With all the hullabaloo

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With all the hullabaloo over the Niger uranium bogusness, I haven’t yet had a chance to address another story that’s been going on in the background over the last few days. The Department of Homeland Security a while back issued a famously incomplete IG investigation report of its role in the Texas redistricting manhunt. The Department of Transportation did an investigation too. Their report turned out to be much, much more thorough. One morsel from the Washington Post’s brief story on the report …

Mead’s report pins principal responsibility for the FAA efforts on David Balloff, appointed by President Bush in 2001 as the FAA’s assistant administrator for government and industry affairs. Balloff is a former adviser to Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) and a former Tennessee Republican Party official.

Mead’s report said Balloff withheld critical information during several interviews and fostered an “appearance” of trying to hide information about his activities from his FAA superiors. Kirk K. Van Tine, the department’s general counsel, promised that he and FAA Administrator Marion Blakey would counsel Balloff “appropriately regarding these issues.”

Also interesting: unlike the DHS report, the folks at DOT told Texas Department of Public Safety officer Will Crais that, yes, he actually did have to answer their questions. The results were revealing. State House Speaker Tom Craddick earlier said he and his office had no moment-to-moment involvement in the manhunt. He only put the DPS on the case. Apparently not …

In a civil deposition, DPS Lt. William Crais, a key player in the hunt, testified that he was told to try to initiate a federal search operation by state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, and by an aide to the state House speaker, Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

These articles in the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News only scratch the surface of what’s included in the report. But they’re a good place to start.

Meanwhile, a Texas state judge yesterday ruled that the entire state manhunt for the runaway Dems — soup to nuts — was illegal.

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