On Monday, TPMuckracker noted something hidden in the Michael Mukasey announcement: the appointment of Peter Keisler as Acting Attorney General.
8 things to know about Peter Keisler:
- Keisler was a co-founder of the Federalist Society;
- The Federalist Society was a checkbox in Goodling's evaluation of U. S. Attorneys;
- Keisler oversaw the Administration's fight against habeas corpus for Guantanamo;
- Keisler allegedly interfered with the Tobacco conspiracy trial;
- Keisler received a recess appointment at age 24;
- Keisler testified against extending whistleblower protections using arguments contradicting existing federal statutes;
- Keisler defended secrecy for all Warrantless Surveillance info, arguing that even confirmation or denial of its existence threatens national security;
- Keisler defended the Interior Department in Cobell v. Norton - a tour de force of legal maneuvering and alleged DOJ obstruction of justice.
Extensive research diary continues below fold
Item 1: Keisler was a co-founder of the Federalist Society, though that doesn't show up on either his White House or DOJ Bios.
From TPMuckracker:
Among the strikes against Keisler for Democrats was the fact that he's a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society.
However, no mention of the Federalist Society appears in the White House's "in focus" page for Keisler, their "President & his leadership Team" bio or Keisler's resume at The Department of Justice.
Fortunately, Yale Law School has a longer memory. From 16 Feb 2002: Federalist Society to Hold Annual Symposium on "Law and Truth" at YLS, March 1-2:
The Federalist Society was founded at Yale in 1982 by Steven Calabresi, Lee Liberman Otis, the Hon. Spencer Abraham, Peter Keisler and the Hon. David McIntosh as a forum for conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the current legal order. The national organization now has more than 5,000 student members in 145 law schools across the country. It also has a division for practicing lawyers with more than 20,000 members and recently established a faculty division
Not only was he a founder, but he was on the board of directors for 17 years. Also not in his bios: he helped train the next generation of Conservative Republicans. From The Alliance for Justice (PDF) (hat tip to wanderindiana)
From 1981-82, just after he graduated college and prior to law school, Mr. Keisler became Executive Vice President at the Leadership Institute, a training ground for young conservative Republican leaders. During law school, Mr. Keisler became one of several founding members of the conservative Federalist Society. He served on its board of directors from 1983-2000.
The Federalist society
The Federalist Society's Website trumpets the idea that they don't take positions (even quoting people associated with the ACLU 3 times in their "What People Are Saying" page), but they are sure cozy with those who do.
From the NYT story of 1 Aug 05
As he argued that the society's influence flowed from its intellectual work - "I sound a little like a broken record, but what I'm excited about are the ideas"- Mr. Meyer also said he had benefited from news media training by Creative Response Concepts. That is the public relations firm that represented Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group whose advertisements in last year's presidential campaign attacked the war record of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.
The Federalist Society hired the firm, Mr. Meyer said, to train members and place them on television shows during the [Roberts] confirmation process.
Add to the mix ultra-conservative funding
With an annual budget of $5.5 million, the society has benefited from decades of support from prominent conservative organizations, including the John M. Olin, Sarah Scaife, and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundations.
...and you have a high-power force of young true believers with law school training. What are they useful for?
Item 2: Membership in the Federalist Society was a checkbox in Monica Goodling's pre-purge evaluation of U. S. Attorneys.
Via Thinkprogress 4/13/07
The spreadsheet appears to assess a list of U.S. Attorneys based on a variety of different qualifications, including prosecution experience and political experience. But there is one column dedicated solely to an assessment of whether the attorneys are members of the Federalist Society. ... The far right column contains a data column for “FedSoc”:
The Federalist Society has served as a kind of gateway for judges and legal aides who strive to work inside the Bush administration, in effect promoting individuals who have dedicated themselves to enforcing a right-wing ideology rather than the law.
This revelation gives a new, unintended meaning to a quote in the Aug 05 NY Times article, from the Federalist Society's Chairman of the board:
Steven G. Calabresi ... evoked the question Senator Joseph McCarthy used a half-century ago in hunting Communists: "There's been an element of 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society?' "
Item 3: Keisler oversaw the Bush Administration's fight against habeas corpus for Guantanamo Prisoners.
From TPMuckracker:
He also "oversaw the Bush administration's lengthy legal fight over the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."
World Politics Review 18 Apr 07
Last week, the Defense Department, represented by a team of Bush administration lawyers including Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, filed a response to Willett's claims. The administration argues he is beating a dead horse since Congress recently passed, and the appeals court upheld, a law barring Guantanamo detainees from challenging their detention in the civilian courts.
While the response acknowledges the appeals court as the final arbiter of disputes over the legitimacy of the CSRT process, Keisler's team asserts that Willett is really trying to "recreate the habeas regime that Congress recently abolished."
Item 4: Keisler allegedly interfered with the conspiracy case against Tobacco companies, weakening the prosecution.
From TPMuckracker:
In March, Keisler, who has been serving as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and previously served as Associate Counsel to President Reagan, made an appearance on The Washington Post's front page. Keisler was one of the three political appointees fingered by a career prosecutor who claimed they repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case against tobacco companies.
More details from that WP story "Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case"
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said three political appointees were responsible for the last-minute shifts in the government's tobacco case in June 2005: then-Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, then-Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and Keisler's deputy at the time, Dan Meron.
Item 5: Keisler was a prior recipient of a recess appointment at age 24.
From The Alliance for Justice Preliminary Report on the Nomination of Peter D. Keisler to the D.C. Circuit (PDF)
By 1984, at age 24 ... [Keisler received a] presidential nomination to the National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programs (NACWEP), an organization that investigated and advised government officials on issues of gender equity in education. Mr. Keisler’s nomination came at a time when the Administration was accused of “reject[ing] the bipartisan, independent nature of the council” and of instead ”select[ing] a number of individuals to serve on the council whose only known involvement in educational equity is their participation in efforts to oppose that equity which has been attained.” Mr. Keisler was apparently held in such high regard by the White House that, when the Labor Committee failed to approve his nomination, President Reagan gave him a recess appointment and later renominated him, in spite of the lack of Senate support.
Item 6: Keisler has testified against extending whistleblower protections, using arguments that contradict existing federal statutes.
From the National Employment Lawyer's Association letter of opposition to Keisler (PDF)
In November 2003, as an Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Keisler told a Senate committee that more rights for whistleblowers could jeopardize national security. Among other things, he said that whistleblowers should check with higher-ups before giving freewheeling testimony to Congress. According to Mr. Keisler, “The prudent thing would be for them to go back and find out whether that’s appropriate.” His argument directly contradicts the whistleblower provisions of several federal statutes. If his position is indicative of his commitment to employee rights, then American workers are in trouble.
Item 7: Keisler defended classification of all Warrantless Surveillance program information, arguing that even confirmation or denial of its existence was a threat to national security.
Apparently, courts should have no say in whether to keep spying programs secret - only the Executive Branch is smart enough. Reuters 25 May 06
Peter Keisler, an assistant attorney general, and other U.S. officials made the claim in the latest filing to a lawsuit alleging that telecommunications firm AT&T illegally allowed the government to monitor phone conversations and e-mail communications.
"In cases such as this one, where the national security of the United States is implicated, it is well established that the executive branch is best positioned to judge the potential effects of disclosure of sensitive information on the nation's security," they wrote in a filing on Wednesday evening.
"Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognised that courts are ill-equipped as an institution to judge harm to national security."
Much more on this case can be found in drational's DailyKos diary DOJ Dread Exposed: Destruction of AT&T.
Item 8: Keisler defended (with others) the Interior Department in Cobell v. Norton - a tour de force of legal maneuvering and alleged DOJ Obstruction of Justice.
This case is bewilderingly complex; the only succinct summary I've found was in a 3-year-old letter of resignation. That letter was from Special Master Balaran, who represented the interests of Indians in recovering money owed them by energy companies who had leased their land at allegedly substandard prices. A man that the Department of Interior was very eager to get rid of:
DOJ PDF of 26 Sept 2003, pages 2-3:
For these reasons, Interior Defendants respectfully request that the Court act on our motion to disqualify Special Master Balaran by October 15, 2003.
Dated: September 26, 2003
Respectfully submitted,
ROBERT D. McCALLUM
Associate Attorney General
PETER D. KEISLER
Assistant Attorney General
STUART E. SCHIFFER
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
J. CHRISTOPHER KOHN
Director
[signed]
SANDRA P. SPOONER
W Deputy Director
D.C. Bar No. 261495
JOHN T. STEMPLEWTCZ
Senior Trial Attorney
TIMOTHY E. CURLEY
Trial Attorney
Balaran resigned, but he did not go quietly into the good night. His letter of resignation to Judge Lamberth is defiant, detailed, and damning: (Pages 4-6 of this 5 Apr 2004 PDF). (OCR errors corrected)
It is evident Interior will continue filing such motions [requesting the removal of Special Master Balaran], preventing the case from moving forward. The agency’s motivation is clear. In recent months, I have reported evidence of a practice - abetted by Interior - of energy companies routinely paying individual Indians much less than they pay non-Indians for oil and gas pipeline easements across the Southwest. I also have uncovered evidence that Interior fails to diligently monitor oil and gas leasing activities on individual Indian lands. To prevent further investigation into these matters, Interior seeks my removal from the Cobell case. The timing of Interior’s efforts to disqualify me is not coincidental. Interior filed its May 2003 disqualification motion shortly after I found the agency withheld salient data from its quarterly reports to the Court. The agency accused me of improperly utilizing the services of a former Interior contractor to obtain information germane to that investigation. You [Judge Lamberth] found this accusation frivolous, suggesting it was Interior that acted improperly by impeding my investigation and that Interior had an ulterior motive for seeking my removal. You were correct.
Interior’s disqualification attempts stemmed fiom events that took place several months earlier, beginning with my March 6, 2003 visit to the Office of Appraisal Services of the Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, New Mexico. There, in the presence of the Department of Justice and Interior counsel, the Chief Appraiser admitted that he appraised oil and gas easements running across individual Indian lands for amounts considerably less than the appraised value of identical interests held by non-Indians. The Chief Appraiser also admitted destroying evidence of his 20-year practice of doing so. Interior has never denied that the Chief Appraiser destroyed valuable trust information or that energy companies pay individual Indians a fraction of what they pay similarly situated non-Indians as a result of these inadequate appraisals. (Nor has the agency taken any disciplinary action against the Chief Appraiser. To the contrary, it has gone to great lengths to protect him by retaining the services of two attorneys to defend his conduct during a recent deposition.)
On August 20,2003, I issued a report chronicling my findings. This report was just the beginning. I soon began to uncover evidence that Interior was putting the interests of private energy companies ahead of the interests of individual Indian beneficiaries.
On September 19,2003, for example, I visited Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) Office of Minerals Revenue Management (MRM) in Dallas - the repository of Interior’s oil and gas audit files. My visit was prompted by two events: (1) the March 2003 report of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General, revealing that MMS officials not only fabricated oil and gas audit files but were rewarded for their efforts; and (2) Justice’s denial of my repeated requests for access to these files. As you noted in your March 15, 2004 decision denying Interior’s disqualification motion, since August 1999, I have visited dozens of sites to ensure that Interior was safeguarding trust documentation in accordance with your directives. Interior not only approved of these visits, but encouraged its employees to cooperate with me filly during my inspections. My visit to Dallas was different. After only two hours, during which I uncovered chaotic recordkeeping practices and missing audit files, MMS officials informed me that Justice ordered that I leave.
He's not the only Special Master to go; the vacating of another Special Master was tied to the reversal of a contempt ruling against Norton - a contempt charge based on the withholding of evidence. Keisler is ecstatic. From 18 July 03
STATEMENT OF PETER KEISLER, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL
FOR THE CIVIL DIVISION ON TODAY’S COURT OF APPEALS RULING
IN THE COBELL INDIAN TRUST FUND CASE
“Today, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the Cobell Indian Trust Fund case reversed the district court’s contempt ruling against Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, Neal McCaleb. At the same time, the appeals court also ordered the lower court to vacate the appointment of Special Master Joseph Kieffer.
“We are pleased that the court of appeals took note of the significant positive steps taken by Secretary Norton to address the issues presented in this case and that the court vacated the unwarranted contempt rulings against the Secretary and Mr. McCaleb.”
While Keisler is not the only member of the defense team, he's clearly in the trenches. From
ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, ET AL.,
v.
GALE A. NORTON,
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR,
ET AL
11 Apr 2006. (double-spacing removed for legibility; OCR errors corrected)
22 THE COURT: You think the -- you think Interior's
23 2003 plan is too old to rely on?
24 MR. KEISLER: In the decision that this Court issued
25 in the Fall reversing the second structural injunction, it
JAD 8
1 criticized the District Court for, among other things, relying
2 on the findings of fact from its vacated contempt decision.
3 You said -- first, you vacated that contempt decision so you
4 can't rely on those --
5 THE COURT: No, no, I was asking you about
6 Interior's --
7 MR. KEISLER: Right, but the section --
8 THE COURT: -- '03 plan, which acknowledges that the
9 information is unreliable.
10 MR. KEISLER: It acknowledges that there's an
11 accounting to do.
12 THE COURT: Right.
13 MR. KEISLER: The fact that there --
14 THE COURT: No, but it also acknowledges that the
15 information is unreliable.
16 MR. KEISLER: We don't say the information is
17 unreliable. The accounting is going to produce at the end of
18 the day --
19 THE COURT: Wrong. Let me quote. "Without an
20 assurance that all current account balances are reliable,
21 Interior cannot assure an accurate accounting." That's your
22 own compliance report.
This man is now our Acting Attorney General.
My advice: don't look at the Cobell case unless you're ready to dive into the rabbit hole. Especially don't go to this archive of DOJ documents, from which the Cobell documents were found. Brain cells will die.
Rove, Cheney, Gonzales, Keisler. Where does Bush find these guys? Dark summoning incantations?
--- end diary ---
Cross-posted at ePluribus Media Community; expanded from Tuesday's Bush's new recess app't: Peter Keisler UPDATE 6 or so
--- begin pleading ---
For anyone who found this interesting, and who has a lot of patience for detail, I suggest beg that you look at an earlier story of mine over at ePluribusMedia: AttorneyGate Rough Draft - first firing: The OIG Report Timeline. In it, I used a DOJ Inspector General's report on the demotion of Guam's U. S. Attorney - one widely believed to exonerate Abramoff of involvement - to illustrate how Abramoff's firm was involved from the start. It's amazing what was buried in confusing chronology and footnotes about documents that weren't retained. Unfortunately, the timeline itself is long because it takes a lot of detail to demonstrate how this demotion might be the pilot study for the attorney purge.