Archive for category: emptywheel

I’m not so much surprised that Marcus Brauchli has had to admit that he knew the Pay2Play Salons were off the record.

Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli says he knew more about the controversial “salons” the paper had planned than previously has been reported, including the fact that they were being billed as “off-the-record” to potential sponsors.

Brauchli made the acknowledgement in a letter to Charles Pelton, the person hired by the Post to organize what was to have been a series of corporate-sponsored, off-the-record dinners at the home of publisher Katharine Weymouth. Pelton, who resigned from the paper in September, told the Post’s ombudsman the day that POLITICO reported on the salons that Brauchli and other editors had been involved in discussions of them and that the plans had “been well developed in the newsroom.”

[snip]

But in a Sept. 25 letter to Pelton, obtained by POLITICO, Brauchli said he “knew that the salon dinners were being promoted as ‘off the record.’ That fact was never hidden from me by you or anyone else.” And he also acknowledged that he had seen two slide shows on the dinners and received e-mailed copies of the promotional materials for them.

After all, back when the WaPo started to ‘fess up to the fact that “senior managers” knew the details of the Pay2Pay salons, they made it clear those same managers knew they were off the record.

But while Post executives immediately disowned the flier’s characterization, senior managers had already approved major details of the first dinner. They had agreed, for example, that the dinner would include the participation of Brauchli and at least one Post reporter, that the event would be off the record, that it would feature a wide-ranging guest list of people involved in reforming health care, and that it would have sponsorship.

I always assumed when the WaPo said “senior managers,” that probably included the Executive Editor.

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Robert Wexler, the “Fire Breathing Liberal” may be on the cusp of resigning his seat in Congress. From Post On Politics:

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, will resign from Congress to take a “public policy position,” several Democratic sources said today.
“He called. He is going to resign….He told me that he is moving on. Beyond that, I don’t have any any answers,” said state Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Coral Springs. Ring said he is considering running in the special election to replace Wexler.

Another Wexler confidant, Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson, said he talked to Wexler this afternoon and Wexler “said he had to do what he had to do for his family.” Wexler didn’t specifically say he would resign, Aaronson said, but by “putting two and two together” he concluded Wexler is leaving office.

Another Democratic insider said Wexler is considering a position related to Middle East policy. It wasn’t immediately clear if the post was inside or outside government.

The signs seem fairly strident Wexler is leaving the House; the question is why? There rumor is stated to be a “Mid East policy position”. That sure beats the standard “spending more time with the family” (which is usually cover for scandal). Several sources are reporting it is a public policy position outside of the Obama Administration; however Foreign Policy’s The Cable is say it IS a position in the Administration and the Obama White House is very tight lipped on the subject.

Wexler was an early supporter of Obama and contributed a lot in Obama’s effort to gain early traction in the critical state of Florida, so a substantial diplomatic position with the Administration should not be ruled out. There are several Ambassadorships yet to be filled including one very substantial post.

If Wexler leaves, there is little chance of the Democrats losing the seat, because the Boca Raton district Wexler fills is overwhelmingly Democratic. In addition to Jerry Ring, potential candidates for the special election include state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel and former Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber.

UPDATE: From Laura Rozen:

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) will announce he is resigning his seat tomorrow to become head of a Middle East group, the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, founded by Slimfast tycoon S. Daniel Abraham, Hill sources say tonight.

Also, per David Dayen in comments, “What I read is that he wouldn’t resign until the end of the year. So he’s still a vote on health care.”

Oh, this is beautiful. I know I have been on a discipline roll today, but this is too good to pass up. There has been a bit of discipline meted out down south in Georgia. From the Columbus (Georgia) Ledger Enquirer:

In an order today, California attorney Orly Taitz has been sanctioned $20,000 by U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land — double the amount he said he was considering.

“While the Court derives no pleasure from its imposition of sanctions upon counsel Orly Taitz, it likewise has no reservations about the necessity of doing so,” Land states. “A clearer case could not exist; a weaker message would not suffice.”

Land gave Taitz two weeks from Sept. 18 to show cause why he should not sanction her for filing a motion for emergency stay in a lawsuit he called “frivolous.” On the deadline, Taitz filed a motion for an extension of time.

When a lawyer files complaints and motions without a reasonable basis for believing that they are supported by existing law or a modification or extension of existing law, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law,” Land writes. “When a lawyer uses the courts as a platform for a political agenda disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer personally attacks opposing parties and disrespects the integrity of the judiciary, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer recklessly accuses a judge of violating the judicial code of conduct with no supporting evidence beyond her dissatisfaction with the judge’s rulings, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law, that lawyer ceases to advance her cause or the ends of justice.

Regrettablly, the conduct of counsel Orly Taitz has crossed these lines, and Ms. Taitz must be sanctioned for her misconduct.

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I’ve been working on adding some of the dates from this FOIA to my warrantless wiretap FOIA, and I wanted to elaborate on two coincidences of timing I pointed out in this post. Mind you, I think we have to assume they’re just coincidences at this point, not causally related. But they do show that they show how Section 215 authority paralleled the events following the hospital confrontation.

First, as I had suggested earlier, the first Section 215 was granted just as the legal issues surrounding Bush’s illegal program came to a resolution following the hospital confrontation. In fact, the first 215 Order was granted the day after a big CYA document from Ashcroft, and 15 days after the new OLC memo for the program.

May 6, 2004, OLC memo from Jack Goldsmith for John Ashcroft: OLC 54 which consists of six copies, some with handwritten comments and marginalia, of a 108-page memorandum, dated May 6, 2004, from the Assistant Attorney General for OLC to the Attorney General, as well as four electronic files, one with highlighting, prepared in response to a request from the Attorney General that OLC perform a legal review of classified foreign intelligence activities. According to the IG Report, much of this was replicated in the January 6, 2006 White Paper.

May 20, 2004: Ashcroft writes memo stating it was not until Philbin and later Goldsmith explained to him that aspects of the NSA’s Other Intelligence Activities were not accurately described in the prior Authorizations that he realized that he had been certifying the Authorizations prior to March 2004 based on a misimpression of those activities.

May 21, 2004: FBI gets its first business record in response to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

The other coincidence is earlier–and while almost certainly a coincidence, much more intriguing. Read more →