House Judiciary Warns DoJ on Perata Leaks

I've been mulling this around in my head for a few days. Three powerful members of the House Judiciary committee have have sent a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation into leaks surrounding the inquiry into State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.

No article since November 2004 has explicitly said that any information came from a federal government source. But in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey obtained by The Times on Monday, U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr., Linda Sanchez and Zoe Lofgren wrote, "We are disturbed and concerned that news story after news story . . . has cited federal law enforcement sources as the basis of information."

The only article specifically mentioned in the July 31 letter was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article cited "sources familiar with the probe," a broad term that could encompass federal agents, defense attorneys and people who have been questioned [...]

On Friday, the day after the congressional letter was sent, a Wall Street Journal article said the investigation into Perata "gained momentum over the past year." The article's details were attributed to anonymous people "close to the defense," who said Perata's longtime political consultant, Sandi Polka, was granted immunity to compel her to answer questions.

(Here's that SF Chron article mentioned in the letter.)

The Perata investigation certainly has dragged on for years, leading to him needing more and more funds to raise in his defense. In particular, the dumping of $250,000 from the California Democratic Party into his legal defense fund raised a lot of eyebrows around these parts. After the initial explanation of "We're the CDP and we can do what we want," a secondary explanation was that the investigation had been politicized and that this was part of the DoJ's efforts to prosecute and delegitimize Democrats. A couple weeks later, out comes this letter, signed by two members of the California delegation. But it's Conyers' participation that makes me believe that this is a real concern. I trust Conyers enough to think that he wouldn't simply badger the DoJ to help out a political problem in California.

Of course, let's look at what the letter is actually alleging. It's not suggesting that the investigation itself is unnecessarily political, but that someone inside the investigation is using the media to disparage Perata. That may well be true, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the whole investigation is a farce.

Let's now look at what this does NOT suggest:

• It in no way excuses the CDP for paying off Perata with $250,000 in the middle of an election year, whether that money was simply laundered through them and earmarked for Perata or not. Based on this SacBee report, it appears Perata is perfectly capable of raising money for himself:

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has solicited at least $200,000 this year from political interest groups for a nonprofit foundation that promotes and rallies support for one of his bills.

The arrangement, apparently legal, allows the Senate leader to solicit unlimited funds for his own political agenda without having to detail how the money is spent.

"He may have found a loophole in the Political Reform Act that needs to be closed," said attorney Bob Stern, a co-author of the state's Political Reform Act who now runs the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.

Which leads me to point 2:

• There is no way that Perata should still be Senate President Pro Tem at this point. While he has done a good job of hammering Republicans for their intransigence on the budget, this image hit, as well as the constant distraction of having to find new ways to raise money for his legal bills, are not what we need at this sensitive time, ESPECIALLY when Darrell Steinberg is waiting in the wings and perfectly capable of performing the same duties without the black cloud of indictment hanging over the head of the Democratic leadership. They haven't even taken a caucus vote on this yet, to my knowledge - it's currently scheduled for August 21, but during these budget negotiations that's doubtful to come off.

It is perfectly consistent to be skeptical of the Justice Department's case against Perata and to ALSO demand that he step down from his leadership position, and to excoriate the CDP for their conduct in either shoveling Perata money or acting as a conduit for that fund transfer.