Heffelfinger, Native Americans, and Voting Rights

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I haven’t read all the coverage on Goodling’s confirmation of the reason behind Thomas Heffelfinger’s appearance on the firing list. But I’ve read a lot, and I’m really amazed by the coverage of the interchange. Goodling’s response to Ellison’s question about the reasons for Heffelfinger’s appearance on the list, Goodling said:

GOODLING:There were some concerns that he spent an extraordinary amountof time as the leader of the Native American Subcommittee of the AGACand put — clearly, people thought that that was important work, but Ithink there was some concern…

Goodling doesn’t specify what the problem with Heffelfinger’s NAIS involvement might be, so it could be any of several issues, including:

  • Resource issues
  • Gaming issues
  • Abramoff issues
  • Sovereignty issues
  • Cobell lawsuit
  • Voting rights
  • Violent crime

Yet all the reporting I’ve seen has portrayed this as a matter of Heffelfinger’s work against violent crime in the Native American community. To be fair, it is partly Heffelfinger’s fault:

When I hear some bureaucrat in Washington say I was working too hard to fight violent crime in Indian Country, I’m outraged

Still, did no one hear Ellison’s follow-up?

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Monica’s Loyalties

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How to Spike the Lewis Investigation

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Or Should I Have Said: Nice Try Tom Davis?

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Shorter Henry: Nice Try, Brad Berenson

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There has been a lot of discussion already about the Ralston news from today–that she asked for immunity so she could testify about Abramoff contacts with the White House. What seems to be missing from those stories is the takeaway: Henry Waxman’s not giving Ralston immunity anytime soon.

Waxman provides a helpful map of what happened. Ralston gave a deposition on May 10–over a month after Waxman first invited her to visit. While there, she "testified on a number of subjects unrelated to the Abramoff matter." [Note to Novak and Rove–that bit’s just there to make you sweat.] But as for the rest, Waxman describes what sounds like an unsuccessful attempt on the part of designated firewall defense lawyer Brad Berenson to convince Waxman to give Ralston immunity for stuff she’s still under investigation for with the DOJ probe. Henry helpfully shows us the roadmap Berenson laid out for us:

Susan is here this morning voluntarily. She wants to assist the committee in its investigation to the extent she is able to. She is not under subpoena. We understand that the purpose of this morning’s deposition is really twofold: first, for her to provide the information that she can provide on a couple of subjects where she can testify without precondition … and, secondly, to make a record for the committee of the subjects on which she does not feel she can testify without a grant of immunity based on concerns that the testimony may reasonably form some link in a chain of evidence that someone could regard as inculpatory of her.

The subjects this morning that she will be unable to testify to on those grounds are the subjects of the relationship between Jack Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, including Ms. Ralston, and the subject of the use by White House officials of political e-mail accounts at the RNC.

She has material, useful information about both of those subjects. She is more than willing to provide it to the committee. However, she will, as we have previously discussed, require a grant of immunity before she is comfortable going forward.

And if you can’t read that road map, Henry gives you an even more specific one:

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Did Orrin Hatch and Byron York Get Their Oppo Research from Monica?

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Remember back in April when Orrin Hatch started talking out of his pasty white arse about Carol Lam’s background? He claimed it was alright for her to have gotten fired because she had been Clinton’s campaign manger. As it turned out, Hatch had completely botched his talking points and confused Carol Lam with Alan Berson, her predecessor in SDCA appointed by Clinton. One of Josh Marshall’s readers noted that the talking point–botched as it was–appeared to come from an NRO article that Byron York wrote.

But yesterday’s document dump includes a document (pages 5 to 15) that might be the source for both of their comments. The quality of this document is really crappy, but if you look closely you’ll see that it’s a matrix of all the Clinton USAs, similar to the matrix that the clique at DOJ came up with for their own USAs. Only there’s no column for Federalist Society membership, if you can believe it. It’s basically their oppo research on Clinton’s USAs.

It’s worth squinting at, if only to see how rarely a Clinton appointee had any more than County-level political experience with the Dems, certainly nothing like the folks that the clique recycled form Orrin Read more →

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What's Here Is Correct

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Remember way back before we knew about the partisan tests for hiring, when the biggest reason for Monica Goodling to plead the Fifth was the accusation that she had prepared Paul McNulty to state falsehoods in his testimony before the Senate?

Well, why do you suppose we only got this document on the eve of her testimony, after she had already been granted immunity?

Whats_here_is_correct

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What’s Here Is Correct

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Remember way back before we knew about the partisan tests for hiring, when the biggest reason for Monica Goodling to plead the Fifth was the accusation that she had prepared Paul McNulty to state falsehoods in his testimony before the Senate?

Well, why do you suppose we only got this document on the eve of her testimony, after she had already been granted immunity?

Whats_here_is_correct

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