Waxman: Show Me The Money

(I have been hired as a blog fellow for Brave New Films and their Sick For Profit campaign, exposing billionaire health insurance CEOs and their profiting off of denying care. Join the campaign on Facebook)

It's a little shocking that the story of health insurance CEO largesse hasn't been told, by and large, by the Congress in the debate over health care reform. The debate has covered public options and "death panels" and Nazi comparisons and cost curves without addressing the fact that for-profit health insurance companies add almost nothing of value to access or quality of care and exist only to skim off the top and keep as much of their premiums as possible. And they rake in giant profits at the same time. Now Henry Waxman, no stranger to Congressional investigations, wants to put a dollar sign on those profits, specifically what money goes where.

Two powerful House Democrats have sent a letter to insurance companies asking them to provide detailed information about their conferences and retreats, executive pay, and other business practices [...]

The Waxman-Stupak letter asks companies to provide, by mid-September, the compensation packages of any employee or officer who made more than $500,000 in any year from 2003 to 2008. It also asks the companies to list all their board members and their compensation.

The congressmen also want information "listing all conferences, retreats or other events held outside company facilities from January 1, 2007, to the present."

In addition, the letter demands more basic information, such as the companies' total revenues, net income, and total dividend payments, as well as premium revenue, sales expenses and profits.

It seems like, especially considering the prominence of the subject of health care over the past few months, this should be public information. Here's the full letter.

We already have a pretty good understanding of the profits of the insurance companies, as well as the rewards of their CEOs, in salary, options, and additional perks. That was the subject of Sick For Profit, which in the first installment exposed Steven Helmsley, the CEO of United Health Group, and his $13.2 million in compensation in 2007, his $6 million dollar home in Minnesota, and his $744 million in unexercised stock options ($127 million of which he exercised in 2009). But Waxman asking for this information puts it into an investigation. And that gives it a different feel. He can use subpoena power. He can haul the CEOs before the committee. He is in the best position to contrast the 47 million people without health insurance, and the 40 million who are underinsured, with these obscene profits.

This could get interesting.

A Host Of Landmines

I've been saying for some time that the Bush legacy will long outlast January 20, 2009, because there will be midlevel officials, executive orders and the like littered all throughout the government, ready to undermine the efforts of a potential incoming Democratic President. We're starting to learn about that with respect to the Justice Department.

High-ranking political appointees at the Justice Department labored to stock a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives in a five-year-long attempt to reshape the department's ranks, according to an inspector general's report to be released today.

The report will trace the effort to 2002, early in the Bush administration, when key advisers to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft moved to exert more control over the program to hire rookie lawyers and summer interns, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The honors program, which each year places about 150 law school graduates with top credentials in a rotation of Justice jobs, historically had operated under the control of senior career officials. Shifting control of the program to Ashcroft's advisers prompted charges of partisanship from law professors and former government lawyers who had worked under Democratic administrations.

Here's the full report. This was a Monica Goodling special. She directed the candidate selection process and handed it over to Mike Elston, Chief of Staff to Deputy AG Mike McNulty. All of these folks have resigned now, but their legacy remains. And their subordinates, the hands-on people involved in the hiring of these career attorneys, filtered out candidates with any trace of Democratic or liberal politics in their background, and subsequently DESTROYED their applications. Some examples (McDonald refers to Esther McDonald, one of the hiring managers):

[A]n OARM employee ... recalled that one of the [deselected] candidates she raised to DeFalaise's attention was first in his law school class at Georgetown University, had clerked for a federal district court judge, and was currently clerking for a Second Circuit judge. [footnote 41: This candidate also had worked as a law clerk for Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and for Human Rights Watch, but the OARM employee does not recall pointing out the candidate's political or ideological affiliations to DeFalaise at this time.] (59-60)

Elston also told Mercer that he had already scheduled the December 5 meeting to gauge what people's concerns were [with the selection process]. Elston said he intended to explain the process the Committee had followed so the components would have "a clear understanding of what we did, and what we learned, and what the basis for the strikes were." Mercer told us that he later learned from Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, a senior career Department official, that the December 5 meeting had not gone well and that a lot of people had left the meeting "disturbed" and "not satisfied." (64)

The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. (68,69)

McDonald declined to be interviewed during our investigation. When we first contacted her in September 2007 for an interview, she was a Counsel to the Associate Attorney General. She initially agreed to a tentative date for her interview, but she later asked us to postpone the interview while she retained counsel. We agreed. After McDonald retained an attorney, and after allowing time for the attorney to familiarize himself with the matter, a new date for the interview was set, October 25, 2007. However, at 5:15 p.m. on October 24, McDonald's attorney e-mailed our investigators to advise them that his client was canceling the interview. The attorney added that McDonald was no longer employed by the Department. We learned that McDonald had resigned from the Department, effective October 24. On the evening of October 23, she had told her supervisor, Acting Associate Attorney General Katsas, that the next day would be her last day at the Department. Katsas said that her resignation came as a surprise to him. (75)

Elston confirmed that Fridman raised with him early in the review process Fridman's concerns that McDonald was deselecting candidates based on "membership in liberal organizations, or those kind of things," revealed in the candidate's application or from Internet searches she conducted. Elston said he reviewed the applications Fridman noted and saw that McDonald had either circled or written comments about liberal affiliations on the applications and then voted to deselect those candidates. (81)

Elston said he thought he recalled McDonald indicating it was a negative factor if a candidate had worked for a Democrat. (82)

Elston said he did not want to accuse McDonald of doing something inappropriate because he speculated that Goodling may have told McDonald to do what she was doing. (83)

These are, as is known, violations of federal law. Nothing will be done about it because most of those responsible are already out of government and accountability isn't part of the culture of Washington these days. The real impact will be felt when laws from a Democratic President are not implemented, or a staffer leaks information incriminating the executive or his staff, or any of a thousand options that hardcore right-wing DoJ staffers have to damage the opposition party.

When you fail to engage in the most basic oversight and offer even the threat of punishment, a rogue President and his allies can really do just about anything. You can pass laws and they simply don't get followed. You can consider subpoenas for officials who fail to comply with oversight investigations, and the officials just decline. You can take them to court, but the judge doesn't want to get involved and informs the Congress that they could have solved this on their own anyway:

Congress was trying to be diplomatic when it brought an unprecedented lawsuit to settle its subpoena fight against the White House, a lawyer told a federal judge Monday. After all, lawmakers could've just arrested the president's former lawyer for refusing to testify.

The judge's response?

Maybe they should have.

Congress has the authority to hold someone in contempt, U.S. District Judge John Bates said. Did it really need to go to court?

Congress insists on taking most of their bullets out of the chamber and then begging the executive branch to be reasonable, after they have shown no interest in ever doing so. This is how you get the DoJ hiring far-right conservatives and breaking the law with impunity. And getting caught doesn't seem to be an obstacle.

The next four to eight years, should Sen. Obama win, will be littered with "exclusive" stories from inside the DoJ of corruption and politicization and all sorts of malfeasance. These "honor" students are who those charges will be coming from. It'll be a total reversal and somebody had better recognize it.

UPDATE: The more you read this DoJ report, the crazier it gets. They actually denied someone a job because he liked wolves.

Mercer responded by e-mail that he was inquiring with a reference the candidate listed whom Mercer knew to find out "the scoop on intellect, personality, etc." Mercer added:

My initial reaction is that the guy is probably quite liberal. He is clerking for a very activist, ATLA-oriented justice. His law review article appears to favor reintroduction of wolves on federal lands, a very controversial issue here which pits environmentalists against lots of other interests, including virtually all conservative and moderate thinkers. I know of better candidates through our internship and clerkship programs who have applied to the honors program.

There are copious charts and graphs showing the "deselection" process and how liberals (or maybe conservatives who liked wolves, who knows?) were filtered out. The Attorney General says he's accepted all the recommendations in the IG report. Of course he will NOW, the landmines have already been set.

Subpoena Power, Only Without The Power

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Karl Rove today. Which is just dandy. But Rove has been subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee for over a year, and you know, he didn't testify and nothing happened. And there's still a legal fight over getting the likes of Harriet Miers to testify after delivering a subpoena.

So I don't see Karl Rove strolling into the hearing room anytime soon.

However, the OPR investigation could be promising:

Late Update: The committee is especially interested in Rove's involvement in the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. In conjunction with issuing the subpoena to Rove, the committee released a letter from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility confirming that it has launched an investigation of "allegations of selective prosecution relating to the prosecutions of Don Siegelman, Georgia Thompson, and Oliver Diaz and Paul Minor."

I don't know how far an investigation under the purview of the Bush Administration would go, but typically investigations like this go for a while. As in, well into the next Presidency. And depending on the new Attorney General, this could mean that the OPR probe would actually gather some momentum next year. I'm looking for accountability wherever I can find it.

The Other Elephant in the Room

Obviously, the Libby commutation is taking up all of the oxygen in the room. But we have other Constitutional crises to follow, like the White House citing executive privilege in withholding documents and obstructing the investigation into the firing of 8 US Attorneys for nakedly political purposes. Patrick Leahy was willing to assert that he would cite contempt of Congress if the White House was not forthcoming with responding to the subpoenas. Of course, that would have to be carried out, paradoxically, by the US Attorney for DC, who I can assure you is a "loyal Bushie."

All of this points to the need for a special prosecutor in this case, because it involves the politicization of the entire Justice Department, and demands independent investigation. But considering what happened the last time a special prosecutor was established, that's not likely to happen.

Meanwhile, McClatchy gets to the heart of what this was all about: winning elections by intimidating and suppressing Democratic voters.

A New Mexico lawyer who pressed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was an officer of a nonprofit group that aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pushing for tougher voter identification laws. Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.

He described Rogers, who declined to discuss the exchanges, as "obsessed ... convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it."

Rogers was involved with the bogus front group American Center for Voting Rights, which over the past couple years has up and disappeared. They spearheaded a distinct strategy to lower Democratic vote totals in an effort to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. It didn't work because the vote spread was so high not even they could cheat. But that doesn't mean they didn't try:

That strategy, which presidential adviser Karl Rove alluded to in an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, sought to scrutinize voter registration records, win passage of tougher ID laws and challenge the legitimacy of voters considered likely to vote Democratic.

McClatchy Newspapers has found that this election strategy was active on at least three fronts:

Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.

The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

It's legitimate to wonder why the GOP conceded so quickly the close elections in November 2006, which is totally and completely out of character for them, given these findings. They didn't want their criminal actions to be uncovered and so they gave up as fast as they could to cover their tracks. These tracks are slowly being exposed, and depsite the outrage over the Libby commutation, it's just as vital that this is seen through as well.

Constitutional Showdown

Well, it's about time, let's get on with it.

President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor [...]

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

OK, let's go to court on this one, then. I'd love to see the White House try to hide evidence for months and months, it'll do wonders for their image.

This has needed to happen for some time. Not only do the Democrats in Congress need to understand what's been happening at the Justice Department, where justice has been subverted, the office has been politicized, and voters have been suppressed. This is about the White House asserting no need to answer to a co-equal branch of government. Essentially this is about the very mechanisms of American government itself. For 6 1/2 years, the President has had a free hand from the Congress. Times have changed. We are seeing a direct challenge to the imperial Presidency, and Patrick Leahy is right to call this "Nixonian stonewalling."

Let the right bitch and moan about frivolous investigations and about how the Democrats are so ruthlessly partisan. There's a bigger issue at stake. And if we want a functioning democracy, this battle must be joined.

Our Bad

The White House is now resorting to the excuse that didn't work for me in fourth grade, so good luck to them:

The White House said Wednesday that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.

The e-mails were considered potentially crucial evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The White House said an effort was underway to see whether the messages could be recovered from the computer system, which was operated and paid for by the Republican National Committee as part of an avowed effort to separate political communications from those dealing with official business.

"The White House has not done a good enough job overseeing staff using political e-mail accounts to assure compliance with the Presidential Records Act," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in an unusual late-afternoon teleconference with reporters.

I'm sure it's a herculean effort to find those emails. I also like how the spokesman is admitting to breaking the law here. He must be new.

There's no way to positively spin this. It's the equivalent of an 18-minute gap, with the added element that you can't really lose emails, and anyone who isn't technically illiterate knows that (and even those people will know that soon, because Democratic leaders are speaking up about it).

President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

Of course, the rubber hits the road with the fact that only the US Attorney for the District of Columbia can prosecute a contempt of Congress charge, which is where the White House is headed with their stonewalling. So even while they're backed into a corner, there's still a way out for this Administration. Unless the Congress really wants to do something about it.

We again have an executive branch that believes the law does not apply to them. When this is all over, the most important thing that'll need to be done is to re-establish the rule of law so something like this can never, ever happen again.