[Video] Wexler Calls for Impeachment of Cheney

63 Comments

1. [This post deleted due to extensive personal attacks]

2. Re #63:

   Genius…

   And why exactly did Tower Seven collapse into its footprint despite not being hit by a plane nor substantial debris and having only minimal fires burning for a short period prior to its fall?

   And why did BBC’s American correspondent on the scene announce the collapse of Tower Seven 26 minutes prior to its actual collapse? (There is video available showing it standing solid in the background while she is announcing it having collapsed).

   Just asking questions. I know you hate it when I do that. Sorry to disturb your FAUXNews-induced slumber.

3. OK, back to corrupt Democrats.

   I must of skipped over the absurd claim about Prescott Bush.

   Since Mikael constantly is having Free HBO, he didn’t dig to deeply into his wonderful cut and paste exposing of the evil Prescott Bush, yes, the Nazi financier!
   Yes….Prescott Bush made the Third Reich possible! It was Bush and his overlords at W.A. Harriman!

   Wait, who in the hell is W.A. Harriman? Why, of course, he MUST BE AN EVIL REPUBLICAN!
   Right? I mean if his name is linked to Prescott Bush, he most certainly has to be a knuckle dragging Neanderthal? Right?

   Mikael, you make me laugh. If you had ever studied history for one minute, you’d know who Crocidile Harriman was, but you don’t, you’re clueless.

   Do your homework next time before you make an ass out of yourself again.
   That whole argument was idiotic. You love to call people “brown shirts”.
   Fritz Thyssen fled the Third Reich in 1938. It was perfectly legal to do business with Germany until 1942 when these “business assests” were seized and returned after the war, just as it’s prefectly legal for Democrats to do business with the PRC now….well more than just “business” …ask Norman Hsu, Johnny Huang, Charlie Trie, Al Gore and The Clintons.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman
   Skull and Bones…..Just like John Kerry and your favorite Prez!

   So I guess Prescott Bush’s real crime is that he was stooge for a Big Time Democrat?

   Gawd are you dumb. No breaks on this one, drop and give me twenty for this one.

4. Hmmmm, I understand Mikhael claims he did not make a certain foolish statement.

   #59 #

   “The metal weakens as the temperature goes up.”

   And heat rises, so this may explain the weakened steel above the crash zone, but not below. The fires did not move downward. There were people escaping via the stairwells until the very last seconds. The elevator shafts were sealed and no fire could have traveled down those. How often does fire travel downward?

   Any explanation for the explosions in the basement BEFORE the planes hit the towers?

   Check out the testimony of Larry Rodriguez:

   http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=9/11+rodriguez&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

   Comment by Mikael — January 11, 2008 @ 9:00 am

5. Wesley, you’re an idiot. Fire does not burn and steel does not melt. Nor does the tensile strength of steel weaken with heat…so that foolish concept that steel doesn’t even need to melt to weaken structurally is for morons.
   Don’t even get me started on gravity, that’s just a figment of Newton’s imagination. It’s that simple, you evil Neo-Con.
   There is no such thing as tensile strength.
   http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0711/banovic-0711.html
   http://www.metallurgy.nist.gov/techactv2005/ar2005_safety.html
   Everybody knows Dick Cheney flew those planes by remote control and the buildings were rigged with a hundred tons of C4 by Black Ops posing as night-time janitors.
   When are you going to wake up and smell the troof Wesley?
   Impeachment is coming just as sure as “man made” Global Warming!

6. Dude, I don’t have to explain how the WTC fell straight down, it has been modeled and studied by real experts.

   As for that “testimony,” wow, that is “riveting.” Explosion heard in the basement…. No, can’t imagine how having a 747 going full speed into a building and striking the steel columns and framework of that building making noise in a basement. Walls cracking? Wow, another amazing clue. But wait, you do know those buildings were built to allow some movement? For high winds, even for a smaller plane hitting them. But they had never swayed as much as they did the morning of 9/11. Oh, and have for forgotten that jet fuel is a liquid? And for some reason, in my world, the one with blue skies, fuel is subject to the laws of gravity. Even burning fuel will drop down a shaft. Now maybe in your world it doesn’t. The facts are that tens of thousands of people saw with their own eyes these jets hit the WTC, and many more saw it live on TV, yet we have an astounding number of people willing to believe that these buildings were brought down by pre-planted explosives. This is all the reason in the world why I feel safe in expressing my heartfelt belief that people should have to pass at least a rudimentary test to be allowed to vote.

   “How often does fire travel downward?”

   Hmmmm, how on earth can I answer that in a polite way that will not making your question sound foolish and therefore be edited?

   How often does a fire spread downward? Each and every time there is fuel and a source of oxygen. Ever see a candle? If I have a pile of leaves and only set a fire at the top, will it not still burn down?

   You are free to believe whatever you think of the events of that day, just don’t expect me to take you seriously.

7. “The metal weakens as the temperature goes up.”

   And heat rises, so this may explain the weakened steel above the crash zone, but not below. The fires did not move downward. There were people escaping via the stairwells until the very last seconds. The elevator shafts were sealed and no fire could have traveled down those. How often does fire travel downward?

   Any explanation for the explosions in the basement BEFORE the planes hit the towers?

   Check out the testimony of Larry Rodriguez:

   http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=9/11+rodriguez&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

8. That tanker fire had about as much fuel as a jet carried and burned directly under the overpass for a time.

   By the general Twin Towers logic, a hole would have melted into the ground beneath the tanker 110 stories deep.

   Notice how the freeway broke apart unevenly. Many parts very close to the fire stayed strong.

   Explain how both towers fell directly down and into their footprints rather than falling to one side or the other?

   Explain what caused Tower 7 to collapse?

9. “Now I know you don’t have the experiences I have”

   And those experiences that would make you an expert on this topic are…?

10. “There is a 500 degree difference between the burning temperature of kerosene (jet fuel) and the melting point of steel. There is no combination of accelerants found in the Twin Towers that would have bridged that gap.”

    Now I know you don’t have the experiences I have, but I can tell you what I have seen with my own two eyes. I have seen steel beams and steel pipes droop like spaghetti el dente under their own weight much less stories above them, that were not even in the fire, but a good 50 yards away. There was no “molten steel” there, not even a drop. But the heat weakened the steel to the point it could not even fully support it’s own weight. And we haven’t even mentioned the chimney effect and other fuels present at the WTC that basically made it a blast furnace. The metal weakens as the temperature goes up. But here is perhaps as clear an example as you can get that the WTC collapse was no mystery, and mind you, there was no jet hitting this, this is just the heat of gasoline and no where close to the weight load involved in the WTC. A bridge collapse caused by a mere tanker truck fire.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/30/national/main2740065.shtml

11. “There is a 500 degree difference between the burning temperature of kerosene (jet fuel) and the melting point of steel. There is no combination of accelerants found in the Twin Towers that would have bridged that gap.”

    No

12. Your denials do not change the fact that you were out of line and if it continues you will be banned.

    There is a 500 degree difference between the burning temperature of kerosene (jet fuel) and the melting point of steel. There is no combination of accelerants found in the Twin Towers that would have bridged that gap. Even if there were, each of the vertical central support columns would have had to have melted simultaneously at critical points in order for the towers to fall straight down at free fall speed. The internal columns would have remained standing if the weak attaching joints where each floor connected to them had been the fatal flaw as claimed. If some were damaged and others not damaged, then the towers would have fallen to the side.

    But if you believe that ridiculous conspiracy theory, go ahead and do so. But please explain why Tower 7 collapsed – not hit by a plane, not structurally damaged by debris and with only minimal fires of undefined origin burning for a very short time. It dropped into its own basement, finishing below ground level without a pile. A 55-story building gone without cause. Magic.

    AND TOWER 7 WAS NOT EVEN MENTIONED IN THE 9/11 CON-MISSION DISTORT!!!

    The 9/11 Commission story is horse shit. Even the two head commissioners, who were denied access to so much of the evidence and information that is now known to be readily available have been complaining recently.

    Why did BushCheney deny an investigation FOR 441 DAYS!!! Every major disaster in history: Hindenburg, Titanic, Challenger, 35W Bridge, assassinations of Lincoln, JFK, RFK, MLK had a commission formed and investigating within a week to 10 days. If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding everything?

    I don’t claim to know who is to blame and what exactly happened, but it is obvious that there was a cover-up. That any Junior High student can figure out – and many have.

13. “Just behave yourself and you can continue to post. Cross that line again and you will be denied access to posting on this site.”

    I have always behaved myself regardless of your efforts to make it appear I was saying things out of line. So in other words you do not have the courage to let everyone compare what I posted that you deleted, to the sort of remarks you make on a regular basis.

    “Working with the disabled and challenged population is a noble profession. Thank you for your service to your community.”

    Working any legal job with competence and devotion is a noble profession and a service to the community. I do not do that as a service to the community, I do that because I am paid to do this. I make no allusions to altruistic concerns though I do appreciate the needs of the people I work with. Psychology wise I was a “rat psychologist,” interested in Learning Theory and physiological psychology. I was a behaviorist. I did not study this because I had a burning desire to “help,” I had a love for the subject. I used to work for one of the truly evil forces in this world and beyond… the Exxon Research and Development Labs where I was paid gobs of money, three times the money that I do for the state. After 11 years had to quit or kill the boss though. BTW, while working there, I saw a few examples with my own two eyes that put a lie to the idea that the jet fuel fire could not have caused the WTC to collapse. Then again, I could point you to a beautiful example of this fact that was all over the news not too long ago, but the “toofers” seemed to have not noticed it, even though it happened right there in San Francisco.

14. RE: #51

    Obese Embrace,

    Clinton skates and thanks to Bush Crime Family boss “W”, Libby skates too. Get your facts straight.

    Yes you are deluded. I am not partisan when it comes to political corruption. I have already listed Democrats multiple times on this thread that should be held accountable: Hastings, Clinton, Jefferson, etc. You are blinded by your brownshirt loyalty so deeply that you can’t even read.

    I have come down harder on Democrats recently in my writing than Republicans. It is very sad that you can’t even see what I am writing clearly because your anti-leftist bigotry has so poisoned your ability to reason.

15. “Definition of hypocrisy = Someone who castigates Bill Clinton for lying under oath and defends Scooter Libby for lying to the FBI and a Special Prosecutor.”

    Ummm….Clinton skates and Scooter is jailed. Who’s the hypocrite now? And what about Sandy Scissorhands?

    “If you think hiring prostitutes is limited to Democrats, you are severely deluded. There are plenty of hookers in DC to go around and if you think Republicans are immune, that is laughable.”

    I’m not deluded, Mikael. I’m just pointing out the fact that you think that the sun shines out the jackass’s ass while all elephants are evil. The DC Madam has a great big list of D’s & R’s.
    You’re just a party hack Mikael. Maybe someday, if you keep on slobbering and drooling, they’ll make you chief DFL party hack in Minnesota. Don’t set your sights too low.

16. Re: #47

    Just behave yourself and you can continue to post. Cross that line again and you will be denied access to posting on this site.

    As for the rest of your writhing and squirming… not worthy of a response.

    Working with the disabled and challenged population is a noble profession. Thank you for your service to your community.

17. ” Prostitution is a normal Democrat Party enterprise. ”

    If you think hiring prostitutes is limited to Democrats, you are severely deluded. There are plenty of hookers in DC to go around and if you think Republicans are immune, that is laughable.

    Gary Condit (D) = Joe Scarborough (R). They negate each other. The difference? Condit is completely out of politics. Scarborough has a job in corporate television.

    Definition of hypocrisy = Someone who castigates Bill Clinton for lying under oath and defends Scooter Libby for lying to the FBI and a Special Prosecutor.

    Thank you for acknowledging that I am ahead 150-7 (I’ll be generous and give you an extra one). So now we can continue adding names from here.

    150-7

18. Barney Frank – Democrat – U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1981 to present. Admitted to having paid Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman’s Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.

    Hey, this Gobie guy, was he the one Bush gave the press pass to?
    Of course the motion failed because of why, Mikael? You have no clue. It doesn’t matter. Prostitution is a normal Democrat Party enterprise. Guess what the Watergate burglers were looking for? I bet you don’t know.

    Gary Condit – Democrat – US Democratic Congressman from California. Condit had an affair with an intern. Condit, covered up the affair and lied to police after she went missing. No charges were ever filed against Condit. Her remains were discovered in a Washington DC park..Nice, lying to the police in a murder investigation. But hey, that’s OK, the Swimmer from Massachusetts set precedence for that behavior. I guess you forgot about him too.

    I see you’re using The People’s Mathâ„¢. Congratulations. You get an A+.
    You’ve named 150 elected Republicans and I’ve only named 6 or 7.
    Yep, tallied the count twice and you are correct!

19. Just pointing out your deceptions and pettiness. Or will you allow me to post what I wrote that you felt compelled to deltete and let the board contrast what I said compared to what you feel free to print – such things as “you can type with one hand on the keyboard and your other thumb in your mouth,” or any of the multitude of instances where you refer to someone as an idiot, a moron etc. No, I don’t actually believe you are that courageous or honest to allow that, but there is always hope isn’t there? For any reading of what I wrote would clearly show I did not make any “inappropriate references to the personal and professional lives of other participants,” rather just a statement that no matter how long you keep repeating the same line, will not make it any truer. If it hit home to you or your profession, then that problem lies within you not I.

    Actually, from what I understand, I may well be in the same or related occupational field as you, since I have worked with the DD/MR population for the past 14 years. Yes, and guess what? This crudgy old hateful conservative, who cares for nothing but the oil profits gained from the blood of children and innocent soldiers, who revels in the evil done by the Republicans, was educated in psychology and have spent most of my working life with the most fragile and “differently abled” amongst us. Where oh where did I go wrong oh Great One?

20. Back to the discussion on the thread after mopping up the snot and tears from that little tour down kindergarten lane…

    Here are the latest political criminals coming into the light:

    http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5521

    FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds ‘Names’ Names
    21 Photos Placed Onto a ‘States Secrets Privilege Gallery’ Page at the ‘Gagged’ Former Translator’s Website…And ‘Everybody Knows’…

    Sibel Edmonds is now naming names. 21 of them.

    Or rather, just 21 photographs. On a page. Without comment. At her JustACitizen.com website. The page is simply titled “Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery”. (Screenshot at right.)

    Surely there’s nothing violative about that, right? Rogues gallery though it may be.

    Sibel maven, Luke Ryland, has done us the favor of putting names to the faces, adding that “we can reasonably presume that they are the 21 guilty people in her case.”

    Here are those names, sectioned into three groups, as Edmonds has grouped the photos in her own “Gallery”:

    Current and former Pentagon and State Department officials…

    Richard Perle
    Douglas Feith
    Eric Edelman
    Marc Grossman
    Brent Scowcroft
    Larry Franklin
    Current and former congressmen…

    Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Ex-House Speaker
    Roy Blount (R-MO)
    Dan Burton (R-IN)
    Tom Lantos (D-CA)
    ? (Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
    Bob Livingston (R-LA), Ex-House Speaker
    Stephen Solarz (D-NY)
    The 3rd group includes people who all appear to work at think tanks – primarily WINEP, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

    Graham E. Fuller – RAND
    David Makovsky – WINEP
    Alan Makovsky – WINEP
    ? (Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
    ? (Photo simply a box with question mark in it)
    Yusuf Turani (President-in-exile, Turkistan)
    Professor Sabri Sayari (Georgetown, WINEP)
    Mehmet Eymur (Former Turkish Spy Chief MIT)

    Look! There are at least 2 Democrats to add to your puny list!!!

21. When you grow out of your juvenile tendency to make inappropriate references to the personal and professional lives of other participants in these threads you won’t need to have your posts babysat by our editors.

    Until then, you will have to settle for whining complaints such as #44.

    It is amazing how you can type with one hand on the keyboard and your other thumb in your mouth.

22. [This paragraph deleted due to a repeated inappropriate personal attack. If this continues, Wesley will lose his right to post on this site indefinitely. This will be his only warning].

    This is perhaps the most disturbing thing I find about liberals, their sheer hypocrisy and manipulation of truth. I have seen you repeatedly make such edits Mikhael, and to someone who did not see what was there could easily imagine the horrid, profanity filled, expletives that you had spared them from reading. This of course can only make one imagine the vile, mean, and slanderous rogue that the person being so edited must be. But of course, I have the original, I know what was actually posted. Why, your name was not even mentioned, nor even your parents or family. Why, not even one base or “naughty” word was in that paragraph. There was not a single utterance there that I will have shame to relate in front of the Lord on judgment day. But that is certainly not the impression that will be left with your readers now will it? Yet you repeatedly fell free to debase other’s intelligence, which of course you have the right to do since this is your board. Grow up. At least have the honesty of your convictions.

23. Huggies,

    Only an idiot denies that she was undercover when she went to Niger. Knock, knock, any brain home?

    Sandy Berger! Congratulations. I think that brings your list up to about 6 or 7 legitimate Dem crooks to my list of about 150 GOP crooks. You are catching up.

    (Of course I understand you didn’t read my posts above as you only listen to propaganda and regurgitate it.)

24. I hear they’re making a movie called “Valerie Plame’s War”. It’s how she defeated Islamofascism from her secretarial desk at Langley.
    Covert op? Bwahahahaha. Only an idiot believes she was.

    And Sandy “Scissorhands” Burgler walks the streets a free man when he should be rotting behind bars. Care to discuss this criminal Mikael? Add 5 more Republicans to your list.

25. READY TO LEARN HOW STUPID YOU LOOK REPEATING SUCH AN OBVIOUSLY OUTDATED LIE?

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/

    MSNBC
    Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak
    Newly released unclassified document details CIA employment

    By Joel Seidman
    Producer
    NBC News
    updated 3:24 p.m. CT, Tues., May. 29, 2007
    WASHINGTON – An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.

    The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald’s memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

    […]

    Undercover travel
    The unclassified summary of Plame’s employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, “Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”

    Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

    The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”

    […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/20/plames-cia-job-was-to-stop-iran-from-obtaining-nukes/

    Several administration officials, including Libby, former State Department official Richard Armitage and Bush advisor Karl Rove, disclosed Plame’s identity to reporters.

    READY TO LEARN HOW STUPID YOU LOOK REPEATING SUCH AN OBVIOUSLY OUTDATED LIE?

    Plame’s CIA job was to stop Iran from obtaining nukes.
    In her first interview since Bush administration officials outed her as a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson reveals to CBS 60 Minutes that she was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the interview to be aired this Sunday, CBS reports that she was “involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran.” Watch it:

    Plame’s role in Iran intelligence was first revealed by Raw Story’s Larisa Alexandrovna in Feb. 2006.

    Transcript:

    KATIE COURIC: This Sunday on 60 Minutes, Valerie Plame Wilson gives her first interview since top Bush administration officials exposed her role as an undercover CIA agent four years ago. CBS News has learned she was involved in operations to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the interview, we talked about what it meant to have her identity revealed.

    [BEGIN 60 MINUTES CLIP]

    COURIC: What went through your mind when you saw your name in print?

    PLAME: Oh, it was horrifying, absolutely horrifying.

    COURIC: She served 20 years in the CIA, many undercover in the agency’s counterproliferation division, rising to top positions and confronting one of the most ominous threats of our time.

    PLAME: Our mission was to make sure that the bad guys, basically, did not get nuclear weapons.

    COURIC: When senior administration officials leaked her name to reporters, they may have exposed other spies and damaged operations targeting Iran. CBS News has learned that she was involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran. It was called Operation Merlin, and it was first revealed in a book by investigative reporter James Risen.

    COURIC: Are you familiar with that?

    PLAME: I don’t think I can tell you.

    COURIC: He said the idea was to give the Iranians blueprints for the bomb that were seriously flawed to set them back. Does that sound like something the counter-proliferation division would do?

    PLAME: I think I can say it sounds like a good idea.

    COURIC: Were you surprised to read about Operation Merlin in the press?

    PLAME: Indeed.

    COURIC: Is that problematic for the CIA?

    PLAME: Leaks are always bad news.

    COURIC: She should know, revealing for the first time that the leak of her name had serious repercussions.

    PLAME: I can tell you all the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases to see did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?

    COURIC: And what would be the ramifications of that?

    PLAME: Well, it was very serious. It puts in danger, if not shuts down, the operations that I had worked on.

    COURIC: Valerie Plame Wilson also has some harsh things to say about President Bush. That and much more in our interview this Sunday on 60 Minutes.

    READY TO ADMIT HOW STUPID YOU LOOK REPEATING SUCH AN OBVIOUSLY OUTDATED LIE?

26. My comments in brackets: [ ]:

    … why was Armitage not chareged? He was in fact the person who did the deed. The answer is simple, when Armitage did the deed, he was not guilty of any crime that could be prosecuted.

    [Armitage was one of four Bush Administration officials who simultaneously were sent out by their superiors to expose Ms. Plame-Wilson’s covert identity. No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it is still a lie. Armitage was NOT a lone ‘leaker’.]

    Fitzgerald did not charge Libby for outing Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak for two reasons. First, because he knew that the person who really outed Plame to Novak was not Libby or anyone else in the White House, but rather was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s incessantly gossipy deputy. Second, because Plame was not a “covert agent” within the meaning of The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, one of the two statutes available to Fitzgerald in his investigation.

    [These statements both proved to not be true during the trial. The Libby trial made clear that Plame was indeed an active NOC CIA agent at the time of her ‘outing’ and testimony spoken into evidence and not challenged by Libby’s defense and thus accepted into fact made clear there were four ‘leakers’: Libby, Rove, Fleischer and Armitage.]

    The 1982 act makes disclosure of the “covert” status of a CIA agent criminal only when the agent has worked outside the United States during the prior five years. Since 1997, Valerie Plame has not worked outside the U.S. She has worked at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va.

    [This is a lie. Plame was an active NOC CIA officer working specifically in the field of nuclear weapon development in foreign countries when she traveled to Niger posing as simply accompanying her husband Joseph Wilson. The Wilsons were sent to Niger as a team after Cheney requested the CIA send someone to find evidence of yellowcake uranium being sold to Iraq. There was no evidence, because there was no sale. That wasn’t the answer that CheneyBush wanted so they ignored this finding and continued to lie to Congress, to the American people and to the world about Iraq posing “an imminent threat” and warning not to let the “smoking gun be a mushroom cloud”.
    Wilson pushed a second time for them to listen to the report they had requested of him and they ignored him so he went public in an article published in the NY Times. Within the week, CheneyBush had retaliated, sending flying monkeys Rove, Fleischer, Libby and Armitage out to expose Ms. Plame’s covert status to Matthew Cooper, Robert Novak, Judith Miller and others. Novak bit, and Plame’s career was ruined and the lives of countless international contacts around the world who had worked with Plame were put at grave risk.]

    Fitzgerald recognized his problems with the Identities Act early on. So the special counsel shifted his investigative focus to another criminal statute, the 1917 Espionage Act. But here again difficulties ramified. The Espionage Act does not make criminal the mere disclosure of classified information, such as Plame’s employment duties at Langley. It only criminalized disclosures of classified information where a defendant specifically intended to aid a foreign enemy or harm the nation’s security.

    [There is it. The loophole. The Bushies didn’t and don’t give a shit about national security – only about opening up the Middle Eastern oil market for their cronies. They didn’t out Plame specifically to harm the nation – although it did potentially grave damage – they did it as a simple act of cowardly political retribution against Plame’s husband for insisting that the truth be known publicly about their pre-war lies – as it should be.]

    The indictment charges that Libby committed perjury when he told the grand jury that, at the time he spoke to a reporter about whether Plame was employed by the CIA, he “did not know that as a fact.” Now we have heard testimony from former White House press secretary Ari Fleisher and New York Times reporter Judith Miller that Libby appeared to “know” of Plame’s status when he spoke to them prior to his grand jury testimony.

    [Libby was convicted on this charge].

    There is an even more fundamental defense, one that may emerge in final argument at the end of the trial. Perjurious testimony must be material to the subject matter of a grand jury’s investigation.

    [Awww! Catch 22. Fitzgerald was bound by the limits of his original assignment to this post. By guess who? Former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Fitzgerald had no authority to expand his investigation outside the parameters established by the original assignment.]

    If the entire Fitzgerald investigation was off track, if Libby’s revelation of Plame’s employment status, and therefore the source of his knowledge about that status, was simply not criminal under any U.S. statute, then Fitzgerald’s perjury charge against Libby must also fall.

    [They weren’t found to be immaterial and the didn’t “fall”. Libby was convicted on multiple counts. Bush’s crime family saving of Libby’s perjurious and treasonous ass notwithstanding.]

    A perjury indictment, one would have hoped, would have involved charges based upon facts more definitive than those being tried in Libby’s case, especially when brought, as here, against a man of long, unblemished public service. But Washington is a rough town, as the public beyond the Beltway, to its increasing revulsion, is coming more and more to understand.

    [And here Mr. Salomon shows his political leanings. He was wrong about where the trial would go and he was wrong in his letter of support as revealed in this final paragraph. Just like so many 30%ers today – blessedly less and less daily – he was backing the wrong horse – a diseased and corrupt one.]

    [I find it interesting that you picked a story that was written before the trial, meaning that none of the facts exposed during the trial which led to Libby’s conviction on multiple counts are addressed here. This is classic Bushie selective ‘research’ – an unhealthy addiction to untruths that would back up their claims if true, but are specious as they are, in fact, complete and total bullshit… again.]

27. 37 Another crime that was committed was the fact that the prosecutor never bothered to tell the Grand Jury that revealing Plame’s name was not a crime. ”

    “Unbelievably ignorant statement.”

    [This paragraph deleted due to a repeated inappropriate personal attack. If this continues, Wesley will lose his right to post on this site indefinitely. This will be his only warning].

    You say you are a genius… what does this say?

    Count one: obstruction of justice
    The grand jury charges that Libby did “knowingly and corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice… by misleading and deceiving the grand jury” about when and how he learned that covert operative Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. He is also accused of misleading the grand jury about how he disclosed that information to the media.

    Now the prosecutor is free to use terms like “covert operative,” sounds good, but fact is, there is indeed a law about revealing the identity of such agents, yet Libby, nor ANYONE was charged under that law. Instead, he was charged with misleading the grand jury on when and how he learned she worked for the CIA, and how he disclosed this information. Nowhere was he charged for actually disclosing the information. Otherwise, why was Armitage not chareged? He was in fact the person who did the deed. The answer is simple, when Armitage did the deed, he was not guilty of any crime that could be prosecuted.

    I hope this article from San Francisco of all places, will help you to understand. I know it won’t, but hey, I got to try.

    http://www.examiner.com/a-543221~Potentially_fatal_flaws_plague_perjury_charge_against_Libby.html

    SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) – The interesting development in Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation of “Plamegate” is not the perjury charge he brought against senior White House adviser Lewis “Scooter” Libby, now on trial in Washington, but the charges he did not bring against Libby.

    Fitzgerald did not charge Libby for outing Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak for two reasons. First, because he knew that the person who really outed Plame to Novak was not Libby or anyone else in the White House, but rather was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s incessantly gossipy deputy. Second, because Plame was not a “covert agent” within the meaning of The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, one of the two statutes available to Fitzgerald in his investigation.

    The 1982 act makes disclosure of the “covert” status of a CIA agent criminal only when the agent has worked outside the United States during the prior five years. Since 1997, Valerie Plame has not worked outside the U.S. She has worked at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va.

    Fitzgerald recognized his problems with the Identities Act early on. So the special counsel shifted his investigative focus to another criminal statute, the 1917 Espionage Act. But here again difficulties ramified. The Espionage Act does not make criminal the mere disclosure of classified information, such as Plame’s employment duties at Langley. It only criminalized disclosures of classified information where a defendant specifically intended to aid a foreign enemy or harm the nation’s security.

    There is no evidence that Libby or Armitage ever harbored such intent, so Fitzgerald charged Libby with perjury. But perjury is a difficult charge to sustain. It will be particularly difficult, at least on review by an appellate court, in Mr. Libby’s case.

    The indictment charges that Libby committed perjury when he told the grand jury that, at the time he spoke to a reporter about whether Plame was employed by the CIA, he “did not know that as a fact.” Now we have heard testimony from former White House press secretary Ari Fleisher and New York Times reporter Judith Miller that Libby appeared to “know” of Plame’s status when he spoke to them prior to his grand jury testimony.

    At some point the defense can be expected to argue that Libby’s testimony before the grand jury was literally true, that in fact he did not and could not “know” Plame was a CIA employee, covert or otherwise, in the sense of knowing it of his own knowledge, but had merely been told from hearsay sources that she was.

    Such testimony, Fitzgerald might argue, though literally true, was misleading. But the perjury statute, as Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in the landmark case Bronston v. United States (1973), is not violated “so long as the witness speaks the literal truth.”

    There is an even more fundamental defense, one that may emerge in final argument at the end of the trial. Perjurious testimony must be material to the subject matter of a grand jury’s investigation.

    If the entire Fitzgerald investigation was off track, if Libby’s revelation of Plame’s employment status, and therefore the source of his knowledge about that status, was simply not criminal under any U.S. statute, then Fitzgerald’s perjury charge against Libby must also fall. The false statements Libby allegedly made would be entirely immaterial to any possible violation of the laws referred to the grand jury for investigation.

    A perjury indictment, one would have hoped, would have involved charges based upon facts more definitive than those being tried in Libby’s case, especially when brought, as here, against a man of long, unblemished public service. But Washington is a rough town, as the public beyond the Beltway, to its increasing revulsion, is coming more and more to understand.

    Darrell Salomon is a San Francisco trial attorney.

28. “Another crime that was committed was the fact that the prosecutor never bothered to tell the Grand Jury that revealing Plame’s name was not a crime. ”

    Unbelievably ignorant statement. Plame, a non-official cover Central Intelligence Agency operative was intentionally exposed during wartime. What is wrong with your intellect? What is that called? It is called treason. If this action was done by a Democrat you would be screaming for blood. What partisan hypocrisy. There is no limit to the lies you will embrace as you lick Bush’s boots.

    Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was thwarted by a pervasive cover-up involving all levels of Bushie loyalists. He caught Libby in not one, not two, not three but FOUR different lies, crimes Libby was convicted of while lying twice to the FBI and twice to the Prosecutor. Bush publicly stated that anyone involved in the ‘outing’ of Plame would be removed from office. Both Libby and Rove were kept around as long as Bush could keep them. So Bush was a liar – but what is new about that?

    “Spies have no rights. ”

    So… your position is that every single Iraqi national and Afghani national defending themselves and their families from an attack by an invading and occupying force is a spy??!?!??!? So the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who want the American occupying force to leave are potentially spies if they talk to their friends about American troop movements? Spies on their own soil. Wow. Nice logical leap there.

    You would definitely be among the Roman crucifiers. Your stand is that anyone who resists or speaks out against an invading, occupying force or the religious zealots (pseudo-Christian Bushie terrorists or pseudo-Muslim terrorists – there is no difference when it comes to extremists) is a spy and has zero rights. You are remarkably lost in a complex web of justifications for these atrocities.

    Lost.

    You are a poster child 30%er. You are in the dwindling remainder of Americans who still defend Bush, still think he is doing a good job, still believe the lies that led us into the Iraq invasion and corporate occupation, still think the WMDs were magically spirited off to Syria or Mars, still believe every single lie vomited onto the airwaves by morally bankrupt propagandists like Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly, still are blind to the 95% corporate ownership of the GOP leadership (national Dems are at least 50% corporately owned), still blame Clinton for everything and refuse to see the truth available to all of us who independently research and study instead of mainlining GOP talking points, still are joined at the waist to McCarthyism, still paranoid that every communist is a Satan, still terrified that every Arab is a terrorist and every Muslim part of Al Qaeda, still buying into the long-ago proven false 9/11 Commission Report, still believing that the 54% of Americans favoring impeachment of Cheney are the “loony left”, still believing that the 70% of Americans who want our troops to come home and the Iraq invasion to end are unpatriotic, still think taxation that benefits all Americans is Socialism, still think every person who wears a red beret is a Che’ commie, still think the last two Presidential elections were honestly and justly decided, still, still, still…

    YOU are in the minority.

    YOU are deluded.

    YOU have long since lost touch with the political reality.

    YOU are about to get a huge wake-up call in November, God-willing and if Diebold and the rest of the corrupt GOP-owned election machinery is banned as it should be.

    I don’t know why I bother debating you. You are hopelessly lost.

29. “Libby was CONVICTED of obstruction of justice. Why would that be? Because he was blocking the path of justice which led directly to his boss, Darth Cheney, that’s why.”

    Apparently not, otherwise why didn’t he indict Cheney? Another case of the facts getting in the way with your fantasy. Of course the reason may be because revealing Plames name was not a crime. Another crime that was committed was the fact that the prosecutor never bothered to tell the Grand Jury that revealing Plame’s name was not a crime. So basically Libby was convicted for lying about a crime that never happened.

30. And, like clockwork, beint the Brownshirt Bush worshiper that you are, you cannot touch a single subject without the “But Clinton…” specious argument.

    [Personal attack deleted] where did I mention Clinton? Why his name never crossed my keyboard. So much for near genius. Of course I realized that when I discovered you were also a “toofer.” That in itself dispelled any notions of that. 30%er? What is that? I know that number is too high to be the number of people who think highly of the democratic congress.

31. 26 “For those of us that are Americans there is a document that we often reference that claims ‘inalienable rights’ for all human beings. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It is called the Declaration of Independence.

    Uniformed or not in uniform those basic rights and respect for basic human dignity remain.

    Jesus didn’t wear a uniform, so of course you would have been among the crucifiers screaming for blood.”

    That is about as ludicrous an argument as any seen here, and that says a lot. The Declaration of Independence nor any document you can quote give “inalienable rights” to enemy soldiers not in uniform. Spies have no rights. The only reason to not shoot them is to get information from them and to use to trade. Name me a country that gives rights to spies. International law recognizes this fact. Your alluding this to Jesus is just pathetic and not worthy of comment.

32. Another FAUXNews- addled brain entry from the digitally lobotomized.

    *Yawn*

    FACTS:

    The Libby trial made clear that there were four leakers (Libby, Rove, Armitage and Fleischer) all of whom were sent to do this treasonous act by their superiors.

    ROVE AND LIBBY ONLY HAD TWO SUPERIORS EACH: BUSH & CHENEY WHO ARE COMPLICIT IN THIS TREASONOUS ACT.

    Libby was CONVICTED of obstruction of justice. Why would that be? Because he was blocking the path of justice which led directly to his boss, Darth Cheney, that’s why. Are you following along yet? Sorry if all the facts get in the way of your understanding.

    Did you miss all that spoken into evidence during the Libby trial? Apparently so, since you get all your information third hand via NeoCon spinmeisters and corporate press. I read the testimony intact online. The identity of the four leakers was established and not challenged by Libby’s defense team. It was allowed to enter as FACT during the trial. ESTABLISHED FACT. End of story. There were four leakers sent out simultaneously in an act of political retribution against Joe Wilson for having the gall to tell the truth about the Bush Administration’s pre-war lies. Wilson is a hero. Plame is a hero. Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rove, Fleischer and Armitage should all be prosecuted for high treason – compromising the identity of an active NOC CIA operative during Bushie’s war of opportunity against the nation whose only crime was daring to hide our oil under their soil. Compromising the identity of an American Intelligence officer during wartime is high treason.

    Why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted?

    BECAUSE YOUR BUDDY HEIR BUSH HAS NEUTERED THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, THAT’S WHY. HELLO? CATCHING UP YET?

    Armitage a Democrat??!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

    And, like clockwork, beint the Brownshirt Bush worshiper that you are, you cannot touch a single subject without the “But Clinton…” specious argument.

    CLINTON ISN’T PRESIDENT NOW. BUSH IS PRESIDENT. WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT CLINTON. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BUSH. THIS ISN’T COMPARE AND CONTRAST YOU PATHETIC 30%er, THIS IS ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW.

    You’d be hilarious if you weren’t so ridiculous.

33. Oh I love this bringing Scooter Libby up…talk about a travesty of justice! Even if he had been the one to disclose Plame’s name, then he would have not committed a crime. The prosecutor knew this, and did not charge him with this since no crime was committed there. The prosecutor knew all along that Libby was NOT the one who revealed the name, yet continued the witch hunt not revealing this fact. So who did reveal this name? Even though he committed no crime in doing so?? One of the old stalwart Democrats, Richard Armitage, who of course was not indicted since he committed no crime by revealing the name. I could go on and on. Now perhaps Scooter did give some conflicting statements, as did the witnesses used against him who were not charged. That is one area I really am a bit angry with Bush about…. he should have given him a full and complete pardon the very moment the conviction came down! I can only hope he does so the day Bush leaves office. Now of course, Libby does not have the socially redeeming features that say…. Mark Rich, being that he was still evading the law outside the US when the pardon came.

34. Mikael…you just don’t get it. The only one around here that is emotionally damaged is you and you’re beyond repair.

    Quoteth The Mime:

    “Somehow the horrible treatment by the British of the Prison Ship Martyrs you are using as part of your justification for torture?”

    Duh???….what’s my definition of torture? It’s not waterboarding. Get it?
    Are you that simple?

    On following threads….you still owe over 40 more corrupt Republicans and keep focus.

35. You are so irrational that I have trouble following your posts.

    Somehow the horrible treatment by the British of the Prison Ship Martyrs you are using as part of your justification for torture?

    Somehow you equate our defending of England and other European nations in WW II according to treaty with our premeditated, unjustified, empire-building invasion and illegal ongoing occupation of Iraq. Mind boggling that you could be so naive and so brainwashed.

36. If what you say about your hazing experience is true, it would at least partially explain your obvious emotional damage.

    “…every time you mouth “impeachment” you are screaming for blood and another beheading.”

    That is just one more irrational statement from you among many. There is a difference between an impeachment investigation and a beheading. I am in favor of the legal process being adhered to in all instances with basic principles of human decency and dignity being followed. You want to return to the Middle Ages, placing people’s heads on pikes, peeling off their skin and stretching them on racks. You favor irradiated uranium use melting the skin of innocent Iraqi children. You want blow torches, water-boarding, electrocution. Disgusting.

    If uniformed soldiers invaded America and you defended your home and homeland you would be a patriot, not an enemy combatant. Bush’s invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq – A COUNTRY THAT DID NOT POSE AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO US, WAS NOT INVOLVED IN 9/11, HAD NO SUBSTANTIAL LINK TO OSAMA NOR AL QAEDA PRIOR, HAD NO WMDs DESPITE THE ‘EVIDENCE’ THAT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAD MANUFACTURED AND SENT AROUND THE GLOBE AND TO CONGRESS – makes us an enemy to patriotic citizens of Iraq. This is why over 70% of Iraqis want us to leave immediately and over 50% FEEL VIOLENCE AGAINST U.S. SOLDIERS IS JUSTIFIED.

    And exactly how many of those ‘terrorists’ rounded up in Afghanistan have ever been charged or been prosecuted? Competing war lords turned in as many of their enemies as they could, branded them “Al Qaeda”. FAUXNews-addled minds such as yours are ready to justify torture and unspeakable war crimes for year after year. The vast majority are released (those that weren’t murdered in captivity) without ever being charged. This is the America you believe in? You would be better off in Stalinist Russia or under Pol Pot along with John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld – despicable sub-humans all.

    Oh… and… nobody is edited your links, but it is an interesting conspiracy theory. Feeling a bit paranoid? Look out your windows, there may be black helicopters hovering around your home. I’ve got some extra tin foil I’m not using if you want to make a few more hats.

    Oh, and going back to my post #4 in which I said: “Clinton was exonerated on all the charges that initiated his impeachment hearings”. Your response in post #5: “Mikael…exonerated?…..Clinton had his law license revoked. He committed perjury. I guess it depends on what your definition of exonerated is is is is.”…

    … if you would just slow down and take the time to wipe the froth from your mouth you may notice that I referred to “… all the charges that INITIATED his impeachment hearings”. I am 100% correct on that statement. Nothing that initiated that political witch hunt was justified and Clinton was found innocent of all initial charges. He lied under oath and was punished for that – as he should have been., but he never should have been put into that position in the first place on such trumped up charges.

    But why is it that in all discussions with you Bush worshipers wind up with you dissembling to a discussion about Clinton? Must be the brain damage from hazing.

37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Ship_Martyrs%27_Monument

    That last link didn’t take, unless it was edited.

38. No, , your frat most certainly did not waterboard your pledges. Please, at least make your believable. That is laughable. Yeah… and my frat made our pledges jump from an airplane naked without a parachute. You are going off the deep end now.

    Hell week for AXP was far worse than just waterboarding. There was the sleep deprivation for the whole week, being hosed with a high pressure hose in 40 degrees Fahrenheit after a 10 mile run (I caught pneumonia)and being locked in a 8’x 8’x 4’closet with 13 other pledges for a day…just some of the fun….Then there was Hell Night with Yucca stew which had been fermenting for a month with used kotexs, magic meat from the cafeteria, offal from some gutted deer, red wine & tabasco (for flavor) and topped off with the head of a rabbit with the eyes gouged out. I barfed all over my Big Brother before the ladel even got close to my mouth. At the end of Hell Night, we (the pledges, in pairs of two) were blindfolded and taken to seperate destinations in the middle of nowhere, in my case the Allegheny National Forest, and dumped, 200 miles from campus. No money in our pockets and forced to wear our Big Brother’s shoes.
    Waterboarding was quite common in frats back then along with other more unpleasant things, like getting your ass beat with a frat paddle with holes in it until your bloody butt looked like a crimson version of Swiss cheese. Some hazing practices ended up killing some kids. Looking back on it, I’d never would have done it with what I know now. What frat did you pledge Mikael? It certainly wasn’t Alpha Chi Rho.

    Now back to uniforms, the Declaration of Independence and the Geneva Convention.
    John Andre, British….hung as a spy, out of uniform.
    Nathan Hale, American….hung a spy, out of uniform.

    The Founding Fathers would think you’re retarded Mikael with your silly premise. When they signed that document, they were signing their death warrants. Just look at what happened to most of the signers. Ever hear of the HMS Jersey?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Ship_Martyrs'_Monument

    Back to FDR. Would you have been protesting for his impeachment for shooting the German terrorists who were out of uniform and rounded up by the FBI?
    Or how about the Germans who were shot in uniform…American uniforms…who were captured during The Buldge and were summarily shot for the newsreel cameras and broadcast to the German people via Radio Luxemburg and the Ritchie Boys? What, never heard of the Ritchie Boys?
    Well, is FDR a war criminal or what? Worthy of impeachment? How about Abe Lincoln? Harry Truman?
    [Personal insult deleted]
    Your Jesus comment is just plain stupid. It’s like saying Mikael is screaming for blood every time some poor innocent hostage is beheaded by a jihadi. Come to think of it, every time you mouth “impeachment” you are screaming for blood and another beheading.
    [Personal insult deleted]

39. Chubby,

    For those of us that are Americans there is a document that we often reference that claims ‘inalienable rights’ for all human beings. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It is called the Declaration of Independence.

    Uniformed or not in uniform those basic rights and respect for basic human dignity remain.

    Jesus didn’t wear a uniform, so of course you would have been among the crucifiers screaming for blood.

    No, liar, your frat most certainly did not waterboard your pledges. Please, at least make your lies believable. That is laughable. Yeah… and my frat made our pledges jump from an airplane naked without a parachute. You are going off the deep end now.

40. [Personal attack deleted] Copying and pasting is not typing. Same old crap…ZZZZZZZZ…..Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and growling dogs? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
    Waterboarding? My frat did that for hazing. I had it done to me for two hours. No big whoop. It’s not torture, I’ll tell you that right now, and that’s why so many with military experience finds “The Left” laughable. Now going through boot with your NBC and MOPP gear on to the CS chamber…that’s torture. I hated that:
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1bf_1177697475
    Just imagine wearing that gear in the desert heat under fire Mikael for just one moment and try not to pee your pants.
    Beating people’s bare feet with a cricket bat and being fed into a paper shredder while being videotaped and having that sent to your family….that’s torture, or has Mikael forgotten Uday and Qusay already?
    Here’s my solution Mikael. Screw waterboarding and use sodium pentathol. Get the terrorists to blabber the truth (they’re not prisoners of war and entitled to the Geneva Convention protection and I don’t give a rat’s ass if you or anybody else thinks they do)and GPS chip them after you put them under and when they wake up, turn them loose.
    FDR had no problems with German terrorists, did he Mikael? They got a tribunal and were shot. Do you see a problem with that? I don’t. Out of uniform? Not entitled to the Geneva Convention. End of story.

41. “I could cut and paste all day too, but instead, here’s a link”

    A little bit overwhelmed with all the evidence there, Chubster?

    Sorry to bring you so much truth all at once.

    I’ll type more slowly next time so that you can keep up.

42. I could cut and paste all day too, but instead, here’s a link:
    http://prorev.com/legacy.htm

43. There may not be as many convictions YET as during the completely corrupt and crime-ridden Reagan years, but when the Justice Department was completely compromised while led by a lockstep loyalist without a shred of integrity, nor patriotism – Alberto “Torture Boy” Gonzales – then we may have to wait a bit before seeing the fallout from the Bushie years. We don’t know yet what Mucasey is made of, but Bush never would have appointed him without back room “nudge & wink” promises not to prosecute his corrupt crony buddies.

44. http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/index.html

    The scandal sheet

    Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush’s presidency — every one of them worse than Whitewater.
    By Peter Dizikes

    Jan 18, 2005 | Once upon a time — about five years ago — conservative pundits often talked about “scandal fatigue.” Remember scandal fatigue? It was an affliction supposedly either turning voters against Democrats or, alternatively, a weariness in the body politic preventing Republicans from pursuing even more grievances against Bill Clinton. By any objective measure, however, after four years of George W. Bush’s presidency, the entire nation should be suffering from utter scandal exhaustion.

    Consider the raw materials of scandal that this administration has produced: False claims about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. Torture in Abu Ghraib. The virtually treasonous exposure of a CIA agent by White House officials. And those are just the best-known examples.

    After all, how many citizens can name all the ongoing investigations of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s old firm? Who remembers that the administration illicitly diverted $700 million from Afghanistan to Iraq? Or that, on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans stole strategy memos from Democrats, while a House Republican said he was offered a bribe during a crucial vote? Even a conscientious citizen cannot be expected to keep score, so Salon has compiled a list.

    If the next four years of Bush and the GOP running the federal government are anything like the previous four, however, potential scandals will lead to few political consequences for the Republicans. Bush opponents will likely be disappointed if they are waiting for a renewal of the supposed “second-term scandal jinx” dogging Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Clinton.

    After all, Washington Republicans are insulated by a rabidly partisan Congress with no interest in investigating the executive branch (and little taste for disciplining itself). By contrast, presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton each faced an adversarial Congress. As the late Senate Watergate Committee counsel Sam Dash noted in 2003 about congressional oversight: “Although it worked then, it doesn’t mean it would work now.”

    Moreover, Congress allowed the independent-counsel statute, the law that brought us Ken Starr, to expire as Bush assumed office. And the right-wing media — cable news, talk radio, several newspapers — are not about to replicate the drumbeat of scandal they pounded out while Clinton held office. Thus scandals are not a defining part of the GOP’s current identity.

    The Democrats, terminally cautious even in the minority, seem unlikely to change this dynamic — although Harry Reid, the Democrats’ new Senate leader, has announced his party will hold monthly oversight hearings, beginning this January, on “unasked and unanswered questions” about the Bush administration. Reid’s project, however, is an uphill battle. The Democrats cannot compel anyone to testify, unlike standard congressional committees, and memorable rhetoric is not a party strength. “This is about honesty and accountability and reforming our federal government,” Reid said in the prepared statement the Democratic Policy Committee released about its oversight plans.

    Just think: Someone prepared that quote. To put it more bluntly than Reid did: This is about the dozens of scandals occurring while the Republican Party has enjoyed almost complete control over the federal government. This is about the GOP’s utter disrespect for the laws of the United States. This is about stopping greed, bribery and influence-peddling.

    Indeed, here are 34 Republican scandals worthy of further attention, gathered into one place. The list focuses on scandals involving apparently illegal activity or violations of ethics codes. Not everything that is politically, legally or ethically scandalous constitutes a scandal. It is scandalous, for instance, that House Republicans have further weakened their own ethics committee. But that is not, properly speaking, a political scandal. It is just contemptible governance.

    This list is also limited to events of the past four years, or those coming to light in that time. It covers both the executive branch and the Congress, since the latter, especially the Senate, is increasingly a mere adjunct to the White House. However, the items are not arranged in terms of moral or historical gravity. Abu Ghraib might create years of anti-American hatred abroad, but it and some other headline-generating events appear near the end of the list, to help familiarize readers first with lesser-known or now-overlooked scandals. Recall how John Ashcroft broke the law? Know why Dick Cheney wants to keep those energy task force documents secret? Read on. You too, Harry Reid.

    1. Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft

    The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush’s judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.

    The problem: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states it is illegal to obtain confidential information from a government computer.

    The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department has assigned a prosecutor to the case. The staff member at the heart of the matter, Manuel Miranda, has attempted to brazen it out, filing suit in September 2004 against the DOJ to end the investigation. “A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich,” Miranda complained. Some jokes just write themselves.

    2. Doctor Detroit: The DOJ’s Bungled Terrorism Case

    The scandal: The Department of Justice completely botched the nation’s first post-9/11 terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent “a clear message” that the government would “detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells.”

    The problem: The DOJ’s lead prosecutor in the case, Richard Convertino, withheld key information from the defense and distorted supposed pieces of evidence — like a Las Vegas vacation video purported to be a surveillance tape. But that’s not the half of it. Convertino says he was unfairly scapegoated because he testified before the Senate, against DOJ wishes, about terrorist financing. Justice’s reconsideration of the case began soon thereafter. Convertino has since sued the DOJ, which has also placed him under investigation.

    The outcome: Let’s see: Overturned convictions, lawsuits and feuding about a Kafkaesque case. Nobody looks good here.

    Next Page: No-bid bonanza to Bribe-apalooza! All the Halliburton scandals in one place

    PAGE 2:

    3. Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force

    The scandal: A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001 energy-policy task force secret. What’s the big deal? The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive aspect of the story, citing a National Security Council memo from February 2001, which “directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the ‘melding’ of … ‘operational policies towards rogue states,’ such as Iraq, and ‘actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'” In short, the task force’s activities could shed light on the administration’s pre-9/11 Iraq aims.

    The problem: The Federal Advisory Committee Act says the government must disclose the work of groups that include non-federal employees; the suit claims energy industry executives were effectively task force members. Oh, and the Bush administration has portrayed the Iraq war as a response to 9/11, not something it was already considering.

    The outcome: Unresolved. In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to an appellate court.

    4. The Indian Gaming Scandal

    The scandal: Potential influence peddling to the tune of $82 million, for starters. Jack Abramoff, a GOP lobbyist and major Bush fundraiser, and Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), received that amount from several Indian tribes, while offering access to lawmakers. For instance, Texas’ Tigua tribe, which wanted its closed El Paso casino reopened, gave millions to the pair and $33,000 to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) in hopes of favorable legislation (Ney came up empty). And get this: The Tiguas were unaware that Abramoff, Scanlon and conservative activist Ralph Reed had earned millions lobbying to have the same casino shut in 2002.

    The problem: Federal officials want to know if Abramoff and Scanlon provided real services for the $82 million, and if they broke laws while backing candidates in numerous Indian tribe elections.

    The outcome: Everybody into the cesspool! The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and five federal agencies, including the FBI, IRS, and Justice Department, are investigating.

    5. Halliburton’s No-Bid Bonanza

    The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.

    The problem: The Army Corps of Engineers’ top contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to the deal, saying the contract should be the standard one-year length, and that a Halliburton official should not have been present during the discussions.

    The outcome: The FBI is investigating. The $7 billion contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the parts in a public bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse has been forced into whistle-blower protection.

    6. Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices

    The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.

    The problem: That’s not the government’s $61 million, it’s our $61 million.

    The outcome: The FBI is investigating.

    7. Halliburton’s Vanishing Iraq Money

    The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton’s charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.

    The problem: That’s not the government’s $1.8 billion, it’s our $1.8 billion.

    The outcome: The Defense Contract Audit Agency has “strongly” asked the Army to withhold about $60 million a month from its Halliburton payments until the documentation is provided.

    8. The Halliburton Bribe-apalooza

    The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO from 1995 to 2000.)

    The problem: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.

    The outcome: A veritable coalition of the willing is investigating the deal, including the Justice Department, the SEC, the Nigerian government and a French magistrate. In June, Halliburton fired two implicated executives.

    9. Halliburton: One Fine Company

    The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.

    The problem: Doing so made the company’s income appear larger, but Halliburton did not explain this to investors. The SEC ruled this accounting practice was “materially misleading.”

    The outcome: In August 2004, Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle SEC charges. One Halliburton executive has paid a fine and another is settling civil charges. Now imagine the right-wing rhetoric if, say, Al Gore had once headed a firm fined for fudging income statements.

    10. Halliburton’s Iran End Run

    The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.

    The problem: Federal sanctions have banned U.S. companies from dealing directly with Iran. To operate in Iran legally, U.S. companies have been required to set up independent subsidiaries registered abroad. Halliburton thus set up a new entity, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., to do business in Iran, but while the subsidiary was registered in the Cayman Islands, it may not have had operations totally independent of the parent company.

    The outcome: Unresolved. The Treasury Department has referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Houston, who convened a grand jury in July 2004.

    11. Money Order: Afghanistan’s Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq

    The scandal: According to Bob Woodward’s “Plan of Attack,” the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.

    The problem: Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power “to raise and support armies.” And the emergency spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001, requires the administration to notify Congress before changing war spending plans. That did not happen.

    The outcome: Congress declined to investigate. The administration’s main justification for its decision has been to claim the funds were still used for, one might say, Middle East anti-tyrant-related program activities.

    Next Page: Congress run amok and the scandals of Tom DeLay

    PAGE 3:

    12. Iraq: More Loose Change

    The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of reports in July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA assets had gone missing — 34 percent of the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root — and that the CPA’s method of disbursing $600 million in Iraq reconstruction funds “did not establish effective controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse.”

    The problem: As much as $50 million of that money was disbursed without proper receipts.

    The outcome: The CPA has disbanded, but individual government investigations into the handling of Iraq’s reconstruction continue.

    13. The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case

    The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.

    The problem: To do so could be espionage or could constitute the mishandling of classified documents.

    The outcome: A grand jury is investigating. In December 2004, the FBI searched AIPAC’s offices. A Senate committee has also been investigating the apparently unauthorized activities of the Near East and South Asia Affairs group in the Pentagon, where Franklin works.

    14. Gone to Taiwan

    The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area meetings.

    The problem: Such unauthorized trips are illegal. And we don’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

    The outcome: The case is in the courts.

    15. Wiretapping the United Nations

    The scandal: Before the United Nations’ vote on the Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation targeting diplomats from several countries.

    The problem: U.N. officials say the practice is illegal and undermines honest diplomacy, although some observers claim it is business as usual on East 42nd Street.

    The outcome: Little fuss here, but a major British scandal erupted after U.K. intelligence translator Katherine Gun leaked a U.S. National Security Agency memo requesting British help in the spying scheme, in early 2003. Initially charged under Britain’s Official Secrets Act for leaking classified information, Gun was cleared in 2004 — seemingly to avoid hearings questioning the legality of Britain’s war participation.

    16. The Boeing Boondoggle

    The scandal: In 2003, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at an inflated price: $23 billion.

    The problem: The deal was put together by a government procurement official, Darleen Druyun, who promptly joined Boeing. Beats using a headhunter.

    The outcome: In November 2003, Boeing fired both Druyun and CFO Michael Sears. In April 2004, Druyun pled guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case. In November 2004, Sears copped to a conflict-of-interest charge, and company CEO Phil Condit resigned. The government is reviewing its need for the tankers.

    17. The Medicare Bribe Scandal

    The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration’s Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son’s forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.

    The problem: Federal law prohibits the bribery of elected officials.

    The outcome: In September 2004, the House Ethics Committee concluded an inquiry by fingering House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), saying he deserved “public admonishment” for offering to endorse Smith’s son in return for Smith’s vote. DeLay has claimed Smith initiated talks about a quid pro quo. The matter of the $100,000 is unresolved; soon after his original allegations, Smith suddenly claimed he had not been offered any money. Smith’s son Brad lost his GOP primary in August 2004.

    18. Tom DeLay’s PAC Problems

    The scandal: One of DeLay’s political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority, apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the Legislature then re-drew Texas’ U.S. congressional districts to help the GOP.

    The problem: Texas law bans the use of corporate money for political purposes.

    The outcome: Unresolved. Three DeLay aides and associates — Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold — were charged in September 2004 with crimes including money laundering and unlawful acceptance of corporate contributions.

    19. Tom DeLay’s FAA: Following Americans Anywhere

    The scandal: In May 2003, DeLay’s office persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP’s nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.

    The problem: According to the House Ethics Committee, the “invocation of federal executive branch resources in a partisan dispute before a state legislative body” is wrong.

    The outcome: In October 2004, the committee rebuked DeLay for his actions.

    20. In the Rough: Tom DeLay’s Golf Fundraiser

    The scandal: DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that Westar Energy held for one of his political action committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while energy legislation was pending in the House.

    The problem: It’s one of these “appearance of impropriety” situations.

    The outcome: The House Ethics Committee tossed the matter into its Oct. 6 rebuke. “Take a lap, Tom.”

    Next Page: The many hunting partners of Antonin Scalia, and pundits on the payroll

    PAGE 4:

    21. Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire

    The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic turnout by “jamming” the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous calls for 90 minutes.

    The problem: Federal law prohibits the use of telephones to “annoy or harass” anyone.

    The outcome: Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in July 2004 to a felony charge, while Allen Raymond, former head of GOP Marketplace, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in June. In December, James Tobin, former New England campaign chairman of Bush-Cheney ’04, was indicted for conspiracy in the case.

    22. The Medicare Money Scandal

    The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare’s former administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.

    The problem: Congress voted on the bill believing it would cost $400 billion over 10 years. The program is more likely to cost $550 billion.

    The outcome: Scully denies threatening to fire Foster, as Foster has charged, but admits telling Foster to withhold the higher estimate from Congress. In September 2004, the Government Accountability Office recommended Scully return half his salary from 2003. Inevitably, Scully is now a lobbyist for drug companies helped by the bill.

    23. The Bogus Medicare “Video News Release”

    The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced imitation news-report videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration’s education policy have come to light.

    The problem: The administration broke two laws: One forbidding the use of federal money for propaganda, and another forbidding the unauthorized use of federal funds.

    The outcome: In May 2004, the GAO concluded the administration acted illegally, but the agency lacks enforcement power.

    24. Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case

    The scandal: The Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind.

    The problem: Williams did not disclose that his support was government funded until the deal was exposed in January 2005.

    The outcome: The House and FCC are considering inquiries, while Williams’ syndicated newspaper column has been terminated.

    25. Ground Zero’s Unsafe Air

    The scandal: Government officials publicly minimized the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New York’s “air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe to drink.”

    The problem: Research showed serious dangers or was incomplete. The EPA used outdated techniques that failed to detect tiny asbestos particles. EPA data also showed high levels of lead and benzene, which causes cancer. A Sierra Club report claims the government ignored alarming data. A GAO report says no adequate study of 9/11’s health effects has been organized.

    The outcome: The long-term health effects of the disaster will likely not be apparent for years or decades and may never be definitively known. Already, hundreds of 9/11 rescue workers have quit their jobs because of acute illnesses.

    26. John Ashcroft’s Illegal Campaign Contributions

    The scandal: Ashcroft’s exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.

    The problem: The maximum for such a transfer is $10,000.

    The outcome: The Federal Election Commission fined Ashcroft’s campaign treasurer, Garrett Lott, $37,000 for the transgression.

    27. Intel Inside … The White House

    The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock — including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. “Washington hadn’t seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years,” wrote Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly.

    The problem: The Code of Federal Regulations says government employees should not participate in matters in which they have a personal financial interest.

    The outcome: Then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, spurning precedent, did not refer the case to the Justice Department.

    28. Duck! Antonin Scalia’s Legal Conflicts

    The scandal: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the matter.

    The problem: Federal law requires a justice to “disqualify himself from any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

    The outcome: Scalia stayed on, arguing no conflict existed because Cheney was party to the case in a professional, not personal, capacity. Nothing new for Scalia, who in 2002 was part of a Mississippi redistricting ruling favorable to GOP Rep. Chip Pickering — son of Judge Charles Pickering, a Scalia turkey-hunting pal. In 2001, Scalia went pheasant hunting with Kansas Gov. Bill Graves when that state had cases pending before the Supreme Court.

    Next Page: Saving the worst for last: The Iraq war and torture at Abu Ghraib

    PAGE 5:

    29. AWOL

    The scandal: George W. Bush, self-described “war president,” did not fulfill his National Guard duty, and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements about it. Salon’s Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent summary of the issue.

    The problem: Military absenteeism is a punishable offense, although Bush received an honorable discharge.

    The outcome: No longer a campaign issue. But what was Bush doing in 1972?

    30. Iraq: The Case for War

    The scandal: Bush and many officials in his administration made false statements about Iraq’s military capabilities, in the months before the United States’ March 2003 invasion of the country.

    The problem: For one thing, it is a crime to lie to Congress, although Bush backers claim the president did not knowingly make false assertions.

    The outcome: A war spun out of control with unknowable long-term consequences. The Iraq Survey Group has stopped looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

    31. Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?

    The scandal: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    The problem: The statement was untrue. By March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency showed the claim, that Iraq sought materials from Niger, was based on easily discernible forgeries.

    The outcome: The identity of the forger(s) remains under wraps. Journalist Josh Marshall has implied the FBI is oddly uninterested in interviewing Rocco Martino, the former Italian intelligence agent who apparently first shopped the documents in intelligence and journalistic circles and would presumably be able to shed light on their origin.

    32. In Plame Sight

    The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame’s identity public. Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA’s behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address.

    The problem: Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly, the name of an undercover agent.

    The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the case in December 2003. While this might seem a simple matter, Fitzgerald could be unable to prove the leakers knew Plame was a covert agent.

    33. Abu Ghraib

    The scandal: American soldiers physically tortured prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented “ghost detainees” in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

    The problem: The United States is party to the Geneva Conventions, which state that “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever.”

    The outcome: Unresolved. A Pentagon internal inquiry found a lack of oversight at Abu Ghraib, while independent inquiries have linked the events to the administration’s desire to use aggressive interrogation methods globally. Notoriously, Gonzales has advocated an approach which “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” More recently, Gonzales issued qualified support for the Geneva Conventions in January 2005 Senate testimony after being nominated for attorney general. Army reservist Charles Graner was convicted in January 2005 for abusing prisoners, while a few other soldiers await trial.

    34. Guantánamo Bay Torture?

    The scandal: The U.S. military is also alleged to have abused prisoners at the U.S. Navy’s base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. FBI agents witnessing interrogations there have reported use of growling dogs to frighten prisoners and the chaining of prisoners in the fetal position while depriving them of food or water for extended periods.

    The problem: More potential violations of the Geneva Conventions.

    The outcome: An internal military investigation was launched in January 2005.

    http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/index.html

45. Criminals and Scoundrels: The 25 Most Corrupt Officials of the Bush Administration
    Download the full report | Read the executive summary
    Claude Allen
    White House
    Exhibits
    Margaret Burnette
    Food and Drug Administration
    Exhibits
    Lurita Doan
    General Services Administration
    Exhibits
    Darleen Druyun
    U.S. Air Force
    Exhibits
    Kyle “Dusty” Foggo
    Central Intelligence Agency
    Exhibits
    Andrea Grimsley
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Exhibits
    John Korsmo
    Federal Housing Finance Board
    Exhibits
    Jose Miranda
    Broadcasting Board of Governors
    Exhibits
    Janet Rehnquist
    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
    Exhibits
    Robert Schofield
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Exhibits
    David Smith
    Department of Interior
    Exhibits
    Robert Stein
    Coalition Provisional Authority
    Exhibits
    Kenneth Tomlinson
    Corporation for Public Broadcasting
    Exhibits
    Eric Andell
    U.S. Department of Education
    Exhibits
    Lester Crawford
    Food and Drug Administration
    Exhibits
    Brian Doyle
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Exhibits
    Frank Figueroa
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Exhibits
    J. Steven Griles
    U.S. Department of the Interior
    Exhibits
    Donald Keyser
    U.S. Department of State
    Exhibits
    Kevin Marlowe
    U.S. Department of Defense
    Exhibits
    William Myers
    U.S. Department of Interior
    Exhibits
    David Safavian
    White House and General Services Administration
    Exhibits
    Thomas Scully
    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
    Exhibits
    Jeffrey Stayton
    U.S. Department of the Army
    Exhibits
    Roger Stillwell
    U.S. Department of the Interior
    Exhibits

    Executive Summary
    After preparing reports on congressional corruption for the past two years, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (“CREW”) realized that as an organization focused on government ethics, we also need to evaluate conduct in the executive branch. This report represents CREW’s first effort to apply the methodology from our examination of congressional corruption to executive branch corruption.

    CREW is well aware that the vast majority of those who work for the federal government are hardworking, dedicated and law abiding; this report is not intended as an indictment of the federal workforce. Nonetheless, after culling through publicly available documents including inspector general reports, court papers and press accounts, we have been able to create a list of 25 people whose conduct is particularly egregious. Their offenses range from sexual misconduct to theft to immigration fraud.

    The misconduct covered here tends to fall into four general categories: using power to benefit friends and family members, engaging in private activities that conflict with government positions and a lack of supervision over high-level personnel. For example, Margaret Burnette, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, J. Steven Griles, David Safavian and William Myers used their positions to financially benefit friends, family members and political cronies. Lester Crawford, Darleen Drunyan, Angela Grimsley and Kevin Marlowe were indicted for conflict of interest crimes. Eric Andell, Brian Doyle and Donald Keyser could have been caught much sooner, had they been subject to greater oversight. Perhaps the most disturbing conduct from a good government perspective, however, falls outside of these categories: it is overseers, such as Lurita Doan and Janet Rehnquist, using their positions to undermine oversight.

    Because the executive branch includes so many more people than does Congress, this report cannot and will not be as comprehensive as our congressional reports. Moreover, this report does not focus on policy or agency-wide practices, but only misconduct by individuals, both personal and professional. Those named in the report were (or in some cases are) high level officials with significant responsibility and their misdeeds represent the worst sort of abuse of the public trust. This is not to say that there are not other government employees who may have committed very serious crimes, but such employees likely have not enjoyed the same level of responsibility as those named here.

    Agency contracting abuses overall like those reported in Iraq and Louisiana, which are clearly very serious, are beyond the scope of this report because at this juncture no one has been charged or prosecuted for offenses related to these scandals. In addition, incompetence alone, like that exhibited by former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, was not enough to justify inclusion.

    This report is not intended to be the last word on corruption in the Bush administration, but perhaps can serve as an opening to discuss the larger problem of the abuse of power by high level government officials.

    METHODOLOGY
    To determine the 25 most corrupt Bush administration officials, CREW reviewed hundreds of articles, thousands of pages of court records, inspector general reports from multiple agencies, and four years of U.S. Department of Justice public documents. CREW found and documented more than 160 cases of significant criminal behavior and/or misconduct over the last six years and then whittled the list down to 25 by weighing the following factors: 1) type of criminal activity and level of misconduct; 2) seniority or level of influence of the official; and 3) impact on the public trust.

    Report home
    Lewis “Scooter” Libby, though a high-level administration official under indictment, was not included in the report because CREW serves as counsel to Joseph and Valerie Wilson and, in a December 21, 2006 order, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton strictly prohibited CREW from commenting on the Libby matter for the duration of the criminal case. For the same reason, we have not included anyone else involved in publicly disclosing the identity of former CIA covert officer Valerie Wilson.

    http://www.citizensforethics.org/execcorruption

46. Michael Scanlon

47. Ralph Reed anyone?

48. Oh… and Scooter Libby – convict.

49. Loftus and Aarons write: “The real story of George Bush starts well before he launched his own career. It goes back to the 1920s, when the Dulles brothers and the other pirates of Wall Street were making their deals with the Nazis. . . ”
    “George W.H. Bush’s problems were inherited from his namesake and maternal grandfather, George Herbert ‘Bert’ Walker, a native of St. Louis, who founded the banking and investment firm of G. H. Walker and Company in 1900. Later the company shifted from St. Louis to the prestigious address of 1 Wall Street. . .
    “Walker was one of Hitler’s most powerful financial supporters in the United States. The relationship went all the way back to 1924, when Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist, was financing Hitler’s infant NAZI party. As mentioned in earlier chapters, there were American contributors as well.
    “Some Americans were just bigots and made their connections to Germany through Allen Dulles’s firm of Sullivan and Cromwell because they supported Fascism. The Dulles brothers, who were in it for profit more than ideology, arranged American investments in NAZI Germany in the 1930s to ensure that their clients did well out of the German economic recovery. . .
    “Sullivan & Cromwell was not the only firm engaged in funding Germany. According to ‘The Splendid Blond Beast,’ Christopher Simpson’s seminal history of the politics of genocide and profit, Brown Brothers, Harriman was another bank that specialized in investments in Germany. The key figure was Averill Harriman, a dominating figure in the American establishment. . .
    “The firm originally was known as W. A. Harriman & Company. The link between Harriman & Company’s American investors and Thyssen started in the 1920s, through the Union Banking Corporation, which began trading in 1924. In just one three-year period, the Harriman firm sold more than $50 million of German bonds to American investors. ‘Bert’ Walker was Union Banking’s president, and the firm was located in the offices of Averill Harriman’s company at 39 Broadway in New York.
    “In 1926 Bert Walker did a favor for his new son-in-law, Prescott Bush. It was the sort of favor families do to help their children make a start in life, but Prescott came to regret it bitterly. Walker made Prescott vice president of W. A. Harriman. The problem was that Walker’s specialty was companies that traded with Germany. As Thyssen and the other German industrialists consolidated Hitler’s political power in the 1930s, an American financial connection was needed. According to our sources, Union Banking became an out-and-out NAZI money-laundering machine. . .
    “In [1931], Harriman & Company merged with a British-American investment company to become Brown Brothers, Harriman. Prescott Bush became one of the senior partners of the new company, which relocated to 59 Broadway, while Union Banking remained at 39 Broadway. But in 1934 Walker arranged to put his son-in-law on the board of directors of Union Banking.
    “Walker also set up a deal to take over the North American operations of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a cover for I.G. Farben’s NAZI espionage unit in the United States. The shipping line smuggled in German agents, propaganda, and money for bribing American politicians to see things Hitler’s way. The holding company was Walker’s American Shipping & Commerce, which shared the offices at 39 Broadway with Union Banking. In an elaborate corporate paper trail, Harriman’s stock in American Shipping & Commerce was controlled by yet another holding company, the Harriman Fifteen Corporation, run out of Walker’s office. The directors of this company were Averill Harriman, Bert Walker, and Prescott Bush. . .
    “. . . In a November 1935 article in Common Sense, retired Marine General Smedley D. Butler blamed Brown Brothers, Harriman for having the U.S. marines act like ‘racketeers’ and ‘gangsters’ in order to exploit financially the peasants of Nicaragua. . . [ check out this powerful essay by America’s most decorated marine to that date.]
    “. . . A 1934 congressional investigation alleged that Walker’s ‘Hamburg-Amerika Line subsidized a wide range of pro-NAZI propaganda efforts both in Germany and the United States.’ Walker did not know it, but one of his American employees, Dan Harkins, had blown the whistle on the spy apparatus to Congress. Harkins, one of our best sources, became Roosevelt’s first double agent . . . [and] kept up the pretense of being an ardent NAZI sympathizer, while reporting to Naval Intelligence on the shipping company’s deals with NAZI intelligence.
    “Instead of divesting the NAZI money,” continue the authors, “Bush hired a lawyer to hide the assets. The lawyer he hired had considerable expertise in such underhanded schemes. It was Allen Dulles. According to Dulles’s client list at Sullivan & Cromwell, his first relationship with Brown Brothers, Harriman was on June 18, 1936. In January 1937 Dulles listed his work for the firm as ‘Disposal of Stan [Standard Oil] Investing stock.’
    “As discussed in Chapter 3, Standard Oil of New Jersey had completed a major stock transaction with Dulles’s NAZI client, I.G. Farben. By the end of January 1937 Dulles had merged all his cloaking activities into one client account: ‘Brown Brothers Harriman-Schroeder Rock.’ Schroeder, of course, was the NAZI bank on whose board Dulles sat. The ‘Rock’ were the Rockefellers of Standard Oil, who were already coming under scrutiny for their NAZI deals. By May 1939 Dulles handled another problem for Brown Brothers, Harriman, their ‘Securities Custodian Accounts.’
    “If Dulles was trying to conceal how many NAZI holding companies Brown Brothers, Harriman was connected with, he did not do a very good job. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, word leaked from Washington that affiliates of Prescott Bush’s company were under investigation for aiding the Nazis in time of war. . .
    “. . . The government investigation against Prescott Bush continued. Just before the storm broke, his son, George, abandoned his plans to enter Yale and enlisted in the U.S. Army. It was, say our sources among the former intelligence officers, a valiant attempt by an eighteen-year-old boy to save the family’s honor.
    “Young George was in flight school in October 1942, when the U.S. government charged his father with running NAZI front groups in the United States. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, all the shares of the Union Banking Corporation were seized, including those held by Prescott Bush as being in effect held for enemy nationals. Union Banking, of course, was an affiliate of Brown Brothers, Harriman, and Bush handled the Harrimans’ investments as well.
    “Once the government had its hands on Bush’s books, the whole story of the intricate web of NAZI front corporations began to unravel. A few days later two of Union Banking’s subsidiaries — the Holland American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation — also were seized. Then the government went after the Harriman Fifteen Holding Company, which Bush shared with his father-in-law, Bert Walker, the Hamburg-Amerika Line, and the Silesian-American Corporation. the U.S. government found that huge sections of Prescott Bush’s empire had been operated on behalf of NAZI Germany and had greatly assisted the German war effort.” (1)

50. Excerpts from
    “Ethics Cloud Over California Republicans (June 9, 2007)
    Washington (AP)
    -A disproportionate number of the state’s congressional Republicans are facing ethics questions that threaten to sink their careers and their party’s political fortunes too.
    Of 201 House Republicans, at least six are known to have attracted the attention of federal investigators – and four are from California. Their woes come in the wake of the lurid corruption scandal that sent disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of San Diego to prison last year for taking $2.4 million in bribes.
    Although their situations have a few common threads, some analysts attribute the cluster of California cases to coincidence, plus the state’s large size and district lines drawn to protect incumbents.
    “When your seat is so safe that you’re not concerned about perception, you become too wedded to Washington and you lose touch with your constituency, and you lose touch with your real purpose,” said Karen Hanretty, a Republican strategist and former California Republican Party spokeswoman.
    Republican Rep. Richard Pombo was chairman of the House Resources Committee when he lost in a GOP-leaning Central California district last November amid questions about his ties to Abramoff.
    There are 33 Democrats from California, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, and none are known to be facing active FBI scrutiny.
    Besides Rep. John Doolittle, a nine-term Northern California conservative under investigation in the influence-peddling scandal around jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, California Republicans with ethics problems are:
    Rep. Jerry Lewis, now in his 15th term and chairman of the Appropriations Committee last year when federal prosecutors in Los Angeles began investigating his ties to a lobbyist with clients in his district.
    Rep. Gary Miller, in his fifth term, who’s drawn scrutiny over a tax deferral strategy he used in a profitable real estate sale to a Southern California town outside his district. (Despite his being under investigation by the FBI, following their disastrous drubbing in the Nov. 2006 elections, the Republican leadership made Miller the ranking member of oversight subcommittee of House Financial Services Committee. How fitting! )
    Rep. Ken Calvert, in his eighth term, who denies any conflict over pushing federal funding for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles from property he sold at a profit. The FBI pulled Calvert’s financial disclosure forms a year ago, but he says there’s no evidence he’s under active investigation.”
    [ apnews.myway.com/article/20070609/D8PL679G0.html ]

51. Did Duke Cunningham get mentioned?

52. And I haven’t even begun to address the current Bush Administration.

53. GOP Presidential Candidate Giuliani
    As for Rudolph Giuliani, among the many problems discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani , on of the most significant – given the problems of the Bush administration with encroachments over personal freedoms, ” “More than 35 successful lawsuits were brought against Giuliani and his administration for blocking free speech.”
    When it serves his political ambitions, Rudolph Giuliani talks about his upbringing as a devout Catholic, his thoroughly Catholic education, including a short stint in a seminary, until he entered a secular law school. But ever since he started shedding wives, he has been rather alienated from his church. His principal connection seems to be through his close friend, Monsignor Alan Placa, who was best man at his first wedding to his second cousin, officiated at his second church wedding and baptized Giuliani’s son and daughter. Placa was barred from the ministry after he was accused of sexual abuse, but he received special permission to preside at the funeral of Giuilani’s mother, Helen, in 2002. Placa has been working for Giuliani’s consulting business, Giuliani Partners, despite the urging of abuse victims that he be terminated. ( Source : boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/ articles/2007/08/10/giuliani_evokes_catholic_upbringing_on_campaign_trail/?page=1)

54. Ronald Reagan’s Criminal Administration:
    “By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever.”

    James Watt, Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior was indicted on 41 felony counts for using connections at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help his private clients seek federal funds for housing projects in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Watt conceded that he had received $500,000 from clients who were granted very favorable housing contracts after he had intervened on their behalf. In testifying before a House committee Watt said: “That’s what they offered and it sounded like a lot of money to me, and we settled on it.” Watt was eventually sentenced to five years in prison and 500 hours of community service.
    Although not convicted, Edwin Meese III, resigned as Reagan’s Attorney General after having been the subject of investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel on two occasions (Wedtech and Iran-Contra), during the 3 short years he was in office.
    E. Bob Wallach, close friend and law classmate of Attorney General Edwin Meese, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $250,000 in connection with the Wedtech influence-peddling scandal.
    Lyn Nofziger–Convicted on charges of illegal lobbying of White House in Wedtech scandal.
    Michael Deaver received three years’ probation and was fined one hundred thousand dollars after being convicted for lying to a congressional subcommittee and a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after leaving the White House.
    The Iran-Contra scandal. In June, 1984, at a National Security Council meeting, CIA Director Casey urged President Reagan to seek third-party aid for the Nicaraguan contras. Secretary of State Schultz warned that it would be an “impeachable offense” if the U.S. government acted as conduit for such secret funding. But that didn’t stop them. That same day, Oliver North was seeking third-party aid for the contras. But Reagan, the “teflon President” avoided serious charges or impeachment.
    Casper Weinberger was Secretary of Defense during Iran-Contra. In June 1992 he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of concealing from congressional investigators and prosecutors thousands of pages of his handwritten notes. The personal memoirs taken during high level meetings, detailed events in 1985 and 1986 involving the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger claimed he was being unfairly prosecuted because he would not provide information incriminating Ronald Reagan. Weinberger was scheduled to go on trial January 5, 1993, where the contents of his notes would have come to light and may have implicated other, unindicted conspirators. While Weinberger was never directly linked to the covert operations phase of the Iran-Contra affair, he is believed to have been involved in the cover-up of the ensuing scandal. According to Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, Weinberger’s notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to congress and the American public. Some of the notes are believed to have evidence against then Vice-President George Bush who pardoned Weinberger to keep him from going to trial.
    Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor indicted for defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4. million.
    { Republicans will point out that Donovan was acquitted. And that really matters in Donovan’s case, because he was a Republican. But it didn’t matter for Clinton or any of his cabinet, most all of whom were acquitted, because they were Democrats!}
    Elliott Abrams was appointed by President Reagan in 1985 to head the State Department’s Latin American Bureau. He was closely linked with ex-White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver North’s covert movement to aid the Contras. Working for North, Abrams coordinated inter-agency support for the contras and helped solicit illegal funding from foreign powers as well as domestic contributors. Abrams agreed to cooperate with Iran-Contra investigators and pled guilty to two charges reduced to misdemeanors. He was sentenced in 1991 to two years probation and 100 hours of community service but was pardoned by President George Bush.
    Robert C. McFarlane was appointed Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor in October 1983 and become well-known as a champion of the MX missile program in his role as White House liaison to congress. In 1984, Mc Farlane initiated the review of U.S. policy towards Iran that led directly to the arms for hostages deal. He also supervised early National Security Council efforts to support the Contras. Shortly after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed in early 1987, McFarlane took an overdose of the tranquilizer Valium in an attempt to end his life. In his own words: “What really drove me to despair was a sense of having failed the country.” McFarlane pled guilty to four misdemeanors and was sentenced to two years probation and 200 hours of community service. He was also fined $20,000. He received a blanket pardon from President George Bush.
    Oliver North–Convicted of falsifying and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress. Conviction overturned on appeal due to legal technicalities.
    John Poindexter, Reagan’s national security advisor, –guilty of five criminal counts involving conspiracy to mislead Congress, obstructing congressional inquiries, lying to lawmakers, used “high national security” to mask deceit and wrong-doing.
    Richard Secord pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress over Iran-Contra.
    Alan D. Fiers was the Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Central American Task Force. Fiers pled guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information from congress about Oliver North’s activities and the diversion of Iran arms sale money to aid the Contras. He was sentenced to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service. Fiers agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for having his felonies reduced to misdemeanors and his testimony gave a boost to the long standing criminal investigation of Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor. Fiers testified that he and three CIA colleagues knew by mid-1986 that profits from the TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran were being diverted to the Contras months before it became public knowledge. Alan Fiers received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President Bush.
    Clair George was Chief of the CIA’s Division of Covert Operations under President Reagan. In August 1992 a hung jury led U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to declare a mistrial in the case of Clair George who was accused of concealing from Congress his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair. George had been named by Alan Fiers when Fiers turned state’s evidence for Lawrence Walsh’s investigation. In a second trial on charges of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice, George was convicted of lying to two congressional committees in 1986. George faced a maximum five year federal prison sentence and a $20,000 fine for each of the two convictions. Jurors cleared George of five other charges including two counts of lying to a federal grand jury. Those charges would have carried a mandatory 10 months in prison upon conviction. Clair George received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President George Bush.
    Duane R. (Dewey) Clarridge was head of the CIA’s Western European Division under President Reagan. He was indicted on November 29, 1991 for lying to congress and to the Tower Commission that investigated Iran- Contra. Clarridge was charged with five counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements for covering up his knowledge of a November 25, 1985 shipment of HAWK missiles to Iran. Clarridge was also suspected of diverting to the Contras weapons that were originally intended for the Afghan mujahaddeen guerrillas. Clarridge received a blanket pardon for his crimes on Christmas Eve 1992 from President George Bush.
    Environmental Protection Agency’s favoritism toward polluters. Assistant administrator unduly influenced by chemical industry lobbyists. Another administrator resigned after pressuring employees to tone down a critical report on a chemical company accused of illegal pollution in Michigan. The deputy chief of federal activities was accused of compiling an interagency “hit” or “enemies” list, like those kept in the Nixon Watergate period, singling out career employees to be hired, fired or promoted according to political beliefs.
    Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations she politically manipulated the Superfund money.
    Rita Lavelle was fired after accusing a senior EPA official of “systematically alienating the business community.” She was later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served three months of a six-month prison sentence. After an extensive investigation, in August 1984, a House of Representatives subcommittee concluded that top-level EPA appointees by Reagan for three years “violated their public trust by disregarding the public health and the environment, manipulating the Superfund program for political purposes, engaging in unethical conduct and participating in other abuses.”.
    Neglected nuclear safety. A critical situation involving nuclear safety had been allowed to develop during the Reagan era. Immense sums, estimated at 200 billion or more, would be required in the 1990s to replace and make safe America’s neglected, aging, deteriorating, and dangerous nuclear facilities.
    Savings & Loan Bail-out. Hundreds of billions of dollars were needed to bail out savings and loan institutions that either had failed during the deregulation frenzy of the eighties or were in danger of bankruptcy.
    Reckless airline deregulation. Deregulation of airline industry took too broad a sweep, endangering public safety.
    Additionally:
    Richard Allen, National Security adviser resigned amid controversy over an honorarium he received for arranging an interview with Nancy Reagan.
    Richard Beggs, chief administrator at NASA was indicted for defrauding the government while an executive at General Dynamics.
    Guy Flake, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, resigned after allegations of a conflict of interest in contract negotiations.
    Louis Glutfrida, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned amid allegations of misuses of government property.
    Edwin Gray, Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank was charged with illegally repaying himself and his wife $26,000 in travel costs.
    Max Hugel, CIA chief of covert operations who resigned after allegations of fraudulent financial dealings.
    Carlos Campbell, Assistant Secretary of Commerce resigned over charges of awarding federal grants to his personal friends’ firms.
    John Fedders, chief of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission resigned over charges of beating his wife.
    Arthur Hayes, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration resigned over illegal travel reimbursements.
    J. Lynn Helms, chief of the Federal Aviation Administration resigned over a grand jury investigation of illegal business activities.
    Marjory Mecklenburg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources resigned over irregularities on her travel vouchers.
    Robert Nimmo, head of the Veterans Administration resigned when a report criticized him for improper use of government funds.
    J. William Petro, U.S. Attorney fired and fined for tipping off an acquaintance about a forthcoming Grand Jury investigation.
    Thomas C. Reed, White House counselor and National Security Council adviser resigned and paid a $427,000 fine for stock market insider trading.
    Emanuel Savas, Assistant Secretary of HUD resigned over assigning staff members to work on government time on a book that guilty to expense account fraud and accepting kickbacks on government contracts.
    Charles Wick, Director of the U.S. Information Agency investigated for taping conversations with public officials without their approval.
    As of March 27, 2007, it was only an indictment, but Bloomberg News was reporting that David Stockman, President Reagan’s budget director, was indicted on charges of defrauding investors and banks of $1.6 billion while chairman of Collins & Aikman Corp., an auto parts maker that collapsed days after he quit.
    Two types of problems typified the ethical misconduct cases of the Reagan years, and both had heavy consequences to citizens everywhere. One stemmed from ideology and deregulatory impulses run amok; the other, from classic corruption on a grand scale.
    * The Pentagon procurement scandal, which resulted from the Republicans’ enormous infusion of money too quickly into the Defense Department after the lean Carter years .
    * Massive fraud and mismanagement in the Department of Housing and Urban Development throughout Reagan’s eight years. These were finally documented in congressional hearings in spring 1989, after Reagan left office. Cost the taxpayers billions of dollars in losses. What made this scandal most shameful was that Reagan’s’ friends and fixers profited at the expense of the poor, the very people HUD and the federal government were pledged to assist through low-income housing. . .
    Despite their many public lies about the matter, it was eventually proven that the Sales of weapons to Iran, followed by illegal financial support of the Central American Contras were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter. Of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision. Weinberger eventually acquiesced and ordered the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms. Large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials in an attempt to cover up the administration’s extensive corruption.

55. October 7, 2005
    “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a U.S. legislative watchdog group, has released a report attempting to document the unethical and illegal activities of who they are calling the “most tainted members of Congress”. In describing the reasons for the report Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said, “[CREW] was compelled to research and release a report on these corrupt members because the ethics committees in both the House and Senate are completely inert. The report calls for the House and Senate to act to investigate and take appropriate action against them for these violations of the rules.” She went on to attack both parties regarding ethics, “Democrats are just as much to blame as Republicans for the current ethics deadlock. The Democrats won’t file ethics complaints against even the most egregious violators like DeLay and Ney. The Democrats are spineless.”
    The report is entitled “Beyond DeLay: The 13 Most Corrupt Members of Congress”, seeking to capitalize on the current media attention on ethics that has come about due to the indictments of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
    The report covers possible violations of federal laws, as well as congressional ethics rules. To compile the report, CREW drew upon Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports and audits, sworn testimony, emails, and personal financial and travel disclosure forms. By analyzing that information, CREW then attempted to determine if the member’s activities violated federal laws, regulations, or congressional ethics rules. (excluding the obvious Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay)
    (The 11 Republican and 2 Democratic) “most corrupt” members of Congress covered are:

    Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) Defeated in 2006
    Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN, Senate Majority leader), Retired in 2006
    Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Defeated in 2006
    Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO, House Majority Whip)
    Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA) Imprisoned in 2006
    Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
    [corruption:] Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
    Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
    Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) Resigned in 2006
    Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) Defeated in 2006
    Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
    Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
    [corruption:] Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) The Epidemic of Republican resignations:
    Randy “Duke” Cunningham, (CA – Nov ,2005) resigned from Congress after pleading guilty to taking more than $2 million in bribes in a criminal conspiracy involving at least three defense contractors.
    Tom Delay, (TX – June, 2006) .
    Mark Foley (FL Sept., 2006) .
    Bob Ney, (OH -Oct. ,2006) resigned from leadership positions and announced he was bowing out of re-election campaign a month before election day.

56. recent Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
    and Heart Surgeon & Hospital Chain owner :
    “Hall of Shame ” Award winner for 1997, 1998 and 1999
    Senator Bill Frist” took money from the tobacco industry, $23,000 so far (Source Center for Responsive Politics at URL http://www.crp.org/tob96/tobacco91-96.htm ). He gives good return to the industry for their investment in him, by voting in their interests in most instances.
    Public Citizen gives Frist a rating of 13% [ the ideal being 100% ] on tobacco issues. . .
    When Republican Senators killed the McCain Bill (S1415) which, properly amended, would have been a powerful force to reduce the damage tobacco does to our society, Frist voted in favor of the tobacco industry on 12 out of 14 votes, for a cumulative score of 14%. That’s a failing grade in any school ! Check it out for yourself at Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/tobacco/mcpac.htm#List.
    So what’s the big deal? 75% of senators, Republican and Democrat, take money from tobacco companies?
    The big deal is that [in addition to being elected to be a representative of the public,] Bill Frist is a doctor! Not only is he a doctor, he is a thoracic surgeon! Thoracic surgeons have more personal experience with the suffering of patients with tobacco caused diseases than most other physicians. They are the best, and often the only, hope of cure for patients suffering from tobacco caused diseases, including coronary artery disease, lung cancer, stroke, aortic aneurysm, peripheral artery disease and emphysema. Frist was actually a super-specialist who transplanted new lungs into emphysema sufferers. The senator is a very bright man; a Harvard man. He can’t claim ignorance of the fact that cigarettes cause 480,000 premature deaths in our country alone each year (not to mention the mounting number of deaths American tobacco is causing in other countries, now that their profits are being squeezed a little in the U.S.A.)
    Current GOP Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “is pushing $25 million in earmarked federal funds for a British defense contractor that is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and suspected by American diplomats of a longstanding, widespread pattern of bribery allegations.” (Oct. 27, 2007) See http://www.kentucky.com/454/story/214167.html .

57. Presidential candidate, Sen. Fred Thompson’s Adviser & Supporter is convicted criminal
    Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country (in 2007) on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.
    Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation. ”
    [washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/03/AR2007110301153.html?wpisrc=newsletter]

58. [immorality:] In Connecticut, the holier-than-thou Republican party chose the mayor of one of the state’s largest cities as its candidate for the U.S. Senate. If Joe Lieberman had caved in to Republican demands in the year 2000 that he not run for relection to the Senate at the same time that he was running for the vice presidency, then our nation would have had a Republican Senator from Conn., named Philip Giordano at least until he was sentenced to serve his 38 year sentence in Federal prison as a result of the FBI investigating him for financial shenanigans and discovering in the process that this crooked, disgusting Republican office holder had been repeatedly molesting the 8 and ten year old daughter and niece of his prostitute-mistress (in the mayor’s office among other places).
    There was more on this disgusting Republican office holder at : 1010wins.com/topstories, but it has since been removed..
    [immorality:] Bob Packwood, Senator (R-Ore.), resigned in 1995 under a threat of public senate hearings related to 10 female ex-staffers accusing him of sexual harassment.
    [corruption:] George Allen, US Senator (R-Virginia), if you can believe a book about him published by his own sister, is a brutal bully . [immorality:Although denying a charge of being homosexual in Oct. 2006, US Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in a public bathroom in Aug. 2007 [ http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/19763-1.html ]
    [corruption:] Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest serving U. S. senator ever. Federal Corruption Probe Includes Seafood Industry Earmarks. Also, the FBI and a federal grand jury have been investigating an extensive remodeling project at U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens’ home in Girdwood that involved the top executive of Veco Corp. in the hiring of at least one of the key contractors. (Results of investigations not in, as of Nov. 2007. See http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-07-31-stevens_N.htm Steven’s son, Ben, was head of the Alaska state senate and under investigation for much more serious charges in Alasak).
    [corruption:] Leader of the House Republicans, Tom DeLay, has been the long time protector of promoters of slave labor, prostitution and abortion in a U.S. territory.
    Yet in 2002, The D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship named DeLay “Distinguished Christian Statesman of the year.” “The Texas congressman openly shares his faith and has voluntary Bible studies with his staff.”
    The corruption of House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, and his gang of “40 thieves” is so extensive that it takes whole web sites to cover, such as http://www.dropthehammer.org/corruption/, &
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay.
    and now many MORE Republican Congressmen & women :
    [immorality:] According to L. H. Carter, reported to be one of Newt Gingrich’s closest friends until a falling-out in 1979, “Newt is amoral. There isn’t any right or wrong, there isn’t any conservative or liberal. There’s only what will work best for Newt Gingrich.”
    Mary Kahn, wife of Mr. Gingrich’s Congressional campaign manager during the 1970s said, “Newt uses people and then discards them as useless. He really is a man with no conscience. He just doesn’t seem to care who he hurts or why.” Keep those to quotes in mind as you read what Mr. Gingrich told the Washington Post on January 3, 1995: “I have an enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I am doing it.”
    [immorality:] When Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) was a mere state representative back home in Illinois, being a devout practicing Catholic husband and father of four sons, didn’t hamper his five (or seven) year affair with a married woman with three kids, an affair that continued even after the woman’s husband, Fred Snodgrass, found out about it and demanded that Hyde leave his wife alone.
    Yet, when this leader of the Clinton impeachment process in the Congress was asked how he felt about his own infidelity and the breaking up that family, he exonerated himself on the basis that it was “a youthful indiscretion” (committed in his early forties when he was not much younger than Clinton!). This from “Mr. Roman Catholic Layman” and leading spokesman for the Catholic pro-life stance in the Congress, whom the Pope had honored as an outstanding Catholic layman. ( See Hypocrite of the House).
    [immorality:] Bob Livingston (R-Louisiana) was about to replace Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House until he resigned in disgrace when it was revealed that he admitted to had been involved in several adulterous affairs, (while attempting to crucify Democratic President Clinton for having done much less)!
    [immorality:] Bob Barr (R-Georgia): the principal sponsor of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, has been married three (or is it now four) times. And at a party in 1992, Barr actually licked whipped cream off the breasts of two women, neither of them his current wife. Now that’s family values!
    [immorality:] Bill Thomas (R-California):
    This 11-term Republican is chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on Health. In June, (2003?) the Bakersfield Californian reported that Thomas, who is married, was having an affair with health care lobbyist Deborah Steelman, who steered huge campaign gifts to Thomas’ war chest. In an “open letter to friends and neighbors” (voters), Thomas did not deny the relationship, but said during his legislative career, ” . . . Any personal failures of commitment or responsibility to my wife, family, or friends are just that, personal. I have never traded a public responsibility for a personal one and I never will.”
    [immorality:] Dan Burton (R-Indiana):
    The Chairman of the House Government Reform & Oversight Committee. He hates President Clinton so much that he publicly called him a “scumbag”. Following an expose, Burton was forced to admit that he fathered an out-of-wedlock child, a fact he denied for years.
    He has yet to admit, however, that during 38 years of marriage he has committed adultery with dozens of women, sexually assaulted others (including a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood), and kept mistresses on his campaign and public payrolls – to the tune of at least a half-million dollars.
    [immorality:] Charles Canady (R-Florida), Judiciary Committee member. A leading opponent of abortion, Canady lied to his constituents about his adulterous affair with Sharon Becker, which caused her divorce from Florida businessman Robert Becker.
    [immorality:] Dick Armey (R-Texas): as an economics professor before entering Congress, was accused of sexually harassing female students, according to the Dallas Observer.
    [immorality:] John Peterson (R-Pennsylvania): has been accused of sexual harassment and hostile-work-environment claims by six women.
    [immorality:] As chairman of the House transportation committee, Alaska Congressman Don Young received thousands of dollars from people who received millions of dollars of government money. (Results of investigations not in as of Nov. 2007. see http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/21221.html & http://RepublicanCorruptioninAlaska.notlong.com )
    [corruption:] The State of S. Dakota is so sparsely settled that it has only one Congressman, “Wild Bill” Janklow, who has been elected by his Republican supporters for years either as Governor, Attorney General or Congressman. Many Native Americans believe Janklow guilty of rape or sexual indecency on Jancita Eagle Deer, a minor and legal infant in his custody and care, on or about January 13, 1967, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota. That charge has not be proved or disproved to date, but Janklow has a long series of other charges against him that have been proved including a dozen speeding charges, the most recent of which involved driving some 70 miles over the speed limit (i.e. through a stop sign) and killing another motorist. See much more about this great Republican office-holder who once got elected after telling his Republican supporters : ‘The only way to deal with the Indian problem in America,’ he admitted saying, is to put a gun in the AIM [American Indian Movement] leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.” : http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/08/21_janklow.html
    [corruption:] Rep. Katherine Harris who as Secretary of State and Campaign Manager of the Bush campaign in Florida in 2000 was instrumental in Bush’s capture of the White House. Defense contractor Mitchell Wade agreed to pay a $1 million fine — the second-largest in the Federal Election Commission’s 32-year history — for breaking campaign laws by funneling corporate contributions to Harris and to Republican Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia. [ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/291455.html ]
    Wade pleaded guilty in February 2006 to bribing former Rep. Randy ”Duke” Cunningham of California.
    [immorality:] Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho): one of first to condemn Clinton, admitted to having a six year extramarital affair with a married associate. The Spokane Spokesman-Review, but now she claims a pardon from a higher authority: “I’ve asked for God’s forgiveness, and I’ve received it,” she revealed. (She has since divorced and remarried – no doubt with the Lord’s blessing!-)
    [immorality:] J.C. Watts (R-Oklahoma): has said “Character is simply doing right when no one is looking.” Watts has tried to cover up his out-of-wedlock child.
    [immorality:] Connie Mack (R-Florida): another family values Republican who ran successfully for Congress now finds himself without a family, a bitter soon-to-be ex-wife, without custody of his children and dating Sonny Bono’s widow, a Palm Springs Congresswoman, in the process of divorce herself from her second husband.
    [immorality:] John Schmitz (R-Orange County, CA), former extreme right-wing Republican fathered two children by a mistress — a former student named Carla Stuckle whom Schmitz taught when he was a professor at Santa Ana College. One of these children was once admitted to an Orange County hospital with hair tied in a square knot around his penis so tightly that it was almost severed.
    Congressman Schmitz’ daughter, Mary Kay LeTourneau, made national headlines when as a school teacher, she was arrested twice for having sex and producing two children with an underage student of hers (beginning when he was only 13 years old).
    [immorality:] Don Sherwood (R-PA) Had a five year adulterous affair which only ended when his mistress sued him for physical abuse (and attempted murder?) in 2004.
    [immorality:] Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl, which produced a child.
    [immorality:] Donald “Buz” Lukens (R-Ohio) was found guilty of having sex with a minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
    [immorality:] Ken Calvert (R-California) said in 1998, “We can’t forgive what occurred between the President and Lewinsky.” This is the same Christian Coalition ally, who was caught by police in 1993 receiving oral sex from a prostitute. His ex-wife also sued him for failure to pay alimony.
    [immorality:] On July 20, 1983, the House voted to simultaneously censure two members of Congress for sexual misconduct, the first time it had ever done so.
    Dan Crane (R-Illinois) was censured for having sexual relations with a 17 year-old female page.
    Gerry Studds(D-Mass.) was censured for having sexual relations with a 17 year-old male page.
    Conservative Republicans try to get some kind of political advantage by treating these two cases as morally equivalent, or they speak only of the Democrat, Studds. But here’s the rest of the story that they don’t want people to know:
    Repub. Crane was a married man at the time and a father of six young children, while Dem. Studds had been single at the time. As homosexuals, Studds and the page were not allowed to marry, but their relationship was so consensual that they had been together for ten years from the time of the original liason until 1983, when the “scandal” broke.
    Neither of the two resigned from Congress; they both ran for re-election.
    The Repub. Crane was defeated. The Dem. Studds was re-elected for 5 more terms for a total of 20 years.
    [immorality:] Robert Bauman was campaigning for his fourth term as a Maryland Congressman in 1980. A practicing Roman Catholic with a wife and child, he was one of the most vocal conservatives in a very conservative Congress. He regularly rallied for old-fashioned values and attacked all supporters of abortion and homosexual rights. His campaign looked rock-solid, before it changed overnight with a series of shocking revelations. The public learned that Bauman had been charged with soliciting sex from a 16-year old boy he picked up at a gay bar, and that he had been the victim of an extortion scheme by a man who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with him. This, combined with an alcohol problem (which did not seem to bother his fellow Congressmen before), doomed his political career.
    [immorality:] Sue Myrick, Congresswoman (R-NC), describes herself as a “devout Christian.” Yet she’s divorced and now married to the man with whom some say she has admitted committing adultery when she and he were married to their prior spouses.
    [immorality:] Jim Bunn, (R-Oregon) With his success due in great part to support from the Christian Coalition, Bunn won his congressional seat, then left his wife (and mother of his five children), married a staffer, and put his new wife on the state payroll with a salary of $ 97,500.
    Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman, currently a conservative talk show host. Resigned his congressional seat abruptly to spend more time with his family, amidst allegations of an affair. His intern, Lori Klausutis, was soon after found dead in his office. The medical examiner, Dr. Michael Berkland, ( who had his license revoked in Missouri for falsifying information in an autopsy report, before being hired in Florida,) ruled the case an accident, after giving conflicting information about the victim’s injuries and before even getting the results of blood tests he had ordered. He said he lied about the case because “The last thing we wanted was 40 questions about a head injury.” The Florida Medical Examiner’s Commission later fired him for failure to complete dozens of autopsy reports in 2001 and 2002, a violation of state statutes.[ see more at http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.05B.Klausutis.1.htm ].
    [immorality:] Ed Schrock, two-term republican congressman, with a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, consistently opposed gay rights. Married, with wife and kids. Withdrew his candidacy for a third term after tapes of him soliciting for gay sex were circulated.

    http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/gopcorruption-1.html

59. Here’s an interesting article from “Pat & Jerry Country”:
    “Convicted sex offender wins ‘Republican of the Year’ award”,
    by Matthew Roy, The Virginian-Pilot ©
    February 13, 2002
    Suffolk,VA — ” previous commitment will keep a Suffolk man from traveling to Washington, D.C., to accept a Republican of the Year award: He’s serving a 26-year state prison sentence.
    Spokesmen for the National Republican Congressional Committee, an arm of the Republican National Committee that raises millions of dollars to elect GOP candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives, acknowledged Tuesday that convicted sex offender Mark A. Grethen was invited to accept the award at its Business Advisory Council’s luncheon in March. U.S Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairs the NRCC. . . The award was rescinded after the NRCC learned that Grethen, 44, a former businessman, was convicted last year of six sex crimes involving children — two counts each of forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and indecent liberties. He is in the Deep Meadow Correctional Center, and his projected release date is Sept. 25, 2024.”

60. Mikael…exonerated?…..Clinton had his law license revoked. He committed perjury. I guess it depends on what your definition of exonerated is is is is.

    How about the whole stinking Democratic Party Apparatchiks?

    DNC – The Federal Election Commission imposed $719,000 in fines against participants in the 1996 Democratic Party fundraising scandals involving contributions from China, Korea and other foreign sources. The Federal Election Commission said it decided to drop cases against contributors of more than $3 million in illegal DNC contributions because the respondents left the country or the corporations are defunct.

    Then there is the Code Pink fink, Mullah Murtha…
    John Murtha, Jr. – Democrat – U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania. Implicated in the Abscam sting, in which FBI agents impersonating Arab businessmen offered bribes to political figures; Murtha was cited as an unindicted co-conspirator because he sang like a canary.

    Oh, please do Abramoff. Please!

    And for “There was a male prostitute who was given a pass to the Bushie press corps. Who was he blowing? Rove? Bush?”….No, Bush was just being nice to Helen Thomas. It was a birthday present. She hasn’t been laid since the Truman Administration.

    Well, by my count…that’s 12 (we’ll just say the whole DNC counts as one)

    You owe this thread 60 corrupt Republicans

61. RE: #3:

    Clinton was exonerated on all the charges that initiated his impeachment hearings. Did you miss that as you listed his alleged “crimes”?

    Clinton could have and should have been impeached for bombing Kosovo and Serbia without Congressional approval in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the War Powers Act, but he never should have been impeached for the trumped up charges a la Ken Starr. That was nothing but political grandstanding – a partisan witch hunt. However, once he was in the hearings he never should have lied under oath – and that is and should be an impeachable offense – just like lying to Congress about Iraq posing a nuclear threat in order to start a preemptive war – which is what Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Bush did after they suppressed Joe Wilson’s report from Niger and continued to lie in warning us against not letting “the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud” and “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

    And Alcee Lamar Hastings (D) has no business holding public office. That is an insult to law-abiding Americans.

    William Jefferson (D) of Louisiana should step down from office if he cannot legitimately explain the thousands of dollars found in a raid hidden in his freezer.

    Surprised yet?

    BUT!!! Who gives a rat’s ass who anyone is sexually involved with? There was a male prostitute who was given a pass to the Bushie press corps. Who was he blowing? Rove? Bush? Who the hell cares? Is it really any of our business or of any consequence what anyone does behind closed doors with another consenting adult? If you answer “yes”, then you should join Orwell’s Thought Police.

    Europeans laughed at Americans during that time. They take for granted that their leaders are sleeping around or have mistresses.

    Now… you have come up with a pretty good list other than your obvious error in claiming Clinton, but give me a bit of time and I can triple your list simply during the Bushie years – easily – maybe just those with Jack Abramoff ties.

    And you had to go all the way back to 1975 – covering 32 years to come up with your list.

    By all means keep going. Let me know when your list is complete – I’ll even continue to help you – and then I will triple it with Republicans just from the “W” years. There is no comparison – not even close. And the investigations have just begun.

62. For every allegedly corrupt Democrat you name there have been five or ten convicted Republican politicians. Do you really want to go down Abramoff memory lane?

63. Wexler should be investigating the likes William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, Harry Reid and his real estate fraud, Clinton and the Hsu Chinese money laundering, Pelosi and the minimum wage exceptions in Samoa and Libby pardoned.
    Wexler is the same clown who was against the Diebold electronic voting machines being used in Florida…..until he won again in 2006.
    Well, it’s 2008 and an election year. Somebody needs to activate his moonbat base.

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