This article caused quite a flap last week. After giving this some thought, it occurs to me that the point of this is not the accusations of an affair between Senator McCain and the lobbyist, which may or may not have occurred. Those who assume that the article was finally published now because of the attempt to smear Senator McCain with accusations of an illicit affair with a lobbyist may be missing the point. Though I do not personally condone infidelity, (if the allegations were to be true), the additional content of the article beyond the allegations of personal scandal with a lobbyist concern me much more than what the media focused on last week. Further along in this article, it appears to me, are some very interesting revelations about other judgment issues Senator McCain appears to be experiencing.

I hold the opinion that we’ve had enough of elected officials who seem to view those laws and rules are for others and not for themselves. If Senator McCain really believes in his own honor and ethics, I wonder why he is not considering how things may appear before doing them. Even if oneself or ones family members are not really doing anything wrong, if it appears on the surface there is some questionable action going on, it will be questioned. Most federal employees are drilled about even the appearance of doing something illegal or unethical being a problem, particularly in the case of maintaining security clearances. Having family members invest in or donate to questionable things where the very act of involving “family” money in donating or investing in something one’s spouse cannot be involved in, is very poor judgment indeed, it seems to me. Even if poor communication is the root cause, that still does not remove culpability.
-GFS



February 21, 2008
THE LONG RUN
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk
By JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON
This article is by Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton.
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”

Mr. Cheshire added, “That imprudence or recklessness may be part of why he was not more astute about the risks he was running with this shady operator,” Charles Keating, whose ties to Mr. McCain and four other lawmakers tainted their reputations in the savings and loan debacle.

During his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has played down his attacks on the corrupting power of money in politics, aware that the stricter regulations he championed are unpopular in his party. When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain stayed in the background.

With his nomination this year all but certain, though, he is reminding voters again of his record of reform. His campaign has already begun comparing his credentials with those of Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic contender who has made lobbying and ethics rules a centerpiece of his own pitch to voters.

“I would very much like to think that I have never been a man whose favor can be bought,” Mr. McCain wrote about his Keating experience in his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For.” “From my earliest youth, I would have considered such a reputation to be the most shameful ignominy imaginable. Yet that is exactly how millions of Americans viewed me for a time, a time that I will forever consider one of the worst experiences of my life.”

A drive to expunge the stain on his reputation in time turned into a zeal to cleanse Washington as well. The episode taught him that “questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics,” he wrote, “and because they incite public distrust they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption.”

A Formative Scandal

Mr. McCain started his career like many other aspiring politicians, eagerly courting the wealthy and powerful. A Vietnam war hero and Senate liaison for the Navy, he arrived in Arizona in 1980 after his second marriage, to Cindy Hensley, the heiress to a beer fortune there. He quickly started looking for a Congressional district where he could run.

Mr. Keating, a Phoenix financier and real estate developer, became an early sponsor and, soon, a friend. He was a man of great confidence and daring, Mr. McCain recalled in his memoir. “People like that appeal to me,” he continued. “I have sometimes forgotten that wisdom and a strong sense of public responsibility are much more admirable qualities.”

During Mr. McCain’s four years in the House, Mr. Keating, his family and his business associates contributed heavily to his political campaigns. The banker gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid for the trips). They vacationed together in the Bahamas. And in 1986, the year Mr. McCain was elected to the Senate, his wife joined Mr. Keating in investing in an Arizona shopping mall.

Mr. Keating had taken over the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and used its federally insured deposits to gamble on risky real estate and other investments. He pressed Mr. McCain and other lawmakers to help hold back federal banking regulators.

For years, Mr. McCain complied. At Mr. Keating’s request, he wrote several letters to regulators, introduced legislation and helped secure the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board.
By early 1987, though, the thrift was careering toward disaster. Mr. McCain agreed to join several senators, eventually known as the Keating Five, for two private meetings with regulators to urge them to ease up. “Why didn’t I fully grasp the unusual appearance of such a meeting?” Mr. McCain later lamented in his memoir.

When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 — one of the biggest collapses of the savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion — the Keating Five became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers of three senators, who were censured in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain, who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others, was reprimanded only for “poor judgment” and was re-elected the next year.

Some people involved think Mr. McCain got off too lightly. William Black, one of the banking regulators the senator met with, argued that Mrs. McCain’s investment with Mr. Keating created an obvious conflict of interest for her husband. (Mr. McCain had said a prenuptial agreement divided the couple’s assets.) He should not be able to “put this behind him,” Mr. Black said. “It sullied his integrity.”

Mr. McCain has since described the episode as a unique humiliation. “If I do not repress the memory, its recollection still provokes a vague but real feeling that I had lost something very important,” he wrote in his memoir. “I still wince thinking about it.”

A New Chosen Cause

After the Republican takeover of the Senate in 1994, Mr. McCain decided to try to put some of the lessons he had learned into law. He started by attacking earmarks, the pet projects that individual lawmakers could insert anonymously into the fine print of giant spending bills, a recipe for corruption. But he quickly moved on to other targets, most notably political fund-raising.

Mr. McCain earned the lasting animosity of many conservatives, who argue that his push for fund-raising restrictions trampled free speech, and of many of his Senate colleagues, who bristled that he was preaching to them so soon after his own repentance. In debates, his party’s leaders challenged him to name a single senator he considered corrupt (he refused).

“We used to joke that each of us was the only one eating alone in our caucus,” said Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who became Mr. McCain’s partner on campaign finance efforts.
Mr. McCain appeared motivated less by the usual ideas about good governance than by a more visceral disapproval of the gifts, meals and money that influence seekers shower on lawmakers, Mr. Feingold said. “It had to do with his sense of honor,” he said. “He saw this stuff as cheating.”

Mr. McCain made loosening the grip of special interests the central cause of his 2000 presidential campaign, inviting scrutiny of his own ethics. His Republican rival, George W. Bush, accused him of “double talk” for soliciting campaign contributions from companies with interests that came before the powerful Senate commerce committee, of which Mr. McCain was chairman. Mr. Bush’s allies called Mr. McCain “sanctimonious.”

At one point, his campaign invited scores of lobbyists to a fund-raiser at the Willard Hotel in Washington. While Bush supporters stood mocking outside, the McCain team tried to defend his integrity by handing the lobbyists buttons reading “ McCain voted against my bill.” Mr. McCain himself skipped the event, an act he later called “cowardly.”

By 2002, he had succeeded in passing the McCain-Feingold Act, which transformed American politics by banning “soft money,” the unlimited donations from corporations, unions and the rich that were funneled through the two political parties to get around previous laws.
One of his efforts, though, seemed self-contradictory. In 2001, he helped found the nonprofit Reform Institute to promote his cause and, in the process, his career. It collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlimited donations from companies that lobbied the Senate commerce committee. Mr. McCain initially said he saw no problems with the financing, but he severed his ties to the institute in 2005, complaining of “bad publicity” after news reports of the arrangement.

Like other presidential candidates, he has relied on lobbyists to run his campaigns. Since a cash crunch last summer, several of them — including his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who represented companies before Mr. McCain’s Senate panel — have been working without pay, a gift that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has hired another lobbyist, Mark Buse, to run his Senate office. In his case, it was a round trip through the revolving door: Mr. Buse had directed Mr. McCain’s committee staff for seven years before leaving in 2001 to lobby for telecommunications companies.

Mr. McCain’s friends dismiss questions about his ties to lobbyists, arguing that he has too much integrity to let such personal connections influence him.

“Unless he gives you special treatment or takes legislative action against his own views, I don’t think his personal and social relationships matter,” said Charles Black, a friend and campaign adviser who has previously lobbied the senator for aviation, broadcasting and tobacco concerns.

Concerns in a Campaign

Mr. McCain’s confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman.

The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain’s commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, “Why is she always around?”

That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene. A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman’s access to his offices.

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

Separately, a top McCain aide met with Ms. Iseman at Union Station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator. John Weaver, a former top strategist and now an informal campaign adviser, said in an e-mail message that he arranged the meeting after “a discussion among the campaign leadership” about her.

“Our political messaging during that time period centered around taking on the special interests and placing the nation’s interests before either personal or special interest,” Mr. Weaver continued. “Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.”

Mr. Weaver added that the brief conversation was only about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” He declined to elaborate.

It is not clear what effect the warnings had; the associates said their concerns receded in the heat of the campaign.

Ms. Iseman acknowledged meeting with Mr. Weaver, but disputed his account. “I never discussed with him alleged things I had ‘told people,’ that had made their way ‘back to’ him,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She said she never received special treatment from Mr. McCain’s office.

Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. “I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that,” he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper’s inquiries.

The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday.
Mr. Davis and Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s top strategists in both of his presidential campaigns, disputed accounts from the former associates and aides and said they did not discuss Ms. Iseman with the senator or colleagues.

“I never had any good reason to think that the relationship was anything other than professional, a friendly professional relationship,” Mr. Salter said in an interview.

He and Mr. Davis also said Mr. McCain had frequently denied requests from Ms. Iseman and the companies she represented. In 2006, Mr. McCain sought to break up cable subscription packages, which some of her clients opposed. And his proposals for satellite distribution of local television programs fell short of her clients’ hopes. The McCain aides said the senator sided with Ms. Iseman’s clients only when their positions hewed to his principles.

A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.

In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.

Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.

Mr. McCain’s aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favoritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain’s advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that.
Recalling the Paxson episode in his memoir, Mr. McCain said he was merely trying to push along a slow-moving bureaucracy, but added that he was not surprised by the criticism given his history.
“Any hint that I might have acted to reward a supporter,” he wrote, “would be taken as an egregious act of hypocrisy.”

Statement by McCain

Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign issued the following statement Wednesday night:

“It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.

“Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.”

Barclay Walsh and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Someone sent this post, to me, this morning. I post it here with their comments.
-GFS

Every day I read something new which more and more convinces me that there are so many members of Congress that have been corrupted by Boeing that there is no way Boeing will ever be held accountable for their criminal activity. Per the Pentagon; "It's just sloppy administrative practices" -anonymous

Pentagon to Audit Troubled Helicopter Program
· Reuters
· Friday February 22 2008
(Adds details, Air Force response)
By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The Pentagon's internal watchdog on Friday said it will audit a contested $15 billion helicopter program to see whether the Air Force followed the rules when it changed military requirements for the aircraft.
The audit, due to begin next month, will examine whether changes to "key performance parameters" for the helicopter were properly disclosed and vetted through the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council, according to a Feb. 19 letter from the Pentagon's inspector general announcing the audit.
The Pentagon's watchdog agency released part of the letter in response to an inquiry from Reuters.

Without the change, critics say Boeing Co, the initial winner in the competition, would not have been able to compete at all with its larger twin-rotor HH-47 helicopter.
The Air Force was forced to redo the competition last year after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) twice upheld protests filed by the losing bidders, Lockheed Martin Corp and United Technologies Corp.

The requirements issue was not part of the GAO reviews, which focused only on the actual procurement process, launched by the Air Force after military requirements were finalized.

The Air Force plans to award a new contract in the competition by late summer or early autumn.

"The objective of this audit is to determine whether changes to Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter Key Performance Parameters were made in accordance with applicable (Department of Defense) and Air Force acquisition guidelines," said the letter.
It would determine whether changes to those requirements were "properly designated and appropriately vetted" through the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council, which weighs military needs before launching major new acquisition programs.
The audit would also examine whether the changes would in any way affect the capabilities of Air Force special operations forces or the U.S. war against terror, said Gary Comerford, spokesman for the Pentagon watchdog agency.

At issue is an Air Force decision in April 2005 to require the helicopters to be "flight ready" in three hours, rather than "mission ready." That change, according to some observers, allowed Boeing's twin-rotor HH-47 helicopter to compete against the smaller, single-rotor Lockheed and Sikorsky models.

"Flight ready" means the aircraft is ready for a flight check after any parts removed for transport have been put back. It does not mean that the aircraft can depart on a mission, since flight checks and other tests are often needed before an aircraft can be considered "mission ready."

The Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group, released a report last November saying that Boeing officials met with the Air Force shortly before the change was made to tell them its HH-47 helicopter could not meet the 3-hour "mission ready" deployability requirement.

POGO urged the Pentagon to investigate after concluding that the Air Force Special Operations Command improperly weakened the requirement to allow Boeing to compete, "sneaking" it in to avoid scrutiny from senior Air Force and Pentagon officials.
Nick Schwellenbach, a senior POGO investigator, said the Air Force should delay any contract award until the audit is done. "If the audit finds that the KPP (key performance parameter) change had an effect on who could win and who was eligible for the competition, that's a material effect. That's not insignificant," he said.

Boeing's HH-47, which entered the competition in June 2005, just achieved the three-hour requirement during an Air Force evaluation. Sikorsky said its helicopter was ready in 40 minutes and Lockheed said its aircraft was ready in two hours.
Ken Miller, a top Air Force acquisition official, told members of the oversight subcommittee of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee in December that there was insufficient documentation of changes in the CSAR competition, according to a letter from the subcommittee.

The Air Force reviewed its procedures after the meeting, and has tightened its rules to "address shortfalls in documentation of changes to key performance parameters,"according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.

It said future procurements will require any KPP changes to be presented to the Air Force Requirements for Operational Capabilities Council for review and validation. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Gerald E. McCormick)

U.S. Military, including higher-ranking officers ,have been speaking out with increasing frequency regarding their concerns for what is being allowed to go on within the U.S. Military, and what problems are crippling those who are serving in our armed forces. And they are paying high prices for doing so. Active duty are more at risk of career suicide for speaking out than retired, hence we hear from more retired military personnel. The voices are there calling for help. Can no one hear them? GFS

US Military Stretched Dangerously Thin by War: Poll
Reuters
Thursday 21 February 2008

Washington - The U.S. military has been stretched dangerously thin by the Iraq war, according to almost 90 percent of retired and current military officers polled on the state of America's armed forces.
Eighty percent said it would be unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at this time, according to the poll by the Center for a New American Security think tank and Foreign Policy magazine.
More than 3,400 serving and retired officers took part in the poll, organizers said. Around 90 percent were retired officers, a large majority had combat experience and about 10 percent had served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The findings reflect concerns expressed publicly, although usually in less stark terms, by top U.S. military officers, who say frequent long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have put great stress on both troops and equipment.
"We are putting more strains on the all-volunteer force than it was ever designed to bear," Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, a prominent counterinsurgency expert, said at a panel discussion in Washington on Tuesday to announce the results of the survey.
Eighty-eight percent of respondents said the U.S. military had been stretched dangerously thin by Iraq. Sixty percent said the military was weaker than five years ago, 25 percent said it was stronger and 15 percent said it was about the same.
But 56 percent of the officers still said the military had not been broken by the war and 64 percent judged morale to be "somewhat high" or "very high."
The survey also showed sharp disagreements over the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the United States. Fifty-three percent of officers said torture was never acceptable but 44 percent disagreed.
About 46 percent said waterboarding was torture while 43 percent disagreed. Critics worldwide condemn waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, as torture but the Bush administration does not define it as such.
--------

http://www.scoop. co.nz/stories/ HL0802/S00231. htm

J. Leopold: Fired US Attorney Calls On White House
Thursday, 21 February 2008, 4:13 pm
Opinion: Jason Leopold

Fired US Attorney Calls on White House to "Produce" Bolten, Miers to Congress
By Jason Leopold

David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico who was one of nine US attorneys fired two years ago for reasons that appear to be politically motivated, said last week's vote in the House to hold former White House counsel Harriet Miers and President Bush's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, in contempt for refusing to testify and turn over documents to a congressional committee related to the US attorney dismissals was encouraging, but questions related to his dismissal remain unanswered.

In an interview following the historic vote, the first time in 25 years a full chamber of Congress voted on contempt of Congress citation, Iglesias called upon the White House to "do the right thing."

"Congress is exercising its legitimate oversight role in this unfinished matter," said Iglesias, who has written a book
< http://www.amazon. com/Justice- Insiders- Account-Executiv e-Branch/ dp/0470261978/ ref=pd_bbs_ sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203557330&sr=8-1 >
on the ordeal, "In Justice: Inside the Scandal that Rocked the Bush Administration " that is due to be published in June. "I implore the White House to do the right thing and produce Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolton to the Congress."

The White House said it has no intention of producing documents to the House Judiciary Committee or allowing Bolten and Miers to testify on grounds that the information is covered by executive privilege. Attorney General Michael Mukasey testified before Congress two weeks ago that he has no plans to enforce the contempt citations.

But Congressman Maurice Hinchey, (D-NY), said even if Mukasey refuses to act on the contempt citations Congress will pursue civil litigation to enforce the subpoenas and Bolten and Miers' testimony.

"It's pretty clear to me that senior White House and U.S. Department of Justice officials deliberately fired U.S. attorneys who they felt were not acting in ways that were politically advantageous to the Bush administration and the Republican Party, Hinchey said. "Those subpoenas have been ignored for far too long, which is why ...we finally passed resolutions of contempt against them to begin the legal process of forcing them to comply or, if they continue to refuse, imposing tough consequences."

John Conyers, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, agreed, and said he would vigorously pursue legal action to enforce the subpoenas to "vindicate Congress' authority."

"The Privilege Resolution introduced [February 13] follows the suggestion first made by former Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner last year and authorizes the House general counsel to file a civil suit to enforce the subpoenas," Conyers said. "That way, if the Administration refuses to enforce the contempt finding, we can take action in the courts Although Mr. Sensenbrenner suggested a civil lawsuit as an alternative to contempt, the courts have made clear that statutory contempt must be tried first. In a lawsuit in the 1980s, when the Justice Department tried to get a civil court ruling after the House had found a former EPA Administrator in contempt, the court ruled that it should "defer to established statutory procedures" on contempt and that a civil lawsuit could be pursued only after statutory contempt remedies are exhausted. Here, a civil suit would be filed only after the Administration refuses to allow statutory contempt to go forward."

Iglesias said the legal wrangling clearly indicates that the executive branch and Congress are headed for a showdown, but he added that documents in the case released thus far goes far beyond the realm of circumstantial evidence and shows culpability- -and perhaps criminal behavior--on the part of several high-level former Justice Department and White House officials who were involved in his firing and sought to cover-up their involvement. Iglesias points to a transcript of an interview
< http://judiciary. house.gov/ Media/PDFS/ Interview071107. pdf>
with career Justice Department official David Margolis conducted by Congressional investigators in May 2007 in which Margolis said that he participated in a "brainstorming" session with other senior DOJ officials to come up with a reason to sell to the public and to lawmakers in the event that questions were raised about why Iglesias was ousted.

John McKay, the former US attorney for the Western District of Washington who was also fired in late 2006 for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics, wrote in a lengthy article
< http://papers. ssrn.com/ sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_ id=1028545>
in the January edition of the Seattle University Law Review that Iglesias's firing stands out among the other eight U.S. attorneys because it demonstrates "the very real prospect of improper interference with an ongoing criminal investigation involving public corruption and the seeking of political advantage."

"Violations of the obstruction of justice statute may have occurred and should be investigated," McKay wrote. "Even as the role of the White House remains shrouded in its claims of executive privilege, 23 certain White House employees appear to have been heavily involved in the dismissal of U.S. Attorney Iglesias. In several e-mails it appears that these officials were reacting directly to the complaints of Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and the ongoing investigation into public corruption in New Mexico. For example, Deputy White House Counsel Bill Kelley smugly e-mailed Gonzales' Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson to report that Domenici's office was "happy as a clam" on learning of Iglesias's ouster. Senior Counselor to the President Karl Rove bragged about Iglesias's dismissal by proclaiming "he's gone" to the New Mexico Republican Party Chairman, who had previously complained to Rove about Iglesias."

McKay wrote that multiple investigations at the DOJ, which are said to be in the final stages, could result in "criminal charges" against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other former DOJ officials involved in the dismissals "for impeding justice."

"The elements of a prima facie case of obstruction of justice are: (1) the existence of the judicial proceeding; (2) knowledge of or notice of the judicial proceeding; (3) acting 'corruptly' with intent to influence, obstruct or impede the proceeding in the due administration of justice; and (4) a nexus (although not necessarily one which is material) between the judicial proceeding sought to be corruptly influenced and the defendant's efforts," McKay wrote in the 32-page law review article. "The [federal] omnibus clause is a 'catchall' provision, which is broadly construed to include a wide variety of corrupt methods."

In testimony before Congress last year, Iglesias said that a few weeks before the 2006 midterm elections he received telephone calls from New Mexico's Republican Senator, Pete Domenici, and the state's Republican Congresswoman, Heather Wilson, inquiring about the timing of an indictment against a popular Democratic official in the state who was the target of a corruption investigation. Iglesias told Domenici and Wilson he could not discuss indictments with them. Iglesias was added to a list of US attorneys to be fired on Election Day in November 2006. The official or officials responsible for drafting the list is still unknown.

Domenici is currently the subject of a Senate Ethics Committee probe for allegedly trying to pressure Iglesias into securing indictments prior to the November 2006 midterm election.

Last April, Iglesias filed a Hatch Act complaint with the White House Office of Special Counsel, alleging former White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials may have broken the law by orchestrating his firing. That investigation is still ongoing, but the obscure shop has hit some roadblocks. Special Counsel Scott Bloch, a Bush appointee, said he has been unable to obtain certain documents from the Justice Department (DOJ) to advance his probe into the firings.

The OSC sent a request to the DOJ late last year seeking a wide range of documents including email correspondence between DOJ and White House officials who had discussed which US attorneys should be selected for dismissal. The OSC set a deadline for turning over the documents. However, the deadline has since passed and the DOJ has not formally responded to the OSC's request, nor has the agency stated a reason it would not turn over documents. The OSC appears to have been particularly interested in obtaining documents from the DOJ surrounding the circumstances that led to Iglesias's firing, according to people knowledgeable about the probe.

The DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Justice Department's Inspector General have been investigating the issue, with particular attention being paid to Iglesias's dismissal. Recently, the OPR contacted Iglesias's former executive assistant, Rumaldo Armijo, to interview him about whether he was pressured by Pat Rogers, a Republican attorney in Albuquerque, and Mickey Barnett, a Republican lobbyist, to bring charges of voter fraud against Democrats in the state, Iglesias confirmed when asked about the matter during an interview.

Rogers was affiliated with the American Center for Voting Rights, a now defunct non-profit organization that sought to defend voter rights and increase public confidence in the fairness and outcome of elections. However, it has since emerged that the organization played a major role in suppressing the votes of people who intended to cast ballots for Democrats in various states Rogers is also the former chief counsel to the New Mexico state Republican Party, and was tapped by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) to replace Iglesias as US Attorney for New Mexico.

Rogers did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Armijo was also unavailable for comment. During his tenure in the US attorney's office he was in charge of issues related to voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias said in an interview that he launched an in-depth investigation into claims of voter fraud in New Mexico and found the allegations to be "non-provable in court." He said he is certain that his firing was due, in part, to the fact that he would not file criminal charges of voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias added that, based on evidence that had surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," he now believes GOP operatives had wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.

Armijo spoke to the Senate Ethics Committee last year about numerous telephone calls and emails dating back to 2005 he received from Rogers related to voter fraud, and Iglesias's alleged failure to investigate the matter while Iglesias was US attorney, Iglesias confirmed.

Last May, House Democrats released a transcript of an interview
< http://judiciary. house.gov/ Media/PDFS/ Interview071107. pdf>
Congressional investigators had with one of Gonzales's senior Justice Department staffers, Matthew Friedrich, in which Friedrich recounted that over breakfast in November 2006, Rogers and Barnett told him they were frustrated about Iglesias's refusal to pursue cases of voter fraud and that they had spoken to Karl Rove and Domenici about having Iglesias fired.

"I remember them repeating basically what they had said before in terms of unhappiness with Dave Iglesias and the fact that this case hadn't gone anyplace," Friedrich said, according to a copy of the interview transcript. "It was clear to me that they did not want him to be the US attorney. And they mentioned that they had essentially ... they were sort of working towards that."

According to media reports, Rogers said he does not recall speaking to Rove about Iglesias.

Additionally, Barnett and Rogers met with Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison, in June 2006 to complain that Iglesias's was ignoring voter fraud. Goodling's meeting with Rogers and Barnett took place at the urging of a colleague. Rogers also drafted a lengthy letter that he sent to Domenici detailing what he claimed were Iglesias's prosecutorial failures, Iglesias said he had been told.

Allen Weh, the New Mexico Republican party chairman, told McClatchy Newspapers in March that he urged Rove to use his influence to have Iglesias fired because Weh was unhappy with Iglesias's alleged refusal to bring criminal charges against Democrats in a voter fraud investigation.

Weh told McClatchy Newspapers that he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month, according to McClatchy's report.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah, '" said Weh.

This chain-of-events trouble McKay who wrote in his law review article that former Attorney General Gonzales ultimately approved Iglesias's termination with the full knowledge that it was based on partisan politics.

Gonzales admitted "he took multiple phone calls from Domenici concerning [Iglesias], urging that he be replaced, and has admitted that [President Bush] spoke with him about the 'problems' with Iglesias," McKay wrote." Gonzales has even admitted that one of the reasons that Iglesias was fired was because Senator Domenici had "lost confidence" in Iglesias. While these allegations are troubling under any analysis, a thorough and independent investigation is necessary to determine whether criminal laws have been violated. Among the considerations facing the inspector general is whether the actions of former Attorney General Gonzales constituted obstruction of justice by removing Iglesias. That [Gonzales] had knowledge of the high profile public corruption case being investigated by Iglesias in New Mexico is virtually certain, given that [Gonzales] has admitted speaking to Domenici and would almost certainly be expected to have such knowledge as the leader of the Justice Department. Under the broad language of [the federal statute regarding obstruction of justice], it would be hard to imagine that 'corruptly influence' would not extend to firing of the United States attorney in the middle of a public corruption case because he 'lost confidence' of a senator who sought to manipulate the indictments for crass political advantage."
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Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton' s work in Iran. Jason is the author of the National Bestseller, News Junkie, a memoir. He is the editor of BackgroundBriefing. org, a new online political magazine scheduled to launch in March. He can be reached at jasonleopold@ hotmail.com.

This disgusting little story, rather confirms suspicions I have had for some time. There are many whistleblowers (federal employees who’ve uncovered wrongdoing) who have good evidence and other material which should allow further investigation and prosecution of a number of people both within and without of Federal Service, all branches. Yet we have seen Congress inexplicably stymied and seemingly timid about moving forward.

It is my personal opinion that there has been a lot of this sort of strong-armed blackmail going on. In fact, it may explain why Whistleblowers have been facing such a difficult time when trying to get someone, ANYONE, to take them seriously and bring their cases to a successful conclusion. Although in no way do I believe all the corruption is restricted to one party; I believe blame can be pointed at both major parties. I have come to the conclusion that Rove and the group he works for, (Exec. Branch/Rep. National Committee), have found a way to get something on nearly everyone. Seeing Federal Oversight authorities standing around wringing their hands does not build confidence in our ability to address things that seriously compromise the proper functioning of our government’s checks and balances.

Though I do not condone this type of personal behavior, (if it is true), I am mindful of the fact that we are a society made up of imperfect human beings and most likely always will be. I do note that it is ridiculous to allow oneself or one's family members to commit acts which even remotely look like a conflict of interest. Having said that, it has become ultimately clear, how ridiculous the lengths certain factions have gone, to try to find a way to intimidate and control people who serve in elected positions or in civil service in order to achieve their goals. It appears to me that in some cases these goals include silencing and paralyzing those who could out the criminal wrongdoing of those corrupted individuals now serving in our executive branch, legislative and judicial branches and in various other places where minions of our executive branch have been placed. It seems to me that some actions need to be taken now which may resemble the intensity of actions taken in the past against organized crime in order to stop this seemingly well orchestrated attempt to hobble the ability of our elected officials and federal employees to do their jobs.

It is time to stand up to this outrage and take these thoroughly corrupt thugs down. To clean up our government requires an end to this sort of corruption. GFS

Report: Rove Wanted Dirt on Alabama Governor
The Associated Press

Thursday 21 February 2008

Washington - A former Republican campaign worker claims that President Bush's former top political adviser, Karl Rove, asked her to find evidence that the Democratic governor of Alabama at the time was cheating on his wife, according to an upcoming broadcast of "60 Minutes."

Jill Simpson, who has long alleged that Rove may have influenced the corruption prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman, makes the claim against Rove in a broadcast scheduled to be aired Sunday, according to a statement from CBS.

Simpson testified to congressional investigators last year that she overheard conversations among Republicans in 2002 indicating that Rove was involved in the Justice Department's prosecution of Siegelman. She has never before said that Rove pressed her for evidence of marital infidelity in spite of testifying to congressional lawyers last year, submitting a sworn affidavit and speaking extensively with reporters.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, denied the allegation.

"Mr. Rove never made such a request to her or anyone else," Luskin said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Had '60 Minutes' taken the trouble to contact Mr. Rove before circulating this falsehood, he would have told them the same thing."

In its statement, CBS said Rove declined to speak with "60 Minutes."

The statement says Rove approached Simpson at a 2001 meeting, when Siegelman was still governor.

"Karl Rove asked you to take pictures of Siegelman?" reporter Scott Pelley asks.

"Yes," Simpson replies.

"In a compromising sexual position with one of his aides," Pelley says.

"Yes, if I could," she responds.

Simpson said she is speaking out because Siegelman's seven-year sentence on corruption charges bothers her, the release said. She said she found no evidence of an affair.

Siegelman, who was elected in 1998 and narrowly lost re-election in 2002, was convicted last year on federal bribery and corruption charges. The prosecution stemmed from his appointment of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to an influential hospital regulatory board in exchange for Scrushy arranging contributions to Siegelman's campaign for a state lottery.

The Justice Department - as well as the career prosecutors who handled the case - have insisted that politics played no role in the case, emphasizing that Siegelman was convicted by a jury.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, however, have been looking into the case as part of a broader investigation into political meddling by the White House at the Justice Department. Also, more than 40 former attorneys general have asked for a congressional investigation into the case.

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