Scottish Haggis and Wide Stance

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Josh and his reader ask WTF is up with Arlen’s support for Larry Craig.

TPM Reader BR wonders about Arlen: "What the hell isSpecter thinking? Is he trying to destroy the Republican party? Nothingcould be worse for them then drawing this out or attracting any furtherattention to the situation. Or did Specter offer friendly encouragementnot thinking Craig would take him seriously? Certainly a bizarredevelopment. I hope he does reconsider though, and that LaRoccoforcibly removes him next year."

Hard to say.  I don’t think it could have been quite the misunderstanding theory BRbroaches. Because Specter did make a statement a couple days ago sayingthat he hoped Craig could fight the charges and be able to remain inthe senate. At the time it struck me as a bizarre comment — even byArlen Specter standards — because after all Craig had just resigned,or so we thought. But now it all fits together. What Specter wasthinking with regards to the GOP, that I really can’t say.

But, as Josh alludes, I think this is just more of Scottish Haggis’ typical behavior. Remember that when faced with a black or white decision on anything, Arlen always attempts to find some legal gimmick that will allow the issue Read more →

Tommy K’s Greek Vacation

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As I suspected, Judge Burns was none too impressed that Tommy K’s daughter bought Phillip Halpern’s long-lost uncle’s house with the ensuing benefit to Halpern of precisely nada.

Halpern, who had last seen his uncle in 1999, said in court papers hehad no knowledge of the deal and did not benefit in any way from it,and removing him or the office was not warranted.

On that matter, Burns agreed. He said the claim of a conflictwas tenuous and could not serve as a basis for removing Halpern or theoffice.

So John Michael’s stated purpose for the motion to throw out his indictment has failed–Burns refused to throw out the indictment or even throw Halpern off the case. As to his probable intended purpose–to expose as much information about the shady crook that is Tommy K as possible to suggest there’s something fishy about his plea deal? That seems to be having more success.

Moreover, Granger said that Kontogiannis has been on vacation in Greecethis summer. Since pleading guilty, Kontogiannis has been free on abond, but surrendered his passport to federal authorities and wasallowed to travel out of the country only if accompanied by federalagents, or with their permission.

Burns seemed intrigued by that revelation, Read more →

“One Bomb Away”

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Glenn highlighted a part of the Jeffrey Rosen on Jack Goldsmith article that I wanted to return to:

[Goldsmith] shared the White House’s concern that the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act might prevent wiretaps on international calls involving terrorists.But Goldsmith deplored the way the White House tried to fix the problem, whichwas highly contemptuous of Congress and the courts. “We’reone bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court,” Goldsmithrecalls Addington telling him in February 2004. [my emphasis]

Since I raised the question of why this piece got published early, I’ll point out one other timing detail.

The government just submitted a response to the ACLU’s motion to have the FISA Court’s two adverse rulings released. The whole debate is one that may free up documentation about the FISA program sooner rather than later, since the FISA Court technically owns the rulings in question, unlike almost all the other documents people have requested or FOIAed. The FISA Court is no doubt currently considering the government’s argument while it waits for the ACLU’s response, due on September 14.

You know–the FISA Court? The one Addington deemed "obnoxious"?

While I don’t think the ACLU motion is the reason for the early release of the Goldsmith article, I Read more →

How Long Has Gillespie Been Acting as White House Counselor?

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First, a correction. I suggested the other day that Dick was one of the three people who voted not to keep Rummy when Bush took a show of hands on Rummy’s fate. But Cheney may not have been among those polled. The WaPo has a review of the book and the incident today, and Cheney is not among those named (though Abramowitz does not identify all of the votes).

For Canning Rummy
Josh Bolten
Andrew Card
Condi Rice
Ed Gillespie
Three more people

Against Canning Rummy
Bush
Rove
Stephen Hadley
One other, probably Cheney

But here’s what I’m really struck by. Ed Gillespie, right there among the paid Presidential advisors, casting a "can Rummy" vote.

I’ve been harping for some time on the problem with a big-time lobbyist entering the White House to take on the Counselor role. After all, when a guy had been lobbying for the telecom industry, a number of front organizations for corporate interests, and those student loan companies that are bankrupting our families, it suggests he might have divided loyalties when he enters the White House.

This anecdote shows that Gillespie had entered the White House in a substantive advisory role long before he stopped being paid by those corporate interests. Ed Gillespie was taking votes on personnel decisions Read more →

Condi, AIPAC, and the A1 Cut-Out

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You’ll recall that the AIPAC defendants called Condi and Stephen Hadley to testify about how they routinely leak classified information. Well, the government claims that these two, at least, don’t have to testify.

 

Secretaryof State Condoleezza Rice and other senior intelligence officialsshould not be forced to testify about whether they discussed classifiedinformation with pro-Israel lobbyists, federal prosecutors argued in aclosed-door court hearing Friday.

Two former American IsraelPublic Affairs Committee lobbyists facing espionage charges havesubpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, DeputyNational Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testifyat their trial next year.

If their testimony is allowed by U.S.District Judge T.S. Ellis III, the trial could offer abehind-the-scenes look at the way U.S. foreign policy is crafted.

(Note, it’s unclear whether the government is claiming just Hadley and Rice don’t have to testify, or whether they’re making the same claim for the others who have been subpoenaed, including Richard Armitage and Anthony Zinni.)

Basically, the Administration is arguing it should be able to keep its strategy of using A1 Cut-Outs secret. By A1 Cut-Out, I’m referring to the Administration’s practice of leaking classified information to a journalist–usually at the NYT and, until she was gone, often to Judy Miller–who then publishes it on the front page of the paper. The Administration then points to that story, pretending that they don’t know the information remains highly classified. The Administration famously did this with the aluminum tubes story, but it comes in really handy when you’re trying to drum up wars against countries whose names have four-letters starting in "Ira."

Tommy K’s Cooperation

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I’m trying to pull together as many of the details in the new transcripts about how Tommy Kontogiannis has cooperated (I was going to spell it "kooperate") with the government. The information is actually conflicting–Tommy K wants to portray himself as a good American who was just seeking out powerful Congressman to give intelligence to. But the descriptions of the AUSAs and FBI agents of his cooperation in this matter make it sound like it’s a limited thing.

Here’s K’s description of his reasons for bribing Cunningham.

The Court: The only thing I have a question about is itsays that you believe Mr. Cunningham was in a position to do you somegood. Is that why you were involved in this? You hoped through hisofficial position as a U.S. Congressman that he could advance somepersonal interest of yours?

The Defendant: It was never personal interest, your Honor. Myinterest is United States, basically, and he was in a position that Icould reach and tell them information that I was gathering from allover the world.

The Court: What were you going to get out of this, Mr. Kontogiannis?

Mr. O’Connell: Can I have a moment, your Honor?

The Court: Yes. My question is, what did you hope to get out of all this?

The Defendant: From the first case to bring as much information as Icould to assist us, especially after the 2001 situation. Second, it isgood to have a powerful Congressman that if you ever need anything, youcan ask him to help you or assist you in something you might need.

The Court: That’s really what I am getting at. Did you believe thatyou were buying influence with someone who was in a position to helpyou by involving yourself in these things that have been recited today?

The Defendant: Definitely.

I’m going to come back to this passage–it really makes me wonder how many of the rest of the Congressmen on the House Intelligence Committee are getting bribes from people who want to "tell them information that I was gathering from allover the world." Porter Goss, of course, had to step down as DCI because of his ties to Cunningham’s corrupt buddies. And Rick Renzi has some legal problems of his own.

Now, Judge Burns describes K as either an informer or someone tied into an intelligence network (or likely, both). Exposure of his cooperation would endanger him and others.

Seal-Fight in San Diego

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There are two, related developments in San Diego (hat tip to ChrisC for her updates) in the Wilkes/Michael/Kontogiannis side of the Wilkes trial. First, the government has responded to John Michael’s attempt to throw out his indictment because of a weird connection between Tommy Kontogiannis and one of the prosecutors, Phillip Halpern. As I suggested in my post on this motion, I think Michael is more interested in exposing a bunch of details about Tommy Kontogiannis than he is optimistic about getting the case out thrown out.

I doubt the motion to have the charges dismissed (or even SD’s USAttorney office recused) will succeed. But I’m guessing the actualpurpose of this motion is to make public a great deal of information onKontogiannis to–at the least–completely discredit him as a witness.If not to bring public pressure to indict Kontogiannis for the othercrimes the government admits he has committed.

I’m guessing the government’s lawyers at least partially agree with my assessment, which I’ll discuss in more detail below.

The whole question is relevant to the other news in the trial–that the Appeals Court has ordered Judge Burns to unseal the redacted transcripts for the hearings on Kontogiannis’ plea deal. This actually seems like a victory for the government, because the Appeals Court,

… requires the district court to maintain under seal only the disputed portions of the sealed transcripts. The district court shall unseal the redacted transcripts submitted to the district court by the government on June 22, 2007.

In other words, the portions of the transcripts that the government wanted to retain under seal in June when this whole squabble started will remain under seal. Which means, if we’re going to get the really juicy details about Kontogiannis, we’re going to get them from Michael.

Speaking of Propaganda Reports

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They’re doing it with voting rights reports, too (hat tip bmaz).

Because my approach to election issues tends to be more closely alignedwith Democrats, I was paired with a Republican co-author. To furtherremove any taint of partisanship, my co-author and I convened abipartisan working group to help us. We spent a year doing research andconsulting with leaders in the field to produce a draft report. Whathappened next seems inexplicable. After submitting the draft in July2006, we were barred by the commission’s staff from having anythingmore to do with it.

What was the problem? In all the time we were doing our research anddrafting the report, neither the staff nor the commissioners, who werecontinually advised of our activities and the substance of our work,raised any concerns about the direction we were going or the researchfindings.

Yet, after sitting on the draft for six months, the EACpublicly released a report — citing it as based on work by me and myco-author — that completely stood our own work on its head.

The author, Tova Andrea Wang, ties the manipulation of the report to the corruption at DOJ.

We also raised questions about the way the Justice Departmentwas handling complaints of fraud and intimidation. The commissionexcised all references Read more →

Moral Relativists

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When David Vitter admitted to using a prostitute service, no Republicans asked him to resign.

When it became clear that Pete Domenici had asked Bush and Gonzales to fire David Iglesias because the US Attorney didn’t trump up charges against Democrats, no Republicans asked him to resign.

When it became clear that Bob Ney and Ted Stevens and John Doolittle and Don Young had received some mighty curious gifts, no Republicans asked them to resign.

When Tom DeLay was indicted for money laundering, no Republicans asked him to resign.

But because Larry Craig wiggled his foot under a men’s bathroom stall, Pete Hoekstra and Norm Coleman and John McCain have asked him to resign.

Update: Language on Ney, Stevens, Doolittle, and Young changed to protect the principle of innocent until proven guilty, per Steve’s comment.

The Replacements

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This is my outtamyarse guide to the potential replacement candidates for AGAG floated so far:

Michael Chertoff: I think someone in the Administration floated Michael Chertoff as a replacement candidate before that someone really thought things through. Sure, Chertoff has been approved by the Senate before. But that was before 11/7–and we know that 11/7 changed everything. Not to mention Katrina. Part of me wonders whether the urge to make Chertoff AG was just an attempt to get him out of DHS, where he’s screwing things up royally. And once Fran Townsend refused to take the DHS job as Chertoff’s replacement, the Administration was left with no way to make the transition gracefully and has likely abandoned the idea.

Laurence Silberman: Democrats may be weak-kneed. But there’s no way (I hope) that they’ll accept Silberman as a replacement candidate for AGAG. Silberman has been the fixer for Republican scandals going back to Watergate, with a particularly prominent role in Iran-Contra. Allowing Silberman to serve as AG would be getting rid of an incompetent hack and replacing him with a competent, more dangerous hack.

Ted Olson: Another of the candidates floated long ago, when BushCo would have been nominating a replacement from a position of strength, rather than one of desperation. Since that time, the curious circumstances around Debra Wong Yang’s hiring as Olson’s close associate at Gibson Dunn have arisen; that involves Olson in the USA Purge in a tangential enough way that you’d think it’d prevent him from being confirmable. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t put approving Olson beyond the weak-kneed Democrats.

Larry Thompson: Thompson was Deputy Attorney General when BushCo first set about shredding the Constitution, which is a major strike against him. It’s unclear whether Thompson was actually read into many of the most egregious programs. But still, one would hope that we wouldn’t approve anyone (besides Jim Comey) who has been through the Bush DOJ already. Unfortunately, early on in this process, Chuck Schumer listed Thompson as an acceptable choice for him as a replacement AG, though it has been reported that Thompson is uninterested in leaving his cushy job at Pepsi to clean up Gonzales’ mess.

Paul Clement: Clement’s stock as a replacement seems to be rising, with lots of folks hearkening back to profiles quoting people from both sides of aisle complimenting Clement for his intelligence. But note closely what these profiles hail Clement for: his ability to argue either side of an argument very effectively. That’s great when he’s defending Russ Feingold’s Campaign Finance before SCOTUS. But in the position of Attorney General, he would be arguing Bush’s side of the argument exclusively. Furthermore, Clement has already proven himself willing to rewrite the Constitution in the name of defending BushCo’s executive privilege claims. Lucky for us (because I suspect Democrats would pass his nomination), appointing Clement as AG doesn’t solve BushCo’s gaping holes in every management position at DOJ, since they’d just have to find another Solicitor General. So I suspect we will be spared this sophist as AG.

George Terwilliger: I find it curious that the name receiving most attention–after BushCo realized what a disaster appointing Chertoff would be–is one of Poppy’s guys, with close ties to Bush family consigliere James Baker. Terwilliger has been specializing in white collar defense of late, which might be considered a huge plus to those trying to get through the rest of Bush’s term with no indictments. Terwilliger’s ties to Republican scandal fixing are more remote than, say, Silberman. He was on the Bush Recount legal team. And, more ominously, Terwilliger oversaw the BCCI settlement, which saved the US some money in bailouts, but probably also increased the comfort level of the Saudis who had bankrolled the giant money-laundering scheme. I can’t imagine the Democrats opposing Terwilliger in force, which is probably why he’s a leading candidate.

Michael Mukasey: Mukasey is the former senior judge in SDNY (so I’m hoping maybe our local expert on that area might pipe in with an opinion) and he sounds like–given the options–a pretty good choice. Most notably, Mukasey took a "split the baby" position on an early Padilla decision; he ruled that Bush could designate him an enemy combatant (a decision that did not stand on appeal), but he also insisted that BushCo had to allow Padilla to see lawyers. I suspect that his name has been forwarded by the Democrats, most likely Chuck Schumer, who has supported him for a SCOTUS appointment as well. Which probably means his name is floating out there solely because Democrats are floating it, and not because BushCo is giving it serious consideration.