Well, it took some time.
In spite of all that Alberto Gonzalez and George W. Bush did to help their friend Rick Renzi, including pushing aside one of the most effective U.S. attorneys they had this morning came the announcement that Congressman Renzi has been indicted.
Renzi created a complex tangle of numbers to try and hide a land deal that helped James Sandlin, one of his friends, violate campaign finance laws by overpaying Renzi for a piece of land so he could quickly raise the money in 2002 to get elected to Congress, where he paid Sandlin back by misusing his position to, among other things, write legislation that helped increase the value of another piece of land that Sandlin owned. Renzi, even before the Sandlin land deal was known, was already considered one of the most corrupt congressmen in Washington for such other ethical lapses as using his official position to help steer up to a billion dollars in Federal contracts to his father's business. As it later turned out even that was part of the web he was weaving to try and cover up the original land deal.
Renzi's scheme to cover up the land deal actually resulted in two separate probes into two pieces of his scheme, and as I predicted eventually merged into one giant investigation.
Unfortunately not enough was known about the deal to prevent Renzi from getting re-elected last time when he ran for Congress. He ran his usual smear campaign against Ellen Simon by using lies, innuendos and distortions just as he has always done in his electoral campaigns. But last year it all broke open when the FBI raided Renzi's wife's business (where he had apparently hidden some of the evidence), ironically at the very same time as Alberto Gonzalez was on Capitol Hill answering questions about the firing of U.S. attorneys, in which Renzi's name figured prominently in connection with the firing of Paul Charltonn who had been investigating him. Last year Renzi finally was forced to announce that he would not seek re-election though he still is trying to remain in Congress (maybe he can have lunch with Larry Craig, because no one even in their own party is talking to either of them.)
Rick Renzi apparently thought that he was smarter than other people. He thought he was smart enough to create such a murky cloud of obfuscation around his financial misdeeds that no one would be able to figure out what he had done. He thought he could get away with it.
But criminals always think that way. But eventually justice does catch up to them. Just ask Renzi's former colleagues, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney.
Showing posts with label Alberto Gonzales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alberto Gonzales. Show all posts
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday, April 20, 2007
FBI raids Renzi business at same time Gonzales testifies. Is raid to prove that he isn't obstructing justice?
Yesterday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee and was pushed hard by Republicans as well as Democrats on the panel about his role in the U.S. attorney firing scandal.
At about the same time, FBI agents raided the Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita. which is owned by Republican Congressman Rick Renzi's wife, Roberta Renzi. The raid was part of a far reaching corruption investigation of Renzi that was first reported on last fall. Renzi announced within hours after the raid occurred that he was resigning from the House Intelligence Committee.
This is important news, and very closely related to the Gonzales testimony. While the firings of seven of the eight attorneys may have been unethical, or may have (in the case of Carol Lam) been intended to punish the attorney for a past investigation of a Republican congressman, or in other cases to clear the position for a Karl Rove protege or to punish another attorney for moving too slowly on an investigation against a former top Democratic legislator in New Mexico, none of them is likely to actually be grounds for the filing of criminal charges.
On the other hand, the firing of Paul Charlton in Arizona is the case that is the most dangerous to Gonzales and the Justice Department. If it can be shown (as has recently been hinted at) that the firing of Charlton was explicitly for the purpose of obstructing, slowing down, derailing or otherwise interfering with the investigation of Congressman Renzi, then it would be grounds for the charge of Obstruction of Justice, which is a serious felony, and one which John Mitchell, another former Attorney General, went to prison for back in the Watergate era.
And that is why Republicans have begun to abandon Alberto Gonzales. They know the other seven firings are just 'window dressing.' The real smoking gun is likely to involve the Charlton firing and the Renzi investigation. If it were simply a matter of ethics charges or the Attorney General behaving in a more partisan manner than has been done in the past, which is what some on the right would want you to believe, then it is hard to see why Republicans on capitol hill (who are no stranger to partisan games themselves) would be abandoning him.
But it is more than this, and after a delay of several months, all of a sudden it looks like the Renzi investigation is moving forward again. Maybe Alberto Gonzales is realizing that he may have to walk the plank for Rick Renzi, and this may show that he is reconsidering whether he should or not.
At about the same time, FBI agents raided the Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita. which is owned by Republican Congressman Rick Renzi's wife, Roberta Renzi. The raid was part of a far reaching corruption investigation of Renzi that was first reported on last fall. Renzi announced within hours after the raid occurred that he was resigning from the House Intelligence Committee.
This is important news, and very closely related to the Gonzales testimony. While the firings of seven of the eight attorneys may have been unethical, or may have (in the case of Carol Lam) been intended to punish the attorney for a past investigation of a Republican congressman, or in other cases to clear the position for a Karl Rove protege or to punish another attorney for moving too slowly on an investigation against a former top Democratic legislator in New Mexico, none of them is likely to actually be grounds for the filing of criminal charges.
On the other hand, the firing of Paul Charlton in Arizona is the case that is the most dangerous to Gonzales and the Justice Department. If it can be shown (as has recently been hinted at) that the firing of Charlton was explicitly for the purpose of obstructing, slowing down, derailing or otherwise interfering with the investigation of Congressman Renzi, then it would be grounds for the charge of Obstruction of Justice, which is a serious felony, and one which John Mitchell, another former Attorney General, went to prison for back in the Watergate era.
And that is why Republicans have begun to abandon Alberto Gonzales. They know the other seven firings are just 'window dressing.' The real smoking gun is likely to involve the Charlton firing and the Renzi investigation. If it were simply a matter of ethics charges or the Attorney General behaving in a more partisan manner than has been done in the past, which is what some on the right would want you to believe, then it is hard to see why Republicans on capitol hill (who are no stranger to partisan games themselves) would be abandoning him.
But it is more than this, and after a delay of several months, all of a sudden it looks like the Renzi investigation is moving forward again. Maybe Alberto Gonzales is realizing that he may have to walk the plank for Rick Renzi, and this may show that he is reconsidering whether he should or not.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Paul Charlton's fatal flaw-- he was too effective
It is out now, officially. The departure of Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton is a direct result of the concerns about the Renzi investigation. Recall that last year, Congressman Renzi was being investigated for corruption (the same charges that sent his congressional colleagues Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney to prison.) Once Paul Charlton started digging, it became clear that what appeared to be two different Renzi investigations were in fact two angles on a much larger and more complex investigation.
So in December, Paul Charlton abruptly resigned. I remembered then about how the Bush administration had previously called off an attack dog, when they had given a promotion to Noel Hillman, the Justice Department prosecutor who was working the Abramoff case, to the Federal bench in order to get him off of the case. So I figured that they had given Charlton an opportunity (since he was going to work for the law firm where his wife works.) Turns out I was wrong about the opportunity-- we now know that his resignation was requested, but we also now have confirmation it was to get him off of the Renzi case. That is provided by a memo which D. Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez's chief of staff, wrote to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers on September 16, shortly after he opened the Renzi investigation. In it he says that Charlton needs to go.
Paul Charlton, you see, is not an easy man to intimidate or get rid of. I've always respected him, and in fact I wrote at the time (in the second link in the last paragraph)
Charlton, though I know some people who don't like him, has always impressed me. Maybe it's because I remember his investigation into Valinda Jo Elliot after the Rodeo Chedeski fire had destroyed hundreds of homes; Elliott had started the Chedeski half as a signal fire after being lost in the woods following a vehicle breakdown. Elliott took her cell phone, and had reached some stupid person with a clerk mentality with the Bureau of Land Management; they figured out where she was and informed her that since she was over the line in the national forest she had to call the national forest headquarters. The HQ of course had long since been evacuated because of the nearby Rodeo fire and the national forest was closed, so Elliott got a recorded message. Then her cell ran out of power after having been put on hold for so long by automated machines between the two calls. Anyway, Charlton was the guy who was willing to go to Heber after the Chedeski fire and face an auditorium full of enraged people and tell them that he wasn't going to prosecute Valinda Jo Elliott (which was the right call by the way; if anyone should have been prosecuted it was the one person she actually talked to, the clerk with the ultimate 'that's not my department,' mentality even while talking to a desperate person in a life and death emergency.)
Heck, just last year the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office would serve as a national "Model Program." In other words, they thought he was the best of the best.
So Charlton, who had been recognized not long before as one of the Justice Department's most effective prosecutors, wasn't afraid to do his job then, and he wasn't going to be afraid to do it when it came to Rick Renzi.
So Alberto Gonzales, together with Karl Rove and who knows who else, determined that Charlton had to go. What is really interesting is that the Justice Department emails suddenly started naming him as one that needed to go. And simultaneously Rick Renzi hired former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods (and former A.G.'s are expensive) as his legal representative. Since then, he has retained attorney Patton Boggs and spent over $100,000 on legal bills (source Federal Elections Commission via Lofty Donkey. If there was nothing there, I doubt if all that would have happened. They knew they had a problem, and they knew the only way to solve it was to get rid of the same man they had just recently acknowledged as the best they had.
Of course since then-- there has been nothing new on the Renzi investigation. So it appears that calling Charlton off worked.
So in December, Paul Charlton abruptly resigned. I remembered then about how the Bush administration had previously called off an attack dog, when they had given a promotion to Noel Hillman, the Justice Department prosecutor who was working the Abramoff case, to the Federal bench in order to get him off of the case. So I figured that they had given Charlton an opportunity (since he was going to work for the law firm where his wife works.) Turns out I was wrong about the opportunity-- we now know that his resignation was requested, but we also now have confirmation it was to get him off of the Renzi case. That is provided by a memo which D. Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez's chief of staff, wrote to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers on September 16, shortly after he opened the Renzi investigation. In it he says that Charlton needs to go.
Paul Charlton, you see, is not an easy man to intimidate or get rid of. I've always respected him, and in fact I wrote at the time (in the second link in the last paragraph)
Charlton, though I know some people who don't like him, has always impressed me. Maybe it's because I remember his investigation into Valinda Jo Elliot after the Rodeo Chedeski fire had destroyed hundreds of homes; Elliott had started the Chedeski half as a signal fire after being lost in the woods following a vehicle breakdown. Elliott took her cell phone, and had reached some stupid person with a clerk mentality with the Bureau of Land Management; they figured out where she was and informed her that since she was over the line in the national forest she had to call the national forest headquarters. The HQ of course had long since been evacuated because of the nearby Rodeo fire and the national forest was closed, so Elliott got a recorded message. Then her cell ran out of power after having been put on hold for so long by automated machines between the two calls. Anyway, Charlton was the guy who was willing to go to Heber after the Chedeski fire and face an auditorium full of enraged people and tell them that he wasn't going to prosecute Valinda Jo Elliott (which was the right call by the way; if anyone should have been prosecuted it was the one person she actually talked to, the clerk with the ultimate 'that's not my department,' mentality even while talking to a desperate person in a life and death emergency.)
Heck, just last year the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office would serve as a national "Model Program." In other words, they thought he was the best of the best.
So Charlton, who had been recognized not long before as one of the Justice Department's most effective prosecutors, wasn't afraid to do his job then, and he wasn't going to be afraid to do it when it came to Rick Renzi.
So Alberto Gonzales, together with Karl Rove and who knows who else, determined that Charlton had to go. What is really interesting is that the Justice Department emails suddenly started naming him as one that needed to go. And simultaneously Rick Renzi hired former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods (and former A.G.'s are expensive) as his legal representative. Since then, he has retained attorney Patton Boggs and spent over $100,000 on legal bills (source Federal Elections Commission via Lofty Donkey. If there was nothing there, I doubt if all that would have happened. They knew they had a problem, and they knew the only way to solve it was to get rid of the same man they had just recently acknowledged as the best they had.
Of course since then-- there has been nothing new on the Renzi investigation. So it appears that calling Charlton off worked.
Answering some spurious claims.
I'd like to correct a few misconceptions I've heard on the right concerning the investigation into the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
The first is that it is a mountain out of a molehill, and that the President has the right to fire them if he pleases. And that Clinton fired 93 U.S. Attorneys.
He does have that right. And it is true that when he took office, Bush did fire nearly all of the Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorneys and replaced them with his own. As did Clinton when he took office (so the Clinton attorney firings, like the first round of Bush firings, were not the same as what we see here-- midterm firings.) Midterm firings almost never happen-- less than thirty in the past twenty years-- and in every case there were some serious performance-related issues. This is what started the current controversy: Attorney General Gonzales told Congress (not when he was under oath) that all of these firings were due to performance issues. That turned out to be a lie-- and while lying when not under oath is certainly legal, it was not a good choice if the goal was to get Congress to quit investigating.
But two issues that have become much greater in their impact here: First, in the past all U.S. Attorneys have been appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. A secret clause in the Patriot Act got rid of that condition. So all of a sudden the President and Attorney General could appoint attorneys and bypass the Senate confirmation process-- and they appear to have abused that privilege for political reasons (exactly the sort of thing that people were most concerned about when the Patriot Act was passed.) Second, the fact that it appears that some of the attorneys, perhaps even most of them, were fired for reasons relating to corruption investigations. This includes David Iglesias, who was moving at what he considered the right pace for a corruption investigation invovling two Demcorats; Paul Charlton, fired from here in Arizona after he began finding things on Rick Renzi (note since Charlton has been gone, the Renzi investigation seems to have been shut down.) It includes Carol Lam, who put Duke Cunningham in prison.
So now the Bush white house is offering to have staff testify in front of Congress, without being under oath.
If you hadn't had the Gonzales lie the last time a White House official testified in front of Congress, then Congress might be willling to accept their offecr, but given what just happened, I doubt it. Lies not backed by an oath are free and easy, and this adminstration has a already shown it has propensity for lying.
Another claim that the right makes is that 'there is no crime or criminal investigation.
False, also. This case is direcly about whether the Justice Department fired the attorneys for their approach to investigations involving corruption. That is a crime. The attorneys were pulled off these cases for reaons relating to what they were investigating. That is obstruction of justice. As far as the attempted coverup of this is concerned, there could also be charges of misleading investigators, tampering with evidence and other crimes often associated with covering things up. We will see if there are any criminal charges forthcoming, but for the right to claim that 'there is no crime,' is at best premature and could very well be categorized along with such famous wrong quotes as 'We will bury you' (Nikita Khruschev) and about the 'unsinkable' ship (the owners and operators of the Titanic.)
The first is that it is a mountain out of a molehill, and that the President has the right to fire them if he pleases. And that Clinton fired 93 U.S. Attorneys.
He does have that right. And it is true that when he took office, Bush did fire nearly all of the Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorneys and replaced them with his own. As did Clinton when he took office (so the Clinton attorney firings, like the first round of Bush firings, were not the same as what we see here-- midterm firings.) Midterm firings almost never happen-- less than thirty in the past twenty years-- and in every case there were some serious performance-related issues. This is what started the current controversy: Attorney General Gonzales told Congress (not when he was under oath) that all of these firings were due to performance issues. That turned out to be a lie-- and while lying when not under oath is certainly legal, it was not a good choice if the goal was to get Congress to quit investigating.
But two issues that have become much greater in their impact here: First, in the past all U.S. Attorneys have been appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. A secret clause in the Patriot Act got rid of that condition. So all of a sudden the President and Attorney General could appoint attorneys and bypass the Senate confirmation process-- and they appear to have abused that privilege for political reasons (exactly the sort of thing that people were most concerned about when the Patriot Act was passed.) Second, the fact that it appears that some of the attorneys, perhaps even most of them, were fired for reasons relating to corruption investigations. This includes David Iglesias, who was moving at what he considered the right pace for a corruption investigation invovling two Demcorats; Paul Charlton, fired from here in Arizona after he began finding things on Rick Renzi (note since Charlton has been gone, the Renzi investigation seems to have been shut down.) It includes Carol Lam, who put Duke Cunningham in prison.
So now the Bush white house is offering to have staff testify in front of Congress, without being under oath.
If you hadn't had the Gonzales lie the last time a White House official testified in front of Congress, then Congress might be willling to accept their offecr, but given what just happened, I doubt it. Lies not backed by an oath are free and easy, and this adminstration has a already shown it has propensity for lying.
Another claim that the right makes is that 'there is no crime or criminal investigation.
False, also. This case is direcly about whether the Justice Department fired the attorneys for their approach to investigations involving corruption. That is a crime. The attorneys were pulled off these cases for reaons relating to what they were investigating. That is obstruction of justice. As far as the attempted coverup of this is concerned, there could also be charges of misleading investigators, tampering with evidence and other crimes often associated with covering things up. We will see if there are any criminal charges forthcoming, but for the right to claim that 'there is no crime,' is at best premature and could very well be categorized along with such famous wrong quotes as 'We will bury you' (Nikita Khruschev) and about the 'unsinkable' ship (the owners and operators of the Titanic.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
