https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.png00emptywheelhttps://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.pngemptywheel2007-04-30 21:07:002007-04-30 21:07:00So Much for Sampson’s “Aggregator” Myth
TomJ says:
I personally loved the ’keeper’ moniker for Sampson. For some reason I kept thinking of the ’seeker’ in Harry Potter, but there was also a keeper in the same game of Quidditch. The keeper’s â€job is to block the Chasers.†Could it be any clearer than that? We need to 10 year olds in Congress. But the whole episode has the feel of Harry Potter. The seeker â€has to catch the Golden Snitch.†Is that Monica? Which elected official is the seeker?
pseudonymous in nc says:
’Aggregator’ my arse. Kyle is the keymaster. Monica is the gatekeeper.
And we now know one reason why neither Sampson nor Gonzo would say who the heck actually decided to add people to The List. See, I thought Abu G was just a witless empty head, who wandered around DOJ signing what the loyal Bushies worked up and stuck in front of him. But he signed off his authority quite purposefully, perhaps even to ensure that none of the dirt was on his hands.
Given the amount of shit that’s legally under the direct authority of the AG — for instance, surveillance in anticipation (or otherwise) of a FISA warrant — I’d like to know exactly what Gonzo’s been happy to delegate to a bunch of snot-nosed GOPeratives since 2005.
And now we know that ’at the pleasure of the president’ means ’at the pleasure of Sampson and Goodling’.
dotsright says:
If Kyle Sampson wants to still have everyone see his role as an â€aggregator†then he is going to have to admit that the people he was aggregating for were at the White House and â€Karl’s Shopâ€. The email trail, if nothing else, would lead to that conclusion as would all the evidence coming out of the politicization of the DOJ and other departments.
His rather disgruntled testimony where he seemed to try to lay the blame off on Gonzalez now seems rather pathetic. But, was it perjury in light of this memo? It was not his higher ups who were making the decisions but he and his assistant.
Anonymous says:
The meandering stories Abu has been telling waltz around how this memo comes down.
bmaz says:
In the first place, I don’t think any â€assignment†or â€delegation†removes any ethical or legal responsibility and/or liability for Gonzales. Secondly, how can this transfer occur without the full express knowledge and consent ot the Executive, i.e. the President. Why is the President not subject to direct investigation and questioning regarding this? This appears to create a bigger can of worms for these idiots than would have existed without it in the first place. Freaking morons. By the way, what was that bit about â€absentee landlord†Gonzales et.al. were spewing about Iglesias? Just fucking incredible.
whenwego says:
From â€pseudonymous in nc†above: â€Kyle is the keymaster. Monica is the gatekeeper.â€
Hey, this is a great analogy. Could we stretch the Ghostbusters analogy and make the story palatable to non-USA-ologists? Can almost see Waxman dancing to â€Something strangeâ€!
masaccio says:
So who is the Senior Executive Branch official?
zhiv says:
Talking about Sampson saying that he was â€the aggregator†reminds me about how he testified that he didn’t have a file or any documents, or he did but it was just a compilation, or he doesn’t recall what he had, but he doesn’t have it now. I don’t recall exactly. But I guess he didn’t have a copy of this specific order giving him authority to start a little file either.
Anonymous says:
Hi, Marcy, and other wheelers. This is really getting interesting. Not that it wasn’t, before. But now we’ve got ultra-secret transfer of power to the young pups (no offense, firedoglakers) at Justice, who just happen to be well connected with Rover and Harriet. Leahy is calling for the DOJ to produce the document. They would do well to find it and find it fast. There are high crimes and misdemeanors, galore, in all of this (which we knew, of course, but not how labyrinthine it really was). Can you imagine the story that Gonzo is going to have to concoct to explain this one away? â€Erm, I was really too busy polishing Bush’s knob to have to worry about anything as unimportant as political appointments.†â€I mean, come on, who has that kind of time?†â€I was really busy that week.†â€Heh, heh, don’t ya know.†Please excuse the hard to disguise grandilloquence, here, but doesn’t this all seem like the Revolution (I mean the big one) all over again? I know it’s been said before, but the Bloggers of the so-called left are hard to see as anything else but the pamphleteers of this century. Good for all of you! The Good Fight is worth fighting, and it’s starting to intrude on the perceptions of everyone, including, surprisingly enough, the traditional media. Well done!
Rayne says:
Once more, Iglesias is on the mark; remember his comment to the effect that the DOJ documents everything with memos? Yet another â€Memo-gate†— there are bound to be more memos.
hauksdottir says:
And you can see how deliberately this was planned by the way they cleared brush first. If a legal procedure got in their way, they cut it down.
The only thing they aggregated was power. The only skills they exhibited were thoroughness and secrecy… like larva mindlessly chewing on the roots of trees, not caring if the host died.
Not responsibility, but to the threocratic agenda. Not fidelity to the office or the country or the law, but to the boy-king. Not competency, but belief.
The Department of Justice will require scouring from top to bottom, career and appointed personnel, every case, every decision, every statement made to Congress, every secret order. Everything… hauled into the light of day and examined for taint. Otherwise there will be absolutely no trust in the law of the land at any level from the beat officer to the Attorney General.
I did say that corruption spreads. But even as cynical as I am, this has gone beyond my imagining. If we hadn’t had the changeover in Congress, we’d never have known. So, hurrah to every single one of us who voted!
obsessed says:
Yes – who is the â€senior executive branch officialâ€?
But even more interesting … â€WHY did he come singing to Murray?â€. A disgruntled whistleblower, or a calculating scapedogger?
Anonymous says:
hauksdottir – thanks for reminding me. â€Theorcraticâ€
In the twinkling of an eye it may all change. He (He) goes for a walk in the rose garden. He hears his summons and mission. He acts. The word goes forth. And those privy to the secret that a man anointed by God has acted and made manifest the will of our Lord.
Of course, the whole Evangelical hierarchy relies as such non-Protestant privileged communication from on high. Would never do to have that under-pinning of the structure brought into question.
In the twinkling of an eye…
Morris Berg says:
Who . . . why . . . why now?
Hmmm . . . I wonder where he got this . . .
This definitely changes things.
Kagro X says:
I wonder what this delegation does for future claims of executive privilege for withholding documents and/or testimony? Such claims would already have been on shaky ground, but this would appear to put even more distance between the president, his top advisors and the people actually doing the work, weakening the claim even further.
They’re gonna have to just jump right to the â€F you†argument. Which is a great time saver.
pseudonymous in nc says:
The sourcing is fascinating, not least for the vagueness of the identification: â€The official spoke on the condition that neither his position nor agency be identified, because he feared retaliation from his superiors and the White House for disclosing aspects of the program.â€
’Nor agency’? The sentence structure suggests ’not WH’, but does that mean it’s not someone in the DOJ, and that simply mentioning the agency would expose Waas’s source. But the number of non-DOJ agencies who’d know about such a thing is… not very big.
obsessed says:
What’s the definition of â€agencyâ€? Is the DOJ an â€agencyâ€?
bmaz says:
Kagro X – I alluded to that above; but probably not very clearly, and it is a fascinating question. I will bet dollars to donuts that the Administration will claim this actually strengthens an executive priviledge claim because it places any discussion closer to the President. That is bunk on numerous levels. In the first place, any claim based on this should be considered waived for not having been raised already. Legally, priviledge claims historically must be affirmatively pled, else they are waived. Secondly, instead of bringing the protection of the Executive down to these underlings, this should more logically and realistically take the ability to make oversight discovery of them the other way, up to the President. That was the basis of my sentence above about opening up questioning of the executive. Lastly, the existence of this document and power transfer places both Gonzales and Sampson (maybe McNulty too) in clear perjury exposure. the existence of an underlying crime, and perjury would work just fine, prima facially takes a discovery inquiry out of the umbrella of executive priviledge under US v. Nixon. These folks flat out have big problems rolling their way, and the speed is increasing geometrically by the week.
dotsright says:
Who and at what agency? The strangest thing about this question is that the memo seemed to have a limited distribution list even within DOJ. Even the Deputy Attorney General was not allowed to see it so I can’t see a lot of other people being on the distribution list nor can I see other agencies outside DOJ or the White House having any copies of this memo. For what reason? It seems to have been on a â€need to know†basis.
Jodi says:
So what?
Has there ever been any doubt that there was gross mismanagement afoot in the White House and in the Government? While mind boggling, not illegal, or particularly instructive. Or so what?
Only Iraq matters, Left Blogger Kittens! So this bit of catnip will keep you hopping a while, but in the end it is only a bit of a rush.
obsessed says:
bmaz – fascinating post
0) Can you elaborate on your US vs Nixon case reference?
1) Do you think we’ve reached the point that the Supreme Court would go against Bush as they did in that detainee case a while back?
2) Did they actually rule against Bush or did they just refuse to hear the case, letting the lower courts’ rulings stand?
3) How long from the time they play that card do you think it would take to reach the SCOTUS?
4) I bet a donut now costs more than a dollar!
obsessed says:
Jodie – if this were the Nixon Adminstration, would you say â€only Vietnam matters†and predict that the WaterGate scandal would all come to naught?
Jodi says:
obsessed
do you equate the 1 + 7 USAs that were sacked to WaterGate?
Are you saying the President condoned a burglary over in the DOJ, and there are tapes proving his evil deeds?
Get real!
bmaz says:
The decision in US v. Nixon holds that executive priviledge is neither unlimited nor absolute; and that the fact that the inquiry to which executive priviledge is asserted against involves a criminal matter is significant in overcoming, or disallowing, the claim of priviledge. I have no idea what the current Supreme Court would do, but they have demonstrated quite clearly that they have no particular respect for precedent if it doesn’t fit their whims. Whether they would rule against Bush or dney certiori, which means letting the lower court ruling stand without further hearing, depends entirely on the nature of the lower court determination and what the Supreme’s opinion of it was. I have no idea what the timeframe would be; it would depend on how the lower federal court set briefing and determination schedules. You would hope everything would be expedited, but the DC Court is stacked with conservative jurists that may not be so inclined; so who knows. Thats why I used the plural, â€dollarsâ€; I love Krispy Kremes and they ain’t cheap any more!
obsessed says:
The systematic politicization of the DOJ and electoral process is inarguably worse than WaterGate by many orders of magnitude, and there are all sorts of modern day equivalents to the Nixon tapes … that secret order our mystery executive branch official just gave to Murray W, por ejemplo. We’re one John Dean away from ground zero here, and there’s a hefty group of John Does from which he might arise.
Anonymous says:
Is the RNC an agency?
bmaz says:
The RNC is a non-profit political organization and is not part of the government; therefore not an agency.
Jodi says:
obsessed
do you realize that a burglary was discovered over in WaterGate and culprits were apprehended on day one?
bmaz
you are more in sync by far than obsessed, but still off.
desertwind says:
I’m fixin’ to re-read Marcy’s â€The Green Zone at DOJ†(April 14) post
I imagine Metcalfe suspected, but didn’t know for sure, that something like this was going on.
Sara says:
A Department automatically has a Secretary with a seat in the Cabinet and an independent budget.
An Agency is normally headed by a Director, does not have cabinet status, and may or may not have an independent budget.
Things called AGENCY — CIA is an Agency. EPA is an Agency. FEMA was at one time an agency — its status has been reduced when incorporated into Homeland Security. Properly it should be the FEMB — as it now has the status of a Bureau.
A BUREAU is an entity within a Cabinet Department, as the FBI is part of DOJ. Departments may also have DIVISIONS, and they can use other names that code for their status.
Some BUREAU’s actually have Constitutional Status, as for instance the Census Bureau — the Constitution requires one every ten years. We also have a Bureau of Patents, (commonly called the Patent Office) also constitutionally required, both are housed in the Department of Commerce which came about much later and absorbed them for administrative purposes.
Most Regulatory bodies are called Commissions. They are not part of any Department or Agency, they have rule making authority from Congress, sometimes enforcement authority, but they are run by Commissioners appointed by the President. There’s more, but enough for tonight.
Waas’s use of â€Agency†intrigued me, I don’t think he would use it out of the blue if his source was in a department. But I can’t think of an Agency that would bring someone close to this kind of delegation of Gonzales’s authority. Perhaps it is someone who left either the WH or DOJ and now is something like legal counsel to an agency — but he has personal relationships that passed on the info and document. My guess is that Leahy and Conyers have quite a file of this sort of stuff that they will reveal as this prances along.
By the way, BBC is carrying fairly detailed reporting on the Lord Conrad Black trial. It has now reached the point where all the members of Black’s board are testifying. Henry Kissinger has a date this Thursday apparently. Richard Perle comes early next week. I haven’t checked, but I would imagine their Web Site would have fairly full reports, should anyone want to follow what else Fitz is up to. Black’s not doing all that well apparently.
Sara says:
By the way, over at TPM Muckrakker there is a powerful essay by the recently retired Career head of the Civil Rights/Voting Rights Administrator, describes in detail just how authority was stripped out of his division over the past few years. His name is Kengle, and he wrote it for publication on several blogs. I hope both Conyers and Leahy have accessed it — I rather think the TPM folk have excellent contacts with those staffs.
Kagro X says:
Only a clown like Jodi could read an article in which the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel expresses concern that the activity is unconstitutional, and conclude, â€not illegal!â€
knut wicksell says:
Speculating on the source — and why not, since at this point all we can do is speculate. I originally thought it came from McNulty, but now think perhaps it might be Comey or one of his deputies. There must be a few of them left at DOJ.
On the general point, I had nightmares about this whole business last night. I’ve been pretty much a tin-foil hatter with respect to a fascist takeover of our government since 2002, but I guess I really wasn’t serious. This one takes the cake. We were at most three steps from the real thing. Thank God for Tom Foley and that preacher out in Colorado who upset Rove’s applecart last fall. Who was it that said God looks after the sparrow, village idiots, and the United States of America?
TiredFed says:
this delegations memo is fascinating, but there’s one that I havent seen that must (or should) exist that delegates the authority from the President to the AG to hire/fire US Attorneys. The law provides the authority to the President only. Any further delegation of that authority must be in writing.
Anonymous says:
As to source, it can’t be COmey–he’s not an official, he’s an ex-official.
You might look to Murray’s last big scoop for potential sources.
Also, I don’t think there’s much reason to wonder WHY about the timing. Murray’s a real journalist, remember. He works his sources, slowly and gradually, and finds stories.
BillE says:
When Kagro X says they should just jump ahead and get to the big FU. I think that is correct. There is no way they will back down at all.
Does anyone actually think the Unitary Executive or the OVP 4th branch would even listen in the Supremes decided against them. They haven’t yet. Inherent Contempt and baring that Impeachment/Removal is the only way folks. We need how many Repug senators to do a removal? Without Lie-berman of course.
Does anybody remember Andy Jacksons’s history of dealing with the SCOTUS. He gave them the bird and evicted the Cherokee, trail of tears and all that. Funny how this mess is revolving around the tribes again.
Bill Durbin says:
My guess as to Murray Waas’ source is someone in Fred Fieldings shop.
zhiv says:
If we’re waking up this morning and speculating on MW’s source, what do you think is going on over at the Shop?
orionATL says:
well,
if we’re guessing about â€agency†and â€which agencyâ€
if personnel decisions are involved, e.g., â€ses†(senior executive service) or â€schedule c†(politicos),
what about opm – office of personnel management?
just a thought – not based on certain knowledge.
Anonymous says:
The Congressional hesitancy to force the subpeona issue, I sense, is based on a principle to actually avoid becoming involved in a â€partisan witch hunt.†The premise is that in setting a standard of deliberate and reasonable inquiry that this principle will hold if the shoe is on the other foot. But the republican dog has already taken a bite. The administration cynically plays on the principled position of the opposition. The spectre of the â€unitary executive†has already long been asserted. The erosion of the independence of the DOJ is an expression of this reach for absolute power. With the uncertainty of how the Supreme Court will respond to â€excutive privilige†claims (with the fondness toward the Executive already expressed by Roberts and Alito)and a Patriot Act recess appointment as the USAttorney for DC, the impeachment and trial of Gonzales may have more effect than legal challenges through the Judicial Branck toward meeting the Adminstration’s tactics.
That said I need to correct something I said the other day with respect to the prospect of â€abuse of process†claims against USAttorneys for frivolous prosecutions as I was assaying the lay of the land. This piece slipped my mind at the time: one of the great privileges of the prosecutorial office is immunity from prosecution with respect to the exercise of discretion in prosecution. Accordingly an â€abuse of process†claim brought against a prosecutor bringing frivolous political prosecutions again need seek redress through impeachment as the Judicial Branch is likely to find such a claim fails to state a cause of action. The reason is clear: certainly the floodgates of such claims would break if allowed by all disgruntled targets.
Civility in politics is a far cry from realization in DC afterall, of course money and power are at stake. The great pity is the Adminstration seems content with the prospect of breaking the system.
orionATL says:
by the way
i found the COMMENTS section in paul kiel’s â€todays must read†column at tpm (â€talking points memoâ€)
lot’s of good insight
very educational.
TiredFed says:
believe the delegation to Sampson and Delilah (Monica) was only for politicos (Sked C), not anyone subject to Senate confirmation. This would ordinarily not include U.S. Attorneys, since only the Prez can fire them. However, AG has authority (until Patriot Act is revised) to hire â€interim†U.S. Attorney.
earlofhuntingdon says:
Let’s get the electronic original of the supersecret delegation of authority letter and look at the metadata. It’ll be like asking teenagers where they really were last night, what they were doing and with whom.
I think this is about more than plausible deniability for Gonzales. It is Gonzales gelding himself, by giving authority over his subordinates to Rove’s Shoppe. Sampson and Geldling probably were collators; they just allowed us to think they were collating for someone inside the DOJ when it was someone in the WH.
To me, Gonzales has abandoned the last pretense of being a lawyer or manager or a moral being. Professionally, ceding control of top staff selections cedes control over what they do. In this case, that allows their controllers to define the law by dictating which laws will be enforced and how. An intended outcome, I think, of this game of musical chairs.
Personally, Gonzales’ cowardly failure to disclose his delegation of authority set a trap for every person who dealt with him or with Geldling and Sampson, because they didn’t know who was making decisions about them or their work or why. The dysfunction that caused will pail by comparison with the bureaucratic dysfunction now ensuing because of the release of that information. I believe that’s another intended outcome of this exercise.
Mr. Gonzales is another Icarus. He flew high from the barrio, but he flew so close to the heat of corruption that his wings are naked. He will fall into the sea, without wealth, without a license to practice law, without regard for himself or from others. Back to where he came from.
litigatormom says:
My guess about which â€agency†was involved? The Goverment Printing Office.
Why? The Goverment Printing Office publishes the Federal Register, which publishes proposed and final administrative rules and orders. Waas’s article indicates that the original, â€unconstitutional†draft version of the delegation order was published in the Federal Register; the final version was not. However, it is possible that the GPO had possession of the final version before the decision was made not to publish. The relevant GPO personnel may have been troubled by the decision not to publish; indeed, it is possible (although I don’t know) that the failure to publish violates the Administrative Procedures Act. Any APA experts out there?
Since the WH and DoJ presumably dealt with a limited number of people at the GPO concerning the delegation order, identifying the agency probably would identify the whistleblower.
litigatormom says:
My guess about which â€agency†was involved? The Goverment Printing Office.
Why? The Goverment Printing Office publishes the Federal Register, which publishes proposed and final administrative rules and orders. Waas’s article indicates that the original, â€unconstitutional†draft version of the delegation order was published in the Federal Register; the final version was not. However, it is possible that the GPO had possession of the final version before the decision was made not to publish. The relevant GPO personnel may have been troubled by the decision not to publish; indeed, it is possible (although I don’t know) that the failure to publish violates the Administrative Procedures Act. Any APA experts out there?
Since the WH and DoJ presumably dealt with a limited number of people at the GPO concerning the delegation order, identifying the agency probably would identify the whistleblower.
earlofhuntingdon says:
The corruption of the DOJ for partisan purposes was certainly an intended outcome of Rove’s machinations. I also agree that now we’re so far down this particular trail, Rove’s defensive strategy over Iraq could well include selective disclosures that keep Gonzales twisting in the wind. Gonzales thinks he’s protecting el patron, the President. He’s really protecting a corrupt machine that may ultimately find him as useless as we do.
xxx says:
hey Kagro, do us all a favor and call tokyo jodi the worm tongue a â€CLOWN†a lot earlier in the thread
you could save the worm tongue a lot of wasted typing that way
and btw, tokyo jodi’s prognostication abilities tell me we’re looking at a lot more convictions than we saw in the scooter trial
worm tongue was convinced that there was no crime in that case too
I’m anxiously awaiting tokyo jodi’s post about how this is all too complicated for a jury to understand …
the only person who is easier to predict than george bush is tokyo jodi the worm tongue
here’s how it works:
worm tongue says â€No Under Lying Crime, Too Complicated For The Jury, no reason to convictâ€
then the jury say â€We Find The Defendant Guiltyâ€
have fun at home with your friends. see if you can spot the pattern
Anonymous says:
This is the part I love….
John Dowd, an attorney for Goodling, said in an interview that it was â€absolutely untrue†that his client was ever delegated the authority outlined in the confidential March 1, 2006 order signed by the attorney general. â€She had no authority,†Dowd said, â€My God, she was an assistant to the chief of staff to the attorney general. She was an assistant to the assistant.â€
He’s probably right, sort of. Abu couldn’t delegate the power to someone in the White House, so he did the next best thing — he delegated it to the JoD’s White House Liaison. Goodling just carried out the orders coming from the White House on who to fire and hire.
Mimikatz says:
The Senior Exec Branch official is in Justice, not the WH, where s/he would be a Senior Admin Official. May even be a career person.
Sampson was the aggregator for Harriet Miers/karl Rove. The WH was pulliong the strings, obviously. They gave AGAG deniability and thought it would never get back to them. Now they will blame it all on Kyle and Monica, the next Scooter twins.
i.m.o., there is MUCH traction to be gained, in forcefully-styling what happened here as run-of-the-mill obstruction of justice — by gonzo’s failure to produce a plainly relevant document covered by conyers’ subpoena (and sen. leahy’s, and rep. waxman’s congressional requests). . .
let’s put some â€stank†on it!
freepatriot says:
so is all of that TESTIMONY given before Congress now â€INOPERATIVE†???
cuz giving â€Inoperative†statements to Congress under oath has a legally defined penalty
what’s that word …
PERJURY
that’s the ticket
btw, I been tryin to clear a bug from the machine, so I was usin xxx for a while, don’t ask why
greenhouse says:
Oh that was you Freepat masquerading as xxx? Gee, I would never have guessed.
Mimikatz says:
Reading Waas carefully, two people contributed key elements of the story–in the secondf half, the â€Senior Justice Dept Official†who did not know of the delegation and is the source for what appears after the subtitle â€Politics and Perception†and who seems to be in the criminal division, and the earlier person who did have firsthand knowledge and who didn’t even want his agency mentioned. (I’m assuming here that â€agency†is used loosely, not with Sara’s precision, although maybe the CIA is reading the DOJ’s and WH’s e-mail?) The â€firsthand†would seem to let out people in OPM etc. Maybe in DOJ Office of Legal Counsel? It again seems to be someone who is probably a conservative, but for whom this was really too much–the obviou and stealth politicization of the criminal process. It is what you would expect if an organized crime family had taken over the WH. Whish, come to think of it . . . .
pseudonymous in nc says:
The Senior Exec Branch official is in Justice, not the WH, where s/he would be a Senior Admin Official. May even be a career person.
Except that Senior Exec Branch Official is also Senior Admin Official. I don’t think it’s The Agency. OPR? GPO? Dunno. But Waas has good sources, and is smart enough to know when he’s being spoonfed.
obsessed says:
Sampson and Delilah (Monica)
I love it
Mimikatz says:
I didn’t mean to imply Waas was being spoonfed. There are plenty of career people in Justice who think the Bushies have gone way, way too far. Maybe there is someone in the WH who also thought that taking over the Justice Dept to smite your enemies and keep your cronies out of trouble was a bit too much. Note that the person was in a position to have seen the original draft, and to know that AGAG couldn’t completely delegate his power, but would have to affix his name. So AGAG had no power and the supersecret memo didn;t really divest him of responsibility, just all substantive input. What a loyal Bushie. As Jon Stewart said, making himself into a total doofus on national TV to save Bush’s and Karl Rove’s asses.
freepatriot says:
so I digested Murry, and I can see both sides or the prosecution’s case here
dominichi and wilson presuring to speed up prosecute Democrats
and renzi pressuring to slow down prosecutions of repuglicans, mainly his own sorry ass
that’s a clear demonstration of the obstruction of justice that occured
That provides intent for the underlying conspiricy involving the replacement of USAs
that conspiricy swollows up abu gonzo, kkkarl rove, harriet miers
RICO here we come
anybody ever studied RICO ???
I once heard that RICO wasn’t used in the Watergate Scandal because it was a relativly new law and it’s constitutionality hadn’t been decided yet
RICO has a track record now, and there ain’t any questions about it’s constitutionality
and since we’re talking about the DOJ, the USA for DC ain’t qualified to investigate
we need a special prosecutor
Anonymous says:
to freepat –
just a backgrounder, here:
r.i.c.o. was enacted AFTER watergate — it did not exist, in the form it exists today, in 1968-1974. . .
[this small moment in â€u.s. criminal law — a history†has been brought to you by nolo, and the fine people (me!) at indictdickcheney. . .]
Anonymous says:
a small addenda to the above — the original statute was enacted in 1970 — but most of the provisions regularly used in situations like this, and against corporate fraud, were first employed in a 1980 case. . .
Jodi says:
Kagro X,
name the statue or code! Don’t you remember that is how Mr Libby landed in court? You can rent your clothes and pour ashes over your head all day, and scream about â€unconsitutional†and at the end of the day take a bath and get some new threads, and that is all that has happened.
Sure you want to sue, then fine, if you have grounds and standing.
I can stand out on the curb and cite chapter and verse of all the things I feel are unconsitutional. So can any militia! Don’t you remember who is in charge of the hen house?
xxx,
honestly freepatriot, I believe that name suits you better than your usual. But I am still waiting breathlessly for you to give me a link to where the DOJ or USA attorneys are telling about their â€loyality oaths†that were demanded and the signing in blood and the transferal of souls?
desertwind says:
What if Goodling & Samson never saw this memo?
What if they were told (or not told) only verbally? OR were given a different version of the memo either verbally or in written form? Would they be considered not in the â€need to knowâ€?
Metcalfe’s Legal Times interview says there was an effort to maintain â€a lack of paper trailâ€; difficult for any bureaucracy. Metcalfe also says many of these young appointees were too arrogant, stupid and incurious to know how much they don’t know.
freepatriot says:
yo, desertwind, that’s the beauty of the RICO ACT
you don’t actually have to be aware of the crime to be found guilty of committing it
here’s a hypothetical situation. Suppose I tell a local grocer that he has to pay me protection money and I’m gonna station a goon outside his store to prove I mean business. Then I pay you $500 to park in front of that store for every day for a week.
you don’t know why you are parking in front of the store, but you are still a part of my extortion racket
under the RICO Act, you are guilty of the same crime that I am guilty of
â€I don’t know†equals GUILTY if the provisions of the RICO Act are proven
there are 7 hoops, and I think we can clear them all
Anonymous says:
Which Agency? Why not the NSA? Maybe someone over there decided to wise up and start looking out for #1. I bet at least one analyst over there has been working through his lunch hour, pulling together all of the email sent to and from RNCHQ.com. When the boys are done trashing the DOJ, Karl will need somewhere else to focus the attention, and the NSA has good reason to worry that they might be next.
If you knew that you were guilty of spying on Americans without a court order, and that you would go to jail if you were caught, wouldn’t you start thinking about making sure that everyone who knows that you’re dirty is very busy worrying about other problems?
Anonymous says:
I think Waas’s source for the memos was Goodling (or her lawyer).
It certainly suits her purposes to have this kind of evidence made public — it makes the Judiciary Committee more intent upon getting her immunized testimony AND getting the DoJ/White House to oppose immunizing her. Its also a good rule of thumb to suspect that someone quoted openly in a story was also a source of â€unattributed†quotes…
enough says:
Thanks much for the timeline.
Will the Comey testimony be public?
Dan Metcalfe says:
Re: â€Posted by: Jodi | May 01, 2007 at 03:23
I’m fixin’ to re-read Marcy’s â€The Green Zone at DOJ†(April 14) post
I imagine Metcalfe suspected, but didn’t know for sure, that something like this was going on.â€
Actually, there was ample basis both to suspect and to know that such things were going. In short, the â€goings on†were so blatantly transparent that that element itself was part of the story.
I personally loved the ’keeper’ moniker for Sampson. For some reason I kept thinking of the ’seeker’ in Harry Potter, but there was also a keeper in the same game of Quidditch. The keeper’s â€job is to block the Chasers.†Could it be any clearer than that? We need to 10 year olds in Congress. But the whole episode has the feel of Harry Potter. The seeker â€has to catch the Golden Snitch.†Is that Monica? Which elected official is the seeker?
’Aggregator’ my arse. Kyle is the keymaster. Monica is the gatekeeper.
And we now know one reason why neither Sampson nor Gonzo would say who the heck actually decided to add people to The List. See, I thought Abu G was just a witless empty head, who wandered around DOJ signing what the loyal Bushies worked up and stuck in front of him. But he signed off his authority quite purposefully, perhaps even to ensure that none of the dirt was on his hands.
Given the amount of shit that’s legally under the direct authority of the AG — for instance, surveillance in anticipation (or otherwise) of a FISA warrant — I’d like to know exactly what Gonzo’s been happy to delegate to a bunch of snot-nosed GOPeratives since 2005.
And now we know that ’at the pleasure of the president’ means ’at the pleasure of Sampson and Goodling’.
If Kyle Sampson wants to still have everyone see his role as an â€aggregator†then he is going to have to admit that the people he was aggregating for were at the White House and â€Karl’s Shopâ€. The email trail, if nothing else, would lead to that conclusion as would all the evidence coming out of the politicization of the DOJ and other departments.
His rather disgruntled testimony where he seemed to try to lay the blame off on Gonzalez now seems rather pathetic. But, was it perjury in light of this memo? It was not his higher ups who were making the decisions but he and his assistant.
The meandering stories Abu has been telling waltz around how this memo comes down.
In the first place, I don’t think any â€assignment†or â€delegation†removes any ethical or legal responsibility and/or liability for Gonzales. Secondly, how can this transfer occur without the full express knowledge and consent ot the Executive, i.e. the President. Why is the President not subject to direct investigation and questioning regarding this? This appears to create a bigger can of worms for these idiots than would have existed without it in the first place. Freaking morons. By the way, what was that bit about â€absentee landlord†Gonzales et.al. were spewing about Iglesias? Just fucking incredible.
From â€pseudonymous in nc†above: â€Kyle is the keymaster. Monica is the gatekeeper.â€
Hey, this is a great analogy. Could we stretch the Ghostbusters analogy and make the story palatable to non-USA-ologists? Can almost see Waxman dancing to â€Something strangeâ€!
So who is the Senior Executive Branch official?
Talking about Sampson saying that he was â€the aggregator†reminds me about how he testified that he didn’t have a file or any documents, or he did but it was just a compilation, or he doesn’t recall what he had, but he doesn’t have it now. I don’t recall exactly. But I guess he didn’t have a copy of this specific order giving him authority to start a little file either.
Hi, Marcy, and other wheelers.
This is really getting interesting. Not that it wasn’t, before. But now we’ve got ultra-secret transfer of power to the young pups (no offense, firedoglakers) at Justice, who just happen to be well connected with Rover and Harriet. Leahy is calling for the DOJ to produce the document. They would do well to find it and find it fast. There are high crimes and misdemeanors, galore, in all of this (which we knew, of course, but not how labyrinthine it really was). Can you imagine the story that Gonzo is going to have to concoct to explain this one away? â€Erm, I was really too busy polishing Bush’s knob to have to worry about anything as unimportant as political appointments.†â€I mean, come on, who has that kind of time?†â€I was really busy that week.†â€Heh, heh, don’t ya know.†Please excuse the hard to disguise grandilloquence, here, but doesn’t this all seem like the Revolution (I mean the big one) all over again? I know it’s been said before, but the Bloggers of the so-called left are hard to see as anything else but the pamphleteers of this century. Good for all of you! The Good Fight is worth fighting, and it’s starting to intrude on the perceptions of everyone, including, surprisingly enough, the traditional media. Well done!
Once more, Iglesias is on the mark; remember his comment to the effect that the DOJ documents everything with memos? Yet another â€Memo-gate†— there are bound to be more memos.
And you can see how deliberately this was planned by the way they cleared brush first. If a legal procedure got in their way, they cut it down.
The only thing they aggregated was power. The only skills they exhibited were thoroughness and secrecy… like larva mindlessly chewing on the roots of trees, not caring if the host died.
Not responsibility, but to the threocratic agenda. Not fidelity to the office or the country or the law, but to the boy-king. Not competency, but belief.
The Department of Justice will require scouring from top to bottom, career and appointed personnel, every case, every decision, every statement made to Congress, every secret order. Everything… hauled into the light of day and examined for taint. Otherwise there will be absolutely no trust in the law of the land at any level from the beat officer to the Attorney General.
I did say that corruption spreads. But even as cynical as I am, this has gone beyond my imagining. If we hadn’t had the changeover in Congress, we’d never have known. So, hurrah to every single one of us who voted!
Yes – who is the â€senior executive branch officialâ€?
But even more interesting … â€WHY did he come singing to Murray?â€. A disgruntled whistleblower, or a calculating scapedogger?
hauksdottir – thanks for reminding me. â€Theorcraticâ€
In the twinkling of an eye it may all change. He (He) goes for a walk in the rose garden. He hears his summons and mission. He acts. The word goes forth. And those privy to the secret that a man anointed by God has acted and made manifest the will of our Lord.
Of course, the whole Evangelical hierarchy relies as such non-Protestant privileged communication from on high. Would never do to have that under-pinning of the structure brought into question.
In the twinkling of an eye…
Who . . . why . . . why now?
Hmmm . . . I wonder where he got this . . .
This definitely changes things.
I wonder what this delegation does for future claims of executive privilege for withholding documents and/or testimony? Such claims would already have been on shaky ground, but this would appear to put even more distance between the president, his top advisors and the people actually doing the work, weakening the claim even further.
They’re gonna have to just jump right to the â€F you†argument. Which is a great time saver.
The sourcing is fascinating, not least for the vagueness of the identification: â€The official spoke on the condition that neither his position nor agency be identified, because he feared retaliation from his superiors and the White House for disclosing aspects of the program.â€
’Nor agency’? The sentence structure suggests ’not WH’, but does that mean it’s not someone in the DOJ, and that simply mentioning the agency would expose Waas’s source. But the number of non-DOJ agencies who’d know about such a thing is… not very big.
What’s the definition of â€agencyâ€? Is the DOJ an â€agencyâ€?
Kagro X – I alluded to that above; but probably not very clearly, and it is a fascinating question. I will bet dollars to donuts that the Administration will claim this actually strengthens an executive priviledge claim because it places any discussion closer to the President. That is bunk on numerous levels. In the first place, any claim based on this should be considered waived for not having been raised already. Legally, priviledge claims historically must be affirmatively pled, else they are waived. Secondly, instead of bringing the protection of the Executive down to these underlings, this should more logically and realistically take the ability to make oversight discovery of them the other way, up to the President. That was the basis of my sentence above about opening up questioning of the executive. Lastly, the existence of this document and power transfer places both Gonzales and Sampson (maybe McNulty too) in clear perjury exposure. the existence of an underlying crime, and perjury would work just fine, prima facially takes a discovery inquiry out of the umbrella of executive priviledge under US v. Nixon. These folks flat out have big problems rolling their way, and the speed is increasing geometrically by the week.
Who and at what agency? The strangest thing about this question is that the memo seemed to have a limited distribution list even within DOJ. Even the Deputy Attorney General was not allowed to see it so I can’t see a lot of other people being on the distribution list nor can I see other agencies outside DOJ or the White House having any copies of this memo. For what reason? It seems to have been on a â€need to know†basis.
So what?
Has there ever been any doubt that there was gross mismanagement afoot in the White House and in the Government? While mind boggling, not illegal, or particularly instructive. Or so what?
Only Iraq matters, Left Blogger Kittens! So this bit of catnip will keep you hopping a while, but in the end it is only a bit of a rush.
bmaz – fascinating post
0) Can you elaborate on your US vs Nixon case reference?
1) Do you think we’ve reached the point that the Supreme Court would go against Bush as they did in that detainee case a while back?
2) Did they actually rule against Bush or did they just refuse to hear the case, letting the lower courts’ rulings stand?
3) How long from the time they play that card do you think it would take to reach the SCOTUS?
4) I bet a donut now costs more than a dollar!
Jodie – if this were the Nixon Adminstration, would you say â€only Vietnam matters†and predict that the WaterGate scandal would all come to naught?
obsessed
do you equate the 1 + 7 USAs that were sacked to WaterGate?
Are you saying the President condoned a burglary over in the DOJ, and there are tapes proving his evil deeds?
Get real!
The decision in US v. Nixon holds that executive priviledge is neither unlimited nor absolute; and that the fact that the inquiry to which executive priviledge is asserted against involves a criminal matter is significant in overcoming, or disallowing, the claim of priviledge. I have no idea what the current Supreme Court would do, but they have demonstrated quite clearly that they have no particular respect for precedent if it doesn’t fit their whims. Whether they would rule against Bush or dney certiori, which means letting the lower court ruling stand without further hearing, depends entirely on the nature of the lower court determination and what the Supreme’s opinion of it was. I have no idea what the timeframe would be; it would depend on how the lower federal court set briefing and determination schedules. You would hope everything would be expedited, but the DC Court is stacked with conservative jurists that may not be so inclined; so who knows. Thats why I used the plural, â€dollarsâ€; I love Krispy Kremes and they ain’t cheap any more!
The systematic politicization of the DOJ and electoral process is inarguably worse than WaterGate by many orders of magnitude, and there are all sorts of modern day equivalents to the Nixon tapes … that secret order our mystery executive branch official just gave to Murray W, por ejemplo. We’re one John Dean away from ground zero here, and there’s a hefty group of John Does from which he might arise.
Is the RNC an agency?
The RNC is a non-profit political organization and is not part of the government; therefore not an agency.
obsessed
do you realize that a burglary was discovered over in WaterGate and culprits were apprehended on day one?
bmaz
you are more in sync by far than obsessed, but still off.
I’m fixin’ to re-read Marcy’s â€The Green Zone at DOJ†(April 14) post
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.c…..zone_.html
which points us to retired career DOJ lawyer Daniel Metcalfe’s interview in April 16 Legal Times.
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/Law…..6455062969
I imagine Metcalfe suspected, but didn’t know for sure, that something like this was going on.
A Department automatically has a Secretary with a seat in the Cabinet and an independent budget.
An Agency is normally headed by a Director, does not have cabinet status, and may or may not have an independent budget.
Things called AGENCY — CIA is an Agency. EPA is an Agency. FEMA was at one time an agency — its status has been reduced when incorporated into Homeland Security. Properly it should be the FEMB — as it now has the status of a Bureau.
A BUREAU is an entity within a Cabinet Department, as the FBI is part of DOJ. Departments may also have DIVISIONS, and they can use other names that code for their status.
Some BUREAU’s actually have Constitutional Status, as for instance the Census Bureau — the Constitution requires one every ten years. We also have a Bureau of Patents, (commonly called the Patent Office) also constitutionally required, both are housed in the Department of Commerce which came about much later and absorbed them for administrative purposes.
Most Regulatory bodies are called Commissions. They are not part of any Department or Agency, they have rule making authority from Congress, sometimes enforcement authority, but they are run by Commissioners appointed by the President. There’s more, but enough for tonight.
Waas’s use of â€Agency†intrigued me, I don’t think he would use it out of the blue if his source was in a department. But I can’t think of an Agency that would bring someone close to this kind of delegation of Gonzales’s authority. Perhaps it is someone who left either the WH or DOJ and now is something like legal counsel to an agency — but he has personal relationships that passed on the info and document. My guess is that Leahy and Conyers have quite a file of this sort of stuff that they will reveal as this prances along.
By the way, BBC is carrying fairly detailed reporting on the Lord Conrad Black trial. It has now reached the point where all the members of Black’s board are testifying. Henry Kissinger has a date this Thursday apparently. Richard Perle comes early next week. I haven’t checked, but I would imagine their Web Site would have fairly full reports, should anyone want to follow what else Fitz is up to. Black’s not doing all that well apparently.
By the way, over at TPM Muckrakker there is a powerful essay by the recently retired Career head of the Civil Rights/Voting Rights Administrator, describes in detail just how authority was stripped out of his division over the past few years. His name is Kengle, and he wrote it for publication on several blogs. I hope both Conyers and Leahy have accessed it — I rather think the TPM folk have excellent contacts with those staffs.
Only a clown like Jodi could read an article in which the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel expresses concern that the activity is unconstitutional, and conclude, â€not illegal!â€
Speculating on the source — and why not, since at this point all we can do is speculate. I originally thought it came from McNulty, but now think perhaps it might be Comey or one of his deputies. There must be a few of them left at DOJ.
On the general point, I had nightmares about this whole business last night. I’ve been pretty much a tin-foil hatter with respect to a fascist takeover of our government since 2002, but I guess I really wasn’t serious. This one takes the cake. We were at most three steps from the real thing. Thank God for Tom Foley and that preacher out in Colorado who upset Rove’s applecart last fall. Who was it that said God looks after the sparrow, village idiots, and the United States of America?
this delegations memo is fascinating, but there’s one that I havent seen that must (or should) exist that delegates the authority from the President to the AG to hire/fire US Attorneys. The law provides the authority to the President only. Any further delegation of that authority must be in writing.
As to source, it can’t be COmey–he’s not an official, he’s an ex-official.
You might look to Murray’s last big scoop for potential sources.
Also, I don’t think there’s much reason to wonder WHY about the timing. Murray’s a real journalist, remember. He works his sources, slowly and gradually, and finds stories.
When Kagro X says they should just jump ahead and get to the big FU. I think that is correct. There is no way they will back down at all.
Does anyone actually think the Unitary Executive or the OVP 4th branch would even listen in the Supremes decided against them. They haven’t yet. Inherent Contempt and baring that Impeachment/Removal is the only way folks. We need how many Repug senators to do a removal? Without Lie-berman of course.
Does anybody remember Andy Jacksons’s history of dealing with the SCOTUS. He gave them the bird and evicted the Cherokee, trail of tears and all that. Funny how this mess is revolving around the tribes again.
My guess as to Murray Waas’ source is someone in Fred Fieldings shop.
If we’re waking up this morning and speculating on MW’s source, what do you think is going on over at the Shop?
well,
if we’re guessing about â€agency†and â€which agencyâ€
if personnel decisions are involved, e.g., â€ses†(senior executive service) or â€schedule c†(politicos),
what about opm – office of personnel management?
just a thought – not based on certain knowledge.
The Congressional hesitancy to force the subpeona issue, I sense, is based on a principle to actually avoid becoming involved in a â€partisan witch hunt.†The premise is that in setting a standard of deliberate and reasonable inquiry that this principle will hold if the shoe is on the other foot. But the republican dog has already taken a bite. The administration cynically plays on the principled position of the opposition. The spectre of the â€unitary executive†has already long been asserted. The erosion of the independence of the DOJ is an expression of this reach for absolute power. With the uncertainty of how the Supreme Court will respond to â€excutive privilige†claims (with the fondness toward the Executive already expressed by Roberts and Alito)and a Patriot Act recess appointment as the USAttorney for DC, the impeachment and trial of Gonzales may have more effect than legal challenges through the Judicial Branck toward meeting the Adminstration’s tactics.
That said I need to correct something I said the other day with respect to the prospect of â€abuse of process†claims against USAttorneys for frivolous prosecutions as I was assaying the lay of the land. This piece slipped my mind at the time: one of the great privileges of the prosecutorial office is immunity from prosecution with respect to the exercise of discretion in prosecution. Accordingly an â€abuse of process†claim brought against a prosecutor bringing frivolous political prosecutions again need seek redress through impeachment as the Judicial Branch is likely to find such a claim fails to state a cause of action. The reason is clear: certainly the floodgates of such claims would break if allowed by all disgruntled targets.
Civility in politics is a far cry from realization in DC afterall, of course money and power are at stake. The great pity is the Adminstration seems content with the prospect of breaking the system.
by the way
i found the COMMENTS section in paul kiel’s â€todays must read†column at tpm (â€talking points memoâ€)
lot’s of good insight
very educational.
believe the delegation to Sampson and Delilah (Monica) was only for politicos (Sked C), not anyone subject to Senate confirmation. This would ordinarily not include U.S. Attorneys, since only the Prez can fire them. However, AG has authority (until Patriot Act is revised) to hire â€interim†U.S. Attorney.
Let’s get the electronic original of the supersecret delegation of authority letter and look at the metadata. It’ll be like asking teenagers where they really were last night, what they were doing and with whom.
I think this is about more than plausible deniability for Gonzales. It is Gonzales gelding himself, by giving authority over his subordinates to Rove’s Shoppe. Sampson and Geldling probably were collators; they just allowed us to think they were collating for someone inside the DOJ when it was someone in the WH.
To me, Gonzales has abandoned the last pretense of being a lawyer or manager or a moral being. Professionally, ceding control of top staff selections cedes control over what they do. In this case, that allows their controllers to define the law by dictating which laws will be enforced and how. An intended outcome, I think, of this game of musical chairs.
Personally, Gonzales’ cowardly failure to disclose his delegation of authority set a trap for every person who dealt with him or with Geldling and Sampson, because they didn’t know who was making decisions about them or their work or why. The dysfunction that caused will pail by comparison with the bureaucratic dysfunction now ensuing because of the release of that information. I believe that’s another intended outcome of this exercise.
Mr. Gonzales is another Icarus. He flew high from the barrio, but he flew so close to the heat of corruption that his wings are naked. He will fall into the sea, without wealth, without a license to practice law, without regard for himself or from others. Back to where he came from.
My guess about which â€agency†was involved? The Goverment Printing Office.
Why? The Goverment Printing Office publishes the Federal Register, which publishes proposed and final administrative rules and orders. Waas’s article indicates that the original, â€unconstitutional†draft version of the delegation order was published in the Federal Register; the final version was not. However, it is possible that the GPO had possession of the final version before the decision was made not to publish. The relevant GPO personnel may have been troubled by the decision not to publish; indeed, it is possible (although I don’t know) that the failure to publish violates the Administrative Procedures Act. Any APA experts out there?
Since the WH and DoJ presumably dealt with a limited number of people at the GPO concerning the delegation order, identifying the agency probably would identify the whistleblower.
My guess about which â€agency†was involved? The Goverment Printing Office.
Why? The Goverment Printing Office publishes the Federal Register, which publishes proposed and final administrative rules and orders. Waas’s article indicates that the original, â€unconstitutional†draft version of the delegation order was published in the Federal Register; the final version was not. However, it is possible that the GPO had possession of the final version before the decision was made not to publish. The relevant GPO personnel may have been troubled by the decision not to publish; indeed, it is possible (although I don’t know) that the failure to publish violates the Administrative Procedures Act. Any APA experts out there?
Since the WH and DoJ presumably dealt with a limited number of people at the GPO concerning the delegation order, identifying the agency probably would identify the whistleblower.
The corruption of the DOJ for partisan purposes was certainly an intended outcome of Rove’s machinations. I also agree that now we’re so far down this particular trail, Rove’s defensive strategy over Iraq could well include selective disclosures that keep Gonzales twisting in the wind. Gonzales thinks he’s protecting el patron, the President. He’s really protecting a corrupt machine that may ultimately find him as useless as we do.
hey Kagro, do us all a favor and call tokyo jodi the worm tongue a â€CLOWN†a lot earlier in the thread
you could save the worm tongue a lot of wasted typing that way
and btw, tokyo jodi’s prognostication abilities tell me we’re looking at a lot more convictions than we saw in the scooter trial
worm tongue was convinced that there was no crime in that case too
I’m anxiously awaiting tokyo jodi’s post about how this is all too complicated for a jury to understand …
the only person who is easier to predict than george bush is tokyo jodi the worm tongue
here’s how it works:
worm tongue says â€No Under Lying Crime, Too Complicated For The Jury, no reason to convictâ€
then the jury say â€We Find The Defendant Guiltyâ€
have fun at home with your friends. see if you can spot the pattern
This is the part I love….
John Dowd, an attorney for Goodling, said in an interview that it was â€absolutely untrue†that his client was ever delegated the authority outlined in the confidential March 1, 2006 order signed by the attorney general. â€She had no authority,†Dowd said, â€My God, she was an assistant to the chief of staff to the attorney general. She was an assistant to the assistant.â€
He’s probably right, sort of. Abu couldn’t delegate the power to someone in the White House, so he did the next best thing — he delegated it to the JoD’s White House Liaison. Goodling just carried out the orders coming from the White House on who to fire and hire.
The Senior Exec Branch official is in Justice, not the WH, where s/he would be a Senior Admin Official. May even be a career person.
Sampson was the aggregator for Harriet Miers/karl Rove. The WH was pulliong the strings, obviously. They gave AGAG deniability and thought it would never get back to them. Now they will blame it all on Kyle and Monica, the next Scooter twins.
great stuff, here emptywheel!
now — i don’t see many (any)
others asking why rep. conyers
isn’t preparing a contempt of
congress charge — to be leveled
at alberto gonzales personally — for
for his apparently-willful failure to
comply with the four corners of
a lawfully-issued congressional
subpoena duces tecum — the one
rep. john conyers had served on
gonzales personally, on april 10, 2007.
i.m.o., there is MUCH traction
to be gained, in forcefully-styling
what happened here as run-of-the-mill
obstruction of justice — by
gonzo’s failure to produce a
plainly relevant document covered
by conyers’ subpoena (and sen. leahy’s,
and rep. waxman’s congressional requests). . .
let’s put some â€stank†on it!
so is all of that TESTIMONY given before Congress now â€INOPERATIVE†???
cuz giving â€Inoperative†statements to Congress under oath has a legally defined penalty
what’s that word …
PERJURY
that’s the ticket
btw, I been tryin to clear a bug from the machine, so I was usin xxx for a while, don’t ask why
Oh that was you Freepat masquerading as xxx? Gee, I would never have guessed.
Reading Waas carefully, two people contributed key elements of the story–in the secondf half, the â€Senior Justice Dept Official†who did not know of the delegation and is the source for what appears after the subtitle â€Politics and Perception†and who seems to be in the criminal division, and the earlier person who did have firsthand knowledge and who didn’t even want his agency mentioned. (I’m assuming here that â€agency†is used loosely, not with Sara’s precision, although maybe the CIA is reading the DOJ’s and WH’s e-mail?) The â€firsthand†would seem to let out people in OPM etc. Maybe in DOJ Office of Legal Counsel? It again seems to be someone who is probably a conservative, but for whom this was really too much–the obviou and stealth politicization of the criminal process. It is what you would expect if an organized crime family had taken over the WH. Whish, come to think of it . . . .
The Senior Exec Branch official is in Justice, not the WH, where s/he would be a Senior Admin Official. May even be a career person.
Except that Senior Exec Branch Official is also Senior Admin Official. I don’t think it’s The Agency. OPR? GPO? Dunno. But Waas has good sources, and is smart enough to know when he’s being spoonfed.
Sampson and Delilah (Monica)
I love it
I didn’t mean to imply Waas was being spoonfed. There are plenty of career people in Justice who think the Bushies have gone way, way too far. Maybe there is someone in the WH who also thought that taking over the Justice Dept to smite your enemies and keep your cronies out of trouble was a bit too much. Note that the person was in a position to have seen the original draft, and to know that AGAG couldn’t completely delegate his power, but would have to affix his name. So AGAG had no power and the supersecret memo didn;t really divest him of responsibility, just all substantive input. What a loyal Bushie. As Jon Stewart said, making himself into a total doofus on national TV to save Bush’s and Karl Rove’s asses.
so I digested Murry, and I can see both sides or the prosecution’s case here
dominichi and wilson presuring to speed up prosecute Democrats
and renzi pressuring to slow down prosecutions of repuglicans, mainly his own sorry ass
that’s a clear demonstration of the obstruction of justice that occured
That provides intent for the underlying conspiricy involving the replacement of USAs
that conspiricy swollows up abu gonzo, kkkarl rove, harriet miers
RICO here we come
anybody ever studied RICO ???
I once heard that RICO wasn’t used in the Watergate Scandal because it was a relativly new law and it’s constitutionality hadn’t been decided yet
RICO has a track record now, and there ain’t any questions about it’s constitutionality
and since we’re talking about the DOJ, the USA for DC ain’t qualified to investigate
we need a special prosecutor
to freepat –
just a backgrounder, here:
r.i.c.o. was enacted AFTER
watergate — it did not exist,
in the form it exists today,
in 1968-1974. . .
[this small moment in â€u.s.
criminal law — a historyâ€
has been brought to you by
nolo, and the fine people
(me!) at indictdickcheney. . .]
a small addenda to the
above — the original
statute was enacted in
1970 — but most of the
provisions regularly used
in situations like this,
and against corporate fraud,
were first employed in a 1980 case. . .
Kagro X,
name the statue or code! Don’t you remember that is how Mr Libby landed in court? You can rent your clothes and pour ashes over your head all day, and scream about â€unconsitutional†and at the end of the day take a bath and get some new threads, and that is all that has happened.
Sure you want to sue, then fine, if you have grounds and standing.
I can stand out on the curb and cite chapter and verse of all the things I feel are unconsitutional. So can any militia! Don’t you remember who is in charge of the hen house?
xxx,
honestly freepatriot, I believe that name suits you better than your usual. But I am still waiting breathlessly for you to give me a link to where the DOJ or USA attorneys are telling about their â€loyality oaths†that were demanded and the signing in blood and the transferal of souls?
What if Goodling & Samson never saw this memo?
What if they were told (or not told) only verbally? OR were given a different version of the memo either verbally or in written form? Would they be considered not in the â€need to knowâ€?
Metcalfe’s Legal Times interview says there was an effort to maintain â€a lack of paper trailâ€; difficult for any bureaucracy. Metcalfe also says many of these young appointees were too arrogant, stupid and incurious to know how much they don’t know.
yo, desertwind, that’s the beauty of the RICO ACT
you don’t actually have to be aware of the crime to be found guilty of committing it
here’s a hypothetical situation. Suppose I tell a local grocer that he has to pay me protection money and I’m gonna station a goon outside his store to prove I mean business. Then I pay you $500 to park in front of that store for every day for a week.
you don’t know why you are parking in front of the store, but you are still a part of my extortion racket
under the RICO Act, you are guilty of the same crime that I am guilty of
â€I don’t know†equals GUILTY if the provisions of the RICO Act are proven
there are 7 hoops, and I think we can clear them all
Which Agency? Why not the NSA? Maybe someone over there decided to wise up and start looking out for #1. I bet at least one analyst over there has been working through his lunch hour, pulling together all of the email sent to and from RNCHQ.com. When the boys are done trashing the DOJ, Karl will need somewhere else to focus the attention, and the NSA has good reason to worry that they might be next.
If you knew that you were guilty of spying on Americans without a court order, and that you would go to jail if you were caught, wouldn’t you start thinking about making sure that everyone who knows that you’re dirty is very busy worrying about other problems?
I think Waas’s source for the memos was Goodling (or her lawyer).
It certainly suits her purposes to have this kind of evidence made public — it makes the Judiciary Committee more intent upon getting her immunized testimony AND getting the DoJ/White House to oppose immunizing her. Its also a good rule of thumb to suspect that someone quoted openly in a story was also a source of â€unattributed†quotes…
Thanks much for the timeline.
Will the Comey testimony be public?
Re: â€Posted by: Jodi | May 01, 2007 at 03:23
I’m fixin’ to re-read Marcy’s â€The Green Zone at DOJ†(April 14) post
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.c…..zone_.html
which points us to retired career DOJ lawyer Daniel Metcalfe’s interview in April 16 Legal Times.
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/Law…..6455062969
I imagine Metcalfe suspected, but didn’t know for sure, that something like this was going on.â€
Actually, there was ample basis both to suspect and to know that such things were going. In short, the â€goings on†were so blatantly transparent that that element itself was part of the story.