The Obfuscation Report

consortiumnews.com

By Robert Parry
July 3, 2007

President George W. Bush’s decision to spare former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby from jail marks the final act of a crime and cover-up that began four years ago when Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials launched a campaign to discredit a critic of the Iraq War.

That campaign started with the leaking of sensitive classified information, the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, destroying her career and jeopardizing the lives of her agents in other countries. That was followed by White House lies being told to both investigators and the public in order to shield the President from dangerous political fallout.

By commuting Libby’s 30-month jail sentence on July 2 – and dangling the possibility of a full pardon later – Bush has moved to ensure that Cheney’s former chief of staff keeps his mouth shut and that the full story is never told.

The Plame/Libby cover-up also demonstrates the modern techniques available at least to a Republican president who wants to minimize damage from embarrassing or incriminating information. Bush was able to tap into the ideologically committed right-wing news media to confuse the issue and create political space for his final decision.

Ever since July 2003 – when Plame’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, revealed that he had conducted a fact-finding trip for the CIA which helped debunk allegations that Iraq had been seeking uranium from Africa – the right-wing media has kept up a steady assault on Wilson.

Wilson received this treatment because his findings contradicted Bush’s claim in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq’s supposed search for uranium suggested that Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuclear bomb, a key argument for invading Iraq.

Wilson’s public statements – in a New York Times op-ed and later on TV news shows – represented the first challenge to Bush’s case for war from a government insider. At the time, with Bush near the peak of his popularity, Wilson looked like easy prey.

So, instead of showing gratitude to an American citizen who undertook a difficult assignment at no pay, the Bush administration – aided by congressional Republicans, the right-wing media and some pro-war mainstream pundits – sought to tear down Wilson’s reputation and mislead the public on the facts of the case.

Talking Points

The original White House talking points – given to about a half dozen journalists – included that Wilson’s wife, Plame, worked in the CIA office that sent Wilson to Africa, thus suggesting that the trip was a case of nepotism.

One White House official later told a Washington Post reporter that the administration had informed at least six reporters about Plame “purely and simply out of revenge” against Wilson.

Libby was one of the leakers, briefing two journalists – Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time – but neither ran with Plame’s identity. Libby also brought White House press secretary Ari Fleischer in on the leak operation.

Two other leakers, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and his friend, White House political adviser Karl Rove, finally managed to get right-wing columnist Robert Novak to run a story about Plame’s identity.

Novak’s column destroyed Plame’s career and put at risk the lives of her overseas contacts who had helped the United States keep on an eye on proliferation of dangerous weapons in the Middle East.

But the Plame leak backfired on the White House when the CIA sought a criminal investigation into the illegal disclosure of a covert officer’s identity.

In September and October 2003, the Bush administration’s next line of defense was simply to lie. For his part, Bush pretended that he knew nothing about the anti-Wilson leaks, even though he had authorized release of some intelligence information meant to bolster the White House position on the uranium issue and undercut Wilson.

Bush disingenuously urged his subordinates to say what they knew. “I want to know the truth,” Bush said on Sept. 30, 2003. “If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true.”

However, since the various conspirators knew that Bush already was in the know, they would have read his comments as a signal to lie, which is what they did. Rove issued a false statement through the White House press office denying any involvement.

That prompted Libby to seek help from Cheney. As Libby’s lawyer Theodore Wells disclosed at his client’s trial, Libby’s complaint was that “they’re trying to set me up; they want me to be the sacrificial lamb.”

In response to Libby’s complaint, Cheney penned a message to the press secretary demanding equal treatment for Libby. “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others,” Cheney wrote to press secretary Scott McClellan.

In the note, Cheney initially ascribed Libby’s sacrifice to Bush but apparently thought better of it, crossing out “the Pres” and putting the clause in a passive tense. Complying with Cheney’s wishes on Oct. 4, 2003, McClellan added Libby to the list of officials who have “assured me that they were not involved in this.”

Twin Conspiracies

So, the evidence is that not only was there a high-level administration conspiracy to leak Plame’s identity but there was an equally high-level conspiracy to cover up the truth.

Libby got nailed because he failed to shift away from the cover stories when the investigation grew serious following the appointment of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor in December 2003.

But the cover-up never ended. Republican senators and the Republican National Committee issued harsh attacks on Wilson, making him out to be a liar when the reality was that his fact-finding trip had helped the U.S. intelligence community correctly raise pre-war doubts about Iraq’s supposed pursuit of uranium for nuclear weapons.

As Libby faced trial in early 2007, other right-wingers, such as attorney Victoria Toensing, released other red herrings to confuse the public. Toensing, for instance, began insisting that Plame was not a “covert” officer because she was “stationed” at CIA headquarters in Langley, Viriginia.

Toensing’s argument was based on her assertion that a 25-year-old law protecting the identities of U.S. intelligence officers from exposure required that the person “reside” or be “stationed” overseas in the previous five years.

However, Toensing misstated the law, which actually refers to intelligence officers having “served” abroad in the previous five years, which Plame later testified that she had done by traveling on overseas assignments for the CIA.

In other words, the law would protect the identity of a CIA officer based at Langley who went on missions overseas or, say, a special operations officer who was stationed at Ft. Bragg and resided in Fayetteville, N.C., but who still “served” on dangerous missions overseas.

But many in the right-wing news media and even at prestige newspapers like the Washington Post have adopted Toensing’s word games as reality. It’s now an article of faith in some political circles that Plame was not a “covert” officer and that therefore there was “no underlying crime.”

After Libby was found guilty for perjury and obstruction of justice and received a 30-month jail sentence, the cover-up entered a new phase with a new ferocity. His neoconservative allies, the right-wing press and some mainstream pundits joined in a clamor for his pardon.

This phase of the cover-up created political space for Bush to commute Libby’s sentence and to hold open the possibility of a full pardon.

So, rather than Libby cooperating with prosecutor Fitzgerald and laying out the full story, Cheney’s former chief of staff has a very strong incentive to stay mum. Not only won't he go to jail, but he has reason to hope that Bush will eventually wipe out the felony convictions with a full pardon.

Barring some unforeseen development, the Libby cover-up appears to have succeeded.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Labels: Bush Administration, Criminals, Crooks, impeach

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, July 05, 2007 0 comments

By now you've heard about Dick Cheney's fascinating new legal argument that he's not in the executive branch, so he doesn't have to comply with executive secrecy rules. I'm not always Rahm Emanuel's biggest fan, but his plan to cut executive-branch funding for the VP's office is a very sensible response. On the other hand, let's not be hasty about this. After all, if Cheney's not in the Executive Branch he can't claim executive privilege.

"If he believes his legal case," Mr. Emanuel wrote in an email, "his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch." But imagine how much light we can shed into the dark corners of Mr. Cheney's office if his argument holds.

Surely you remember that infamous energy task force, the one where Mr. Cheney let his oil industry pals and their lobbyists come in and literally write their own rules? Cheney argued that the public had no right to information about the workings of that task force - because of executive privilege.

How about those executive branch visitor logs we've all been dying to see? I'd love to know how much time Jack Abramoff spent in Cheney's offices, and who he visited there. And, of course, there's the matter of Scooter Libby. With executive privilege out of the way, we can finally figure out whether there was an "underlying crime" or not. (Extra! Othello exonerated for strangling Desdemona - there was "no underlying crime" of adultery.)

Mr. Emanuel, I respect your smarts and your chutzpah for coming up with this strategy. If for any reason it doesn't work out, however, here's your silver lining: A Vice President who's not in the Executive Branch can't withhold information from legislators under the separation of powers doctrine.

In fact, here's an even better idea: Since he says he's fundamentally a member of the Senate, why not bring him up on Senatorial ethics charges? Let the investigations commence!

This may have seemed like a clever move at the time. Cheney et al. may think the band's playing "Catch Us If You Can," but the tune I hear sounds more like "Let The Sun Shine In."

Labels: Crooks, Dick Cheney

# posted by The Punisher @ Monday, June 25, 2007 0 comments

Labels: Criminals, Crooks, Dick Cheney

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, June 21, 2007 0 comments

At least 39 individuals who remain missing are believed to have been subjected to enforced disappearance by the US authorities. The wives and children of other detainees in secret CIA custody have also been held in custody and interrogated, either as potential sources of information or to secure the capture of their husband or father.

Based on research by six leading human rights groups - Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and NYU School of Law, Human Rights Watch and Reprieve -, the briefing paper Off the Record provides the most comprehensive account of these 39 individuals' apprehension and detention to date, including four missing detainees here identified for the first time.

The full list includes cases of nationals from countries including Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya and Spain. They were arrested in countries including Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Sudan, and transferred to secret sites run by the US government.

In many cases, the current fate and whereabouts of detainees included on the list are completely unknown. In other cases, some speculative information has emerged in the press or through research and investigation.

In all cases, the US government’s silence has created grave uncertainty. The US government must end the use of secret detention, clarify the fate and whereabouts of all people who have been secretly detained and allow them access to their families and to adequate legal process.

The US has the duty to detain and bring to justice anyone responsible for crimes but it must do so in a manner that respects human rights and the rule of law.

U.S. Constitution

Amendment IV

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.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Labels: Bush Administration, Constitution, Criminals, Crooks

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, June 21, 2007 0 comments

DIWANIYA, Iraq — The Shiite heartland of southern Iraq has generally been an oasis of calm in contrast to Baghdad and the central part of the country, but now violence is convulsing this city. Shiites are killing and kidnapping other Shiites, the police force is made up of competing militias and the inner city is a web of impoverished streets where idealized portraits of young men, killed in recent gun battles with Iraqi and American troops, hang from signposts above empty lots.

The unrest in Diwaniya, mirrored in Nasiriya to the south, reflects the emergence of a poisonous political landscape in which competing Shiite groups no longer look to the political system to allocate power. The government’s authority appears to have broken down, with the governor calling this spring for Iraqi Army units, backed by American troops, to restore order. Civilians, not sure where to look for protection, are caught in the deepening fear and uncertainty.

Even now, with a large Iraqi Army force and American troops in the area, the violence has continued. In the first 10 days of June, two police officers were shot dead, an American soldier died from a roadside bomb and the brother and nephew of a prominent militia official were killed. While still less dangerous than central Iraq, where militant Sunni Arabs and Shiites battle for control, the situation has worsened since violence first broke out here last August.

In a daylong visit to Diwaniya earlier in June, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki warned, “We cannot build a state that has another state inside it, we cannot build an army that has armies inside it,” referring to the militias within the province that answer to their leaders rather than to elected officials.

Diwaniya is the capital of the almost completely Shiite farming province of Qadisiya, known for its marshy fields where farmers grow aromatic ambar rice, similar to India’s basmati. Even in town, many people patch together a livelihood with seasonal jobs working the rice fields or tending date palms.

It is a poor province, and poorer now because of a recent decline in the farming sector, making it fertile ground for groups allied with the anti-American cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. The cleric, whose legendary father was beloved here, has reached out to the poor, both in town and in the country.

“Diwaniya was never really quiet, never really peaceful, it was only sleeping,” said Abu Faris, a senior official who works with the provincial council. “There were always troubles below the surface, and now they are coming out.”

The city of about 400,000 people has a history of rebellion; it was the first city in southern Iraq to rise against Saddam Hussein in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. But when the rebellion failed, Mr. Hussein exacted a deadly retribution, arresting hundreds of men and boys and killing many of them. Underlying Diwaniya’s troubles is a fight between factions allied with rival Shiite clerics, Mr. Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Mr. Hakim, who has close ties to the Americans, is allied with an older generation of middle-class, more educated Shiites, many of whom spent some of the Hussein era in Iran or Syria.

By contrast, Mr. Sadr blames the Americans for the havoc in Iraq and refuses to meet with any representatives of the Bush administration. Mr. Sadr is linked more closely with the young, impoverished Shiites who stayed in Iraq during the years of Mr. Hussein’s rule. Mr. Sadr’s movement has only 5 members on the 40-member provincial council but enjoys wide local popularity. Both clerics have ties to armed militias, which local residents say have infiltrated the local police and security forces.

Although Mr. Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council is known for its tightly run political arm, that has not always translated into grass-roots support. Diwaniya’s governor, Khalil Jalil Hamza, is from the party, but lived in Iran for many years, returning only after the American invasion, and many local people have criticized his performance. The party also holds the majority on the provincial council.

The result is a governor with little ability to control his territory.

“When problems emerged, assassinations, kidnappings, and when the Sadrists began to move on their own, the governor did not deal with it because he did not know the area, and the problems snowballed,” said Hussein Ali al-Shalaan, a Shiite sheik who represents the province in the Iraqi Parliament and comes from the more secular and moderate Iraqiya coalition.

In March more than 50 people were killed in the province. Now, hardly a day goes by when there is not an attempt to shoot some official. Roadside bombs, unseen in most of southern Iraq, have been aimed at Iraqi and American forces operating in the area.

With no sign of improvement, the governor called in Iraqi Army troops, backed by Americans. In early April the soldiers entered the impoverished warrens at the center of the city, the stronghold of the Sadr loyalists. The area is crushingly poor. The low houses, made of crumbling mud bricks, look as if they would melt in the rain; they have such small doors that men sometimes must stoop to enter them.

Heavy fighting raged for several days, as young men, hiding behind low walls, fired rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s before running away only to pop up again a few streets away, according to accounts from residents. At least 10 men were killed and 50 wounded in the fighting.

More than a month later the area still looked like a war zone with dangling electrical wires and a wary atmosphere. The neighborhood was surrounded by Iraqi Army checkpoints, the soldiers tense and unsmiling as they checked identification cards and opened car trunks to search for guns. The units were not from Diwaniya.

The head of Mr. Sadr’s Diwaniya office, Sheik Haider al-Nadir, fled to Najaf. “I was afraid of being arrested,” he said. “Sometimes they arrest people with no excuse.”

A soft-spoken cleric, Mr. Nadir said Mr. Sadr’s organization was being wrongly accused of fomenting the troubles in Diwaniya, but granted that many groups involved in “bad activities” were using Mr. Sadr’s name. Others agree that some criminal gangs are trying to burnish their image by claiming a connection to Mr. Sadr.

With provincial elections approaching, the Sadr movement believes that the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the governor want to weaken them by accusing those aligned with Mr. Sadr of causing the problems in the city. The election has been delayed, and Mr. Sadr’s supporters believe that the reason was to give the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council time to reduce his appeal.

For people here, the competing rivalries breed confusion and fear. They do not know whom to trust. “You couldn’t tell which side was responsible for kidnappings, for killings,” said Abu Faris, the senior Diwaniya official who works with the provincial council.

“And if you looked at the victims, they were all kinds of people: police, workers, professors,” he said. “They were from different groups.”

The unease was palpable on a recent visit to Diwaniya. At a checkpoint at the city’s borders, the police stopped several cars with out-of-town license plates and held the occupants, including a reporter for The New York Times, saying the city was not safe. After relenting, they begged the visitors not to tell the next checkpoint, run by the Iraqi Army, that the police had let them into the town.

“They do not like us, they will try to make trouble for us,” said a police lieutenant, Hussain Ali. He added that there were rumors that the governor was going to dismiss 350 members of the police force. “Why are they trying to do this? We will be left penniless, our families and children without a livelihood, and we are accused of nothing.”

At the next checkpoint, stony-faced Iraqi soldiers looked suspiciously at the Baghdad license plates but let the cars through. A few hundred feet farther on, however, outside the compound that housed the governor’s office, uniformed gunmen who would not say whether they were with the police or the army blocked entry even to the government parking lot. There seemed to be no communication between the various checkpoints and no agreed upon rules.

By the time the reporter left the city, the tone of the encounter with the police had changed from threatening to a plea for help. Mr. Ali and two of his police officer colleagues apologized for not having air-conditioning at the police station, but explained that their generator was broken. They were making tea on a small gas stove. But the worst came at night, Mr. Ali said.

“Please, if you speak to the governor, please ask him to fix our generator,” he said. “At night our checkpoint sinks into darkness and we cannot see if someone is about to attack us.”

Labels: Crooks, Dick Cheney, Dumber than Quayle?, liars

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, June 21, 2007 0 comments

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans" in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

In another politically tinged conversation recounted by former colleagues, Schlozman asked a supervisor if a career lawyer who had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime political rival of President Bush, could still be trusted.

Schlozman has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that he had boasted of hiring Republicans and conservatives, but he denied taking improper actions against the division's career officials. That account was challenged by six officials in the division who said in interviews that they either overhead him making brazen political remarks about career employees or witnessed him making personnel decisions with apparent political motivation.

Schlozman's efforts to hire political conservatives for career jobs throughout the division are now being examined as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department. The department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed last month that their inquiry, begun in March, will look at hiring, firing and legal-case decisions in the division.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan today to shine a renewed spotlight on decision-making in the division by questioning Schlozman's replacement, Wan Kim, about hiring practices and about its support for state voter-identification programs that could inhibit minority voting.

Democrats also plan to ask about the dwindling diversity of the staff in a division whose core mission includes fighting racial discrimination. The Bush administration, largely under Schlozman, hired seven members as replacements or additions to the 14-lawyer appellate section where Stevens, Calderon and Kwong worked. They included six whites, one Asian and no African Americans.

Schlozman's attorney, William Jordan, said his client did not want to comment on individual personnel decisions. Jordan said that Schlozman does not recall commenting on lawyers' voting records but at times encouraged cases to be reassigned to lawyers Schlozman considered to be very talented. Dugan declined to comment.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd also declined to respond to the allegations but did say that the appellate section's recent track record "speaks for itself." He cited statistics showing that when the section filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the past six years, it had an 87 percent success rate, compared with 61 percent success in the previous six years.

Schlozman arrived at the Justice Department in 2001 as counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson. A Kansas native and 1996 George Washington University law school graduate, Schlozman had clerked for two federal judges and worked alongside William Bradford Reynolds for two years in the Washington law firm Howrey Simon.

Reynolds, whom Schlozman has cited as a mentor, was a controversial assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Reagan administration. His confirmation for a higher department post was blocked by lawmakers in both parties who accused him of pursuing a radical interpretation of the nation's civil rights laws.

Schlozman's and Reynolds's career paths would end up having much in common.

In May 2003, Schlozman was appointed as a deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, and he quickly became enmeshed in hiring decisions previously made by section chiefs. He subsequently became the principal deputy, and in 2005 he was appointed acting assistant attorney general.

Appellate lawyers said that before Schlozman arrived, the small staff enjoyed a collegial work environment generally free of partisanship. Its lawyers concentrated on framing constitutional arguments for pending judicial decisions on hot-button issues such as voting rights, racial discrimination and religious freedom.

Schlozman made little effort to hide his personal interest in the political leanings of the staff, according to five lawyers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because -- like most of those interviewed for this article -- they still work at the department. He and his aides frequently asked appellate supervisors whether career lawyers handling politically sensitive cases were "on our team," the lawyers said.

Schlozman raised the question of partisan politics bluntly in the fall of 2004, they said, when asking appellate supervisors about the "loyalty" of division lawyer Angela Miller, who had once clerked for David. B. Sentelle, a conservative federal appeals judge. He told Miller's bosses that he learned that she voted for McCain in the 2004 Republican primary and asked, "Can we still trust her?"

He also warned section chief Diana Flynn that he would be keeping an eye on the legal work of another career lawyer who "didn't even vote for Bush," according to colleagues who said they heard Flynn describe the exchange. Miller told several of the colleagues that she considered Schlozman's remarks a form of intimidation, and started looking for another job, the lawyers said.

Schlozman and several deputies also took an unusual interest in the assignment of office responsibility for appellate cases and, according to the lawyers and one of the supervisors, repeatedly ordered Flynn to take cases away from career lawyers with expertise and hand them to recent hires whose résumés listed membership in conservative groups, including the Federalist Society.

Colleagues were especially surprised when Sarah Harrington, who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and was one of the most highly regarded lawyers in the section, had four cases -- including one concerning religious freedom -- taken away at Schlozman's instruction.

In February 2005, Calderon, Stevens and Harrington were all passed over in favor of a recent Schlozman hire when they applied for a new supervisory job that Schlozman created.

In March, Calderon's cases were reassigned and she was given only deportation cases, as were some of her colleagues, several lawyers said. That spring, Schlozman told a resistant Flynn to transfer Stevens to the disability rights section. According to sources in the office, Schlozman instructed Flynn to tell Stevens that the transfer was related to performance and was her idea.

In June, Flynn told Stevens, who was then seven months pregnant, that she had to leave. According to sources familiar with both women's accounts, Flynn alerted Stevens that "the front office didn't want the transfer attributed to them" but that it was not Flynn's idea. Flynn declined to comment for this article.

That same month, Calderon began a six-month detail on the staff of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of Senate Judiciary Committee and a persistent critic of the Bush administration's judicial policies. Friends said she confided that she did not want to give up her Justice job but said she found being barred from appellate work frustrating.

In November, just before she was to return, sources said, the division's human resources office notified her that she had been permanently transferred out of the appellate section -- effective one month earlier. When she asked why, colleagues said, she was told that the office was so busy that it had to replace her when she was on detail.

In December, as Kwong prepared to return to the office after the birth of her first child, Flynn told her that she had been transferred to a much-lower-profile complaint-resolution section.

"When he said he didn't engage in political hiring, most of us thought that was just laughable," said one lawyer in the section, referring to Schlozman's June 5 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Everything Schlozman did was political. And he said so."

Today, Schlozman is gone from civil rights, but Calderon and Stevens are back in the appellate section, and Kwong will return next month, according to public records.

Stevens, who hired a lawyer and filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint after the transfer, reached a confidential settlement with the department after Schlozman left the division and returned to her old job in the fall of 2006. Justice officials agreed that Calderon and Kwong should return as well.

Schlozman was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Missouri in March 2006. But Congress subsequently started looking into why he was hired without any prosecution experience, and why he brought voter-fraud charges against a liberal voting organization five days before the election in a heated congressional race. Schlozman was reassigned this past March to a job in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Labels: Bush Administration, Crooks, Justice Department

# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, June 21, 2007 0 comments