Now I Get Why They Manipulated The US Attorneys Offices !!!

[WillyT]

Abramoff Bodies Being Rapidly Buried
By: Jane Hamsher

<snip>

Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles will plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation, The Associated Press has learned.

Prosecutors dropped earlier allegations that Griles did anything improper to help Abramoff or gained anything of value from the former Republican lobbyist, the AP was told. The agreement does not require Griles to help investigators with their grand jury probe.

In exchange for the plea, federal prosecutors will seek no more than a 10-month prison sentence for Griles — the minimum they could seek under sentencing guidelines — but they will agree to let him serve half that in home confinement, according to one person involved in the case.

<snip>

Link: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/23/abramoff-bodies-being-rapidly-buried/#more-8022

Apparently... they have to finish off the cases that the honorable USAs were working on, but this new crop of party hack attorneys doesn't have to follow up on any leads and see just how high this corruption goes. Welcome to Amerika.

Changing my avatar once again.

:mad:

[AndyA]

1. Just another thing for Congress to add to its list to investigate.

With all the new evidence piling up against Gonzalez/Bush, it will be easy to justify expanding the hearings and looking into why the firings happened.

This is Bush's Watergate. We've waited a long time, and I think this is what's going to get him: the cover up and obstruction of justice.

[ClayZ]

2. It is all tied together like the rubber bands on a golf ball!

[ClayZ]

3. K and R

[WillyT]

4. And HOLY CRAP !!! - Did You Know About Griles Girlfriend ???

Federal Prosecutor Sue Wooldridge Soft On Friends

February 15, 2007

<snip>

The top environmental prosecutor at the Department of Justice purchased a $1 million home with the vice president and top lobbyist of a major oil company just months before granting leniency in its multi million-dollar pollution settlement with the government.

As head of the Justice Department’s 600-employee Environmental and Natural Resources Division, Assistant Attorney General Sue Wooldridge represents practically every federal agency in cases related to pollution, natural resources and wildlife. Houston-based ConocoPhillips, an international company with $164 billion in assets, was ordered to conduct toxic waste cleanup and install $525 million in pollution controls at nine refineries.

Wooldridge quietly signed consent decrees giving the mega oil and energy company an extra three years to complete the costly work. It turns out that ConocoPhillips’ vice president is a good friend and business associate of Wooldridge’s and the company’s top lobbyist, a well-connected former Deputy Interior Secretary, happens to be her boyfriend.

The boyfriend, Steven Giles, is the highest-ranking Bush Administration official being criminally investigated in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe. When Giles left his post at the Department of the Interior he joined a powerful lobbying firm that recently severed ties with him because of his involvement with Abramoff, who is currently in prison.

Giles, Woodridge and ConocoPhillips vice president Donald Duncan are longtime friends who back years. The trio purchased the lavish North Carolina home in a gated community just months before the federal prosecutor granted her friend’s company a lot of extra time to comply with the law.

<snip>

Link: http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2007/02/federal_prosecutor_soft_on_fri.html

I know this is from Judicial Watch, but hey... sometimes they've had it right in the past.

:shrug:

[MagickMuffin]

13. Check out my comic about this on February 26

My commentary has links to the Letter John Conyers and Rahm Emanuel wrote to Fredo Gonzales and an article from Common Dreams. Here's a small version

[WillyT]

15. Most Excellent, Thanks For Sharing !!!

:yourock:

[MagickMuffin]

23. I didn't know if this was posted at the time

I have a problem with keeping up with threads. They always move so fast, if you're not a regular poster (like myself) your threads drop like lead balloons.

:hi:

I hope you enjoyed my pic of Don Duncan. I think I really captured his TRUE ESSENCE :evilgrin:

[Botany]

5. but now it doesn't matter because their firewall is springing leaks

.... our long national nightmare will soon be over. (I think)

Because if Rove and others along with the e mails and other evidence
get in front of congress ..... bush is done.


or if bush fights the subpoenas and gets hit with a contempt of congress
charge he will get impeached and the evidence will still come out.

The first test of bush's strength was last week when the senate voted 94-2
against him, Gonzo, and the Patriot Act.


And yes ... you are right the Attorneys were to cover that fucker's tracks .....
democratic vote fraud? please :rofl:

[Alcibiades]

6. Plus, they were investigating Jerry Lewis

who, besides being agreat humanitarian, is a very funny man.

[WillyT]

7. And The French Just Adore Him, LOL !!!

:rofl:

[WillyT]

8. And... HOLY CRAP (Version 2.0) They're Moving To Reduce Abramoff's Sentence !!!

<snip>

MIAMI (AP) - Federal prosecutors took the first steps toward reducing the prison sentence of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, currently scheduled for release in 2011 for a Florida fraud conviction.

Documents filed in federal court say Abramoff has provided ``substantial assistance'' in a separate Washington corruption scandal investigation and continues to work with investigators from his prison cell in Cumberland, Md.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Schwartz did not recommend how much Abramoff's sentence should be cut.

In the court papers filed Wednesday, Schwartz said prosecutors would recommend a reduction in his sentence and would file further documents describing the ``nature, extent and value'' of his cooperation.

<snip>

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6500283,00.html

"Thanks Jack... No, seriously Jack, we have all we want, er... need. No, really Jack, keep the rest to yourself."

Fuck...

They're gonna need one of these to get all the bodies buried quickly.

[enough]

9. That is well worth the read, and so is the diary Jane links to in the last paragraph.

My head is spinning. The enormity of it all is starting to sink in.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. What a rotten pile of shit this is.

No wonder the cabal has gone balls to the walls on the investigation. This is a pile of corruption the likes of which this country has not seen in a very long time.

[Botany]

12. Like the country has NEVER SEEN

The media manipulations, the stolen elections, the theft of billions,
the unneeded war which bush & Cheney's buddies are making mint off of,
and as some dem said ..... every tree we have barked @ a cat is up it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. And what about Cheney's involvement in this US Attorney scandal?

Last week I briefly saw the story about contractor Mitchell Wade who was given a contract to provide furniture for Cheney's office for $140,000. After entering the contract, Wade made out a cashier's check for that exact amount and bought a boat for Duke Cunningham. I believe that entire scenario was raised by Arlen Spector on the Senate floor. Yet, no one seems to be talking about that bizarre situation anymore. I keep hearing talking heads on TV say that the attorney firings don't matter because no crime has been committed. Apart from perjury that may very well have been committed by Alberto Gonzalez, it seems to me like there's probable cause to investigate several incidents and that this is not just a "fishing expedition" with regard to the U.S. Attorney firings.

[live love laugh]

14. This thread on the greatest page is more telling than that...

ROVE IDENTIFIED 11 PIVOTAL STATES FOR '08; BUSH HAS APPOINTED NEW U.S. ATTORNEYS IN NINE OF THEM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x491130

It was a two-fer. They stopped the investigations and replaced the AGs with neocons.

Accomplices...
Italia federici

"Griles probably never talked to Abramoff, the paper notes, but instead to Italia Federici, the head of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Federici spoke directly to Griles about Abramoff's clients, who donated at least $225,000 to the organization. The Coushatta Tribe opposed the Jena Choctaw's casino plan.


Sue Woolridge, DOJ Atty. General and Griles' g/f

"Purchased a $1 million home with the vice president and top lobbyist of a major oil company just months before granting leniency in its multi million-dollar pollution settlement with the government...head of the Justice Department’s 600-employee Environmental and Natural Resources Division...represents practically every federal agency in cases related to pollution, natural resources and wildlife. Giles, Woodridge and ConocoPhillips vice president Donald Duncan are longtime friends... The trio purchased the lavish North Carolina home in a gated community just months before the federal prosecutor granted her friend’s company a lot of extra time to comply with the law. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched an investigation into the real estate transaction and the committee’s chairman, a California congressman, said that there appears to be a “breakdown of ethics” at the Justice Department and that Justice Department officials should not be handling cases that affect their close friends and investment partners."

[WillyT]

16. I Saw That, But Didn't Get All The Implications Until I Read Jane's Piece At FDL

Not enough hours in the day to keep on top of all this.

Sometimes posting it again with a different take\headline gets more people caught up to what's going on. Like me fer instance, LOL!

:shrug::hi::shrug:

[bobthedrummer]

17. Let's go back to Mr. Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group

(NEPDG). After repeated refusals for NEPDG documents the GAO did take Mr. Cheney and his NEPDG to US District Court in DC, less than a week before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Here's a Rosetta Stone to probable networks of Bush administration corruption, a now archived thread from a week ago that is valuable for researchers everywhere as it links to other serious corruption cases and issues.

NEPDG DU collaborative investigation thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x440721

Yep, WillyT-it is the time of the Light of Truth shining brightly into the darkness of the Bush administration's "shadow government" so share it with others that say they want and love the Truth...

[Justice Is Comin]

18. Does the name Alice Fischer ring a bell ?

[WillyT]

19. No... Do Tell !!!

:bounce:

[Justice Is Comin]

21. She was right in the thick of the Abramhoff investigations until...

Paragraph 3 ........http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2194928

[WillyT]

20. Yowza... Found It !!!

Flippin' Jack and Heckuva Job Alice - Jane Hamsher

<snip>

I was more than a little tweaked to turn on CSPAN and see Alice Fisher giving the press conference on behalf of the Justice Department in the Abramoff case. Alice Fisher should have recused herself from this matter long ago.

With the Democrats neutered and the press sufficiently conscripted into the GOP cause, at a certain point the only functional check in the system over the administration became the career prosecutors within the Justice Department.

James Comey was a full-on disaster appointee for BushCo. who bucked them from the get over wiretapping, torture and Ashcroft's oversight of the Plame investigation. When the wingy Ashcroft was not servile enough and refused to reign Comey in even he got the boot and was replaced by the much more morally pliant Abu Gonzales.

Last year BushCo. was trying to get Timothy "Tyco" Flanigan through Senate confirmation to replace Comey as the number two in the Justice Department, but Flanigan got cute at his hearings and Specter hated him. There was much speculation that Flanigan would get a recess appointment last summer and as Bush's old Skull-and-Bones crony be in the perfect spot to oversee Patrick Fitzgerald, but that didn't happen. Bush did give a recess appointment to Alice Fisher as Chief of the Criminal Division. On Wednesday, right smack in the middle of the Hurricane Katrina disaster when the country wasn't looking. (Comey eventually shot them all the finger on his way out the door and appointed the ethical David Margolis to oversee Fitzgerald.)

Bush must've really wanted Alice Fisher in that spot.

Fisher had been having trouble with her confirmation too, and Carl Levin had blocked her nomination due to concerns over her position on torture. There was also worry about her connection to DeLay:

Leahy also expressed concerns about Fisher's "views on checks of controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and her opposition to the Act's sunset provision; her participation in meetings in which the FBI expressed its disagreement with harsh interrogation methods practiced by the military toward detainees held at Guantanamo, and her ideas about appropriate safeguards for the treatment of enemy combatants." Leahy was also concerned about "reports that she has had ties to Congressman Tom DeLay'’s defense team" and "also to know what steps she to take to avoid a conflict of interest in the Department's investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and possibly Mr. DeLay."

Fisher is a Republican who in her former job was registerd as a lobbyist for HCA, the healthcare company founded by Bill Frist's father. Her appointment was also controversial due to the fact that like her boss Abu Gonzales, Fisher has no trial experience and with Comey gone there would be no senior member of the Justice Department who was an experienced criminal prosecutor. But Senatorial oversight was dispensed with and BushCo. continued on its Brownie-esque rampage to replace experience with cronyism.

<snip>

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/flippin-jack-and-heckuva_b_13243.html

Man what a tangled web...

:wow:

[MN ChimpH8R]

22. Jeebus, if justice were to be done to the Bush

Crime Family, we would be executing people for the next 20 years. Let's get on with it.

[Justice Is Comin]

24. Her appointment to the Justice Department

stinks like a two week old fish in a sauna.

[WillyT]

25. LOL !!!

Can't get much stinkier than THAT !!!

:rofl:

[w4rma]

26. Can Congress enable special procecutors to do the job that these AG party hacks should

be doing?

[WillyT]

27. Kick !!!

:kick:

[Polemicist]

28. Jack Abramoff...

Why, I hardly know Mr. Abram. (joke courtesy of Saturday Night Live tonight).

[WillyT]

29. LOL !!! - Saw That !!!

:hi: