From TPM Muckraker:
"Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell [on State Department Official Allen Stayman] after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff....
"Besides the Stayman matter, the e-mails reveal Mehlman's role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary. Mehlman also helped Abramoff obtain a White House endorsement in 2002 of the Republican gubernatorial ticket in the U.S. territory of Guam....
"The senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, points to e-mails suggesting that in June 2001, amid negotiations over whether to fire Stayman, Mehlman requested and might have been given two U2 concert tickets in Abramoff's suite at what was then the MCI Center (now the Verizon Center)." (LA Times)
Foley Ethics Probe to Enter Its Second Week
"With the House page scandal weighing on GOP candidates, an ethics committee investigation will enter its second full week with many important figures still to be interviewed....
"[Top] GOP leaders, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert [R-IL] and Majority Leader John Boehner [R-OH] have yet to testify. Nor have senior Hastert aides who dealt last fall with [former Rep. Mark] Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a former page but claim they never told their boss." (AP)
Police Find No Report of Foley Dorm Incident
"U.S. Capitol Police said yesterday that they have no record of an alleged incident in which then-Rep. Mark Foley [R-FL] supposedly tried to enter a Capitol Hill dormitory for teenage pages.
"The purported nighttime incident has been cited by lawmakers and a key witness in the scandal that involves Foley's interactions with congressional pages and the House's handling of the matter. Unlike sexually graphic electronic messages that Foley sent to teenage boys, evidence of the alleged dorm incident has proved elusive." (WaPo)
Kolbe Camping Trip Being Investigated
"Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation into a camping trip that an Arizona lawmaker took with two former pages and others in 1996, according to a law enforcement official.
"Rep. Jim Kolbe [R-AZ] took the former pages as well as staff members and National Park Service officials on a Fourth of July rafting trip in the Grand Canyon in 1996, his spokeswoman Korenna Cline said Friday." (AP)
Candidates Taking Aim at Lobbyists
"In close contests from Connecticut to California, Republicans and Democrats are attacking each other for getting too close to "special interests" and lobbyists. The accusation, a longtime election staple, is carrying greater heft than usual, election experts agree, thanks to the guilty plea of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in January and the recent e-mail scandal of former representative Mark Foley [R-FL]...
More Here
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired
E-mails show Jack Abramoff's ability to influence White House staffing decisions through his highly placed friends.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
October 15, 2006
WASHINGTON — For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.
Now he knows.
Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.
The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.
"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.
The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.
The e-mails, disclosed as part of a report by the House Government Reform Committee, show how Abramoff manipulated the system through officials such as Mehlman, now the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Doing so, Abramoff directed government appointments, influenced policy decisions and won White House endorsements for political candidates — all in the service of his clients.
The report found more than 400 lobbying contacts between Abramoff's team and the White House.
Besides the Stayman matter, the e-mails reveal Mehlman's role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary. Mehlman also helped Abramoff obtain a White House endorsement in 2002 of the Republican gubernatorial ticket in the U.S. territory of Guam.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to federal charges in a congressional bribery investigation that continues to loom over Capitol Hill and the GOP. A Senate subcommittee concluded that Abramoff fleeced Indian tribes out of millions of dollars in fees that he split with one of his associates.
The scandal has touched just one West Wing staffer, Susan Ralston, a onetime Abramoff aide who resigned this month as executive assistant to strategist Karl Rove after congressional investigators documented frequent contact with the lobbyist's team.
Mehlman said he did not recall the details of his contacts with the Abramoff team, including discussions about Stayman, the former State Department official. But he said such interactions were part of his job as White House political director.
"I was a gateway," Mehlman said in an interview. "It was my job to talk to political supporters, to hear their requests, and hand them on to policymakers."
Mehlman said he had known Abramoff since the mid-1990s and would listen to his requests along with those of other influential Republicans.
"I know Jack," Mehlman said. "I certainly recall that if he and others wanted to meet I would have met with them, as I would have met with lots of people."
Mehlman, a Baltimore native and graduate of Harvard Law School, has remained a GOP power player since stepping down as political director in 2003. He built the party's grass-roots get-out-the-vote strategy, managing President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign before taking over the RNC last year.
Read more here
Now Mehlman is on the Abramoff hot seat!
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
October 15, 2006
WASHINGTON — For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.
Now he knows.
Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.
The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.
"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.
The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.
The e-mails, disclosed as part of a report by the House Government Reform Committee, show how Abramoff manipulated the system through officials such as Mehlman, now the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Doing so, Abramoff directed government appointments, influenced policy decisions and won White House endorsements for political candidates — all in the service of his clients.
The report found more than 400 lobbying contacts between Abramoff's team and the White House.
Besides the Stayman matter, the e-mails reveal Mehlman's role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary. Mehlman also helped Abramoff obtain a White House endorsement in 2002 of the Republican gubernatorial ticket in the U.S. territory of Guam.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to federal charges in a congressional bribery investigation that continues to loom over Capitol Hill and the GOP. A Senate subcommittee concluded that Abramoff fleeced Indian tribes out of millions of dollars in fees that he split with one of his associates.
The scandal has touched just one West Wing staffer, Susan Ralston, a onetime Abramoff aide who resigned this month as executive assistant to strategist Karl Rove after congressional investigators documented frequent contact with the lobbyist's team.
Mehlman said he did not recall the details of his contacts with the Abramoff team, including discussions about Stayman, the former State Department official. But he said such interactions were part of his job as White House political director.
"I was a gateway," Mehlman said in an interview. "It was my job to talk to political supporters, to hear their requests, and hand them on to policymakers."
Mehlman said he had known Abramoff since the mid-1990s and would listen to his requests along with those of other influential Republicans.
"I know Jack," Mehlman said. "I certainly recall that if he and others wanted to meet I would have met with them, as I would have met with lots of people."
Mehlman, a Baltimore native and graduate of Harvard Law School, has remained a GOP power player since stepping down as political director in 2003. He built the party's grass-roots get-out-the-vote strategy, managing President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign before taking over the RNC last year.
Read more here
Now Mehlman is on the Abramoff hot seat!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Rep. Ney pleads guilty; GOP vows ouster
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago
Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in an election-year scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.
Standing before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. He acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.
Ney did not immediately resign from Congress, and within minutes, Republican and Democratic leaders vowed to expel him unless he steps down. The White House also called for Ney's resignation.
Beleaguered GOP leaders, struggling to overcome fallout from a separate scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) and teenage male pages, said they would make Ney's ouster the "first order of business" in a postelection session.
"I never intended my career in public service to end this way, and I am ashamed it did," Ney said in a written statement issued moments after his plea.
The 52-year-old lawmaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Huvelle said prosecutors had agreed to recommend a term of 27 months, and said federal guidelines suggest a fine of between $5,000 and $60,000.
Ney did not resign his seat. Several officials have said the congressman is financially strapped and needs his $165,200 annual paycheck and benefits as long as he can continue to receive them.
Ney's lawyer, Mark Touhey, told the judge he would resign before sentencing on Jan. 19. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders said he would be gone far more quickly than that.
"It is long past time for a new direction that restores integrity and civility to the House," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), the Democratic leader.
Ney is the latest in a string of once-influential men convicted in a scandal that so far has caught several lobbyists and two members of the Bush administration.
Abramoff, the Republican super-lobbyist, admitted guilt in January after secretly cooperating with prosecutors for weeks.
Two former aides to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, have also pleaded guilty, as has Ney's former chief of staff.
Additionally, Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty in August to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff.
And former White House official David Safavian, who had been the Bush administration's top procurement official, was convicted of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. He is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 27.
Ney confessed his wrongdoing in a federal courthouse a few blocks distant from the Capitol, where until recently he wielded a chairman's gavel.
The first charge accused Ney of conspiring to commit "honest services" fraud, a combination of mail and wire fraud often used in public corruption cases. The second count charges Ney with not revealing his gifts from Abramoff on financial disclosure forms.
Ney acknowledged accepting all-expense-paid and reduced-price trips to play golf in Scotland in August 2002, to gamble and vacation in New Orleans in May 2003 and to vacation in New York in August 2003. The total cost of all the trips — in which others, including some aides, participated — exceeded $170,000, prosecutors said.
Ney also admitted accepting meals and sports and concert tickets for himself and his staff.
The Ohio Republican did not speak with reporters as he entered or left the building. It was his first public appearance since quietly entering an alcohol rehabilitation program last month.
The written statement referred to that. "The treatment and counseling I have started have been very helpful, but I know that I am not done yet and that I have more work to do to deal with my alcohol dependency," it said.
The statement read like a cautionary tale for others who might be tempted by the allure of the Capitol. "I never acted to enrich myself or to get things I shouldn't, but over time, I allowed myself to get too comfortable with the way things have been done in Washington DC for too long," it said.
Until recently, Ney had insisted he would seek a new term. He reversed course in August, under pressure from party leaders who feared the loss of his seat if he remained on the ballot. The race to replace him is competitive, with Zach Space, the Democrat, running ahead of Republican Joy Padgett in several polls.
Inside the courtroom, Huvelle spent nearly a half-hour asking the sandy-haired congressman a series of questions about whether he understood the charges and agreed that he had taken money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.
At the end she asked him how he pleaded to the conspiracy count, he replied, "I plead guilty your honor."
Asked how he pleaded to the count of false statements, he replied, "I plead guilty, your honor."
LINK
1 hour, 4 minutes ago
Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in an election-year scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.
Standing before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. He acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.
Ney did not immediately resign from Congress, and within minutes, Republican and Democratic leaders vowed to expel him unless he steps down. The White House also called for Ney's resignation.
Beleaguered GOP leaders, struggling to overcome fallout from a separate scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) and teenage male pages, said they would make Ney's ouster the "first order of business" in a postelection session.
"I never intended my career in public service to end this way, and I am ashamed it did," Ney said in a written statement issued moments after his plea.
The 52-year-old lawmaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Huvelle said prosecutors had agreed to recommend a term of 27 months, and said federal guidelines suggest a fine of between $5,000 and $60,000.
Ney did not resign his seat. Several officials have said the congressman is financially strapped and needs his $165,200 annual paycheck and benefits as long as he can continue to receive them.
Ney's lawyer, Mark Touhey, told the judge he would resign before sentencing on Jan. 19. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders said he would be gone far more quickly than that.
"It is long past time for a new direction that restores integrity and civility to the House," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), the Democratic leader.
Ney is the latest in a string of once-influential men convicted in a scandal that so far has caught several lobbyists and two members of the Bush administration.
Abramoff, the Republican super-lobbyist, admitted guilt in January after secretly cooperating with prosecutors for weeks.
Two former aides to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, have also pleaded guilty, as has Ney's former chief of staff.
Additionally, Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty in August to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff.
And former White House official David Safavian, who had been the Bush administration's top procurement official, was convicted of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. He is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 27.
Ney confessed his wrongdoing in a federal courthouse a few blocks distant from the Capitol, where until recently he wielded a chairman's gavel.
The first charge accused Ney of conspiring to commit "honest services" fraud, a combination of mail and wire fraud often used in public corruption cases. The second count charges Ney with not revealing his gifts from Abramoff on financial disclosure forms.
Ney acknowledged accepting all-expense-paid and reduced-price trips to play golf in Scotland in August 2002, to gamble and vacation in New Orleans in May 2003 and to vacation in New York in August 2003. The total cost of all the trips — in which others, including some aides, participated — exceeded $170,000, prosecutors said.
Ney also admitted accepting meals and sports and concert tickets for himself and his staff.
The Ohio Republican did not speak with reporters as he entered or left the building. It was his first public appearance since quietly entering an alcohol rehabilitation program last month.
The written statement referred to that. "The treatment and counseling I have started have been very helpful, but I know that I am not done yet and that I have more work to do to deal with my alcohol dependency," it said.
The statement read like a cautionary tale for others who might be tempted by the allure of the Capitol. "I never acted to enrich myself or to get things I shouldn't, but over time, I allowed myself to get too comfortable with the way things have been done in Washington DC for too long," it said.
Until recently, Ney had insisted he would seek a new term. He reversed course in August, under pressure from party leaders who feared the loss of his seat if he remained on the ballot. The race to replace him is competitive, with Zach Space, the Democrat, running ahead of Republican Joy Padgett in several polls.
Inside the courtroom, Huvelle spent nearly a half-hour asking the sandy-haired congressman a series of questions about whether he understood the charges and agreed that he had taken money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.
At the end she asked him how he pleaded to the conspiracy count, he replied, "I plead guilty your honor."
Asked how he pleaded to the count of false statements, he replied, "I plead guilty, your honor."
LINK
GOP congressman pleaded guilty today to accepting bribes for votes in Abramoff scandal. Then why is he staying in office until January?
by John in DC - 10/13/2006 11:39:00 AM
There will very likely be a lame duck session of congress following the November elections. Why in God's name should Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), an admitted criminal, be permitted to attend that session, vote during that session? The man just admitted to accepting bribes to influence his votes, and we're going to let him vote some more? That's a bit like giving Mark Foley a few more pages for his retirement.
Despite his guilty pleas, Ney did not resign his seat in Congress. His lawyer, Mark Touhey, told the judge he would do so before sentencing on Jan. 19. Under the Constitution, he'll be gone before then. His term expires when the new Congress is sworn in at noon on Jan. 3.
He is now an admitted criminal.
What is he doing staying in the Republican Congress? Being permitted to vote AGAIN?
I'll tell you why. Because the Republicans are afraid they may lose control of the congress and they'd rather leave in power a criminal, who takes bribes to influence his votes, than risk losing the seat.
So politics trumps ethics and morality and good government in the Republican party.
I'll bet the Mark Foley child sex predator cover-up is starting to make a whole lot more sense right about now.
Link
There will very likely be a lame duck session of congress following the November elections. Why in God's name should Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), an admitted criminal, be permitted to attend that session, vote during that session? The man just admitted to accepting bribes to influence his votes, and we're going to let him vote some more? That's a bit like giving Mark Foley a few more pages for his retirement.
Despite his guilty pleas, Ney did not resign his seat in Congress. His lawyer, Mark Touhey, told the judge he would do so before sentencing on Jan. 19. Under the Constitution, he'll be gone before then. His term expires when the new Congress is sworn in at noon on Jan. 3.
He is now an admitted criminal.
What is he doing staying in the Republican Congress? Being permitted to vote AGAIN?
I'll tell you why. Because the Republicans are afraid they may lose control of the congress and they'd rather leave in power a criminal, who takes bribes to influence his votes, than risk losing the seat.
So politics trumps ethics and morality and good government in the Republican party.
I'll bet the Mark Foley child sex predator cover-up is starting to make a whole lot more sense right about now.
Link
Nonprofits laundered cash for Abramoff: Senate panel
By Andy Sullivan
Fri Oct 13, 1:07 AM ET
Five conservative nonprofit groups laundered money and wrote opinion pieces for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and sold their influence with U.S. government officials, according to a Senate report.
The Senate Finance Committee said in the report released on Thursday that the five groups probably violated their tax-exempt status by working closely with Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a growing corruption scandal.
"These tax-exempt organizations engaged in what amounted to profit-seeking and private benefit behavior inconsistent with their tax-exempt status," said the report, which was prepared by the Democratic committee staff and approved by its Republican chairman, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record).
By abusing their nonprofit status, "these tax-exempt organizations appear to have perpetrated a fraud on other taxpayers," the report said.
The five groups named in the report are Americans for Tax Reform, headed by influential conservative activist Grover Norquist; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was founded by Gale Norton before she became Secretary of the Interior; Citizens Against Government Waste, which fights "pork barrel" spending; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a think tank; and Toward Tradition, a religious group.
According to the report, some of the groups laundered money from Abramoff's lobbying clients and took payments to write newspaper opinion pieces. Some took payments from Abramoff's lobbying clients in return for introducing them to prominent Bush administration officials, while others underwrote trips for members of Congress that were actually paid for with money from Abramoff lobbying clients.
All except Toward Tradition told The Washington Post that they have done nothing wrong.
Abramoff and several associates have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud in an influence-peddling scandal and are cooperating with investigators in the Justice Department.
Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) has agreed to plead guilty to illegally accepting trips, meals, drinks and tickets from Abramoff and his lobbyists and was due to appear in court later on Friday to formally enter his plea. David Safavian, a former Bush administration official, was convicted in June of lying about his links to Abramoff.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, resigned from his seat in June after his close ties with Abramoff were made public.
Link
Fri Oct 13, 1:07 AM ET
Five conservative nonprofit groups laundered money and wrote opinion pieces for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and sold their influence with U.S. government officials, according to a Senate report.
The Senate Finance Committee said in the report released on Thursday that the five groups probably violated their tax-exempt status by working closely with Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a growing corruption scandal.
"These tax-exempt organizations engaged in what amounted to profit-seeking and private benefit behavior inconsistent with their tax-exempt status," said the report, which was prepared by the Democratic committee staff and approved by its Republican chairman, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record).
By abusing their nonprofit status, "these tax-exempt organizations appear to have perpetrated a fraud on other taxpayers," the report said.
The five groups named in the report are Americans for Tax Reform, headed by influential conservative activist Grover Norquist; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was founded by Gale Norton before she became Secretary of the Interior; Citizens Against Government Waste, which fights "pork barrel" spending; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a think tank; and Toward Tradition, a religious group.
According to the report, some of the groups laundered money from Abramoff's lobbying clients and took payments to write newspaper opinion pieces. Some took payments from Abramoff's lobbying clients in return for introducing them to prominent Bush administration officials, while others underwrote trips for members of Congress that were actually paid for with money from Abramoff lobbying clients.
All except Toward Tradition told The Washington Post that they have done nothing wrong.
Abramoff and several associates have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud in an influence-peddling scandal and are cooperating with investigators in the Justice Department.
Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) has agreed to plead guilty to illegally accepting trips, meals, drinks and tickets from Abramoff and his lobbyists and was due to appear in court later on Friday to formally enter his plea. David Safavian, a former Bush administration official, was convicted in June of lying about his links to Abramoff.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, resigned from his seat in June after his close ties with Abramoff were made public.
Link
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Abramoff’s Billing Records Detail Repeated Contacts With Pombo
Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) has repeatedly insisted that he never worked with fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff:
I met the guy two or three times in my whole life — he never once lobbied me on anything.
ThinkProgress has obtained Abramoff’s billing records (HERE), which show that the lobbyist personally spoke with Pombo on Sept. 10, 1996 and Nov. 21, 1996. On 11 other occasions in 1996 and 1997, Abramoff’s staff met with either Pombo or his staff.
Two days after the first meeting on Sept. 10, Abramoff gave Pombo $500. The congressman eventually received a total of more than $35,000 from Abramoff and his Native American tribal clients. $27,000 of that money came from Abramoff’s client the Mashpee Wampanoag of Massachusetts, “which received federal recognition from a bill Pombo passed through the [House Resources] committee in 2004.”
Pombo’s spokesman is insisting that these billing records are “greatly inflated,” but they nevertheless indicate that Pombo’s office was contacted — and perhaps influenced — by Abramoff. Pombo’s committee, the House Resources Committee, had sole jurisidiction over the Mariana Islands, one of Abramoff’s client that he overcharged. Despite repeated requests from Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to investigate Abramoff’s dealings, Pombo has refused to do anything.
Say No To Pombo has more.
Think Preogress link Here
I met the guy two or three times in my whole life — he never once lobbied me on anything.
ThinkProgress has obtained Abramoff’s billing records (HERE), which show that the lobbyist personally spoke with Pombo on Sept. 10, 1996 and Nov. 21, 1996. On 11 other occasions in 1996 and 1997, Abramoff’s staff met with either Pombo or his staff.
Two days after the first meeting on Sept. 10, Abramoff gave Pombo $500. The congressman eventually received a total of more than $35,000 from Abramoff and his Native American tribal clients. $27,000 of that money came from Abramoff’s client the Mashpee Wampanoag of Massachusetts, “which received federal recognition from a bill Pombo passed through the [House Resources] committee in 2004.”
Pombo’s spokesman is insisting that these billing records are “greatly inflated,” but they nevertheless indicate that Pombo’s office was contacted — and perhaps influenced — by Abramoff. Pombo’s committee, the House Resources Committee, had sole jurisidiction over the Mariana Islands, one of Abramoff’s client that he overcharged. Despite repeated requests from Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to investigate Abramoff’s dealings, Pombo has refused to do anything.
Say No To Pombo has more.
Think Preogress link Here
Monday, October 09, 2006
Interview: Heist Author, Peter Stone
By Paul Kiel - October 9, 2006, 1:32 PM
House Government Reform Committee issued a blockbuster report revealing hundreds of contacts between Abramoff's team and the White House that resulted in the resignation last Friday of Karl Rove's assistant Susan Ralston.
The trail doesn't stop there, of course. So we sat down with National Journal's Peter Stone, the author of the forthcoming book Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, And the Buying of Washington, who told us about how Abramoff operated, how the investigation is progressing, and what to expect next.
How much of the stuff in the recent Government Reform Report on Abramoff's ties to the Bush Administration is new?
Stone: I think there’s a fair amount of new detail in the Government Reform Report but I don’t think it’s the whole story by any means yet. I think we’ve now got a more conclusive e-mail trail from Abramoff and his associates to folks at the White House that show a little over 400 contacts apparently over a three year period between Team Abramoff and the White House.
This is all interesting stuff, and beyond that, there’s a section of the report which talks about results, which show that Jack had mixed results, but some of the results that were achieved seem suggestive, interesting ones that could lead to more investigations by Congressional investigators and perhaps by other investigators as well.
Whether any of this leads to criminal investigations, I think it’s too early to say, much too early to say. I think the report doesn’t flesh out a lot of stuff. It came out rather quickly, it seems, it’s unclear why it came out right now, but there’s a lot of good material here for reporters and investigators, both on the Hill and elsewhere perhaps to dig into in the coming months.
According to a recent ABC news report, Abramoff lobbied for something like 20 different nominations in Interior Department and other departments and they said he got one. It seems like he might have been more successful in blocking nominations than in getting them. Does that indicate to you that he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked?
Stone: Well, obviously he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked. And that’s part of the story of Jack Abramoff, there’s a mixed record of success.
It’s clear that he was working a lot of different folks in terms of getting appointments to the administration. One of the examples that I cite in my book, which I think is an interesting one that he tried very hard on was getting a former Secretary of Labor from the Marianas appointed to a top slot in Interior. And he worked very hard on this one, he pulled out a lot of stops on this, including getting Ralph Reed involved in early 2001 to go to Rove on this. Jack did have a meeting with Rove in March of 2001 on this issue but was never successful in getting his ally from the Marianas, Mark Zachares, an appointment in the administration.
In this case, Zachares was, according to Abramoff’s own associates, radioactive, very radioactive. First, because the issue was so politically charged on Capitol Hill with the Marianas under so much fire from Democrats and moderate Republicans -- because of their labor conditions and the sweatshops there in the textile industry. To get somebody in who had that kind of track record running the Marianas would have taken a lot of pull.
Secondly, this was a fellow who Abramoff, we now know, had made some contributions to, that were quite suspicious, one was $5,000 before he became secretary and I believe $5,000 after he left his post, these were monies that came from Abramoff’s personal charity, Capitol Athletic Foundation. So this was one where he tried very hard but didn’t have success.
Do you think that’s just the fact that he was trying to get someone who clearly was his shill on positions and it was just too much politically?
Stone: Well in this case the odor was too strong. As I said, even one of Abramoff’s associates told me this guy was “radioactive” and I quoted him as saying that in the book.
So, do you think you could say that his track record of success reflects his ambition as opposed to a lack of any traction at the WH?
Stone: Well, he did have a lot of drive and he tried, he had a lot of balls in the air simultaneously on lobbying issues and sometimes overreached. He often overreached, and this is a case of his, pushing too hard on something that was a tough sell.
What do you make of the White House’s response to this that there’s been fraud in the billing records before, you can’t believe anything these people say, they’re all admitted felons and that sort of thing?
Stone: Well, it’s a defensive posture obviously, it strikes me that it’s very much an administration trying to spin some new details and minimize and downplay new evidence.
They do have some grist for their argument: obviously he has exaggerated stuff in the past, obviously he has defrauded clients and over-billed clients. They’re trying to make the best out of a story that has negative implications for them.
The negative implications, as people have noted, are that in the past, Rove and Mehlman have downplayed, extraordinarily, Abramoff’s leaks to them and now there’s a little more evidence out there that there were more meetings than we knew about and there were cases where Jack apparently had some success on a few issues.
Let’s back up a little bit with regards to your book and the panoptic impression you’re able to get of how he worked.
Stone: I think it’s important to talk a little bit about the clients that Jack went for. That is emblematic of his career that Abramoff was very selective in his clients. He wanted ones that had a lot of money and who often didn’t have that much experience in Washington and in some cases clients who were facing a make or break situation, a do or die situation, a life or death situation.
And he liked to find folks who could pay a lot of money and who sometimes, as one of his former colleagues told me, didn’t have Washington offices so there would be less oversight of what Jack was doing for them, where he would have a freer hand.
And the Indian tribes fit the bill very well for this. As we know, Jack made a name for himself representing the Mississippi Choctaws in the mid-90’s when he started out as a lobbyist at Preston Gates right after the Republicans captured Congress, and he had some big successes early on.
Grover Norquist, his old friend from the College Republicans, became an early ally in this fight. Grover of course was running American for Tax Reform (ATR) and was very influential with top House Republicans including DeLay, and Speaker Gingrich at the time. A kind of symbiotic relationship developed early with Norquist, where Norquist would often, Jack would look to him for his grassroots clout on issues and Norquist’s ATR became a place that provided a lot of help to Jack’s clients, the Indian tribes and others, and benefited ultimately through contributions that some of these clients made to ATR over a period of years.
And about those young associates of his….
Stone: Jack was famously known for looking for younger aides who were wowed by his lifestyle, wowed by his entertainment operation, and who in some ways Jack was able to seduce, if you will, and who were attracted to his lifestyle. And we saw a bunch of folks who fit that bill: Neil Volz, who was chief of staff to Ney, who became very important to Jack’s lobbying operation, both when he was in Ney’s office and after he left in 2002 and joined Abramoff was one who fit that bill… [former DeLay chief of staff Tony Rudy] fit the bill, [former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon] fit the bill and [former chief of staff to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)] Kevin Ring also.
These were people who were impressed with Jack and were looking to earn a lot more money fast and they did that when they moved to K Street. They were drawing salaries of 2 or 300,000 very quickly and they were attracted to Jack’s flash and glitter.
What’s next for investigators?
Stone: I’m not sure how much this is going to change, in the short run the course of the investigation. This is an investigation that has been very methodical. Some people have wondered why it’s taken so long, but these kinds of investigations are fact-intensive, complicated ones, and so this year we’ve seen several plea deals worked out that many of us thought would come out a little earlier, but have taken a little longer, beginning with Rudy’s plea in late March and then followed in early May by Volz’s plea and most recently, Ney’s agreement in mid-September to plead guilty to charges of honest services fraud.
These are ones that are, they’re proceeding, I think, at a reasonable pace, it doesn’t reflect a lack of aggressiveness, I just think they’re putting these cases together very, very carefully to make sure they’re as solid as they can be. There are still investigations under way, as we know: Ed Buckham is very much under investigation…there’s still scrutiny going on of at least two if not three members: Doolittle is still facing scrutiny, DeLay is still facing scrutiny and I believe Conrad Burns is still facing scrutiny, although his office is downplayed this and said he is not under investigation.
They say he’s not a target.
Stone: He’s not a target. But we don’t know who targets are sometimes, that’s not always clear until very late in the investigation.
Have you seen any indication that investigators are looking seriously at the White House?
Stone: Not that I am aware of, no. As I said earlier when we started talking about the White House, I think this probably opens up, I mean, the investigators have most likely had this e-mail traffic for a long time. I have not heard of serious scrutiny of folks in the White House at this point. But once again, this stuff is very closely held.
And I don’t think that we’re going to see this wind down this year, I think we’re going to see it go well into 2007. I think we may see a little more activity before the election but I think there’s likely to be more certainly after the election and early next year.
I’m interested in this idea that Abramoff passed himself off as a good Republican, helping the movement and all that, and there’s the other side of him, which is just someone who’s trying to become a billionaire. You seem to reconcile those two sides of him pretty well in your book.
Stone: He was both. I think he was a key ally of some of the leading conservatives in Congress, I think he was a crucial part of building DeLay Inc., supporting the DeLay lobbying operation, DeLay money operation, that was an ideological effort.
Abramoff did do a lot to help, I mean a lot of his clients, the Indian casinos, the Marianas, became central to his lobbying operation. They helped provide wonderful places of entertainment, where Capitol Hill staffers, members, where they had great times in his skyboxes which these clients paid for, or at Signatures [Abramoff’s restaurant].
But he also used them as personal piggy banks and at some point in 2001, obviously, greed became a key driving force for Jack. I mean, he wanted to get rich before, but in 2001 he and Scanlon developed their kickback scheme, their gimme-five kickback scheme …
But I think he was, for many of these years, he was still a key fundraiser for Republicans. The clients were overwhelmingly helping… the Indian tribes were generally giving two out of three dollars to the Republican campaign committees and to Republican candidates as well as best friends in the conservative movement.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001758.php
House Government Reform Committee issued a blockbuster report revealing hundreds of contacts between Abramoff's team and the White House that resulted in the resignation last Friday of Karl Rove's assistant Susan Ralston.
The trail doesn't stop there, of course. So we sat down with National Journal's Peter Stone, the author of the forthcoming book Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, And the Buying of Washington, who told us about how Abramoff operated, how the investigation is progressing, and what to expect next.
How much of the stuff in the recent Government Reform Report on Abramoff's ties to the Bush Administration is new?
Stone: I think there’s a fair amount of new detail in the Government Reform Report but I don’t think it’s the whole story by any means yet. I think we’ve now got a more conclusive e-mail trail from Abramoff and his associates to folks at the White House that show a little over 400 contacts apparently over a three year period between Team Abramoff and the White House.
This is all interesting stuff, and beyond that, there’s a section of the report which talks about results, which show that Jack had mixed results, but some of the results that were achieved seem suggestive, interesting ones that could lead to more investigations by Congressional investigators and perhaps by other investigators as well.
Whether any of this leads to criminal investigations, I think it’s too early to say, much too early to say. I think the report doesn’t flesh out a lot of stuff. It came out rather quickly, it seems, it’s unclear why it came out right now, but there’s a lot of good material here for reporters and investigators, both on the Hill and elsewhere perhaps to dig into in the coming months.
According to a recent ABC news report, Abramoff lobbied for something like 20 different nominations in Interior Department and other departments and they said he got one. It seems like he might have been more successful in blocking nominations than in getting them. Does that indicate to you that he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked?
Stone: Well, obviously he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked. And that’s part of the story of Jack Abramoff, there’s a mixed record of success.
It’s clear that he was working a lot of different folks in terms of getting appointments to the administration. One of the examples that I cite in my book, which I think is an interesting one that he tried very hard on was getting a former Secretary of Labor from the Marianas appointed to a top slot in Interior. And he worked very hard on this one, he pulled out a lot of stops on this, including getting Ralph Reed involved in early 2001 to go to Rove on this. Jack did have a meeting with Rove in March of 2001 on this issue but was never successful in getting his ally from the Marianas, Mark Zachares, an appointment in the administration.
In this case, Zachares was, according to Abramoff’s own associates, radioactive, very radioactive. First, because the issue was so politically charged on Capitol Hill with the Marianas under so much fire from Democrats and moderate Republicans -- because of their labor conditions and the sweatshops there in the textile industry. To get somebody in who had that kind of track record running the Marianas would have taken a lot of pull.
Secondly, this was a fellow who Abramoff, we now know, had made some contributions to, that were quite suspicious, one was $5,000 before he became secretary and I believe $5,000 after he left his post, these were monies that came from Abramoff’s personal charity, Capitol Athletic Foundation. So this was one where he tried very hard but didn’t have success.
Do you think that’s just the fact that he was trying to get someone who clearly was his shill on positions and it was just too much politically?
Stone: Well in this case the odor was too strong. As I said, even one of Abramoff’s associates told me this guy was “radioactive” and I quoted him as saying that in the book.
So, do you think you could say that his track record of success reflects his ambition as opposed to a lack of any traction at the WH?
Stone: Well, he did have a lot of drive and he tried, he had a lot of balls in the air simultaneously on lobbying issues and sometimes overreached. He often overreached, and this is a case of his, pushing too hard on something that was a tough sell.
What do you make of the White House’s response to this that there’s been fraud in the billing records before, you can’t believe anything these people say, they’re all admitted felons and that sort of thing?
Stone: Well, it’s a defensive posture obviously, it strikes me that it’s very much an administration trying to spin some new details and minimize and downplay new evidence.
They do have some grist for their argument: obviously he has exaggerated stuff in the past, obviously he has defrauded clients and over-billed clients. They’re trying to make the best out of a story that has negative implications for them.
The negative implications, as people have noted, are that in the past, Rove and Mehlman have downplayed, extraordinarily, Abramoff’s leaks to them and now there’s a little more evidence out there that there were more meetings than we knew about and there were cases where Jack apparently had some success on a few issues.
Let’s back up a little bit with regards to your book and the panoptic impression you’re able to get of how he worked.
Stone: I think it’s important to talk a little bit about the clients that Jack went for. That is emblematic of his career that Abramoff was very selective in his clients. He wanted ones that had a lot of money and who often didn’t have that much experience in Washington and in some cases clients who were facing a make or break situation, a do or die situation, a life or death situation.
And he liked to find folks who could pay a lot of money and who sometimes, as one of his former colleagues told me, didn’t have Washington offices so there would be less oversight of what Jack was doing for them, where he would have a freer hand.
And the Indian tribes fit the bill very well for this. As we know, Jack made a name for himself representing the Mississippi Choctaws in the mid-90’s when he started out as a lobbyist at Preston Gates right after the Republicans captured Congress, and he had some big successes early on.
Grover Norquist, his old friend from the College Republicans, became an early ally in this fight. Grover of course was running American for Tax Reform (ATR) and was very influential with top House Republicans including DeLay, and Speaker Gingrich at the time. A kind of symbiotic relationship developed early with Norquist, where Norquist would often, Jack would look to him for his grassroots clout on issues and Norquist’s ATR became a place that provided a lot of help to Jack’s clients, the Indian tribes and others, and benefited ultimately through contributions that some of these clients made to ATR over a period of years.
And about those young associates of his….
Stone: Jack was famously known for looking for younger aides who were wowed by his lifestyle, wowed by his entertainment operation, and who in some ways Jack was able to seduce, if you will, and who were attracted to his lifestyle. And we saw a bunch of folks who fit that bill: Neil Volz, who was chief of staff to Ney, who became very important to Jack’s lobbying operation, both when he was in Ney’s office and after he left in 2002 and joined Abramoff was one who fit that bill… [former DeLay chief of staff Tony Rudy] fit the bill, [former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon] fit the bill and [former chief of staff to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)] Kevin Ring also.
These were people who were impressed with Jack and were looking to earn a lot more money fast and they did that when they moved to K Street. They were drawing salaries of 2 or 300,000 very quickly and they were attracted to Jack’s flash and glitter.
What’s next for investigators?
Stone: I’m not sure how much this is going to change, in the short run the course of the investigation. This is an investigation that has been very methodical. Some people have wondered why it’s taken so long, but these kinds of investigations are fact-intensive, complicated ones, and so this year we’ve seen several plea deals worked out that many of us thought would come out a little earlier, but have taken a little longer, beginning with Rudy’s plea in late March and then followed in early May by Volz’s plea and most recently, Ney’s agreement in mid-September to plead guilty to charges of honest services fraud.
These are ones that are, they’re proceeding, I think, at a reasonable pace, it doesn’t reflect a lack of aggressiveness, I just think they’re putting these cases together very, very carefully to make sure they’re as solid as they can be. There are still investigations under way, as we know: Ed Buckham is very much under investigation…there’s still scrutiny going on of at least two if not three members: Doolittle is still facing scrutiny, DeLay is still facing scrutiny and I believe Conrad Burns is still facing scrutiny, although his office is downplayed this and said he is not under investigation.
They say he’s not a target.
Stone: He’s not a target. But we don’t know who targets are sometimes, that’s not always clear until very late in the investigation.
Have you seen any indication that investigators are looking seriously at the White House?
Stone: Not that I am aware of, no. As I said earlier when we started talking about the White House, I think this probably opens up, I mean, the investigators have most likely had this e-mail traffic for a long time. I have not heard of serious scrutiny of folks in the White House at this point. But once again, this stuff is very closely held.
And I don’t think that we’re going to see this wind down this year, I think we’re going to see it go well into 2007. I think we may see a little more activity before the election but I think there’s likely to be more certainly after the election and early next year.
I’m interested in this idea that Abramoff passed himself off as a good Republican, helping the movement and all that, and there’s the other side of him, which is just someone who’s trying to become a billionaire. You seem to reconcile those two sides of him pretty well in your book.
Stone: He was both. I think he was a key ally of some of the leading conservatives in Congress, I think he was a crucial part of building DeLay Inc., supporting the DeLay lobbying operation, DeLay money operation, that was an ideological effort.
Abramoff did do a lot to help, I mean a lot of his clients, the Indian casinos, the Marianas, became central to his lobbying operation. They helped provide wonderful places of entertainment, where Capitol Hill staffers, members, where they had great times in his skyboxes which these clients paid for, or at Signatures [Abramoff’s restaurant].
But he also used them as personal piggy banks and at some point in 2001, obviously, greed became a key driving force for Jack. I mean, he wanted to get rich before, but in 2001 he and Scanlon developed their kickback scheme, their gimme-five kickback scheme …
But I think he was, for many of these years, he was still a key fundraiser for Republicans. The clients were overwhelmingly helping… the Indian tribes were generally giving two out of three dollars to the Republican campaign committees and to Republican candidates as well as best friends in the conservative movement.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001758.php
Monday, August 28, 2006
HUBRIS: The Armitage Leak and What It Means
One mystery solved.
It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.
A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."
Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up."
The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department--which was then handling the investigation--and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out.
Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage--who is known to be an inveterate gossip--was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.")
The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But--as Hubris notes--he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak.
On July 6--two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak--Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials--already suspected by the White House of not being team players--had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip.
Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling--and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson. At the time, top White House aides--including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--were trying to do in Wilson. And they saw his wife's position at the CIA as a piece of ammunition. As John Dickerson wrote in Slate, senior White House aides that week were encouraging him to investigate who had sent Joe Wilson on his trip. They did not tell him they believed Wilson's wife had been involved. But they clearly were trying to push him toward that information.
Shortly after Novak spoke with Armitage, he told Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband's trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later--before the Novak column came out--Rove told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip.
Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime--a violation of the little-known Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose information about an undercover CIA officer (if that government official knew the covert officer was undercover and had obtained information about the officer through official channels). Two days after the leak appeared, I wrote:
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
And I stated,
Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score.
The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.
The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife.
Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
As Hubris also reveals--and is reported in the Newsweek story--Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward did not reveal he had learned about Wilson's wife until last November, when he released a statement recounting a conversation with a source (whom he did not name). Woodward acknowledged at that time that he had not told his editors about this interview--and that he had recently given a deposition to Fitzgerald about this conversation.
Speculation regarding Woodward's source quickly focused on Armitage. Last week, the Associated Press disclosed State Department records indicating that Woodward had met with Armitage at the State Department on June 13, 2003. In pegging Armitage as Woodward's source, Hubris cites five confidential sources--including government officials and an Armitage confidant.
Woodward came in for some harsh criticism when he and the Post revealed that he had been the first reporter told about Wilson's wife by a Bush administration official. During Fitzgerald's investigation, Woodward had repeatedly appeared on television and radio talk shows and dismissed the CIA leak probe without noting that he had a keen personal interest in the matter: his good source, Richard Armitage, was likely a target of Fitzgerald. Woodward was under no obligation to disclose a confidential source and what that source had told him. But he also was under no obligation to go on television and criticize an investigation while withholding relevant information about his involvement in the affair.
Fitzgerald, as Hubris notes, investigated Armitage twice--once for the Novak leak; then again for not initially telling investigators about his conversation with Woodward. Each time, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute Armitage. Abiding by the rules governing grand jury investigations, Fitzgerald said nothing publicly about Armitage's role in the leak.
The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies.
LINK
It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.
A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."
Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up."
The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department--which was then handling the investigation--and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out.
Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage--who is known to be an inveterate gossip--was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.")
The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But--as Hubris notes--he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak.
On July 6--two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak--Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials--already suspected by the White House of not being team players--had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip.
Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling--and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson. At the time, top White House aides--including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--were trying to do in Wilson. And they saw his wife's position at the CIA as a piece of ammunition. As John Dickerson wrote in Slate, senior White House aides that week were encouraging him to investigate who had sent Joe Wilson on his trip. They did not tell him they believed Wilson's wife had been involved. But they clearly were trying to push him toward that information.
Shortly after Novak spoke with Armitage, he told Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband's trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later--before the Novak column came out--Rove told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip.
Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime--a violation of the little-known Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose information about an undercover CIA officer (if that government official knew the covert officer was undercover and had obtained information about the officer through official channels). Two days after the leak appeared, I wrote:
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
And I stated,
Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score.
The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.
The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife.
Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
As Hubris also reveals--and is reported in the Newsweek story--Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward did not reveal he had learned about Wilson's wife until last November, when he released a statement recounting a conversation with a source (whom he did not name). Woodward acknowledged at that time that he had not told his editors about this interview--and that he had recently given a deposition to Fitzgerald about this conversation.
Speculation regarding Woodward's source quickly focused on Armitage. Last week, the Associated Press disclosed State Department records indicating that Woodward had met with Armitage at the State Department on June 13, 2003. In pegging Armitage as Woodward's source, Hubris cites five confidential sources--including government officials and an Armitage confidant.
Woodward came in for some harsh criticism when he and the Post revealed that he had been the first reporter told about Wilson's wife by a Bush administration official. During Fitzgerald's investigation, Woodward had repeatedly appeared on television and radio talk shows and dismissed the CIA leak probe without noting that he had a keen personal interest in the matter: his good source, Richard Armitage, was likely a target of Fitzgerald. Woodward was under no obligation to disclose a confidential source and what that source had told him. But he also was under no obligation to go on television and criticize an investigation while withholding relevant information about his involvement in the affair.
Fitzgerald, as Hubris notes, investigated Armitage twice--once for the Novak leak; then again for not initially telling investigators about his conversation with Woodward. Each time, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute Armitage. Abiding by the rules governing grand jury investigations, Fitzgerald said nothing publicly about Armitage's role in the leak.
The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies.
LINK
Monday, August 21, 2006
Calendars show Armitage met reporter
Calendars show Armitage met reporter By MATT APUZZO and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers
2 hours, 29 minutes ago
Then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.
Armitage's official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the administration's march to war with Iraq.
When contacted at home Monday night, Woodward declined to discuss his meeting with Armitage or the identity of his source in the CIA leak case. Instead, he referred to his statement last year that he had a "casual and offhand" discussion about Plame with an unidentified administration official in mid-June 2003.
A person familiar with the information prosecutors have gathered, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the material remains sealed, said Woodward's meeting with the confidential source was June 13, 2003.
The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case that was the focus of Fitzgerald's probe.
The identity of Woodward's source remains one of the big mysteries in the case because the Post reporter is the first member of the news media known to have discussed Plame's CIA employment with an administration official.
Woodward's former Post editor, Ben Bradlee, has speculated publicly that Armitage was the reporter's "likely source."
And defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the lone administration official charged in the CIA leak case, also have suggested Armitage could have been Woodward's source when they unsuccessfully tried to persuade a court to order the release of State Department documents.
Fitzgerald's office declined comment Monday. Reached at his home in Virginia, Armitage said he could not discuss his cooperation with Fitzgerald's office, the meeting with Woodward or any details of the case.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, faces trial in January on charges he lied to authorities about conversations he had with reporters about Plame.
Libby's lawyer, William Jeffress, said Monday that Armitage's calendar only bolsters the defense's argument that information about the State Department official's role in the CIA leak affair should be released.
"I would hope that the facts on that would come out," Jeffress said. "We have asked for information as to Woodward's source in discovery but that has been denied."
Woodward's current boss, Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., said Monday, "We are not going to disclose the identity of a confidential source."
Woodward has said he received a written release from his confidentiality obligation to the source and was even asked by his source to tell prosecutors about their conversation. But he has refused to publicly identify the person.
Woodward has said Plame came up incidentally during an interview he was conducting for a book he wrote on the Iraq war. He said the source told him that Plame was a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and no evidence has emerged in public that Woodward's source actually knew she had been a covert agent. Fitzgerald has signaled there are no plans — beyond the Libby indictment — to prosecute any other officials for releasing Plame's identity.
Armitage's calendar also shows that a week before Woodward's meeting with Armitage, the deputy secretary of state met for 15 minutes with Libby.
That meeting occurred as State officials were about to prepare a report outlining how Plame's husband was sent to Niger before the Iraq war to check unverified intelligence that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials from Africa.
Wilson reported back to the Bush administration that he was unable to verify the claim, but the administration continued to use the information to bolster its argument for war. Wilson has cited the decision to rely on the bad intelligence in his criticisms of the administration.
Two people familiar with the meeting, however, said the Libby-Armitage meeting dealt with issues involving Pakistan and said the subject of the CIA leak case wasn't raised. Both spoke only on condition of anonymity because some information about the meeting remains classified.
Link
2 hours, 29 minutes ago
Then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.
Armitage's official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the administration's march to war with Iraq.
When contacted at home Monday night, Woodward declined to discuss his meeting with Armitage or the identity of his source in the CIA leak case. Instead, he referred to his statement last year that he had a "casual and offhand" discussion about Plame with an unidentified administration official in mid-June 2003.
A person familiar with the information prosecutors have gathered, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the material remains sealed, said Woodward's meeting with the confidential source was June 13, 2003.
The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case that was the focus of Fitzgerald's probe.
The identity of Woodward's source remains one of the big mysteries in the case because the Post reporter is the first member of the news media known to have discussed Plame's CIA employment with an administration official.
Woodward's former Post editor, Ben Bradlee, has speculated publicly that Armitage was the reporter's "likely source."
And defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the lone administration official charged in the CIA leak case, also have suggested Armitage could have been Woodward's source when they unsuccessfully tried to persuade a court to order the release of State Department documents.
Fitzgerald's office declined comment Monday. Reached at his home in Virginia, Armitage said he could not discuss his cooperation with Fitzgerald's office, the meeting with Woodward or any details of the case.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, faces trial in January on charges he lied to authorities about conversations he had with reporters about Plame.
Libby's lawyer, William Jeffress, said Monday that Armitage's calendar only bolsters the defense's argument that information about the State Department official's role in the CIA leak affair should be released.
"I would hope that the facts on that would come out," Jeffress said. "We have asked for information as to Woodward's source in discovery but that has been denied."
Woodward's current boss, Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., said Monday, "We are not going to disclose the identity of a confidential source."
Woodward has said he received a written release from his confidentiality obligation to the source and was even asked by his source to tell prosecutors about their conversation. But he has refused to publicly identify the person.
Woodward has said Plame came up incidentally during an interview he was conducting for a book he wrote on the Iraq war. He said the source told him that Plame was a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and no evidence has emerged in public that Woodward's source actually knew she had been a covert agent. Fitzgerald has signaled there are no plans — beyond the Libby indictment — to prosecute any other officials for releasing Plame's identity.
Armitage's calendar also shows that a week before Woodward's meeting with Armitage, the deputy secretary of state met for 15 minutes with Libby.
That meeting occurred as State officials were about to prepare a report outlining how Plame's husband was sent to Niger before the Iraq war to check unverified intelligence that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials from Africa.
Wilson reported back to the Bush administration that he was unable to verify the claim, but the administration continued to use the information to bolster its argument for war. Wilson has cited the decision to rely on the bad intelligence in his criticisms of the administration.
Two people familiar with the meeting, however, said the Libby-Armitage meeting dealt with issues involving Pakistan and said the subject of the CIA leak case wasn't raised. Both spoke only on condition of anonymity because some information about the meeting remains classified.
Link
Indictment Still Sealed, Fitzgerald Still Busy
By Jason Leopold and Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 21 August 2006
An indictment first reported by Truthout said to be connected to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Plame investigation remains sealed, and Fitzgerald continues to work on the leak case.
The indictment, 06 cr 128, was returned by the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case between May 10 and May 17 - right around the time that Truthout reported, based on sources close to the investigation, that Karl Rove had been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators.
However, that indictment remains under seal more than three months after it was filed - an unusually lengthy period of time, according to experts in the field of federal law. The indictment could be dismissed down the road, meaning the public may never get the opportunity to learn the identity of the defendant or the substance of the criminal case.
These experts said the length of time the indictment has been under seal suggests that the defendant named in the complaint is cooperating with an ongoing investigation and may have accepted a plea agreement.
Former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson said it's very likely that the indictment was sealed in the first place because the "defendant is cooperating with an investigation and the government wants to keep that person's identity secret" to protect the integrity of the investigation.
"It would be extraordinary to keep it sealed as the process goes on," said Levenson, now a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
A two-month investigation undertaken by Truthout into the circumstances that led to Karl Rove's alleged exoneration in the leak probe has once again put the spotlight back on Sealed vs. Sealed, the heading under which 06 cr 128 was filed in US District Court between May 10 and May 17.
During numerous interviews with Truthout, sources with direct knowledge of the behind-the-scenes legal wrangling in the CIA leak case said the indictment specifically relates to the 2½-year-old leak probe. Other sources who have also been involved in the investigation confirmed this information.
The sources said that it was Karl Rove who led Fitzgerald's office to additional documentary evidence that was not turned over to the Special Prosecutor's staff in the early days of the investigation.
With Rove cooperating, the probe has once again shifted, and the focus now is on another high-level official in the executive branch: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a figure of keen interest to investigators working on the outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Sources directly familiar with the investigation said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his closest confidants suspect that Cheney was "involved in orchestrating a plot to discredit former ambassador Wilson."
Wilson's editorial, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which was published in the New York Times, raised direct questions about the administration's willingness to manipulate intelligence to facilitate its march to war. In addition, Wilson raised specific questions regarding an alleged attempt by the Hussein government to acquire uranium yellowcake, a component that could be used in the construction of nuclear weapons, from the African nation of Niger. Directly contradicting statements made by George W. Bush only months earlier in his State of the Union address, Wilson not only contended that the statements by Bush regarding the Niger claims were based on highly flawed intelligence, but questioned how the administration could have allowed the debunked claims to be included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address at all.
In the case of Vice President Cheney there are, according to the sources familiar with the case, "Constitutional issues that must be researched." Sources familiar with the ongoing probe said that Constitutional experts are deliberating with the Plame investigators, and that the vice president views his status as shielded, to some extent, by executive privilege.
Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame matter is still active and ongoing, sources said, and will be for some time. Fitzgerald has long considered bringing additional charges against other individuals in the administration. However, it's unknown whether Fitzgerald's strategy will change as the investigation moves forward. Fitzgerald has yet to comment on the status of the probe or specifically on high profile figures his investigators have focused on. The only public comments that have surfaced thus far on the direction of the investigation have come from Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, and syndicated columnist Bob Novak, who revealed Plame's CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column.
Attempting to gain a clearer picture of the events leading up to the June 12 letter sent by Patrick Fitzgerald to Luskin, our two-month investigation led to several interesting revelations that were communicated to us by well-placed sources. The letter is constructed in a manner consistent with what would be expected when a federal prosecutor writes a letter to a subject's attorney. The letter, we are told, spelled out what was expected of Rove, and made clear the ramifications should he fail to honor the terms of his verbal cooperation agreement with Fitzgerald. According to experts in federal criminal law, that approach is fairly standard given the circumstances.
It was Luskin, sources said, who seized on the single phrase from Fitzgerald's letter that gave the appearance of exoneration trumpeted by the US commercial press. In fact, the letter, taken as a whole, paints no such picture. According to those familiar with the letter sent to Luskin, it details the obligations of a subject, Karl Rove, who must choose between cooperation and further prosecution. If the document were made public it would indicate those obligations, the sources said.
Michael Clark, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Houston, Texas, said that he has never heard of a sealed indictment referred to as "Sealed vs. Sealed" despite the fact that more than two dozen cases are filed under that heading in US District Court.
"Two dozen out of hundreds of cases that are filed under 'US vs. [blank]' are still unusual," Clark said. "If this sealed indictment involves a government official, you wouldn't expect that to happen unless you're talking about a high level official and there has been a fair amount of behind the scenes negotiating going on. To have a federal indictment sealed for three months is very unusual."
When told that the federal indictment was returned by the same grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case, Clark said, "There is a good chance there is some linkage there. There aren't any other high profile cases coming out of that court that we know of, so chances are that the indictment involves someone important, and that keeping the identity of the case under seal has to do with the fact that the investigation is ongoing. It's entirely likely that if the person in the indictment is cooperating, the indictment could be dismissed down the road. It's not unheard of."
Clark added that if the indictment continues to remain under seal in the weeks ahead it begins to raise important questions about the transparency of the judicial process.
"If it's still under seal at the end of next month it will start pushing the envelope a bit," he said. "Two months is starting to get unusual. But three months is very unusual."
Loyola's Laurie Levenson agreed, saying that it was unusual to keep federal indictments sealed for a lengthy period of time, such as three months. She added that under the current administration there has been an upswing in keeping federal dockets under seal because of the so-called threat to national security.
However, Levenson added that it also appears as though that line of reasoning has been abused by some officials in order to maintain a level of secrecy
"You now get the sense that it is happening more frequently with the current administration," she said. "We live in interesting times. We do have secret dockets going on in the federal courts, and I never heard of it until this war on terrorism. The longer something is sealed the more curious it is."
John Moustakas, another former federal prosecutor in private practice in Washington, DC, said an indictment could be returned by a grand jury even if the prosecutor did not intend on seeking one.
"The grand jury could have said 'We want to vote,' and they are allowed to return an indictment over the US attorney's objections," Moustakas said. As far as keeping an indictment under seal, he said "it may be that the parties were negotiating a disposition of the case and the defendant and the prosecutor are happy not to have the defendant's name in the press."
Moustakas described a hypothetical scenario that federal prosecutors often use when convincing a defendant under investigation to cooperate:
"Typically what I would do is get evidence of wrongdoing and develop it sufficiently to get an indictment," Moustakas said. "Then I would send a target letter to the defendant. Then you put on a dog and pony show. I would bring him into my office and say, 'Here's the case, here's what you did.' Lay out main evidence against him. I would encourage a pre-indictment plea, which essentially means that it took the indictment to get him to cooperate. It wouldn't be surprising. If the sealed indictment is Karl Rove, there is a really big story there. But my view, generally, is if it's Rove, it smells bad that it's under seal still. It feels like it's intended to benefit the administration. I think the truth is, if he is cooperating against [Scooter] Libby, there is going to come a time soon that the government will have to disclose that fact to Libby's attorneys."
Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Fordham University in New York, had a somewhat different view. He said that he didn't find it "spectacularly strange" that 06 cr 128 has been under seal for nearly three months.
But, he added that indictments are sealed because if they're made public, "Someone is going to be shocked and upset," and that can hurt the integrity of an ongoing investigation.
LINK
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 21 August 2006
An indictment first reported by Truthout said to be connected to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Plame investigation remains sealed, and Fitzgerald continues to work on the leak case.
The indictment, 06 cr 128, was returned by the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case between May 10 and May 17 - right around the time that Truthout reported, based on sources close to the investigation, that Karl Rove had been indicted on charges of perjury and lying to investigators.
However, that indictment remains under seal more than three months after it was filed - an unusually lengthy period of time, according to experts in the field of federal law. The indictment could be dismissed down the road, meaning the public may never get the opportunity to learn the identity of the defendant or the substance of the criminal case.
These experts said the length of time the indictment has been under seal suggests that the defendant named in the complaint is cooperating with an ongoing investigation and may have accepted a plea agreement.
Former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson said it's very likely that the indictment was sealed in the first place because the "defendant is cooperating with an investigation and the government wants to keep that person's identity secret" to protect the integrity of the investigation.
"It would be extraordinary to keep it sealed as the process goes on," said Levenson, now a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
A two-month investigation undertaken by Truthout into the circumstances that led to Karl Rove's alleged exoneration in the leak probe has once again put the spotlight back on Sealed vs. Sealed, the heading under which 06 cr 128 was filed in US District Court between May 10 and May 17.
During numerous interviews with Truthout, sources with direct knowledge of the behind-the-scenes legal wrangling in the CIA leak case said the indictment specifically relates to the 2½-year-old leak probe. Other sources who have also been involved in the investigation confirmed this information.
The sources said that it was Karl Rove who led Fitzgerald's office to additional documentary evidence that was not turned over to the Special Prosecutor's staff in the early days of the investigation.
With Rove cooperating, the probe has once again shifted, and the focus now is on another high-level official in the executive branch: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a figure of keen interest to investigators working on the outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Sources directly familiar with the investigation said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his closest confidants suspect that Cheney was "involved in orchestrating a plot to discredit former ambassador Wilson."
Wilson's editorial, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which was published in the New York Times, raised direct questions about the administration's willingness to manipulate intelligence to facilitate its march to war. In addition, Wilson raised specific questions regarding an alleged attempt by the Hussein government to acquire uranium yellowcake, a component that could be used in the construction of nuclear weapons, from the African nation of Niger. Directly contradicting statements made by George W. Bush only months earlier in his State of the Union address, Wilson not only contended that the statements by Bush regarding the Niger claims were based on highly flawed intelligence, but questioned how the administration could have allowed the debunked claims to be included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address at all.
In the case of Vice President Cheney there are, according to the sources familiar with the case, "Constitutional issues that must be researched." Sources familiar with the ongoing probe said that Constitutional experts are deliberating with the Plame investigators, and that the vice president views his status as shielded, to some extent, by executive privilege.
Fitzgerald's investigation into the Plame matter is still active and ongoing, sources said, and will be for some time. Fitzgerald has long considered bringing additional charges against other individuals in the administration. However, it's unknown whether Fitzgerald's strategy will change as the investigation moves forward. Fitzgerald has yet to comment on the status of the probe or specifically on high profile figures his investigators have focused on. The only public comments that have surfaced thus far on the direction of the investigation have come from Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, and syndicated columnist Bob Novak, who revealed Plame's CIA status in a July 14, 2003, column.
Attempting to gain a clearer picture of the events leading up to the June 12 letter sent by Patrick Fitzgerald to Luskin, our two-month investigation led to several interesting revelations that were communicated to us by well-placed sources. The letter is constructed in a manner consistent with what would be expected when a federal prosecutor writes a letter to a subject's attorney. The letter, we are told, spelled out what was expected of Rove, and made clear the ramifications should he fail to honor the terms of his verbal cooperation agreement with Fitzgerald. According to experts in federal criminal law, that approach is fairly standard given the circumstances.
It was Luskin, sources said, who seized on the single phrase from Fitzgerald's letter that gave the appearance of exoneration trumpeted by the US commercial press. In fact, the letter, taken as a whole, paints no such picture. According to those familiar with the letter sent to Luskin, it details the obligations of a subject, Karl Rove, who must choose between cooperation and further prosecution. If the document were made public it would indicate those obligations, the sources said.
Michael Clark, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Houston, Texas, said that he has never heard of a sealed indictment referred to as "Sealed vs. Sealed" despite the fact that more than two dozen cases are filed under that heading in US District Court.
"Two dozen out of hundreds of cases that are filed under 'US vs. [blank]' are still unusual," Clark said. "If this sealed indictment involves a government official, you wouldn't expect that to happen unless you're talking about a high level official and there has been a fair amount of behind the scenes negotiating going on. To have a federal indictment sealed for three months is very unusual."
When told that the federal indictment was returned by the same grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case, Clark said, "There is a good chance there is some linkage there. There aren't any other high profile cases coming out of that court that we know of, so chances are that the indictment involves someone important, and that keeping the identity of the case under seal has to do with the fact that the investigation is ongoing. It's entirely likely that if the person in the indictment is cooperating, the indictment could be dismissed down the road. It's not unheard of."
Clark added that if the indictment continues to remain under seal in the weeks ahead it begins to raise important questions about the transparency of the judicial process.
"If it's still under seal at the end of next month it will start pushing the envelope a bit," he said. "Two months is starting to get unusual. But three months is very unusual."
Loyola's Laurie Levenson agreed, saying that it was unusual to keep federal indictments sealed for a lengthy period of time, such as three months. She added that under the current administration there has been an upswing in keeping federal dockets under seal because of the so-called threat to national security.
However, Levenson added that it also appears as though that line of reasoning has been abused by some officials in order to maintain a level of secrecy
"You now get the sense that it is happening more frequently with the current administration," she said. "We live in interesting times. We do have secret dockets going on in the federal courts, and I never heard of it until this war on terrorism. The longer something is sealed the more curious it is."
John Moustakas, another former federal prosecutor in private practice in Washington, DC, said an indictment could be returned by a grand jury even if the prosecutor did not intend on seeking one.
"The grand jury could have said 'We want to vote,' and they are allowed to return an indictment over the US attorney's objections," Moustakas said. As far as keeping an indictment under seal, he said "it may be that the parties were negotiating a disposition of the case and the defendant and the prosecutor are happy not to have the defendant's name in the press."
Moustakas described a hypothetical scenario that federal prosecutors often use when convincing a defendant under investigation to cooperate:
"Typically what I would do is get evidence of wrongdoing and develop it sufficiently to get an indictment," Moustakas said. "Then I would send a target letter to the defendant. Then you put on a dog and pony show. I would bring him into my office and say, 'Here's the case, here's what you did.' Lay out main evidence against him. I would encourage a pre-indictment plea, which essentially means that it took the indictment to get him to cooperate. It wouldn't be surprising. If the sealed indictment is Karl Rove, there is a really big story there. But my view, generally, is if it's Rove, it smells bad that it's under seal still. It feels like it's intended to benefit the administration. I think the truth is, if he is cooperating against [Scooter] Libby, there is going to come a time soon that the government will have to disclose that fact to Libby's attorneys."
Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Fordham University in New York, had a somewhat different view. He said that he didn't find it "spectacularly strange" that 06 cr 128 has been under seal for nearly three months.
But, he added that indictments are sealed because if they're made public, "Someone is going to be shocked and upset," and that can hurt the integrity of an ongoing investigation.
LINK
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Judge withholds classified docs from Libby
Disclosure could cause 'grave damage' to the national security
By Joel Seidman
NBC Nightly News Producer
Updated: 12:29 a.m. CT Aug 18, 2006
WASHINGTON - A federal judge today ordered that certain "extremely sensitive" classified documents be withheld from Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Judge Reggie Walton, writes in a court filing, that he has "carefully reviewed" the requests to withhold the documents from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and from the CIA, which were provided to him ex parte, in camera, and found that the documents should be omitted from the classified materials requested by Libby's attorneys.
Judge Walton writes that the documents he has withheld are, "extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States."
In previous weeks, the CIA has provided Libby, in two batches, classified documents which the judge court had ordered turned over to his defense team.
The CIA has provided to Libby documents which are either redacted versions of the classified papers which Libby viewed during his morning intelligence briefings with the Vice President, or summaries of the subject matter contained in those documents.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has said in recent months that he does not expect the White House to claim executive privilege to attempt to block Libby from using classified intelligence material in his defense against perjury charges.
But, Fitzgerald told Judge Walton in June that the White House has designated certain documents that it is concerned about being made public during a trial.
Workarounds expected
If those documents are among the ones that Libby wants to prepare his defense, Fitzgerald said, he and Libby's lawyers will work out solutions with the judge in secret, under the Classified Information Procedures Act -- (CIPA) a law designed to deal with defendants' access to classified government information.
The classified documents the CIA provided Libby are for the time periods: 7 June - 14 July 2003, 12-16 October 2003, 24-28 November 2003, 3-7 March 2004, and 22-26 March 2004.
The June-July time period is crucial to the charges brought against Libby. It is alleged by Fitzgerald that in mid June, 2003 Libby was first informed by the under secretary of state Marc Grossman that former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. and that she might have been involved with Wilson's Niger trip. On June 23rd, Libby had the first meeting with NYTimes reporter Judith Miller. Libby is alleged to have informed her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.
On July 6th, in an Op-Ed article in Times, Wilson asserted that the White House ''twisted'' the intelligence about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material. Libby maintains that he believed he was learning about Wilson's wife's identity for the first time when he spoke with NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on July 10 or 11 regarding coverage of the Niger issue by MSNBC correspondent Chris Matthews. On July 14th, a column by Robert Novak revealed that Mr. Wilson's wife, ''Valerie Plame, was an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction,'' prompting an investigation into whether government officials disclosed her identity.
(NBC is a parent company of MSNBC.com.)
Russert and Grossman will likely be called as government witnesses at Libby's trial which is scheduled to begin in January 2007.
Expected defense
Attorney's for Libby will argue that, in many cases, it is the government witnesses who have misremembered the facts, and that any errors Libby made in describing the events were the result of "confusion or faulty memory, not any intent to misrepresent the truth."
In fact, Libby has filed court papers to seek to admit the expert testimony of memory expert, Dr. Robert A Bjork, chairman of the psychology department at UCLA. Judge Walton has not yet decided if Bjork will be allowed to testify but said that Fitzgerald has until September 7th, to reply to Libby's motion on the memory expert.
Libby was charged in October, 2005 with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame and when he subsequently told three reporters about her. He faces five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice.
Much of the classified material Libby was provided may be given to the jury in the form of summaries of the classified material.
Libby's trial is scheduled to begin in January 2007.
Joel Seidman is an NBC producer, based in Washington, DC
URL: LINK
By Joel Seidman
NBC Nightly News Producer
Updated: 12:29 a.m. CT Aug 18, 2006
WASHINGTON - A federal judge today ordered that certain "extremely sensitive" classified documents be withheld from Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Judge Reggie Walton, writes in a court filing, that he has "carefully reviewed" the requests to withhold the documents from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and from the CIA, which were provided to him ex parte, in camera, and found that the documents should be omitted from the classified materials requested by Libby's attorneys.
Judge Walton writes that the documents he has withheld are, "extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States."
In previous weeks, the CIA has provided Libby, in two batches, classified documents which the judge court had ordered turned over to his defense team.
The CIA has provided to Libby documents which are either redacted versions of the classified papers which Libby viewed during his morning intelligence briefings with the Vice President, or summaries of the subject matter contained in those documents.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has said in recent months that he does not expect the White House to claim executive privilege to attempt to block Libby from using classified intelligence material in his defense against perjury charges.
But, Fitzgerald told Judge Walton in June that the White House has designated certain documents that it is concerned about being made public during a trial.
Workarounds expected
If those documents are among the ones that Libby wants to prepare his defense, Fitzgerald said, he and Libby's lawyers will work out solutions with the judge in secret, under the Classified Information Procedures Act -- (CIPA) a law designed to deal with defendants' access to classified government information.
The classified documents the CIA provided Libby are for the time periods: 7 June - 14 July 2003, 12-16 October 2003, 24-28 November 2003, 3-7 March 2004, and 22-26 March 2004.
The June-July time period is crucial to the charges brought against Libby. It is alleged by Fitzgerald that in mid June, 2003 Libby was first informed by the under secretary of state Marc Grossman that former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. and that she might have been involved with Wilson's Niger trip. On June 23rd, Libby had the first meeting with NYTimes reporter Judith Miller. Libby is alleged to have informed her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.
On July 6th, in an Op-Ed article in Times, Wilson asserted that the White House ''twisted'' the intelligence about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material. Libby maintains that he believed he was learning about Wilson's wife's identity for the first time when he spoke with NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on July 10 or 11 regarding coverage of the Niger issue by MSNBC correspondent Chris Matthews. On July 14th, a column by Robert Novak revealed that Mr. Wilson's wife, ''Valerie Plame, was an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction,'' prompting an investigation into whether government officials disclosed her identity.
(NBC is a parent company of MSNBC.com.)
Russert and Grossman will likely be called as government witnesses at Libby's trial which is scheduled to begin in January 2007.
Expected defense
Attorney's for Libby will argue that, in many cases, it is the government witnesses who have misremembered the facts, and that any errors Libby made in describing the events were the result of "confusion or faulty memory, not any intent to misrepresent the truth."
In fact, Libby has filed court papers to seek to admit the expert testimony of memory expert, Dr. Robert A Bjork, chairman of the psychology department at UCLA. Judge Walton has not yet decided if Bjork will be allowed to testify but said that Fitzgerald has until September 7th, to reply to Libby's motion on the memory expert.
Libby was charged in October, 2005 with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame and when he subsequently told three reporters about her. He faces five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice.
Much of the classified material Libby was provided may be given to the jury in the form of summaries of the classified material.
Libby's trial is scheduled to begin in January 2007.
Joel Seidman is an NBC producer, based in Washington, DC
URL: LINK
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Abramoff probe looks to Nashville-based PAC
Group's records sought, paper reports
By KATE HOWARD
and ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer
An evangelical Christian political action group based in Nashville has been subpoenaed by federal investigators to produce records that may tie them to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
J. Thomas Smith, president of America 21, said Tuesday that he couldn't confirm reports that he or his records have been subpoenaed. A memo Abramoff wrote in 2001 to a Native American tribe telling them to contribute to America 21 was made public last year.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Smith said he could not confirm any subpoenas. In a statement issued later Tuesday, Smith denied any allegation of wrongdoing and said that no money from his organization ever paid anyone targeted in the Abramoff investigations.
The National Journal, a weekly political paper based in Washington, reported this week that the nonprofit civic lobbying organization was being scrutinized as part of the federal influence-peddling probe into Abramoff's dealings. It cited unnamed sources.
When asked if Abramoff had any connection to his organization, Smith said, "None that I know of. I really shouldn't be talking about that."
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to charges he conspired to corrupt public officials and took millions from Native American tribes. At least four of Abramoff's associates have pleaded guilty to similar charges in the federal probe.
In a letter sent to the Coushatta Indian tribe in Louisiana in 2002, Abramoff wrote that a $10,000 check the tribe contributed to the political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority needed to be canceled and the money reissued to America 21.
Abramoff directed the tribe to make tens of thousands of donations and once directed leaders to cancel $55,000 in checks to then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and divert them to other groups.
The stated purpose of America 21 is to "educate, engage, and mobilize Christians to influence national policy at every level." The conservative, nonprofit lobbying organization was active in the 2002 elections that maintained a Republican majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. America 21 ran an outreach program in 2002 that targeted voters with conservative religious ties. The group maintains a public charity and a civic organization that is involved in political lobbying.
America 21 has been called a "critical friend" by Abramoff allies in e-mails obtained by the National Journal.
A report by a political action committee watchdog group, Public Citizen, said that America 21 raised more than $3 million from an anonymous donor in 2002, the only recent year the group was politically active. That year, the group sent direct mailings in at least 18 federal races but reported no political expenditures, according to the report. •
LINK
By KATE HOWARD
and ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer
An evangelical Christian political action group based in Nashville has been subpoenaed by federal investigators to produce records that may tie them to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
J. Thomas Smith, president of America 21, said Tuesday that he couldn't confirm reports that he or his records have been subpoenaed. A memo Abramoff wrote in 2001 to a Native American tribe telling them to contribute to America 21 was made public last year.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Smith said he could not confirm any subpoenas. In a statement issued later Tuesday, Smith denied any allegation of wrongdoing and said that no money from his organization ever paid anyone targeted in the Abramoff investigations.
The National Journal, a weekly political paper based in Washington, reported this week that the nonprofit civic lobbying organization was being scrutinized as part of the federal influence-peddling probe into Abramoff's dealings. It cited unnamed sources.
When asked if Abramoff had any connection to his organization, Smith said, "None that I know of. I really shouldn't be talking about that."
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to charges he conspired to corrupt public officials and took millions from Native American tribes. At least four of Abramoff's associates have pleaded guilty to similar charges in the federal probe.
In a letter sent to the Coushatta Indian tribe in Louisiana in 2002, Abramoff wrote that a $10,000 check the tribe contributed to the political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority needed to be canceled and the money reissued to America 21.
Abramoff directed the tribe to make tens of thousands of donations and once directed leaders to cancel $55,000 in checks to then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and divert them to other groups.
The stated purpose of America 21 is to "educate, engage, and mobilize Christians to influence national policy at every level." The conservative, nonprofit lobbying organization was active in the 2002 elections that maintained a Republican majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. America 21 ran an outreach program in 2002 that targeted voters with conservative religious ties. The group maintains a public charity and a civic organization that is involved in political lobbying.
America 21 has been called a "critical friend" by Abramoff allies in e-mails obtained by the National Journal.
A report by a political action committee watchdog group, Public Citizen, said that America 21 raised more than $3 million from an anonymous donor in 2002, the only recent year the group was politically active. That year, the group sent direct mailings in at least 18 federal races but reported no political expenditures, according to the report. •
LINK
Thursday, July 27, 2006
No one stripped of security clearances over Plame leak case
From The Hindu News Update Service ...
"No one in the Bush administration has been stripped of security clearances over the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to reporters three years ago.
"No one in the Bush administration has been stripped of security clearances over the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to reporters three years ago.
In a letter to Senator Frank Lautenberg, the Central Intelligence Agency said it had no record of anyone in the administration who is no longer privy to the most sensitive US secrets because of the Plame leak.
The CIA also disclosed it has not yet completed a formal assessment of the damage to national security that may have been caused by Plame's outing in 2003.
The assessment won't be completed until a criminal investigation of the leak has been concluded, Christopher J Walker, the CIA's director of congressional affairs, said in the July 19, 2006 letter to Lautenberg.
For more than a year, Lautenberg and other Democrats have been calling on President George W Bush to fire presidential adviser Karl Rove and any other aides who discussed Plame's CIA status with reporters -- or, at the least, to revoke their security clearances. ..."
Nice .. not like we wanna punish people for leaking sensistive info or anything!
Thursday, July 20, 2006
House committee investigates Abramoff-White House links
RAW STORY
Published: Thursday July 20, 2006
Members of the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives have initiated an investigation into connections between executive branch officials and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, RAW STORY has learned.
A story in today's Roll Call reported that Reps. Tom Davis (R - VA) and Henry Waxman (D - CA) issued a subpoena that sought e-mails, billing records and other documents from several firms linked to the former lobbyist. The members of Congress seek to explore "all documents that reflect contacts by Mr. Abramoff or his associates" with President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and other White House and broad range of other current and former executive branch officials.
Rep. Davis indicated that hearings related to the contents of the investigation are not currently schedulded.
An excerpt of the subscription-only story is available below.
#
The committee, according to a copy of a March 2 letter sent to Kevin Downey, an attorney who is representing Greenberg Traurig in the investigation, is seeking “to understand the nature and extent of Jack Abramoff’s interactions with public officials in the executive branch, including the White House, and the legislative branch.” Government Reform’s jurisdiction includes the White House and executive branch agencies, but it does not extend to the legislative branch.
Davis and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member on Government Reform, are seeking “all documents that reflect contacts by Mr. Abramoff or his associates” with a number of White House officials, starting with Bush and Rove, and extending into the political, legislative, and intergovernmental affairs offices at the White House, according to a copy of the subpoena reviewed by Roll Call. The committee is seeking information on contacts beginning in 1998 and running until the present date.
Records recently released by the Secret Service under pressure from watchdog groups indicate that Abramoff attended at least a half-dozen meetings or social events at the White House, including at least one with Bush himself.
Other current or former White House aides from whom the committee wants information on any Abramoff-related contacts include: Ken Mehlman, now Republican National Committee chairman; Susan Ralston, Rove’s assistant who had worked for Abramoff before going to the White House; Nick Calio and David Hobbs, both former heads of the White House legislative affairs shop; Jack Oliver, one of Bush’s top fundraisers; Jack Howard, a former deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs; Barry Jackson, one of Rove’s top aides; Eric Pelletier, deputy assistant to president for legislative affairs; Ziad Ojakli and Matt Kirk, both of whom worked in the legislative affairs office; and dozens of others.
LINK
Published: Thursday July 20, 2006
Members of the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives have initiated an investigation into connections between executive branch officials and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, RAW STORY has learned.
A story in today's Roll Call reported that Reps. Tom Davis (R - VA) and Henry Waxman (D - CA) issued a subpoena that sought e-mails, billing records and other documents from several firms linked to the former lobbyist. The members of Congress seek to explore "all documents that reflect contacts by Mr. Abramoff or his associates" with President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and other White House and broad range of other current and former executive branch officials.
Rep. Davis indicated that hearings related to the contents of the investigation are not currently schedulded.
An excerpt of the subscription-only story is available below.
#
The committee, according to a copy of a March 2 letter sent to Kevin Downey, an attorney who is representing Greenberg Traurig in the investigation, is seeking “to understand the nature and extent of Jack Abramoff’s interactions with public officials in the executive branch, including the White House, and the legislative branch.” Government Reform’s jurisdiction includes the White House and executive branch agencies, but it does not extend to the legislative branch.
Davis and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member on Government Reform, are seeking “all documents that reflect contacts by Mr. Abramoff or his associates” with a number of White House officials, starting with Bush and Rove, and extending into the political, legislative, and intergovernmental affairs offices at the White House, according to a copy of the subpoena reviewed by Roll Call. The committee is seeking information on contacts beginning in 1998 and running until the present date.
Records recently released by the Secret Service under pressure from watchdog groups indicate that Abramoff attended at least a half-dozen meetings or social events at the White House, including at least one with Bush himself.
Other current or former White House aides from whom the committee wants information on any Abramoff-related contacts include: Ken Mehlman, now Republican National Committee chairman; Susan Ralston, Rove’s assistant who had worked for Abramoff before going to the White House; Nick Calio and David Hobbs, both former heads of the White House legislative affairs shop; Jack Oliver, one of Bush’s top fundraisers; Jack Howard, a former deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs; Barry Jackson, one of Rove’s top aides; Eric Pelletier, deputy assistant to president for legislative affairs; Ziad Ojakli and Matt Kirk, both of whom worked in the legislative affairs office; and dozens of others.
LINK
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Debra J. Saunders: Valerie Plame's lawsuit takes a page from Paula Jones
Thought I would post this here .. so folks can see what Valerie is up against. Mind you, this broad is part of "Creator's Syndicate" .. a Neo Con manufacturing facility for "writers." Ha. Ha. (They also have Novak .. so .. that'll tell ya about all you need to know!!)
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is Paula Jones -- if with national security credentials and Beltway savoir-faire. Both women filed iffy lawsuits that seemed more designed to discredit a president than to prevail in a court of law.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is Paula Jones -- if with national security credentials and Beltway savoir-faire. Both women filed iffy lawsuits that seemed more designed to discredit a president than to prevail in a court of law.
Jones never could prove that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton hurt her career as a state worker after he allegedly sexually harassed her. Hence, there were no economic damages, as Judge Susan Webber Wright noted when she ruled against Jones.
The suit filed last week by Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, against Bush biggies -- Veep Dick Cheney, Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby and Bush guru Karl Rove -- is equally nonsensical.
"She wasn't fired," said attorney Victoria Toensing, who served in the Reagan administration. "She worked for 2½ years [at the CIA] after the revelation. Nobody fired her. She's got a book deal she would not have had."
At least Plame emerges with a deal to write her memoirs for Simon & Schuster, whereas Jones' contribution to publishing was posing for Penthouse -- an odd choice for a woman who claimed to be suing Clinton to restore her reputation. Then again, Plame's photo spread in Vanity Fair didn't quite fit with her alleged desire to stay under the radar while she worked at the CIA.
There was some truth in both women's stories. Whatever did or did not follow, Jones did establish that Clinton invited her to a hotel room. As for Plame, she had a legitimate beef in complaining that Bushies outed her identity as a CIA employee -- even if the leak was not illegal. (Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's failure to prosecute the man who first leaked Plame's identity suggests the leak was not illegal.)
And there is an element of fiction in both stories. Jones' tale about Clinton's retaliation never held water. If Plame's job depended on anonymity, her hubby shouldn't have penned an op-ed for the New York Times.
The biggest similarity between Plame and Jones, however, is that both the Clinton and Bush administrations could have spared themselves a long legal nightmare if either one had not tried to make itself seem more virtuous than it was. Clinton should have refused to allow Jones' attorneys to depose him. If he had not lied to Jones' attorneys, Ken Starr would have had no cause to question Monica Lewinsky.
If Bush had not promised to fire anyone who illegally leaked Plame's info, or if staffers had told the media, that, yes, they'd talked about Plame, but they did not realize her job was classified -- then, as one insider told me, it could've been a one-day story. Well, maybe not a one-day story, but surely not a three-year story.
That said, Bush haters are mistaken in putting Wilson on a pedestal as his lawsuit is misleading. To wit, it cited a May 2003 New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof about Wilson's 2002 trip to Niger to check out allegations that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Africa: "According to the column, the ambassador reported back to the CIA and State Department in early 2002 that the allegations were unequivocally wrong and based on forged documents."
That's what Kristof wrote, but the column was off. As the Senate Intelligence Committee reported, the CIA did not find Wilson's oral report to unequivocally come down against Saddam Hussein trying to procure uranium in Niger. And Wilson could not have known about the forged documents when he made the report.
Like Paula Jones with the anti-Clinton crowd, Wilson always has been happy to mislead Bush haters. From the start, Joe Wilson was Paula Jones. Now Valerie Plame is, too.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Joe Wilson on the Bob Novak CYA Reputation Tour…
The Bob Novak CYA Reputation Renewal Tour continues. Yesterday, Novak had an exclusive with those hard-hitting journalists Hannity and Colmes. (Well, Colmes actually asked questions that went beyond the "that’s a great suit Bob, tell us where you had it tailored," anyway…Hannity, not so much.) Crooks and Liars has Novak in all his ass-covering smarminess.
I got an e-mail from Joe Wilson a little while ago with his response to Novak, and let’s just say that Amb. Wilson is not at all pleased with the continuing saga of Novak failing to take any responsibility for acting as a political hatchet job tool-of-the-day. Thought you all would be interested in what Amb. Wilson had to say:
Robert Novak, some other commentators and the Administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger. The facts are beyond dispute. The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger. The CIA set up a meeting to respond to the Vice President’s inquiry. Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson’s supervisor that the Ambassador attend that meeting. That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the Ambassador’s vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the Ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999. Valerie Wilson’s supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the Ambassador that he would like the Ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting.
I’m still waiting for someone to ask Bob Novak Swopa’s questions: "Who was the first person to tell him that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? Did he know this when he spoke to his supposed "primary source"?"
Was Bob already fishing with a fully loaded line? If so, who handed him the bait?
Wouldn’t we all like to know that one…but we sure as hell didn’t get it from Hannity and Colmes last night, despite Alan Colmes asking some pretty good questions about the…erm…discrepancies in Novak’s various statements, interviews, and rantings. Here’s a snippet of the interview (via C&L):
COLMES: Help me understand something, because you said in your piece today that you found out Valerie Plame’s name originally by reading a "Who’s Who." And you’re quoted in "Newsday" by Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce a while back as saying, "I didn’t dig it out. It was given to me," meaning her name. "They thought it was significant. They gave me the name, and I used it."
That sounds like contradictory statements.
NOVAK: Well, that was a misstatement. That was an interview I did on the telephone with "Newsday" shortly after it appeared. Some of the things that they said that quoted me that are not in quotes are paraphrases, and they’re incorrect, such as the whole idea that they planted this story with me. I never told that to the "Newsday" reporters.
But, as a matter of fact, let me assure you that neither my primary source gave — mentioned Valerie Plame’s name to me, nor did Karl Rove mention the name to me, nor did the CIA spokesman. They just talked about Joe Wilson’s wife. I got her name from "Who’s Who"…
COLMES: You said that Bill Harlow asked you not to go with this. Are there others who urged, "Don’t go with this story. Don’t print it. Don’t use the name. Don’t talk about Valerie Plame"? Why didn’t you listen to them, if that’s the case?
NOVAK: If I — Alan, if I adhered to — if I bowed to somebody who asked me not to write stories all the time who are in government, about half the columns I write would not be written, or a great number would not be written.
If he had said to me at any time that she was — that she was — her life was in danger, she was involved in undercover activities…
Well, isn’t that interesting.
Two things: (1) I sure hope to hell that Newsday recorded the conversation with Bob Novak. Because he just called them sloppy journalists and basically accused them of fabricating his quotes. If they have a tape, and a transcript of said tape, now would be the time to publish it. (And I mean the entire transcript, start to weaselly finish.) (2) According to Bill Harlow, the conversation with Novak went something like this:
Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson’s wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak’s call, he checked Plame’s status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame’s name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.
So, let’s see, the spokesperson for the CIA checks out your journalistic call and gets back to you saying Valerie’s name is NOT to be used…and you blow it off because he doesn’t give you every detail of her covert status, her driver’s license number and do a tap dance to Mr. Bojangles while playing the tune on a kazoo? What, are you a journalistic moron (yeah, don’t bother to answer that…)? Harlow could not, under his SF-312 requirements, disclose any details because it was…wait for it…about covert status. (btw, see Emptywheel’s fantastic dissection of this WaPo Pincus article. Great read.)
That Novak could not understand the flat out "Hello, Bob. Do not publish her name. There are consequences involved." when speaking to someone at the C…I…freaking…A, well…words fail me. Of course, when you are looking for a loophole that allows you to get the dirt out and never take responsibility for being the WHIG tool, you don’t exactly want to have listening comprehension at the top of your journalist kit bag, do you?
There is a reason that Novak is on a reputation rehabilitation tour — it’s because his reputation is in the crapper, and no one trusts him.
Not his fellow journalists. Not the political operatives who used to leak to him, especially now that everyone knows he spilled his guts early and often to Fitzgerald and the grand jury and the FBI.
And FOX has a contract with this weasel and is pimping his rehab like there is no tomorrow because…wait for it…they can’t use him as a propaganda tool if everyone still thinks of him as a weaselly liar who would sell out anyone, including a covert CIA agent working on nuclear nonproliferation issues during a time when our nation is threatened by this very issue, if he was asked to do so — because Bob Novak has never, ever apologized to the Wilsons for being the tool by which the WHIG exacted its political revenge on Joe Wilson.
And I have news for Bob Novak, that’s going to be the first line of his obituary, no matter how much rehab PR he and his Murdoch masters try to spin out. It’s too late for reputation rehab for Mr. Novak, I’m afraid.
Oh, and Murray Waas is likely off the Novak Christmas card list. But I bet he’s not losing any sleep over it. I know I’m not.
UPDATE: Reader smass has a good question in the comments:
You know, I have a question here. From H&C:
NOVAK: If I — Alan, if I adhered to — if I bowed to somebody who asked me not to write stories all the time who are in government, about half the columns I write would not be written, or a great number would not be written.
So, then, Bob admits that he was asked not to run with that part of the story. Does this mean, then, that the right-wing is going to call for Bob to be prosecuted for treason? I mean, one of their arguments against the NYT is that they were asked not to run the story.
Maybe Novak falls under the WSJ exception: if someone from the Administration asks you to print national security information for any reason whatsoever, including CYA for Dick Cheney and his peeps, you are on base and can’t be tagged. (Doesn’t that pretty much sum up the wingnut position in a nutshell?)
UPDATE #2: Justin Rood at the Muck has even more on this, including all the ways in which Novak was inaccurate about Murray Waas. Well worth a read. (Hat tip to lotus for the find.)
Go to this link for more links to more information
I got an e-mail from Joe Wilson a little while ago with his response to Novak, and let’s just say that Amb. Wilson is not at all pleased with the continuing saga of Novak failing to take any responsibility for acting as a political hatchet job tool-of-the-day. Thought you all would be interested in what Amb. Wilson had to say:
Robert Novak, some other commentators and the Administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger. The facts are beyond dispute. The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger. The CIA set up a meeting to respond to the Vice President’s inquiry. Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson’s supervisor that the Ambassador attend that meeting. That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the Ambassador’s vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the Ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999. Valerie Wilson’s supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the Ambassador that he would like the Ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting.
I’m still waiting for someone to ask Bob Novak Swopa’s questions: "Who was the first person to tell him that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? Did he know this when he spoke to his supposed "primary source"?"
Was Bob already fishing with a fully loaded line? If so, who handed him the bait?
Wouldn’t we all like to know that one…but we sure as hell didn’t get it from Hannity and Colmes last night, despite Alan Colmes asking some pretty good questions about the…erm…discrepancies in Novak’s various statements, interviews, and rantings. Here’s a snippet of the interview (via C&L):
COLMES: Help me understand something, because you said in your piece today that you found out Valerie Plame’s name originally by reading a "Who’s Who." And you’re quoted in "Newsday" by Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce a while back as saying, "I didn’t dig it out. It was given to me," meaning her name. "They thought it was significant. They gave me the name, and I used it."
That sounds like contradictory statements.
NOVAK: Well, that was a misstatement. That was an interview I did on the telephone with "Newsday" shortly after it appeared. Some of the things that they said that quoted me that are not in quotes are paraphrases, and they’re incorrect, such as the whole idea that they planted this story with me. I never told that to the "Newsday" reporters.
But, as a matter of fact, let me assure you that neither my primary source gave — mentioned Valerie Plame’s name to me, nor did Karl Rove mention the name to me, nor did the CIA spokesman. They just talked about Joe Wilson’s wife. I got her name from "Who’s Who"…
COLMES: You said that Bill Harlow asked you not to go with this. Are there others who urged, "Don’t go with this story. Don’t print it. Don’t use the name. Don’t talk about Valerie Plame"? Why didn’t you listen to them, if that’s the case?
NOVAK: If I — Alan, if I adhered to — if I bowed to somebody who asked me not to write stories all the time who are in government, about half the columns I write would not be written, or a great number would not be written.
If he had said to me at any time that she was — that she was — her life was in danger, she was involved in undercover activities…
Well, isn’t that interesting.
Two things: (1) I sure hope to hell that Newsday recorded the conversation with Bob Novak. Because he just called them sloppy journalists and basically accused them of fabricating his quotes. If they have a tape, and a transcript of said tape, now would be the time to publish it. (And I mean the entire transcript, start to weaselly finish.) (2) According to Bill Harlow, the conversation with Novak went something like this:
Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson’s wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak’s call, he checked Plame’s status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame’s name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.
So, let’s see, the spokesperson for the CIA checks out your journalistic call and gets back to you saying Valerie’s name is NOT to be used…and you blow it off because he doesn’t give you every detail of her covert status, her driver’s license number and do a tap dance to Mr. Bojangles while playing the tune on a kazoo? What, are you a journalistic moron (yeah, don’t bother to answer that…)? Harlow could not, under his SF-312 requirements, disclose any details because it was…wait for it…about covert status. (btw, see Emptywheel’s fantastic dissection of this WaPo Pincus article. Great read.)
That Novak could not understand the flat out "Hello, Bob. Do not publish her name. There are consequences involved." when speaking to someone at the C…I…freaking…A, well…words fail me. Of course, when you are looking for a loophole that allows you to get the dirt out and never take responsibility for being the WHIG tool, you don’t exactly want to have listening comprehension at the top of your journalist kit bag, do you?
There is a reason that Novak is on a reputation rehabilitation tour — it’s because his reputation is in the crapper, and no one trusts him.
Not his fellow journalists. Not the political operatives who used to leak to him, especially now that everyone knows he spilled his guts early and often to Fitzgerald and the grand jury and the FBI.
And FOX has a contract with this weasel and is pimping his rehab like there is no tomorrow because…wait for it…they can’t use him as a propaganda tool if everyone still thinks of him as a weaselly liar who would sell out anyone, including a covert CIA agent working on nuclear nonproliferation issues during a time when our nation is threatened by this very issue, if he was asked to do so — because Bob Novak has never, ever apologized to the Wilsons for being the tool by which the WHIG exacted its political revenge on Joe Wilson.
And I have news for Bob Novak, that’s going to be the first line of his obituary, no matter how much rehab PR he and his Murdoch masters try to spin out. It’s too late for reputation rehab for Mr. Novak, I’m afraid.
Oh, and Murray Waas is likely off the Novak Christmas card list. But I bet he’s not losing any sleep over it. I know I’m not.
UPDATE: Reader smass has a good question in the comments:
You know, I have a question here. From H&C:
NOVAK: If I — Alan, if I adhered to — if I bowed to somebody who asked me not to write stories all the time who are in government, about half the columns I write would not be written, or a great number would not be written.
So, then, Bob admits that he was asked not to run with that part of the story. Does this mean, then, that the right-wing is going to call for Bob to be prosecuted for treason? I mean, one of their arguments against the NYT is that they were asked not to run the story.
Maybe Novak falls under the WSJ exception: if someone from the Administration asks you to print national security information for any reason whatsoever, including CYA for Dick Cheney and his peeps, you are on base and can’t be tagged. (Doesn’t that pretty much sum up the wingnut position in a nutshell?)
UPDATE #2: Justin Rood at the Muck has even more on this, including all the ways in which Novak was inaccurate about Murray Waas. Well worth a read. (Hat tip to lotus for the find.)
Go to this link for more links to more information
GQ: Reed, Abramoff Discussed "Mortgaging Old Black People"
By Paul Kiel - July 13, 2006, 12:26 PM
Ralph Reed's primary is only a week away and things are heating up.
In advance of its August publication date, GQ has released a big piece on Ralph Reed today, with one gem in particular: a plan hatched by Reed and Jack Abramoff which sounds suspiciously like "mortgaging old black people," as a former Reed associate told the magazine.
In July of 2003, Abramoff and Reed considered launching something called the Black Churches Insurance Program.
We know how this scheme would have gone, because Abramoff pitched something similar to a cash-strapped Texas tribe, the Tigua. Basically, since the tribe couldn't pay Abramoff, he offered to arrange "a life-insurance policy for every Tigua 75 or older." When those elders died, the death benefits would have gone to Abramoff through one of his non-profits. The Tigua didn't take Abramoff up on the offer, but it was too good of an idea to let go.
So Abramoff apparently thought black churches were a good target. This would have been the same thing, according to GQ's Sean Flynn, except that it was African-Americans. Or as "a former associate of Reed's" told GQ, "Yeah... it sounds like Jack approached Reed about mortgaging old black people.”
According to Abramoff's email exchange (under the subject line "Black Churches insurance program") with Reed in July of 2003 pitching the idea, it would have been huge:
Per our previous discussion, Abramoff wrote. Let me know how we can move forward to chat with folks who can set this up with African American elders. It can be huge. Thanks.
A file called “Charity Elder Program2.doc” was attached.
Three days later, Reed replied: Yes, it looks interesting. I assume you’ll set up a meeting in DC as a next step, or whatever we should do next, let me know.
Reed would have been the point man with the church leaders, one assumes, ushering them through the sticky process of getting all of their elders to sign up for life insurance policies payable to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.
Reed's flack's response to the story was as off-point as always:
Reed’s communications director, Lisa Baron, initially said, “Your sources are wrong,” but not how or in what way. A day later, she notably did not say those sources were wrong. Ralph receives unsolicited requests of a political or business nature all the time, she wrote in an e-mail. Our records show no meeting took place to discuss the proposed project. Ralph had no involvement whatsoever in marketing such policies to African-American churches.
Link
Ralph Reed's primary is only a week away and things are heating up.
In advance of its August publication date, GQ has released a big piece on Ralph Reed today, with one gem in particular: a plan hatched by Reed and Jack Abramoff which sounds suspiciously like "mortgaging old black people," as a former Reed associate told the magazine.
In July of 2003, Abramoff and Reed considered launching something called the Black Churches Insurance Program.
We know how this scheme would have gone, because Abramoff pitched something similar to a cash-strapped Texas tribe, the Tigua. Basically, since the tribe couldn't pay Abramoff, he offered to arrange "a life-insurance policy for every Tigua 75 or older." When those elders died, the death benefits would have gone to Abramoff through one of his non-profits. The Tigua didn't take Abramoff up on the offer, but it was too good of an idea to let go.
So Abramoff apparently thought black churches were a good target. This would have been the same thing, according to GQ's Sean Flynn, except that it was African-Americans. Or as "a former associate of Reed's" told GQ, "Yeah... it sounds like Jack approached Reed about mortgaging old black people.”
According to Abramoff's email exchange (under the subject line "Black Churches insurance program") with Reed in July of 2003 pitching the idea, it would have been huge:
Per our previous discussion, Abramoff wrote. Let me know how we can move forward to chat with folks who can set this up with African American elders. It can be huge. Thanks.
A file called “Charity Elder Program2.doc” was attached.
Three days later, Reed replied: Yes, it looks interesting. I assume you’ll set up a meeting in DC as a next step, or whatever we should do next, let me know.
Reed would have been the point man with the church leaders, one assumes, ushering them through the sticky process of getting all of their elders to sign up for life insurance policies payable to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.
Reed's flack's response to the story was as off-point as always:
Reed’s communications director, Lisa Baron, initially said, “Your sources are wrong,” but not how or in what way. A day later, she notably did not say those sources were wrong. Ralph receives unsolicited requests of a political or business nature all the time, she wrote in an e-mail. Our records show no meeting took place to discuss the proposed project. Ralph had no involvement whatsoever in marketing such policies to African-American churches.
Link
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Texas tribe names Abramoff, Reed in civil suit
First federal civil suit filed in influence peddling scandal
By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 1:06 p.m. CT July 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - A Texas Native American tribe filed suit Wednesday alleging that ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and their associates engaged in fraud and racketeering to shut down the tribe’s casino.
The Alabama-Coushatta tribe, which contributed $50,000 to Jack Abramoff's non-profit, the Capitol Athletic Foundation (CAF), filed the first civil lawsuit in federal court in the influence peddling scandal, in Austin, Texas.
The lawsuit alleges Abramoff, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and their associates engaged in fraud and racketeering to shut down the tribe's casino and alleges the defendants defrauded the tribe, the people of Texas and the Legislature to benefit another of Abramoff’s clients — the Louisiana Coushatta tribe — and “line their pockets with money.”
“Ultimately, the defendants’ greed and corruption led to the Alabama-Coushatta tribe permanently shutting its casino. The funding for economic programs evaporated, over 300 jobs were lost in Polk County and the Alabama-Coushatta tribe has spent years struggling to recover and revitalize its economy through other means,” the tribe said in its lawsuit.
The court filing also names Abramoff's ex-business partner Michael Scanlon, a former aide to former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-TX; Neil Volz, a former aide to Rep. Bob Ney, R-OH; and Jon Van Horne, Abramoff's former colleague at his law and lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig. Although the tribe alleges Greenberg Traurig was part of the scheme, it did not name the firm as a defendant.
Lawsuit charges
The tribe did not specify how much it was seeking, but asked for triple damages.
The Alabama-Coushatta said Abramoff and others conspired to defeat a bill in the 2001 Legislature that would have allowed it to operate gaming on its reservation. Reed helped to rally Christians against the bill with a group he formed, Committee Against Gambling, the tribe alleged.
The tribe, which says it has strong Christian values, alleges Reed’s group called state legislators, sent targeted mailings to voters and ran radio ads against the bill without revealing their true origins, preventing the tribe from fighting back.
“They pitted Christian against Christian, tribe against tribe and cousin against cousin,” the tribe said.
Lobbying connections
The $50,000 contributed by the tribe from Livingston, Texas, actually paid for a portion of an August 2002 golf junket to Scotland which included Abramoff, Rep Bob Ney, R-OH, Ralph Reed and recently convicted former White House procurement officer, David Safavian.
At the time of the trip, Ney was seeking a legislative solution to assist the Alabama-Coushatta and another Texas tribe, the Tigua of El Paso re-open their shut-down casinos. The legislation was never enacted.
Less than a week after the Scotland trip, representatives of the Tigua met with Ney at his office on Capitol Hill on August 14th.
Evidence obtained by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee indicates that Abramoff treated CAF as his own personal slush fund, using CAF for a number of activities wholly unrelated to its charitable mission and tax-exempt status.
Tribe against tribe
Abramoff and Scanlon said that if the Tigua succeeded in its efforts to keep open its casino, the State of Texas would have no choice but to allow the Alabama Coushatta to have a casino. But unknown to the two Texas tribes, Scanlon and Abramoff were representing another tribe in Louisiana pursuing anti-gaming efforts in Texas against the Tigua and the Alabama Coushatta.
Those anti-gambling efforts were spearheaded by Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a leading Republican Party strategist. The Senate Committee portrays Reed as a central figure in the Abramoff scheme. Reed received more than $5 million in payments on behalf of Indian tribe casinos - clients of Abramoff.
Abramoff, Scanlon and Volz have pleaded guilty in a public corruption probe involving Abramoff's former tribal clients and possibly members of Congress. David Safavian was convicted by a jury last month in Washington. The Alabama-Coushatta never hired Abramoff.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court’s western district of Texas in Austin.
LINK
By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 1:06 p.m. CT July 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - A Texas Native American tribe filed suit Wednesday alleging that ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and their associates engaged in fraud and racketeering to shut down the tribe’s casino.
The Alabama-Coushatta tribe, which contributed $50,000 to Jack Abramoff's non-profit, the Capitol Athletic Foundation (CAF), filed the first civil lawsuit in federal court in the influence peddling scandal, in Austin, Texas.
The lawsuit alleges Abramoff, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and their associates engaged in fraud and racketeering to shut down the tribe's casino and alleges the defendants defrauded the tribe, the people of Texas and the Legislature to benefit another of Abramoff’s clients — the Louisiana Coushatta tribe — and “line their pockets with money.”
“Ultimately, the defendants’ greed and corruption led to the Alabama-Coushatta tribe permanently shutting its casino. The funding for economic programs evaporated, over 300 jobs were lost in Polk County and the Alabama-Coushatta tribe has spent years struggling to recover and revitalize its economy through other means,” the tribe said in its lawsuit.
The court filing also names Abramoff's ex-business partner Michael Scanlon, a former aide to former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-TX; Neil Volz, a former aide to Rep. Bob Ney, R-OH; and Jon Van Horne, Abramoff's former colleague at his law and lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig. Although the tribe alleges Greenberg Traurig was part of the scheme, it did not name the firm as a defendant.
Lawsuit charges
The tribe did not specify how much it was seeking, but asked for triple damages.
The Alabama-Coushatta said Abramoff and others conspired to defeat a bill in the 2001 Legislature that would have allowed it to operate gaming on its reservation. Reed helped to rally Christians against the bill with a group he formed, Committee Against Gambling, the tribe alleged.
The tribe, which says it has strong Christian values, alleges Reed’s group called state legislators, sent targeted mailings to voters and ran radio ads against the bill without revealing their true origins, preventing the tribe from fighting back.
“They pitted Christian against Christian, tribe against tribe and cousin against cousin,” the tribe said.
Lobbying connections
The $50,000 contributed by the tribe from Livingston, Texas, actually paid for a portion of an August 2002 golf junket to Scotland which included Abramoff, Rep Bob Ney, R-OH, Ralph Reed and recently convicted former White House procurement officer, David Safavian.
At the time of the trip, Ney was seeking a legislative solution to assist the Alabama-Coushatta and another Texas tribe, the Tigua of El Paso re-open their shut-down casinos. The legislation was never enacted.
Less than a week after the Scotland trip, representatives of the Tigua met with Ney at his office on Capitol Hill on August 14th.
Evidence obtained by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee indicates that Abramoff treated CAF as his own personal slush fund, using CAF for a number of activities wholly unrelated to its charitable mission and tax-exempt status.
Tribe against tribe
Abramoff and Scanlon said that if the Tigua succeeded in its efforts to keep open its casino, the State of Texas would have no choice but to allow the Alabama Coushatta to have a casino. But unknown to the two Texas tribes, Scanlon and Abramoff were representing another tribe in Louisiana pursuing anti-gaming efforts in Texas against the Tigua and the Alabama Coushatta.
Those anti-gambling efforts were spearheaded by Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a leading Republican Party strategist. The Senate Committee portrays Reed as a central figure in the Abramoff scheme. Reed received more than $5 million in payments on behalf of Indian tribe casinos - clients of Abramoff.
Abramoff, Scanlon and Volz have pleaded guilty in a public corruption probe involving Abramoff's former tribal clients and possibly members of Congress. David Safavian was convicted by a jury last month in Washington. The Alabama-Coushatta never hired Abramoff.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court’s western district of Texas in Austin.
LINK
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Novak: Rove was a source in outing Plame
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
54 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Columnist Robert Novak said publicly for the first time Tuesday that White House political adviser Karl Rove was a source for his story outing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
In a column, Novak also says his recollection of his conversation with Rove differs from what the Rove camp has said.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak wrote. Novak did not elaborate.
A spokesman for Rove's legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Rove did not even know Plame's name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply said he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame.
"There was not much of a difference" between the recollections of Rove and Novak, said Corallo.
Novak said he is talking now because Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told the columnist's lawyer that after 2 1/2 years his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to Novak has been concluded.
Triggering the criminal investigation, Novak revealed Plame's CIA employment on July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband, White House critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
Novak's secret cooperation with prosecutors while maintaining a public silence about his role kept him out of legal danger and had the effect of providing protection for the Bush White House during the 2004 presidential campaign.
The White House denied Rove played any role in the leak of Plame's CIA identity and Novak, with his decision to talk to prosecutors, steered clear of potentially being held in contempt of court and jailed. Novak said he had declined to go public at Fitzgerald's request.
In a syndicated column to be released Wednesday, Novak says he told Fitzgerald in early 2004 that Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed information about Plame.
Contacted Tuesday night, Harlow declined to comment. But a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the matter denied that Harlow had been a confirming source for Novak on the story. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Harlow repeatedly tried to talk Novak out of running the information about Plame and that Harlow's efforts did not in any way constitute confirming Plame's CIA identity. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Harlow may end up being a witness in a separate part of Fitzgerald's investigation, the upcoming criminal trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI.
In his column, Novak said he also told Fitzgerald about another senior administration official who originally provided him with information about Plame. Novak said he cannot publicly reveal the identity of that source even now.
"I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves," Novak said in his statement. "I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue."
Rove's role in the scandal wasn't revealed until last summer when Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper disclosed that Rove had leaked him the CIA identity of Wilson's wife. Cooper cooperated with prosecutors only after all his legal appeals were exhausted and he faced jail.
While Rove escaped indictment, Libby has been charged with lying about how he learned of the covert CIA officer's identity and what he told reporters about it.
LINK
54 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Columnist Robert Novak said publicly for the first time Tuesday that White House political adviser Karl Rove was a source for his story outing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
In a column, Novak also says his recollection of his conversation with Rove differs from what the Rove camp has said.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak wrote. Novak did not elaborate.
A spokesman for Rove's legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Rove did not even know Plame's name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply said he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame.
"There was not much of a difference" between the recollections of Rove and Novak, said Corallo.
Novak said he is talking now because Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told the columnist's lawyer that after 2 1/2 years his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to Novak has been concluded.
Triggering the criminal investigation, Novak revealed Plame's CIA employment on July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband, White House critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
Novak's secret cooperation with prosecutors while maintaining a public silence about his role kept him out of legal danger and had the effect of providing protection for the Bush White House during the 2004 presidential campaign.
The White House denied Rove played any role in the leak of Plame's CIA identity and Novak, with his decision to talk to prosecutors, steered clear of potentially being held in contempt of court and jailed. Novak said he had declined to go public at Fitzgerald's request.
In a syndicated column to be released Wednesday, Novak says he told Fitzgerald in early 2004 that Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed information about Plame.
Contacted Tuesday night, Harlow declined to comment. But a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the matter denied that Harlow had been a confirming source for Novak on the story. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Harlow repeatedly tried to talk Novak out of running the information about Plame and that Harlow's efforts did not in any way constitute confirming Plame's CIA identity. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Harlow may end up being a witness in a separate part of Fitzgerald's investigation, the upcoming criminal trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI.
In his column, Novak said he also told Fitzgerald about another senior administration official who originally provided him with information about Plame. Novak said he cannot publicly reveal the identity of that source even now.
"I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves," Novak said in his statement. "I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue."
Rove's role in the scandal wasn't revealed until last summer when Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper disclosed that Rove had leaked him the CIA identity of Wilson's wife. Cooper cooperated with prosecutors only after all his legal appeals were exhausted and he faced jail.
While Rove escaped indictment, Libby has been charged with lying about how he learned of the covert CIA officer's identity and what he told reporters about it.
LINK
Novak discusses role in CIA Plame leak case investigation
RAW STORY
Published: Tuesday July 11, 2006
Columnist Robert Novak is "breaking his silence" about his role in the investigation of the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, the Website Drudge Report broke early Tuesday evening.
"Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded," writes Novak in his latest column "My Leak Testimony."
"That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret," Novak continues.
The "primary source" for his July 10, 2003 article "Mission To Niger" won't "come forward to identify himself," but Novak does reveal that in his testimony he spoke of President George W. Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
"I answered questions using the names of Rove, Harlow and my primary source," writes Novak.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak writes.
"Novak said he and Rove had differing recollections of what happened when he asked about Plame," writes Howard Kurz for the Washington Post.
"Novak recalls Rove saying, 'Oh, you know that, too?'" writes Kurtz. "Rove, according to Corallo, has said he responded, 'I've heard that, too.'"
According to the Drudge Report, Novak will be making two appearances on the FOX News Channel tomorrow evening to talk about his role in the probe, on "Special Report with Brit Hume" and "Hannity & Colmes."
Excerpts from Novak's column:
#
I was interrogated at the Swidler Berlin offices Oct. 7, 2003, by an FBI inspector and two agents. I had not identified my sources to my attorneys, and I told them I would not reveal them to the FBI. I did disclose how Valerie Wilson's role was reported to me, but the FBI did not press me to disclose my sources.
On Dec. 30, 2003, the Justice Department named Fitzgerald as special prosecutor. An appointment was made for Fitzgerald to interview me at Swidler Berlin on Jan. 14, 2004. The problem facing me was that the special prosecutor had obtained signed waivers from every official who might have given me information about Wilson's wife.
That created a dilemma. I did not believe blanket waivers in any way relieved me of my journalistic responsibility to protect a source. Hamilton told me that I was sure to lose a case in the courts at great expense. Nevertheless, I still felt I could not reveal their names.
However, on Jan. 12, two days before my meeting with Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor informed Hamilton that he would be bringing to the Swidler Berlin offices only two waivers. One was by my principal source in the Valerie Wilson column, a source whose name has not yet been revealed. The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as confirming my primary source's information. In other words, the special prosecutor knew the names of my sources.
#
FULL NOVAK COLUMN HERE
Published: Tuesday July 11, 2006
Columnist Robert Novak is "breaking his silence" about his role in the investigation of the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, the Website Drudge Report broke early Tuesday evening.
"Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded," writes Novak in his latest column "My Leak Testimony."
"That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret," Novak continues.
The "primary source" for his July 10, 2003 article "Mission To Niger" won't "come forward to identify himself," but Novak does reveal that in his testimony he spoke of President George W. Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
"I answered questions using the names of Rove, Harlow and my primary source," writes Novak.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak writes.
"Novak said he and Rove had differing recollections of what happened when he asked about Plame," writes Howard Kurz for the Washington Post.
"Novak recalls Rove saying, 'Oh, you know that, too?'" writes Kurtz. "Rove, according to Corallo, has said he responded, 'I've heard that, too.'"
According to the Drudge Report, Novak will be making two appearances on the FOX News Channel tomorrow evening to talk about his role in the probe, on "Special Report with Brit Hume" and "Hannity & Colmes."
Excerpts from Novak's column:
#
I was interrogated at the Swidler Berlin offices Oct. 7, 2003, by an FBI inspector and two agents. I had not identified my sources to my attorneys, and I told them I would not reveal them to the FBI. I did disclose how Valerie Wilson's role was reported to me, but the FBI did not press me to disclose my sources.
On Dec. 30, 2003, the Justice Department named Fitzgerald as special prosecutor. An appointment was made for Fitzgerald to interview me at Swidler Berlin on Jan. 14, 2004. The problem facing me was that the special prosecutor had obtained signed waivers from every official who might have given me information about Wilson's wife.
That created a dilemma. I did not believe blanket waivers in any way relieved me of my journalistic responsibility to protect a source. Hamilton told me that I was sure to lose a case in the courts at great expense. Nevertheless, I still felt I could not reveal their names.
However, on Jan. 12, two days before my meeting with Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor informed Hamilton that he would be bringing to the Swidler Berlin offices only two waivers. One was by my principal source in the Valerie Wilson column, a source whose name has not yet been revealed. The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as confirming my primary source's information. In other words, the special prosecutor knew the names of my sources.
#
FULL NOVAK COLUMN HERE
GOP columnist Bob Novak confirms that White House staffer Karl Rove leaked CIA agents name
by John in DC - 7/11/2006 11:42:00 PM
So when is Bush planning on firing Karl as he promised? There's no longer any investigating dealing with Karl, so why doesn't he speak? Why doesn't Bush speak? Why does this guy still have a security clearance in a time of war? Are our war secrets of so little value to George Bush that a major security leak is now no big deal? Or is it only no big deal when it's Bush's own people doing the leaking?
LINK
So when is Bush planning on firing Karl as he promised? There's no longer any investigating dealing with Karl, so why doesn't he speak? Why doesn't Bush speak? Why does this guy still have a security clearance in a time of war? Are our war secrets of so little value to George Bush that a major security leak is now no big deal? Or is it only no big deal when it's Bush's own people doing the leaking?
LINK
Monday, July 03, 2006
Bush told Cheney on Wilson: "Get it out," or "Let's get this out"
by Joe in DC - 7/03/2006 05:04:00 PM
Bush was a key player in the campaign to trash Joseph Wilson, according to the latest from Murray Waas:
One senior government official familiar with the discussions between Bush and Cheney -- but who does not have firsthand knowledge of Bush's interview with prosecutors -- said that Bush told the vice president to "Get it out," or "Let's get this out," regarding information that administration officials believed would rebut Wilson's allegations and would discredit him.
A person with direct knowledge of Bush's interview refused to confirm that Bush used those words, but said that the first official's account was generally consistent with what Bush had told Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
Libby, in language strikingly similar to Bush's words, testified to the federal grand jury in the leak case that Cheney had told him to "get all the facts out" that would defend the administration and discredit Wilson. Portions of Libby's grand jury testimony were an exhibit in a recent court filing by Fitzgerald.
This was the same guy who last week said it was "disgraceful" for newspapers to print articles about national security. How can anyone take Bush seriously? The press should just laugh at him. Bush doesn't keep us safe and he leaks national security info. for poltiical reasons.
Murray Waas has done some amazing reporting on this issue.
LINK
Bush was a key player in the campaign to trash Joseph Wilson, according to the latest from Murray Waas:
One senior government official familiar with the discussions between Bush and Cheney -- but who does not have firsthand knowledge of Bush's interview with prosecutors -- said that Bush told the vice president to "Get it out," or "Let's get this out," regarding information that administration officials believed would rebut Wilson's allegations and would discredit him.
A person with direct knowledge of Bush's interview refused to confirm that Bush used those words, but said that the first official's account was generally consistent with what Bush had told Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
Libby, in language strikingly similar to Bush's words, testified to the federal grand jury in the leak case that Cheney had told him to "get all the facts out" that would defend the administration and discredit Wilson. Portions of Libby's grand jury testimony were an exhibit in a recent court filing by Fitzgerald.
This was the same guy who last week said it was "disgraceful" for newspapers to print articles about national security. How can anyone take Bush seriously? The press should just laugh at him. Bush doesn't keep us safe and he leaks national security info. for poltiical reasons.
Murray Waas has done some amazing reporting on this issue.
LINK
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