Don Young

Don Young Gives Campaign Cash to Lawyers

Kate Klonick | July 4, 2008, 2:16PM

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has been fighting corruption charges for awhile. He even tried a legal defense fund to help him through hard times, but now it looks like he's started to pay his own million-dollar legal tab from his campaign funds, but also that of Steven Dougherty, his campaign manager who is under FBI scrutiny.

According to the AP:

Young has spent more than $1 million in campaign contributions on legal fees. He is represented by the Washington law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld. His campaign finance reports also show $35,020 in fees to John W. Wolfe, a prominent Seattle white-collar defense attorney who represents Dougherty as well as Stevens' son, Ben. The campaign has also paid about $196,000 since October to Tobin, O'Connor and Ewing, a Washington law firm, though it's unclear whom the firm represents.

Karl Rove

Rove Refuses House Judiciary Subpoena

Kate Klonick | July 4, 2008, 1:41PM

Just last week, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) subpoenaed a big chunk of the Bush Administration to talk to the Committee about the Valerie Plame leak scandal. Among those listed to testify: Karl Rove, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Scott McClellan, Dan Bartlett and Andrew Card.

And, predictably, Rove is the first one to thumb his nose at the Committee.

In a letter from Rove's attorney to Chairman Conyers, Robert Luskin writes:

While I understand that you would prefer-- and the Congress has taken the position in the pending litigation-- that Mr. Rove appear in person and assert any applicable privileges on a question by question basis, Mr. Rove is simply not free to accede to the Committee's view and take a position inconsistent with that asserted by the White House in the litigation. Mr. Rove will respectfully decline to appear before the Subcommittee on July 10 on the grounds that Executive Privilege confers upon him immunity from process in response to subpoena directed to this subject.

Our old friend executive privilege, rears its head again.

John McCain

John McCain's Lobbyist Universe

Kate Klonick | July 4, 2008, 1:22PM

There's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks and months about John McCain's ties to lobbyists. So here at TPMmuckraker, we decided to do a little digging to officially catalog the possibilities. What we came up with, we fondly call "John McCain's Lobbyist Universe," a working guide to the presidential hopeful's connections. Click on each of the familiar faces to get a synopsis of their role in the campaign and their lobbyist ties. We expect to be growing and expanding this chart as more facts come in, and as always we welcome any tips or knowledge that you, our readers, have to offer.

House Oversight

Hunt Oil and the Bush Admin: A Timeline of Correspondence

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 6:57PM

As we reported earlier, Chairman Waxman of the House Oversight Committee claimed today that the Bush Administration knew about the Hunt Oil deal way before it happened-- something the administration has denied regularly.

According to Waxman, there were nearly a dozen contacts between various levels of the administration and Hunt Oil as the deal was taking place. Hunt regularly informed the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board of his intentions to seek a deal with the Kurdistan government. Management at Hunt also regularly met and communicated with the U.S. Regional Reconstruction Team (RRT), as well as State Department personnel.

So let's go through a little time line of the events and communication leading up to Sept. 8, 2007-- the day the Hunt Oil deal was finalized with the Kurdistan government.

June 12 and 15: Hunt Oil officials meet with officials from the RRT for the Kurdistan region, "to investigate investment prospects" in the Kurdish region. Hunt Oil General Manager Ken McDonald, asks RRT members if the deal between Hunt Oil and Kurdistan is in violation of U.S. policy:

I specifically asked if the USG had a policy toward companies entering into contracts with the KRG and [redacted] replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.

July 12, 2007: Ray Hunt, president and CEO of Hunt Oil sends a letter to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, letting them know he is pursuing an oil deal in Kurdistan:

We were approached a month or so ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibílity of our becoming interested in that region. We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and were encouraged by what we saw. We have a larger team going back to Kurdistan this week but who they will actually meet with while they are there and what the relationships of those people might be with the Government of Kurdistan are both unclear at this time.

August 2007: Hunt Oil representatives exchange a series of emails with State Department personnel discussing their return to Kurdistan.

August 30, 2007: Ray Hunt sends another letter to the Advisory Board to let them know he will be in Kurdistan the week of September 3:

While my schedule is still fluid, there is a high likelihood that I will meet with President Masoud Barzani, the Prime Minister, the Oil Minister and various other individuals associated with the government of Kurdistan.

September 5, 2007: McDonald informs the RRT in Erbil that "Hunt is expecting to sign an exploration contract" with the Kurdistan Regional Government. That same day, the RRT leader sends an e-mail summary of the meeting to the Embassy in Baghdad and the State Department headquarters in Washington. A second synopsis of the meeting is sent to the Embassy in Baghdad in a situation report the following day.

September 8, 2007: The Hunt Oil contract is finalized with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

September 13, 2007: A State Department official contacts Hunt Oil to describe another "good opportunity for Hunt" in Iraq, prompting a Hunt Oil official to write Ray Hunt: "This is really good for us. . .I find it a huge compliment that he is 'tipping' us off about this . . .This is a lucky break."

Justice Department

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against the DOJ

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 11:24AM

It was bound to happen when you had a big mess of lawyers disqualified from hiring for illegal reasons. One of the de-selected masses filed a lawsuit claiming $100,000 in damages on Monday.

As the The Blog of Legal Times wrote yesterday:

The class action by Sean Gerlich -- filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia -- is the first suit resulting from an internal Justice report issued last week that says two former Justice officials illegally screened applicants to the honors and summer intern programs.

The two officials were Esther Slater McDonald, then counsel to the associate attorney general and now an associate at Seyfarth Shaw, and Michael Elston, then chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and now a partner at McGuireWoods.

Gerlich's suit says the department politicized the selection process, mishandled the applications and failed to maintain the records, all in violation of the Privacy Act, the Civil Service Reform Act and the Federal Records Act. In addition, the suit claims violations of the First and 14th Amendments.

Gerlich says he was rejected because of his liberal affiliations, which officials dug up through Internet searches.

Samuel Israel III

"Suicide Is Painless" Fugitive Turns Himself In

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 10:52AM

Samuel Israel III, the convicted hedge fund manager who faked his own suicide just days before he was to be sent to prison, turned himself into police in Southwick, Massachusetts today.

From the AP:

Federal officials say fugitive hedge-fund swindler Samuel Israel has surrendered to authorities.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, said Wednesday that Israel is in federal custody. She would not immediately provide other details.

Israel disappeared last month on the day he was supposed to report to federal prison. Authorities found his car on a bridge over the Hudson River with the words "suicide is painless" scrawled in the dust on the hood.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for bilking investors out of $450 million in hedge funds.

Scott Bloch

Office of Special Counsel To Investigate DOJ Hiring

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 10:30AM

As predicted, there's been lots of fall out from the first report by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General on the hiring practices used by the DOJ.

As the New York Times reports today:

The Office of Special Counsel, an agency that investigates political interference in the federal workplace, let the Justice Department know this week that it would be examining the issues raised in the report "to discuss what our next step should be," said James P. Mitchell, a spokesman for the office.

The special counsel has offered to work with the department "to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted," Mr. Mitchell said. The inspector general's report noted that two department officials who it said were largely responsible for the abuses in 2006, Michael Elston and Esther Slater McDonald, could not face disciplinary action because both had left the department.

But Mr. Mitchell said: "That doesn't rule out others -- those who considered political affiliation in making decisions as well as those who let them do that. This is a prohibited practice, and this is an area that we enforce."

The OSC is no stranger to trouble. It's had its own issues lately, namely that the head of the department, Scott Bloch, is under investigation by the FBI.

UBS

Judge Orders UBS to Give Up Client List

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 9:40AM

As we reported yesterday, the Justice Department sought a court order against UBS, to force the Swiss banking giant to give up the identify of its U.S. shareholders. A long court battle was predicted, and now it has begun.

From the International Herald Tribune:

An order signed by Judge Joan A. Lenard of U.S. District Court in Miami gives investigators the authority to request the information from UBS. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said the agency, which was working with U.S. prosecutors, was expected to serve UBS with a summons for names within several days. The bank can either turn the names over -- an unprecedented move for a Swiss bank under secrecy laws -- or appeal the judge's ruling.

Iraq

RAND Report Comes Down Hard on Franks, DOD, State Dept.

Kate Klonick | July 1, 2008, 1:10PM

As we reported, the RAND Corporation, released a long quashed critical report yesterday on the role of the White House, Defense Department and State Department in Iraq.

"After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq" was put on the RAND Corporation website late Monday. The New York Times dug into more detailed excerpts in a Blog post from their Baghdad Bureau.

The report confirms much of the conventional wisdom of our failures there, as well as what has said by military leaders-- that after the fall of Saddam Hussein there were too few people, and not enough planning.

But not for lack of trying. The report states that while there was "a range of possible postwar challenges" and "suggested strategies for addressing them," "few if any, made it into the serious planning phases" to be incorporated into Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Like the most recent study released by the Army, the RAND report also lays blame on Gen. Tommy Franks and his inopportune decision to restructure the operations in Iraq after the fall of Saddam-- a tactic that made creating a "stable, reasonably democratic Iraq" more "difficult to achieve."

On the role of the DOD in the chaos surrounding post-Saddam Iraq, the report faults the decision to make the Department of Defense the lead agency in 2003:

While this may have made sense in theory, it did not work in practice. . . DoD's lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution continued to pose problems throughout the occupation period.

The report also comes down hard on the "Future of Iraq" project designed by the State Department:

Press reports have widely described the Future of Iraq project as a State Department "plan" for the reconstruction of Iraq. Such a characterization is unwarranted. Plans require a concrete set of prioritized steps that should be taken in a given situation, and a plan ideally assigns responsibility for each of those steps. The Future of Iraq project did not contain any such prioritization; it was not something that could be taken off the shelf and immediately executed.

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Kate Klonick | July 1, 2008, 10:00AM

A former senior executive at UBS, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to assist a wealthy client in hiding millions of dollars from taxes, is aiding the Justice Department in their fight to force the Swiss banking giant to give up their ultra-secret client list.

As the Wall Street Journal reports today, the former UBS executive, Bradley Birkenfeld, has shed light on the shady dealings of UBS with its wealthiest clients. Birkenfeld explained how the Zurich-based banking giant coached its executives to conceal assets, from lying on customs forms to smuggling jewels in toothpaste tubes:

Mr. Birkenfeld told U.S. prosecutors that UBS holds an estimated $20 billion in assets for U.S. clients in undeclared accounts. These accounts generated $200 million a year in revenues for the bank, prosecutors said.

. . . UBS trained private bankers in techniques to avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement, including instructing them to indicate on customs forms that they were coming to the U.S. on vacation instead of business, according to court documents.

Prosecutors say Mr. Birkenfeld also explained how bankers advised clients to hide their wealth by purchasing artwork and jewels with funds from Swiss accounts. For one client, Mr. Birkenfeld told prosecutors he smuggled diamonds into the U.S. inside a toothpaste tube.

After weeks of talking with UBS and Swiss banking authorities on divulging the identity of U.S. account holders, the DOJ has finally sought a court order. The so-called "John Doe" summons is usually used by the government to investigate tax fraud "by people whose identities are unknown." It has never been used before against a non-U.S. bank.

Revealing client lists would be a huge blow to UBS and all Swiss banks, who pride themselves on the secrecy and privacy for its clients. The DOJ's filing is likely to spark a long and tedious legal battle-- something not unfamiliar to UBS:

In a 2002 memorandum to clients following UBS's acquisition of PaineWebber, UBS bankers tried to assuage clients' worries that their secrets might be breached as a result of the bank's new connection to a U.S. firm. The memo, filed in court by prosecutors, reads in part: "information relative to your Swiss banking relationship is as safe as ever..."

The memo went on to point out that UBS has been doing business in the U.S. since 1939, without having U.S. authorities gaining "jurisdiction over assets booked abroad....Please note that our bank has a successful track record of challenging such attempts."

And perhaps being caught in the DOJ bear trap has convinced UBS to gnaw off its U.S. brokerage arm, leave the U.S. and head for the safety of the Alps. As the International Herald Tribune reported, UBS is currently in talks to sell off its U.S. wealth management base, PaineWebber.

House Oversight

DOJ Cites Exec. Privilege; Rejects Clinton Precedent in Revealing Documents

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 6:20PM

As we mentioned earlier today, House Oversight's subpoenas for Bush and Cheney's interview records from DOJ Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry into the Valerie Plame leak case were rebuffed by the Justice Department.

Since then, we've obtained a copy of the letter dated June 24 that the Justice Department sent to Congress, declining to comply with the subpoena.

Their reasons? The ever-ready assertion of executive privilege because the write ups of the FBI interviews with White House officials during the Plame leak investigation contain accounts of of internal White House deliberations, including those involving how to respond to the fallout from the infamous 16 words on Niger yellowcake in the President's 2003 State of the Union address:

However, these reports also contain considerable information detailing the internal White House deliberations and communications of senior White House staff concerning how they should respond on behalf of the President to public assertions challenging the accuracy of a statement made in the President's State of the Union Address.

The DOJ was also concerned that by releasing their interview records with Bush and Cheney, they would create a disincentive for future voluntary interviews from the executive branch. . . despite the fact that it's all been done before. In 1999, the FBI surrendered interview records of former President Bill Clinton and former Vice-President Al Gore:

We are aware that in 1999 the Department made available to this Committee the FBI reports of interviews with President Clinton and Vice President Gore that were taken during the Department's campaign finance investigation. We consider that situation to be fundamentally different from the present situation. We understand that the intrusion on Executive Branch confidentiality interests was significantly less because the Clinton Administration interview reports presumably did not involve the substance of internal White House deliberations and communications concerning official White House business, but rather concerned campaign-fundraising political activities.

The full text of the letter, after the jump.

Read more »

Vic Kohring

Corrupt AK Politician Waves to Commuters Before Being Hauled Off to Fed. Pen.

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 2:02PM

Convicted former-State Rep. Vic Kohring didn't seem to be the least bit fazed that today is his last day of freedom for 3 and 1/2 years.

Before turning himself over to federal marshals, Kohring spent the morning standing next to a home-made sign on the Glenn Highway in Alaska, waving to pedestrians and sipping hot chocolate (picture at left):

He said he's not scared of going to prison, but has been Googling the Southern California facility he'll live in for up to 3 and a half years. He could rattle off the population of the nearby town and the high temperature last week (103 degrees).

Said he might write an autobiography while in jail, call it "Absolutely Innocent." Plans to read a lot. Write a lot of letters.

. . . He said he spent the weekend with his family, and has been doing things like stopping mail to his mail box and closing his bank account. Packing.

"It's almost like going away on a vacation. A .... Government sponsored vacation," he said.

Kohring was convicted in November 2007 and sentenced last month for accepting bribes to advocate a natural gas pipeline. His trial was central in bringing Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) into the VECO scandal, with the testimony of VECO CEO Bill Allen. Allen testified that he was blackmailed by his nephew, who was doing home renovations for Stevens, which were paid for in part by VECO.

[Late Update]: The ADN has obliged us with some great video from Kohring's roadside debacle and a heckler who stopped by to tell him to "give it up and go prison". . . which he does at the end of the clip. Enjoy.

Iraq

Buried RAND Report to Resurface Today

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 12:54PM

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Army quashed public release of a 2005 report by the RAND corporation, their federally-financed research arm, that came to some "sharp conclusions" about who was responsible for the myriad of shortcomings in Iraq.

According to the New York Times, that report will finally be released today:

In 2005, the RAND Corporation submitted a report to the Army, called "Rebuilding Iraq," that identified problems with virtually every government agency that played a role in planning the postwar phase. After a long delay, the report is scheduled to be made public on Monday.

The Times also describes the most recent study by the Army, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," the second volume of an ongoing history of the Iraq conflict.

Prepared from over 200 interviews conducted by military historians, the report attempts to avoid controversial elements of the conflict, often unsuccessfully:

[T]he study documents a number of problems that hampered the Army's ability to stabilize the country during Phase IV, as the postwar stage was called.

"The Army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the study noted. "The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place."

The study also discusses Gen. Tommy Frank's reorganizing of senior command in 2003, a move that served to further handicap the already paltry strategy for creating stability in Iraq:

A fundamental assumption that hobbled the military's planning was that Iraq's ministries and institutions would continue to function after Mr. Hussein's government was toppled.

"We had the wrong assumptions and therefore we had the wrong plan to put into play," said Gen. William S. Wallace, who led the V Corps during the invasion and currently leads the Army's Training and Doctrine Command.

Faced with a brewing insurgency and occupation duties that they had not anticipated, Army units were forced to adapt. But organizational decisions made in May and June 2003 complicated that task

House Oversight

DOJ to Oversight: DENIED

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 12:36PM

Two weeks ago, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee issued subpoenas for FBI paperwork regarding interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

And now the Justice Department has responded: Think again, Henry.

In the latest subpoena denial from the administration, Attorney General Mukasey informed the Committee that it will not be issuing documents to comply with the congressionally issued subpoena.

But Waxman is giving them one last chance. In a letter to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on Friday, he informed Fitzgerald that the DOJ has until July 3rd to release the requested documents.

Jim Gibbons

Gibbons: Romance Disappears With Childbirth

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 11:04AM

When Governor Jim Gibbons (R-NV) was photographed in a parking lot, arms around a female companion, his reply was that he was merely comforting a friend. "She was upset, crying," he told the Nevada Appeal, who published the pictures on Friday. "She couldn't catch her breath. I put my arms around her."

But earlier that same week, the Governor had given greater color to his relationship with the woman, a former Playboy model and ex-wife of a former Reno mayor, whose hand he held while she was giving birth. From the Las Vegas Sun:

"You know what, I've know Leslie for 20 plus years. In fact, Leslie is a wonderful dear friend and if they are implying there is anything romantic there, they are wrong.

"She is helping me get through a very troubling time in my life by being a friend. What troubles me is all these people speculating every time I bump into somebody that happens to be of the opposite sex. You can talk to Leslie, but I think she will tell you if (there's something that) takes the romance out of a friendship it's being there when her child is born. I held her hand when her child was born.

"That's how close a friend we are."

And now that the Governor has explained that nothing turns him off quite like childbirth, he'd like to get back to work, please:

Asked if this was romance, he replied, "Absolutely not."

"I put my arm around her shoulder. I was talking to her. I had to get close because I had to get over the noise of the crowd."

Asked about the photographs, he replied, "I think this is about my private life. I'm focusing on balancing the budget. I think this is such nonsense. The public wants to know what we're doing to preserve and protect the people of the state of Nevada."