Okay, Lamont Didn’t Crash the Servers. But What Did Lieberman Do with His $387,000 Slush Fund?

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In thoroughly unsurprising news today, the Ned Lamont campaign was cleared of any wrong-doing in the crash of Lieberman’s server leading up to primary day in 2006. The Stamford Advocate reports that the FBI determined–way back on October 25, 2006–that Lieberman’s campaign bears all responsibility for the server crash.

Case closed, right?

No. Not on the outstanding legal issues arising from the campaign, anyway.

As you might recall, the Lamont campaign filed an FEC complaint, coincidentally just two days before the whole server crash case was closed in October 2006, noting that Joe Lieberman had a campaign finance entry for "petty cash" expenditures that were way beyond the legal limits: $387,000 of "petty cash."

The Friends of Joe Lieberman committee, and Joseph I. Lieberman, individually have violated the clear and unambiguous terms of 11 C.F.R. §102.11 in at least the following three ways.

First, according to the FEC October Quarterly report filed on October 13, 2006, the Lieberman campaign has petty cash disbursements amounting to $387,561.00, which is roughly 8 percent of its total disbursements, or one out of every twelve dollars spent. On several occasions, petty cash disbursements greater than $100 were reported, as supposed payment for “volunteers.” As summary of these disbursements from the Friends of Joe Lieberman report are attached hereto. These disbursements reflect patent violations of 11 C.F.R. §102.11.

Second, the report does not include the name and address of every person to whom any disbursement is made, as well as the date, amount, and purpose of such disbursement. Again, Friends of Joe Lieberman stands in clear violation of 11 C.F.R. §102.11.

Third, and perhaps most troubling, the Associated Press reported earlier today that Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun claims the cash was supposedly used pay to field coordinators who then distributed money to workers who were canvassing (Andrew Miga, Lamont Questions Lieberman’s Spending, October 23, 2006). There is no evidence that the Lieberman committee kept and maintained a written journal of any kind regarding these disbursements as required by 11 C.F.R. §102.11. As I am sure you are aware, the rationale for this regulation is to, among other things, prevent the creation and utilization of slush funds for illicit purposes. The $387,561.00 involved here is a sum of supposed petty cash expenditures unprecedented in any race in our state’s history. Read more →

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Dog N Pony Too

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I suspect because of the dynamics of the Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee actually seems to be making progress. So far this hearing, we have established:

  1. Everyone has had it with this war–Republican and Democrat.
  2. The biggest threat to the United States from Al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not in Iraq (as Biden got Crocker, the former Ambassador to Pakistan, to admit).
  3. Petraeus and Crocker agree with Barbara Boxer and a bunch of other Republican and Democratic Senators–and presumably will go tell Bush as much–that Iraq has got to start paying for its own militias.
  4. We will never remove the threats of AQI and Iranian influence in Iraq, so the best end point we should strive for is to achieve some kind of stability in Iraq.

There was one moment, when George Voinovich was flogging the fact that we’re broke and therefore will be forced to leave in the near term…

Do you realize that that is where we are today? We are bankrupt and the gravy train to Iraq is coming to an end. Is anyone over there telling the Iraqis this? [thanks to maryo2 for transcribing]

…where both Crocker and Petraeus seemed to realize that they have failed to meet Bush’s goals–to not only sustain Republican support for the escalation, but also to paint the image that we’re winning. As much as anyone, Voiny summed up how bleak things look for us in Iraq.

Now let’s hope we can take today’s accomplishments (and whatever the House can wring out of Bush’s witnesses) and bring this thing to a close.

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Dog N Pony

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The nice thing about having two full days of Dog N Pony show is that you can keep it on in the background, like Muzak, and still feel like you participated. I’ve seen some–but not all–of today’s testimony.

The weird thing about the Dog N Pony is the way the upcoming elections really challenge the message discipline of the Republicans. Susan Collins sounded almost sane. John Cornyn sounded like he’s gonna get beat by Rick Noriega. And Joe Lieberman–safe from any upcoming challenge–sounded like the biggest Republican. John McCain even sounded stern and concerned and managed to avoid mentioning his 100 year plan. Republicans and Democrats alike rightly asked why, with $105/barrel oil, we’re still funding Iraq’s redevlopment–a question Petraeus and Crocker were unable to answer satisfactorily.

Kudos to Hillary for promoting herself to honorary co-Chair in order to give (as Thomas Ricks dubs it) the third opening statement of the hearing; presumably Obama will do the same this afternoon.

The other thing about these hearings (and the Iraq war generally) is you never know who will really shine. I liked Claire McCaskill’s line of questioning (she was incredulous when Petraeus declared Maliki the victor in his recent debacle in Basra), but I would have liked to see her press Petraeus some more. My prize for the best questioner–at least for the morning–is a tie going to Evan Bayh (whom I saw) and Jim Webb (whom I missed, but whose questioning Spencer Ackerman captured nicely). Both pointed out that Petraeus’ take on the overall value of staying in Iraq really didn’t account for our commitments elsewhere, most importantly on the border of Paksitan, where the guys who hit us on 9/11 still run free. Here’s Spencer’s description of Webb’s question:

Webb’s concerned about overstretch and the strain of the war’s required deployments on military readiness. He was incredulous: there’ll be 10,000 more troops in Iraq after the surge than there were there before? Quickly he moved to the wages of decreased readiness, noting that Al Qaeda continues to rebuild itself in Pakistan, implying that we won’t be able to meet needed challenges there. "The concern I have with keeping that level force in iraq, looking at these other situations, particularly Afghanistan… I’m curious at the level of agreement in [your] plan [comes from] the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?"

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Haynes, Armed Services, Perjury?

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Scott Horton has more on the news that Jim Haynes has lawyered up–borrowing Dick’s trusty lawyer–in the face of scrutiny from Armed Services. Scott seems to imply that Armed Services is closing in on Haynes on perjury charges.

I’ve been looking into this trying to get a sense of what, exactly, the Armed Services Committee is so eager to discuss with Haynes. Two possibilities emerge.

First is the subject that Isikoff identifies: committee staffers have been carefully assembling secondary accounts concerning Haynes’s role in the process of authorizing highly coercive interrogation techniques, in preparing memoranda, and in soliciting memoranda to cover his advice from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Haynes’s relationship and dealings with OLC are drawing particular attention. Similarly, staffers are looking very carefully at Haynes’s prior appearances before the Committee, as well as his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in connection with his nomination to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

My hunch is that the facts and circumstances surrounding the preparation of the two “torture memoranda,” which I have dubbed Yoo Prime (August 2002) and Yoo Two (March 2003) will be right in the center of questioning. Something that Haynes said, it seems, doesn’t sit right with the investigators.

The second matter is Haynes’s role in restructuring the Military Commissions at Guantánamo and tasking prosecutors and the legal advisor to the convening authority. This is the point on which the president of the New York City Bar, apparently now joined by other bar associations, is pressing for Haynes’s examination under oath. Accusations come from the former chief prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis, among others. Davis has recently stated that he is prepared to submit to a lie-detector test about the matter. Haynes has refused to make public comment, offering only a bland statement that he “disputes” Davis’s charges through a Pentagon public affairs spokesman. [my emphasis]

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Haul Karl’s Ass into Congress

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Karl says he’ll testify.

As Governor Siegelman states, bring him in, let him swear on a bible and either testify or lie under oath.

Rove has, of course, reportedly lied under oath on two other occasions, once in Texas and once in the CIA leak case. He’s probably thinking "three’s a charm."

But let’s do it, this time, in front of the teevee cameras. I’m sure Artur Davis–of Alabama–would welcome Karl’s testimony. And while he’s there, you might ask him all the questions about the USA purge he has refused to answer.

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The DNC Email Ruling

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The folks that read and participate at Emptywheel are, in my humble opinion, without any question the best anywhere at deconstructing email issues and cases, and it sure looks to me like some of the people litigating these various matters are picking up on that too. That being the case, who could possibly deny you more fodder?

The Democratic National Committee has been suing the DOJ in DC District Court to obtain some 68 pages of emails relaing to the US Attorney purge. The main reporting to date has been from Politico:

A federal judge has handed the White House a legal victory in a battle with the Democratic National Committee over e-mails related to U.S. attorney firings.

District Judge Ellen Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Thursday that the DNC does not have a right under the Freedom of Information Act to 68 pages of e-mails sent between White House and Justice Department officials simply because the White House e-mail traffic was transmitted on a server controlled by the Republican National Committee.
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In dismissing the DNC lawsuit, Huvelle ruled that it was "based on the false factual premise that White House officials only used their RNC e-mail accounts for political communications."

Additionally, Huvelle decided that just because an RNC server was used to send the messages — 68 pages out of more than 5,000 which have been denied to the DNC — it is not enough to automatically disqualify the Justice Department from claiming a FOIA exemption in refusing to release them.

"It is therefore clear that RNC e-mail accounts were used (rightly or wrongly) both for official and RNC business, and thus the nature of the server is not necessarily informative as to whether the document contained official or political communications," Huvelle wrote in her opinion.

I think there are two issues to be contemplated here. The first is the relative propriety of Huvelle’s decision, and foundation therefor, in the DNC case, and the second is what implications it may have for the greater mass of contentious email issues that are percolating in our midst. Here is the full opinion rendered by Judge Huvelle in Democratic National Committee v. United States Department of Justice, CV 20070-712 (ESH-DDC).

There were originally 5,337 pages of emails responsive to the DNC’s FOIA request, but agreement was reached as to all but 68 pages. All of the Read more →

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Questions

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Shew! I did it! I survived for a full week without WiFi or wireless.

And it was nice.

A million thanks to bmaz for watching the blog this week–looks like you guys had a lot of fun without me. And a million thanks for the birthday wishes.

I’ll post more substantively once I wade through the accumulated emails and posts and news. But for now I’ve got the following questions as I read through what you’ve guys have been reading through.

  • If the White House destroys hard drives of people who move on, and the people from whom we wanted email in January 2006 included three people who had already left OVP (Cathie Martin, Jenny Mayfield, and Scooter Libby), then does that mean we still don’t have emails from the relevant period for these three people (particularly the last two)?
  • If Brent Wilkes’ complaints about improper leaks of his impending indictment win him a get out of jail free card, does that mean Eliot Spitzer is out of all legal danger (even while the DA is making it known that he suspects Spitzer perjured himself)?
  • What does Eric Lichtblau mean when he refers to Dick Cheney’s tense relations with the NYT in December 2005?

As New York Times Editor Bill Keller, Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman, and I awaited our meeting, we still weren’t sure who would make the pitch for the president. Dick Cheney had thought about coming to the meeting but figured his own tense relations with the newspaper might actually hinder the White House’s efforts to stop publication. (He was probably right.)

After all, this meeting took place just a month after Cheney’s Cheney had been indicted for lying to cover up Cheney’s apparent order to leak Valerie Wilson’s identity to Judy Miller. That indictment came after the NYT made an ill-advised attempt to protect Libby–even after they knew Judy’s testimony was proof that Libby lied under oath. After having been served so well by his selective A1 cutout leaks to the NYT, why was he so cranky right after Libby was indicted?

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Wheel Squirrels Stumble Into Bear Nuts – An Economic Update and Forum

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A couple of days ago, we discussed what really happened, and what the longer term implications might be, in the Bear Stearns forced sale/bailout over the March 15-16 weekend. There have been several things that have come out since then that are right on point with what we were all chewing on. Some are directly on point to the Bear deal, some are tangentially related and some are just general economic/financial news and thoughts. Masaccio wanted somewhere to jaw about things economic related; and what masaccio wants, masaccio gets. In no particular order then, here are some of the nuts I have stumbled on; please add any and all of your own in the comments.

1) This one I added as an update to the first post, but it still sticks in my craw a little bit. There simply is no such thing as a conflict of interest to the group currently running our country I guess (and when a Supreme Court Justice doesn’t feel obligated to be concerned over interest conflicts, why should anyone else I suppose). At any rate, turns out that JPMorgan Chase & Co head Jamie Dimon held a Federal Reserve board seat while Chase was in negotiations with the Federal Reserve over a deal to acquire Bear Stearns at an insanely low price. How convenient.

2) If there is any doubt about the fact that what is happening in relation to investment houses and the fear they sense from the financial struggles as to their continued ability to leverage and manipulate derivitive financial instruments, contemplate this:

Eight of the 10 largest donors so far to the U.S. presidential campaigns are Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs, according to research Thursday from a political watchdog group. Goldman and its executives have pumped $1.7 million into the races, with 70 percent going to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, despite former CEO Henry Paulson’s present job as treasury secretary for the Republican Bush administration.
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After Goldman, top-giving banks are Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase, which is buying troubled rival Bear Stearns in a government-engineered bailout.

3) Remember my question as to whether this was all a one off deal or was setting up some type of revolutionary precedent? Arguably this is slightly different than the $30 billion guarantee in the Chase purchase, but still, the Read more →

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The New Colombian Gold and What the FARC Is Up With Weapons Dealers?

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As you may recall, there is a lot of spooky intrigue raising it’s ugly head lately in South America. It is hard to tell if the Bushies are just trying to screw up every continent before they leave office, or if there is some type of master plan, especially between South America and the Middle East. As a quick recap, early in March we saw Soviet Russian arms dealer extraordinaire Viktor Bout arrested in Thailand on what appears to have been a US warrant stemming from information "obtained" in a Colombian execution raid into Ecuador to kill Raul Reyes, the FARC Number 2, based upon US suggestion and intelligence. The upstart of all that seemed to be that FARC was trying to either obtain and/or sell uranium. Oh and by the way, the rumor was nicely planted that FARC had been given $300 million to get involved in this uranium terrorism by Hugo Chavez our new arch-enemy from Venezuela. Then, of course, there is our old friend Chiquita Bananas who, as opposed to Chavez/Venezuela, we do know has supported FARC terrorism. Jeebus.

The latest piece of this convoluted puzzle comes today with the announcement that the FARC uranium has been "found".

The seizure of up to 66 pounds of low-grade uranium linked to the FARC rebels adds weight to the evidence found in a captured rebel laptop that the guerrillas were interested in buying and selling the material, according to the Colombian Defense Ministry.

But the 30 kilos of uranium found Wednesday in plastic bags dug up about three feet from a road in southern Bogotá was "impoverished," the ministry said, and in that state could not have been used to make a radioactive bomb.

Uranium is the new "Colombian Gold"! The bit about the uranium being found 3 feet from the road to the FARC camp is almost hilarious. Almost. Um, let’s see, Chavez, terrorists, uranium and a fortuitously discovered laptop computer. That doesn’t sound at all like any Fourth Branch government we all know and love does it? Especially not on the heels of the recent visit the Saudis received from Cheney.

The other half of this two headed post involves a different arms merchant freakshow, this one being underwritten by the US government. In a long expose just published in the New York Times, the story is told of a couple of skateboard punk looking Read more →

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Sometimes You Eat The Bear, Sometimes The Bear Eats You – Stearns Thoughts

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That whole financial disaster, black hole rivaling the Great Depression, collapse of the American economy thing is oh so last week eh? Because from what I can tell this week, Britney has been on a sitcom, Barrack (gasp!) has listened to a fiery preacher man, Bush and McCain say stupid things (okay, that is not news, but it is being reported on), and Hillary (gasp!) won’t quit a race that is essentially neck and neck (and this reference does not make this a thread for discussion of the horserace, so give that a rest). What happened to the biggest financial crisis in our nation’s history?

What was the the Bear Stearns takeover/bailout about anyway? Who really benefitted in the present? What does it portend for the future? I don’t have these answers; but I have a lot of questions and the ground seems to be morphing so fast on this that not only are we not getting answers, the real questions are getting left behind in the wake. To paraphrase Wilson Pickett, we need to "slow this mustang down" and think about what has occurred and where it will lead us for the future. Really, the implications are pretty incredible. The federal government, under the cover of a spring weekend, stepped in to force one private financial company to sell itself to another private financial company at a price more than fifteen times less than the market valuation at the time. And then the government pledged the public’s money to guarantee the worst parts of the deal. Wow. And here I thought the free market was the golden holy rule for those currently running our country into the ground.

How did something so huge, and with so many far ranging implications, happen literally overnight? One thing is sure, if the economy was as great as they say, and Bush and his band of merry pillagers were on top of everything as much as they claim, this never would have happened. There has been plenty of discussion about the sub-prime shitpile and the exponential rise in derivitives in the financial industry, but my question here is what really happened with the Bear Stearns deal itself? Thankfully, people that know a whole lot more about this than I do are starting to ask the right questions. Today’s example is an outstanding Read more →

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