What Do Chris Christie and John Ashcroft Have to Hide?
I kinda figured this would happen (h/t TP):
United States Attorney Christopher Christie and former Attorney General John Ashcroft will not testify in front of the House Judiciary subcommittee next week.
The hearing, which was tentatively but not officially set for Tuesday, has been postponed until next month.
The Judiciary Committee had asked Christie to testify about the lucrative federal monitoring contract he gave to John Ashcroft to oversee the medical implant company Zimmer Holdings, LLC. Christie had said he would testify if asked by the Justice Department.
Justice Department spokesman Paul Bresson did not say whether his department had asked Christie to testify, or whether they were refusing to do so.
Christie, who was a Pioneer for Bush, is one of the most ethically suspect USAs outside of Alabama. And his deal with Ashcroft already looked stinky. If they weren’t worried about explaining it–or revealing the degree to which corporations have their own justice system in this country, one that works out very lucratively for people like John Ashcroft–you’d think would snap to and go testify before Sanchez’ subcommittee. But they’re–at best–stalling. Perhaps they’re worried about having Christie under oath, or perhaps they’re worried about testifying, period.
It sure does look like they’re trying to avoid Congressional scrutiny, though.
And can I note the one area where the Justice Department has gotten significantly worse since Mukasey took over–its public affairs department (presumably because Brian Roehrkasse and the chip on his shoulder took over). Click through to see the sheer obstinence of Bresson’s reply (don’t want to break fair use when quoting DOJ’s crappy press office).
The very same press office that refuses to recognize the Polk Award winning Muckraker site as worthy of the crap they spew out? I guess Brian’s thought is that a quality operation that has the goods on him as the “attack dog” for the DOJ leadership during the USA attorney debacle does not need any more evidence of his incompetence, not figuring that a quality operation that has the goods on him has multiple means to get the crap that he is denying them. Makes sense in a circular reasoning sort of way. That’s an achievement, for a mind like his.
That’s the one, though I hope the little bird that made sure Mukasey got asked about it by HJC had a positive effect. Though this makes it look like that little bird needs to ratchet up her cry a little.
I begin to wonder how many in DC are afraid to spill the beans b/c they fear for their personal safety. After all, Bu$hCheney are more like the Mafia, and they take omerta at least as seriously.
FWIW, left overly long comment on money laundering two threads back.
Synopsis: what if the GOP had been using eComm as part of their money laundering scheme. No idea whether my hunch is correct, but it’s technically possible. Maybe one of the greater techie minds around these parts can offer either a reality check, or else additional details.
Speaking of ethic suspended, uh, suspect, USAttys
Harper says the 60 Minutes Siegelman piece is running this Sunday.
Ah, torture spokesperson Bresson. Don’t be too hard on him for his failure to answer – apparently DOJ was working on a new memo about whether or not it would be torture to actually carve a tongue out and feed it to the neighborhood cats …
Those jokers at DOJ.
OT: The McCain Story.
I wonder if this is the subtext. The lobbyist in question works for Alcalde & Fay. One of their clients is CACI. Take a look at this story from 2004. If you’re one of the torture contractors, having McCain in your pocket would be perfect.
I should note that this all idle speculation. I got nothing more than inference and suggestion. Of course, that’s more than the MSM needs.
WO – Re McCain, the MSM seems to be treating things differently than, say, the Clinton/Lewinsky story. Right now, the top story on CNN.com is the lunar eclipse, and not the potential eclipse of McCain’s candidacy.
Olbermann made a big deal out of it.
Yes, but the NYT has apparently sat on it for months, maybe years. The last Democrat to get that kind of a pass was JFK.
but you know if it were about Obama he’d be dead in the water.
At least it will give the punditry something to talk about for a couple of days besides their newly-discovered Baracknophobia.
Personal safety is probably a big issue. A bigger issue may be threats of character assassination, which for denizens of DC is preferred to the real thing (as if they’d never left academia). Like revenge, it’s a dish best served cold. Outright assaults are relatively few; most attacks fly below the radar, like a drug smugglers plane. In DC, it can be done several ways. Two common ones:
Performance evaluations, which is why in the USA scandal, one of the early threats was to threaten to disclose purportedly shoddy work.
Another is to play games with security clearances, which are ubiquitous and required by virtually everyone from postal inspector to high-level GAO, FCC, SEC or DOJ staff. Given the work of these staff, that clearance is usually required in any private sector job that might be the obvious follow on to public sector service.
A game complained of early in the Bush regime was to suspend clearances of non-team players pending their ”review”, but without revealing why the review was thought necessary. That put the employee in limbo, isolated them from their work, its data flow, informal networks, etc. It was an effective silencer, since it left little trail. Among other things, the individual can’t contest the procedure until an adverse decision is made. Keeping resolutions pending, from months to longer, because of ”budgetary” or ”workload” issues was common. The frustration level gets pretty high and often leads to resignations, though under a cloud. It’s a convenient way to restrain or discard civil servants you can’t justify firing.
Imagine these as the least harmful arrows in the quivers of dozens of Monica Goodlings and their bosses.
I STILL think the Big Dick and his puppet are blackmailing half the government.
If they ARE blackmailing everyone, it is the only competent thing they have done since almost no one has called them on it. All it would take is one provably wrong accusation to the wrong guy in congress and the whole thing blows up.
Of course they have a LOT of expertise and experience; (I know I bring this up ad nauseam but) the whole reason my mother was tasked with listening to J.Edgar Hoover’s phone conversations was so he could prove he “never said it THAT way”, so it isn’t blackmail! Since tape recorders were not yet practical, he used a few well controlled and muted humans. She did admit that he made reference to his subject’s “jacket” quite a bit.
How about setting them up? Have a clean congresscritter (if one exists) plant some juicy “admission” on a DNC server ONLY and sit back and wait for the contact. Waxman would be perfect; they have to hate that guy enough to try ANYTHING to stop him. (A little irony comes to mind: JEH’s favorite dirt was that someone MIGHT be a homosexual and used the ACCUSATION to revoke or decline someone’s security clearance!)
You know, at this point, the GOP has to just be glad that Gluehorse McCain was having an affair with an adult woman instead of an underaged boy like the rest of their folks.
Let the songbirds sing EW.
The reply function is on again. Great.
Interesting point. Imply that St. John has a touch of St. Augustine-the-pagan, that he’s a stud despite his age and exhaustion, in order to prove he has the energy, testosterone and misogyny to be a GOP president. Maybe, maybe not, but it would be plain vanilla reverse character assassination for the neocons.
More likely a torpedo from the right wing – if this was a McCain the Virile stunt he could have sent Cindy out to make coy remarks about his “vigor”, and the lobbyist connection is what makes this sex scandal “relevant” for the MSM, given St. John’s campaign finance rep.
Comment 9 was in response to comment 3; the “reply” function doesn’t seem to be working.
The McCain/lobbyist “affair” is making local news at eleven. Somebody doesn’t like St. John. Let’s hope the facts speak for themselves, and loudly.
I do think that Addington has to have been working overtime to devise strategies for how to keep thousands of mouths shut after Cheney leaves office. This deserves special tracking between now and the first year or so of Obama’s administration. I suspect that one of the strategies will be to hide delayed retribution among the new administration’s attempts to review and purge the most egregious of the Bush civil servant holdovers.
It’s not about the sex. It’s about the (lobbying) money and who knows what else???
“It’s not about the sex. It’s about the (lobbying) money and who knows what else???”
True, but keep in mind how much Democrats resisted the idea that Lewinsky “wasn’t about the sex; it was about the perjury.” In other words, be ready for McCain fans to keep saying it’s a sex scandal only.
so. Remind me: which wife was Walnuts cheating on this time, the drug addict or the other one?
and ew: there is no copyright in government works. So to the extent you want to re-post entire DOJ press releases, this law student encourages you to go right ahead.
Nah, it was from a press story. I don’t have the press release. And given DOJ’s treatment of TPMM, I suspect I’m not getting it anytime soon, either.
heh. I’ve followed Josh’s description of how he got kicked off the Mukasey mailing list with some amusement. I mean, talk about petty high-school bs, right? “We’re not going to talk to you anymore because you were mean to us last year.” I would think you could FOIA all of the press releases they put out, but it’s not the same as waking up to find one in your very own inbox :-/