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Kate Klonick

Gonzales Gets a Job

Kate Klonick | June 6, 2008, 5:42PM

Since leaving the Department of Justice in the fall-out over the U.S attorney scandal, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has had a little trouble finding work.

Well turn that frown upside down, Alberto, you've got a job.

From Bloomberg:

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from his job amid a controversy over the firings of federal prosecutors, has been hired to provide assistance to a special master on a patent case.
Gonzales will help former U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips oversee settlement talks in the case of a Texas company which claims banks such as Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank and Bank of America Corp. are violating its patents for taking and transmitting digital images of checks.

Phillips, in an order signed yesterday, said he needed Gonzales's help because of the number of parties in the case and the "overall complexity of this litigation.''

. . . Special masters are hired in patent cases to help district judges with complex issues. In this case, Phillips was hired to handle settlement talks between DataTreasury Corp. and the banks.

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Topics: Alberto Gonzales

DoJ Confirms Internal Investigation in Case of Maher Arar

Kate Klonick | June 6, 2008, 1:53PM

Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, revealed yesterday that his department had reopened the investigation into whether U.S. officials knew that Canadian citizen, Maher Arar would be tortured when he was turned over to Syria following his U.S. detainment. The investigation was reopened based on "new information," Skinner testified in his appearance before the House Subcommittee on International Relations, Human Rights and Oversight.

The Inspector General also revealed that the Department of Justice's own Office of Professional Responsibility has started an investigation into the role of the DoJ lawyers in the case.

From the New York Times:

A Justice Department spokesman, Peter A. Carr, said that its inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, was begun in March 2007 and was examining the role of department lawyers in expelling Maher Arar to Syria, which has long been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture on prisoners.

The DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility already has its hands full with a number of investigations into the Justice Department's role in Bush Administration scandals. OPR is currently investigating allegations of selective prosecution relating to the prosecutions of Don Siegelman ; John Yoo's torture memos; Monica Goodling's possible firing of an attorney because she'd heard a rumor that he might be gay; officials who gave legal approval to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques; the role of Department of Justice attorneys in the authorization and oversight of the warrantless electronic surveillance program and of course the probe into the firings of U.S. Attorneys.

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Topics: Indefinite Detentions

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Kate Klonick | June 6, 2008, 11:02AM

Phase II, the 200+ page Senate intelligence committee's report on pre-war intelligence in Iraq, has revealed the disconnect between what was espoused by Bush Administration officials in the days building up to the war in Iraq, and what was actually known. Besides the simple absence of intelligence, it has also been revealed that the Administration advanced arguments in contradiction of what the intelligence actually showed, in making its case for war.

We've covered Rumsfeld's false testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, and the general outcry from both sides of the aisle over the report.

Today, the LA Times has a good summary of excerpts from the report, which highlight the chasm between what was said by the President and Vice President, and what was actually known:

Statements in dozens of prewar speeches and interviews created the impression that Baghdad and Al Qaeda had forged a partnership. But the report concludes that such assertions "were not substantiated by the intelligence" being shown to senior officials at the time.
Claims that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, for example, were dubious from the beginning and subsequently discounted. The idea that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda hinged on intelligence from a source who soon was discredited.

Bush officials strayed even further from the evidence in suggesting that Hussein was prepared to provide weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda terrorist groups -- a linchpin in the case for war.

In October 2002, for example, Bush warned in a key speech in Cincinnati that "secretly, and without fingerprints, [Hussein] could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own." The threat was repeated frequently in the run-up to war but was "contradicted by available intelligence information," the committee says.

On post-war prospects, the report contrasts the rosy scenarios conjured by Cheney and others with more sober intelligence warnings that were being presented to senior officials.

Cheney's prediction that U.S. forces would "be greeted as liberators" was at odds with reports from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which warned nearly a year earlier that invading U.S. forces would face serious resistance from "the Baathists, the jihadists and Arab nationalists who oppose any U.S. occupation of Iraq."

Other findings show that it seems Pentagon officials were duped by known Iranian counterintelligence. From McClatchy:

A small group of Pentagon officials collected dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran from Iranian exiles whom Defense Department counterintelligence investigators said might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," the Senate Intelligence Committee reported Thursday.
The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have tried to use a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator and who remain determined to combat what President Bush this week called an "existential" threat from Iran.

A 2003 report by the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity, the Senate committee said, concluded that Michael Ledeen, the American civilian who brokered the contacts through Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian exile whom the CIA in 1984 labeled a "fabricator," and other Iranians "was likely unwitting of any counterintelligence issues related to his relationship with Mr. Ghorbanifar." [Emphasis ours.]

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Topics: Must Read

All Muck is Local

Who's McCain Really Keeping His Distance From?

Kate Klonick | June 5, 2008, 5:40PM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is making himself scarce for the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual fundraising award dinner with President Bush on June 18.

The Hill speculates that McCain is attempting to distance "himself from the man he wants to replace," but as we noted yesterday there's another attendee who McCain might want to avoid.

The dinner with President Bush is part of a two-day celebration for winners of the NRCC's "Republican Congressional Medal of Distinction." Springboro, Ohio, City Councilman Michael W. Hemmert will be one of the people accepting this distinction, despite two sets of drug charges (cocaine and marijuana) for which he's currently receiving treatment in lieu of conviction.

The NRCC declined to comment when we asked if Hemmert was still invited to the event.

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Topics: All Muck is Local

Iraq

Sen. Wyden: Rumsfeld Should Be Held Accountable

Kate Klonick | June 5, 2008, 4:34PM

As we've been reporting, Phase II of the Senate intel committee's report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq has been released, and all day lawmakers have been issuing statements of shock and incredulity.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the authoring Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called today for a review of whether then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's testimony to Congress was true, given the information in the report.

Specifically cited are quotes from Rumsfeld's testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on September 18 and 19, 2002:

They now have massive tunneling systems... They've got all kinds of thing that have happened in the period when the inspectors have been out. So the problem is greater today. And the regime that exists today in the U.N. is one that has far fewer teeth than the one you are describing.
   -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 18, 2002
Even the most intrusive inspection regime would have difficulty getting at all of [Saddam Hussein's] weapons of mass destruction. Many of his WMD capabilities are mobile; they can be hidden from inspectors no matter how intrusive. He has vast underground networks and facilities and sophisticated denial and deception techniques
   -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 18, 2002

[W]e simply do not know where all or even a large portion of Iraq's WMD facilities are. We do know where a fraction of them are. . .[O]f the facilities we do know, not all are vulnerable to attack from the air. A good many are underground and deeply buried. . .
   -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 19, 2002.

On page 50 the report states it's conclusion after investigating these statements from Rumsfeld:

The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information. [Emphasis ours.]

Wyden had a thing or two to say about Rumfeld's "not substantiated" testimony:

This is stunning: the Secretary of Defense, testifying before Congress about whether or not ground forces would be strategically necessary in a war against Iraq, said that the Executive Branch "knew" something that it did not know.
The intelligence available at the time made this clear, and two months later a report prepared specifically for Secretary Rumsfeld directly contradicted what he told the Committee. As far as I know, neither Rumsfeld nor anyone else from his office made any attempt to contact the Committee and correct the public record, and the result was that Congress and the American people were misled on a question of the utmost importance. I do not think that this is a matter that Congress can afford to ignore and I hope that the Armed Services Committee will take a serious look at Secretary Rumsfeld's statements.

We'll be bringing you more from Phase II, but please, keep your comments and observations coming.

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Topics: Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq

Torture

TPMtv: Panties in a Bunch

Kate Klonick | June 5, 2008, 2:52PM

We posted yesterday on Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's curious reduction of torture to frat-boy-like panty raids, in a House subcommittee hearing on the FBI's role in interrogations of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Transcript excerpts are great, but video clips are better. . .

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Topics: Torture

Iraq

Phase II

Kate Klonick | June 5, 2008, 10:52AM

The long wait is over. Phase II, the Senate intel committee's report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq, is out.

There are two parts to the report, and you can read them here (warning: big .pdfs):

"Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information"

"Report on Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq Conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans Within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy"

There's a lot there, and as we read through it these next few hours (days), we'd welcome any insights from readers who are doing the same. You can flag sections you think are particularly interesting or relevant in the comments section below.

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Topics: Iraq

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Kate Klonick | June 5, 2008, 9:35AM

As the Bush years wind to a close, and administration officials slink back to jobs in the private sector, the road ahead of Daniel Gonzalez, the chief of staff for Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, seems bleak.

From the New York Times:

Hoping to pursue a career in an entirely different field from telecommunications, Mr. Gonzalez invested in a small energy company three years ago and then joined the company's board in 2006. The company, law enforcement officials say, turns out to have been a fraudulent venture that took more than $54 million from investors.

In what looks to be a Ponzi scheme, Gonzalez personally guaranteed bank loans to the company of over $10 million, even though his personal worth was only in the hundreds of thousands, the banks allege. Gonzales disputes that allegation.

The energy company, MCube Petroleum, was founded by Robert Miracle, who appears to have a more checkered past than he presented to investors. Gonzalez's involvement with the company, began when he was introduced to Miracle by a childhood friend.

Mr. Miracle, who was born in 1960, represented himself as a seasoned businessman. In a company overview, he said he had more than 20 years of experience at Toyota and NASA and served as an adviser to Frank G. Wells, the former president of Disney.
But an affidavit by a criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service said that Mr. Miracle had never worked for Mr. Wells, and that in 1994, Mr. Miracle had been convicted of felony theft in Oregon for stealing textbooks from a community college. The affidavit said that, rather than working at Disney, Mr. Miracle might have been involved in reselling textbooks from universities.

Through his lawyer, Miracle denies any wrongdoing:

Mr. Miracle's lawyer, Greg Hollon, denied that his client had committed fraud. "We are confident that when the whole story is heard, and all of the facts of this matter properly understood, he will be vindicated," Mr. Hollon said. He added he could not discuss the details of the case because of the pending criminal investigation.

While it seems possible that Gonzalez was the victim of a con by Miracle, the question of why he would ever personally guarantee $10 million in company loans remains unknown.

Friends and colleagues are puzzled about why he took such a large risk. Asked why his client would guarantee a promissory note of $10 million when his net worth was so much smaller, Mr. Willey said, "I cannot give an answer."

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Topics: Must Read

NRCC Blows It Again

Kate Klonick | June 4, 2008, 6:08PM

It's been a tough year already for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is charged with getting Republicans elected to the House: embezzlement by its treasurer, crushing losses in usually reliable GOP districts, an inability to find quality candidates. It's so bad House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) had to put NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) on a very short leash.

Apparently not short enough.

Coles's NRCC will be honoring Springboro, Ohio, City Councilman Michael W. Hemmert later this month with a "Republican Congressional Medal of Distinction," an award he will accept in a two-day celebration culminating in a dinner with President George W. Bush, despite two sets of drug charges (cocaine and marijuana) for which he's currently receiving treatment in lieu of conviction.

From Dayton Daily News:

On May 27, Hemmert, 53, of Springboro, was granted treatment in lieu of conviction on two sets of charges of possession of cocaine and marijuana and a single count of possession of drug paraphernalia during a hearing in Warren County Common Pleas Court . . .
. . . He resigned his council seat Feb. 14 after the Greater Warren County Drug Task Force seized cocaine, marijuana and two cars during the first of two searches of his home. Hemmert was arrested after a second search on March 13 netted more cocaine and marijuana, and a special prosecutor was appointed. Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel acknowledged Hemmert had helped her raise campaign funds.

If cocaine use doesn't stop the GOP, some silly little thing like probation isn't going to stop Hemmert from receiving his award:

Provided Hemmert notifies his probation officer before leaving, "he shouldn't have any problem traveling," Scott McVey, administrator of the Warren County Common Pleas Court, said on Tuesday, June 3.

It should be pointed out that these NRCC "awards" are usually part of a fund-raising scheme: give us some money and we'll give you an award. It's not clear whether that's the case with Hemmert's award, but it isn't his first dinner with President Bush:

"I will be attending my second President's Dinner on Wed., June 18, 2008. This is considered the 'Event in Washington, DC' each year," Hemmert said in an e-mail press release. . .
. . .Medal recipients also tour the Capitol and take a cruise on the Potomac River "aboard the luxury ship Odyssey III," according to the itinerary. Two years ago, Hemmert said he got within 15 feet of President Bush.

As witty TPM Reader TC pointed out, maybe this "trip" will give Hemmert more than just a "contact high" with the President.

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Topics:

Rohrabacher: Frat Parties Aren't Torture

Kate Klonick | June 4, 2008, 5:15PM

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine was on Capitol Hill this morning to testify to the House Subcommittee on International Relations, Human Rights and Oversight, about his report on the FBI's role in detainee interrogations, released two weeks ago.

While some saw the hearing as a long-awaited chance for a serious examination of the torture techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, took an almost frat-boy glee in the torture details. In a statement of just 13 minutes, Rohrabacher managed to use the phrase "panties on [someone's] head" eight times.

But perhaps more significantly, he managed to work it into a comical (if this wasn't so serious) jab at Inspector General Fine:

ROHRABACHER: Let me -- I don't know what's -- I have never interrogated someone, either a criminal, which the FBI has to deal with, with the criminals, domestically, nor have I interrogated someone who's a foreign enemy, unless, of course, we include the people who have sat on this side...
FINE: I'll tell you what -- I was going to add that one.

(LAUGHTER)

ROHRABACHER: I won't ask you to wear anything on your head.

(LAUGHTER)

So I don't know what is -- what is effective and what's not. I do see here things that seem to be fraternity boy pranks and hazing pranks that I do not -- they might be unacceptable, but they certainly don't fit into the category of torture, which is the word that's been bandied around here.

More hazing after the jump.

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Topics:

Iraq

Shouldn't It Be Called Phase VII By Now?

Kate Klonick | June 4, 2008, 2:38PM

As TPM just reported, the Senate intelligence committee is releasing the much delayed Phase II report, which details and analyzes the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. We've prepped you for this before, but we think it's for real this time.

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Topics: Iraq

Don Siegelman

Prosecutors Drop Siegelman Appeal

Kate Klonick | June 4, 2008, 1:26PM

From the AP:

Federal prosecutors are no longer seeking stiffer prison sentences for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.

Prosecutors filed a motion this week with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking that their appeals of the sentences be dropped. Their appeal had sought a longer prison term than Siegelman's more than seven-year sentence and Scrushy's almost seven-year sentence.

The longer sentences that had been originally requested in the prosecutors' appeal were 30 years for Siegelman, and 25 years for Scrushy.

Late last week, Siegelman received a surge of support from a bi-partisan group of 54 former state attorneys general when they filed a friend of the court brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Siegelman's appeal of his conviction.

On Monday, Richard Scrushy filed his appeal with the 11th Circuit, requesting the court throw out his conviction in the corruption case that snared him and Siegelman, arguing that there was a lack of evidence and that jurors improperly communicated by e-mail.

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Topics: Don Siegelman

Jim Gibbons

Nevada's Governor's Divorce Threatens Exposure

Kate Klonick | June 2, 2008, 6:40PM

After years of rumors of philandering with a neighbor and an alleged sexual assault of a 32-year-old woman in a parking garage, news of Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) divorce from his wife of 22 years does not come as a great surprise. But after the governor's attempt to evict the First Lady from the Governor's mansion and a lot of name-calling, estranged wife Dawn Gibbons is now making not-so-veiled threats to implicate the governor in one or more scandals.

So what incriminating information might she have? Quite a lot it turns out. Because Dawn Gibbons was closely involved in at least two of the scandals which have been dogging Gibbons for almost two years.

A few examples after the jump ...

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Topics: Jim Gibbons