Mr. Siegelman Goes To Washington

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From the NYT:

The House Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department Thursday to temporarily release former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman from prison in early May to testify before Congress about possible political influence over his prosecution.

A spokeswoman for the committee said Siegelman, a Democrat serving more than seven years in a Louisiana prison, would travel to Washington under guard of the U.S. Marshals Service. She said Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, believes Siegelman could provide important information about Justice Department practices under President Bush.

This is good news. Not necessarily because I think it will lend a lot of new facts that will do the trick to spring Siegelman from what appears to be a very bum rap, but because it will really build on the wave of national publicity started by the 60 Minutes segment.

I have not yet seen anything additional as to details, such as who other witnesses would be, exactly what Conyers hopes to accomplish, etc. Perhaps we should help the Judiciary Committee out and come up with a game plan for them. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: Well. Wow. That was fast. I figured the request by Congress would turn up the heat on the 11th Circuit in relation to Siegelman’s release pending appeal, but I didn’t really want to jinx the concept by saying so in the post. BREAKING NEWS from The Birmingham News via TPM:

Former Gov. Don Siegelman will be released from prison, after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him an appeal bond, the lead prosecutor in the case said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin said he received a courtesy call from the court today. "He’s going to be released," Franklin said.

He said he was disappointed but added, "The 11th Circuit has the discretion to do that, and I respect that.

Spitzer Springs A Leak

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As you all undoubtedly know by now, the huge breaking news is about New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s apparent ties to a prostitution ring. The New York Times reports:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides inside his Fifth Avenue apartment early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He scheduled an announcement for 2:15 after inquiries from the Times.

Mr. Spitzer, a first-term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform and end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children.

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved.

But a person with knowledge of the governor’s role said that the person believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers.

Spitzer has now held a brief press conference where he admitted that he had betrayer the trust of his family and the public and is going to take "some time" to work out his path forward.

It appears that this emanates out of the arrest and charging last Thursday, March 6, 2008, of four people said to be involved in an international prostitution ring. The investigation and charges were announced by the office of Michael J. Garcia, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

Federal authorities arrested four people Thursday on charges of running an online prostitution ring that serviced clients in New York, Paris and other cities and took in more than $1 million in profits over four years.

The ring, known as the Emperor’s Club V.I.P., had 50 prostitutes available for appointments in New York, Washington, Miami, London and Paris, according to a complaint unsealed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan. The appointments, made by telephone or through an online booking service, cost $1,000 to $5,500 an hour and could be paid for with cash, credit card, wire transfers or money orders, the complaint said.
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As part of the investigation, federal agents worked with a woman who claimed to have worked for the Emperor’s Club as a prostitute in 2006, according to court papers. An undercover agent posed as a potential client and arranged appointments by phone and online.

After obtaining authorization to tap the club’s phones, federal agents recorded more than 5,000 calls and text messages and had access to 6,000 e-mail messages, court papers said. Many Read more →

Don’t Cry For The Telcos – Bush & Cheney Are The Only Ones That Are Dying For Immunity

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The issues surrounding the FISA legislation are still roiling in Congress, thanks to the sudden appearance of a spine and principle by the Democrats in the House of Representatives (and correspondingly, with no thanks to the spineless and craven counterparts in the Senate, especially Jello Jay Rockefeller, the SSCI, and Harry Reid for bringing the horrid Intel committee bill to the floor instead of the far superior Judiciary bill). The most contentious issue has been, and continues to be, the proposed retroactive immunity for telco companies. Since the ugly head of the issue was first raised last summer with the railroaded passage of the Protect America Act, I have been arguing vehemently that the telcos are not in any grave danger financially from the civil suits currently pending. If their conduct is as has been described to date, they are already protected from liability for the actions that have been described, both by existing statutory immunity and by a right to indemnification from the government. The full court press for immunity by the Administration is entirely about cover for the lawless Bush Administration, and not about the impending financial demise of the telcos.

This post will go back over some of the basis for my argument that has been laid out previously, both here at Emptywheel and, earlier, at The Next Hurrah. I will also try to relate a few basics on what the general concept of indemnification is, and how it relates to contracts, in this case the agreements between the telcos and the Bush Administration. I have been making this argument for quite some time now, since last August, and have yet to have anybody put a significant dent in it; but it is no good if it cannot hold up to scrutiny. In that regard, I have posited my theory to several other lawyers expert in the field of governmental/Fourth Amendment litigation, including some extremely knowledgeable on the very civil suits at issue here, and all have agreed with the validity of my premise.

The Argument: The Bush Administration, with the help of telco providers (telelphone, cellphone, internet and other communication providers) engaged in massive wiretapping and datamining efforts, ostensibly to protect the United States from attack by terrorists. The legality of much of these programs has been questioned in many fora, but the germane ones for the immunity demand by the Administration are the civil suits that have been filed against both Read more →

Will The House Honor Their Oath To Office, Or Follow The Senate’s Lead And Cave To Fear?

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Some of us, okay, I am referring to myself, thought that FISA was cooked yesterday (really, I have thought this from the second they announced the unanimous consent agreement and bi-partisan extension baloney) and that the fork might as well be stuck in. As I said in the last thread,

…the House is putting on what appears to be a better showing than the Senate, but I have no doubt that it is all kabuki and the deal is done. I am pretty much positive that Pelosi, Hoyer and Boehner have their skids all greased and did so in conjunction with Hanoi Harry and the Senate Stumblebums. It is good to keep in mind that ALL of the representatives are up for election (only a third, give or take a few, of the Senate), so they have a vested interest in putting on a show. When the curtain closes, the final act will have been the same though.
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Remember, we thought there was at least a fighting chance in the Senate, and then all those eloquent and moving words by Chris Dodd, all followed by a whopping 29 Senators having the one ethical bone in their bodies to protect the constitution. Depressing. There is no way the House is going to squelch this after the Senate did that.

I still believe that analysis, but I will have to say that the House has put on a better show today than I expected, even after seeing the John Conyers letter issued evidencing that a little fight might be left in the old boys after all.

Cboldt had this to say last Saturday about the interplay between the Senate and House:

This latest push by the progressives, plus the fact that they have another extension ready, give me a little hope; but not much

The number of signatories, and their general “place” in the hierarchy of power, inclines me to think they are being “humored.” Their objection and voice can’t be blocked, and while it’s good to let them express their point of view, I’m not sure there is enough weight of objection in the House as a whole.

Yes, the right things are being said. But not by many.

The procedural details are in accord with the substantive material (e.g., contents of amendments, UC agreement) and a vote breakdown that heavily favors capitulation to the DNI demands. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was another extension, as a token political concession to the objectors, but I don’t expect Congress to send another extension to the WH.

I Read more →

Roll Call–Then and Now

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Phred asked what we had accomplished with all our work in the last five months. I’ve got a more specific post (among other things, calling out my Senator Stabenow for another one of her ridiculously bad votes). But for now, here are Democrats who voted for the Protect America Act, in August (bold are those who voted differently today; final vote was 60-28-12):

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)

And here are the Democrats who voted for S.2248 today (bold are those who changed their vote since August; underline did not vote in August; final vote was 68-29-3).

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

Read more →

FISA Liveblog And Trash Talk Thread Tuesday 2/12/08

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Another day, another sellout. That may actually be a good question to ask to ask any Congresscritter you can get your hands on, or voice to, over the next eight months. "What was you personal price for selling out the Constitution and my privacy? As a taxpaying constituent and citizen, I am entitled to an honest answer; what was your price?" What are the odds that even one single critter gives an honest answer? About zero is my guess. Document the atrocities as you see them today, I will be in and out, as I believe Marcy will be. A good lawyer always makes a record for appeal, even when he or she is losing miserably. So, make a record; Phred demands it! Because we are certainly going to be appealing what our Senate, and Congress, is doing to us and our Constitution by their cancerous and derelict actions on FISA.

Timing and the Jefferson Indictment

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Why Are They Afraid of a Living Wage, Clean Air, and Free Speech?

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Well, the Republicans have launched their long-planned attack on the Representatives who will be Committee Chairs when we take back Congress. It will get nastier than this–the WSJ hides, at least, the degree to which this fear campaign depends on race-baiting and gay-baiting. But let’s look at some of the things they fear:

Energyand Commerce would return to the untender mercies of John Dingell, thelongest-serving Member first elected in 1955, who was a selectivescourge of business when he ran the committee before 1994. The MichiganCongressman would do his best to provide taxpayer help to GM and Ford.But telecom companies would probably get more regulation in the form ofNet neutrality rules, and a windfall profits tax on oil would be a realpossibility.

Hmm. Provide help to GM and Ford? Even Republican candidate for governor in MI, Dick "Amway" DeVos, is trying to force Bush to help out the automobile companies. Not a bad idea, you know, to try to preserve hundreds of thousands of middle class jobs.

But look what they don’t mention about John Dingell’s legacy. Dingell is known for several things–the Clean Air Act, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Medicare Program that works (unlike the  donut hole monstrosity invented by Bush’s donors)–all programs with solid support around the country.

And they’ve thrown in Net Neutrality, pretending that Dingell’s support for Net Neutrality, which simply preserves the state of Free Speech on the Internet, is something to be feared. Why is the WSJ, a media outlet, campaigning against Free Speech. (Hint–the dead tree media aren’t doing so well with real competition. I guess the WSJ’s support for competition only extends to other publicly traded companies?) So just with John Dingell, the WSJ wants you to be afraid of Clean Air, adequate medical care for children and seniors, and Free Speech. Whew, I’m quivering from fear.