Archive for category: emptywheel

Steven Aftergood must have had an extra dose of turkey over the weekend, because it seems like Steven Aftergood week here at TNH. Today, he has a liberated CRS report on the implementation of Bush’s EO 13438, which authorizes the seizure of the assets of people determined to "threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq." At least according to the Congressional Research Service, the EO allows for incredibly broad application, since it allows for the asset seizure of people who financially support people who financially support people who financially support the destabilization of Iraq–you get the idea.

The scope, objectives and precedents of the order — Executive Order13,438, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who ThreatenStabilization Efforts in Iraq" — were examined in a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

"Thebroad language of this executive order has been the subject of a degreeof criticism as potentially reaching beyond insurgents in Iraq to thirdparties, such as U.S. citizens, who may unknowingly be providingsupport for the insurgency," the CRS report noted, citing prior reports in the Washington Post, TPM Muckraker, and elsewhere.

Infact, the potential application of the order appears to be technicallyunlimited since it includes a recursive clause that has no definedendpoint.

Thus, section 1(b) of the Orderstates that any person who provides goods or services to a person whoseactions are proscribed under section 1(a) is himself subject to section1(a). But then, anyone who provides similar support to that person could likewise be swept up in the expansive terms of the order. And so on, without end. [my emphasis]

Now, if the Administration’s standards for this kind of thing were rational, it might not be a problem. But its behavior in similar circumstances has proven to be anything but. Consider this story from the LAT. It describes how a businessman who had long been blacklisted as a financial backer of terrorism got magically removed from the list recently–with no explanation.

Read more →

So far the RNC has spent $231,615 looking for Turdblossom’s missing emails.

The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.

According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg,a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve thelost electronic data. The report shows the committee also paid $41,217in October to Covington & Burling, the law firm representing the RNC on the missing e-mail controversy.

[snip]

But now that we know the RNC has paid Stroz Friedberg nearly aquarter million dollars, does that mean they’ve found the missinge-mail messages?

The RNC isn’t saying, nor is Stroz Friedberg.

So add that $231,615 to the $90,000 that Congressman Tom Feeney has paid to FTI to (apparently) recover his own missing emails.

This habit of deleting emails is beginning to cost the Republicans. How long do you think it’ll be before they start a special kind of defense fund, the email reconstruction fund (and celebrity golf tournament)?

There was a rumor floating the Toobz yesterday that Trent Lott got out of the Senate in a hurry because of boy trouble–perhaps something that Larry Flynt dug up. That rumor has since been denied by the boy in question.

But Scott Horton points us to something that is rather more intriguing: The fact that Trent’s brother-in-law’s law office is presently being raided.

Sources in Mississippi law enforcement inform No Comment that FBI agents are now raiding the law office of Richard “Dickie” Scruggs in Oxford.

Horton has covered the non-indictment of Dickie Scruggs before. You see, Scruggs was the apparent mastermind of a plan behind loans to some Mississippi judges–loans for which Democratic lawyer Paul Minor is now doing time.

As Minor recounts it, and other lawyers with whom I spoke confirm, theidea of rushing in to support the judges who came under fire from theChamber of Commerce started with Richard Scruggs, probably the bestknown and wealthiest member of the Mississippi trial lawyers bar.Scruggs, like Minor, made loans to Mississippi judges and came under investigation in the original study launched by the FBI. However, there was a critical difference. Scruggs tends to support the Republicans, not the Democrats. In 2000, for instance, he gave $250,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign and to the G.O.P., and only $20,000 to Democratic candidates.  And more significantly, Scruggs Read more →

Steven Aftergood has an important post describing the squabble between the intelligence appropriations subcommittees and the intelligence committees. He explains how, even though the intelligence committees are trying to exercise more oversight over intelligence activities, the appropriators (which have increasingly become the defense subcommittee appropriators, as more intelligence activities have moved under DOD) have undercut those efforts.

The efficacy of intelligence oversight in the Senate has beendrastically undermined by procedural hurdles that enable the DefenseAppropriations Subcommittee to overrule actions taken by the SenateIntelligence Committee, Senators complained earlier this month. Toremedy this concern, a new bill has been introduced that would transfer budget appropriations authority to the Intelligence Committee.

This year, the Senate Intelligence Committee presented "four major oversight initiatives in its [authorization] bill," said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO)(pdf) at a Committee hearing on November 13. But in each case, "actionsby the appropriations committee were completely dissimilar."

AMemorandum of Agreement between the Committees that was supposed toimprove coordination between the authorizers and the appropriators hasfailed in every significant respect, he said.

Aftergood links to a Kit Bond statement, complaining about the problem. Bond explains how much more oversight SSCI has over programs than the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (SAC-D).

We have almost 50 professional staff on this Committee who spend all their time doing nothing but intelligence oversight, day in and day out. The Defense Appropriations Committee has fewer than one half dozen staff who write the intelligence appropriation which is fewer than 1/10th of their bill.

[snip]

Our Committee has held scores of intelligence oversight hearings this year; the Defense Appropriations Committee has held notably few. I think the disparity is clear and speaks for itself. What I’m saying is, let’s effectively bring the oversight power to bear on the budget; right now it is disjointed.

[snip]

But that is my point, that Committee is consumed with defense matters, not intelligence matters. That Committee is wrapped up in a nearly half a trillion dollars appropriations bill, with less than one tenth of it comprising the National Intelligence Program that the SSCI oversees. SAC-D as currently constructed cannot give intelligence the attention it deserves with all its other responsibilities.

And then Bond complains of the unauthorized programs that remain in the 08 budget.

For example, this Committee is currently conferencing our FY08Intelligence Authorization Act with the House, and we’re looking at anumber of issues where our bill is disjointed from the FY08 DefenseAppropriations Act. As recently as a few hours ago, my staff wasreceiving calls from intelligence officials worried about a number ofpotential “A not A” (appropriated but not authorized) issues. That’snot a showstopper in most fields, but when it comes to nationalsecurity and intelligence, it usually does not make a whole lot ofsense.

That’s the kind of thing, of course, that got Duke Cunningham in trouble.

Read more →

I read Wilkes’ motion to subpoena journalists and others with great interest. I’ll return to three details later:

• The naming of Seth Hettena as the journalist who allegedly showed Mark Geragos a copies of two indictments; Geragos had earlier refused to give prosecutors Hettena’s name.
• The lack of a subpoena for Dan Dzwilewski, the Special Agent in Charge who retired suddenly in the midst of this whole scandal and, presumably, one leading candidate to have leaked details of the potential indictments.
• The lack of a subpoena for anyone at Main DOJ, even though one of the leaks Geragos complained about came from there.

Lisa Myers Received a Leak from Main DOJ

But for the moment, I’d like to focus on the other revelation in Wilkes’ motion to subpoena these people. Lisa Myers, a producer at NBC, is the person who claimed to have been told that Main DOJ could no longer exercise oversight over the San Diego investigation because of the earlier leaks. Here’s how the request for subpoena describes Myers:

Lisa Myers is a senior investigative correspondent for NBC Nightly News. She can testify that she spoke to a person within the Department of Justice who told her that they had the seen the indictment(s) and gave her other detailed information.

And here’s how Geragos described her–anonymously–when he was first making a stink about the pre-indictment leaks (this is the only TV reporter Geragos describes; note that Geragos never alleged that Myers had reported this publicly, which pretty much undercuts his argument that the leaks prevented Wilkes from getting a fair trial).

Around the same time the print reporters were disclosing to me detailedknowledge of the draft indictments, and stating that governmentofficials were showing them copies of draft indictments, a televisionreporter told me that an attorney at the Justice Department mainoffices in Washington D.C. (“Main Justice”) had disclosed that MainJustice believed that it could no longer exercise its normalsupervisory role because the leaks of the indictment “would now makeany action taken by Main Justice appear to be political”.

This purported leak was central to Geragos’ theory that Wilkes wouldn’t have been indicted if it weren’t for the tumult surrounding the Carol Lam firing.

The DOJ Leak as Spin and Damage Control

The leak is particularly significant for two reasons. First, because it’s one of only two leaks tying Lam’s firing to the Wilkes indictment. And second, because this leak was almost certainly deliberate spin to push back against Lam. As I point out in this post on the leak (click through for a timeline), Main DOJ had already taken active steps to prevent Lam from finishing her ongoing cases, and the Gonzales crowd at DOJ had already been panicking about Lam long before any leaks appeared.

Read more →