Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Let’s take a look at what Rob Riley had to say about Karl Rove’s involvement in Don Siegelman’s investigation and prosecution in his affidavit. In the midst of an affidavit full of “I don’t remember” and “I don’t recall,” Riley says some very specific things about Rove.
The first mention comes toward the end of a very long, very hedged statement about the phone call on November 18, 2002.
Frankly, I’ve been holding my breath since I first saw this (tentatively) on Selise’s weekly hearing schedule. After all, Waxman has been trying to get Condi Rice to appear before the Oversight Committee since early spring. But they’ve now announced the hearing, so I’m breathing again.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearingentitled, “The State Department and the Iraq War†on Thursday morning,October 25, 2007, in 2154 Rayburn
Remember the King Ranch, where Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face? Well, American citizens aren’t allowed access to the shootings that happen on the Ranch. But they’re paying the bills. NPR and the CIR report that Dick and Rove’s buddies have been one of the biggest recipient of subsidies from farm bills from 1999 to 2005, sucking in $8.3 million over the time.
Two words about this update. First, to clarify from my earlier post: the WaPo article refers to a filing written in February 2007 that was just unsealed yesterday. So in fact, there are several more recent filings from Nacchio that rebut the claims made in this newly unsealed document.
Here’s the important part.
I’m watching the HJC hearing on politicized prosecutions. And boy, have the Republicans come loaded for bear, on two counts. First, the Republicans attempted to insinuate that Jill Simpson’s allegations about the Don Siegelman prosecution must be false because she did not testify publicly today. Congressman Forbes repeated a tactic Republicans used when Valerie Wilson testified before Waxman’s committee–suggesting that Simpson “be referred” to DOJ for investigation.
Remember when Alberto Gonzales called for Google to preserve all its search data to support potential child porn investigations? We crazy moonbats suggested that that sounded like an invitation for abuse, that once Google had preserved the records, such records would be accessed for other purposes.
Now Cannonfire points to one such case.
In brief:
The WaPo reports that more documents have been unsealed in the Nacchio case–and they show (Prosecutors claim) that Nacchio’s claim to have lost business don’t hold up.
Qwest Communicationsbelonged to a business alliance that won a rich national securitycontract in the summer of 2001, undermining claims that authoritiesretaliated against its former chief executive for refusing to supportan unidentified government program earlier that year, prosecutors saidin documents released yesterday.
I’m on two deadlines for
I suggested the other day that there were likely to be some unintended consequences if the reporter’s shield bill passes as is. What I didn’t say in that post is that there is a better way to encourage the free flow of information–particularly in this era when everyone can fulfill the role of journalist:
Congressman Waxman gets pretty aggressive in his latest letter to Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater. He basically accuses Blackwater of evading taxes by treating its employees as independent contractors, rather than employees.
I have received documents which suggest that Blackwater may have engaged in significant tax evasion. According to an IRS ruling in March 2007, Blackwater violated federal tax laws by treating an armed guard as an “independent contractor.” The implication of
Via C&L, John McKay made some really revealing comments in Spokane on Friday.
The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution ofdeparted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of aninvestigation, possibly as early as next month, the fired former U.S.attorney for Western Washington told a Spokane audience Friday.
[snip]
McKay said he was summoned to Washington, D.C., in June andquestioned for eight hours about possible reasons for his firing byinvestigators with the Office