DoJ memo confirms that McKay's "investigation" of the 2004 election was a sham

Newly released DoJ memo confirms that McKay's "investigation" of the 2004 election was a sham

A year ago fired U.S. Attorney John McKay was being lionized by the mainstream media for supposedly resisting partisan political pressure to conduct a baseless investigation into Washington's 2004 gubernatorial election. The media accepted as settled fact McKay's insistence that he conducted a thorough investigation and found "no evidence" of crimes. When I interviewed McKay last May it came out that his "investigation" was limited to reviewing trial documents, that he demanded an implausibly high standard of "evidence" (amounting to a confession of participation in a conspiracy to tip the election) before he would proactively investigate or even interview election workers, and he denied knowledge of the hundreds of unlawfully counted votes that were discovered only after the trial ended.

McKay suggested that I FOIA his "close out" memo of the investigation, which would document his investigation in great detail. EFF Legal Counsel Jonathan Bechtle made the FOIA request and received the memo earlier this month. http://soundpolitics.com/3-13-06_Storm_memo_toDOJ.pdf The memo confirms: the investigation was a sham. The FBI and DoJ wouldn't even acknowledge post-trial reports of unlawful vote counting.

more at:
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/010428.html

It appears to be a link to a Republican blog. I even saw an ad for Rossi, the Repub who was defeated by Gregoire in 2004.

'investigation' done in the last few years has been a complete whitewash. And I include Fitzgerald's investigation that snagged Scoots. If it were as good as it was expensive, cheney wouldn't be in the Middle East shooting off his mouth. He'd have been the one to receive the pardon.

The votes that the Rethug creeps claim should not have been counted were ballots held out because of supposed signature mismatches determined by computer--odd that a handcount only advocate should suddenly start shilling for the virtues of privately owned software, no?

One of the King County councilmembers found his own name on the list of uncounted ballots and raised holy hell, which prompted the elections people to publicly release the names. Many people carried in their own new signature forms, and local Dems organized to contact the ones from our list of supporters as well. Naturally, the Rethugs were just as free to do the same thing, but they didn't bother.

the Republicans, to distract from "vapor ballot" electronic machine issue, sought to recast convert the issue into "Democratic voter fraud," which they pushed in a systematic way around the country: Washington state was one of the venues in which this little Rovian game was played, and McKay failed to follow the White House supplied script, despite pressure from many people, including some folks on the Hill who are governed by rules that tell them not to that. With a rare show of backbone -- distinguishing himself, for example, from the ass who prosecuted Georgia Thompson -- McKay insisted that no case could be brought without real evidence of a federal crime, which he did not find. So the White House fired him. When Congress sought further insight into this matter, of course, Harriett simply ignored the subpoena. Since Congress is pursuing contempt in her case, the wingnuts are ramping up for attack in the usual way