A Little Civility, Please, Lanny

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(We’re still waiting for the Committee to come back from lunch. Hopefully that means they’re hammering out a deal — jh They’re back….)

I saw Lanny Davis in the lobby here at the Rules Committee meeting. I had my little video camera and I wanted to ask him what he thought of his good friend Joe Lieberman who was now running around saying Barack Obama is a member of Hamas. But steam was coming out of Lanny’s ears and it didn’t seem like the best of times:

A brief but spittle-filled shouting match broke out in the halls of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing on Saturday between a committee member and a surrogate for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Lanny Davis, the colorful, committed, and sometimes unrestrained Clinton supporter deliberately interrupted a small gathering of press who had come to hear Jon Ausman, a DNC member, explain the basis of his proposed Florida delegation compromise.

"I’ll tell you what," Davis chimed in, "the Clinton campaign’s position has been misrepresented by this wonderful love-fest, and the lady who testified for us was saying that the Obama campaign and your proposal is not generous. But it is in fact unfair. If you want to hear, now that the love-fest is over, why don’t you come over and hear the counterpoint to this completely disingenuous argument.

Lanny, Lanny. Please. To quote — well, you — can’t we all just get along?

My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.

This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing–in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against "communists and their fellow travelers." The word "McCarthyism" became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right’s fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a "communist" or "socialist" who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.

Anger just isn’t the way, Lanny. Politics is a gentleman’s game, part of the fine tradition of Cicero and the great orators. We lower ourselves and our American ideals when we lose our temper and engage in this kind of coarse, angry, spittle-flecked vitriol.

I really wanted to introduce myself and give him a hail-fellow-well-met over Lieberman’s senate victory (something he is no doubt proud of), but I have to say I feared for my very safety lest I approach him and he not be able to control his terrible temper.

Oh for shame.

Update: Lanny was a busy little beaver during lunch. Read more →

Will McCain Turn Over Requested Documents to the Renzi Prosecutors?

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As the Hill reported this morning, John McCain’s (and John Kyl’s) staffers were interviewed in the Renzi investigation.

Federal agents interviewed staffers for likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as part of their corruption case against Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).

U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa and fellow prosecutors disclosed the interviews with aides for McCain and fellow Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl in a written response to Renzi’s attorneys, who asked for the contents of the interview to help prepare for Renzi’s upcoming trial, which is scheduled for October.

But as the letter from the prosecution team to Renzi’s lawyers (and the Hill article) makes clear, the prosecution requested–but had thus far not received–more than that.

12. You have requested documents obtained from the offices of any U.S. Senator with respect to land exchanges. You will be provided with FD-302s of interviews of staffers of Senators McCain and Kyl. We have also requested documents from the offices of Senators McCain and Kyl, and if we receive documents we will make those available to you consistent with the rules and practices of the U.S. Senate.

13. You have requested documents reflecting communications between Resolution Copper or Petrified Forest and U.S. Senators. We will provide you with the opportunity to inspect and copy anything that we have received during the investigation on this topic. [my emphasis]

The prosecution team requested documents from the two Arizona Senators, documents that as of April 14, they had not yet received.

Now, to be totally fair to John McCain, these documents might show McCain in a good light. They might reveal that, after Rick Renzi allegedly tried to solicit a bribe from Resolution Copper and Petrified Forest, those companies appealed to the state’s Senators for help.

But John McCain has a history of sponsoring land swaps favored by his backers.

Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

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Check Out ACLU’s Relaunched Blog

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As some of you have noted, the ACLU relaunched its blog this week in fine fashion–by hosting a symposium on torture with a bunch of bloggers and experts. They had posts from Glenn, Christy, McJoan, Nicole Belle, Jeralyn, and Digby.

Oh, and me! Here’s a bit of my post from yesterday:

On May 9, the Convening Authority for the Gitmo military commissions signed charges against five detainees alleged to be responsible for 9/11.  Yet, in spite of the fact that George Bush named Abu Zubaydah in a September 2006 speech in which he promised to "bring these people to justice," Zubaydah was not included among those charged. Zubaydah remains, more than six years after he was first detained, uncharged.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I think the military commissions are in any way adequate vehicles to try Gitmo detainees alleged be terrorists (a problem the ACLU has tried to address). But it seems that Zubaydah remains in limbo precisely because he embodies the failures of the nation’s embrace of torture.

[snip]

Now, perhaps the Administration plans to charge Zubaydah with something else. Perhaps they will justify their excuse for torturing him, that he was a high level operative. But thus far, the Administration seems more interested in hiding the real evidence on Zubaydah: that they tortured a man, and that torture proved useless.

Go read the rest. 

CIA Once Again Buries Information on Abu Zubaydah’s Torture

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I have long pointed out the close connection between the CIA’s OIG report on torture and the tapes of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. The key dates are:

January 2003: CIA IG begins investigation into detainee interrogation.

February 10, 2003: Jane Harman writes a letter recording CIA Counsel Scott Muller drawing a connection between the torture tapes and the CIA IG investigation.

You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry

May 2003: CIA IG reviews the torture tapes at black site.

May 2004: CIA IG completes investigation, finding that CIA interrogation techniques are "cruel and inhumane."

May 2004: CIA and White House discuss destroying the tapes of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation.

November 9, 2005: Most complete report of IG investigation appears, revealing the "cruel and inhumane" conclusion.

Mid-November 2005: Torture tapes destroyed.

While there are surely other reasons why the CIA destroyed the torture tape, one thing the destruction of the tapes did was to eliminate one key piece of evidence that led the CIA’s own IG to conclude that the CIA’s interrogation methods were cruel and inhumane.

Well, over the course of the DOJ’s IG investigation into interrogation techniques, the CIA once again prevented investigators from accessing information–this time in the form of an interview of Abu Zubaydah–that would contribute to a conclusion that interrogation treatment was cruel and inhumane. In a footnote, DOJ’s IG report reveals that it interviewed High-Value Detainees at Gitmo, but that CIA refused to let DOJ’s IG to interview Abu Zubaydah.

When the OIG investigative team was preparing for its trip to GTMO in early 2007, we asked the DOD for permission to interview several detainees, including Zubaydah. The DOD agreed, stating that our interviews would not interfere with their attempts to obtain any intelligence from the detainees, including Zubaydah. However, the CIA Acting General Counsel [John Rizzo] objected to our interviewing Zubaydah. [three lines redacted]

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You Can’t Clean the Stench Out of the Straight Talk for Lobbyists Express

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The WaPo placed the news that Tom Loeffler, McCain’s Fundraising Chair, has left the campaign because he was unwilling to give up his lobbying gig, on A1.

Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, resigned yesterday because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said.

With five high-level resignations in the last week or so and the prominence of coverage about those departures, you might think McCain is really cleaning house.

But here’s the thing. Even with just the resignations of the last ten days, McCain has shown a real inconsistency about what kind of lobbying ties compromise his campaign. With Loeffler and Eric Burgeson, there seem to have been two problems. First, both were active lobbyists, who lobbied the Senate for clients whose issues fell squarely in the purview of the Commerce, Armed Services, and Indian Affairs Committees on which McCain serves. In addition, both represented foreign "countries," Loeffler Saudi Arabia and Burgeson the Kurds.

charlie-black-fisa.png

Of course, that’s true of Charlie Black, as well. For example, Black lobbied the Senate on FISA, and has had an affinity for representing evil dictators throughout his career. So why is okay for Charlie Black to stick around while Loeffler and Burgeson take their blackberries and go home?

John McCain has a ready explanation: Charlie Black (and Rick Davis, someone else McCain couldn’t afford to lose) aren’t really lobbyists anymore:

Charlie Black and Rick Davis are not in the lobbying business; they’ve been out of that business,

Today’s WaPo story provides a little more detail about what that really means.

Until recently, his top political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., was the head of a Washington lobbying firm. Black retired in March from BKSH & Associates, the firm he helped found, to stay with the campaign. Davis ran a lobbying firm for several years but has said he is on leave from it.

Indeed, Black does seem to have stepped down from his lobbying work sometime before the quarterly disclosure forms were submitted starting on April 18. So by "out of the business," McCain must mean "out of the business for a whopping month and a half." But there are two problems still.

First, how do you wipe clean all the lobbying Charlie Black did from the Straight Talk for Lobbyists Express? Black was, by his own admission, lobbying from McCain’s campaign bus.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.

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Duke Cunningham Bribery Ring: Two Down, Two to Go

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Tommy K has now joined Duke Cunningham in prison, with Tommy K being sentenced
to more than eight years and more than a million dollar fine. That leaves Dusty Foggo–presently due to be tried for bribery and then some in the fall in Virginia and currently squabbling over discovery with the government. And Brent Wilkes, who is trying to negotiate bail while he prepares to appeal his conviction.

These guys were all indicted for the gaming of our defense and intelligence contracts using bribes. But the housing crisis has added a nice touch of irony to the equation. Brent Wilkes has had trouble making bail because his southern California real estate has declined in value so much it’s no longer enough to back the $2 million he originally posted for bail.

Burns reinstated the $2 million bail, but wanted current appraisals of any real estate Wilkes would put up to secure $1.4 million of that amount.

Wilkes was short about $600,000 at first. The crash in the real estate market had devalued property previously used to secure the bail.

And Judge Larry Burns was none too happy that–after Tommy K signed a plea deal with the government–he continued to engage in massive mortgage fraud.

Burns also took into account that Kontogiannis continued breaking the law after he pleaded guilty.

“Here you are with your rear end on fire over this Cunningham thing, and you’re out there making bad loans?” Burns said. “I think that’s just brazen.”

So two and a half years after this little bribery ring first became public, its perpetrators are beginning to go to jail.

Howie’s got a good post on the secrecy surrounding Tommy K’s sweet plea deal. Like Howie, I hope that we begin to learn why the government almost gave Tommy K a pass on bribing a Congressman because–they claim–he was cooperating on some counter-terrorism investigation. We saw how Chiquita Bananas similarly got a pass on their crimes, courtesy of Michael Chertoff. I just wonder how many of the folks ripping off middle class home owners in the last several years will, like Tommy K almost did, similarly get a pass.

It’s Not Just McCain’s Advisors with Financial Ties to Evil Dictators; It’s His Wife

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The other day, Cliff did a post listing all the ties to bloody dictators McCain’s advisors have. They include ties to dictators in Myanmar, Zaire, Nigeria, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and–through Sun Myung Moon, North Korea.

Well, apparently, it’s not just his advisors McCain has to worry about. It’s also his wife:

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

[snip]

According to McCain’s personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain’s investments include two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund — that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.

"Those have been sold as of today," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

Both funds have holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., an India-based company that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned oil company with vast investments in Sudan.

Last year, in a speech on energy policy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, McCain cited China’s investments in Sudan as an example of regimes that survive off free-flowing petro dollars.

[snip]

On Wednesday, Rogers said: "Senator and Mrs. McCain remain committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur."

Rogers also said, "Now that you’ve busted the McCains failing to meet the standards Senator McCain claims to uphold on the campaign trail, we’ve decided Cindy should release her tax returns, just so you can be sure there are no other surprises like this–or her onetime $400,000 investment with Charles Keating that almost ruined Senator McCain’s career."

Oh wait, he didn’t say that last bit. Silly me! The McCain campaign obviously doesn’t need help vetting its staff and Cindy’s bank accounts!

Update: small edits thanks to watercarrier4diogenes. 

Bush: There’s No Better Way to Stay in Touch than through E-Mail

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This is funny on so many levels (h/t TP).

President Bush reveals that when he finally leaves the White House, the first thing he’ll do is resume E-mailing his buddies. "I can remember as governor, I could stay in touch with all kinds of people around the country firing off E-mails at all times of the day to stay in touch with my pals," he says in a Yahoo-Politico interview. "One of the things that I will have ended my public service time with is a group of friends, a lot of friends, and I want to stay in touch with them, and there’s no better way to stay in touch with them than through E-mail."

First, is the President suggesting he’s been forgoing the best way to stay in touch for the last seven years?

Second, who do you suppose will go through and delete massive amounts of Bush’s emails in the future? Pickles?

Finally, this means we can look forward to a collection of Bush’s personal emails to be published in about 2050. I’m placing my bets that that will be the humor book of the year the year it does get published.

Maybe Bush will start blogging after he’s done, too. 

Bloch: Making Some Sense

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I’m going to revise what I said yesterday when I suggested there was no method to Scott Bloch’s madness. After reading the longer document summarizing the Office of Special Counsel’s Task Force investigations, several key patterns stick out:

  • For investigations pertaining to DOJ, the Task Force’s investigations got caught up in the turnover between Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey
  • For the investigations pertaining to the politicization of federal agencies, the Task Force was presented with real jurisdictional issues that presented challenges for the inevstigation

This doesn’t mean Bloch is a particularly good manager or investigator. It appears, rather, that he got in over his head when he attempted to take on this high level investigation in May 2007 and, certainly by November 2007, had made these investigations personal.

Timing

The timing reflected in the document reveals some of the problems with the Task Force itself. It was formed in May 2007 to conduct larger investigations–primarily the politicization of government agencies (arising out of Henry Waxman’s own investigation of Lurita Doan), and the politicization of DOJ. Thus, it was started after both those events had significantly played out and (in the case of DOJ) many of the players had quit. The Task Force also inherited a couple of investigations started earlier–primarily an investigation into Rove’s travel started in March 2006.

That means the Task Force didn’t really get started until June 2007. On August 27, 2007, Alberto Gonzales resigned. Michael Mukasey was nominated on September 17, 2007, and approved by the Senate on November 8, 2007. Then this document was drafted on January 18, 2008. So what we’re seeing in the document–particularly as it relates to anything pertaining to DOJ–are the activities taking place after the trauma resulting from the USA Purge and through the period of transition between Gonzales and Mukasey. This explains at least some of the issues surrounding the investigations into DOJ.

For example, OSC had already begun an investigation into the Iglesias firing on May 4, 2007. Remember–that investigation was originally started because the Administration stated publicly that they fired Iglesias because he was an "absentee landlord" because he traveled so much in connection with his service in the Naval Reserve. Firing Iglesias for such a reason would violate the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which prohibits firing a service member for absences due to military service. Somehow, by May 17, the newly-created Task Force was also investigating his firing as a possible Hatch Act violation, and by May 22, it was investigating the firing of all the USAs. So the OSC took an investigation over which OSC had clear jurisdiction and broadened it into one in which it didn’t.

As early as May 4 (that is, even before the Task Force was created), this investigation conflicted with DOJ’s joint Inspector General (OIG)/Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation into the firings. On May 4 and May 29, DOJ complained about jurisdictional issues, even involving unnamed people in Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

Now, at this point, I don’t necessarily fault Bloch for pursuing this investigation. Alberto Gonzales was attempting to bury the investigation by giving OPR sole jurisdiction, meaning the investigators would report directly to him and not produce a public report. And given the crap that has come out of the Bush OLC, who knows what OLC was saying to Bloch to justify their argument that he should drop his investigation?

The problem, though, is that OSC only would have jurisdiction if Bloch could prove that an executive branch employee–as distinct from a legislative branch employee or a local politico–pressured the USAs to conduct politicized investigations. In other words, if it was clear that Monica Goodling was pressuring Iglesias et al to prosecute Democrats, then Bloch would have jurisdiction; but if Senator Domenici and Heather Wilson did so, Bloch wouldn’t have jurisdiction. And the only way Bloch might get evidence that executive branch employees were involved would be to get the kind of information that DOJ and–especially–the White House refused to turn over to Congress.

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Bloch: Stop Making Sense

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I am still catching up on events of the last week and so I don’t have a really good sense of WTF is going on with the FBI raid of Scott Bloch’s house and–according to NPR, via Sara–body cavities. But I wanted to point you to this analysis of a document drafted by a bunch of Office of Special Counsel investigators, listing their complaints about Bloch’s intervention into their investigations. I hoped that, by reading the analysis, I could figure out whether Bloch was in the bag for the Administration or opposed to the Administration. And, for the life of me, I can’t really discern any logic to Bloch’s action.

Go read the analysis. But here’s a scorecard of what the analysis seems to suggest:

Office of Political Affairs (Karl Rove’s shop at the White House)

Bloch consistently forced the task force conducting the omnibus investigation into whether the White House illegally used agency resources to help Republicans to expand its scope, even beyond the mandate of OSC.

Score: Anti-Bush

US Attorney Firing

Bloch refused repeated DOJ Inspector General demands that he drop his investigation into whether the Administration fired David Iglesias for political reasons, even while he insisted that the Iglesias firing was not a Hatch Act violation. Bloch seems to have insisted on keeping the case either because it was so high profile or to stymie DOJ IG’s investigation.

Score: Pro-Bush if done to stymie DOJ IG’s investigation

Monica Goodling’s Use of Political Tests in DOJ’s Hiring Practices

Bloch repeatedly refused to allow investigators to open an investigation into Goodling’s admitted Hatch Act violations. When he finally allowed investigators to open such an investigation, he allocated no resources to that investigation.

Score: Pro-Bush

Don Siegelman Prosecution

Bloch ordered investigators to close their investigation into the politicized prosecution of Don Siegelman.

Score: Pro-Bush

Politicized Prosecution of ACORN for Voting Fraud

Bloch refused to allow investigators to open an investigation into whether the timing of Missouri US Attorney Office indictments of ACORN voter registration employees was politically motivated.

Score: Pro-Bush

Lurita Doan

After completing an investigation into Lurita Doan which concluded that she had violated the Hatch Act, Bloch ordered investigators to open a second investigation into Doan, from a time before she worked in the Administration involving her husband. This second investigation sounds like a personal witch hunt against Doan.

Score: Anti-Bush

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