Entries by emptywheel

It’s a Small World–Impugning a Witness Edition

Wow. Brent Wilkes co-conspirator John Michael is going after Tommy Kontogiannis hard. And they’ve got a very interesting way to do it (hat tip to CC for the alert).

As you’ll recall, John Michael is the least famous of the thugs indicted in the larger Duke Cunningham scandal–Michael was involved in the mortgage company money laundering side of things.

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Or Maybe It’s the Hatch Act that Will Do Karl In

Pachacutec sent this in an email:

During the briefings at Treasury and Commerce, then-Bushadministration political director Ken Mehlman and other White Houseaides detailed competitive congressional districts, battlegroundelection states and key media markets and outlined GOP strategy forgetting out the vote.

Commerce and Treasury political appointeeslater made numerous public appearances and grant announcements thatoften correlated with GOP interests, according to a review of theevents by McClatchy Newspapers.

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Stephen Hayes on Keller on Dick

Warning: I’ve just started to read Stephen Hayes’ book on Cheney (thanks to the short line for the book at Ann Arbor’s Public Library, I didn’t have to pay Hayes a cent), so this blog will be a little propaganda-busting focused in the next few days. I haven’t even gotten beyond the intro without a post!

When I sat down to start this book, I was grumbling to myself that the traditional

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Skubick’s Off the Record

I talked about Norm Pearlstine’s Off the Record the other day. Well, here’s a more fun Off the Record–my appearance (with three other bloggers) on Michigan’s own “Timmeh,” Tim Skubick’s show, Off the Record, over the weekend on MI’s PBS stations. I don’t often link to my teevee appearances, but I had a lot of fun taping this.

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Domenici and Rove

The Great Orange Satan links to an article tracking Heather Wilson’s Senate campaign activities, suggesting that she’s angling to replace Domenici. Markos notes what the local bloggers don’t–that Domenici may actually be thinking of retiring to spend time with Karl Rove’s family.

An intriguing bit of intel from folks down in New Mexico:

She’s recently been in Clovis, Los Alamos and Las Cruces.

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Activities and Yoo

Anonymous Liberal is trying to sort through something I’ve been looking at for a while: to what degree was Ashcroft fully read into the warrantless wiretap program? I think there’s a two-part answer to this question. As I’ll show below, I think BushCo had Ashcroft approve the multiple aspects of “the program” in isolation from each other, giving him an incomplete picture of how the parts worked together.

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What AGAG Learned from the Newspapers

This is a persnickety point, perhaps, but it’s so much more fun to bust Alberto Gonzales in one of his subtle evasions than one of his real blatant lies.

In his most recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Commitee, Chuck Schumer asked Gonzales whether he knew that Comey had assumed the powers of Acting Attorney General–Schumer was trying to point out how totally inappropriate it was for Gonzales to go to

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Leahy’s Keeping Busy

Shouldn’t Pat Leahy be back in Vermont tipping cows or something like that? Instead, he’s churning out letter after letter, closing in on the Bush lying thugs. Tuesday’s letter seemed to target Karl Rove. In today’s letter, Alberto Gonzales is clearly the target.

I am writing to ask that you investigate and evaluate potential misleading, evasive, or dishonest testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24,

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Mueller’s Chronology

Did you ever notice that if you take a log recording the events regarding an illegal surveillance program, and redact the heck out of it, it looks like a chronology that a dirty fucking hippy blogger might write? Below you can read what’s left of Mueller’s log, with my notes. The big takeaways are:Mueller refers to a “program,” singular.

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Security Clearances Two

I’m stuck between three gallons of canned tomatoes, a soon-to-be gallon of canned peaches, and a big pot of borscht. Which means I’m too hot to deal with the Padilla verdict yet. So instead I’m going to point out that my reading of Gonzales’ correction from a few weeks ago was correct.

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