John McCain is getting much more than President Bush's endorsement and fundraising help for his campaign. He’s getting Bush's staff.
It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.
But other big-name Bushies are lining up to boost McCain, too.
Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.
The list could grow longer. Dan Bartlett, formerly a top aide in the Bush White House, and Sara Taylor, the erstwhile Bush political adviser, said they are eager to provide any assistance and advice possible to McCain.
Rove explained that he and McCain “got to know each other during the 2004 campaign.” In a separate interview, Mehlman noted that “McCain was completely loyal to the president in 2004 and worked incredibly hard to help him get elected.” According to Taylor, “The Bush Republicans here in town are excited for John McCain.”
Man, this election is going to be like going up against a Klingon, with all of the recitations of honor. Only the man they're describing is in no way honorable.
First, the campaign finance update. The New York Times and the Washington Post move along the story today. The Times focuses on the fact that McCain benefited from the public system by having his ballot access fees in Ohio waived. This is pretty unequivocal and a clear instance of using public money to benefit himself, then dropping out when it didn't. The Post goes after the issue of the bank loan.
Sen. John McCain's campaign and a Bethesda bank strongly defended $4 million in loans yesterday, as Democrats questioned their legality and said that the way they were secured requires the Arizona Republican to abide by federal spending restrictions.
On Monday, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the FEC arguing that the way the loans were structured -- by using the promise of federal matching funds as collateral -- requires McCain to remain in the system. McCain "secured a $4 million line of credit to keep his campaign afloat by using public financing as collateral. He should follow the law," said Howard Dean, the DNC chairman.
The reform organizations who you'd think would have a particular interest in this issue - I mean, this sets a horrible precedent that you can use the public system to your benefit and then drop out whenever you want, leaving taxpayers holding the bag - are still silent, and many campaign finance experts are saddened by this turn of events.
It goes too far to say that a number of these reform outfits are favoring the McCain Presidential candidacy. They are more, more than anything else, protecting themselves. To a fault, they have invested heavily in the McCain asset base: he has fought their fights, introduced their bills, promoted their regulatory agendas, helped them secure good press for this all. After so great a dependence on him, the costs of his diminished luster on reform issues are also theirs to pay.
It appears that these organizations are calculating that, by keeping their own counsel in the McCain matter, they will limit their costs. Saying nothing now, on the Presidential bank loan (and Gold raises other recent questions), serves to reduce visibility of the charges and, conceivably, to contain them, raising the chance that they will more simmer in the back pages than blaze, red-hot, on the front page.
The self-preservation from these good government groups, letting their publicity magnet get in the way of their reading of the law, is infuriating. But they rely on McCain's "honor".
In fact, McCain is so honorable that he's got a man indicted on 35 counts of fraud and money laundering on his leadership team. Indeed, McCain believes that Rick Renzi, who has vowed to remain in Congress while this transpires, should stay on with the campaign as well - or at least that it "doesn't matter" if he stays. The presumption of innocence notwithstanding, you'd think that whole "honor" thing would come into play when discussing someone with that many black marks against him.
In fact, McCain doesn't have much honor himself when it comes to these issues; he withheld documents while chairing a Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation into the Abramoff mess, shielding powerful Republicans from the prospect of having their corrupt activities burst into the open.
And then there's the honorable man who warmed up the crowd for him yesterday in Cincinnati, a right-wing radio nut named Bill Cunningham. He went on a tirade with all sorts of smears against Barack Obama, which McCain "distanced himself from". Only he's been all aboard the smear train at several points in his public life, including in this campaign, where he's laughed at questions like "How do we beat the bitch," in reference to Hillary Clinton. Not only that, McCain claimed to have never met Cunningham, but Cunningham says otherwise, and while he's not really to be believed, there's a history of lying on all sides here.
So the "honor" talk around McCain is really execrable, and hollow, and almost totally meaningless. Not that it'll stop.
CDF ranked members on 10 votes affecting children:
1. Increase minimum wage (H.R. 2) 2. Increase funding for children with disabilities (S. Con. Res. 21) 3. Protect children from unsafe medications (S. 1082) 4. 2008 Budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 21) 5. SCHIP Reauthorization (H.R. 976) 6. College Cost Reduction and Access Act (H.R. 2669) 7. SCHIP (H.R. 976 - motion to concur) 8. DREAM Act (S. 2205) 9. Funding child health and education (H.R. 3043) 10. Improving Head Start programs (H.R. 1429)
McCain has missed 57 percent of Senate votes this session, being absent or voting “present” for 8 out of 10 children-related votes. McCain voted “yes” to increase the minimum wage; his only other vote was voting “no” on SCHIP reauthorization on Aug. 2, 2007.
It would be nice if this little stat became just as ubiquitous as the "Obama is the most liberal member of the Senate" blurb. John "Worst Senator for Children" McCain ought to be his name. Democrats who find their way onto television, take note.
It says something about the Presidential nominee of the Republican Party that the unctuous used-car salesman of a Minority Leader is tougher on corruption than he is. While Boehner has called on indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Culture of Corruption) to resign after the grand jury came back with charges of fraud and money laundering, McCain has decided that he's going to hang back. This is fine if you're a potential juror, but not if you're a Presidential candidate who claims to have the highest integrity, and this guy is a member of your leadership team and a US Representative who's supposed to hold sacred the public trust.
McCain seemed surprised when asked in Indianapolis for his reaction to the indictment, choosing his words carefully, shaking his head and speaking slowly.
"I'm sorry. I feel for the family; as you know, he has 12 children," McCain told reporters on the presidential campaign trail. "But I don't know enough of the details to make a judgment. These kinds of things are always very unfortunate. ... I rely on our Department of Justice and system of justice to make the right outcome."
Look, McCain's running a national campaign, he doesn't need to be that up to date on the latest of every case. However, the Renzi allegations have been out there since 2006, and McCain, in fact, went back to Arizona to defend him at that time. So he's at least familiar with this, and yet he'd rather not presume any manner of judgment. That's because his judgment wasn't very good to begin with.
Meanwhile, emptywheel, as she's wont to do, has put together a very good timeline of the Renzi case. It should be noted that Paul Charlton, the US Attorney who originally investigated this situation, was one of the 9 US Attorneys fired by the President in 2006. In fact, Renzi's Chief of Staff called Charlton's office and asked him about the indictment shortly before he was fired. So this could be some sort of vindication for Charlton, although DoJ definitely slowed down the investigation as much as they possibly could.
Rep. Rick Renzi, a member of John McCain's leadership team, has been indicted on fraud charges regarding shady land deals in Arizona.
A federal grand jury has indicted Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Renzi of Arizona on 35 criminal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and official extortion, according to court papers unsealed on Friday.
The indictment stems from plan by Renzi and an associate to benefit from a land-exchange plan in order to receive Renzi's support for necessary federal legislation, court documents said.
"It was an object of the conspiracy for Renzi to enrich (his associate) and personally benefit himself," the indictment said.
Very little was known about Renzi prior to getting elected to Congress. He moved to Arizona only a year before his first election in 2002. He said he worked for the Defense Department overseas for a time but there's no record of it.
If he was the CIA's mole in Congress, he was obviously from the Dusty Foggo school of ethics.
Bradley Schlozman, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the U.S. attorneys scandal and is under investigation by the Departments inspector general for his alleged efforts to politicize the Civil Rights Division, has finally left his post at the Department.
After he left his position as the U.S. attorney in Kansas City this April, Schlozman moved to the Justice Department office that oversees all U.S. attorneys. Reached on his cell phone today, Schlozman confirmed that he'd left the Department last week, but refused to say anything more and then hung up.
With Renzi as with Schlozman, I hope the investigations into wrongdoing continue.
Rick Renzi thinks that the Abu Gonzales Justice Department actively worked against him in 2006 to try to get him thrown out of office. Yes friends, the most partisan Justice Department in history was electioneering against a Republican to ensure that the Democrat got elected.
If this is Renzi's alibi, he might want to start wearing the orange jumpsuit around the house, just to get a feel for it and work his way into it.
I can't wait for ABC to come out with "Battle of the Culture of Corruption Stars," where Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Renzi, John Doolittle, Gary Miller, Tom Feeney, Jerry Lewis, Curt Weldon and more run obstacle courses and play tug-o-war for charity. It'll be broadcast live to federal prisons on closed-circuit TV.
Last night I mentioned that Rick Renzi's office was calling US Attorney Paul Charlton about a pending investigation into his conduct, and shortly thereafter Charlton was fired. Now we learn that Main Justice was obstructing the Renzi investigation:
As midterm elections approached last November, federal investigators in Arizona faced unexpected obstacles in getting needed Justice Department approvals to advance a corruption investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, people close to the case said.
The delays, which postponed key approvals in the case until after the election, raise new questions about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other officials may have weighed political issues in some investigations [...]
Investigators pursuing the Renzi case had been seeking clearance from senior Justice Department officials on search warrants, subpoenas and other legal tools for a year before the election, people close to the case said [...]
Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), a Judiciary Committee member who has called for Mr. Gonzales's resignation, said his panel is planning to pursue whether the Renzi case was a factor in Mr. Charlton's firing. "I'm not saying there's evidence and I'm not making allegations," Mr. Schumer told reporters Monday. "But it's something we should look into."
OK, I'll say it for you, Chuck. The Justice Department did everything they could to slow down the Renzi investigation until after he was re-elected. Given everything else we know about politicization at the DoJ, this is increasingly likely.
The Renzi case is complicated, a shady land deal routed through his family business. What is not complicated is that Main Justice had the power to authorize wiretaps, subpoenaes and other elements of the investigation, and they dragged their feet. Here's Paul Kiel:
There's another revelation in the piece: that investigators had lobbied Washington for clearance to tap Renzi's phone for months. That clearance was only given in October of last year. And unfortunately for the investigators, word broke of the investigation in late October -- disrupting their wiretap [...]
All this raises a question. The bosses at main Justice seem to have been similarly reluctant to proceed with regard to the Duke Cunningham probe. As TPM reported a couple of weeks ago, U.S. Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam had to wait sometimes for months for clearance on certain moves in her investigation. So is there a pattern here?
I'd say so.
UPDATE: Interesting speculation by Josh Marshall suggesting that the recent developments in various corruption cases may be because Alberto Gonzales is trying to prove that he's going after corruption on multiple fronts in an effort to save his job. Could be. This Renzi episode certainly shows that Main Justice has the power to turn the spigot on and off. In addition, the resignations of filters like Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, as well as other top officials just sweating it out, may be making it easier for the career lawyers there to operate.
We have ANOTHER case of a legislator calling up a US Attorney about an ongoing investigation, with said US Attorney magically turning up fired shortly thereafter.
This time it's Rep. Rick Renzi, who as you might remember had his business office searched by the FBI last week. After a day in which Renzi resigned his committee posts and asked to be removed from the House GOP's incumbency protection program, we get this story from the AP that shows Renzi called Paul Charlton about the imminent investigation into his corrupt dealings.
Even as he insisted that he had been "the subject of leaked stories, conjecture and false attacks" about a 2005 land exchange, Renzi became entangled in the U.S. attorneys probe when his chief of staff acknowledged calling Arizona's prosecutor's office to discuss the matter.
The prosecutor, Paul Charlton, was one of the eight prosecutors fired by the Justice Department over the winter.
Brian Murray, Renzi's top aide, issued a statement late Tuesday acknowledging that shortly after the local media reported that the congressmen was being investigated, he called Charlton spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle.
"I called Mr. Hornbuckle seeking information about press accounts which appeared just weeks before Election Day alleging a pending indictment," Murray said in a statement. "I left him a message asking for information about these allegations, but I was called back and told they would not comment."
Apparently Charlton just spilled the beans on this to the House Judiciary Committee, so Renzi's people had to come forward. Unlike David Iglesias' call from Sen. Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, Charlton reported this call to the Justice Department as per guidelines. Funny how THAT never came up in any of their testimony or document dumps, isn't it?
Just so we understand what Renzi is alleged to have done here, this is the lowdown from the AP article:
According to state records and officials involved in the land deal, Renzi helped promote the sale of land that netted his former business partner, James Sandlin, $4.5 million.
The property eventually was to be part of a swap in which potential buyers could exchange it for land owned by the federal government. Such deals are common in the West, where the government owns vast tracts. Renzi had said he wanted to prevent encroaching development near the Fort Huachuca Army post and to protect the environmentally threatened San Pedro River.
But Renzi never introduced legislation in Congress to complete the swap for the new owners.
We already had an inkling that Charlton was fired because of what he was doing with the Renzi investigation. Now we know that Renzi's aide called Charlton - and though Charlton reported the call, the DoJ never reported this in the voluminous amount of testimony and documents.
Forget Gonzales, the entire senior staff of the Justice Department should be fired.
In a second blow to House Republicans this week, the FBI raided a business tied to the family of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) Thursday afternoon as part of an ongoing investigation into the three-term lawmaker.
Details of the raid on Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita, Ariz., were not immediately available. Renzi’s most recent financial disclosure form lists the business as an asset belonging to his wife, Roberta, and valued at $1 million to $5 million.
Little is known about the inquiries into Renzi’s activities, but according to media reports the Justice Department has been running a two-track investigation into Renzi regarding a land deal, as well as a piece of legislation he helped steer that may have improperly benefited a major campaign contributor. It was not immediately clear which investigation the raid pertained to, and neither his attorney nor his spokesman could be immediately reached for comment.
As a result of the raid, Renzi is stepping down from his seat on the House Intelligence Committee, according to a statement from his office obtained Thursday evening by Roll Call.
In the interest of bipartisanship, I should mention that a district staffer to Rep. William Jefferson was subpoenaed for testimony this week. But that makes it about 30-1 or something.
The 109th Congress is going to go down in history, man, I can sense it. You think they can a quorum in the federal pen?
Connection to the US Attorney scandal: the federal prosecutor in Arizona (Paul Charlton) was removed and wondered if it was because he started the ball rolling on the Rick Renzi investigation.
Via (who else?) TPM Muckraker, we have YET ANOTHER example of a federal prosecutor being fired for attempting to investigate a Republican. From The Arizona Republic:
Two weeks after Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was ordered to give up his post, he sent an e-mail to a top Justice Department official asking how to handle questions that his ouster was connected to his investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.
Charlton, one of eight federal prosecutors forced to resign last year, never received a written response.
It seems like Charlton was beginning his investigation into Renzi, and the Justice Department had some knowledge of it.
And this is curious.
In October, Justice Department officials confirmed that Renzi was the subject of an inquiry into a land swap that would benefit a friend and business associate. Renzi has denied any wrongdoing. He could not be reached Tuesday.
Renzi is a Bush loyalist. When Renzi was locked in a battle for his congressional seat last year, the president came to Arizona to campaign for him.
When the first list of U.S. attorneys targeted for ouster was drafted, Charlton's name was not on it. But his name was on a subsequent list, drafted in September. Although the Renzi inquiry was not yet public, it is likely the Justice Department was aware of the investigation, said a former U.S. attorney who is familiar with the protocol when a sitting lawmaker is involved.
"If we had anything of a major investigative nature, I would notify the Justice Department," said Melvin McDonald, who was Arizona's U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration. "Typically, that's what happens."
So DoJ confirmed an investigation in October. Charlton's name hit the target list in September. And surely, he began the investigation well before DoJ confirmed it.
So let's recap:
• David Iglesias, US Attorney for New Mexico, gets phone calls from Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson pressuring him to indict local Democrats, and we he resists their pressure, he's fired.
• Carol Lam, US Attorney in San Diego, emails the Justice Department about obtaining warrants to search the house of Dusty Foggo, #3 at the CIA, and the next day Kyle Sampson is writing people about "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam.
• John McKay, US Attorney in Washington State, resists calls to investigate non-existent and baseless accusations of voter fraud, and winds up on a target list, eventually getting fired.
• And let's not forget Debra Wong Yang, US Attorney for Los Angeles, who, months after opening an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, was hired away for $1.5 million dollars by the same law firm representing Lewis, which Josh Marshall says is part of "an odd pattern of pivotal investigators and prosecutors getting fortuitous promotions or offers of employment in the private sector at key moments."
Yeah, I think I see a pattern here.
Democrats in Arizona are being pretty aggressive about the Charlton case.
"Obviously, there needs to be an investigation," said Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz. "You need to find out the facts. It shouldn't be partisan at all."
On Tuesday, the Arizona Democratic Party wrote to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking that it look into a connection between Charlton's removal and the Renzi investigation. The letter, signed by state party Chairman David Waid, said the investigation appears to have stalled since Charlton was forced out.
The newest e-mails, memos and other records raise fresh questions about whether there were political motivations for Charlton's ouster, as the documents indicate that Justice Department officials were still - after the fact - trying to settle on a complete explanation for why Charlton was called on Dec. 7 and told to resign.
DoJ is so busted.
UPDATE: Carpetbagger points me to this Max Blumenthal article that adds some context to the Charlton firing. He was put on the list for targeting at pretty much the same time that he opened the Renzi investigation. Prior to that, he was winning awards for running a model office. And the DoJ alibi for firing him is a... doozy:
The Justice Department and the White House offered a scattershot of alibis for firing Charlton. The Bush Administration's case against Charlton rested ultimately on the account of a little-known Justice Department official named Brent Ward, who claimed in a September 20, 2006 e-mail that Charlton was "unwilling to take good cases."
What accounts for this bizarre e-mail? And who is Brent Ward?
Ward first came to prominence in Utah, where as US Attorney during the Reagan era he cast himself as a crusader against pornography. His battles made him one of the most fervent and earnest witnesses before Attorney General Edwin Meese's Commission on Pornography; he urged "testing the endurance" of pornographers by relentless prosecutions. Meese was so impressed that he named Ward a leader of a group of US Attorneys engaged in a federal anti-pornography campaign, which soon disappeared into the back rooms of adult bookshops to ferret out evildoers. Ward returned to government last year as the chief of the Justice Department's newly created Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, where his main achievement has been the prosecution of the producer of the Girls Gone Wild film series [...]
According to the source, Ward's accusation against Charlton stems from a case he filed in June 2006. That month, Ward ordered Charlton to prosecute Five Star Video, an adult video store that registered on Ward's radar when it mailed copies of the DVD's Gag Factor 18, Filthy Things 6, Gag Factor 15, and American Bukkake 13 to customers across state lines. Charlton agreed to take the case, but as the source told me, Ward implored him to attach an additional US Attorney to it. Concerned about wasting the already limited resources at his disposal on a case of dubious value, Charlton hesitated. Despite his misgivings, he assigned the additional prosecutor--a key fact missing from the White House e-mails.
So, you have a maniac in the DoJ forcing frivolous porno investigations that Charlton FOLLOWS THROUGH ON because it's his job - and then when he's fired, the same maniac is used to claim that he doesn't take "good cases." Like the "American Bukkake 13" ring that has ripped this country asunder.
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