Archive for the ‘Legal’ Category
One Feisty Lady
December 5th, 2008
Megyn Kelly takes on Bill O’Reilly on the issue of the sign posted by atheists on the Washington State Capitol grounds:
Posted in 
School Leaders Told What Law Says About Sex Under Age 14
October 27th, 2007
Last week I lamented the fact the school board for one of the schools in my home state had voted to allow middle schoolers as young as 11 years old to get birth control pills without having to disclose the reason for the health visit to the parents.
There’s a new twist in the story now and it’s a good one. The District Attorney has told the members that Maine law prohibits sex with anyone under the age of 14, regardless of the age of the other person involved.
A health care provider must report all known or suspected cases of sex with minors age 13 and under to the state Department of Health and Human Services, she said. Abuse also must be reported to the appropriate district attorney’s office, Anderson said, when the suspected perpetrator is someone other than the minor’s parent or guardian.
“When it’s somebody under age 14, it is a crime and it must be reported,” Anderson said. “The health care provider has no discretion in the matter. It’s up to the district attorney to decide.”
Anderson said she contacted Portland officials after she learned that some employees of the health centers, which are operated by the city’s Public Health Division, believed they could decide whether a child’s sexual activity constituted criminal abuse.
In fact, if a child under age 14 was having consensual sex with someone of a similar age, health center employees weren’t reporting it to the proper authorities, said City Attorney Gary Wood.
Anderson said doctors and other health care providers in private practice may falsely believe they have similar leeway, but they must follow the same laws.
“It’s clear that it’s going on all the time,” Anderson said. “Either the law is going to be enforced or it needs to be changed. I don’t think a law should be routinely violated.”
Portland’s six school-based health centers had no formal policy on reporting sexual activity involving students under age 14, said Douglas Gardner, director of Portland’s Department of Health and Human Services.
Gardner said it’s unclear whether any health center employee failed to report suspected cases to the state Department of Health and Human Services, but they did fail to report cases to Anderson’s office.
“Moving forward, we will report to the letter of the law,” Gardner said.
It may not stop under age children from having sex, but it will definitely stop the schools and health authorities from helping them.
It’s Not the Film, It’s the Politics
October 4th, 2007
I wish this ruling had been made in an American court.
Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore’s controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.
The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of ‘brainwashing’ children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.
Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ’sentimental mush’.
He wants the video banned after it was distributed with four other short films to 3,500 schools in February.
Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore’s Oscar-winning film does promote ‘partisan political views’.
This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.
It is my belief that children should be exposed to a variety of topics and opinions. However, when you try to sell something in an educational setting laden with political bias, I have difficulty swallowing that it is in the best interest of the students.
As a matter of fact, I agree with Mr. Dimmock:
Mr Dimmock, a lorry driver from Dover with children aged 11 and 14, said at the outset of the hearing: ‘I wish my children to have the best education possible, free from bias and political spin, and Mr Gore’s film falls far short of the standard required.’
A Few Months Late and A Lot of Dollars Short
September 30th, 2007
I often wonder why people insist that Hillary Clinton apologize for voting to authorize the Iraq War. It wouldn’t change the record, but it seems apologies are a big deal to someone, even if they say it for political expediency.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a true believer in apologies, but I feel they should come at the right time and not months or years later.
That’s why I was a bit disgusted to read today that the president of Duke University finally apologized to the lacrosse players he let hang out to dry for over a year.
DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized Saturday for not better supporting the men’s lacrosse players falsely accused in last year’s highly publicized rape scandal.
Brodhead, speaking at the university’s law school, said he regretted Duke’s “failure to reach out” in a “time of extraordinary peril” after a woman accused three players of raping at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.
“Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy,” Brodhead said. “But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it.”…
…In the early days of the case, Brodhead was generally cautious in his comments, saying the players should be presumed innocent while also insisting the crimes alleged had no place at the elite private university.
Brodhead said Saturday he worried that making numerous public comments could be interpreted as an attempt by Duke to “influence the judicial process,” especially since Nifong was insisting a crime had occurred.
That may have created an impression that Duke did not care about the accused students, Brodhead said, which he said was untrue but still something he regrets.
“Duke needed to be clear that it demanded fair treatment for its students,” he said. “I took that completely for granted. If anyone doubted it, then I should have been more explicit, especially as the evidence mounted that the prosecutor was not acting in accordance with the standards of his profession.”
Brodhead also said the school could have done more to show that some members of Duke’s faculty who were openly critical of the lacrosse team did not speak for the university as a whole.
The article does say a settlement has been made with the former coach and the players. Maybe this apology was part of that settlement.
I certainly hope it was enough to cover the legal expenses of these young men who could be rotting in prison cells now if not for good attorneys.
Which begs the question: what happens to those who cannot afford high-priced lawyers with the sources these lawyers had at their fingertips?
No Dismissal in case against Congressman John Murtha
September 29th, 2007
The suit filed by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich against Congressman John Murtha was advanced yesterday by US District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer.
WASHINGTON – A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a defamation case against Rep. John P. Murtha and ordered the Pennsylvania Democrat to give a sworn deposition about his comments alleging “cold-blooded murder and war crimes” by unnamed soldiers in connection with Iraqi civilian deaths.
A Marine Corps sergeant is suing the 18-term congressman for making the charge, which the soldier claims is false. Murtha, who opposes the Iraq war, made the comment during a May, 2006 Capitol Hill news conference in which he predicted that a Pentagon war crimes investigation will show Marines killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005.
The Congressman took it upon himself prior to any investigation in the Haditha case and before any charges were leveled against even one Marine to speak out as to their guilt.
Now the Justice Department argues he was acting in his official capacity when he made these accusations, therefore the suit should be dropped?
The Justice Department wanted the case dismissed because Murtha was acting in his official role as a lawmaker. Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Henault said the comments were made as part of the debate over the war in Iraq.
Who was he representing in this official capacity? Was he speaking on behalf of the citizens of the United States, or perhaps the whole of Congress?
I prefer the Judge’s logic:
“You’re writing a very wide road for members of Congress to go to their home districts and say anything they choose about private persons and be able to do so without any liability. Are you sure you want to do that?” Collyer said, adding later, “How far can a congressman go and still be protected?”
Collyer said she was troubled by the idea the lawmakers are immune from lawsuits regardless of what they say to advance their political careers.
Congressman Murtha took it upon himself to be judge and jury, however, now that the Haditha case has begun to unravel, his office has no comment and he declined to answer questions posed recently by Jason Mattera of the Young America’s Foundation. The Congressman seems to be under the impression that if one Marine is found guilty his early accusations will have be corroborated.
Congressman, instead of continuing to use this case for political gain, why don’t you take a moment to apologize to the Marines who have been exonerated? And while you are at it, say you’re sorry to the families whom you caused great pain with your accusations.
Or you can just hide in your office and hope that one Marine, any Marine is accused of any crime in the Haditha case so you can inform us you were right after all.
Accused Prosecutor Tries To Kill Himself
September 21st, 2007
Just 36 hours after a suicide watch was lifted on assistant US Attorney John D.R. Atchison he tried to hang himself with a sheet in his jail cell.
Atchison is the assistant prosecutor from the western district of Florida who allegedly flew to Detroit in order to have sex with a five year old girl.
One of the other inmates notified guards he was trying to hang himself and he was rescued before hurting himself.
US Marshals have moved him to a different jail since that incident.
The sad part, apart from this man having a penchant for sex with little girls, is he is married and the father of three children. He was active in his community and has brought disgrace upon his wife and family for something they didn’t do.
Hillary Clinton’s brother in the news
September 13th, 2007
It seems the Clinton family is having difficulty staying out of the news these days. Mrs. Clinton’s brother has made headlines this afternoon in regard to his legal difficulties stemming back to the days of the Clinton Presidency:
The SFGate reports:
A lawsuit accusing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother of failing to repay debts to a Tennessee carnival operator has been settled.
Tony Rodham was accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the bankrupt estate of Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, both of whom received a presidential pardon in 2000.
The case was scheduled to go to trial on Thursday, but the parties reached a settlement agreement, said Rodham attorney Samuel Crocker. The terms were not disclosed.
Rodham had claimed in court documents the money he received from the Gregorys was for consulting services, but the trustee for the Gregory estate said it was a loan.
The Gregorys received pardons for a bank fraud conviction from President Clinton about two years after Rodham became a paid consultant to United Shows of America, a carnival business the couple owned.
Rodham has said he talked to his brother-in-law about the pardon, but he said President Clinton made the decision to grant clemency on the merits of their case.
After President Clinton left office, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Government Reform found that United Shows paid Rodham $240,000 for undocumented consulting services and that President Clinton was interested in the pardons solely because of his contacts with Rodham.
While we might not ever know the terms of this settlement, I am certain the Senator is happy to have closure on another issue that has prompted questions in the past about the former Presidents pardons. Funny though that now she finds it odd when the current President offers a pardon after having made this statement in the past:
Hillary Clinton, who has been critical of President Bush’s decision to commute the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, said her husband’s pardons were simply a routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none was aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy.
Just a twinge of double standard in play there, don’t you think?
Troubled ex-astronaut back in court.
August 24th, 2007
Can you believe this? I wonder if she is wearing a diaper to court.
– Former astronaut Lisa Nowak, accused of attacking a romantic rival, asked a judge Friday to let her remove her electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, saying that it causes abrasions and gets in the way of her military boots laces.
She promised to abide by all court orders if the GPS monitoring device is removed, including not having any contact with Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, the woman she is accused of pepper spraying.
Shipman also testified, telling the judge that she was still afraid of Nowak. Knowing Nowak has to wear the monitoring device gives her comfort, she said.
Nowak, a 44-year-old Navy pilot, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping, battery and burglary with assault.
Her attorney, Donald Lykkebak, said he planned to ask Circuit Court Judge Marc L. Lubet at the hearing Friday to throw out some of the most damning evidence in the case, including an interview Nowak gave to police and items found during a search of her car.
In an interview with detectives, Nowak had said that she Shipman were vying for the affection of the same space shuttle pilot and that she confronted Shipman in an Orlando International Airport parking lot because she wanted to know “where she stands.”
She is accused of attacking Shipman with pepper spray and trying to
jump into her vehicle. Police say Nowak also had a duffel bag with a steel mallet, 4-inch knife and a BB gun.
Texas executes 400th person since 1982.
August 23rd, 2007
Congratulations, let’s throw a party.
Texas, which leads the nation in carrying out the death penalty, on Wednesday executed the 400th person since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.
Johnny Ray Conner, 32, who was convicted in the shooting death of a convenience store owner in Houston in 1998, was the 21st man put to death by lethal injection in Texas this year. He spent nearly eight years on death row.
Texas resumed the practice after the Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on it in 1976. Since then, 1,092 people have been executed in the United States, including Conner, according to statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center.
Conner’s execution in Huntsville, located north of Houston, has drawn sharp criticism from death penalty opponents who argue that the practice is inhumane and does not serve as a deterrent to crime.
“It’s a pretty sad day for the progression — or lack thereof — for human rights in this state,” said Rick Halperin, president of the non-profit Texas Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty. He called the state-ordered executions “barbaric and outdated.”
Brought Down By Arrogance.
August 21st, 2007
If ever I wanted someone to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, this was it.
We’ve had a few days to grow accustomed to the notion of Michael Vick going to jail, but it’s nonetheless a stunner to hear the actual admission of guilt in the form of a plea bargain. We’re now into the meat of one of the most sordid episodes in recent sports history and it’s clear that Vick, barring something completely unforeseen, is going to jail. Athletes have run afoul of the law since the turn of the previous century, but it’s not often we see the career of someone with Vick’s talent, profile and degree interrupted in its prime by a jail sentence. It’s possible his career will even be ended by this jail sentence, an NFL suspension and by the contempt with which he’ll be held for years after his release.
It’s the newest cautionary American tale: Football icon flips American dream on its head. It’s so totally overwhelming and wildly extreme it’s difficult to know where to begin. Vick is alleged to have not just run a dogfighting ring, which by itself is illegal and heinous, but to have tortured and killed dogs with his bare hands, lied to the man who’s paying him $105 million about his involvement and lied to the NFL commissioner’s face about his involvement. You wonder what Vick was thinking as the federal government knocked him out in what amounts to less than one round. Could the feds have had a more solid case against him? The dog-killing is such a showstopper, most folks don’t even realize the feds could have nailed him for gambling as well.
Prostitutes face jail under tougher law.
August 12th, 2007
Leave them alone; they are just trying to do their job.
UK The government was last night accused of turning the clock back 25 years by introducing a law that will allow courts to imprison prostitutes who are arrested for soliciting. The move has provoked the fury of women’s support groups, who say the move will do nothing to address the root causes of the illicit trade in sex.
The landmark 1982 Criminal Justice Act removed the power of courts to jail prostitutes for soliciting, replacing the threat of custodial sentences with fines. But the new Criminal Justice and Immigration bill, which will be debated in parliament in October, gives magistrates powers to detain soliciting prostitutes in prison for up to three days on remand if they fail to attend mandatory counselling sessions and ignore court orders.
‘It’s a new way to lock women up for consenting to sex; it’s just appalling,’ said Nina Lopez, spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes. ‘You can’t force women into rehabilitation.’
Under the law, prostitutes caught soliciting can be ordered to attend three meetings with a court-appointed expert to discuss ‘ending their involvement’ with prostitution. Magistrates will be able to summon those who fail to attend the sessions before a court. Those who do not obey the summons can be arrested and imprisoned for up to 72 hours.The new law is ostensibly designed to help prostitutes break out of a cycle of vice. Drawn up partly in response to the murders of five prostitutes in Suffolk last year, it is supposed to help rehabilitation by putting women in touch with health officials and probation officers. But given the chaotic nature of most prostitutes’ lives, experts said it was likely that many will not attend meetings and end up in prison as a result.
‘This is yet another example of the state’s wish to exert moral disapproval of prostitution while recognising that it will not go away,’ said Harry Fletcher, assistant general-secretary of the probation officers’ union, Napo. ‘The threat of custody is extremely punitive.’
The threat of tougher measures also appears to be at odds with the government’s beliefs. The use of ‘traditional’ enforcement involving police crackdowns does not appear to reduce disorder, Home Office research indicates .
Some 3,500 prostitutes a year are brought to court or cautioned for soliciting offences. Allowing courts to detain prostitutes could see thousands in prison over the next decade, according to experts, who believe the new powers will prove popular with police and magistrates frustrated by the number of offenders who default on fines.
But at a time when the prison population is close to maximum capacity and prison reform groups are warning that the state is already locking up too many women, there are concerns that steps to detain prostitutes will backfire.
FBI, IRS Investigating Senator Stevens for Corruption
July 31st, 2007
It is becoming clear that we have very few honest politicians left in Washington. These power and money hungry individuals have themselves so entrenched in their part time jobs as legislators that it seems the only way to remove some of them is through investigations by the FBI, IRS and local authorities.
While I believe all are innocent until proven guilty this story from Fox News once again shows there is at least the appearance of corruption in Congress.
FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens on Monday.
Stevens, who was formerly chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the latest lawmaker reportedly under investigation for exchanging federal contracts for bribes, illegal gratuities and unreported gifts. The Stevens probe relates to dealings with VECO Corp., Alaska’s largest oil-field engineering firm. VECO has several federal contracts to provide logistics support for arctic research.
Perhaps what we should demand is that anyone desiring to run for office lay open all of their financial dealings once a year beginning with their entrance in to any race, local, state or federal. Show the public, on line or otherwise where your interests truly lie. I am not asking for just a tax return, all transactions which could give the appearance of impropriety or show complete honesty would be required.
Then write into law that anyone, no matter the position found in violation of the laws not only of the office they serve, but those of the United States, will be immediately removed and a special election (not an appointment by a Governor) will ensue.
I know, this is just a pipe dream. The same inidivduals of which I speak would be the ones to write legislation which would be signed into law. It would also eliminate many of the lobbyists and special interest groups on which the politics in this country thrives. So, nah, this would never, ever work..and besides even if it did happen, there would be loopholes and end arounds and we ordinary folk would continue to be duped by those in “power”.
I do not mean to imply that every politician in this country is unscrupulous. There are those who have served honorably. The problem is, the longer in power, the better the chances you will owe someone or they will owe you. Once that cycle begins, the taxpayer has no way of maintaining an account of every deal made and every payback accepted.
Earmarks are simple to slide past the noses of even those who carefully track this information and when they are uncovered or disclosed, it is too late.
When was the last time anyone heard of this money being returned to the till in Washington? That’s what I thought.
White House: U.S. Attorney May Not Prosecute Contempt of Congress Against Subpoenaed Former Officials
July 23rd, 2007
Maybe they’ll have to wait until his administration is over and then prosecute. What do you think?
Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.
The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissal
Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.”
But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege.
Valerie Plame’s Lawsuit Against Administration Officials Tossed Out
July 19th, 2007
Perhaps we can put this baby to bed once and for all.
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against members of the Bush administration Thursday, eliminating one of the last courtroom remnants of the leak scandal.
Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.
While Bates did not address the constitutional questions, he seemed to side with administration officials who said they were acting within their job duties. Plame had argued that what they did was illegal and outside the scope of their government jobs.
“The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson’s comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory, ” Bates wrote. “But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration’s handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants’ duties as high-level Executive Branch officials.”
Story here.
Judge Bates full opinion here.
On a side note. If you checked in earlier, yes there was a post by J on this topic with the same title. We decided to update and as the original story now had more information, this is how we chose to do so. Sorry if we made you think you were seeing double.
FBI analyst sentenced for spying.
July 19th, 2007
Speaks for it self.
An FBI analyst and former vice presidential aide was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for espionage after he admitted supplying classified documents to Philippine nationals in an effort to overthrow that country’s government, federal prosecutors said.
Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, a former U.S. Marine and Philippine native who worked as a military aide to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney before joining the FBI as a civilian employee, pleaded guilty to four charges of espionage in May 2006.
The plea deal spared Aragoncillo from facing the death penalty, prosecutors said.
In a sentencing hearing Wednesday morning, U.S. District Judge William H. Walls sentenced Aragoncillo to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a plot to overthrow Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In addition, he fined Aragoncillo $40,000.
Aragoncillo could have been sentenced to up to 20 years for participation in a conspiracy to transmit national defense information, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, in a news release issued Wednesday, accused Aragoncillo of “betraying his Marine uniform, his adopted country and the trust bestowed on him as an FBI analyst.”
NFL Player Vick Indicted For Holding Illegal Dog Fights
July 18th, 2007
What possesses a human to buy puppies for the sole purpose of making them mean and fighting to the death or almost death? And if they don’t perform well in “trials” they are killed by electrocution, hanging, drowning or slamming the dog to the ground.
This is what NFL quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons Michael Vick has been indicted for doing.
According to prosecutors, Vick and his cohorts began purchasing pit bull puppies in late-2001 and would eventually “sponsor” individual dog fights with purses as high as $26,000. In the indictment’s most harrowing parts, federal investigators describe what happened to some Bad Newz Kennels dogs that either lost matches or did not perform well in test fights. After a March 2003 loss by a female pit bull, codefendant Purnell Peace, “after consulting with Vick,” electrocuted the animal. In April, prosecutors allege, Vick, Peace, and Quanis Phillips, “executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well in ‘testing’ sessions.” These animals, the indictment claims, were killed “by various methods, including hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”
According to this story, if found guilty he could be sentenced to up to six years in prison, $350,000 in fines and restitution.
John Goodwin of the Humane Society said the manner in which losing or unwilling dogs were killed was especially troubling.
“Some of the grisly details in these filings shocked even me, and I’m a person who faces this stuff every day,” he said. “I was surprised to see that they were killing dogs by hanging them and one dog was killed by slamming it to the ground. Those are extremely violent methods of execution — they’re unnecessary and just sick.”
Restitution to whom? Certainly not the dogs, and the dogs are known to be vicious anyway, but with the extra “training” they have had the remaining dogs have probably had to be euthanized because they wouldn’t be safe for anyone to keep.
Everyone is presumed innocent unless found guilty in a court of law, but if anyone is found guilty of this crime against animals I hope he gets the full sentence with no mercy shown.
The Mother Knew and Lied
July 18th, 2007
I just finished reading this story of a man who found out long after his divorce and child support payments that his youngest “son” was not his son at all, but was the biological son of the child’s godfather.
The NJ Supreme Court unanimously rejected the divorced non-biological father’s request for a refund of his child support for that child because the child in question was over 23 years old and it was beyond the statute of limitations.
Tuesday a very good friend of mine emailed me and told me her son has found out the baby his girlfriend had and said was his is not his biological child.
He returned mother and baby to the mother’s father, which is where the biological father apparently lived.
He questioned his parentage because they had been separated for several months while she visited her father and it didn’t add up. So now a little girl over a month old who was loved by Jon is without a man who loved her since before she was born. Jon loved that baby, and his mother told me he cried hard the day he told her he had taken them back to the mother’s father.
In the New Jersey incident the mother knew or she wouldn’t have told her ex-husband he wasn’t the biological father. In the other incident the mother knew because she knew she was sleeping around and Jon couldn’t have been the father.
In both cases men have been deeply hurt, thinking these children were their biological children, and in both cases two innocent children have been the center of this smut of their mothers.
I pray for all of them.
Bush orders Miers not to testify.
July 11th, 2007
Now this is what you call Contest of wills.
President Bush ordered former counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons, even as a second former aide told a Senate panel Wednesday she knew of no involvement by Bush in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors. Contempt citations against both women were a possibility.
House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers’ lawyer. Democrats said her immunity ended when she left her White House job.Across the Capitol, meanwhile, former White House political director Sara Taylor found out what Miers may already have known: It’s almost impossible to answer some committee questions but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush’s claim of executive privilege.
After first refusing to answer questions about Bush’s possible role in the firings, Taylor later told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she knew of no involvement by the president. Further, she said, she knew of no wrongdoing by administration officials in the controversy that has hobbled the Justice Department and imperiled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The developments whipped across Washington as part of a broader dispute over the boundaries of Bush’s executive power and Congress’ oversight duty. Democrats, in control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, are probing whether the White House ordered the prosecutor firings in ways that might help Republicans in elections.
The Bush administration acknowledges that the firings were clumsily carried out but insists no wrongdoing occurred. Bush has offered to allow his aides, including counselor Karl Rove, Miers and Taylor, to be interviewed by congressional investigators — but only in private and without a transcript.
Democrats on the committees rejected the offer and subpoenaed Miers and Taylor to appear this week, a possible foreshadowing of what’s to come for Rove.
In letters dated Tuesday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Miers’ lawyer that Bush had ordered her to stay away from Thursday’s hearing.
“Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president,” Fielding wrote to Miers’ lawyer, George T. Manning. “The president has directed her not to appear at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, July 12, 2007.”
Manning, in turn, notified committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., chairwoman of the subcommittee on commercial and administrative law.
Former Bush Aides To Hold Back On Testimony
July 11th, 2007
President Bush’s former political director says she intends to follow his directive and not answer questions about her role in the administration’s firing of federal prosecutors — unless a court directs her to defy her former boss.
“While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee’s need for the information outweighs the president’s assertion of executive privilege,” Sara M. Taylor, who left her White House job two months ago, said in remarks prepared for presentation to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
“Thanks for understanding,” she added in the statement, made available in advance of the midmorning hearing.
Democrats insist that there are plenty about the firings that Taylor can discuss — and is compelled to reveal under a subpoena — that are not covered by Bush’s executive privilege claim.
Her lawyer was expected to advise her as the hearing progressed on which questions she could or could not answer under the president’s directive.
The same goes for a second former Bush aide, one-time White House counsel Harriet Miers, Democrats say. Miers, subpoenaed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, said through her lawyer this week that she “cannot provide the documents and testimony that the committee seeks.”
“Ms. Miers is thus subject to conflicting commands, with Congress demanding the production of information that the counsel to the president has informed her she is prohibited from disclosing,” Miers’ lawyer, George Manning, wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan and ranking Republican Lamar Smith of Texas.
The two former aides are now private citizens, and some congressional officials have argued that it is not clear Bush’s executive privilege claim covers them even though White House Counsel Fred Fielding told lawyers for Miers and Taylor that the president was directing them not to answer questions or provide any information about the firings.
“Ms. Miers has no choice other than to comply with the direction given her by counsel to the president in his letters,” Manning wrote.
Taylor’s message was much the same. “I intend to follow the president’s instruction,” she said in her statement.
Next we see what the courts decide, and you can be assured this will have to be decided by the Supreme Court. They next meet in October unless special circumstances require them to be called in on a special session. Highly doubtful.
Former Interior Department Official Will Go to Jail for Obstructing Abramoff Investigation.
July 9th, 2007
I wonder if this guy will get a commutation? You never know.
This was probably overshadowed by Libby.
June 26, 2007
J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and must pay a $30,000 fine after pleading guilty to obstructing a congressional inquiry into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.“In pleading guilty, Griles admitted that he knowingly and willfully lied and concealed material information from senators and Senate investigators about the unique relationship that he had with Abramoff immediately prior to and during his tenure as DOI Deputy Secretary,” according to a Department of Justice statement.
Abramoff and lobbyist Michael Scanlon have pleaded guilty to bilking two Indian tribes out of millions of dollars for their lobbying work.
The links between Griles and Abramoff focus on Italia Federici, the president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Abramoff had directed his tribal clients to donate as much as $250,000 to CREA to help the Interior Department with several projects and studies. It is unclear if those projects ever existed.
Breaking News
July 6th, 2007
The Appeals Court has dismissed the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging President Bush’s eavesdropping program.
From the AP via Fox News:
CINCINNATI — A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue.
The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel was not on the legality of the surveillance program. But it vacated an order by a lower court in Detroit last Augist that the post-911 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity was unconstitutional, violating rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers.
The American Civil Liberties Union led the suit on behalf of other groups including lawyers, journalists and scholars it says have been handicapped in doing their jobs by the government monitoring.
The case will be sent back to the U.S. District judge in Michigan for dismissal.
GOP lawyer: Facts ‘misconstrued’ in Rich case. Did you know?
July 6th, 2007
Interesting facts from the past.
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff testified Thursday he believes prosecutors of billionaire financier Marc Rich “misconstrued the facts and the law” when they went after Rich on tax evasion charges.
The testimony from Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who represented Rich dating back to 1985 but stopped working for him in the spring of 2000, came during a contentious, hours-long House committee hearing into former President Bill Clinton’s eleventh-hour pardons.
Bush Commutes Libby’s Prison Sentence
July 4th, 2007
This sums it up. It might please a few but it angers many.
President Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby yesterday, sparing Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff 2 1/2 years in prison after a federal appeals court had refused to let Libby remain free while he appeals his conviction for lying to federal investigators.
Bush, who for months had sidestepped calls from conservatives to come to Libby’s aid, broke his silence early yesterday evening, touching off an immediate uproar from Democrats who accused the White House of circumventing the rule of law to protect one of its own.
The president announced his decision in a written statement that laid out the factors he had weighed. Bush said he decided to “respect” the jury’s verdict that Libby was guilty of four felonies for lying about his role in the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity. But the president said Libby’s “exceptional public service” and prior lack of a criminal record led him to conclude that the 30-month sentence handed down by a judge last month was “excessive.”
The president noted that he had promised before not to intervene until Libby had exhausted his appeals. But he stepped in short of that point. “With the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent,” Bush said, “I believe it is now important to react to that decision.”
Although he eliminated Libby’s prison term, Bush did not grant him a full pardon, which was sought by some conservatives and would have erased his conviction. As a consequence, Libby will still have to pay a $250,000 fine and will remain on probation for two years. The president said Libby’s punishment remained “harsh,” in part because his professional reputation “is forever damaged.”
Bush commuted the sentence hours after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Libby’s request to postpone his prison term while he pursued appeals. The panel concluded that his grounds for appeal were unlikely to be strong enough to prevail in higher courts.
The appellate judges’ unanimous opinion upheld an identical ruling slightly more than two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, the trial judge in Libby’s case. After a month-long trial that forced presidential aides and prominent journalists onto the witness stand, Libby was found guilty of two counts of perjury and one count each of lying to FBI agents and obstructing a federal investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Bush has granted far fewer pardons and commutations than any of his predecessors, dating to John F. Kennedy. He commuted three previous prison terms during his 6 1/2 years in office.
At a time when his popularity is as low as any president’s in modern history, Bush’s action also defied public opinion. Shortly after Libby was convicted in March, three national public opinion polls found that seven in 10 Americans said they would oppose a pardon of Libby.
Still, the president appeared to calculate that he would antagonize his conservative base too severely if he did not provide Libby some form of reprieve, according to people close to the White House
Most Disagree With Bush’s Libby Decision
July 3rd, 2007
The numbers don’t look good.
A new SurveyUSA instant poll finds just 21% of Americans agree with President Bush’s decision to commute Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, 60% say Bush should have left the judge’s prison sentence in place, and 17% wanted a full pardon.
Only those familiar with the case were asked to react to the President’s action.
Partisan breakdown: 32% of Republicans agree with the President’s decision, compared to 14% of Democrats and 20% of Independents.
Bush’s move cheers conservative base.
July 3rd, 2007
Here is one By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer
Eddie Mahe is a happy man.
With his decision to keep I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby from going to prison, President Bush has provoked a firestorm of controversy but avoided what might have been even more damaging to his presidency: defections of Republican loyalists who are among the last to support the beleaguered White House.
Libby’s fate had become a cause celebre among conservative GOP activists, even as the public overwhelmingly opposed a presidential pardon.
Bush’s action shows that, with a little more than 18 months remaining in his second term and his influence at its lowest ebb, he is still willing to rely on his signature leadership style — one that risks polarizing the country to take stands that satisfy his conservative base.
After the Republican rout in the 2006 midterm elections, Bush gave signs that he might try a more pragmatic, centrist approach. But his main attempt to do so — backing a bipartisan bill to overhaul immigration law — ended in a spectacular failure when the bill died in the Senate last week. And the immigration debate had badly strained Bush’s relationship with conservatives, who were furious that he supported a bill they believed would allow amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“He’s playing to his base,” said Fred I. Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton University. “He’s sort of retreating to his hard disk — his core beliefs.”
A CNN poll found that 72% opposed a presidential pardon, and 19% supported it. But many analysts say that Bush had little to lose and much to gain politically by siding with the minority view. Bush chose to commute Libby’s 30-month jail sentence, but did not pardon him.
“He won’t antagonize anyone who didn’t already hate him, and he will give solace and encouragement to the people who like him but are having doubts about his resolve,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
Among the encouraged was Eddie Mahe, a former Republican National Committee official, who said, “I shot my fist in the sky and said, “Yay!’ “
Bush Lets Libby Walk.
July 3rd, 2007
Here is an interesting point of view by David Corn of the Nation.
Now comes the fall out.
It’s appropriate.
The president who led the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq by peddling false statements and misrepresentations has come to the rescue of a White House aide convicted of lying.
Before the ink was dry on today’s court order denying Scooter Libby’s latest appeal — a motion to allow him to stay out of jail while he was challenging his conviction — George W. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence. Libby will no longer have to serve the 30-month prison sentence ordered by federal district court Judge Reggie Walton. He will, though, have to pay the $250,000 fine that was part of the sentence.
The commutation — which is not a pardon and does not erase Libby’s conviction — is a reminder that Bush and his crew do not believe in accountability. Bush has been rather stingy in the use of his pardon power. And regulations issued by his Justice Department note that recipients of pardons should serve their sentences and demonstrate contrition before obtaining presidential absolution. (Libby had expressed no remorse and was not scheduled to report to jail for several weeks.)
Yet with this commutation, Bush ducked those requirements, and he is allowing Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, who was found guilty of lying to federal investigators in the CIA leak case, to go unpunished. The fine will be no problem for Libby. His neoconservative friends and admirers will kick in to cover that tab. (Perhaps even Cheney will send a check.)
Libby had become a symbol of the Bush White House’s problem with the truth. After all, his lies had been designed to block FBI agents and federal prosecutors from learning the full truth of a White House effort to discredit a critic who had accused the Bush administration of twisting the prewar intelligence. And now the final act in the long-running CIA leak scandal — Bush’s commutation — stands as another symbol of this grand theme: lying doesn’t really bother this crowd.
Appeals Court Rejects Libby’s Appeal To Stay On Bail While Appealing Sentence
July 2nd, 2007
The Appeals Court has refused Scooter Libby’s request to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A federal appeals court Monday rejected former White House aide Lewis “Scooter†Libby’s request to remain free on appeal after his March conviction on federal charges stemming from the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.
Libby, once Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, faces a 30-month prison term after being convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal agents probing the 2003 exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had become a critic of the war in Iraq.
A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals found Libby has not raised a question for judges “that is ‘close’ or that ‘could very well be decided the other way’†— the standard for remaining free on appeal.
Barring further appeals, Libby’s term will start when the U.S. Bureau of Prisons decides where he will serve his time and sets a date for him to surrender. But his lawyers may appeal Monday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rarely intervenes in these kinds of cases.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees the D.C. circuit, would decide whether to send any emergency petition to the full court.
It’s time now for President Bush to get involved in the Scooter Libby legal mess.
He needs to either pardon him outright or commute the jail sentence and let him appeal the rest of the conviction.
Non-violent offenders do not deserve jail time.
Major Update President Bush has commuted I. Lewis Libby’s sentence.
HT: Drudgereport
The Presidents statement can be found here.
Libby Assigned Inmate Number
June 28th, 2007
While Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby is still waiting to hear from the appeals court whether or not he can remain free on bail while awaiting his appeal the Bureau of Prisons has issued an inmate number to him.
For years he was known as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and assistant to President Bush. On Wednesday, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby became federal inmate No. 28301-016.
Libby, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity, faces 2 1/2 years in prison.The assignment of an inmate number by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons represents another step on the road to prison. Inmate numbers stay with prisoners even after their release.
Libby, however, is hoping that an appeals court will intervene and put the sentence on hold before he is ordered to surrender.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has not indicated how quickly it will rule. Lawyers in the case said Libby had not yet been assigned to a prison or given a date to surrender.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald opposes Libby’s bid to delay his prison term. He says Libby does not have a good chance of having his conviction overturned and should begin serving prison time immediately.
Libby’s friends have asked President Bush to step in and pardon him, a request that Bush has sidestepped while the legal case drags on.
How I hope he remains free while his appeal is being heard and decided, and short of that, I hope the president will commute the prison part of his sentence and let him continue his appeal to try to clear his name.
Ruling Against Man Who Brought $67m Case For Lost Pants
June 25th, 2007
Why this case was ever heard at all is beyond me, but a man who had attained the position of a judge sued a Korean couple and their son who own a dry cleaners because they lost his pants and he wanted to wear those pants to court the day he was sworn in as a judge.
He sued them originally for $67 million even though the pants were found and he refused to take them. He subsequently lowered his asking price to $54 million.
Well today the judge who matters, the one hearing the case, ruled against the plaintiff and ordered him to pay court costs for the defendents.
I hope that includes lawyer’s fees, as this man has been on a vendetta that has nearly bankrupted the couple and their son.
A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.
The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city’s Consumer Protection Act by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson’s expectations of the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign that was once placed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.
Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.
Pearson pinned all his hopes of winning this case on the fact the business had a sign stating “satisfaction guaranteed.” It did not state unconditional satisfaction guaranteed and certainly met the requirement when they produced Pearson’s pants along with various offers to settle the suit.
I hope he gets disciplined for filing a frivolous lawsuit that was even asking for money for a rental car to take his cleaning to another cleaner.
He represented himself in court. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “A man who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.”
Chemical Ali, Two Others Next on Hangman’s Agenda
June 25th, 2007
Saddam Hussein’s cousin Ali Hasan al-Majid, better known to us as Chemical Ali, and two other Saddam regime members have been sentenced to death.
Saddam Hussein’s cousin, known as “Chemical Ali,” and two other regime officials were sentenced yesterday to hang for slaughtering up to 180,000 Kurdish men, women and children with chemical weapons, artillery barrages and mass executions two decades ago.
Two other defendants were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the 1987-88 crackdown, known as “Operation Anfal.” A sixth defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence. Death sentences are automatically appealed.
The most notorious defendant was Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hasan al-Majid, who gained his nickname for ordering the use of mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds in response to their collaboration with the Iranians during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.
Witnesses testified that Iraqi government forces indiscriminately attacked women and children, burned crops, killed livestock and rounded up civilians into detention camps in a campaign to exterminate the restive Kurdish minority.
The defendants insisted that they were defending the nation against Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Iran during the bloody eight-year war.
Al-Majid, once among the most powerful and feared men in Iraq, trembled in silence as Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa read the verdict against him and imposed five death sentences for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“You had all the civil and military authority for northern Iraq,” Judge al-Khalifa said. “You gave the orders to the troops to kill Kurdish civilians and put them in severe conditions. You subjected them to wide and systematic attacks using chemical weapons and artillery. You led the killing of Iraqi villagers. You restricted them in their areas, burned their orchards, killed their animals. You committed genocide.”
“Thanks be to God,” Al-Majid said as he was led from the courtroom.
While they deserve death for the death they caused, it does seem to me the Iraqis could find a more humane way to do it than hanging. It seems so barbarous, and the observers seem irreverent in the taking of a life—even a life that should be taken.
I pray this doesn’t hit the internet the way some of the others have.
