Fitzgerald Will Hold News Conference at 2PM
Heard it on CNN just now. (That’s 11AM Pacific.)
Update: Prosecutor to drop docs at noon in DC. (9AM out left.)
Month: October 2005
Bush Donor Indicted in Ohio
Tom Noe, whose failed rare-coin deal with the state has triggered multiple investigations and rocked Ohio’s Republican leadership, was charged yesterday with illegally funneling $45,400 to President Bush’s re-election campaign.
Gregory A. White, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced a three-count indictment against Mr. Noe, saying he used two dozen people as “conduits” to make illegal campaign contributions at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus.
In doing so, Mr. Noe skirted federal campaign finance funding limits while meeting a pledge to raise $50,000 for the Oct. 30, 2003, fund-raiser. The Bush campaign later named Mr. Noe a “Pioneer” for raising at least $100,000 overall.
The Noe case is the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department since new campaign finance laws were enacted by Congress in 2002, said Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section.
“This case represents one of the first and most important examples of this new enforcement posture under the new law and is one of the most blatant and excessive criminal campaign finance schemes we have encountered,” Mr. Hillman said.
A federal arrest warrant has been issued for Mr. Noe, 51, and Mr. White said he expected him to surrender within a day. Authorities said they were negotiating for Mr. Noe’s surrender so that he can make an initial appearance in federal court.
Rove’s Extramarital Friendship Is Over
Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News:
Rove biographers Jim Moore and Wayne Slater – who this week are rereleasing their groundbreaking study, “Bush’s Brain,” as a quickie paperback with a new title, “Rove Exposed: How Bush’s Brain Fooled America” – are feverishly at work on “The Architect,” a brand-new Rove exposé for Random House.
Meanwhile, Radar magazine yesterday reported on its Web site that Texas political insiders are predicting the demise of the married Rove’s “very close relationship” with wealthy forty-something Texas lobbyist Karen Johnson.
“Everyone knows how close Karen is to Karl, but she’s sick of it,” the mag quotes a source “familiar with the situation,” noting that Johnson and Rove didn’t return phone calls.
Apparently Johnson’s family wants her to marry her handsome ranch foreman, Rhett Hard, who works on Johnson’s Cinco de Mayo property in Austin.
But Moore, a veteran Texas political reporter who has known Rove well since the late 1970s, told me that he and co-author Slater have no plans to include Johnson in their new book.
“It’s a tough thing for me,” Moore said. “Darby, Karl’s wife, is a wonderful woman. And they’ve got a great kid. They just happen to live with an evil man.”
NYT: Libby Indicted Tomorrow, But Not Rove
Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.
Words of Wisdom from Trent Lott
Trent Lott has spoken some boners in the past but this one ranks all the way up there.
“In a month, who will remember the name Harriet Miers?” – Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
I’m betting that “Harriet Miers” will take a place alongside Robert Bork; that “The Miers Nomination” will be regarded on the lines of Waterloo and Little Big Horn; and that this whole fiasco will be the third leg of the 3-legged stool pulled from underneath Bush’s comfortable fanny, along with “Katrina” and “CIA Leak.”
Yeah, Trent, you’re dreaming if you think we’re all going to forget this one. That’s about as likely as anyone forgetting this little chestnut from you:
“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”
Begala: Cronies and Toadies Will Bring Down the Boy King
“The [second-term exodus of senior staff] and incapacity were inevitable; replacing Bush’s stand-up guys and gals with suck-ups and sycophants was not… Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush’s personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers’ cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.
“And so they wait. And they sniff the royal throne. They tell the Beloved Leader he’s the victim of a partisan plot (although how the Bush CIA, which referred the Plame case for prosecution, became ground zero of Democratic liberalism escapes me). They assure him all is well. But all is not well. People are looking over their shoulders. The smart ones have stopped taking notes in meetings. The very smart ones have stopped using email for all but the most pedestrian communications. And the smartest ones have already obtained outside counsel. ”
— Paul Begala
Odd Timing: Senate Investigators Found Another Witness Who Claims Miers Helped Hide Bush’s Guard Records
One day before nomination Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court is withdrawn, we learn this:
A U-S Senate panel may seek testimony from a former Texas lottery official during hearings on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers of Dallas.
Another lottery official has claimed Miers let a company keep its contract because one of its lobbyists helped President Bush get into the National Guard in the 1960’s.Miers, who’s now the White House counsel, chaired the three-person Texas Lottery commission from 1995 to 2000.
Another lottery official has claimed Miers let a company keep its contract because one of its lobbyists helped President Bush get into the National Guard in the 1960’s.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on November seventh will begin hold hearings on the Miers nomination.
Committee members recently asked lottery contractor G-TECH whether it would object to testimony from Lawrence Littwin.
Littwin, who was the lottery’s second executive director, was fired in 1997 after just four months on the job.
He sued G-TECH, but late settled.
Littwin, who signed a confidentiality agreement, declined to comment other than to say he would agree to testify if subpoenaed.
A G-TECH official says the confidentiality agreement allows Littwin him to discuss the issues with government authorities.
G-TECH, which denies wrongdoing, says it will provide any additional information the senators need.
Move Your Feet to Schwarzenegger Street
Check out this new animation, “Schwarzenegger Street,” and meet Arnold’s friends Bush Bird, Ken Von Lay, Rover, O’Reilly the Grouch and Cheney Monster.
The video is sponsored by California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who is running againt Schwarzenegger for governor in 2006.
Miers Withdraws
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court. Now we can expect the new nominee to be troglodyte of epic proportions.
Let the games begin.
Fitzgerald Wraps Penultimate Day with Grand Jury
The term of service of the current grand jury investigated the Bush CIA Leak expires tomorrow. There is speculation that the current phase of the investigation will wrap up then:
[After] grand jurors left the federal courthouse before noon yesterday, it was unclear whether [special counsel Patrick] Fitzgerald had spelled out the criminal charges he might ask them to consider, or whether he had asked them to vote on any proposed indictments. Fitzgerald’s legal team did not present the results of a grand jury vote to the court yesterday, which he is required to do within days of such a vote.
Yesterday’s three-hour grand jury session came after agents and prosecutors this week conducted last-minute interviews with Adam Levine, a member of the White House communications team at the time of the leak, about his conversations with Rove, and with Plame’s neighbors in the District.
Should he need more time to finish the investigation, Fitzgerald could seek to empanel a new group of grand jurors to consider the case. But sources familiar with the prosecutor’s work said he has indicated he is eager to avoid that route. The term of the current grand jury has been extended once and cannot be lengthened again, according to federal rules.
