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Banned
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It is with profound regret that these developments come long after many of the members with whom we debated the Bush presidency and it's phony, GWOT, ceased to participate in the discussions in this politcal forum.....
In August, 2005, I posted the following, on this thread:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=93064"> Whitehouse Will Appoint Yale "Bonesman" to Control "Plamegate" Prosecutor Fitzgerald</a>
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Originally Posted by host
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1858770&postcount=2
If you are skeptical about what I wrote in the opening post, here is some new "news" for you to consider:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...itics-national
August 7, 2005
latimes.com : National Politics
Inquiry Into Lobbyist Sputters After Demotion
# The unusual financial deal between Jack Abramoff and officials in Guam drew scrutiny.
By Walter F. Roche Jr., Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A U.S. grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, <h4>but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor and the inquiry ended soon after.</h4>
The previously undisclosed Guam inquiry is separate from a federal grand jury in Washington that is investigating allegations that Abramoff bilked Indian tribes out of millions of dollars.
In Guam, an American territory in the Pacific, investigators were looking into Abramoff's secret arrangement with Superior Court officials to lobby against a court revision bill then pending in the U.S. Congress. The legislation, since approved, gave the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court.
In 2002, Abramoff was retained by the Superior Court in what was an unusual arrangement for a public agency. The Times reported in May that Abramoff was paid with a series of $9,000 checks funneled through a Laguna Beach lawyer to disguise the lobbyist's role working for the Guam court. No separate contract was authorized for Abramoff's work.
Guam court officials have not explained the contractual arrangement. At the time, Abramoff was a well-known lobbyist in the Pacific islands because of his work for the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas garment manufacturers, accused of employing workers in sweatshop conditions..........................
.............A day later, the chief prosecutor, U.S. Atty. Frederick A. Black, who had launched the investigation, was demoted. A White House news release announced that Bush was replacing Black.
The timing caught some by surprise. Despite his officially temporary status, Black had held the acting U.S. attorney assignment for more than a decade.
The acting U.S. attorney was a controversial official in Guam. At the time he was removed, Black was directing a long-term investigation into allegations of public corruption in the administration of then-Gov. Carl Gutierrez. The inquiry produced numerous indictments, including some of the governor's political associates and top aides.
Black also arranged for a security review in the aftermath of Sept. 11 that was seen as a potential threat to loose immigration rules favored by local business leaders. In fact, the study ordered by Black eventually cited substantial security risks in Guam and the Northern Marianas.
Abramoff, who then represented the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, alerted his clients in a memo about the expected report and warned: "It will require some major action from the Hill and a press attack to get this back in the bottle."........................ |
Almost 14 months later, we were "treated" to this:
I went back and enlarged the letters in a paragraph of my 9/29/06 post (# 142), referencing the DOJ Inspector General's findings about former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's instructions concerning Jack Abramoff's interest in the continued assignment by the DOJ of Frederick Black as US Attorney on Guam......
<b>Now....with these latest revelations, I'm begining to wonder if the Bureau of Federal Prisons will have to provide a facility that will exclusively house corrupt, and "traitorously corrupt", former employees of the DOJ and the executive branch....but, then again, who would investigate and prosecute them.....themselves?</b>
Remember the long, long, GWOT.....I guess that it is over, or that it never really mattered in the hearts of the politicians who so fiercely embraced and embellished it:
Quote:
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/20...threat_070430/
<b>Report warns Guam of terror threat</b>
By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno - Pacific Daily News
Posted : Tuesday May 1, 2007 6:09:35 EDT
Guam and the Northern Marianas offer a "ready-made environment" for terror groups to launch attacks on U.S. facilities and personnel, according to a report that assessed security vulnerabilities on the islands in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
With the nation's security at stake and the islands vulnerable to terror groups, the report states that "the level of safeguards and federal control" on the islands has not measured up.
<b>A federal government regional security specialist prepared the report five years ago, but it has resurfaced in light of the federal conspiracy case filed earlier last week against Mark D. Zachares.
Zachares, a former Northern Marianas Cabinet official and ex-congressional staffer, said he used his job while still employed by Congress to seek a copy of the report at the request of now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Zachares pleaded guilty April 24 and is cooperating with authorities in the widening investigation into public corruption and Abramoff's lobbying activities. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to corruption and fraud charges.</b>
'High-risk environment'
Local immigration control in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has helped the local economy tap into foreign workers' skills for lower than U.S. minimum wage, but at the same time, CNMI control of immigration has become a loophole in the tight federal screening of foreigners entering other parts of the U.S., including Guam, according to previous interviews with authorities.
The 2002 report states if the "high-risk environment is allowed to stand, it will continue to threaten federal and public interests and seriously jeopardize the national security of the United States."
Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo last week said, "It is an egregious breach of the public trust for a federal employee to provide a classified government report to a lobbyist for private gain.
"I would not go so far as to say our nation's security was compromised," the delegate said, "but I would say that classified information is classified for a reason."
Since the Abramoff public corruption scandal broke more than a year ago, the Democrats in Congress have tightened the House rules, but Democrats say more should be done to "eradicate the corrupt lobbying practices that the Abramoff scandals represent."
Abramoff was paid about $7 million by the Northern Marianas government between 1998 and 2002, according to Zachares' plea documents.
Meissner report
The 2002 security report strongly recommended tighter scrutiny of foreigners entering the islands, in part by applying U.S. immigration law in the Northern Marianas and positioning federal Customs agents at Guam points of entry for passengers and cargo.
The report is labeled "sensitive — for limited official use only".
R. G. Meissner, a regional security specialist with the U.S. Attorney's Office East District of Virginia prepared the report April 25, 2002.
<b>The report was prepared at the request of Frederick Black, then-acting U.S. Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the CNMI.</b>
According to the report, Meissner visited both districts in January and February 2002. Meissner said federal law enforcement officials, and a variety of military and territorial officials were consulted.
Previously compiled documents, surveys, reports, newspaper articles and other information pertaining to security-related actions also were reviewed, according to the report.
The CNMI, according to CNMI Attorney General Matthew Gregory, also is "a victim of the Abramoff conspiracy in other ways, not only in the overcharging of lobbying fees, but most significantly in the besmirching of the commonwealth's reputation."
Gregory stated, in a written comment, that the report "is primarily focused on physical security," of federal offices on the islands and emphasizes obtaining additional funding from Washington.
"CNMI immigration is mentioned almost as an afterthought," Gregory stated.
'Single most cause of concern'
The report states that the lack of oversight by federal immigration law enforcers over the screening of foreigners entering the CNMI is "the single most cause of concern" expressed by all federal law enforcement officials who provided input for the report.
<h3>Abramoff allegedly used his connections at the Justice Department to suppress the security-risk assessment report, according to a January 2006 statement from California Rep. George Miller and several other Democratic members of Congress.</h3>
The report was never acted upon, according to the statement from the congressional Democrats.
"The entire justice system lacks credibility when ... lobbyists are permitted to gain access to information that they cannot legally have," according to Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, in the January 2006 joint statement that also included the signature of Bordallo.
Examples cited
Prepared seven months after Sept. 11, the report lists examples of the presence of certain people or groups on the islands that raise security concerns:
* A man who claimed to be Iranian attempted to enter Guam using forged documents, and immediately requested asylum when arrested.
"Federal authorities fear that this individual is from Kabul and has terrorist ties," the report noted.
* During a routine discussion between a member of the U.S. Attorney's Office and an official of the Guam airport agency, it was learned that the Guam airport received letters from three different addresses within Iraq.
"Each letter contained a request for maps, posters and promotional materials about Guam and the airport," the security report stated. "The information was compiled and was being readied for dispatch when it was discovered by a supervisor who brought the requests to the attention of higher management. No materials or information were provided."
Al-Qaida concern
Past incidents provide sufficient indication that Guam and the CNMI are being considered as possible targets for terrorist activity, according to the report.
It mentions a "bio-terrorism threat" that was received at several local government locations.
The threat was credited to al-Qaida "as much as one year prior to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center," according to the report.
The identification of possible al-Qaida "cell members and other highly questionable individuals foster additional concern," according to the report.
"Additionally, there is a growing sentiment among federal officials that since the attacks against U.S. sites in Malaysia and Singapore were foiled, Guam and the CNMI have ... been moved up on a list of potential targets in the Pacific. These factors and others create a valid concern," according to the five-year-old security report.
While the report was being prepared, according to Meissner, a federal attorney on Guam was attempting to gather "open-source information" — for the report — about bombings in the Philippines.
But in the process of doing the electronic research, according to the report, the federal attorney's anti-hacking software warned that "the online activity was being monitored from a source in Pakistan."
Transnational crime organizations
The report made a host of recommendations, but it's unclear whether the recommendations were ever followed.
Besides beefing up Guam and Northern Marianas border security with federal law enforcers, the report also recommended "continuous on-island oversight of financial transactions ... to curtail the activities of transnational criminal organizations."
The report states there's indication of presence of Japanese, Russian, Chinese and other organized crime groups in the Northern Marianas.
"It would also provide U.S. authorities a means to monitor and prevent a flow of funding to terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor and support their efforts," according to the report.
"The presence of several transnational criminal organizations on Guam and in the CNMI coupled with the lack of federal immigration, customs and interdiction patrols present a critical vulnerability to the federal government and a ready made environment for terrorist groups to perpetrate any number of actions," according to the report.
'Done all they can'
U.S. Attorney Leonardo Rapadas, who covers Guam and replaced Black in the CNMI, said in a written response to e-mailed comments from the PDN: "All matters related to the Abramoff case are being handled by the Task Force from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C."
But he said federal efforts on the island continue to be geared toward protecting the islands against security threats.
"We want to assure those who reside on Guam and in the CNMI that federal and local authorities have done all they can to protect their safety," Rapadas said. "Our efforts are continuing, we are at all times seeking to strengthen and improve the defenses against terrorist and national security threats."
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Consider that, a month ago, when the following article was published, the specifics in R. G. Meissner's 2002 CNMI security report had not yet been made public:
Quote:
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mh...70416&s=berman
Attorneygate in Guam
by ARI BERMAN
[from the April 16, 2007 issue]
Before Attorneygate, there was Guam.
Back in the spring of 2002, when Guam's then-Governor, Carl Gutierrez, found himself in the cross-hairs of a federal corruption probe, he hired disgraced über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to force out the US territory's longtime acting US Attorney, Frederick Black. "I don't care if they appoint bozo the clown, we need to get rid of Fred Black," Abramoff wrote to colleagues in March 2002.
Eventually Black, a well-regarded prosecutor who'd held the position since 1991, began investigating Abramoff for a $324,000 contract the lobbyist had received from Guam's highest court--and asked for Washington's assistance. The Justice Department forwarded the information to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. Instead of receiving help, Black was pushed out of his job <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=177639">[see "Can Justice Be Trusted?" February 20, 2006]</a>.
The same fate would later befall eight other US Attorneys, dislodged from their posts this past December. But it's not only the pattern that's similar. Many of the Administration officials playing starring roles in Attorneygate--including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson--also had a hand in the dismissal of the US Attorney in Guam.
Black's allegations of his politically motivated ouster were the subject of a report by the DOJ's Inspector General last June, which found no evidence of foul play. But the IG report, which leaned heavily on Administration testimony, including that of the now-discredited Sampson, failed to include crucial information backing up Black's claims. For example, while the report stated that the White House had decided to replace Black with Assistant US Attorney Leonard Rapadas in March 2002, other evidence suggests that it was only after Black began his aggressive pursuit of Abramoff later that year that a decision was made to install Rapadas--the nephew, as it happened, of a major figure in the Gutierrez investigation. David Sablan, who headed the Guam Republican Party at the time, says he received a call in September 2002 from a DOJ lawyer named Juan Carlos Benitez, who told him that "Rapadas was not selected for the US Attorney position out here and that I was to come up with another person or persons for the position." Benitez, who subsequently went to work at the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates, where Abramoff landed briefly in 2004, says he does not recall the conversation, and has since been publicly circulating letters of support for Gonzales.
On November 7 Black informed the DOJ of his preliminary investigation of Abramoff. Days later, Guam's new Republican Governor, Felix Camacho, wrote a letter to the White House asking to keep Black on. Yet on November 19, a day after Black subpoenaed the Abramoff contract, the Administration announced that it was nominating Rapadas. Black was subsequently barred from handling any public corruption cases.
Did Black's Abramoff probe resurrect and fast-track Rapadas's nomination and seal his departure? That central matter in the IG inquiry remains unsettled today. "I just wonder whether they wanted to prevent Fred Black from staying on," says Sablan.
Black's story parallels that of dismissed US Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego, who successfully prosecuted Congressman Duke Cunningham on bribery charges. Kyle Sampson, who called for Lam's firing a day after she pursued search warrants for a top GOP military contractor and CIA official, also oversaw the ouster of Black, according to the IG's report.
<h3>The apparent purging of Black at Abramoff's behest demonstrates the clout the lobbyist wielded at both the DOJ and the White House. Then-White House political director Ken Mehlman, the recent chairman of the Republican National Committee, told White House official Leonard Rodriguez, a protégé of Karl Rove, to "reach out to make Jack aware" of all Guam-related information, including candidates for US Attorney, according to the IG report.</h3>
In May 2002 Abramoff used his influence to kill a risk-assessment report of Guam and the neighboring Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), requested by Black, that called for federalizing immigration laws on the islands, a move that might have jeopardized the influx of cheap labor to CNMI and Abramoff's $1.6 million lobbying contract with its local government. <b>Abramoff learned of the report from John Ashcroft's then-chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins game. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out, and the DOJ demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner.
At the time, Meissner's boss was then-US Attorney for Eastern Virginia, Paul McNulty, who has since risen to become Deputy Attorney General and a key player in Gonzales's embattled DOJ. A longtime Republican operative who served as spokesman for House Republicans during Bill Clinton's impeachment--and never tried a case before becoming US Attorney--McNulty now stands accused of misleading Congress about the reasons for the eight US Attorneys' dismissals.
<h3>Meissner discussed his risk-assessment report with McNulty on multiple occasions and told several colleagues he believed McNulty helped suppress the report and curtail his career. "Bob told me he thought McNulty had everything to do with it," says one colleague of Meissner's in the Bush Administration with knowledge on Guam matters. Says another colleague, "McNulty was kind of the fireman at Justice. He was the guy trying to run around and put a lid on things that could become political, especially with Abramoff."</h3>
McNulty may have also intervened in the IG's investigation of Black's removal. <b>According to sources close to the investigation, when Black contradicted Administration testimony, he was told by IG investigators, "That's not the scope we were given by DAG"--at the time, McNulty.</b> McNulty's office declined to comment, and the IG's counsel, Cynthia Schnedar, says, "The conclusion we reached was a fair and appropriate one."
Sampson and McNulty were close to the heart of the Guam affair, but it's unlikely they were operating as rogue agents. Indeed, contained in the IG report is a startling admission. Sampson told the IG that after receiving permission from the DAG, AG and White House counsel to replace a US Attorney, "he would then discuss the US Attorney candidate recommendations with the President." <b>After the Attorneygate scandal broke, Bush contradicted this, claiming that he "never brought up a specific case nor gave [Gonzales] specific instructions."</b>
Given these damning details, leading members of Congress, such as Representatives George Miller and Nick Rahall, say the probe into the fired US Attorneys must be widened to include the circumstances surrounding the demotions of Black and Meissner. And they doubt the ability of the DOJ to investigate itself. "It is necessary now to re-examine this case," they wrote in a letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairs on March 13, "as it may represent the beginning of a pattern of behavior by...officials in the Bush Administration to politicize the work of US Attorneys and to quash their independence."
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Quote:
http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/rel031307.html
House Committee Chairmen Say Probe of Fired U.S. Attorneys Should Include Abramoff Case
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
WASHINGTON – Two House committee chairmen called today for the congressional probe into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys to be widened to include the case of an acting U.S. Attorney demoted in 2002 after he began investigating the now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the Education and Labor Committee chairman, and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the Natural Resources Committee chairman, have repeatedly pressed for a full investigation of Abramoff’s dealings with the CNMI and its sweatshop industry and of the demotion of Fred Black, the then-acting U.S. Attorney for Guam and the CNMI.
Miller and Rahall said that what looked initially to them as another example of Abramoff’s excesses as a corrupt lobbyist exploiting his deep ties to the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress might in fact be part of a widespread pattern of tampering with the work of U.S. Attorneys.
Press reports and leaked emails indicated that the Bush Administration may have replaced Black because he was conducting a criminal investigation of Abramoff and his clients, and because he favored insular area policies that Abramoff and his clients opposed. Abramoff also reportedly helped to quash a classified Justice Department report that Black requested on security threats posed by CNMI’s immigration policy.
At the lawmakers’ request, the Justice Department’s Inspector General investigated the case and found numerous political contacts between Abramoff and Administration officials but reported that Black’s replacement had not been improper. Miller and Rahall believe it is now appropriate to revisit the case.
“We want to know whether high level Bush Administration officials tampered with a U.S. Attorney’s investigation of a corrupt lobbyist,” said Miller. “Black was trying to secure our borders and root out corruption while Abramoff was wining and dining the Justice Department. We need to know what happened in this case.”
In their letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairs, Miller and Rahall asked for their current probe to be expanded to include the case of Fred Black.
“In light of more recent revelations about political interference with the work of other U.S. Attorneys… it is necessary now to re-examine the case as it may represent the beginning of a pattern of behavior by some members of Congress and officials in the Bush Administration to politicize the work of U.S. Attorneys and to quash their independence.”
For additional information, see: www.house.gov/georgemiller/press/rel12606b.html
The full text of the letter is below.
March 13, 2007
Chairman John Conyers, Jr.
House Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 Chairman Patrick J. Leahy
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Chairwoman Linda Sánchez
ubcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 Chairman Charles Schumer
Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Conyers, Chairman Leahy, Chairwoman Sánchez, and Chairman Schumer:
The recent questions that you have been diligently investigating regarding the treatment of U.S. Attorneys recall an earlier episode that was never properly resolved. As you conduct your important oversight regarding political interference at the Department of Justice, we write to bring this related matter to your attention.
Specifically, we urge you to include in your ongoing investigation the potential political manipulation by Jack Abramoff and his allies in Congress and the Administration in criminal and immigration matters overseen by then Acting U.S. Attorney for Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Fred Black.
In October 2005, and again in January 2006, we and others asked the Attorney General to appoint an outside counsel to determine whether Black was replaced by the Bush Administration in November 2002 because he was conducting a criminal investigation of Abramoff and his clients, and because he favored insular area policies that Abramoff and his clients opposed.
As we wrote to Attorney General Gonzales, it is clear that Abramoff was given ample and, in our view, improper opportunity to weigh in with the Justice Department, and that the White House sought his counsel. Newspaper reports and leaked emails indicated that Abramoff had used his influence in the Justice Department to remove the Acting U.S. Attorney, and had worked to gain knowledge of and attempt to prevent the release of a classified review of Guam and CNMI immigration laws commissioned by Black. In one email, Abramoff explained that he had found out about the classified immigration report when “we had the COS of the Justice Department in our box at today’s Redskins game.”
In response to our request, the Department’s Inspector General reported on the breadth of Abramoff’s influence, including the fact that former White House Political Director Ken Mehlman had “recommended or suggested that [the White House Office of Political Affairs] reach out to make Jack aware” of potential nominees for the U.S. Attorney position.
The Inspector General’s June 2006 report found that Abramoff – who described the Acting U.S. Attorney as a “total commie” and told his colleagues that “We need to get this guy sniped out of there” – had weighed in and attempted to influence the process of replacing the U.S. Attorney. However, the report concluded that the replacement of the Acting U.S. Attorney had not been improper.
At the time, we viewed the replacement of the Acting U.S. Attorney as an example of the overly zealous and improper, if not illegal, conduct by the now disgraced and convicted lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.
In light of more recent revelations about political interference with the work of other U.S. Attorneys, however, it is necessary now to re-examine the case as it may represent the beginning of a pattern of behavior by some members of Congress and officials in the Bush Administration to politicize the work of U.S. Attorneys and to quash their independence.
We encourage you to include this earlier incident in your ongoing work. As you know, Jack Abramoff worked closely with the Bush Administration and Congress to distort insular area policy; that matter was never appropriately investigated by this body.
We stand ready to work with you to determine potential wrongdoing in this matter, and help to finally close the books on the Abramoff scandal that has so damaged the public trust.
Sincerely,
GEORGE MILLER NICK J. RAHALL, II
Chairman Chairman
Committee on Education and Labor Committee on Natural Resources
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