTube video late last month that he would refuse to deploy to Afghanistan until President Obama produced a birth certificate, the news spread thanks to a PR operation by a virtually unknown group called the American Patriot Foundation.

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Horace Cooper

Abramoff Scandal Figure Pleads Guilty To Hiding Gifts On Disclosure

Justin Elliott | April 7, 2010, 5:44PM

Horace Cooper

Former aide to Dick Armey and former Bush Labor Department official Horace Cooper plead guilty today to falsifying a disclosure report after accepting gifts from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2003.

"Cooper admitted that in 2003 he solicited and accepted gifts from Jack A. Abramoff and Neil G. Volz, former Washington lobbyists who had a client with business before the DOL. Cooper admitted he concealed his receipt of these gifts from DOL ethics officials and his supervisors," according to a Justice Department press release.

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Marc Thiessen

Thiessen Mourns Loss Of CIA Torture Program -- O'Donnell Having None Of It (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | February 12, 2010, 9:51AM

On MSNBC this morning, former Rumsfeld and Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen went after President Obama for barring torture by the CIA in his first week in office, only to be rebuffed by an animated Lawrence O'Donnell on the Bush Administration's terrorism record.

"Barack Obama has eliminated the CIA's interrogation program, which is the single most successful and importance intelligence program we have in the war on terror and possibly in the history of the CIA," Thiessen said.

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Dana Perino

Perino: Shoebomber And Undiebomber Are 'Apples And Oranges' (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | February 11, 2010, 6:09PM

In an appearance on Fox today, Dana Perino continued the attack on the Obama Administration's handling of the attempted Christmas bombing, dismissing comparisons to the Richard Reid shoe-bombing case as "apples and oranges."

Despite the similarities between the two cases, and despite the fact that President Bush had OKed the use of military tribunals in November 2001, a month before the shoe bombing attempt, Perino argued that the context in which the two cases unfolded were significantly different.

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Obama Administration

Holder To GOP: We're Simply Doing What Bush Did

Justin Elliott | February 3, 2010, 2:24PM

Attorney General Eric Holder

In a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Attorney General Eric Holder is continuing the push back against GOP attacks on the Obama Administration's decision to handle Umar Abdulmutallab in American courts.

"Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the practice of the U.S. government,
followed by prior and current Administrations without a single exception, has been to
arrest and detain under federal criminal law all terrorist suspects who are apprehended
inside the United States," Holder writes (emphasis in original).

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Joe Arpaio

Arpaio Tactics Causing Fear And Loathing In Maricopa County

Zachary Roth | February 1, 2010, 1:43PM

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's crusade against Maricopa County officials has created a "year-long emotional roller-coaster" for some county employees, they tell the Arizona Republic.

Arpaio, whose controversial immigration enforcement tactics have made him a nationally known figure, is reportedly being probed by a federal grand jury. The investigation is considering whether the sheriff abused his power by going after political opponents and others who crossed him, including several county supervisors and judges.

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Justice Department

Reports: DOJ Torture Memo Probe Clears Yoo, Bybee

Justin Elliott | February 1, 2010, 9:21AM

John Yoo

A long-awaited internal Justice Department report will essentially clear the lawyers who crafted the legal justification for the Bush Administration's torture policies, reversing the tougher findings of a draft version of the report, according to Newsweek.

The draft version of the Office of Professional Responsibility report recommended that John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- who served in the Office of Legal Counsel and are now a law professor at Berkeley and a federal appeals court judge in Nevada, respectively -- be referred to state bar associations for potential discipline for their role in writing memos that concluded torture was justified.

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U.S. Attorneys

Five Fired U.S. Attorneys Come Together To Remember The Bush Years (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | January 29, 2010, 5:04PM

George W. Bush

Five of the U.S. attorneys fired in the Bush Administration purge in 2006 gathered for a panel discussion this week at Arizona State University College of Law to talk about the firings and the line between policy and politics.

Rarely, if ever, have so many of the fired U.S. attorneys gathered in one place for a public discussion.

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Laurie Mylroie

Bush Pentagon Hired Conspiracy Theorist As Al Qaeda Specialist

Justin Elliott | January 25, 2010, 1:12PM

Terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie

When the Pentagon's internal think tank decided in 2004 it needed a better understanding of Al Qaeda, it turned to an unlikely source: the terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie, who was known as the chief purveyor of the discredited idea that Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11 and many other attacks carried out by Al Qaeda.

Mylroie was paid roughly $75,000 to produce a 300-page study, "The History of Al Qaida," for the Defense Department think tank, known as the Office of Net Assessment, a DOD spokesman tells us. The study, which is dated September 2005, was posted on an intelligence blog last month.

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FBI

WaPo: FBI Repeatedly Broke Law In Phone Record Searches

Justin Elliott | January 19, 2010, 9:27AM

Robert S. Mueller III

In a preview of what will apparently be a scorching Inspector General report, the Washington Post today details how the FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. phone records over several years during the Bush Administration.

The crux of the lawbreaking was the FBI's use of so-called "exigent circumstances letters" to get phone records. That's was a post-9/11 tool created to allow quick searches of phone records in case of emergency.

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Comeback

Richard Pombo: An Ethics Retrospective

Justin Elliott | January 4, 2010, 6:31PM

Former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)

Tomorrow, former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) is set to burst back onto the national political scene with a new bid for Congress in California.

Luckily, TPM's archives are bursting with stories of Pombo's ethical troubles -- the very troubles that helped sink his 2006 reelection bid after seven terms in office.

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Bush Administration

Maddow On 'The Incredible Magic Al Jazeera Scam' (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | December 22, 2009, 10:50AM

Rachel Maddow last night interviewed journalist Aram Roston about the finer points of the revelation, published in Playboy, that a December 2003 Orange terror alert was prompted by supposed decoding technology that revealed terrorist communications in Al Jazeera broadcasts.

Maddow plays some remarkable media reports from 2003, complete with scare quotes from Tom Ridge about catastrophic attacks "against the homeland."

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Bush Administration

Report: Bush Admin Raised Terror Alert Based On Con Man's Al Jazeera 'Decoding' Scam

Justin Elliott | December 21, 2009, 9:32AM

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge making an announcement about the Code Orange terror alert in December 2003.

A self-styled Nevada codebreaker convinced the CIA he could decode secret terrorist targeting information sent through Al Jazeera broadcasts, prompting the Bush White House to raise the terror alert level to Orange (high) in December 2003, with Tom Ridge warning of "near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experience on September 11," according to a new report in Playboy.

The report deals another blow to the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded terror alert system, and comes after Ridge's claim that the system was used as a political tool when he was DHS secretary.

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Bush Administration

Gonzo: We Should Have Known We'd Get Caught Purging US Attorneys

Justin Elliott | December 9, 2009, 9:11AM

Esquire's interview with Alberto Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales has taken a break from his teaching load at Texas Tech to give a remarkably unselfconscious interview with Esquire, saying the Bush Administration should have dropped its plan to purge U.S. attorneys in 2006 because "at that point we could really not count on Republicans to cut off investigations or help us at all with investigations."

By Gonzo's reasoning, the problem was not the firings themselves, but rather the prospect that the Bush Administration would get caught:

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Global Warming

Bush Climate Team Still Impacting The Debate, Report Finds

Nick Pinto | December 7, 2009, 11:39AM

James L. Connaughton, President Bush’s chief environmental advisor from 2001 to 2009.

As the next round of UN climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, a new report describes how 22 Bush-era officials are still influencing the climate debate, many of them as registered lobbyists for industry.

Among the former officials listed in the report from watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are the following:

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Obama Administration

'Disappointed' Siegelman: Obama Justice Dept. Virtually The Same As Bush DOJ

Justin Elliott | November 25, 2009, 10:42AM

Don Siegelman with Obama and Bush (inset)

When the Obama Administration argued in a filing earlier this month that the Supreme Court should not consider an appeal by Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor wasn't surprised, even though the Obama filing maintained the Bush-era stance in Siegelman's controversial corruption case.

"There's really been no substantial change in the heart of the Department of Justice from the Bush-Rove Department of Justice," Siegelman tells TPMmuckraker in an interview.

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