-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 26, 2007 10:51:19 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Number One Priority in Bush's "Justice" Department:
OBSTRUCTING Justice
Why did the Tom DeLay investigation stop?
by: Texas Nate
Thu Mar 22, 2007 at 14:07:34 PM CST
http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3131
In the fall of 2005 dominos were falling fast in the Jack Abramoff
investigation. And they were falling in one very clear direction,
closer and closer to Tom DeLay.
First DeLay's former communications director fell:
On November 21st, 2005, Michael Scanlon, Jack Abramoff's partner in
the Indian fraud and bribery schemes, pled guilty to Conspiracy to
Defraud the United States.
Then DeLay's former deputy chief of staff fell:
Tony Rudy pled guilty March 31st, 2006 to one count of Conspiracy.
He was a former aide to Tom DeLay, a colleague of Jack Abramoff's
and then a lobbyist at Alexander Strategy Group. He was named
("Staffer A") as a coconspirator in Abramoff's plea
The charge carries a maximum of five years, but because of Rudy's
cooperation, prosecutors will recommend a sentencing range between
two years and two years, six months. Rudy will pay at least
$250,000 in restitution.
And it looked like the former Chief of Staff was next:
Ed Buckham, one-time chief of staff to Tom DeLay and later Chairman
of the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group, appeared in Tony
Rudy's guilty plea as "Lobbyist B."
According to the plea, Buckham helped in routing $50,000 in
payments to Rudy's wife's consulting firm - the money was to bribe
Rudy for his help defeating a bill on behalf of Jack Abramoff's
client.
The plea also states that Rudy worked to bring other congressional
aides on a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in part to
benefit Buckham. The CNMI was a client of Abramoff's, but he seems
to have shared the CNMI with Buckham.
In January 2006 Buckham shut down his business. In June 2006 the
Washington Post revealed this choice nugget:
A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s
for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed
thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work
for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and
DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.
The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's
family received from entities at least partly controlled by
lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to
what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family
received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total
over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.
Since then.....nothing. No Buckham plea. No indictments.
Nothing.....was a U.S. Attorney fired to prevent the investigation
from continuing to inexorably close in on Tom DeLay?
Nope. But something very fishy did indeed take place. The lead
investigator was given a Federal Judgeship, a new division chief
with connections to the GOP machine was appointed (AND REPORTEDLY,
TO THE DELAY DEFENSE TEAM ITSELF) and presto...no more momentum in
the investigation.
Only trial attorney Martin Garbus spoke up at the time, in two the
Huffington Post. First:
President George W. Bush has not made many moves more unethical
than offering Noel L. Hillman, the Abramoff prosecutor, a federal
judgeship. Hillman has apparently been talking with Bush's
representatives since last year, and on last Thursday, he publicly
announced he was accepting the appointment.
Let me make this perfectly clear.
At the same time that Mr. Hillman was conducting a grand jury and
submitting evidence aimed at Bush's allies and perhaps Bush
himself, he was meeting with Bush, who was, in effect, offering him
a bribe.
Mr. Hillman, Bush is saying, leave the job, let me put someone else
in your stead, someone I want. Forget, says Mr. Bush, that you have
been in charge of the investigation for two years, that you have
been involved on a day-to-day basis, and that your leaving
seriously impedes the investigation.
...
I do not personally know Mr. Hillman. Thus far, his public actions
seem to warrant only applause. But Hillman's boss is Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales. Neither has said a word about the offer
and its acceptance. The public is entitled to know more.
But Bush is getting away with it. There's been very little press
coverage. Alito, Hamas, Iraq, and Oprah Winfrey have buried the story.
The Democrats should insist on the appointment of a special
prosecutor to fill Mr. Hillman's position. Attorney General
Gonzales should not be permitted to designate Hillman's successor.
This, unlike the botched up Alito hearings, is a war we can win. We
should not let Bush appoint his own person, someone like Harriet
Miers, Samuel Alito, or the man Bush's father said was the best
person qualified for a Supreme Court seat, Clarence Thomas.
And second he outlined the deal with Democrats that got Hillman his
ill-gotten bench seat:
We now know there was a political deal between the Bush
Administration and New Jersey Democrats to get rid of the Abramoff
prosecutor, Noel Hillman, by offering him a federal judgeship in
New Jersey.
It's a deal that had been in the making for over a year.
It came about this way. The Democrats wanted Magistrate Federal
Judge Susan [Wigenton] to be a federal judge. The Bush
Administration said no.
We also know that in 2002 Bush got rid of a prosecutor. U.S.
Attorney Black, who was about to indict Abramoff in Guam. That
indictment also related to Abramoff's purchasing of influence. It's
the modus operandi of this administration. Bush got rid of him, put
in his own man, and the Abramoff prosecution ended.
This year the Bush Administration agreed to give the Democrats who
they wanted in exchange for the Democrats agreeing to remove the
Abramoff prosecutor. Wingenton got her appointment; the Democrats
agreed to the removal of Noel Hillman, and he accepted a judgeship.
Next we'll look at where the investigation has gone since Hillman
was replaced. Hint: it's a long road to nowhere. If you can't wait,
jump ahead to this Legal Times piece.
------------------------
Posted on Fri, Mar. 23, 2007
New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records
By Greg Gordon, Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16962753.htm?
template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
WASHINGTON - Under President Bush, the Justice Department has
backed laws that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S.
attorneys to investigate voter fraud - policies that critics say
have been intended to suppress Democratic votes.
Bush, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, and other Republican
political advisers have highlighted voting rights issues and what
Rove has called the "growing problem" of election fraud by
Democrats since Bush took power in the tumultuous election of 2000,
a race ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at
least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice
Department's civil rights division when it was rolling back
longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting
predominantly poor, minority voters.
Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock,
Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress
Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election
while he was a research director for the Republican National
Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the four U.S.
attorneys weren't chosen only because of their backgrounds in
election issues, but "we would expect any U.S. attorney to
prosecute voting fraud."
Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys,
the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department
voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may
have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political
purposes.
The Bush administration's emphasis on voter fraud is drawing
scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun
investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say
that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush
administration's dissatisfaction with their investigations of
alleged Democratic voter fraud.
Bush has said he's heard complaints from Republicans about some
U.S. attorneys' "lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud
cases," and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other
White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in
selecting a Rove aide to replace one of the U.S. attorneys.
Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators
to question Rove and others under oath.
Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were
planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the
Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states
that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has
appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida,
Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada
and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those
fired.
Rove thanked the audience for "all that you are doing in those hot
spots around the country to ensure that the integrity of the ballot
is protected." He added, "A lot in American politics is up for grabs."
The department's civil rights division, for example, supported a
Georgia voter identification law that a court later said
discriminated against poor, minority voters. It also declined to
oppose an unusual Texas redistricting plan that helped expand the
Republican majority in the House of Representatives. That plan was
partially reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Frank DiMarino, a former federal prosecutor who served six U.S.
attorneys in Florida and Georgia during an 18-year Justice
Department career, said that too much emphasis on voter fraud
investigations "smacks of trying to use prosecutorial power to
investigate and potentially indict political enemies."
Several former voting rights lawyers, who asked to remain anonymous
for fear of antagonizing the administration, said the division's
political appointees reversed the recommendations of career lawyers
in key cases and transferred or drove out most of the unit's
veteran attorneys.
Bradley Schlozman, who was the civil rights division's deputy
chief, agreed in 2005 to reverse the career staff's recommendations
to challenge a Georgia law that would have required voters to pay
$20 for photo IDs and in some cases travel as far as 30 miles to
obtain the ID card.
A federal judge threw out the Georgia law, calling it an
unconstitutional, Jim Crow-era poll tax.
In an interview, Schlozman, who was named interim U.S. attorney in
Kansas City in November 2005, said he merely affirmed a
subordinate's decision to overturn the career staff's recommendations.
He said it was "absolutely not true" that he drove out career
lawyers. "What I tried to do was to depoliticize the hiring
process," Schlozman said. "We hired people across the political
spectrum."
Former voting rights section chief Joseph Rich, however, said
longtime career lawyers whose views differed from those of
political appointees were routinely "reassigned or stripped of
major responsibilities."
In testimony to a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing this week,
Rich said that 20 of the 35 attorneys in the voting rights section
have been transferred to other jobs or have left their jobs since
April 2005 and a staff of 26 civil rights analysts who reviewed
state laws for discrimination has been slashed to 10.
He said he has yet to see evidence of voter fraud on a scale that
warrants voter ID laws, which he said are "without exception ...
supported and pushed by Republicans and objected to by Democrats. I
believe it is clear that this kind of law tends to suppress the
vote of lower-income and minority voters."
Other former voting-rights section lawyers said that during the
tenure of Alex Acosta, who served as the division chief from the
fall of 2003 until he was named interim U.S. attorney in Miami in
the summer of 2005, the department didn't file a single suit
alleging that local or state laws or election rules diluted the
votes of African-Americans. In a similar time period, the Clinton
administration filed six such cases.
Those kinds of cases, Rich said, are "the guts of the Voting Rights
Act."
During this week's House judiciary subcommittee hearing, critics
recounted lapses in the division's enforcement. A Citizens
Commission on Civil Rights study found that "the enforcement record
of the voting section during the Bush administration indicates this
traditional priority has been downgraded significantly, if not
effectively ignored."
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who chaired the hearing, said, "The
more stringent requirements you put on voting in order to get rid
of alleged voter fraud, the more you're cutting down on legitimate
people voting."
Acosta, the first Hispanic to head the civil rights division, said
he emphasized helping non-English speaking voters cast ballots. In
2005, he told a House committee that he made an unprecedented
effort to monitor balloting in 2004 to watch for discrimination
against minorities.
Justice spokesman Roehrkasse said Acosta "has an impressive legal
background, including extensive experience in government and the
private sector" and as a federal appeals court clerk.
A third former civil rights division employee, Matt Dummermuth, 33,
was nominated to be U.S. attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last
December. Before his appointment, he was counsel to the assistant
attorney general for civil rights. He was a special assistant to
the civil rights chief from 2002 to 2004.
Details of his involvement in reviewing voter rights couldn't be
determined, and Dummermuth, a Harvard Law School graduate, didn't
return calls seeking comment.
Bush administration officials have said that no single reason led
to the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys. But two of those who
were forced to resign said they thought they might have been
punished for failing to prosecute Democrats prior to the 2006
congressional elections or for not vigorously pursuing Republican
allegations of voter irregularities in Washington state and New
Mexico.
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico has said he
thought that "the voter fraud issue was the foundation" for his
firing and that complaints about his failure to pursue corruption
matters involving Democrats were "the icing on the cake."
John McKay, the ousted U.S. attorney for western Washington state,
looked into allegations of voter fraud against Democrats during the
hotly contested governor's race in 2004. He said that later, when
top Bush aides interviewed him for a federal judgeship, he was
asked to respond to criticism of his inquiry in which no charges
were brought. He didn't get the judgeship.
Rove talked about the Northwest region in his speech last spring to
the Republican lawyers and voiced concern about the trend toward
mail-in ballots and online voting. He also questioned the
legitimacy of voter rolls in Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
One audience member asked Rove whether he'd "thought about using
the bully pulpit of the White House to talk about election reform
and an election integrity agenda that would put the Democrats back
on the defensive."
"Yes, it's an interesting idea," Rove responded.
Despite the GOP concerns, Bud Cummins, the Republican-appointed
U.S. attorney in Arkansas who was fired, said he had "serious
doubts" that any U.S. attorney was failing to aggressively pursue
voter fraud.
"What they're responding to is party chairmen and activists who
from the beginning of time go around paranoid that the other party
is stealing the election," Cummins said. "It sounds like to me that
they were merely responding to a lot of general carping from the
party, who had higher expectations once the Republican appointees
filled these posts that there would be a lot of voting fraud
investigations. Their expectations were unrealistic."
Griffin, the interim U.S. attorney in Arkansas who's replaced
Cummins, was a Rove protege and a former Republican National
Committee research director. He was accused of being part of an
attempt to wipe likely Democratic voters off the rolls in Florida
in 2004 if they were homeless or military personnel.
Griffin couldn't be reached for comment.
Ed Gillespie, then the RNC chairman, said the Republican Party was
following election laws and trying to investigate voter fraud by
sending out mailers to addresses of registered voters. If the
notices came back, he said, the names were entered into a database
and checked to see if the voters were listing actual residences.
"The Republican National Committee does not engage in voter
suppression," he said. "The fact that someone was trying to prevent
voter fraud should not disqualify someone from being U.S. attorney."
McClatchy Newspapers correspondents Tish Wells and Ron Hutcheson
contributed to this report.
© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources. All
Rights Reserved.
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