As they say, "The wheels of Justice grind slowly..."
In the Bush years, Justice hardly moves at all.
The absence of justice has become expected (and I’m sure that you could cite at least twenty examples of failed justice in the Bush years—or more).
The list of unfinished investigations is staggering as is the ever expanding list of scandal.
Cleaning up after the Bush era will take a generation. It will take a revitalized Department of Justice. A DOJ that is willing to pursue crime (instead of covering it up). The same will go for the House and the Senate.
All of these institutions have failed us in the Bush Years.
A better day is coming. Barack Obama long had the best record and the best proposals for cleaning up Washington. And now he is our Nominee. He is a real reformer.
John McCain pretends to be a reformer when a teevee camera is near. In reality has lived to protect the status quo with cover-ups and misdirection—and that is the extent of his record.
Like 2006, corruption is a big issue in 2008. It is impacting the Main Event and many Senate and House races.
And in September a corruption bomb will drop on the GOP.
Let’s jump...
We are at the end of another busy week of news. As usual there are a small number of stories that filter through and the sad passing of Tim Russert will narrow that number of stories over the weekend.
On the Corruption Beat it has been a very busy week.
TPM MuckRaker is essential reading is you are trying to keep track and keep score.
The muck is flying fast and furious.
A good deal of that muck over the last ten days concerns the Jack Abramoff scandal. It is a subject I know a little about (dig into these Diaries for details).
Here are a few highlights:
Last week there was a new guilty plea in the Abramoff scandal—I wrote about it here. The plea included information that allowed Taxpayers for Common Sense to track the earmarks cited in the plea and The Hill to shared the details with a wider audience. That has lead to more questions and a new circle of Republican lawmakers who should have a lawyer on speed-dial.
Then the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a new Report and hundreds of documents detailing the extensive contacts and close working relationship between Jack Abramoff, his Team and the Bush White House. This is a rich source of new details and I invite you to review them. There are links to some of those other scandals in the details.
And my old pal John Sweeney is back in the news. It seems that the FBI investigators tied to the Abramoff task force went to New York and raided the lobbying shop where Sweeney’s ex-wife used to work. The firm, Powers & Company, is run by an influential GOP maven, William D. Powers. It seems that Sweeney was their Earmark Machine and putting pressure on Sweeney has become part of the DOJ’s Abramoff investigation.
It is an active investigation and it is picking up steam. The probe is wide-ranging, and moving slowly but surely. At this point is seems clear that the DOJ is focusing on the Members of Congress, the Senate and their staffs who placed earmarks to reward the clients of lobbyists—lobbyists like (but not limited to) Jack Abramoff.
And Jack is talking, talking and talking (and so are the other indicted members of his team).
The aforementioned TPM Muckraker had the story up tonight. Jack Abramoff will be sentenced on September 4, 2008—just after Labor Day. TPM added these details:
The feds expect him to keep up is cooperation, and possibly even testify at some point. Keep in mind that Abramoff has been cooperating from federal prison since he began serving time for his role in the separate fraud case in Florida. [snip]
Under his plea agreement, Abramoff can expect to receive a jail sentence of 9 1/2 to 11 years, and he is required to make restitution of $26.7 million to the IRS and to the Indian tribes he defrauded.
Jack Abramoff has been in jail for a while now. He was sentenced to almost 6 years for crimes committed related to a flawed deal to purchase a fleet of off-shore gambling ships. The DOJ convinced the Judge in Florida to let Jack serve his time in Maryland so that Jack could have lots of time with his NBF from the DOJ.
Hanging over Jack’s head has been his guilty plea for crimes he committed in Washington DC. Every three months, like clockwork, the Judge in the case would get a joint motion filed by the DOJ and Jack Abramoff. The motion asked that Jack’s sentencing date be postponed. And each time it was.
On Monday something different happened. Jack, his lawyers and the DOJ asked the Judge to set a date to sentence Jack for his DC-based crimes. Here is that motion (emphasis added):
Joint Motion To Order Preparation of Presentence Investigation Report and Set Sentencing Date
On January 3, 2006, this Court accepted Jack Abramoff’s plea of guilty, deferred setting a date for his sentencing to facilitate his cooperation with the government, and scheduled status conferences which have been continued based on joint motions of the parties. The United States and Mr. Abramoff now jointly move the Court to order that the Presentence Investigation Report be prepared and that this Court set a sentencing date in early September, 2008.
In accordance with his plea agreement, Mr. Abramoff has been cooperating with government agents and prosecutors. While the government anticipates that Mr. Abramoff’s cooperation in the form of possible testimony will continue for the foreseeable future, the parties believe that they are in a position to inform the court about the full scope of his misconduct and cooperation, and that, consistent with the commitments in the plea agreement with Mr. Abramoff, sentencing in the near future in this case is appropriate.
Accordingly, the parties jointly move the Court to order that the Presentence Investigation Report be prepared and to set a date for the sentencing of Mr. Abramoff in early September 2008.
So, Jack may be testifying in some of the cases that the DOJ is building (that should be interesting). And his sentencing hearing will include fresh details about the full scope of his misconduct and cooperation. Today the Judge set the sentencing date and the timeline for the flow of documents:
ORDERED that the sentencing in this case is set for September 4,2008, at 2:00 p.m. in Courtroom 14; and it is further
ORDERED that the probation officer assigned to this case disclose the initial version of the presentence investigation report to the parties 45 days after the referral date; and it is further
ORDERED that counsel submit their objections to the probation officer ten (10) days after the report is initially disclosed by the probation officer; and it is further
ORDERED that the probation officer disclose to the parties and file with the court the final presentence investigation report ten (10) days after the parties have submitted their objections; and it is further
ORDERED that the parties file any memoranda in aid of sentencing with the court ten (10) days after the final version of the presentence investigation report is disclosed by the probation officer, with responses thereto due five (5) days thereafter. The parties' submissions must contain supporting case law or any other authority that the parties intend to rely upon.
This should mean a fresh batch of Abramoff scandal news to kick off the fall campaign season—and this doesn’t even take into account other indictments as the DOJ continues the case grind slowly towards Justice.
This scandal and many others mean that the Culture of Corruption will be a factor in the 2008 election. The Abramoff scandal will continue to hit the GOP hard. Sometimes it will impact races where it is expected. And there will be races where a link to Abramoff is a surprise. Some current long-shot races could become too-close-to-call. We should get ready to respond.
And despite the maverick shtick, Abramoff in the news will not help John McCain.
Way back in 2004, on the same day that Jack testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, John McCain made a promise:
I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told.
It was a promise—like all John McCain promises—that McCain quickly broke.
For John McCain, ambition and Party loyalty always trump justice and loyalty to the Truth. It was quickly clear to McCain that this investigation would hurt his Party if it was allowed to pursue the truth and expose the guilty.
In late 2005 he had this exchange with Terry Gross of NPR (emphasis added):
GROSS: But you might have a sense from your perspective of how far-reaching you think this investigation will be in terms of affecting members of Congress, the Department of the Interior. The Christian Coalition has been involved with part of the story. How far do you think it's going to go?
Sen. McCAIN: Oh, I think it's going to go a long, long way. I didn't know, frankly, about Mr. Safavian, the one that was recently indicted because he had lied about his purposes of his trip, a golfing trip to Scotland. And there's many things that we don't know about, but there's--that we know enough about things to know that this thing is going to be very, very big.
And he told the late Tim Russert on a December 2005 MTP appearance:
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to corruption, and here's a headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Lobbyist Jack Abramoff helped fuel conservative successes, but his dealings could lead to a powerful ethical fallout ... Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, antitax guru Grover Norquist, members of Congress, administration officials, and a host of lobbyists have been drawn into Senate or Justice Department investigations of Abramoff's lobbying activities. ... The Abramoff story `is breathtaking in its reach,' [John] McCain said."
Do you expect indictments?
SEN. McCAIN: Oh, sure. And lots of them. This is--this town has become very corrupt. There's no doubt about it. And we need lobbying reform. We need to have some reform of lobbying. But the system here, where so much is done in the way of policy and money, in appropriations bills where line items are put in in secret, which nobody knows about or sees until after they're voted on, is the problem. That's the problem today. So therefore, someone who wants some money or a policy change hires a lobbyist who is well connected. They go to the appropriate subcommittee or committee, appropriations, and they write in the line item. That part has to be fixed, I think, as much as anything else.
By the time he appeared on MTP, McCain was already actively covering up the crimes of his colleagues. He was already slow walking the SIAC Abramoff investigation and narrowing the focus to the point of uselessness.
In March of 2005 he met with his Republican colleagues to let then know that John McCain could be counted on to protect them from exposure. Roll Call had the story in the March 10, 2005 edition (emphasis added):
McCain Won't Target Members
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assured his colleagues that his expanding investigation into the activities of a former GOP lobbyist and a half-dozen of his tribal casino clients is not directed at revealing ethically questionable actions by Members of Congress.
At a Senate Republican luncheon last Wednesday, McCain told the gathering that his own probe, being run through the Indian Affairs Committee, is simply looking into potential "fraudulent" activities perpetrated against the tribes by Jack Abramoff and his associates.
"It's not our responsibility in any way to involve ourselves in the ethics process [of Senators]," McCain said Wednesday, explaining the comments he made to his fellow GOP Senators. "That was not the responsibility of the Indian Affairs Committee." [snip]
Because of those stories - and several other news reports touching on Abramoff's relationship with Members - McCain said he wanted to let Senators know that he was not trying to air any of their dirty laundry. [snip]
A senior McCain aide said a Member could end up in the committee's cross-hairs only if the Member was involved in defrauding the tribes. [snip]
McCain said Wednesday that his committee continues to examine all the financial angles of where the $82 million ended up, as well as other political and charitable contributions the tribes made at Abramoff's request. But he reiterated that he was following the money trail, not the legislative actions taken by Members of Congress. "We stop when we find out where the money went," he said.
At one of the public hearings, however, then-Indian Affairs Chairman and ex-Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) and McCain aired a highly embarrassing incident involving House Administration Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who, as has been widely reported, took costly trips with Abramoff to Scotland to play the legendary St. Andrews golf course. Abramoff pushed Ney to insert language into an election reform bill he oversaw that would have shut down a tribal casino viewed as a rival to another of Abramoff's clients, and in addition the lobbyist's clients gave Abramoff $32,000 in contributions.
McCain stressed Wednesday that he wasn't pursuing that angle in the investigation, saying it was something that merely came up in process of talking to the tribal victim. "I didn't pursue that, they stated that in testimony," he said, adding, "We didn't pursue that any further."
McCain had a very funny idea about following the money.
He only wanted to show that Tribal Governments paid Abramoff money. He never wanted to follow what happened to that money when it moved into the coffers of his Party and his colleagues.
McCain’s version of Abramoff is one of greed personified. A grifter who took but never did anything in return. It is now the popular image of Abramoff. Some of it is true, but not most of it.
In truth, Abramoff delivered for his clients. He had real connections in the White House and on Capital Hill. He got earmarks. He got people fired. He got things slipped into laws and regulations to benefit his clients.
In John McCain’s version of reality, Jack Abramoff’s effectiveness and power within the Republican Party was hidden. It was more of a cover-up than an investigation.
Think for a moment about the earmarks revealed in the latest Abramoff guilty plea. Two of Jack’s Native American clients are on the list. Together they took in over $3.6 million in Abramoff placed earmarks in a single section of a single Appropriation Bill. This would seem to suggest that Jack Abramoff was an effective lobbyist for his clients.
Jack Abramoff is in jail because he committed many crimes, but he also did his job very well. Jack was a bagman for the GOP and he delivered for his Party. John McCain knew that and hid that fact.
Jack used his clients as ways to get the large sums of cash into our political system. At any given time he was involved in any number of schemes. It was always a balancing act for Jack. He lived a life of contradictions. He exploited some of his clients and he also delivered the goods for his clients. Sure, he charged around $500 an hour for his time, but his clients got a return on their investment. This is a "secret" about Abramoff that has been obscured by the Abramoff "Pure Greed Myth" created by John McCain.
In McCain’s version of the Abramoff story, Jack was an aberration—a "bad apple" if you will—in the otherwise smoothly running Republican system of a constant revolving door between lobbyists, government and think tanks.
McCain had 750,000 pages of documents related to Abramoff and he only released the ones that supported the narrative of Abramoff he wanted to create.
We may never see those documents.
I have been looking into the status of these documents and the likelihood that they will ever be available for review. The news is not good.
McCain released his Report in June of 2006. By August the Committee closed their investigation and transferred the documents to the National Archives. As best I can tell at this moment, the status of the documents is "confidential". That means they will sit sealed in the Archives for 50 years. Then they will be released. There may be some circumstances where some or all of the documents could be released earlier, but it is a long shot.
McCain has covered his tracks and his intentional inaction.
A fifty year stay in a warehouse is the arrangement that McCain made for these documents. It is an action that is part of his cover-up.
Democrats control the Senate now, but that does not help. By the time we won in November of 2006, the documents were already gone.
I suppose if they became a campaign issue, McCain may be forced to call for their release. He should be forced to defend his cover-up. It is worth a try.
It is also useful to call for new investigations into the Abramoff scandal. Any Committee of the House or Senate could ask Jack’s old firms to send fresh copies of the documents.
Then there is the ongoing DOJ Abramoff investigation. Each new indictment and step to trial and/or sentencing reveals more information. And the work of Journalists, bloggers and researchers continue to bring new details to the surface.
Together, these details are proving that John McCain lied when he said:
I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told.
It is time to spread the word: John McCain is a liar.
It is time to call for a review of what McCain did and did not do when he led the Abramoff investigation. At least we can expose the cover-up.
Corruption will be an issue this fall.
John McCain is presenting his work on the Abramoff Scandal as a calling card: proof that he is a reformer and that he can be trusted to "clean up Washington".
We need to go after him on this one. There are many, many lines of attack. We should use them all.
For instance, once Grover Norquist said:
''What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs ... then this becomes a different town.''
Now Grover tells us that what we need is John McCain in the White House.
Grover is just one of the many players in the Abramoff scandal protected by John McCain. There are many more and this should be an issue in the fall.
And just as the final stretch of the Campaign kicks off, Jack Abramoff will be sentenced. Along with that event will come a fresh document dump including Jack explaining the full scope of his misconduct and cooperation.
It looks like a corruption bomb is being prepared for McCain and the GOP.
Cheers