NJ-Gov: Christie Melts In The Dog Days Of August

At Netroots Nation I saw Gov. Jon Corzine speak on a panel about the 21st century economy. Corzine is a former head of Goldman Sachs, so I'd lose my membership in the Matt Taibbi fan club if I said "go out and support the vampire squid," but you don't see Wall Street types saying "tax policy is completely biased to capital versus labor" and "we need green job-focused unions" and the like. He's one of the better ones. And his opponent in this campaign is truly a piece of work.

It's not just that Chris Christie definitively spoke to Karl Rove about running for the Governor of New Jersey while still holding the job of US Attorney for the state, which is against the law. Corzine, in fact, went ahead and called him a lawbreaker in that instance. But there's much more here. Christie consistently used his perch at the US Attorney's office to punish Democrats for partisan ends, most notably in the case of Robert Menendez, who Christie subpoenaed for no particular reason right before the 2006 Senate race. And at a time when Christie is painting himself as a paragon of ethics and a hammer for law enforcement, stories like this will not help that image:

He billed himself as a corruption fighter, questioned the ethics of those in power and promised to put an end to no-bid contracts for the politically connected. But when Christopher J. Christie was elected and his reform proposal was voted down, he gave up the fight and went on to approve hundreds of such contracts, including more than 50 for contributors to his campaigns [...]

His strategy is vintage Christie: A look at his career shows he has repeatedly used the whiff of corruption as a cudgel against political opponents. But his short-lived attempt to ban no-bid contracts as a freeholder raises questions over whether his zeal for an ethics overhaul is more than just campaign hype and would last if he became governor and met resistance from lawmakers he could not control.

This goes along with subsequent deliveries of no-bid contracts to Bush Administration officials like John Ashcroft.

Worst of all, we have the latest story, broken by NJN News, about a $46,000 loan Christie gave to one of his employees:

Chris Christie, the former U.S. Attorney and current Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey, is now getting a new headache over a story that was broken last night by New Jersey Public Television -- that in 2007, Christie made a $46,000 personal loan to an assistant of his in the U.S. Attorney's office, which is still being paid off in regular installments:

Christie said he did not view this as an improper financial relationship: "I just believe that if you have friends who are in need, that you help them, whether they work with you or whether they're friends of yours from outside the work realm. We were happy to be able to help, and they've been great about repaying the loan."

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign has pounced on the report, saying that a candidate for governor should not have an ongoing financial relationship with someone who is still working in the U.S. Attorney's office. "This raises more significant questions and legal issues for the Christie campaign," said Corzine spokesman Sean Darcy. "Are they still in contact? Have they been discussing this campaign? What impact has their ongoing financial relationship had on the gubernatorial campaign?"

Christie never disclosed this loan, in violation of state and federal laws.

Basically, the default position of New Jersey voters is that their elected officials are horribly corrupt. All things being equal, at the statewide level they go with the Democrat. Christie has tried to cultivate an image of an honest crime-fighter, but these revelations have really made that image fall apart. If this is the typical "we hate all our politicians" New Jersey race, suddenly Corzine looks like he's back in it, especially if the job numbers start turning around there.

Blue Jersey will have the best coverage of this race.

...the AFL-CIO has set up an attack website about Christie detailing his issues on working families. Union membership is relatively high in New Jersey, so if they can be mobilized, Corzine has a better shot.

...The Rove-Christie relationship goes back at least to 2003.

CA-10: DeSaulnier's Endorsement Trouble

Sen. Mark DeSaulnier has based a lot of his campaign strategy in the quick-sprint Congressional race for CA-10 on endorsements. Not a day goes by when he doesn't release some endorsement by one character or another into my inbox. The other day he touted that he received a "majority of endorsement votes" from California Democratic Party delegates, without mentioning that he did not reach the 60% threshold that would be required for an official CDP endorsement.

However, one endorsement has caused DeSaulnier a bit of trouble - the support of the former holder of this seat, Ellen Tauscher. DeSaulnier has made no secret of that endorsement, including it in mailers and on his TV advertisement. One problem with all this: with Tauscher now at the State Department, some have raised concerns that her endorsement while working at a federal agency violates the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from participating in partisan politics. DeSaulnier's camp has countered that the endorsement, which was made before Tauscher was confirmed for the post at State, always says "Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher" and thus indicates that it was made prior to that appointment. But the State Department has weighed in, asking DeSaulnier's campaign to remove the endorsement.

The U.S. State Department has asked 10th District Congressional candidate and state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier to remove all references in his campaign materials to his endorsement from former congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who is now undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. State Department.

While a legal adviser to the U.S. State Department concludes that the endorsement broke no laws or policies, “Under Secretary Tauscher is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct. To avoid even the appearance of impropriety, on behalf of Undersecretary Tauscher, I have asked Senator DeSaulnier to remove all references in his campaign material of any endorsement she may have made,” wrote James Thessin, deputy legal adviser and designed agency ethics official.

The DeSaulnier campaign is fingering John Garamendi for complaining to the State Department about the use of Tauscher's name. Actually, the complaint was made by Jason Bezis, an individual who claims not to be affiliated with any campaign, but who apparently enjoys filing complaints with the State Department and the FEC (he filed one there against DeSaulnier's campaign over a health care mailer). It looks like the DeSaulnier campaign won't change current materials already printed, but will consult the State Department "about what qualifies and what doesn't under their request."

I actually question whether this means as much as the DeSaulnier team seems to think, but their strategy all along has been to gather up local endorsements.

NE-Sen: Johanns Making With The Hatch Act Violations

Earlier this week, Henry Waxman's team at the House Oversight Committee detailed, in a scathing report, multiple instances of the Bush White House organizing taxpayer-funded trips for government officials into swing districts to seemingly help threatened Republican incumbents. In 2006, Department Secretaries and agency heads were all of a sudden jetsetting all over the country, giving grants or talking up the positive effects of policies in regions that just happened to coincide with the swing district lists.

One of those department heads was Mike Johanns, who in 2006 was the Secretary of Agriculture. He jaunted along to appear at 38 separate stops that year, with such upstanding public servants as:

4/21/06 Marilyn Musgrave, Colorado, Taxpayer Expense for Official Event
7/7/06 John Doolittle, Auburn CA, Taxpayer Expense for Official Event
7/7/06 Richard Pombo, Elk Grove CA, Political Event
11/1/06 Heather Wilson, Albuquerque, NM, Taxpayer Expense for Official Event
11/2/06 Rick Renzi, Casa Grande, AZ, Taxpayer Expense for Official Event

Doolittle and Renzi have been indicted, Wilson is under questioning in the US Attorneys scandal, and Pombo was as corrupt as they come. In short, a pretty ignominious list.

Now, this would mean little, considering that the penalty for violating the Hatch Act (engaging in political activity as part of official government business) is removal from office, and Johanns is no longer the AgSecretary. However, he is running for the US Senate in Nebraska this year, against Democrat and netroots favorite Scott Kleeb.

Last night, Johanns was confronted with these charges at a debate, and he admitted to the wrongdoing.

Last night's Senate debate in Grand Island gave Mike Johanns his first opportunity to defend himself from devastating new allegations that he used taxpayer funds in 2006 to travel across the country campaigning for Republican candidates.

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports on Johanns' response:

As U.S. secretary of agriculture, Johanns attended 38 events recommended by the White House Office of Political Affairs headed by Karl Rove, according to the committee report.

Most of the travel costs for Rove-generated events were paid with federal funds, the report stated.

Answering a question posed by a panelist.., Johanns said he believes it would be "a great idea" to ban the use of taxpayer funds by the White House for such activities.

In case it isn't clear, this still-erupting scandal has the potential to remake Nebraska's 2008 Senate race.

Yes, it's quite clear. Johanns is basically calling himself guilty of participating in an illegal Rovian scheme. If there's one person you don't want to be tied to in this election, it's George Bush. And if there's another, it's Karl Rove. Scott Kleeb has a real opening.

I like Scott a lot. I've had the opportunity to meet him at a couple events, and he has some of the best Internet people around working for him. I really hope he can pull this off, especially because his race could mean a filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats in the United States Senate.

The Goodling Legacy

The DoJ Inspector General released the findings of their investigations into the politicization of hiring at the Department, particularly by Monica Goodling and senior staff. A PDF of the report can be found here. It's everything you expected and more. I mean, Goodling already admitted to Congress that her hiring decisions "may have been influenced in
part based on political considerations." So the report just fills in some of the details. And the details are pretty incredible.

As a routine for hiring both political and career positions in the Department of Justice, Goodling would ask the following questions:

Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

We found that this last question often took the form of asking the candidate to identify his or her most admired President, Supreme Court Justice, or legislator. Some candidates were asked to identify a person for all three categories. Williamson told us that sometimes Goodling asked candidates: “Why are you a Republican?”

When someone answered "Condoleezza Rice" to that last question, Goodling mused, “but she’s pro-choice.”

Another candidate for a position, a "top counter-terrorism prosecutor," was denied because his wife was a Democrat.

He was an experienced terrorism prosecutor and had successfully prosecuted a high-profile terrorism case for which he received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service. … The candidate’s wife was a prominent local Democrat elected official and vice-chairman of a local Democratic Party. […]

[Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) Michael] Battle, [EOUSA Deputy Director and Cheif of Staff] Kelly, and EOUSA Deputy Director Nowacki all told us that Goodling refused to allow the candidate to be detailed to EOUSA solely on the basis of his wife’s political party affiliation. Battle said he was very upset that Goodling opposed the detail because of political reasons.

Another woman was denied an Assistant US Attorney position because Goodling believed she was a lesbian.

Goodling and her predecessor as the hiring manager, Jan Williams, apparently Googled candidates to determine their professional, political and ideological histories, as it was official White House policy. Check this out.

At some time during the year Williams served as White House Liaison, she had attended a seminar at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and received a document entitled “The Thorough Process of Investigation.” The document described methods for screening candidates for political positions and recommended using www.tray.com
and www.opensecrets.org to find information about contributions to political candidates and parties. The document also explained how to find voter registration information. In addition, the document explained how to conduct searches on www.nexis.com, and included an example of a search string that contained political terms such as “republican,” “Bush or Cheney,” “Karl Rove,” “Howard Dean,” “democrat!,” “liberal,” “abortion or pro-choice,” as well as generic terms such as “arrest!” and “bankrupt!”

As the report spells out pretty clearly, this is all completely illegal. John Conyers and Linda Sanchez today considered a criminal referral of these charges.

"Today's report describes ‘systematic’ violations of federal law by several former leaders of the Department of Justice," said Conyers. "Apparently, the political screening was so pervasive that even qualified Republican applicants were rejected from Department positions because they were ‘not Republican enough’ for Monica Goodling and others. The report also makes clear that the cost to our nation of these apparent crimes was severe, as qualified individuals were rejected for key positions in the fight against terrorism and other critical Department jobs for no reason other than political whim. The Report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters. I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

Sen. Leahy has a fairly strong statement out as well. The IG will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

The very familiar question here is, who will be held accountable, if anyone? Under the relevant statutes, much of the punishment concerning Hatch Act violations like this concerns removal from office, and most of those implicated in this report have already left DoJ (though one, EOUSA Deputy Director John Nowacki, who lied to senior DoJ officials about Goodling's politicized hiring practices, remains). Goodling and her pals may get disbarred for illegal hiring and lawbreaking, or maybe not. The IG's recommendations all concern how to prevent illegal hiring practices like this in the future, and have little effect on the sins of the past. More importantly, we don't even know how many career positions throughout the DoJ, particularly those working as immigration judges, are the ones who passed Goodling's loyalty tests and are now permanently installed inside the government. You can say that a new Democratic Administration should immediately fire everyone Goodling hired and start the process over again. I'm not sure that is legal under civil service reform laws dating back to Chester Arthur in the 1880s. What Goodling and her team did was to go around the spoils system that was the impetus for civil service reform, but there would have to be some kind of executive finding that the hiring process was polluted and would need to be reworked. And this would of course be a major undertaking for the DoJ, although I would argue a necessary one.

If this is ignored, you are going to see all kinds of whistleblowers and martyrs coming out of the woodwork in an Obama Administration, telling lurid and probably false tales accusing them of exactly what the Bush Administration put into practice and more. And they will be held up on the right as shining examples of patriots who understand how the rule of law must be respected at all times.

And they will probably have been hired by Monica Goodling.

Nobody To Root For

So what's going on with this FBI raid of the head of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch? He was looking into investigations over violations of the Hatch Act by executive branch figures, including Karl Rove (although the punishment for violating the Hatch Act is to lose your executive branch job, so I'm not sure why he's investigating) and Condi Rice. However, his hands aren't exactly clean either, having erased all the files on his computer with the help of Geeks on Call instead of the White House email technicians, and has been accused of improper retaliation against employees who disagreed with his policies. I agree with looseheadprop that this feels like a Mafia turf war, but for my money bmaz had the best take.

Bloch appears to be a bit of a nondescript, but deeply religious, party level toady that they pulled out of the mid-west, to serve as Associate Director and then Deputy Director and Counsel to the Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Justice. (Why exactly is there even such an office in the DOJ at all???). The Bushies then wanted to plug a Regent like theobot toady into the OSC, and decided Bloch fit the bill. Bloch then went about doing his job, which was effectively to do nothing and fill up the ranks with incompetent theobot types, just like they were doing all over the government and, as we know so well, especially the DOJ. But Bloch got a little ham fisted in his efforts to weed his office of teh gay in the process, which caused an amount of scrutiny and heat.

About that time, Bloch's office started being forced into relevance because of all the Hatch Act violations and other things that the Bushies have done to create whistleblowers that are supposed to fall under Bloch's office's parameters. This created a confluence of events for Bloch; he morally/religiously really believes in his purge of teh gay and, just maybe, he actually has some moral convictions on the impropriety of much of the Bushco creed. So, he starts actually doing his job on the Bushco ills, just a little, both because he knew there were ills and to push back and protect himself for what he had done. Picture a John DiIulio and/or David Kuo that, instead of just leaving, stayed and fought.

Because of the Rove, Doan, and then the USA Purgegate scandals, this little internecine battle erupted into the public consciousness, and neither side backed off. Bloch was preparing some stinging reports that would really be a poke in the eye to the Bushies, and they wanted to squelch those. The Bushies determined that it would be necessary to take out Bloch, but they didn't want it to be alleged that they did it to cover and protect Lurita "Cookies" Doan and wanted it to look like they did it for cause against Bloch. So they cooked Doan (she was a pain in the ass anyway by then, so no loss to them) as a preemptory strike in preparation for going after Bloch. Then, they went after Bloch to put the kabosh, as much as they can, on his reports on Bushco. And that is where we are at now.

Read the whole thing. Sometimes really juicy information comes out of turf wars and hurt feelings like this, so while nobody in this mess is praiseworthy there might be a good yield, so it's worth keeping an eye on.

Drowning Oversight In The Bathtub

A lot of people are thinking that this represents an extension of the US Attorneys scandal. Rachel Paulose, a certified nut who was given the Minnesota office after the presiding US Attorney "quit," is under investigation for dressing down several employees. According to one account, she used the words “fat,” “black,” “lazy” and “ass.” But pay attention to the investigating body:

The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that Rachel Paulose, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made racist remarks about one employee.

The Office of Special Counsel, ay? Somehow I don't think they're going to have any cash in the cookie jar to work on the whole Paulose thing.

A task force probing allegations of illegal activity by Karl Rove and other former and current White House officials is in jeopardy due to lack of funding, according to its spokesman.

Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical assistance it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

This is not an unfamliar tactic of late. It's what the Justice Department has been using to stop the Jerry Lewis investigation in the Southern District of California.

In Los Angeles, a federal criminal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, stalled for nearly six months due to a lack of funds, according to former prosecutors. The lead prosecutor on the inquiry and other lawyers departed the office, and vacancies couldn't be filled. George Cardona, the interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, declined to comment on specific cases but confirmed that lack of funds and unfilled vacancies caused delays in some investigations [...]

People with knowledge of the case said that by the time the investigation stalled in December 2006, it had branched out into other areas, including Mr. Lewis's June 2003 role in passing legislation that helped giant hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management. People associated with Cerberus around the same time gave at least $140,000 to a political action committee controlled by Mr. Lewis. Cerberus officials didn't respond to phone calls or emailed questions concerning the Lewis inquiry [...]

I think the Bush gang has hit on another way to evade accountability. In addition to stonewalling on documents and witnesses and constructing obscure legal theories that declare the executive branch sovereign and beyond the law, they'll also take the oversight they can't obstruct and just grind it to a halt through attrition. In a sense this is the same theory underpinning the Norquistian view of government - limit it so that it cannot function effectively at all.

Certainly this is the way they can slow down executive branch agencies from investigation, including the DoJ Inspector General, the Office of Special Counsel, all 93 US Attorney offices, and any other oversight agencies. With investigators like the Congressional committees, they'll continue to obstruct justice, and rely on Democratic timidity to evade enforcement.

There's no one strategy, but defunding is a tool in the White House's arsenal (hopefully, it will be one in Congress', too).

Sorry, Charlie

A lot of people are talking about this McClatchy story, which details how the Commerce and Treasury Departments were flying around the country giving out grants in crucial swing districts to help Republicans during the 2006 elections. It's complete politicization of the federal government, and it's caused many to openly wonder whether or not Karl Rove would finally be taken down for this clear violation of the Hatch Act, which bans executive branch officials from participating in electoral politics.

Emptywheel caught up to this as well, but Addie Stan had it first: the Hatch Act carries no criminal penalties. The most disruptive thing you can do to a violator of the Hatch Act is fire them from their executive branch job. Rove resigned, so that's out. And the only man with the power to do the firing if he was still in his position would be George W. Bush. This is why the clearly guilty Lurita Doan still runs the General Services Administration.

This doesn't mean Congress can't amend the law, and give it some actual teeth, of course:

Because of a tight deadline during a congressional recess, I was unable to get an answer to the question by press time. However, I got a call yesterday from Phil Schiliro, the committee's majority chief of staff, who told me, "One of the things the committee will be looking at is whether the law works." Does that mean a legislative fix is in the offing? Schiliro couldn't say, but he replied that legislation of that sort is certainly part of the committee's purview.

But that wouldn't be applied retroactively. So Karl Rove won't see any penalty for violating the Hatch Act whatsoever.

Frustratin', ain't it?

Huh What Now?

Did anyone even know that Lurita Doan was black until Congressional Republicans decided to bring it up yesterday?

On a number of occasions, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led his colleagues in accusing their Democratic counterparts of targeting Doan because she was a black woman and a Republican.

“You’re an African-American Republican so you’ve got a big bull’s eye on you,” Davis, the former chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said to Administrator Doan at one stage. […]

Davis wasn’t the only Republican member in the House hearing to make such an allegation. “You’re a Republican, a minority, and a woman, a GOP contributor, and they’ve targeted you, they’re circling you to come after you,” said Rep. John Mica (R-FL), who objected to the hearing at various occasions.

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) also said, “I find that when an African-American is a Republican, somehow, she is treated differently by Congress.”

Take a look at Lurita Doan:



She's black? Really? She looks like a 1950s astronaut's wife.

This really hits the bottom of the "how low can you go" meter. Doan violates the Hatch Act by using the General Services Administration to help elect Republican candidates, and the defense is "you're picking on her because she's black." Incredible.

The Office of Special Counsel

At the end of Bush's press conference this morning, somebody yelled out "Office of Special Counsel" as he walked away, and having not read this story yet I hadn't understood what it meant. But this could be enormous:

Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

I think the DC media will confuse the Office of Special Counsel with special counsels like Ken Starr and Patrick Fitzgerald and give this agency a lot of attention. Somebody already yelled out the name to the President.

So what are they investigating?

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

"We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned." [...]

The question of improper political influence over government decision-making is at the heart of the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys and the ongoing congressional investigation of the special e-mail system installed in the White House and other government offices by the Republican National Committee.

All administrations are political, but this White House has systematically brought electoral concerns to Cabinet agencies in a way unseen previously.

For example, Rove and his top aides met each year with presidential appointees throughout the government, using PowerPoint presentations to review polling data and describe high-priority congressional and other campaigns around the country.

Some officials have said they understood that they were expected to seek opportunities to help Republicans in these races, through federal grants, policy decisions or in other ways.

I mean, that's an open-and-shut case. That embarrassing hearing Henry Waxman held with Lurita Doan of the General Services Administration proved fairly easily that Karl Rove's shop was holding PowerPoint presentations about 2008 Republican candidates, in violation of the Hatch Act, and that wasn't done just to keep GSA officials abreast of the latest news. It was meant to set priorities for how they could help these candidates. These same briefing happened in the Interior Department and throughout the government. And it was illegal. Executive branch agencies are not an extension of the RNC.

And like the article says, this will be a unified investigation. The US Attorneys scandal appears to reach into the White House, since nobody at the Justice Department can explain how the names of those to be fired got on the list. The RNC is taking the cues from the White House on what emails to release to Waxman's committee, and the very act of government officials using non-governmental emails is a violation of the Presidential Records Act, and designed to circumvent Hatch Act violations.

So what is being investigated by the OSC is nothing less than the entire method of Bush-Rove era governance. I hope that this Scott Bloch guy doesn't start his own car.