Boulis/Kidan/Abramoff timeline from the Sun-Sentinel. Or, how many degrees of separation between your Majority Leader and a Gotti family contract killing.
Timothy Flanigan is set to become Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He is the General Counsel of Tyco, one of the most scandal-plagued corporations in the country. He is directly connected to the Abramoff scandal. As GC at Tyco he hired Abramoff to protect Tyco’s ability to avoid paying taxes through its relocation to Bermuda. He was also central to the legal White House decisions permitting quasi-torture to be used by the US military.
Attorney General Al Gonzales will almost certainly have to recuse himself from various aspects of the Abramoff case as it centers more and more on the White House. That leaves Flanigan, who is even more directly implicated in the case. He’ll have to recuse himself too, whether he realizes it yet or not.
So, major corporate corruption, implicated in the Abramoff scandal, legal enabler of torture.
Is Al Gonzales really such a politically disinterested figure that he needs a pure party-liner as his number two?
Why is this guy’s nomination not dead in the water?
Never rains but it pours … DeLay indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy.
Correction: Timothy Flanigan is not General Counsel of Tyco. He is General Counsel for Corporate and International Law. The General Counsel is William B. Lytton. Also, Flanigan came to Tyco after the criminal activity which led to indictments of company executives.
So let’s see.
House Majority Leader Indicted for Criminal Conspiracy.
Senate Majority Leader the target of an increasingly serious probe of potential insider trading.
Rumors of October Rove indictment in the Plame case.
Is this a problem yet?
DeLay steps down as Majority Leader. ‘DeLay Rule’ would have come in handy.
DeLay is out as Majority Leader — at least temporarily. And Hastert plans to recommend Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) as his replacement. Why Dreier? Because DeLay plans on coming back. If DeLay lets someone into the job who actually has the juice to hold it, he might never get it back. That’s why the logical person on the totem pole, Majority Whip Roy Blunt, is staying right where he is.
Fruit of the poison tree?
See the list of seven Texas congressmen who are sitting in Congress today because of what the Travis County grand jury calls a criminal conspiracy.
Shades of Speaker Livingston. Will Dreier ascend? Cold hand of James Dobson grips the House.