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Zachary Roth

House Dems Question Prosecutor's Independence in U.S. Attorney Probe

Zachary Roth | October 3, 2008, 3:28PM

Democrats are already expressing concern about the independence of the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to look into whether DOJ or White House officials broke the law in firing a group of U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) said that the fact that the prosecutor -- Nora Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut -- is a DOJ employee, could allow the department to interfere with her probe.

Sanchez was speaking at a hearing where DOJ's Inspector General, Glenn Fine testified. It was Fine's report into the firings, released Monday, that prompted Mukasey to appoint Dannehy.

Fine did not offer a ringing endorsement of Dannehy's independence. When Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) asked Fine whether the attorney general could over-rule her, Fine replied: "I will have to leave that for another day."

Sanchez also expressed the fear that Dannehy's findings could remain secret, since she is not formally required to issue a public report.

In addition, lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee, which has been conducting its own investigation into the matter, yesterday wrote to Mukasey and White House counsel Fred Fielding, asking whether they would cooperate with Dannehy's investigation. The Inspector General's report made clear that it was prevented from drawing firmer conclusions by a lack of cooperation from the White House, and, to a lesser extent, the Justice Department.

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Topics: Glenn Fine, Michael Mukasey, U.S. Attorneys

Alaska

GOP Suit To Halt Trooper-Gate Probe Dismissed

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2008, 9:12PM

An Alaska judge dismissed a suit brought by state GOP legislators that aimed to stop the Trooper-Gate investigation.

Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski wrote in his decision that "it is legitimately within the scope of the legislature's investigatory power to inquire into the circumstances of surrounding the termination of a public officer the legislature had previously confirmed."

The Republican lawmakers had argued that the probe had been inappropriately politicized by the Democrats overseeing it, and that the legislature did not have the authority to pursue the investigation.

According to Peter Maassen, an attorney representing the Democratic lawmakers who were named as defendants in the case, lawyers for the plaintiffs appeared to be creating a transcript of the proceedings, suggesting an intention to be appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

But for now at least, the probe can continue. Independent investigator Steve Branchflower is scheduled to deliver a report on his findings around October 11.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (25) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (23)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Voting

Flyers Aim To Keep Black Philadelphians From Polls

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2008, 7:32PM

Another election year, another apparent example of shady, under-handed efforts to discourage black people from voting.

The Philadelphia Daily News reported today that flyers have been making the rounds in some of the city's African-American neighborhoods, falsely claiming that voters who face outstanding arrest warrants and even unpaid parking tickets may be arrested at the polls.

The flyers could prove particularly effective at scaring people away from voting, because they attribute the falsehood to "an Obama supporter." They begin:

Recently, at school, an Obama supporter approached me during a rock the vote assembly. He informed me that on the day of the election there will be undercover officers to execute warrants on those who come to vote based on the anticipated turnout. He advised me if I had any outstanding warrants or traffic offenses I should clear them up prior to voting.

It is unclear who's behind the flyers, which are signed "anonymous". The mayor's office became aware of them last week, and has passed them on to the offices of the District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney. It also plans to record a public-service announcement for broadcast, to help get out the word that the flyers are bogus.

"We're watching, we're being very vigilant," Everett Gillison, the city's deputy mayor for public safety, told TPMmuckraker. "We're not gonna let anybody intimidate anybody into not voting."

Democrats, of course, are counting on a large African-American turnout in Philadelphia this November to help Barack Obama carry Pennsylvania, a key swing state.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (14)
Topics: Voting

Voting

Montana GOP Challenges Thousands of Voters in Blue Counties

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2008, 4:22PM

Montana Republicans appear to be pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book to keep Democrats away from the polls this November.

The state party is challenging the eligibility of 6000 registered voters -- or almost one percent of registered voters in the state -- claiming that these voters are registered under incorrect addresses, reports the Missoulian. And many of the counties in which the challenges are occurring represent pockets of Democratic strength in the largely red state.

The state GOP appears to have gone to some lengths to actively identify these voters. It obtained a commercial software system used by direct marketers that contains a nationwide list of people who have changed their addresses. Then it compared that list to a new statewide voter database, in order to find people who are living somewhere other than where they're registered to vote. It says it then issued challenges with election officials against these people.

But the challenges were made in only seven counties, most of which turned out to be Democratic-leaning. In 2004, only six of Montana's 56 counties voted for John Kerry over George Bush. Four of those counties are among the seven in which the GOP is challenging voters.

As a pretext for the move, Jacob Eaton, the state party's executive director, cited recent comments by Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer. In July, Schweitzer told a meeting of trial lawyers that he helped "turn some dials" to get fellow Democrat Jon Tester elected to the Senate in 2006, saying that he helped remove GOP poll-watchers from Indian reservations, and pressed the Associated Press to call the race for Tester. Schweitzer has since said his comments were intended to be humorous. But Eaton told the Missoulian that the remarks "brought everyone in the state to a new level of suspicion and awareness of the integrity of our elections."

The stakes could be high. Polls over the summer showed Barack Obama running close with John McCain in the presidential race -- though recently McCain appears to have widened his lead.

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Topics: Voting

Alaska

Ruling Expected Today on GOP Bid to Halt Trooper-Gate Probe

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2008, 9:21AM

A judge may rule today on the effort by five Alaska Republican lawmakers to stop the Trooper-Gate investigation, reports the Anchorage Daily News.

The lawmakers, who are being aided by a conservative law firm affiliated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, filed suit in mid September, arguing that the probe has been "tainted" by partisan politics. In a court filing, reports the ADN, a lawyer for the legislators overseeing the investigation asserted that the GOP lawmakers are "engaged in one of the most bizarre challenges to Alaska's separation of powers doctrine in the history of the state."

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski may also rule on the effort by state Attorney General Talis Colberg, a Palin appointee, to have subpoenas issued to witnesses by the investigative committee thrown out. Several top Palin aides, as well as Todd Palin, have refused to comply with the subpoenas and face possible jail time.

Steve Branchflower, the independent investigator hired by the legislature, is still expected to release his report -- which will center on allegations that Palin fired Walt Monegan, the state's former public safety commissioner, because he was unwilling to fire a trooper with whom the Palin family was embroiled in a bitter dispute -- around October 11th. Palin had initially welcomed the investigation, saying she had nothing to hide. But since being picked as John McCain's running mate, she has refused to cooperate.

We'll keep you posted on word from Alaska...

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, Trooper-Gate

Harriet Miers

Report Shows White House Engineered U.S. Attorney Firings

Zachary Roth | October 1, 2008, 4:28PM

Now that the dust has settled on the U.S. attorney firings report, released Monday morning by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, we thought it was worth taking some time to lay out what it tells us.

Almost since the scandal broke early last year, there have been clear signs that the plan to fire U.S. attorneys as a means of advancing the Bush administration's political goals was being driven by the White House. That impression has been strengthened as top current and former White House officials, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, have consistently stonewalled efforts to look into the matter.

The OIG investigation was no exception. As the report notes, Miers, Rove and several other Whte House officials refused to talk to investigators, and the White House wouldn't provide internal emails or documents relating to the firings. Perhaps the most crucial of the documents denied to OIG was a memo, written in March 2007, which contained the results of an internal White House investigation into the firings, conducted by associate White House counsel Michael Scudder. Scudder had interviewed top DOJ and White House officials, including Rove, and had compiled a timeline that "appeared to contain information we had not obtained elsewhere in our investigation," according to the OIG report.

Still, a close examination of the report makes clear that, although on a day-to-day basis the plan was put into effect by mid-level DOJ political appointees -- enabled by a shocking lack of oversight from top department officials, principally former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- the impetus for the move came straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many of the individual pieces of information have been previously reported, as DOJ provided emails and internal documents to Congress for its 2007 investigation. But the OIG report provides a far clearer sense of the longer-term trajectory of the plan, and the consistent interest in it from Miers and Rove, than we've yet been offered.

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Topics: Bud Cummins, DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, David Iglesias, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys

Senators React to Report on U.S. Attorney Firings

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2008, 6:01PM

While the House is consumed by the failure to pass the bailout bill, several senators on the Judiciary Committee have had a chance to respond to the DOJ report on the U.S. attorney firings, released this morning. Here's a rundown on what some of them have said:

Judiciary chair Pat Leahy (D-VT) said in a statement: "This report might have told us even more if the investigation had not been impeded by the Bush administration's refusal to cooperate and provide documents and witnesses, just as they remain in contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the Judiciary Committee's investigation," Leahy said. "In this debacle as in others, the Bush administration's self-serving secrecy has shrouded many of their most controversial policies -- from torture, to investigating the causes of 9/11, to wiretapping."

Leahy also said he intended to look into former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony to Congress about the firings, for evidence of possible perjury. And he warned that if President Bush chose to pardon anyone ultimately convicted of a crime in connection with the firings, such a move would be seen by the nation as an admission of wrongdoing.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking minority member on the committee told reporters that there's no indication that the White House is planning such pardons, but said he'd be quick to push back if it did.

At a press conference, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former U.S. attorney himself, questioned the effectiveness of the investigation to be led by federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy. He said that it's unclear whether Dannehy will have the power to subpoena White House officials, and whether her probe would focus narrowly on the question of whether a crime was committed by Gonzales and his deputies, rather than being able to look at a possible cover-up by the administration. Whitehouse asserted: "There is a cover-up, and it continues."

Whitehouse also singled out Mukasey for blame, noting that the DOJ's own Office of Legal Counsel has not cooperated with the report. "If he's willing to accept a White House cover-up, if he's willing to accept the inspector general being hindered, then we, I think, should have further questions of the attorney general," Whitehouse said.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) , who received an anonymous tip in January 2007 that led to the investigation, wrote in a press release: "The Inspector General report released today confirms our worst fears, and makes it clear that this was a scandal that went to the highest levels of the Department of the Justice, and that the role of the White House was in fact prominent."

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Topics: DOJ Office Of The Inspector General, Office Of Special Counsel, U.S. Attorneys

David Iglesias

Iglesias: Information on My Firing "Is Going To Have To Be Forced Out Of The Administration."

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2008, 2:16PM

David Iglesias, the former US attorney whose dismissal was deemed the "most troubling" in today's IG report, says he still wants to see the full range of evidence about the White House's possible role in the firing. That includes all relevant emails and notes from meetings -- information the White House held back from the IG's investigators.

"That's the critical bit of information that we don't have right now," Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. He added: "I suspect that the information is going to have to be forced out of the administration."

Still, the former U.S. attorney said he feels vindicated by the report's conclusion that he was removed not because of managerial deficiencies but thanks to political pressure from the office of GOP senator Pete Domenici and New Mexico Republican activists. That conclusion "is consistent with what I've been saying all along," he said.

Iglesias stressed that he was heartened by the Justice Department's appointment of a prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, in the case. "I"m glad that DOJ is taking this seriously," he said.

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Topics: David Iglesias, Justice Department, U.S. Attorneys

Dusty Foggo

Foggo Pleads Guilty in CIA Bribery Case

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2008, 12:43PM

The Duke Cunningham case continues to bear fruit.

Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, formerly third from the top at the CIA, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud, admitting that he helped his old friend Brent Wilkes obtain CIA contracts at inflated prices.

Cunningham, the now-jailed former California GOP Congressman, had also admitted to taking bribes from Wilkes.

Though Foggo faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, prosecutors agreed that they will seek no more than three.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)
Topics: Brent Wilkes, CIA, Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo

David Iglesias

White House, DOJ, Domenici Stonewalled IG On Iglesias Firing

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2008, 11:43AM

The just-released IG report on the US attorney firings lists the removal of David Iglesias as the "most troubling" of the eight. But it notes that thanks to stonewalling by the White House, DOJ officials, and the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, investigators didn't have access to the complete range of information on the reasons for the firing.

The report concludes that Iglesias was removed as a result of complaints brought to DOJ by New Mexico GOP members of Congress and party activists, and shows that Karl Rove knew in advance of the decision. It reveals that at a meeting on November 15, 2006, Rep. Heather Wilson told Rove: "Mr. Rove, for what it's worth, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico is a waste of breath." Rove's response: ""That decision has already been made. He's gone."

But it states that IG investigators were unable to determine how Rove knew this (Iglesias wasn't notifed until December 7), and what his possible role in the decision was, because Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Similarly, it notes that Kyle Sampson, who as chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales took the lead in bringing about the firings, gave "misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the list." The report concludes: "[W]e question whether Sampson provided us the full story about Iglesias's placement on the list, as well as the reasons for other U.S. Attorney removals."

And: "Our investigation was also hindered by the refusal of Senator Domenici and his Chief of Staff to agree to an interview by us." (In April, Domenici, who is retiring this year, received a "qualified admonition" from the Senate ethics committee for his role in the firing.)

Looks like the across-the-board effort to withhold information from the IG investigators was perhaps at its most intense in regard to the Iglesias firing.