TPMMuckraker Zachary Roth
Mark Sanford
Morning Joe Producer Offered "Friendly Place" For Sanford To Tell Story
Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 5:23PM
We've made it through all 570 pages of those emails sent from and to Mark Sanford's office in the period just before, during, and after his disappearance.
Earlier we highlighted how big name TV journalists like David Gregory, George Stephanopoulos, and John King aggressively wooed the South Carolina governor's press secretary in an effort to get the governor to come on their shows. But here are a few of the other interesting finds -- mostly press related -- from our search:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (20) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (32)Topics: Mark Sanford, Media, Sex
Leon Panetta
Congress To Probe Secret CIA Program
Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 3:31PM
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, who chairs the House Intelligence committee, has announced an investigation into the secret CIA program that Leon Panetta recently ended, and which Dick Cheney reportedly ordered kept secret from Congress.
From Reyes's statement:
After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, I am announcing an official Committee investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1974.This investigation will focus on the core issues of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed. To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during Director Panetta's June 24th notification and whether there was any official decision or direction to withold (sic) information from the Committee.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (17) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)
Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
Mark Sanford
NBC's Gregory to Sanford's Office: "Meet The Press Allows You To Frame The Conversation As You Really Want"
Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 2:29PM
The Charleston Post and Courier has posted online (pdf) all 570 pages of emails obtained from the office of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.
There's a bevy of information in there, but one exchange that jumped out at us was the one between Sanford's press secretary, Joel Sawyer (who just today announced he's quitting -- good for him!) and David Gregory, the host of NBC's Meet the Press. In courting Sanford's office, Gregory wrote that "coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation as you really want to."
Topics: Mark Sanford, Media, Sex
Financial Crisis
New Pecora Commission Looks Unlikely To Aggressively Probe Financial Mess
Zachary Roth | July 17, 2009, 9:12AM
Earlier this week, we told you over at TPMDC about the newly named members of what's being called the Pecora II commission, which has been given the crucial task of getting to the bottom of the financial crisis.
The stakes are high here. If we're ever to come to a full understanding of the causes of an episode that has created enormous pain, dislocation, and anxiety for a large number of Americans -- allowing us to craft policies to ensure it doesn't recur -- we need an effective commission. In other words, one that's capable of conducting an aggressive investigation that goes after the truth and lets the chips fall where they may, even if that means publicly calling out powerful Wall Street interests and lax Washington regulators. And not one that settles for making a few polite recommendations while protecting its political overseers -- as too many Washington commissions have done in the past.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (24) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (24)Topics: Financial Crisis, Lobbyists, Wall Street
John Ensign
Hampton Didn't Disclose Payment From Ensign's Parents As Gift
Zachary Roth | July 16, 2009, 12:34PM
More bad news for John Ensign -- and perhaps his former buddy Doug Hampton too?
The Las Vegas Sun has taken a look at the Senate disclosure form that Hampton filed when he left Ensign's office -- he says he and his wife Cindy were terminated -- in spring 2008.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (11) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (10)Topics: John Ensign, Sex
CIA
Report: CIA Assassin Program Could Operate Anywhere -- Even Inside U.S.
Zachary Roth | July 16, 2009, 11:31AM
Since the news broke (sub. req.) at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark?
We may have gotten a good piece of the answer here: The Washington Post reports today on how the program had been revived and then put on hold several times since 2001. But it also says, referring to the "presidential finding" with which President Bush authorized the program in 2001:
Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
Steve Rattner
Did Pay-To-Play Probe Cause Rattner's Resignation?
Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 2:34PM
So: is Steve Rattner stepping down as the Obama administration's car czar because of the investigation into whether his private-equity fund used pay-to-play tactics to win business from New York's public pension fund?
Probably.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)Topics: Andrew Cuomo, Securities and Exchange Commission, Steve Rattner, Wall Street
CIA
CIA Gets Extension Until Aug 24 On Torture Report
Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 12:31PM
The Obama administration's request to delay releasing a key report on torture has reportedly been granted.
According to Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent, a judge has said the CIA can have until August 24 to release the declassified version of a 2004 inspector general's report on the Bush administration's interrogations program. The report's release has already been delayed several times.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Topics: CIA, Torture
Mark Sanford
Tapper Responds: We Didn't Know About Sanford Affair When I Sent That Email*
Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 11:52AM
It looks like Jake Tapper doesn't feel like his network's response to the news that he sucked up to Mark Sanford's office by denigrating NBC's coverage of the missing gov story -- that Tapper was just "carrying some water" for a producer -- is quite sufficient.
This morning, Tapper has been tweeting further defenses of his catty email to a Sanford aide -- in which he called NBC's coverage "slimy" and "insulting."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (31) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)Topics: Mark Sanford, Media, Sex
Media
Tapper To Sanford Aide: NBC Spot On Missing Guv Was "Slimy" And "Insulting"
Zachary Roth | July 15, 2009, 9:10AM
But it looks like it wasn't just the acknowledged right-wingers who were denigrating the story to Sanford's aides. The State has written up a few more of the emails, and look what they found:
Topics: Mark Sanford, Media, Sex
AIPAC
Lanny Davis Now Lobbying In Support Of Honduran Coup
Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 4:46PM
It seems like just yesterday that Lanny Davis was making the rounds of every news outlet that would have him, talking up Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House -- and/or pushing the Reverend Wright story.
Not too long after, the former Clinton White House counsel popped up to do damage control for hawkish Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman over the AIPAC leak story.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (34) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)Topics: AIPAC, Hillary Clinton, Jane Harman, Lanny Davis, Lobbyists
Justice Department
Only Yoo: Report Details Bush White House Use Of Hand-Picked DOJ Lawyer To Justify Warrantless Wiretapping
Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 4:03PM
The fact that John Yoo was the only Justice Department OLC official who was "read into" the surveillance program -- even though he wasn't the head of OLC at the time -- has already been noted by others looking through the inspectors general report on the program released last week.
But one excerpt from the report is worth paying particular attention to, since it underlines the special role that Yoo came to play on the White House's behalf.
Topics: Dick Cheney, Jay Bybee, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, Justice Department, Wiretapping
Mark Sanford
Great Call: In Emails To Sanford's Office, Right-Wing Media Dismissed Missing Gov Story
Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 12:24PM
The State newspaper of South Carolina has used a public records request to obtain emails sent to and from Governor Mark Sanford's office during the hectic few days last month when he had gone missing. It's not surprising that the emails underline the utter confusion that beset the governor's hapless aides as they tried to ward off inquiries about their boss's whereabouts, without themselves having any idea where he was.
But they also show something even funnier: an effort by the right-wing media to curry favor with Sanford's office by dismissing the story as a storm in a teacup created by the liberal media. It's fair to say that, as news judgments go, it would be hard to find one that turned out worse than this -- given the subsequent revelations about Sanford's Argentinian liaison and his abandonment of his post.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (36) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (49)Topics: Mark Sanford, Media, Sex
John Ensign
WaPo Wants Senate And FEC To Probe Ensign Scandal
Zachary Roth | July 13, 2009, 5:30PM
The drip-drip of the John Ensign sex scandal continues...
Today the Washington Post editorial board calls, in its well-mannered way, for investigations by the Senate Ethnics committee and the Federal Election Committee into the payments, totaling $96,000, that, according to a statement from Ensign's lawyer, were made last year by the Nevada senator's parents to the Hampton family.
Topics: FEC, Fred Hiatt, John Ensign, Senate Ethics Committee, Sex
CIA
CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda
Zachary Roth | July 13, 2009, 3:57PM
Earlier today, we raised a few questions about the notion that the secret CIA program that Dick Cheney reportedly withheld from Congress concerned an effort to kill or capture al Qaeda leaders. And now a top counter-terror expert is doing the same.
Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (69) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (39)Topics: CIA, Defense Department, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta
Barack Obama
Holder May Investigate Torture -- But Several Probes Are Already Underway
Zachary Roth | July 13, 2009, 2:34PM
The pendulum appears to have swung back in the other direction on the issue of criminal investigations into Bush-era torture. It had looked for a while like President Obama's stated desire to look forward not back had carried the day. But now it appears that Attorney General Eric Holder -- independent of his boss's political concerns, which is how things should work -- is leaning back towards initiating a probe. The news was first reported over the weekend by Newsweek, then picked up today by the New York Times and Washington Post.
But whatever Holder ultimately decides, there are already several ongoing government efforts to investigate torture, which figure to substantially fill out our still patchwork understanding of the issue. So as we wait for official word from the Justice Department on a criminal inquiry, it's worth being clear about what those efforts are, and how they relate to each other.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, CIA Tapes, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
Dick Cheney
New Info Brings More Questions On Secret CIA Program
Zachary Roth | July 13, 2009, 12:13PM
We've gotten some more information in recent days about that secret CIA program that the agency withheld key information from Congress about, and that CIA director Leon Panetta promptly shut down when he learned about it last month. But the new reports only raise more questions.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the CIA withheld information about the secret program "on direct orders" from then-Vice President Dick Cheney. The Times did not identify the program, but noted that, according to intelligence and congressional officials, it involved neither the CIA's interrogation program nor its domestic intelligence (e.g. warrantless wiretapping and surveillance) activities.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (38) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
Follow us!
Most Popular
TPM Stories Now Surging on Digg.com
TPM Top News
© 2010 TPM Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
