Showing posts with label John ashcroft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John ashcroft. Show all posts
Friday, May 18, 2007
For the second day in a row, the Washington Post editorializes against the incident where Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card tried to get a drugged, just out of surgery, John Ashcroft to sign off on a spying program that he thought was illegal. Even in his drugged state, Ashcroft refused, but they went ahead anyways. Fred Hiatt at the Post still isn't all the way into the reality based world though.
IT DOESN'T much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.
I'm not going to talk about it," Mr. Bush told reporters at a news conference with departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It's a very sensitive program. I will tell you that, one, the program is necessary to protect the American people, and it's still necessary because there's still an enemy that wants to do us harm."
No one is asking Mr. Bush to talk about classified information, and no one is discounting the terrorist threat.
I may be a nobody, but I am asking for Bush to discuss this classified information with the Senate intelligence committee. Are you kidding? The President tries to get something that even Ashcroft thinks is illegal, tries to trick him to say it's legal while he is doped up, and only back off a bit when the top people at Justice threaten to resign en masse. It might be useful to find out what the President was attempting.
It has to be really bad. Although we are at "war" perpetually it appears, classification is no excuse for lack of oversight. Perhaps, one day the Post will go the full monty and see it that way as well.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Bush on Comey: I'm not talking about it
At a White House press conference, George W. Bush was just asked if he sent Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales to John Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to reauthorize the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The president's response: "There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen, and I'm not going to talk about it."
We'll take that as a yes.
The story, for those not following, is that the President and his minions wanted to do some spying that was so overboard that even John Ashcroft refused to go along with it. John Ashcroft had pancreatitis and turned over power to his deputy James Comey. Comey agreed with Ashcroft that this particular spying plan was illegal. So Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales went to Ashcroft's sick bed, the day after surgery while he was groggy, trying to get him to sign off on the proposal. They apparently hoped that he would sign anything in his drugged state.
Bush refuses to say if he sent them over to do it. I think it's kind of important that we find out. But, I am whacky that way.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Intriguing article from McClatchy with the details about allegations that an investigation into Charles Taylor was quashed due to pressure from the John Ashcroft DOJ. Taylor owns Blue Ridge Savings & Loan, a bank headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina.
Four years ago in Asheville, N.C., a lawyer filed a document that contained a scandalous accusation: The U.S. attorney general had intervened in a local bank-fraud case and prevented investigators from questioning one of Congress' most powerful members, Rep. Charles Taylor.
But many in the western part of the state recall a particular case a few years back that was handled quietly in the North Carolina mountains, when a pair of lawyers thought that Taylor, a North Carolina Republican, ought to be questioned over a loan-fraud case that involved the bank he owns.
"Essentially the question is, `Why was he not interrogated? Why was he not interviewed?'" asked Forrest A. Ferrell, the lawyer who leveled the charges in 2003. "He knew about it all and should've at least been interrogated about it."
There were suggestions that Charles Taylor approved the loans himself, knowing they were fraudulent but he was never interviewed even though he owned the bank. Lingering questions remain as to why he was never questioned.
Charles Taylor also was the first American to own a bank in Russia. There are questions about who is parteners are in that operation. Taylor would do "fact-finding" missions to Russia, and conduct personal business all on the dime of his campaign, and the taxpayers according to allegations. Thank goodness Heath Shuler beat him in November.
This is serious business here. Taylor was accused by the Wall Street Journal of putting in earmarks to help his businesses, and threatened to sue. Two examples were funding a park in front of the main branch of his bank, and another was building a road that ran next to a parcel of land he owned. The guy is a crook who hasn't been caught yet is all.
He likely isn't the only one here who got "protection" from the DOJ. I don't know what kind of an agenda the democrats can accomplish when they will be so very busy investigating all the crooked things done by this administration.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had a standard spiel for new U.S. attorneys: "You have to leave politics at the door to do this job properly."
You also have to cover up lady liberty's tits with some drapes. But, that was so obvious that it didn't need to be said.
Monday, March 05, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who sent a letter this week to his successor Alberto Gonzales blasting the proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., approached XM in the days after the merger was announced offering the firm his consulting services, a spokesman for XM said Saturday.
The spokesman said XM declined Mr. Ashcroft's offer to work as a lobbyist for the company.
Mr. Ashcroft was subsequently hired by the National Association of Broadcasters, which is fiercely opposed to the merger. On its behalf he conducted a review of the effects on competition if the two satellite radio companies were allowed to merge.
The Crisco kid needs to be hauled before congress. A week or two back, Ashcroft tried to lobby former justice underlings of his at a pizza party. This is even more vile. It's extortion basically. He is going to use his influence to kill the deal unless they pay him a finder's fee, or whatever euphemism you would like to employ.
Congress needs to hold hearings right away, with all parties involved including Alberto Gonzales, the National Association of Broadcasters, and that religious freak who appears to have the morals of his former congressional spiritual twin Tom Delay.
Monday, February 26, 2007
A pizza luncheon to be hosted this Wednesday by former Attorney General turned consultant John Ashcroft for some of his old political appointees has raised eyebrows in the Justice Department's ethics office, U.S. News has learned. The ethics office, which provides Justice employees with guidance on a wide range of ethics questions, has not instructed invitees not to attend the lunch.
However, it has "advised invitees to consider the appearance of attending such an event," Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told U.S. News. But Juleanna Glover Weiss, an adviser and spokesperson for his consulting firm, told U.S. News that "General Ashcroft has abided by the letter and spirit of all post government service ethics restrictions." Wednesday's lunch, Weiss said, "is just a small social gathering."
Executive branch employees must comply with stringent standards of ethical conduct pertaining to accepting gifts or items of monetary value from anyone wanting to do official business with their agency, including their old colleagues and bosses. The ethics office has told political appointees at Justice that if they attend the Ashcroft pizza luncheon, it would "count toward the $20/occasion and $50/year limits."
I have a few questions. Are they measuring the gift by the slice. Does the coke count? What if they order a pitcher, and Murray in accounting drinks most of it? That being said, I also wonder if they take special requests, such as using crisco in the dough instead of olive oil. Ashcroft is a big fan of that product, and I hear he still has some pull.
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