As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Backstop Is Not A Bailout
I heard a bunch of California Republicans yesterday talking about the effort to get the US Treasury to backstop state borrowing as a "bailout," and the media has fallen for it, using phrases like "California is too big to fail" and other snickering.
This is ridiculous.
Let me explain this fairly clearly. California will need to borrow billions of dollars to cover their cash flow issues, the same way they do every year. Traditionally, the money comes in at different times then the money goes out, necessitating short-term borrowing. Because of the state's miserable credit rating, the interest rates that investors charge for this borrowing are ridiculously high. Usually, banks guarantee those loans, but this year they are balking because of the severity of the state's fiscal picture. So the state has asked the Treasury to step in and guarantee the loans instead.
This would cost the Treasury Department approximately $0.00 dollars to perform. Providing loan guarantees simply means that you are insuring against default, which has never happened in the history of California. Not through the Depression or at any other time. What this would do is stop Wall Street from gouging the state with abnormally high interest rates, pure and simple.
Here are the words of an idiot:
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) predicted little sympathy for the Golden State on Capitol Hill. "I have the feeling that it's going to be a long time before Washington decides that they're going to ask Kansas or Wisconsin to help with California's funding problem," he said.
Nobody would be helping anybody. The federal government would guarantee loans that California would pay back. This is about lowering interest rates to make the price of short-term borrowing lower.
I understand that President Ford rejected these types of loan guarantees for New York City in the 1970s. But later he approved them. By the way, after that so-called "bailout," every single dollar was repaid by the city of New York. How on earth could this be characterized as a bailout?
The Ford Administration, under the direction of Treasury Secretary William Simon, imposed certain conditions on the loan guarantees (which will actually delivered directly by Treasury, so this is somewhat different). That could also happen here, and the Shock Doctrine possibilities are not pleasing. Still and all, this savings (which would only represent about $1 billion dollars in all, 1/20 of the current deficit) would not cost the federal government one red cent and thus shouldn't be used to cram down California in a punitive way. The possibility exists, but it's worth the risk.
Triangle of Corruption Update: They're Still Under Investigation
The long-dormant Jerry Lewis investigation showed signs of being restarted in recent months after one of his top aides was handed a federal subpoena. Now we've learned that the FBI has been taking a look at Lewis' personal financial records - and fellow Triangle of Corruption member Ken Calvert's, too.
The apparently stalled probe of Lewis has focused on his relationship to buddy and lobbyist Bill Lowery. Roll Call notes that the feds pulled records for two of Lowery's lobbyists, Jeffrey Shockey and Letitia White. Both once worked to Lewis, but moved over to work for Lowery. Shockey has since moved back to Lewis again. The feds also pulled records for Lewis' wife, his chief of staff Arlene Willis.
As for Calvert, it's unclear just what the feds are scrutinizing (one of his "honest graft" schemes?) or even if he's the focus of a full-blown investigation.
His trouble started last May, when the Los Angeles Times reported that he and a partner pocketed a profit of nearly a half-million dollars in less than a year on a land deal. The report found that while he owned the land, Calvert earmarked $1.5 million for commercial development nearby and $8 million for a freeway exchange 16 miles away.
About a week later, the California FBI agent pulled Calvert’s financial disclosure forms for 2000 through 2005. Calvert never retained legal counsel, but buzz over the issue compelled GOP leaders to skip over him last year when a slot opened on the Appropriations panel....
Candidates and campaigns in these districts take note: these corruption investigations are not going away.
The Wilkes Trial: Just A Preview For The Lewis Indictment?
Josh Marshall is puzzled by the defense strategy employed by celebrilawyer Mark Geragos for corrupt defense contractor Brent Wilkes. So far he's called to the stand exactly one witness, who pretty much just called Wilkes a nice guy. That hardly refutes the voluminous amounts of evidence showing Wilkes' multiple bribery schemes.
So what's the strategy? Perhaps Geragos is hanging Wilkes out as a possible flipper for a bigger fish:
The only logic I can see to this is based on something a lawyer friend told me. If Wilkes tries to push an 'everybody does it' too hard at trial then he's locked himself to a set of facts that will make it a lot harder for him to turn around and cut a deal in exchange for serving up Bill Lowery and Rep. Lewis (R-CA).
That makes sense, I guess. Though I think I need to guard against a professional investment in having it having it be true since Wilkes serving up these two jokers would be a veritable festival of muck, something akin to taking a pin to a muck balloon. But in that case, why'd he go to trial in the first place? Something about the whole thing just doesn't fit to me.
According to RollCall, a former staffer for the House Appropriations Committee that worked for then Chairman Jerry Lewis said he intends to defy a federal subpoena he was served today from the US District Court for the Central District in California...
The staffer, Greg Lasker, is trying to hide behind the "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution and claim that the subpoena is not consistent with the "rights and privileges of the House." I guess it's a lead-by-example thing, the President and his staff doesn't see any need to comply with subpoenas, so why should Lasker?
After months of dormancy, the new US Attorney in Los Angeles, Thomas O'Brien, appears to have ramped up the Lewis investigation. Stay tuned...
That was quick. The new US Attorney for the Los Angeles region, Thomas O'Brien, was just sworn in a week or so ago. He's apparently making the Jerry Lewis investigation a priority:
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has issued a subpoena for a House Appropriations Committee staffer as part of the ongoing probe of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the powerful panel.
Greg Lankler, a staffer on the House Appropriations Committee's Defense subcommittee, was recently subpoenaed by a federal grand jury looking into Lewis, according to House insiders.
The subpoena is for both documents and testimony, although it is unclear at this point whether Lankler will cooperate. The matter has been forwarded to the House general counsel's office, which is still studying the subpoena.
There hasn't been a subpoena in this case, which involves Lewis' moving millions of dollars' worth of earmarks to his friend, the ex-Congressman and lobbyist Bill Lowery, in over a year. Investigators on the case have been running out of money. So it is a bit of a surprise that this subpoena would emerge. The big difference in recent weeks is the confirmation of Thomas O'Brien.
Rep. Jerry Lewis: Choosing His Committees, Choosing His Opponent?
Now for the reason I turned to Novakula in the first place (yes, he's a partisan hack, but his sources are typically impeccable). This weekend he reported on maneuvers within the House GOP caucus to keep Jerry Lewis in his post as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, despite being under federal investigation. You'll recall that Minority Leader John Boehner stressed ethics and honesty when elected by the caucus, and even demoted John Doolittle from Appropriations when the FBI raided his house. There would appear to be a double standard, and reformers within the Republican Party are pissed.
The GOP leadership was so frazzled by this column that they sought to spin it on Friday, before it was even published. They denied that the meeting ever occurred. However, Lewis is still the ranking member of the Committee, so those denials only go so far. So it appears he'll remain in that position throughout his re-election effort. And that effort has Howie Klein pissed:
It also looks like he's gotten the same shill candidate, Louie Contreras, who didn't run against him in 2006 to be his "opponent" in 2008-- and the state of Art Torres' California Democratic Party is so pathetic that they won't even lift a finger to look into it.
So Lewis, probably the single most corrupt man in Congress, has the Republican nomination locked up and the Democratic nomination rigged. All he has to do is not get indicted. He's spent over a million dollars in legal fees to keep that from happening.
Contreras actually jumped into the comments of that post and claimed that State Superintendent Jack O'Connell was supporting him. He isn't. The San Bernardino Sun claims Tim Prince is running, though he earlier said that he would only run if Lewis didn't. I can add that there will be an additional "mystery candidate" in this race, and for now, that's all I can say. (Tee-hee!!)
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).
CREW just released their 3rd annual "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" report. They list 22 members of Congress as the most corrupt. And with 5 members, California wins for the most on the list!!!
On behalf of all Golden Staters, I want to thank all of these Representatives for having the wisdom, foresight, and venality to give the state this honor. Sure, the ENTIRE Alaska delegation is on the list, making them slightly mnore corrupt. But 5 out of 22 is not bad. Not bad indeed. Especially when you consider that there are only 19 federal representatives who are Republican, and 5 of them made the list! That's called dedication!
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt and 11 other members of Congress have been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of a defense contractor charged with bribing jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.
Those subpoenad include Hunter, Lewis, Doolittle, and as a bonus, Rep. Darrell Issa, who claimed "This subpoena is a mystery." House lawyers have said it would be against House rules to comply.
It looks like Wilkes' team of lawyers is set to argue that the lawmakers asked for the bribes, rather than the other way around. I think giving bribes is a crime, regardless of who asked for them, so I don't know how this will fly. But clearly, this could damage some Congressional reputations. Or in the case of the CREW list, enhance them! Let's go for 6 in 2008!
Bruin Kid lets us know that Jerry Lewis will be seeking re-election next year. He's obviously pretty confident that his legal troubles and investigations into his corrupt earmarking will amount to nothing. I'm thinking this is why:
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 [...]
After the lead prosecutor in the Lewis case quit, others assigned to the case took time getting up to speed. Brian Hershman, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles office's public corruption section, declined to comment on specific cases, but confirms that his group's work overall was derailed by the departure of experienced prosecutors. Like several others, he says he left for more money to support his family.
Replacements "are mostly rookies," he says. "It will be some time before they'll be able to restore the section to what it was before."
With additional funds recently made available by Congress, the Los Angeles office has filled 12 of 57 lawyer vacancies and is expecting an additional 12 lawyers to start soon. To jump-start the Lewis investigation, Mr. Cardona, the interim U.S. attorney, in June called on a veteran prosecutor, Michael Emmick, to revive and supervise the investigation, people with knowledge of the investigation say.
Day late and a dollar short on that one, I'd gather. This is approaching criminal conduct by the Justice Department. At a time when the investigation was expanding, Debra Wong Yang (the US Attorney for the region) suddenly jumped ship for the law firm representing Lewis. You can bet they never lacked funds; Yang received nearly $1.5 million. The law firm, Gibson Dunn, took the top assistant off the case as well. So the LA office was thrown into disarray precisely when the investigation was heating up, and the money for the office dried up at the same time. Pathetic. With or without Alberto Gonzales, we still have a DoJ protecting its own and politicized beyond control. And this is the time when Democratic leaders are seeking to call off the dogs in the US Attorney case?
We have 15 months to go before Election Day, and it's time for another roundup of Congressional races. I am going to continue to focus on the top 10 challenges to Republican incumbents. There is certainly a concern in CA-11 with the Jerry McNerney/Dean Andal race, particularly after McNerney's "I'm a moderate" comment seemed to depress supporters. On the bright side, he did vote against the ridiculous FISA bill. And as we go into September, I would hope he would continue his efforts to end the occupation of Iraq. I will certainly cover the McNerney race in future roundups.
But for now, let's take a look at the top 10 challenges. I'm going to rank them in order of most possible pickup, including their number from the last roundup. I'm also adding the "Boxer number." Basically, seeing how Boxer fared in her 2004 re-election against Bill Jones in a particular district is a decent indicator of how partisan it is. If I put "57," that means Boxer received 57% of the vote. Anything over 50, obviously, is good.
1) CA-04 (Doolittle). Last month: 1. Boxer number: 40. Charlie Brown got some amazing news this week. Mike Holmes, an Auburn city councilman and a Republican, announced he was running in the primary to unseat ethically challenged Rep. John Doolittle. Holmes ran a primary race last year and got around 30% of the vote. This gives Doolittle two challengers next June (Eric Egland has already announced), which is a lot better for Doolittle than one challenger to which anti-Doolittle forces can focus their energies. This makes it more likely that a wounded Doolittle will survive the primaries (if he's not indicted by then) and face Brown, who's flush with cash and unopposed in his primary. Brown also made a great impression at the Yearly Kos Convention, so there will be plenty of online support for him.
2) CA-26 (Dreier). Last month: 2. Boxer number: 48. Another candidate who made a big impression at Yearly Kos was Russ Warner. At the California caucus he gave a version of this speech:
Warner's fundraising stats were already impressive for the district, and now we're starting to see some grassroots support. If he can tap into what Hilda Solis has been doing online (Solis has endorsed him), there could be a groundswell. Meanwhile, Dreier is whining that local Democrats blocked funding for expanding the Gold Line light-rail service to "focus on projects in their districts rather than regional priorities." Right, because the Gold Line doesn't mainly go through Pasadena, in Adam Schiff's district. Dreier is such a tool.
3) CA-24 (Gallegly). Last month: 3. Boxer number: 47. The August recess is retirement season for GOP Congresscritters. We've already seen three of them go this week alone. So naturally thoughts turn to who's next, and Gallegly, who tried to get out in 2006, is a prime candidate. There certainly must be some talk about it in the district: he's got four declared candidates already: Jill Martinez, Brett Wagner, James "Chip" Fraser, and Mary Pallant.
4) CA-50 (Bilbray). Last month: 4. Boxer number: 48. Michael Wray has dropped out of the primary in CA-50, leaving John Lee Evans and Nick Leibham to contest for the right to battle Brian Bilbray next November. The best way to attack Bilbray, who doesn't get off that illegal immigration message for a second, is to highlight his pro-Bush, anti-progress voting record, including denying health care to 6 million American children with his vote against SCHIP last month. Leibham apparently raised $89,000 last quarter, and Bilbray has a paltry $213,000 CoH, which is interesting.
5) CA-42 (Miller). Last month: 7. Boxer number: 41. The big news here is that we have a candidate, and it's blogger Ron Shepston. You've undoubtedly read a little about him on Calitics. LA City Beat has a nice article about Ron and the netroots movement behind him in this race. It's not going to be easy. But Ron has raised about $7,200 on ActBlue alone, and his offline fundraising is progressing. And Miller is still taking heat from the DCCC, who sent out a notice to reporters attacking his vote against SCHIP.
6) CA-41 (Lewis). Last month: 5. Boxer number: 43. Like with Gallegly, we're waiting to see if the rumors about Lewis' impending retirement are true. We do know that Lewis has continued to bring home the bacon (a little questionable earmarking isn't going to stop him) to his district, and then there's this:
A lobby firm connected to a federal investigation has seen business boom this year for its clients, many of whose projects are in a powerful House appropriator’s district.
The House Appropriations Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), has sponsored or co-sponsored $55 million worth of earmarks in this year’s defense spending bill — close to half of the funds won by the California Republican in the legislation — for clients represented by one firm.
A former appropriations aide to Lewis, Letitia White, and former Rep. Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), who is friendly with Lewis, work at the company, Innovative Federal Strategies (IFS).
Tim Prince is all but in this race. I met him a few weeks back and he seems like a nice guy.
7) CA-44 (Calvert). Last month: 6. Boxer number: 45. Last month's ruling that a city government agency illegally sold Ken Calvert a bunch of land hasn't gotten a ton of traction yet. He has been targeted by MoveOn in a Riverside-area protest where protestors presented him with a report on how much money district taxpayers have spent on the war in Iraq. Calvert is dug in on Iraq, which is of course going to be a major issue in 2008. Bill Hedrick will be Calvert's opponent, and, um, check out the blog!
8) CA-45 (Bono). Last month: 8. Boxer number: 49. Still no opponent named, and I'm flirting with the idea of dropping any race out of the top 10 unless there's a named candidate. This is really a missed opportunity right now.
9) CA-46 (Rohrabacher). Last month: unranked. Boxer number: 45. I'm adding nutcase Dana Rohrabacher to the list for a couple reasons. One, he has an announced opponent (Jim Brandt, who ran against him last year). Two, it gives me an opportunity to print this quote.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/ Long Beach, was baffled when asked recently about his use of the popular online gathering site Facebook.
"Faith book?" the befuddled congressman replied.
Hilarious.
10) CA-52 (open seat). Last month: 10. Boxer number: 44. Duncan Hunter was unable to beat people who weren't running in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. He's gone from this seat, but his son is running and it's a safe bet that the Republicans will retain it.
It's nice that the California Democratic Party is targeting three members of the Southern California "Culture of Corruption" caucus (Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Ken Calvert) with a website. It'd be nicer if they supported the grassroots candidates that are running in those respective districts (Ron Shepston, Tim Prince, Bill Hedrick). After all, THEY'RE the ones who need name ID and recognition, not the Republicans.
I'm not sure what the CDP is after here. They've got just a few seats to go to grab 2/3 support in the state legislature, yet perusing through their site you see almost no mention of that. When you hear Art Torres speak, he never really talks about State Assembly or State Senate seats, only the Congress. Why does our state party see its role as solely to support federal or statewide candidates? One would think that party building would start locally. Building the Democratic bench in the state legislature would bubble up to the Congressional seats, too, yet the CDP seems determined to go the other way around.
I'm not totally criticizing it, I just wonder why this party has a different way of looking at its role than, say, New Hampshire or North Carolina does.
Just One More Unaccountable Appointment Before I Go
The one, and perhaps only, hard piece of accountability that has come out of the widening US Attorney scandal is that the Congress passed legislation striking out the provision in the PATRIOT Act that allowed the Justice Department to appoint replacement federal prosecutors without seeking Senate confirmation. The new law passed in both Houses with expansive, veto-proof majorities (94-2 in the Senate, 306-114 in the House). Any veto would be overridden, so the President has no choice but to sign the bill.
Except he hasn't yet, and the hip-pocket veto has enabled Abu G to strike again - right in my own backyard of Los Angeles.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday morning, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again used an interim appointment authority at the heart of the US Attorneys controversy that Congress banned in a bill sent to the President for signature on June 4 [...]
Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Senator Leahy, clarified the situation in an e-mail to RAW STORY.
"It just so happens the committee got notice yesterday, that on June 16, George Cardona's 210 days as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California will have run out and the Attorney General will appoint him as an interim U.S. Attorney at that time. (i.e. still using the end-run authority because Bush has slow-walked signing the bill)," she wrote.
The Cardona appointment is interesting, to say the least. It was reported in the LA Times just two weeks ago that a new hire for Cardona's position was imminent. The Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley called the pick, Thomas O'Brien, "the most apolitical person selected to that job in quite some time." Remember that the vacancy here was made by Debra Wong Yang's departure to Republican law firm Gibson Dunn, the same firm whose client was Rep. Jerry Lewis, who Yang was investigating at the time.
So Lewis' team had already bought out Yang (allegedly!), and now they were faced with the prospect of a hard-charging independent former DA in the role. That must not have sat well with him. So did Lewis tell the Justice Department to keep their handpicked loyalist in place until he made his way out of Congress (he's rumored to be retiring)?
Finally, the move is especially curious because Gerry Parsky, a bigwig Republican who heads a Commission that picks judicial appointees in CA, has been particularly cranky about being left out of the process of naming USAs. And DOJ already went around him on this position specifically.
Once Yang resigned in November to pursue private law practice, it was up to the commission to make recommendations to the White House and the Justice Department. But Sampson and Goodling tried to generate candidates of their own. Interviews were scheduled with half a dozen people, many of whom had held political appointments in the department.
Parsky did not respond to e-mailed questions about his role in the process.
After word of the interview schedule leaked, Parsky called the White House and the Justice Department to complain, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity because it involves a personnel matter. Goodling was allowed to proceed with the interviews, but was told she had to tell the candidates that they would have to reapply through the commission.
Ultimately, the commission is believed to have recommended two candidates; the only one interviewed by the Justice officials in Washington was a career prosecutor who has headed the criminal division of the Los Angeles office. The White House has not said whom it will nominate for the post.
Some people close to the selection process suspect Goodling and Sampson were attempting an end-run around the commission to install a politically connected Washington insider, possibly by using a law that permitted the attorney general to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without Senate oversight.
Indeed, Parsky was on board with the Thomas O'Brien appointment, according to the recent LA Times article. Until it all fell through.
What the hell's going on here? Why is it so important to keep George Cardona in the Los Angeles USA seat, in defiance of a law passed by over 85% of Congress? Does this have to do with investigations of members of Congress like Lewis (and, potentially, Ken Calvert)? Will there be an effort to suppress the vote in the extremely ethnically diverse region, and must Cardona be the point person for that? It's very, very curious.
Republican sources on Capitol Hill and in California say Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee who has been criticized on ethical grounds, will not seek a 16th term next year.
Lewis came under fire last year for pouring millions of dollars worth of earmarks into his heavily Republican southern California district. He has not apologized and vigorously defended himself behind closed doors in the House Republican Conference.
Lewis is one of at least six Republican House members from California who have faced ethical scrutiny, beginning when Duke Cunningham was sent to prison. Most recently, Rep. Ken Calvert, who was sponsored by Lewis for a coveted Appropriations Committee seat, is under attack. He replaced Rep. John Doolittle, another Californian who resigned from the committee because the Justice Department was investigating him.
Novak may be a douchebag of liberty, but he usually has excellent inside information from the GOP (you know, like who's a covert CIA agent and who isn't). It started me wondering why Lewis would retire at this point, when the investigations into his practices have slowed to a crawl. Then I remembered this story I read in yesterday's LA Times:
As Congress investigates whether U.S. attorneys across the nation were fired or forced out for political reasons, the Bush administration appears to be poised to nominate a respected career prosecutor as U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.
Thomas O'Brien, 47, the chief of the office's criminal division, worked for five years in the district attorney's hard-core gang division before moving to the U.S. attorney's office.
"He's probably the most apolitical person selected to that job for some time," Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said. "He's an excellent pick. He's a career, professional prosecutor."
The position of US Attorney for Los Angeles, which holds jurisdiction over Lewis' case, has been vacant since Debra Wong Yang left in January to go to Gibson Dunn, a high-powered Republican law firm that is also REPRESENTING Lewis. O'Brien appears to be an unlikely pick for an ideological White House - he's competent, apolitical, and a respected prosecutor - but because the Congress is sniffing around all of these US Attorney threads these days, they may have no choice but to hire someone of his stature:
Carl W. Tobias, professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond, said O'Brien's nomination would be a healthy sign that the Justice Department is changing its policies.
"My sense of what's going on is that there is an inclination at the Justice Department to pick these kinds of people to defuse the controversy," Tobias said. "It seems like it's going to be much more of a meritocracy."
And this could be bad news for the thoroughly unmeritorious Lewis. An independent prosecutor would follow the evidence, and there's a mountain of it where Lewis is concerned. He used the Appropriations Committee in the 109th Congress as his own personal earmark factory, steering contracts to clients of connected lobbyist Bill Lowery, who has graciously given half a million dollars to Lewis campaigns over the years.
A guy like this as US Attorney in LA could be Lewis' worst nightmare:
...O'Brien motivates attorneys to be creative and volunteer for cases. When an assistant U.S. attorney passed out during opening statements last week due to a medical problem, O'Brien took over personally. On Thursday, he was in court on the case.
"He came out with that background as a D.A. where you get a file the day before and go try it," Carter said.
A hard-charging former D.A. versus Jerry Lewis? That's no contest. Maybe it's better for him to get out of Washington while the getting's good, and focus more time and money on saving his own posterior.
Digby points us to this tidbit in a CNN story speculating on who will replace Abu Gonzales once he decides to spend time forgetting the names of his family:
Several other officials said Republicans have begun discussing a possible replacement.
One name that consistently comes up is Ted Olson, former solicitor general. Olson is seen as having the experience, reputation and credibility needed to steer the department for the next year and a half, through the end of Bush's term.
Digby goes through all of Olson's dirty dealings over the years, his role as a top dog in the hunting of President Clinton, a leader of the Arkansas Project. Digby doesn't mention that Olson argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court as well. The conclusion is thus:
I think it's time for Republicans to realize that their political hitmen are going to have to take a rest and go out into the private sector and make some millions for a while. I'm sure they'll be back. They always come back. But right now, the VRWC needs to take a break. They aren't installing any more dirty trickster, character assassins for the next two years. Nah guh happ'n.
Sounds right, except for one thing: Ted Olson's wife Barbara was on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9-11.
If Olson was nominated, the conservative noise machine would play up the "his wife was on one of the 9-11 planes" angle, saying things like "Liberals are hypocrites for attacking a 9-11 widow when THEIR 9-11 widows are unassailable," and it would generally be the most crass set of confirmation hearings you can imagine, and would lower the discourse in this country more than you could have ever possibly thought it could go.
Which is why it will almost certainly happen.
There's another thing at work here which would make Olson almost certainly radioactive in any Administration but this one. He is somewhat caught up in the US Attorney scandal. He currently works at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a top-flight wingnut law firm in L.A. They were, for a time, handling the Rep. Jerry Lewis investigation (and he paid them over $900,000 to do it). The US Attorney in charge of that investigation, Debra Wong Yang, was suddenly hired by Gibson Dunn for $1.5 million dollars, and her replacement dropped the Lewis case. Dianne Feinstein made an oblique reference in the Gonzales hearing yesterday to an incident where "Harriet Miers discussed whether to remove Deborah Yang from Los Angeles," which was new information.
Now, we don't know how involved Olson was in Lewis' case, but clearly he knows Harriet Miers, having been Solicitor General when she was working under Bush in his first term. And he knows pretty much everybody at the Justice Department too. So there's a client of his law firm's that needs the government to get off his back, and the firm is trying to buy the prosecutor off but it may not be working, so somebody places a phone call to the White House, and all of a sudden, Yang takes the job?
Not the most implausible thing in the world. It ought to certainly come up in any confirmation hearing.
Of course, none of that will matter 'cuz he's a 9-11 widow.
Kagro X at the great Orange behemoth wrote a great post yesterday about House Appropriations Committee members voting to continue to send our troops over to Iraq without the proper equipment, body armor, rest times, and training. Whatever your feelings about the Iraq supplemental bill (I hate that it doesn't go far enough in enforcement of a deadline, and it's larded up with unrelated pork, but other than that...), any member of Congress dumb enough to let our soldiers go to war without everything they need for battle ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Under instructions from the National Republican Committee, George Allen, Conrad Burns, Rick Santorum, Jim Talent and others dutifully complied with their orders: say you support the troops, but vote to kill them.
This cold-blooded political manipulation cost thousands of brave Americans their lives over the course of four years, but only when the truth came to light did it cost these Republican traitors their jobs. Maybe it should have cost them much, much more, but the political system only gives us one option: dump politicians who vote to kill American troops.
We have two California Representatives who voted to put American lives in danger. There are about 10,000 reasons to dump Jerry Lewis and John Doolittle, but this is the most stark one. They both voted against giving our troops the body armor and equipment and rest and training they need before being shipped to Iraq.
There are no elected members of either house of Congress as dangerous to our country's safety and security as John Doolittle and Jerry Lewis.
Not only have both of these bloodsuckers drained the national treasury to give their defense contractor and lobbyist friends precious booty, they have talked about patriotism incessantly, yet committed the mostm unpatriotic act you can possibly commit, signing the death warrants of potentially thousands of Americans.
We have a great challenger to John Doolittle in Lt. Col. (Ret.) Charlie Brown, who came within a hair's breadth of defeating Doolittle last year. Reportedly, Tim Price may challenge Jerry Lewis in CA-41; he's committed to running if there's a special election to replace Lewis, should he be indicted (a possibility with both of these sorry excuses for public officials). We need to encourage Price to run and we need to support Charlie Brown, so we can rid this Congress of members who show nothing but contempt for our men and women in uniform.
The President's remarks on the US Attorney scandal were the same kind of out-of-touch obstructionism and intimidation we've come to expect (he's essentially daring Congress to initiate a Constitutional showdown), so no need to replay it here. But Sen. Feinstein is pulling at another thread of the scandal, one little remarked-upon but potentially significant. It's about a legislator essentially bribing a prosecutor to get her off the trail.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday she wants answers about the departure of the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, who resigned last October before the Justice Department's dismissal of eight other U.S. attorneys sparked controversy.
"I have questions about Debra Yang's departure and I can't answer those questions right at this time," Feinstein, D-Calif. and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters in response to a question. "Was she asked to resign, and if so, why? We have to ferret that out."
Here's the real scoop: In May 2006, Debra Wong Yang was beginning work on the investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the former chair of the House Appropriations Committee who was being scrutinized over handing out defense earmarks to political friends. Within a few months, Yang resigned... to work for the law firm representing Lewis.
About five months before Yang's departure her office had opened an investigation into ties between Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and a lobbyist. When Yang left her U.S. attorney's job she went to work for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, the firm where Lewis' legal team works, but government rules required that she recuse herself from that case or any other she was involved with while a government prosecutor.
The Lewis case is connected to the ongoing corruption investigation in San Diego that began with the 2005 conviction of former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who is serving jail time for bribery. Former U.S. attorney Carol Lam in San Diego, who was among those dismissed last year, was prosecuting that case. Feinstein contends that Lam's dismissal had something to do with the her role in the Cunningham investigation, though the Justice Department denies it.
Not only that, Yang got $1.5 million dollars to go to work for Gibson Dunn. Ted Olson, the former US Solicitor General, works there too. And the Assistant US Attorney for LA, Douglas Fuchs, joined her.
So here we have the top two federal prosecutors looking into a public corruption case hired away from the government by the law firm representing that same corrupt official.
This is where government cronyism meets corporate cronyism...
The continuing rash of developments in the Purged Prosecutors case:
• Adam Cohen takes a lot at the possible criminal violations of the DoJ's conduct. People who focus on the particulars of whether or not Carol Lam or David Iglesias were pushed out for political reasons neglect that Alberto Gonzales and members of his staff willfully lied to Congress, which is against the law. In addition, if Lam and Iglesias and the others were taken out to get them to stop investigating Republicans or to punish them for failing to indict Democrats, that's akin to witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
• The LA Times has a good roundup of the Lam case, and makes the point I've been making for a while, that there's not a lot of daylight between the investigations of Duke Cunningham and Jerry Lewis:
Lam spearheaded the case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe who pleaded guilty to bribery and income tax evasion. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.
In a broadening of the Cunningham investigation, Feinstein said, Lam turned her sights on two of the former lawmaker's associates: Brent R. Wilkes, a Poway-based defense contractor, and Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, a top CIA official who abruptly resigned May 8. The two men, friends from childhood, were roommates at San Diego State University, served as best man at each other's wedding and named their sons after each other.
Feinstein said that on May 10, Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants sent in the case of Dusty Foggo and a defense contractor. The next day, an e-mail went from the Justice Department to the White House."
The May 11 e-mail was from D. Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, to White House Deputy Counsel William Kelley. "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam … leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her four-year term expires," it said.
Sampson, who resigned last week, may also have been referring in the May 11 e-mail to a report that morning in the Los Angeles Times concerning a parallel investigation by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles into Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), then the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and Bill Lowery, a former GOP congressman from San Diego who after leaving Congress founded a successful lobbying firm — one of whose clients was Wilkes.
The Los Angeles investigation, an outgrowth of the Cunningham case, focused on the close relationship between the two men, who had served together on the House Appropriations Committee. Clients of Lowery's lobbying firm had been awarded millions of dollars in earmarks authorized by Lewis, The Times reported, and members of Lewis' staff had been hired by Lowery's firm, where they worked as lobbyists for several years and then returned to Lewis' staff.
There's more here, detailing all of the similarities and the same names that kept popping up in the case. Lewis might be in Redlands, but Lowery and Wilkes and Foggo and all the dirty dealings were in San Diego, and so Lam's office would have to be involved. Meanwhile there are links between Wilkes, Foggo, Mitchell Wade and the office of the Vice President. No defense contractor is in a vaccuum, their tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party. An investigation that was persistent could find all of those threads.
• Patrick Leahy is vowing to issue subpoenas to compel White House officials to testify to the Judiciary Committee in the case. Leahy said, "I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this... I do not believe in this, we'll have a private briefing for you where we'll tell you everything, and they don't." I don't think Rove et al. will be able to outrun these; if they try it will set up a Constitutional showdown.
• This timeline of the Carol Lam firing includes something interesting:
February 17, 2005: Mistrial declared in first Medicare fraud trial against San Diego's Alvarado Hospital, after jury fails to reach a verdict. U.S. Attorney Carol Lam suggests a retrial is likely.
Would failing to get a conviction on a Medicare fraud case raise the ire of the White House? I'm going to do some digging on this.
Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.
Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.
"We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," he wrote. "This remains the case and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."
This is exactly what I brought up last night in my running commentary with rightie blogger Patterico over this subject. His claim was that Lam couldn't have been targeted for political reasons over the Rep. Jerry Lewis investigation because the USA for Los Angeles executed the subpoenas for Lewis, not Lam. It's simply not credible to me to suggest that the Lewis and Cunningham cases weren't connected (they involved all the same people) and that there was no coordination between the SoCal USAs, but I brought up that the the CIA/Brent Wilkes/Hookergate thing was a far bigger story at the time than the Lewis investigation anyway. Porter Goss had resigned only 6 days earlier, and Foggo only a couple days after that. It would be far more troubling to the White House and the Justice Department to have an independent US Attorney like Carol Lam snooping around a government agency under the executive branch. And given that the DoJ has admittedly lied to Congress in the course of this probe, I don't find their protestations worth much of anything.
It was obvious that any USA who took down a sitting Republican member of Congress would be a target: just open your eyes and look at how this White House treats any disloyalty. Lam was targeted for dismissal before the Cunningham investigation began, true, supposedly for immigration cases, but we know that she was reprimanded about that and changed her ways, and that Will Moschella at the DoJ agreed that Lam was cooperating with Administration policy and prosecuting a requisite number of cases in that department. He either lied to Feinstein in that Aug. 23 letter, or he lied later, to Congress, when he said that immigration cases were indeed the problem and the reason for the firing.
It's just clearly suspicious, and arguing one small aspect of the story to knock it down will be insufficient. You have to look at the whole picture.
TPM Muckraker has the details on what the Wilkes-Foggo indictments mean for California's Republican delegation in Congress. I expect the legal fees to increase.
The indictment and its details would seem to heighten the risk to other members of Congress still under investigation; Mr. Wilkes also had dealings with several of them.
A separate federal criminal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the California Republican who until January 2006 was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is continuing in Los Angeles. Prosecutors in that case are looking at Mr. Lewis's relationship with Mr. Wilkes, which included campaign contributions from Mr. Wilkes and associates and the hiring by Mr. Wilkes of a lobbying firm founded by one of Mr. Lewis's closest friends, former Rep. Bill Lowery.
Lewis is likely to be the first to drop as a result of the criminal proceedings yesterday. Lowery and him had a quid pro quo relationship that Wilkes knows all about. In particular, a deal to restore funding for the F-22 fighter jet only after Wilkes' company received a defense contract to digitize military documents in the Panama Canal Zone looks very fishy.
I found it unusual to have this kind of session in the Republican caucus, where one member must defend his actions to the group. Are they planning on having one of these a day to cover everybody? It's more evidence that the GOP considers Rep. Gary Miller's situation a real problem:
Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) passionately pleaded his innocence before GOP colleagues at a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, nearly a week after several media outlets reported that the FBI is looking into his land deals.
Miller told colleagues that the press and Democrats had launched a smear campaign against him, singling out The Hill and the Los Angeles Times as perpetrators, as well as a former Democratic mayor of the Southern California city of Monrovia, Lara Larramendi Blakely, who now works for Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), according to GOP sources.
This is standard Republican scandal deflection, blaming the press and the Democrats for one's own sins. That Miller had to employ this tactic to his fellow colleagues is significant. While they won't say it publicly, clearly the Republican leadership understands that corruption scandals had a major impact on costing them their majority. You're not going to see the leadership line up behind corrupt members. And that corruption includes practically the entire California delegation:
Also of reported concern to Republicans is a federal investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. The probe, an offshoot of the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal, was first reported last July. "The Los Angeles Times" revealed that prosecutors suspect Lewis of steering millions in taxpayer money to clients of favored lobbyists.
The congressman's office did not return a call for comment, but he has previously denied the charges.
An investigation into another serving House Republican is showing signs of renewed activity. New documents have been handed over to a grand jury in the case of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who's facing scrutiny for misusing his influence to pump up the value of land he owned and later sold, according to California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
Calvert's office declined to comment today; in the past he has denied wrongdoing in the affair.
I wasn't aware that Calvert's under grand jury investigation as well.
Meanwhile, Miller was getting only tepid support from Minority Leader John Boehner at this meeting, and with the evidence stacking up against him, he's in danger of graduating to the first step of getting booted out of Congress: losing his committee assignments:
Boehner, however, has not indicated whether he will keep Miller in the top GOP spot on the Finance Committee’s Oversight and Investigations panel.
“I really don’t think Boehner was suggesting that the books have been closed on any of the cases members are concerned about,” the source close to Boehner continued. “If anything, he was underscoring the leadership’s commitment to staying on top of these matters.”
That's not exactly a vote of confidence.
With Democratic leaders mulling over possible challenges, the GOP brass doing a bit of distancing, and with Miller himself in full blame-game mode, this is something to which everybody should be attuned.
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