LAM WAS LET GO BEFORE SHE COULD GET TO CHENEY

Lam let go before she got to Dick Cheney
by Linda in SFNM
Mon Mar 19, 2007 at 11:44:50 AM PDT

Apparently Dick Cheney was involved in the pay for play/bribery game with the Duke and Wade. The only difference is DICK CHENEY used TAXPAYER money for the payola.

Apparently this was the case Arlen Spector was talking of when he said, the reason Lam was let go was for whom she was going to investigate.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/19/14388/5268

Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing?

Referring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”

The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections:



To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated.

That should raise questions about the White House’s involvement.

UPDATE: Perhaps this was the “real problem” Sampson was referring to:


http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-white-house/

With thanks!

and they're still in power!! WTF is going on? Are the Dems just buying time? Are they stacking the deck so damn high there will be NO OTHER CHOICE but to impeach? Something's gotta give here.

These committee investigations are getting the facts into the record now that they are in power. Facts which rethugs wouldn't allow to see the light of day.

DEMS are also getting it in the Congressional record (with names attached to the missed oversite) that during this administration's "illegal occupation of the White House" no investigations were done on these matters. Even if investigative reports had been completed and people paid, they weren't looked at. (FCC Oversite Committee met recently for the first time in almost 4 years and it took making it a hearing to get it to happen.) I saw it on CSpan and more than a few times when the chairman tried to wiggle out of responsibility by it happened before I got here, the DEMS pointed out, "It is now happening (or not) on YOUR watch" and they asked for written documentation of key points or phone records if no written documentation existed.

:shrug:

and money laundering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew

will history repeat?
dp

It is an attempt to obstruct justice and subvert the legal process. I'm tired of the talking heads on TV saying that any US Attorney can be fired as a political decision because they serve at the pleasure of the President. If any of this is true, and especially if the investigation was shut down after Carol Lam left, then this is not a political firing. We need to find some other term to describe it with and stop the talking heads from claiming that it's all just politics.

what do you want to bet that they were eavesdropping on the US Attorneys?

little toadies were toeing the line..

the self-serving political machinations of certain Republicans would have come to a screeching halt if and when they were indicted by Lam...

The spinners are saying this is a political firing, the way any new administration that comes in replaces many if not all US Attorneys as a matter of ordinary politics, to have members of their own party in the prosecutorial ranks. She very well may be a registered Republican, who contributes heavily to the Republican Party, and who voted for Bush. This is not about what she believes, but about what she did when confronted with possible criminal activity, no matter who perpetrated it. Her firing is not a political move. It doesn't matter what Carol Lam's poltics were. She wasn't replaced because of her general political views. She was replaced because of what she DID when confronted with specific criminal acts, not what she believes in general. That makes it more than politics, and probably an obstruction of justice.

To suggest that she was fired for purely political motives suggests that what she was doing was prosecuting individuals for purely political activities. Taking bribes is not a political activity, it is a crime. This has to do with crminal activity, no matter who commits it.

I'm concerned with us labeling this as a political firing because, when the public hears that, they think 'oh well, this is just more partisan crap and we don't really care'. This is not about partisanship or any particular political ideology. It's about crimes.

sarcasm smilie...

I know it is almost certain she was fired because she would have prosecuted Jerry Lewis and then things would have focused on Cheney, and others, in the White House.

It was political in the sense that her firing allowed Cheney, Lewis, etc to continue in their field of politics.

That way, we don't have to argue with people who can point out the choice aspect and get right into the conversation about the illegal activity.

Just think if we're dealing with people who are on the "talking points" it's a better way to frame it so they can't go into their spiel. Even if they do, they sound stupid because we've conceded a minor piece and provided the REAL information.

:sarcasm:

he was following the money back from cunningham, to that contractor, to cheney to the award of a $140,000 contract

Listen to him on drive home from work sometimes. Don't know if it's a rebroadcast or what, but I like that he digs stuff up that is germain to what's happening.

Still can't get myself to buy the book though. I'd dread answering the question. What book do you have there?

"I've got "Screwed" by Tom Hartman"

And the answer.. "I don't care about your personal life, what are you reading?"

Walk around the yard together in their bright orange, whisper and giggle and point at the other inmates.

I say let's give this to them.

The arrogance is astounding!

:wow:

:wow:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

orry for the lines here, I have no idea what causes it in the copy paste process.

Debra Wong Yang, 47, the Los Angeles U.S. attorney and a member of the president's corporate fraud task force, got north of $1.5 million to join Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher a few weeks later, according to two recruiters.

According to this report, Yang now "co-chair Gibson Dunn’s National Crisis Management Practice Group along with Washington, D.C. partner Theodore B. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, and New York partner Randy Mastro, who served as New York’s deputy mayor of operations under Rudy Giuliani. She is also expected to play a central role in the Business Crimes and Investigations Practice Group, the firm said." Olson of course was the Bush administration's solicitor general. Yang's colleague at the LA US attorney's office, assistant US attorney Douglas Fuchs, has also reportedly joined her at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Of course, Yang and Fuchs would have to recuse themselves from working on Lewis' defense. But interesting all the same that the very investigators in charge of what had to be a most uncomfortable investigation for the party in office got poached by the firm defending him.

text



<s>text</s> you have to use [ instead of < to get the effect

I thought you were telling us that Kpete's last name was Yang.

:crazy:

MZM supposedly "provides intelligence gathering, technology and homeland security analysis and consulting for both international and domestic governments and private-sector clients."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MZM_Inc.

Now why would a high-tech IT company get a contract to build furniture? This is total BS. It's just a front to launder money stolen from taxpayers directly to Cheney's cronies. The scariest part is just HOW MANY of these companies there are - quasi-private IT firms that now seem to run the government (Dyncorp, KBR, Choicepoint, SAIC, etc.) Interestingly, there's another private equity firm involved here - Veritas bought MZM in 2005. They also bought Dyncorp, & numerous other outsourced defense companies/fronts. Cereberus equity group bought the corporation that got the privatized Walter Reed contract. IMO, we are seeing the pumping of government funds directly into equity funds for the super-rich. It's racketeering on a massive scale.

Having Bush/Cheney reward you is like shining a laser beam pinpointing exactly where the corruption is. This was harder to data mine and track in the 80s, but we've made remarkable improvements in computing technology since then.

And now thousands, maybe millions worldwide, of willing unpaid volunteers are ready to help in the research.

There's a de facto presumption of corruption for any company that gets a big contract under Bushco.

Dollars of terror
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17730

"Ptech is used primarily to develop enterprise blueprints at the highest level of US government and corporate infrastructure. These blueprints hold every important functional, operational, and technical detail of the enterprise. A secondary use of this powerful tool is to build other smart tools in a short period of time. Ptech’s clients in 2001 included the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, Customs, Air Force, the White House, the FAA, IBM, Sysco, Aetna, and Motorola, to name just a few. "

Still at all those places too. Weird, huh ?

My personal tinfoil theory is that Bushco is outsourcing their illegal/black-opish activities to crony corporations. So Blackwater becomes the corporate Army, Choicepoint becomes the corporate NSA, etc. We know that the Total Surveillence Project was basically outsourced to crony IT firms & continued after Congress revoked funding. That's why there's this proliferation of IT/database companies now. I suspect that "MZM" was also involved in conducting unapproved programs in a way that gave Bushco some plausible deniability.

MZM's vague company description mentions "intelligence gathering" as one of its missions. It turns out, MZM's contract were mostly w/the Pentagon's CIFA division. (Counterintelligence Field Activity). CIFA was created after 9/11, and focuses exclusively on domestic surveillance - this was the agency that was tracking war protesters & Quakers. I think we're going to find that Bushco was using these various "outside" corporations to create an illegal, cooperative domestic spying capability. W/a few billion in graft on the side, of course. MZM was CIFA. The billions of dollars given to this agency went straight to MZM's (and Cunningham's) pockets.

Attorneys, including prosecutors, are bound by basic rules of professional responsibility and codes of ethics. Ethics is a required course for every law student (btw, we've heard all the lawyer jokes before, you don't need to post them here). In most states, there is a required test for ethics, which is usually taken separate from the bar exam, and regardless of your bar exam score, the ethics test must also be passed.

In my view, as a retired attorney, the administration required these attorneys to against what they felt was ethical, under the rules and codes. Attorneys, and particularly prosecutors, cannot use their position and power to harass or coerce...nor can they ignore actions (or crimes) based on political or personal gain.

Attorneys get a bad rap, and in many cases, deservedly so. I'm not here to defend the profession. I've had the ethical ultimatum (employer wanted me to bring, in my opinion, a frivolous lawsuit, and after I quit, it was dropped for that reason), and I never really recovered, professionally. So, I can really identify with some of these attorneys, in that the WH required them to go against their ethics to keep their jobs, and the hell they went through in standing up for what their gut told them was the right thing to do.

Basically, this comes down to people being punished for doing the ethical thing (and as defined by rules, laws, and probably what they felt in their heart, brain and gut).

I'd love to see, or hear the ABA's opinion regarding this issue.

What is ABA?

It's a voluntary membership, yet it by and large sets the standards for the profession. It has been accused of being "liberal", because it wants members to adhere to ethical standards without being politically motivated. However, it has also given thumbs up to conservative judicial candidates. It has its supporters and detractors, depending on the issue. However, for the most part, it's independent, and has the best and brightest formulating opinions and policies. Some I agree with, others I don't, but I know everything they put out is well studied and arguable.

My dad went to law school on the GI Bill. He had convinced a friend of his to go to night school with him. Said friend was mayor of the small town they lived in.

They go to the bookstore to get their lawbooks. Friend said, "Watch this" as he stole his ethics book.

Every good lawyer should steal his ethics book!!

Ending:This friend was brilliant, and doing things the ethical way was too easy. He went to Club Fed in the 1960s for income tax evasion and later to the state pen for involvement in a robbery. Died in prison. The guy was a criminal lawyer who turned into a lawyer criminal.

Thanks for sharing ... it motivates me to read everything on these boards and get the perspective that only those who have 'been there' can provide.
The fact of the matter is that for the Busheviks, anyone with professional standards (i.e. integrity) is an obstacle (enemy?) to be marginalized and if necessary, destroyed.

Unfortunately, the ABA is rather slow to get around to in-depth articles about Washington political scandals, even when they involve lawyers.

I would go even further and say that not only were they fired for doing the ethical thing in following evidentiary leads from one corrupt Republican to another, they were also fired because they refused to do the unethical thing demanded of them, which was to prosecute Democrats for similar transgressions based on absolutely no evidence at all. The White House was very upset that during the summer and fall before the 2004 election, a lot of prosecutions of corrupt Republicans were coming to fruition and making lots of news. In their corrupt pea-brain noggins, they thought the way to fix it was to lean on the U.S. Attorneys to do the "fair and balanced" Fox thing, and go after Democrats with equal zeal on trumped up phony charges of "election fraud". The U.S. Attorneys refused to prosecute cases for which there was no evidence, so they were fired after the election.

It morphed into the Republican Party. Helluva business model-

(1) Steal elections
(2) Award taxpayer money to Republican front companies via no-bid contracts
(3) Launder money back in the RNC via fundraisers to steal more elections
(4) Have majority on the take so they don't do oversight

Repeat until American people wake up.

It ONLY says WE are to avoid the APPEARANCE, I say the APPEARANCE of conflict of interest.

Now you seem like a bright young man, listen careful son.

Republicans can avoid the (ahem) (wink-wink) APPEARANCE of any conflict of interest if their mis-dee (ahem) indiscretions stay HIDDEN.

Don'cha see, son. It's all about APPEARANCE, has nothing to do with what is actually HAPPENING behind closed doors or under the table. Just a little smoke and mirrors.

K And R for must reading!

kick

and they are trying to stop convictions

they crack me up firing these attorney's as if that's going to make their robbing of the treasury go away... someone will work on it eventually

GOING TO GROW A SET???

I mean, really...how much more of this shit should we be expected to take??

This is just too deep. The dummy companies; the phony defense contracts; the money being funneled back into the RNC and GOP campaign coffers; my GOD, don't they have enough evidence to HANG these people by now???

FUCK impeachment! We are WAY beyond impeachable offenses with this soulless crowd of greed-driven, power-mad bastards.

and I think Daril Issa is in it, to his eyeballs.

Readying the docu dump right now

Cheney is starting to remind me of Agnew. Maybe the Dems were a little leery of impeachment because, really, do you want Cheney to take over? Yikes. But with Cheney gone, impeachment sounds REALLY good. This is why (in my opinion) they are scrambling to find a suitable (and I use the term very loosely) replacement for Mr. Gonzalez. Maybe they think that if they throw him overboard, the Dems would be somewhat placated. (But please let them NOT confirm any of the names I have heard mentioned tonight. Chertoff? Olsen? Ugh. Both are equally repellant and just as bad, if not worse, than the incompetent that already holds the AG's office.)

Please let the Dems follow this all the way (if there is indeed an "all the way" to follow) to its conclusion and not get distracted by getting to replace the AG.

But what can they do? Many of us are scanning the damn PDFs right now

I'm hoping that somebody is saving all of these to their hard drive and then making a backup. These docs may not be there for long. If by "scanning" you mean "reading quickly" -- I hope you can quit that for now and just save them all. Read later. Some of these may not seem important now, but may be relevant later.

Wish to God I could do this if I had high speed internet. I tried loading the file and left it running all night -- but it still hadn't loaded by this a.m.

Am pissed.

This is one Dick and Bush are going to pay for!

I couldn't catch what was going on before with Lam/Duke/Wade, etc.

These people (the administration) are just criminals - plain and simple!

And Foggo may very well be "UNKNOWN". It was really Brewster Jennings they were going after - not Plame or Wilson. Brewster Jennings was in the way of more money for them.

or Rove.

Not just "A Contract" but a "No-Bid Contract". Does anyone at all notice any patterns here?

What a bunch of historical Losers.

Take it with you everywhere you go. Get people talking about it and asking for more.

Give it legs.

AS I understand she sent notifications that she was about to indict two people and the VERY NEXT DAY she was fired.

this is clearly obstruction of justice.

but I think they really started working hard on it after the Dukester sent that letter with Issa... our favorite hitman.

Seems odd for a loyal lapdog to even hint at the possibility of a more widespread potential investigation being curtailed.

In a few hours, when it rolls off the greatest page (with 120 or more R's) You should post this again, and again. Ya think?

Oh wait. Fitzgerald went back to Chicago. Whew.

:kick:

Karl Rove, Susan Bonzon Ralston, Barry Jackson, Ken Mehlman, Ruben Barrales, Jennifer Farley and now, probably more.

House Oversight Committee: The Abramoff Investigation
http://oversight.house.gov/abramoff/index2.asp