Tag: Scandals

Talk about your memorable debuts. New Whitehouse SpokesTool Tony Snow blew it so big today that I would not be surprised if his were the shortest reign as press secretary in our nation’s history.

Tony was so unnerved by Helen Thomas’ relentless follow-up ala the Steve Colbert video at the White House correspondent’s dinner, that he worked the phrase “tar baby” into his answer for Martha Radditz. Amazing. Watch it yourself at CrooksandLiars.

And if today was any indication, we are in for an even worse time with Tony that with Scottie or Ari. First he says he won’t comment on the USA Today story on phone calls, then he goes on to hold forth at length about it. Next he quotes poll numbers that show dumbass Americans are unconcerned and follows that up by saying the president ignores polls. I don’t know about you but I’m already tired.

PR’s Buck noted yesterday the boasting by Bush’s HUD secretary, Alphonso Jackson. Jackson proudly told a forum of Texas realtors that he pulled a HUD contract because the recipient did not support Pres. Bush.

Today, he says sorry, he was only kidding. A.P.:

Jackson, seeking to avoid a political firestorm, said he made up the story.

“I deeply regret the anecdotal remarks I made at a recent Texas small business forum and would like to reassure the public that all HUD contracts are awarded solely on a stringent merit-based process,” he said in a statement. “During my tenure, no contract has ever been awarded, rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient.”

It’s the old courtroom question. “Are you lying now, Sec. Jackson, or were you lying then?” I’m betting the answer is, “All of the above.”

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants Jackson investigated.

Breaking: Washington’s WUSA-9 is getting a White House response to this incredibly embarrassing story, which they broke earlier today.

How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn’t have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President’s trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.

It’s the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage. Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing…

See the video HERE.

Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, is likely to be President Bush’s nominee to replace CIA Director Porter Goss, or so say chatterers in the capitol.

As NSA director, Hayden was in charge of implementing President Bush’s program of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens, and the general served as the administration’s spokesperson on the topic during the initial controversy last winter.

While Hayden comes off as a pleasant fellow, an exchange he had with a reporter back in January revealed that he had an alarming ignorance about the constituional law he and the president were accused of breaking:

REPORTER: [Regarding] the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: Actually, the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That’s what it says.

REPORTER:: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

REPORTER:: But does it not say probable —

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: No.

REPORTER: The court standard, the legal standard —

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

Text of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That’s like Dr. Strangelove scary.

Rumors have been swirling around Washington that CIA Director Porter Goss may have been involved in the poker and prostitute parties at the Watergate Hotel hosted by the defense contractors who bribed former Rep. Duke Cunningham. Goss was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when the parties took place, so it is possible he was involved somehow in either the bribery, the sex with prostitutes or both.

Goss’s abrupt resignation today was offered without a reason — not even the old Washington bromide of an urgent need to spend more time with his familiy. The news readers on CNN and MSNBC are pussyfooting around it but it is hard to see how Goss’s sudden departure after a little more than a year as head of the CIA is not connected to the Watergate II scandals.

Here’s some background on the scandals that posted on Alternet earlier today:

According to recent reports, federal investigators have traced the outlines of a far more extensive network of suspected corruption, involving multiple members of Congress, some of the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence officials, bribery attempts including “free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes,” tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts awarded under dubious circumstances, and even efforts to influence U.S. national security policy by subverting democratic oversight…

CIA director Goss tied to scandal?

Last week, Harper’s magazine reported that party-goers “under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description. (“This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn’t even been to the Watergate in decades,” a CIA spokeswoman said. When asked if Goss had attended Wilkes’ parties at the Westin or other locations, she repeated the denial. “It’s horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue.”) But the alleged links between Goss, Foggo, and Wilkes have led some to return to questions raised when Goss initially selected Foggo to be executive director in November 2004.

Update: NBC’s Tim Russert has been rushed in front of the cameras to insist that Goss’s resignation is a result of head-butting from John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. In other words, “Move along, folks, move along. Nothing to see here.”

Watergate-gate: If you are like our co-editor Trish, you’re probably tired of the three decades old practice of attaching the suffix “-gate” to every new political scandal. Well, kids, I’m sorry to tell you, it’s baaack:

[The Watergate Hotel] has received multiple subpoenas in connection with the Wilkes Hookergate scandal. He went on to say that the hotel is complying with those subpoenas but that he couldn’t discuss the content of the orders, nor could he discuss details of the investigation, “out of respect for our guests’ privacy…”

The Wall Street Journal had originally reported that investigators “had requested, and been given, records relating to the investigation and rooms in the hotel,” but not that they had used subpoenas.

At long last, sex has reared its ugly head out of the morass of Republican scandals plaguing the capitol — and I do mean ugly:

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites, pursuing evidence that could broaden their long-running inquiry.

Besides scrutinizing the prostitution scheme for evidence that might implicate contractor Brent Wilkes, investigators are focusing on whether any other members of Congress, or their staffs, may also have used the same free services, though it isn’t clear whether investigators have turned up anything to implicate others.

In recent weeks, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have fanned out across Washington, interviewing women from escort services, potential witnesses and others who may have been involved in the arrangement.

Regular citizens out there don’t focus on dry-as-toast political scandals about bribery and leaking classified information. But when sex is involved, the cable newsers go nuts and it gets their attention.

Word is, a House committee chairman or two may be involved. Even the speculation about this will send the media into hyperdrive.

More bad news for the GOP.

One of the ironies of the Watergate scandal was that undoing of President Nixon was triggered by the revelation of crime about which he had no prior knowledge — a bungled reconnaissance mission by GOP operatives at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. In fact, it’s fair to say that most scandals are revealed in ways that do not seem obvious at the time, a fact that gives this story salience it might otherwise not have:

To Republicans, the New Hampshire phone-jamming incident is an isolated case of political dirty tricks that took place more than three years ago.

To Democrats, it’s a scandal with echoes of Watergate that may reach all the way to the White House.

Republican leaders are facing questions stemming from a criminal case involving efforts to suppress voter turnout in a U.S. Senate election in the state in 2002. Republican John Sununu won that race over Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, helping Republicans retake control of the Senate.

The facts, on the surface at least, are suspicious: dozens of phone calls to the White House by a man later convicted in the case; the national Republican Party agreeing to pay more than $2.5 million in legal bills; phones jammed on Election Day, not only of Democrats but of a firefighters’ group, in the first U.S. congressional elections since the Sept. 11 attacks. Democrats say that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff may even be involved.

“The calls to the White House and the relationship with White House staff are a real eye-opener and should be a cause for concern on all fronts,” said Sheila Krumholz, acting executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington- based research group. “It calls into question who the person was on the end of that telephone line.”