I just want to follow up a little bit on Glenn’s fine post on this blog (and on his own) in which he takes on Highpockets’ pathetic argument defending the Bush apologist war cry that revealing the NSA illegal spying scandal harmed national security.
I agree, of course, that despite the fact that Bush likes to talk about how they hide in caves, islamic terrorists aren’t cave men. They can read as well as anyone. And because they have what you might call a “particular interest” in such things, they would be more likely than 99% of Americans to know about American surveillance law and practices such as FISA, if such things concerned them.
I also agree that this alleged revelation about “switches” and “encryption” is a red herring. In the first place the Times story didn’t mention it, but even if it did, it makes no difference. All this technological information was in the public domain, as were the laws, so if any terrorist was concerned about how the US went about surveillance or the state of technology that enables it, they could have easily found out.
But none of that really matters. The NY Times story revealed nothing that would give a terrorist pause because the fact is that everyone in the world assumed that we were monitoring terrorists’ electronic communications. I assumed that. So did Osama bin Laden. I further assumed that American friends of terrorists and their friends would be monitored, too. And I have no doubt that Osama bin Laden assumed the same. But while both Osama bin Laden and I undoubtedly made exactly the same assumptions, only one of us has any interest in the NY Times revelation that the surveillance was illegal — and it isn’t Osama.
This article from the Washington Times, via Glenn, bears that out, saying that all this surveillance has resulted in no good intelligence about al Qaeda in the US.
U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers.
“They have been way ahead of us in communications security,” a law enforcement source said. “At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States.”
But even if that were not true and American suicide bombers were plotting their next attacks in AOL chat rooms, the government would have no trouble getting warrants to spy on them. And that’s the rub. I just don’t see any scenario in which a FISA judge would not retroactively grant a warrant in a case that thwarted a terrorist plot. Neither can I imagine that if the administration made a case to the congress that it needed to extend the 72 hour retroactive limit to three weeks (or three months!) that the GOP congress wouldn’t have gone along. Nor would they have withheld the money required to hire all the people needed to do the paperwork, or whatever the excuse of the day is. The administration would have gotten whatever it needed to legally monitor terrorist suspects. In fact, the terrorists and Anmericans alike assumed it had already done so.
Therefore, the only logical reason that the administration believed that it had to secretly and illegally spy on Americans is because they knew that Americans would not approve of which Americans they were monitoring. As Glenn says, the only security threatened by the revelations in the NY Times story is the Republican Party’s political security.
Man, am I one lucky lil’ blogger or what? Let’s have a hand for Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged and Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory. I’m sure you will all be visiting their great blogs often. If there were an award for best guest blogging, they would be shoo-ins. Many thanks to both of them for filling in while I was hanging with the wingnuts.
How is FoxNews indoctrinating the subjects these days, you ask? Well, it’s interesting. From this small subset of wingnuts, it looks like the Abramoff scandal is spawning a kind of feverish excitement, although they don’t seem to realize that it’s going to affect their favored political party more than the hated liberal traitors. The atmosphere was very reminiscent of gatherings during Whitewater and Monicagate and it occurred to me that they are either addicted to scandal in general or they were so conditioned during the Clinton years that they now automatically associate scandal with an advantage to their side.
Keep in mind that while these are wingnuts they are not Pat Robertson wingnuts, so they aren’t faithbased. However, they are military and their tribal indentification with the GOP is very stong. They are unable to admit, as yet, that this is a throughly Republican scandal, but they are scandalized nonetheless. They say generic stuff like “it’s time to throw all those bums out” which, if you knew these particular wingnuts, is as close as they are ever going to get to openly admitting that the Republicans have fucked up.
They also complained that Bush is on TV too much. His hectoring bozo-ism embarrasses them now.
Of course they were also saying, “somebody ought to put a stop to that woman.”
What he said. Thanks for the conversation, and for making me feel at home, and thanks to Digby for inviting me.
Since this came up in the comments of an earlier post, Wampum (home of the Koufaces, and they’re still a little short the money they need to pay for them, if you happen to think of it when you drop by), firedoglake and his rooness all have smart posts up explaining why if you think that “the tribes donated to Democrats” means that Democrats are implicated in the Abramoff scandal, you don’t really understand what the Abramoff scandal is about.
That makes me kind of nervous. We’re the ones who are paying attention. Imagine what impressions the people who aren’t paying attention are getting.
I think we need to get on message here, folks.
Just, you know, saying.
edit: Oh, man. I almost forgot to make Digby profoundly uncomfortable by suggesting that you head over to the Bloggies with this blog in mind.
Thanks to Digby for asking me to blog here while he was away, and thanks to all of his readers for the lively and provocative comments in response to mine and Julia’s posts. This is the place where one finds what I think is the most consistently superb writing and analysis on the Internet, and I’ve enjoyed blogging here these last few days.
I wanted to bring two final items to your attention:
(1) The nonpartisan and independent Congressional Research Service released a Report yesterday (.pdf) which analyzed and, in a mild though clear tone, decimated the legal theories advanced by the Administration to defend George Bush’s lawless eavesdropping.
Though lengthy and legalistic, the Report is well worth reading. Of particular note is its discussion of the history of eavesdropping abuses on U.S. citizens by the Executive Branch which necessitated the protections of FISA (page CRS 13); the Report’s destruction of the Administration’s claim that the AUMF (the Congressional resolution authorizing military force against Al Qaeda) can be read to have provided Bush an “exemption” from the mandates of FISA (CRS 32); and its emphatic rejection of the notion that a President can simply violate a Congressional law (rather than asking Congress to amend it) simply because the President views the law as undesirable for national security (CRS 41).
(2) Atrios has spent the last several days repeatedly asking if there are any Bush followers, anywhere, who can answer this question:
Can anyone – anywhere – explain, just a little bit – just one time – how “national security has been damaged” by revelations that the Administration was eavesdropping without FISA-required warrants and judicial oversight rather than with them?
One of the most devoted and loyal Bush followers, John at Powerline, has courageously stepped up to the plate, and attempted to provide an explanation as to how it can be said that disclosure of the illegality of the eavesdropping program “harmed national security.”
It’s the first such attempt (at least which I’ve seen) to answer this question. For reasons that I point out here on my blog, John’s explanation is not just astoundingly incoherent, but conclusively demonstrates that John — as I believe is the case for many Bush followers — does not have any idea what FISA says or what this scandal is actually about.
The utter emptiness of his response makes quite clear that the only thing “harmed” by disclosure of this illegal program is George Bush’s political interests, not American national security interests. The rage and “treason” accusations arising from this scandal rest on the borderline-religious belief that to criticize and undermine George Bush is the same as criticizing and harming the United States, and harming George Bush’s political interests — even by pointing out that he broke the law — is, therefore, by definition, to commit treason. That really is the premise of those who are defending George Bush in this scandal.
So, what if it does come out that the administration was spying on journalists, political opponents, etc… How WILL the broders/russerts/matthews/hiatts/ roberts/humes of the world react?
I’m not sure exactly what those commentators would say (although I’m sure it would be appropriately balanced and would give due deference to the view that Bush had good arguments for such spying and did so only with the best of intentions for all of us), but I definitely know what Bush’s followers would say: It’s about time, and it doesn’t go far enough. Bush’s blogosphere followers have already begun justifying and excusing the Administration’s potential spying on journalists.
But clearly they believe that a lot more should be done to anti-Bush journalists than simply spying on their calls. Since the New York Times disclosed the undisputed fact that George Bush ordered his Administration to eavesdrop on American citizens with no judicial oversight and outside of FISA, the attacks on the media by the Administration and Bush’s followers have seriously escalated. Since this scandal arose, they have been relentlessly calling the Times and its sources “subversives” and “traitors,” and have been openly claiming that they are guilty of treason.
When Bush followers use terms like “subversives” and “traitors,” and when they accuse people of engaging in “treason,” many assume that they are joking, that it’s a form of political hyperbole and it’s only meant symbolically. Pajamas Media member and Instapunditfavorite Dean Esmay wants it know that the terms “traitors” and “treason” are used literally, and that these traitors must meet the fate which traitors deserve:
When I say “treason” I don’t mean it in an insulting or hyperbolic way. I mean in a literal way: we need to find these 21st century Julius Rosenbergs, these modern day reincarnations of Alger Hiss, put them on trial before a jury of their peers, with defense counsel. When they are found guilty, we should then hang them by the neck until the are dead, dead, dead.
No sympathy. No mercy.Am I angry? You bet I am. But not in an explosive way. Just in the same seething way I was angry on 9/11.
These people have endangered American lives and American security. They need to be found, tried, and executed.
Similarly, on Powerline yesterday, Big Trunk shared some of his dirty fantasies about criminally prosecuting and imprisoning the reporters and editors of the Times who were responsible for having disclosed the fact that his Leader ordered the Government to eavesdrop on American citizens in violation of the law:
Assuming that the terms of the statute apply to the leaks involved in the NSA story, has the Times itself violated the statute and committed a crime? The answer is clearly affirmative. . . .
Is the New York Times a law unto itself? In gambling that constitutional immunity protects it from criminal liability for its misconduct, the New York Times appears to me to be bluffing. Those of us who are disinclined to remit the defense of the United States to the judgment of the New York Times must urge the Bush administration to call the Times’s bluff.
Even discussions of this sort have the effect, by design, of intimidating the nation’s media into remaining quiet about illegal acts by the Administration. With an Administration which throws American citizens indefinitely into military prisons without so much as charges being brought and with access to lawyers being denied, or which contemplates military attacks on unfriendly media outlets, isn’t it just inevitable that all of this talk about treason and criminal prosecution of the Times and its sources is going to have some substantial chilling effect on reporting on the Administration’s wrongdoing?
None of this is new. It’s all been tried before. The New York Times previously obtained classified documents revealing government misconduct with respect to the Vietnam War, and the Nixon Administration argued then, too, that the Times’ publication of that classified information was criminal and endangered national security. The U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. The United States (the Pentagon Papers Case) 403 U.S. 713 (1971), barred the Nixon Administration from preventing publication by the Times of this information.
In doing so, Justice Hugo Black wrote a concurring opinion which makes clear just how dangerous and perverse it is for the Administration and its followers to seek to silence the media from reporting, truthfully, on the Administration’s illegal eavesdropping. I’m quoting from it at length because it is so instructive and applicable to what is occurring today:
Our Government was launched in 1789 with the adoption of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, followed in 1791. Now, for the first time in the 182 years since the founding of the Republic, the federal courts are asked to hold that the First Amendment does not mean what it says, but rather means that the Government can halt the publication of current news of vital importance to the people of this country. . . .
Yet the Solicitor General argues and some members of the Court appear to agree that the general powers of the Government adopted in the original Constitution should be interpreted to limit and restrict the specific and emphatic guarantees of the Bill of Rights adopted later. I can imagine no greater perversion of history. . . .
In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.
The subtle and not-so-subtle threats against journalists for committing “treason” are not confined to the rabid Bush followers in the blogosphere. Bush’s closest political allies routinely make similar accusations, and Bush himself, in his very first Press Conference after disclosure of his eavesdropping, accused those responsible for the disclosure of “helping the enemy,” i.e., committing treason:
There is a process that goes on inside the Justice Department about leaks, and I presume that process is moving forward. My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy. . . .
With a Congress that is controlled by Republicans and hopelessly passive, and with a judiciary increasingly packed with highly deferential Bush appointees, the two remaining sources which can serve as meaningful checks on Executive power are governmental whistle-blowers and journalists, which is exactly why the most vicious and intimidating attacks are now being directed towards them.
I’m frequently dispirited at the way the obvious doesn’t seem to be obvious to the people who provide our news coverage, but every so often I read something that makes me feel as if perhaps someone is paying attention.
Republicans once fell all over themselves to get his “moolah,” the term used famously by the disgraced superlobbyist, and to get his advice on dealing with that warm and cuddly entity known as “the lobbying community.”
Suddenly, Abramoff enters two plea bargains, and these former friends ask, in puzzled tones, “Jack Who ?”
Over the past few days, politicians — from President Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert on down — raced to return Abramoff contributions, or compassionately sent the moolah off to charity. There’s a scramble to treat him as a wildly defective gene in an otherwise healthy body politic, and to erase the past. But seeing the record of the past clearly is essential to fixing the future.
Abramoff, who used to pall around with close Bush allies Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed in the College Republicans and who has been a central figure in the rise of Republican dominance in Washington, is not a lone wolf. He is a particularly egregious example of how the GOP’s political-corporate-lobbying complex has overwhelmed the idealistic wing of the Republican Party.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, insisted on Wednesday that Bush does not know Abramoff personally. But the record makes clear that Abramoff was a loyal and serious player in Bush’s circles.
According to an Oct. 15, 2003, story in Roll Call, Abramoff was one of a half-dozen lobbyists who raised $100,000 for Bush’s 2000 campaign. When Bush was battling Al Gore’s efforts to recount Florida’s votes, Abramoff was there with the maximum $5,000 contribution Bush was taking for the effort. A September 2003 National Journal story noted that Abramoff was so confident he would meet his fundraising goals for the president’s 2004 campaign that he was planning, as the lobbyist generously put it, “to try to help some other lobbyists meet their goals.”
The administration, in turn, was open to Abramoff. As National Journal reported in its April 20, 2002, issue, “Last summer, in an effort to raise the visibility of his Indian clients, Abramoff helped arrange a White House get-together on tax issues with President Bush for top Indian leaders, including Lovelin Poncho, the chairman of the Coushattas,” one of the tribes Abramoff represented.
When journalists would raise questions about Abramoff’s role as a lobbyist-fundraiser just a couple of years ago, Bush’s lieutenants played down his influence peddling and proudly claimed Abramoff as one of their own.
On an Oct. 15, 2003, CNBC broadcast, journalist Alan Murray asked Ed Gillespie, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, about fundraising by “people like Jack Abramoff, who represents Indian tribes here,” and another lobbyist whose name I’ll leave out because he has not been implicated in any scandals. “Are you going to sit here and tell us that their contributions to your party have nothing to do with their lobbying efforts in Washington?”
“I know Jack Abramoff,” Gillespie replied. He mentioned the other lobbyist and insisted: “They are Republicans; they were Republicans before they were lobbyists. . . . I think they want to see a Republican reelected in the White House in 2004 more than anything.”
Roll Call reported on March 12, 2001, that “GOP leaders on and off Capitol Hill are organizing a new drive to lean on major corporations and trade associations to hire Republicans for their top lobbying jobs.” The article spoke of a “Who’s Who of Republican lobbyists” who had held a meeting on the subject the week before. At the top of the list was Jack Abramoff…
There’s been quite a flurry of attempts to play this unholy mess as a bipartisan scandal (I particularly enjoyed this bizarrity from the ever Republican-friendly Gallop, where they make a valiant attempt to “prove” that corruption is a bipartisan problem for Congress in the wake of blanket news coverage of Mr. Abramoff’s activities based on polls taken, um, a while ago).
It’s not working, and we shouldn’t let it work. That means, among other things, you might want to consider defending the Democrats. After all, individual lobbyists weren’t making tens of millions of dollars selling both sides of the mall to anyone with money when we held them (pace the junior generation of the Boggs family). Maybe we should grab them back.
If we showed a bit of enthusiasm for the good our team is trying to do rather than focussing on what they’re not doing the way we would, it might help.
When Rudy Giuliani first became Mayor of New York in 1993, he famously ordered the Police Department to begin enforcing relatively minor “quality of life” laws — long-ignored prohibitions on things like jumping turnstiles and panhandling. These actions were based on the “Broken Windows” theory of criminality long touted by conservative theorist James Q. Wilson, which held that allowing even small infractions of the law is to endorse criminality which, in turn, leads to more serious crimes and then all-out lawlessness. To this day, whenever it is their turn to pay tribute to the heroic greatness of Rudy Giuliani, conservatives heap lavish praise on his refusal to overlook law-breaking and his glorious re-instatement of the rule of law.
But like the Geneva Convention, precepts of due process and so much else, “rule of law” theories are now quaint relics being cast aside by the so-called conservatives running our Federal Government. In their place, we now have a governmental culture where violations of the law are literally the norm.
What we have in our Federal Government are not individual acts of law-breaking or isolated scandals of illegality, but instead, a culture and an ideology of lawlessness. It cannot be emphasized enough that since September 11, the Bush Administration has claimed the power to act without any constraints of law or checks from the Congress or the courts. Its view of its own power and governing philosophy is based upon, and perfectly encapsulated by, this single paragraph from the incomparably pernicious September 25, 2001 Memorandum, written by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo:
In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President’s authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President’s determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.
That decisions about what actions our country takes “are for the President alone to make” – without any interference from the Congress, the courts, or anything else – is not a fringe academic theory. It is a definitely authoritarian and lawless ideology that has truly — expressly — become the governing philosophy of George Bush and his Administration. And it is not something the Administration has merely embraced in theory. It has been aggressively exercising these limitless powers.
When the President and the Vice President assure us that all of their actions are in “full accordance with the law,” what they mean by “the law” is what is described in the Yoo Memorandum. For everything broadly relating to the undeclared and eternal “war” on terror — not just on international battlefields but domestically as well — decisions are “for the President alone to make.” Pursuant to this theory, even when the President acts in violation of what we used to understand as “the law” (i.e., acts of Congress which are signed into law by the President), he is still acting “in accordance with the law,” because the power to make such decisions rests exclusively with him.
The NSA scandal has received the bulk of the media’s attention over the past month, and deservedly so. But it has drowned out other acts of wanton law-breaking by the Administration. We have learned recently that multiple federal agencies have been tracking the computer activities of American citizens in patent violation of the law. And it was disclosed in the last couple of days that the Administration some time ago unilaterally granted itself an exemption to the National Security Act of 1947, whereby it has refused to brief the Senate and House Intelligence Committees with regard to the NSA’s eavesdropping activities as required by that law. And in violation of the President’s (itself illegal) Executive Order directing the NSA to eavesdrop only on international calls in violation of FISA, the NSA has eavesdropped on domestic calls as well.
Such individual acts of law-breaking are always either excused as being inconsequential or defended as being necessary for our safety. But the dangers posed by this theory are self-evident and severe.
Just two weeks ago or so, I wrote a post asking Bush followers how any limits at all could be recognized on George Bush’s powers in light of the theories of the Yoo Memorandum, and specifically wondered why the debates we were having about things like renewal of the Patriot Act and prohibitions on torture even matter, if, as Bush claims, “such decisions alone are for the President to make.” Both Matt Welch at Reason and Scott Lemieux asked the same question with regard to other powers that the Administration could assert. It did not take long for those questions to be answered, and the answer — coming directly from the Administration — is that there are no cognizable limits on the President’s law-breaking power.
This answer was delivered in the form of a woefully under-reported “signing statement” which was issued last Friday by the President when he signed into law a defense appropriations bill passed by Congress. That bill included the McCain Amendment, which bans the use of torture as an interrogation tool and which the Administration aggressively argued against. As Marty Lederman has detailed, Bush’s signing statement plainly amounts to a re-iteration – a reminder to all of us – of the theory of the Yoo Memorandum: that while the President was participating in the symbolic ritual of signing the McCain Amendment into “law,” he has the power to violate it should he deem it in the national interest to do so. Here is what Bush said in his statement:
The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.
So this new “law” will be interpreted “in a manner consistent” with the Administration’s view of “the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief.” Of course, the Administration’s view regarding the President’s “constitutional authority” is that such decisions are not for Congress to make, but “are for the President alone to make,” which is just another way of saying that the President can violate the law the minute he thinks he should.
Lest anyone think that this description of the President’s view of his right to break the law is exaggerated or unfair, we should listen to what the Administration itself is saying about this matter:
A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security. . . .
But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law’s restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ”ticking time bomb” scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.
”Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case,” the official added. ”We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it’s possible that they will.”
Isn’t it rather extraordinary to observe the Congress pass a much-debated bill which the Administration vigorously opposed, and watch the President sign it into law, only for the Administration, on the very same day, to actually come right out and say that the President “may have to waive the law’s restrictions”?
Since when do we have a system of Government where the President can simply “waive” away laws? This law was enacted specifically to prohibit acts of torture which the Administration has engaged in, and the President is openly telling us that he may have to unilaterally “waive” the law. Generously, we hear that he hopes not to have to break the law, “but it’s possible” that he will.
The NSA law-breaking scandal cannot be seen as some isolated act. It is merely the most flagrant symptom (thus far) of the fact that we have a President — with three full years left in office — who has claimed for himself the right to ignore Congressional law and who believes that virtually all decisions of any real significance in our country are his “alone to make.” FISA. The National Security Act of 1947. The McCain Amendment. These are all federal laws — laws — which the Administration is openly claiming it has the right to violate.
Shouldn’t we be having much more of a discussion than we have had about the fact that we have a President who believes he has the power to ignore laws? We have had all sorts of vigorous and sweeping debates lately about things like torture, habeas corpus, surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But those debates are all just gestures. Like George Bush’s signing a “law” which he simultaneously claims he has no obligation to obey, the oh-so-heated debates we’ve been having are all just some sort of illusory role-playing, where we pretend that we have a representative Congress which makes laws. But what we actually have is a President who says he can violate those laws at will because such decisions are “his alone to make.”
Maybe Americans want to have a President who has these powers and can operate without much restraint. Other countries at other times have decided that they want that, usually as a means for protecting themselves against perceived external threats. But shouldn’t we be having this discussion much more explicitly and with much greater urgency than we have had it thus far?
The “war” which is said to justify these extraordinary powers isn’t going anywhere any time soon. The Administration itself constantly reminds us that it’s a long struggle which could last decades. That means that whatever law-breaking powers we permit to be vested in the President are ones that George Bush, and then subsequent presidents, are going to wield for a long time to come. At the very least, such a radical shift in how our government functions should not be effectuated in secret and without real debate.
The Talking Dog, who is a bit of a lawyer himself, professionally, has been interviewing the lawyers for a number of the defendants who have been caught up in the current administration’s no-constitutional-rights-for-citizens-we-say-are-terrorists (only we don’t have to prove it) legal policy.
As you may or may not know, the current administration is attempting to transfer Mr. Padilla’s case from the military courts to the criminal courts in an attempt (unsuccessful, so far) to keep the Supreme Court from deciding on the constitutionality of their denial of constitutional protections to Mr. Padilla, on the basis of their argument that the executive branch has the right to ignore the constitution.
That right, presumably, emanating from the penumbra of something or other. Love me some original intenters.
President George Bush is giving $US6000 ($8000) in political contributions from Abramoff, his wife and a client to charity, but will keep more than $US100,000 that Abramoff collected for Mr Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, officials said.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the $US6000 from the Abramoffs and the Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan would go to the American Heart Association.
A Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, said the money Abramoff raised as a “pioneer” for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign would be kept. “There is nothing to indicate that those contributions reflect anything but support for the re-election campaign,” she said.
And truly, Mr. Abramoff’s associates and clients (he doesn’t appear to have too many friends, now, does he?) had a long list of reasons to be very, very interested in keeping Our Fearless Leader in the White House.
A few highlights:
Abramoff Arranged White House Meeting at in Exchange for Donation to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. A lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe in Michigan revealed that tribal leaders had “three or four” meetings at the White House—including one with Bush and another with Rove—after they gave a $25,000 donation to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform at Jack Abramoff’s request. ATR later confirmed that Norquist arranged White House meetings for Indian tribal leaders and others who were “supportive of the president’s agenda.” [Newsweek, 5/2/05]
Jack Abramoff Advised Department of Interior Transition. Abramoff advised the Interior Department during the Bush transition. [Wall Street Journal, 3/19/01]
Abramoff’s Former Assistant Became Rove’s Gate Keeper. In 2001 Abramoff’s personal assistant, Susan Ralston, took a similar job under Karl Rove in the White House. This move essentially made Ralston, “Rove’s gatekeeper.” [New York Times, 5/1/05]
Lobbying Network Involved Bush Administrator. According to The Washington Post, “in an attempt to influence the Interior Department — which has the final say on a tribe’s gambling ambitions — Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give at least $225,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a conservative group that was founded by Gale A. Norton before President Bush chose her to be his interior secretary. [Washington Post, 3/13/05]
DC Lobbyist Jack Abramoff Advised Bush Interior Department Transition While Representing Indian Tribes. Abramoff advised the Interior Department during the Bush transition. Aside from the Department of Homeland Security, which regulates coastline gaming, and the Department of Treasury, which regulates illegal financial transactions, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of the few means the Federal Government has to regulate the gaming industry, specifically the Native American gaming industry. [Wall Street Journal, 3/19/01; www.doi.gov]
Abramoff Directed Tribal Clients Contributions to Interior Secretary Gail Norton’s Foundation. According to The Washington Post, “in an attempt to influence the Interior Department — which has the final say on a tribe’s gambling ambitions — Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give at least $225,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a conservative group that was founded by Gale A. Norton before President Bush chose her to be his interior secretary. [Washington Post, 3/13/05]
Abramoff Also Arranged A Meeting With Interior Secretary Gail Norton For the Coushattas Tribe. Abramoff also invited the Coushattas to a fall 2001 dinner party attended by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. The Coushattas provided Abramoff with millions in consulting fees and contracts. [National Journal, 4/20/02]
Obviously Mr. Abramoff’s little circle was extremely anxious to keep the current team in place.
After all, they’d already paid a great deal of money to Mr. Abramoff in return for favors from inside the White House. They had an investment to protect.
The DCCC has updated their scandal website with the latest noisome details.