Tommy K’s Cooperation

I’m trying to pull together as many of the details in the new transcripts about how Tommy Kontogiannis has cooperated (I was going to spell it "kooperate") with the government. The information is actually conflicting–Tommy K wants to portray himself as a good American who was just seeking out powerful Congressman to give intelligence to. But the descriptions of the AUSAs and FBI agents of his cooperation in this matter make it sound like it’s a limited thing.

Here’s K’s description of his reasons for bribing Cunningham.

The Court: The only thing I have a question about is itsays that you believe Mr. Cunningham was in a position to do you somegood. Is that why you were involved in this? You hoped through hisofficial position as a U.S. Congressman that he could advance somepersonal interest of yours?

The Defendant: It was never personal interest, your Honor. Myinterest is United States, basically, and he was in a position that Icould reach and tell them information that I was gathering from allover the world.

The Court: What were you going to get out of this, Mr. Kontogiannis?

Mr. O’Connell: Can I have a moment, your Honor?

The Court: Yes. My question is, what did you hope to get out of all this?

The Defendant: From the first case to bring as much information as Icould to assist us, especially after the 2001 situation. Second, it isgood to have a powerful Congressman that if you ever need anything, youcan ask him to help you or assist you in something you might need.

The Court: That’s really what I am getting at. Did you believe thatyou were buying influence with someone who was in a position to helpyou by involving yourself in these things that have been recited today?

The Defendant: Definitely.

I’m going to come back to this passage–it really makes me wonder how many of the rest of the Congressmen on the House Intelligence Committee are getting bribes from people who want to "tell them information that I was gathering from allover the world." Porter Goss, of course, had to step down as DCI because of his ties to Cunningham’s corrupt buddies. And Rick Renzi has some legal problems of his own.

Now, Judge Burns describes K as either an informer or someone tied into an intelligence network (or likely, both). Exposure of his cooperation would endanger him and others.

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Seal-Fight in San Diego

There are two, related developments in San Diego (hat tip to ChrisC for her updates) in the Wilkes/Michael/Kontogiannis side of the Wilkes trial. First, the government has responded to John Michael’s attempt to throw out his indictment because of a weird connection between Tommy Kontogiannis and one of the prosecutors, Phillip Halpern. As I suggested in my post on this motion, I think Michael is more interested in exposing a bunch of details about Tommy Kontogiannis than he is optimistic about getting the case out thrown out.

I doubt the motion to have the charges dismissed (or even SD’s USAttorney office recused) will succeed. But I’m guessing the actualpurpose of this motion is to make public a great deal of information onKontogiannis to–at the least–completely discredit him as a witness.If not to bring public pressure to indict Kontogiannis for the othercrimes the government admits he has committed.

I’m guessing the government’s lawyers at least partially agree with my assessment, which I’ll discuss in more detail below.

The whole question is relevant to the other news in the trial–that the Appeals Court has ordered Judge Burns to unseal the redacted transcripts for the hearings on Kontogiannis’ plea deal. This actually seems like a victory for the government, because the Appeals Court,

… requires the district court to maintain under seal only the disputed portions of the sealed transcripts. The district court shall unseal the redacted transcripts submitted to the district court by the government on June 22, 2007.

In other words, the portions of the transcripts that the government wanted to retain under seal in June when this whole squabble started will remain under seal. Which means, if we’re going to get the really juicy details about Kontogiannis, we’re going to get them from Michael.

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Speaking of Propaganda Reports

They’re doing it with voting rights reports, too (hat tip bmaz).

Because my approach to election issues tends to be more closely alignedwith Democrats, I was paired with a Republican co-author. To furtherremove any taint of partisanship, my co-author and I convened abipartisan working group to help us. We spent a year doing research andconsulting with leaders in the field to produce a draft report. Whathappened next seems inexplicable. After submitting the draft in July2006, we were barred by the commission’s staff from having anythingmore to do with it.

What was the problem? In all the time we were doing our research anddrafting the report, neither the staff nor the commissioners, who werecontinually advised of our activities and the substance of our work,raised any concerns about the direction we were going or the researchfindings.

Yet, after sitting on the draft for six months, the EACpublicly released a report — citing it as based on work by me and myco-author — that completely stood our own work on its head.

The author, Tova Andrea Wang, ties the manipulation of the report to the corruption at DOJ.

We also raised questions about the way the Justice Departmentwas handling complaints of fraud and intimidation. The commissionexcised all references Read more

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Moral Relativists

When David Vitter admitted to using a prostitute service, no Republicans asked him to resign.

When it became clear that Pete Domenici had asked Bush and Gonzales to fire David Iglesias because the US Attorney didn’t trump up charges against Democrats, no Republicans asked him to resign.

When it became clear that Bob Ney and Ted Stevens and John Doolittle and Don Young had received some mighty curious gifts, no Republicans asked them to resign.

When Tom DeLay was indicted for money laundering, no Republicans asked him to resign.

But because Larry Craig wiggled his foot under a men’s bathroom stall, Pete Hoekstra and Norm Coleman and John McCain have asked him to resign.

Update: Language on Ney, Stevens, Doolittle, and Young changed to protect the principle of innocent until proven guilty, per Steve’s comment.

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The Replacements

This is my outtamyarse guide to the potential replacement candidates for AGAG floated so far:

Michael Chertoff: I think someone in the Administration floated Michael Chertoff as a replacement candidate before that someone really thought things through. Sure, Chertoff has been approved by the Senate before. But that was before 11/7–and we know that 11/7 changed everything. Not to mention Katrina. Part of me wonders whether the urge to make Chertoff AG was just an attempt to get him out of DHS, where he’s screwing things up royally. And once Fran Townsend refused to take the DHS job as Chertoff’s replacement, the Administration was left with no way to make the transition gracefully and has likely abandoned the idea.

Laurence Silberman: Democrats may be weak-kneed. But there’s no way (I hope) that they’ll accept Silberman as a replacement candidate for AGAG. Silberman has been the fixer for Republican scandals going back to Watergate, with a particularly prominent role in Iran-Contra. Allowing Silberman to serve as AG would be getting rid of an incompetent hack and replacing him with a competent, more dangerous hack.

Ted Olson: Another of the candidates floated long ago, when BushCo would have been nominating a replacement from a position of strength, rather than one of desperation. Since that time, the curious circumstances around Debra Wong Yang’s hiring as Olson’s close associate at Gibson Dunn have arisen; that involves Olson in the USA Purge in a tangential enough way that you’d think it’d prevent him from being confirmable. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t put approving Olson beyond the weak-kneed Democrats.

Larry Thompson: Thompson was Deputy Attorney General when BushCo first set about shredding the Constitution, which is a major strike against him. It’s unclear whether Thompson was actually read into many of the most egregious programs. But still, one would hope that we wouldn’t approve anyone (besides Jim Comey) who has been through the Bush DOJ already. Unfortunately, early on in this process, Chuck Schumer listed Thompson as an acceptable choice for him as a replacement AG, though it has been reported that Thompson is uninterested in leaving his cushy job at Pepsi to clean up Gonzales’ mess.

Paul Clement: Clement’s stock as a replacement seems to be rising, with lots of folks hearkening back to profiles quoting people from both sides of aisle complimenting Clement for his intelligence. But note closely what these profiles hail Clement for: his ability to argue either side of an argument very effectively. That’s great when he’s defending Russ Feingold’s Campaign Finance before SCOTUS. But in the position of Attorney General, he would be arguing Bush’s side of the argument exclusively. Furthermore, Clement has already proven himself willing to rewrite the Constitution in the name of defending BushCo’s executive privilege claims. Lucky for us (because I suspect Democrats would pass his nomination), appointing Clement as AG doesn’t solve BushCo’s gaping holes in every management position at DOJ, since they’d just have to find another Solicitor General. So I suspect we will be spared this sophist as AG.

George Terwilliger: I find it curious that the name receiving most attention–after BushCo realized what a disaster appointing Chertoff would be–is one of Poppy’s guys, with close ties to Bush family consigliere James Baker. Terwilliger has been specializing in white collar defense of late, which might be considered a huge plus to those trying to get through the rest of Bush’s term with no indictments. Terwilliger’s ties to Republican scandal fixing are more remote than, say, Silberman. He was on the Bush Recount legal team. And, more ominously, Terwilliger oversaw the BCCI settlement, which saved the US some money in bailouts, but probably also increased the comfort level of the Saudis who had bankrolled the giant money-laundering scheme. I can’t imagine the Democrats opposing Terwilliger in force, which is probably why he’s a leading candidate.

Michael Mukasey: Mukasey is the former senior judge in SDNY (so I’m hoping maybe our local expert on that area might pipe in with an opinion) and he sounds like–given the options–a pretty good choice. Most notably, Mukasey took a "split the baby" position on an early Padilla decision; he ruled that Bush could designate him an enemy combatant (a decision that did not stand on appeal), but he also insisted that BushCo had to allow Padilla to see lawyers. I suspect that his name has been forwarded by the Democrats, most likely Chuck Schumer, who has supported him for a SCOTUS appointment as well. Which probably means his name is floating out there solely because Democrats are floating it, and not because BushCo is giving it serious consideration.

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The Political Rehabilitation of Ari Fleischer

Say, has anyone noticed how omnipresent Ari Fleischer has been, of late? Obviously, the big news is his pimping for a $15 million propaganda campaign in favor of death and destruction.

"For those who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry iscoming," said former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who isa founding board member of the group.

But Ari is also, all of a sudden, a seemingly acceptable source of the party line for the beltway media. He’s on Fox News accusing Congress of politicizing DOJ. And he’s dealing that line to the NYT, too.

“This is a reflection of the fact that the Democrats are on theoffensive and have more power than they used to,” Mr. Fleischer saidMonday, referring to Mr. Gonzales’s announcement. “The presidentdoesn’t have a lot of armor left, and the fact that they were able toforce him out is a chink in whatever armor he has left.”

Ari Fleischer has returned from his political exile in the harsh climes of Pound Ridge, NY, it seems (full disclosure: as a teenager, I was about 5 years behind Ari in the Pound Ridge schools).

Does anyone else find the timing interesting? Not so long ago, Ari was flacking for sports figures, Read more

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Wilkes’ Creditors Don’t Get to See His Financial Statements, Either

Remember how federal prosecutors were denied the ability to review Brent Wilkes’ affidavit showing he was indigent? Well, ChrisC sent along news of a civil magistrate case in which one of Wilkes’ creditors appears to be trying to force Wilkes to reveal where his assets are–also to no avail.

The unopposed motion to compel filed by plaintiff De Lage Landen Financial Services, Inc., as
assignee of Union Bank, is denied, without prejudice.

Plaintiff cites In re Marriage of Sachs (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 1144, 1151-1152, that a blanket refusal is unacceptable, and the burden is on the party invoking the privilege to show the testimony could tend to incriminate him or her. However, plaintiff answered some questions, and refused others so this is not a blanket refusal. A review of the indictment against Brent R. Wilkes shows that all the companies were allegedly used as shell corporations to conceal Wilke’s financial interest and the role in CIA contracts and to launder money from CIA contracts. (P’s Ex. 1.) The second indictment involved defendant with another defendant and references secreting funds and conspiracy. Accordingly, there is a direct link between the questions and assets involved and the refusal to answer based upon the Fifth Read more

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Did Chertoff EVER Use the DHS privacy review process?

Before we crown Michael Chertoff Attorney General, I recommend we pull him before some oversight committee and ask him if he ever used Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Office to review planned domestic surveillance activities before they’re used to collect data on American citizens. CSM reports that DHS is suspending a massive data-mining program because it has already started using live data without ever putting the program through a privacy review.

From late 2004 until mid-2006, a little-known data-mining computersystem developed by the US Department of Homeland Security to huntterrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and biological weapons siftedthrough Americans’ personal data with little regard for federal privacylaws.

Now the $42 million cutting-edge system, designed to process trillions of pieces of data, has been halted and could be canceled pending data-privacy reviews, according to a newly released report to Congress by the DHS’s own internal watchdog.

[snip]

It failed to incorporate federal privacy laws into its system design.From its earliest days, the system’s pilot programs used "live data,including personally identifiable information, from multiple sources inattempts to identify potential terrorist activity," but without takingsteps required by federal law and DHS’s own internal guidelines to keepthat data from being misused, the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG)said in a June report to Congress, which was made public Aug. 13.

[snip]

DHS’s delay in addressing data privacy appears to be due to confusion and miscommunication about privacy requirements by ADVISE program managers and DHS’s privacy office, amid the rush to get a system running, the OIG says.

Forexample, ADVISE program managers told OIG investigators they didn’trealize privacy assessments were required for a system still indevelopment. At that stage, the system was just a processing toolwithout data, they argued – a view agreed to by the DHS privacy office.

Indeed, the privacy office mentions the ADVISEsystem only once, in a footnote, in its mandatory report last summer toCongress on data-mining activities. Until the "ADVISE tool" had dataattached to it, it was not a data-mining program needing privacyreview, the office reported.

Unknown to the privacy office, the ADVISE pilot programs had been operational and using personal data for about 18 months before the privacy office made that report to Congress, the OIG found.

And in a letter to Michael Chertoff complaining that he hadn’t been informed of DHS’ plans to use military spy satellites to monitor the US, Congressman Bennie Thompson noted that Chertoff had never subjected the satellite plan to a privacy review.

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A Tale of Two Resignations

If you compare Bush’s comments on Rove’s resignation with his comments on Gonzales’ resignation, it sure seems like Rove left on Bush’s terms, whereas Gonzales left on his own terms. Here’s how Bush announced the departure of the man who had made his entire political career.

Karl Rove is moving on down the road.  I’ve been talkingto Karl for a while about his desire to spend more time with Darby andAndrew.  This is a family that has made enormous sacrifices not only forour beloved state of Texas, but for a country we both love.

We’ve been friends for a long time, and we’re still going to be friends.I would call Karl Rove a dear friend.  We’ve known each other asyoungsters interested in serving our state.  We worked together so wecould be in a position to serve this country.  And so I thank my friend.

That’s it. No expression of regret. No celebration of Rove’s accomplishments. Just an emphasis that he and Rove would continue to be friends, as if Rove had been weeping on Bush’s shoulder all night because Bush told Rove he had a new girlfriend. "Let’s just be friends, Karl."

By contrast, Bush hails Gonzales’ career with four paragraphs of tribute. Further, Bush admits that he tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Gonzales to stay.

This morning, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalesannounced that he will leave the Department of Justice, after two and ahalf years of service to the department.  Al Gonzales is a man ofintegrity, decency and principle.  And I have reluctantly accepted hisresignation, with great appreciation for the service that he hasprovided for our country.

And Bush’s angry words made it crystal clear why Gonzales resigned.

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The End of the Month

Via TPMM, the Director of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has resigned.

Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’sCivil Rights Division, today announced his resignation, effective atthe end of this month. President Bush nominated Mr. Kim to the positionon June 16, 2005, and the Senate unanimously confirmed his appointmenton November 4, 2005. Mr. Kim, whose career in the Department of Justicehas spanned more than a decade, started in the Department of JusticeHonors Program as a trial attorney in the Criminal Division, and laterserved as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. [my emphasis]

Um, today is August 23. The "end of the month," August 31, is approximately 6 business days away.

Where I come from in the business world, when a top executive quits with less than a month’s notice, he’s trying to hide something, usually the imminent collapse of his business unit. When a top executive quits with less than two week’s notice, that thing he’s hiding may involve legal repercussions.

Mr. Kim is getting out of Dodge in an awfully big hurry.

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