Tag Archives: Carol Lam

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CA-41: The Latest Tactic to Avoid Putting Jerry Lewis in Jail

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As we all remember, the Culture of Corruption meme was devastating during the 2006 elections. Congressman Jerry Lewis somehow managed to avoid being indicted before the election, which surprised a lot of people. What has happened since is the new GOP playbook for how the Bush Justice Department protects a Republican member. And today, the LA Times adds another piece to the puzzle — it isn’t pretty.  

It wasn’t until late August 2007 that we learned the US Attorney investigation of Lewis stalled in December 2006 for lack of resources — just after the Culture of Corruption charge helped Democrats win the House. But stalling wasn’t enough, it needed to be derailed. It was in January 2007 when speculation began that San Diego USA Carol Lam was purged for her investigation of Lewis. A couple of months later, LA USA Debra Wong Yang quit in the middle of her investigation to take a nearly $1.5 million a year job with the law firm defending Jerry Lewis.

Thomas O’Brien, the new USA, disbanded the Public Integrity Unit investigating Republican Lewis for major corruption — the same week that NY USA Public Integrity Unit brought down Elliot Spitzer. Today we learn of yet another move to keep Lewis from being brought to justice, put this in the time-line for March 2007:

U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien is facing sharp criticism from prosecutors within his office who say he is pressuring them to file relatively insignificant criminal cases to drive up statistics that make the office eligible for increased federal funding.

The prosecutors said O’Brien’s effort to increase filings amounts to a quota system in which lawyers face possible discipline and other career consequences if they fail to achieve their numbers. It also detracts from their traditional mission of prosecuting complex, time-consuming cases that local authorities are unable to pursue, they said.

[…]

The disgruntled prosecutors in Los Angeles say they are now spending an exorbitant amount of time working on less significant cases — mail theft, smaller drug offenses and illegal immigration — to reach quotas. They cited the recent disbanding of the office’s public integrity and environmental crimes section, a unit with a history of working on complex police corruption and political corruption cases, as evidence of a shift toward high-volume, low-quality prosecutions.

The Lewis scandal is so damaging because it involves both major corruption and former Republican Congressman Bill Lowery — it really does illustrate that corruption is part of the culture in the GOP.

San Diego

Justice Department Puts Checks and Balances in the Crosshairs

A federal appeals panel yesterday heard arguments regarding the power of executive branch federal prosecutors to declare judicial branch court records as classified.  At issue for the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the case of Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Thomas Kontogiannis who has pled guilty to laundering bribes heading from defense contractors to Duke Cunningham (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution). So what are federal prosecutors after?

In trying to keep the information about the plea secret, government lawyers invoked a law dealing with the handling of classified information. At least one transcript of a hearing was stamped “classified” by the government – a move that was criticized by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, who is presiding over the case and initially agreed to the secret proceedings.

Burns moved to lift the seal in June. Prosecutors, however, objected and took the case to the appellate court. Their reasons for secrecy are unknown because the objections were filed under seal.

So let’s connect the dots.

The federal attorney’s want to keep court records under wraps.  They’ve gone so far as to request the court to seal the legal filings of the San Diego Union-Tribune seeking access to information.  What are they really asking?  They’re asking that the public trust them because the government just can’t allow things into the public domain.  This is San Diego.  Where, if you’re on public assistance, you’re presumed guilty until proven innocent.  Where the US Attorney was fired by her politically motivated superiors for pursuing federal corruption in this very case.  This is the Justice Department run by Alberto Gonzales who is either mind-blowingly incompetent or has completely politicized the Justice Department to the point that every federal prosecution has to be presumed to have partisan motivations.

Further, in the immediate wake of the FISA vote, federal prosecutors are saying that the executive branch should be unconditionally trusted to safeguard the public interest.  Warrants, checks and balances, and the right of the public to know what the government is doing- according to these federal prosecutors- should just be wholesale ceded to the executive branch of the government.  Yeah right.

What do they have to hide?  Duke Cunningham’s laundry list of bribes received has been fully documented.  So just like the FISA assertation that the government can’t fill out warrant applications, one is forced to ask- in a case full of prominent Republicans, the pursuit of which has already claimed Carol Lam- just what does the fully-partisan Justice Department have to hide?  There’s no longer any question as to the internal policy of the Justice Department and AG Alberto Gonzales, so what’s left is whether the 9th Circuit will roll over on the Constitution and let the executive branch dictate the fundamental operation of the judicial branch.  More simply: Will the judicial branch defend itself from attack?  Will it demand independence?  We’ll see.

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Even More Doolittle/Mitchell Wade/Brent Wilkes/US Attorney News

Josh Marshall delivers some knowledge about Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor and Duke Cunningham briber whose first contract in government was to screen the President’s mail for anthrax, despite having no real expertise in that arena.

This is a known briber receiving a sweetheart contract from the Executive Office of the President.  And who’s in the middle of it?  John Doolittle and his wife.  Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes worked closely together to bribe or otherwise give recompense to Duke Cunningham in exchange for contracts.  They appear to have done something similar with Doolittle.

flip it…

Julie Doolittle was working at (Ed) Buckham’s offices in 2002 when Buckham introduced Brent Wilkes to her husband. Federal contracts for his flagship company, ADCS Inc., were drying up, partly because the Pentagon had been telling Congress it had little need for the company’s document-scanning technology. So Wilkes was trying to get funding for two new businesses.

One was tied to the 2002 anthrax scare, when tainted letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Wilkes’ idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

He called his proposed solution MailSafe – similar to the names of several anti-anthrax companies launched at that time – and began vying for federal contracts, even though the company had little to its name other than a rudimentary Web site.

The House Administration Committee, on which Doolittle sat, oversees the congressional mail system. Doolittle told his colleagues about MailSafe and introduced them to Wilkes, but the project never got off the ground.

The project failed in the House Administration Committee but succeeded in the White House.  The question is, did Doolittle have a role in introducing executive staffers to Wade and Wilkes?  Did he receive any financial reward?

And the larger question, of course, is the fact that there are documented instances of Doolittle receiving money in contributions from Brent Wilkes, if not Wade.  When Carol Lam opened her investigation into Wilkes and Dusty Foggo in May 2006, Doolittle was clearly likely to be implicated in that chain if the matter was investigated closely enough.  And right at that time, the Justice Department made a deal to deny Lam resources and keep her on “a short leash.”  While she was able to indict Wilkes and Foggo, the investigation never went any further, and Lam was fired.

Two weeks after then-U.S. Attorney Carol Lam ordered a raid on the home and offices of a former CIA official last year – a search prompted by her investigation of now-imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham – higher-ups at the Justice Department privately questioned whether they should give her more money and manpower.

“There are good reasons not to provide extensive resources to (Lam),” Bill Mercer, acting associate attorney general, wrote to Kyle Sampson, who was chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales until he resigned a couple of weeks ago […]

The day after this Mercer missive, Sampson directed Mercer in an e-mail to have a “heart-to-heart” with Lam about “the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement in San Diego.”

“Put her on a very short leash,” Sampson wrote. “If she balks – or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way by July 15, remove her.”

A month later, Justice Department higher-ups were referring to Lam derisively, saying she “can’t meet a deadline” that her production was “hideous” and that she was “sad.”

Five months later, Lam was told she was being fired.

There’s good reason to believe that the resources were withheld somewhat deliberately, to make a plausible case that Lam couldn’t handle her immigration workload.  This is nonsense, and Paul Kiel does an excellent job of calling it nonsense.  The truth is that immigration was a red herring; Lam was fired because of her investigations, which (if unchecked) would lead not only into the FBI but into the Executive Office of the President himself, and which would have picked up a lot of Congressional flotsam along the way.

And one of the chief pieces of flotsam was John Doolittle.  He has disqualified himself for any future holding of public office.  We need to continue to drain this swamp of corrupt sleazebags who view government as their own personal feedbag.  Charlie Brown is a man of extreme integrity who would restore honor to that seat in Congress.  He deserves our support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry McNerney (CA-11) $
Charlie Brown (CA-04) $
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San Diego

Darrell Issa on Voice of San Diego

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Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Vista) is hosting Cafe San Diego today, and has started the conversation with a few words about the Carol Lam situation:

I recognize that every U.S. attorney has to balance needs and resources, but it’s clear from information released by the Justice Department that the Southern District of California U.S. Attorney’s Office lagged behind the other four districts on the U.S./Mexico border in prosecuting border crimes. I never asked that Carol Lam be fired, but I was adamant over a three-year period that the situation with smugglers in San Diego needed to be addressed.

This is supposedly an interactive situation, so feel free to cruise over to the comments section if you have anything to say to or ask of the Congressman.

UPDATES ON THE FLIP

Update 1:

My first question:

“You say “I recognize that every U.S. attorney has to balance needs and resources,” so my question is whether you’ve attempted to increase the resources available to USAs around the country? If so, what has been the problem, and if not, then in what way are you not attempting to dictate the priorities of the US Attorney’s office? Further, given your acknowledgment of the limited capacity of Ms. Lam’s office, would you have preferred to trade the Cunningham, Wilkes, Foggo, and other corruption investigations for increased prosecution of immigration cases?”

Issa has written his follow up to the 8 posts to his original post, mentioning his efforts to increase resources for the office and responding in part:

I disagree, however, with the notion that Carol Lam had an “either/or” choice between prosecuting Cunningham and those who traffic human beings across our borders.

In regard to the question about finite resources and Carol Lam not being told that she needed to improve her border crimes record, I do have some concerns. Carol Lam testified before Congress that Justice Department officials did not make clear to her that she needed to make border crimes and gun crimes more of a priority.

My response will be up shortly wondering whether, since he doesn’t have a problem with Lam being overzealous in other areas, he’s just saying she’s lazy?

Update 2: Josh Marshall at TPM is also watching to see what Issa has to say.  The comments are getting increasingly combative, but if Issa responds again, my comment is first in line.

Los Angeles Area

Feinstein questions the departure of the US Attorney for Los Angeles

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The President’s remarks on the US Attorney scandal were the same kind of out-of-touch obstructionism and intimidation we’ve come to expect (he’s essentially daring Congress to initiate a Constitutional showdown), so no need to replay it here.  But Sen. Feinstein is pulling at another thread of the scandal, one little remarked-upon but potentially significant.  It’s about a legislator essentially bribing a prosecutor to get her off the trail.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday she wants answers about the departure of the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, who resigned last October before the Justice Department’s dismissal of eight other U.S. attorneys sparked controversy.

“I have questions about Debra Yang’s departure and I can’t answer those questions right at this time,” Feinstein, D-Calif. and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters in response to a question. “Was she asked to resign, and if so, why? We have to ferret that out.”

Here’s the real scoop: In May 2006, Debra Wong Yang was beginning work on the investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the former chair of the House Appropriations Committee who was being scrutinized over handing out defense earmarks to political friends.  Within a few months, Yang resigned… to work for the law firm representing Lewis.

About five months before Yang’s departure her office had opened an investigation into ties between Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and a lobbyist. When Yang left her U.S. attorney’s job she went to work for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, the firm where Lewis’ legal team works, but government rules required that she recuse herself from that case or any other she was involved with while a government prosecutor.

The Lewis case is connected to the ongoing corruption investigation in San Diego that began with the 2005 conviction of former GOP Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who is serving jail time for bribery. Former U.S. attorney Carol Lam in San Diego, who was among those dismissed last year, was prosecuting that case. Feinstein contends that Lam’s dismissal had something to do with the her role in the Cunningham investigation, though the Justice Department denies it.

Not only that, Yang got $1.5 million dollars to go to work for Gibson Dunn.  Ted Olson, the former US Solicitor General, works there too.  And the Assistant US Attorney for LA, Douglas Fuchs, joined her.

So here we have the top two federal prosecutors looking into a public corruption case hired away from the government by the law firm representing that same corrupt official.

This is where government cronyism meets corporate cronyism…

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Prosecutor Purge – Feinstein Catches the DoJ in a Lie

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The hearings on the fired US Attorneys today were riveting, and our own Senator Feinstein has been instrumental in beinging it about.  Today, she brought out some ammo in making her case that these prosecutors were fired for expressly political reasons.

The Justice Department’s alibi (today, at least) was that US Attorneys like Carol Lam were fired for performance-based issues, particularly their inability to speedily prosecute immigration and border cases as per Administration policy.  But Feinstein had an ace in the hole: a letter from the Justice Department, claiming that nto only was Carol Lam an exceptional prosecutor, but that she was FULLY implementing Administration policy of prosecuting immigration cases.  Feinstein’s statement is on the flip.

The Department has used the fact that I wrote a letter on June 15 to the Attorney General concerning the San Diego region, and in that I asked some questions: What are the guidelines for the U.S. Attorney Southern District of California? How do these guidelines differ from other border sections nationwide? I asked about immigration cases.

Here is the response that I got under cover of August 23, in a letter signed by Will Moschella. And I ask that both these letters be added to the record.

“That office [referring to Mrs. Lam’s office], is presently committing fully half of its Assistant U.S. Attorneys to prosecute criminal immigration cases. Prosecutions for alien smuggling in the Southern District under USC sections 1234 are rising sharply in Fiscal Year 2006. As of March 2006, the halfway point in the fiscal year, there were 342 alien smuggling cases filed in that jurisdiction. This compares favorable with the 484 alien smuggling prosecutions brought there during the entirety of Fiscal Year 2005.”

The letter goes on to essentially say that Mrs. Lam is cooperating; that they have reviewed it and the Department is satisfied.

This is a big deal, as it pretty much invalidates the Justice Department’s story.  And it’s refreshing to see Sen. Feinstein stick her neck out and wade into a controversial story.  The information that came out of today’s House and Senate hearings will be fodder for months, and Feinstein has been at the forefront of ensuring that this criminal enterprise being run out of the White House and the Justice Department is held accountable.

San Diego

Carol Lam Should be Retained in Corruption Case

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On Monday, McClatchy’s Marisa Taylor reported that San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam had been removed by the Bush Justice Department despite a positive job performance review:

Lam, another U.S. attorney who was told to resign, was described in her 2005 evaluation as “well respected” by law enforcement officials, judges and her staff. Overall, the review was positive, according to another Justice Department official who has seen the evaluation.

“We’re not aware of any significant issues, ” said the official, who also asked not to be identified. Lam is leaving office Feb 15.

Now, House Democrats are demanding Lam preside over the California Republican corruption case as outside counsel. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer has vowed to get to the bottom of the purge (video here).

In short, it appears that the non-political players in the Justice Department thought Lam was doing a good job. But the accused declared:

There’s no need to remind the San Diego community that these are the same prosecutors routinely accused of prosecutorial misconduct. The office has been led by a dismissed U.S. Attorney who has shown bad judgment, has previously pursued vendettas, and has set the tone at the top of an organization accused of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence. It is no accident, nor is it a surprise, that the indictments were rushed to the press 48 hours before her forced departure.

It appears that there are pursued vendettas, but unlike as Wilkes says, the target was those who had the gall to investigate corrupt Republicans and the vendettas were pursued by those at the top of the Bush Administration.

This has cover-up written all over it. Of course, one can easily see why the Bush Administration would want to cover-up a bribery, corruption, and war profiteering scandal that involved hookers, yachts, and multiple California Republicans.

California, San Diego

Wilkes, Foggo Plead Not Guilty

Answering charges of conspiracy, money laundering, defrauding the public of the honest services of a public official, and in Wilkes’ case, bribing a public official, both Brent Wilkes and Kyle “Dusty” Foggo entered pleas of not guilty today.

Both men were free on bond ($2 million for Wilkes, $200,000 for Foggo), and Wilkes’ attorney said

that after 18 months of an “unrelenting campaign of leaks,” that he and his client were looking forward to answering formal charges.

“We do welcome the opportunity now to be in the courtroom,” he said.

Wilkes is up against gifts to Duke Cunningham as well as Foggo and, one would assume, more folks as time goes on.  “The gifts included cash, vacations, computers, meals, tickets to a Super Bowl game and prostitutes” to Cunningham and “gifts, expensive dinners and trips” and the promise of a job to Foggo.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison.  The government is looking for more than $12 million in restitution.

With US Attorney Carol Lam leaving her post tomorrow, still more great news from an unfortunately short term rooting out white collar crime and political corruption.  Here’s hoping her legacy at the US Attorney’s office will carry on after her departure.

Update: Or at least more information.  From a complimentary article today:

Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors Brent Wilkes, the Poway businessman indicted yesterday, and Mitchell Wade.

When he pleaded guilty Nov. 28, 2005, Cunningham pledged to work with investigators looking into other aspects of the case, an investigation that led to this week’s court action.

Diaries & Misc.

More Republican chicanery

One thing that we did really well with the anti-Pombo campaign was to coordinate between bloggers, share information and also feed a few selected members of main stream media.

I think that it is time to continue this mode of operation with particular emphasis on Duncan Hunter, Jerry Lewis & John Doolittle.  In particular, there is an obvious connection between the investigations into their actions and the forced resignation of Carol Lam, the US Attorney who prosecuted Duke Cunningham.

downwithtyranny has posted on this recently, as have I at California Greening.

In particular, we should pay attention to the news of progress in this case, as Lam has only until February 15 to finish what she started.

 

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Brent Wilkes indictment imminent – CA Congressional dominoes to fall?

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(h/t to Howie Klein at Down With Tyranny!, who has a great “Brent Wilkes tag cloud” you should all have a look at if you want to understand his importance)

We know that US Attorney Carol Lam has been forced out of her post for her insistence to prosecute lawbreakers of a particular political stripe.  One thing you may not know is that her dismissal will not take effect until February 15.  Well, it appears that Lam has planned one hell of a last act:

…the Wall Street Journal says that federal prosecutors are under orders to deliver a grand jury indictment against Wilkes by Feb. 15.

A note of caution: a Wilkes indictment has been rumored for months. But this has a ring of truth to it. Why? Because according to WSJ the order comes directly from just-ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who’s been overseeing the case — and who gave the order to take Wilkes down before she leaves on — you guessed it — February 15.

Brent Wilkes is the central figure in at least three pending investigations among California’s Republican delegation in Congress, and could easily be the impetus for a fourth.  Wilkes is named in the Duke Cunningham indictment as “Coconspirator #1”.  He provided actual cash, half a million dollars’ worth, for Cunningham to help pay off a mortgage, in exchange for an ungodly amount of Pentagon contracts for his defense contracting company, ACDS.  This is the content of the investigation currently being conducted in San Diego, and this is what would be the substance of the indictment.

However, Wilkes’ tentacles reach far beyond just former Republican Congressmen who are currently in jail. 

Rep. Jerry Lewis (I’m following the mantra of Googlebombing), the former head of the House Appropriations Committee, has a close relationship with a lobbyist named Bill Lowery, having authorized ” hundreds of millions of dollars in federal projects for clients” of his.  One of the people Lowery was in the employ of was Brent Wilkes.  Lewis and Lowery have exchanged staff members on occasion; it can be said that their offices are not materially different in their goals.

Rep. John Doolittle admitted to the Washington Post that he…

helped steer defense funding, totaling $37 million, to a California company, whose officials and lobbyists helped raise at least $85,000 for Doolittle and his leadership political action committee from 2002 to 2005.

That California company was owned by Brent Wilkes.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, longshot candidate for President and former head of the House Armed Services Committee, is also tied up with Wilkes, having received hundreds of thousands in campaign funds from him and his companies in exchange for useless boondoggles of government contracts:

Cunningham and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, worked closely with two local companies – ADCS Inc. of Poway and Audre Inc. of Rancho Bernardo – to make the Pentagon pay for converting printed documents to computer files. They and a few other lawmakers got Congress to allocate $190 million for “automated data conversion” projects from 1993 to 2001.

Did the Pentagon want this “help”? No. As a 1994 General Accounting Office report noted, it already had the tools for such work.

But Cunningham, Hunter and their House allies didn’t care. Audre and ADCS were generous with contributions – and ADCS executive Brent Wilkes allegedly was bribing Cunningham…This led to such absurdities as a $9.7 million contract for ADCS to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone that the Pentagon considered insignificant. This isn’t governance. This is looting.

Wilkes was also a high school buddy of Dusty Foggo, the ex-#3 at the CIA who resigned last year amid both corruption allegations (he was the lead procurement official) and rumors of hooker parties set up by Wilkes where he would entertain lawmakers, staff, and CIA officials with poker and drinks and… hookers and stuff.

Trapping Wilkes in the vice could be the spark to send all of these California legislators tumbling down.  Carol Lam won’t be on the case should the indictment come down, and it’ll be interesting to see if the replacement decides to interfere with an ongoing investigation.  But clearly she wants to make Brent Wilkes sing before she is forced out of her post.  And the ripple effect could be tremendous.