Hey, remember how I asked whether, if Noel Hillman were subpoenaed in the woods but no one saw it, whether he really got subpoenaed?

Well, it turns out he did get subpoenaed.

As a reminder, Noel Hillman used to be head of the Public Integrity Section of DOJ. Now he’s a judge in New Jersey and had been an appointee to the Appeals Court, before Bush got cold feet and pulled his nomination. Jill Simpson, the lawyer who has sworn under oath that Karl Rove was involved in the prosecution of Don Siegelman, testified that Rove was arm-twisting Hillman to prosecute Siegelman.

A And so, anyway, he was telling me all of the things that Alice had done as far as having messed up the deal. And then I — and that since she had messed it up, he was definitely running, you know what — I mean — and then he proceeds to tell me that Bill Canary and Bob Riley had had a conversation with Karl Rove again and that they had this time gone over and seen whoever was the head of the department of — he called it PIS, which I don’t think that is the correct acronym, but that’s what he called it. And I had to say what is that and he said that is the Public Integrity Section.

[snip]

Q Okay. And who — when you say they had made a decision, who are you thinking of?

A Whoever that head of that Public Integrity — the PIS was as Rob referred to it. And then whoever — and Karl Rove.

Q And what — well, from talking to Rob, this conversation you’re describing for me was in late January, early February 2005?

A That is correct.

[snip]

Q Okay. And did Rob give you the name of the person at — I’m just going to call it Public Integrity — that he thought he understood Karl Rove had spoken to?

A No, he said it was the head guy there and he said that that guy had agreed to allocate whatever resources, so evidently the guy had the power to allocate resources, you know.

Q To the Siegelman prosecution?

A Yes. And that he’d allocate all resources necessary.

Simpson’s testimony suggests that Hillman was a key player in Rove’s politicization of DOJ.

Now, it’s not Siegelman subpoenaing Hillman; it’s Jack Beam, one of the lawyers associated with Geoffrey Fieger who donated to John Edwards. Beam is suing FEC and DOJ because their investigation into Fieger did not follow the normal procedure of going through FEC and Beam got dragged into–including having his financial records subpoenaed. Beam suggests the irregularity may be no accident and that the investigation of Fieger and his associates remained in the MI USA office and, you guessed it, PIN, given how intently Rove and Gonzales were politicizing everything at DOJ. As I pointed out yesterday, the government’s story about whether the investigation was primarily managed in MI or in DC seems to change every time there’s a hearing on the Fieger case. And they get particularly evasive when asked if Noel Hillman had any role in this prosecution. So there’s at least reason to be curious about what Judge Hillman would have to say about the early days of the investigation into Geoffrey Fieger and his associates.

The government, of course, is fighting this subpoena and they’re trying to get the Beam suit thrown out altogether. But this subpoena is, AFAIK, the first time that someone outside of Congress has subpoenaed the people alleged to have politicized prosecutions at DOJ.

I was apparently one of the few who noticed the news last week that Tommy K, Duke Cunningham’s mysterious briber, has continued to engage in apparent mortgage fraud since the time he signed his plea deal in February. From one of the government’s recent filings,

(4) During the pre-trial proceedings of coconspirators Brent Wilkes and John Michael, the government first received information suggesting that defendant Kontogiannis was, in fact, still committing federal criminal offenses, including, but not limited to bank fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1344.

(5) As part of these proceedings, defense counsel for John Michael obtained various financial documents indicating that Mr. Kontogiannis was–unbenknownst to the government–still continuing his illegal mortgage fraud scheme. In addition, Michael’s defense counsel contacted Washington Mutual to obtain information regarding the fraudulent mortgages that they had purchased from Mr. Kontogiannis.

[snip]

…as a direct result of being contracted by Michael’s defense counsel, Washington Mutual contacted the government with information regarding Mr. Kontogiannis’s continued illegal activity.

(8) Within the past two weeks, we obtained clearer indications that Mr. Kontogiannis was engaged in post-plea illegal activity.

As if that’s not enough, Tommy K has apparently been selling fraudulent mortgages right into the giant shitpile of bad mortgage debt. Well (via chrisc), it appears that the government has finally figured out that Tommy K isn’t about to go straight, and they’ve taken him into custody in the hospital where he’s recovering from heart surgery.

A federal judge has revoked bail for a key figure in the corruption case against former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham after learning he traveled to Greece and appeared to commit additional crimes.

The judge postponed sentencing for New York financier Thomas Kontogiannis after learning the defendant had bypass surgery last week at a New York hospital, where he is recovering. He will remain in federal custody at the hospital. [my emphasis]

No word yet on whether they’re actually going to punish him for violating his plea agreement–that might mean they have to stop sending Tommy K on luxury trips to Greece in the name of cooperation with some other mysterious investigation.

I feel like I’ve gone back through time. We’re back to talking about Plame. And nolo discovered another USA Purge document dump. There’s a potentially damning email in here–all redacted (I’ll return to that in a later post). But there’s also proof of something we’ve long suspected. Congressional Republicans were getting talking points from Gonzales’ DOJ to use in hearings on the USA purge.

Or let me be more exact: the White House (in this case  Christoper Frech) is making sure that the Office of Legislative Affairs at DOJ (in this case, Richard Hertling) is giving the Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee tips on strategy for the hearing with four fired USAs.

This is what it looks like when the White House (which isn’t supposed to be involved in this scandal, remember) makes sure DOJ prepares the HJC Republicans.

Frech:  Good morning Richard, regarding the Tuesday hearing with the USAs, have you had any conversation with the committee and specific members on strategy, etc?

Hertling:  We have had some preliminary conversations and will be meeting internally to finalize questions and strategy to provide HJC Rs.  They will get all of that later today.

No wonder the Republican Congress never exercised any oversight over the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration never gave them  the script so they could do so.