Those golden oldies that just keep on giving. Remember the Denver Three? Their civil suit is proceeding, and today the Denver Post reports: “A former White House official who ordered three activists expelled from a 2005 Denver public forum with President Bush says it was White House policy to exclude potentially disruptive guests from Bush’s appearances nationwide.”
Former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who lost her 2006 bid to unseat Rep. Heather Wilson by just 861 votes, has a few things to say about the claims by ousted U.S. Attorney David Iglesias that he was pressured, reportedly by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Wilson herself, to bring criminal indictments before the mid-term elections for political purposes.
In an interview with Heath Haussamen, who blogs on New Mexico politics, Madrid claims that Iglesias may have succumbed to similar internal GOP political pressure in another public corruption case:
In an exclusive interview, Madrid said she wouldnât be surprised if Iglesias is telling the truth, because she believes Domenici and Wilson may have had a hand in another massive public corruption scandal prosecuted by his office.
She said Iglesias, a Republican, kept her office from having any involvement in prosecution of the state treasurer scandal. She believes that was âprobablyâ done at the urging of Republican operatives and designed to give Wilson fuel to attack Madrid for doing nothing about the scandal.
. . .
Madrid said her office was involved in 2005 in the early stages of the investigation of the treasurer scandal, along with the stateâs Taxation and Revenue Department, but the FBI stepped in, took control of the investigation and ordered her to stay away.
Madrid contends that was likely done at the urging of Republicans, who may have been preparing to fight what, at the time, was only a potential Madrid campaign against Wilson. The congresswoman repeatedly attacked Madrid during the campaign for doing nothing about the corruption in the treasurerâs office.
âWe were deliberately kept out by the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney and the FBI,â Madrid said, adding that she believes it is likely that Iglesias, Domenici, Wilson and Bush political adviser Karl Rove âhad these prosecutions so intertwined with this campaign.â
Madrid’s claims are short on specifics; but, given Iglesias’ recent charges of political interference, her suspicions certainly seem more plausible than they would have a month ago.
The thing about Iglesias is that his own account of the calls from Wilson and Domenici doesn’t cast him in a particularly flattering light. He admits that according to Department of Justice policy he should have notified his superiors of the calls but failed to do so. It also looks like Iglesias was prepared to take the fall and go quietly until Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified to Congress that the U.S. attorney dismissals were for performance reasons. Only after he was smeared did Iglesias speak out.
It would have been nice if Iglesias had put the same value on defending the rule of law as he has on defending his own reputation.
“If I was Heather Wilson, I’d be thinking about taking a long trip to Baghdad, where the conditions are a little more subdued.”
–former New Mexico Gov. Dave Cargo, a Republican, on the fallout from the U.S. attorney purges
New Mexico Republican bigwig on Rep. Heather Wilson (R), the member of Congress at the center of the canned US attorneys scandal. From the Albuquerque Tribune …
“If I was Heather Wilson, I’d be thinking about taking a long trip to Baghdad, where the conditions are a little more subdued,” said former Gov. Dave Cargo.
Cargo, a Republican, was only half-joking.
Claims that Wilson and Domenici pressured Iglesias to bring indictments in a politically charged corruption investigation of local Democrats ahead of last year’s election – when Wilson was locked in a battle for her political life – are “terribly serious,” Cargo said.
“This has the potential to really cripple the (state) Republican Party,” he said. “And the way Heather and Pete are handling it, by essentially taking the Fifth (Amendment), isn’t helping them.”
Locked in a battle for her political life is right. But I’m not sure how many people outside of New Mexico get that yet.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney spends casual moments with Ann Coulter backstage at the CPAC conference moments before Coulter goes on stage to call John Edwards a ‘faggot’ …
Good times, good times …
Late Update: ThinkProgress has the vids of the speeches.
That so?
TPM Reader FF just flagged this article in today’s Oregonian. According to the article, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) was at a Republican conference defending his changed position on Iraq and specifically his opposition to the ‘surge’. And in the course of defending himself he said that even Gen. Patraeus says the plan has only a one in four chance of success.
“If you’re really going to do a surge, you don’t do it with 20,000, you do it with 250,000,” he said, noting that Baghdad is a city of nearly 7 million people. But he said the United States cannot afford such a response; instead it has to come from the Iraqi Army.
Smith said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge has only a one in four chance of succeeding.
Anyone follow up with Smith or Petraeus about this?
From TPM Reader RB:
As I read the reaction/fallout from Ann Coulterâs remarks at CPAC this week Iâm annoyed by the entire progressive reaction to it and most of the many other outrages committed on a daily basis by the Republican Party.
Why doesnât a progressive with an audience say something to the effect âThis is who and what the once proud and honorable Republican Party has turned itself into. It is a party of hate, intolerance, incompetence, greed, treason, fanatical, hostile to science and reality, and totally corrupt. They have no honor and no shame. Theyâre fascists and a cancer on our great nation, plain and simple and this is just another example of that.â
Around here we focus on showing it rather than just saying it. But with Coulter and her ilk, it’s probably necessary to just say it from time to time. So, yeah, what RB says pretty much covers it. (Treason is not a charge to throw around lightly, so I’ll hedge on that; and we probably flatter ourselves by saying the GOP is fascist, although I agree its fascist tendencies are alarming.)
So which of the Democratic presidential candidates are willing to say it?
Late Update: Not so fast, says TPM Reader FN:
Can someone please explain why a comment from Ann Coulter draws such a flood of responses from progressives? Seems like such a waste. I thought the time was ripe for having substantive political discussions. Yet here we go wringing our hands and expressing moral outrage over a comment from someone who is really a cartoon character. Who cares what she says?
The whole reaction comes across as phoney and pathetic. Instead of demonstrating toughness it, instead, shows weakness. We seem to be trying to perfect our holier than thou, righteous indignation persona. It’s fine to learn how to fight back but then we have to learn when to fight back. There is a difference between a bird shot and a cannon ball. Can’t we try to focus on building a discussion about the war, health care, climate change and economic disparity and save our new found “toughness” for the major battles?
To what extent are the problems at Walter Reed the result of privatization of services? Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants to find out.
TPM Reader JE:
I notice that Gates is getting good press for being decisive and acting quickly. I concede that he has not been on the job long. But haven’t the conditions at Walter Reed been bad for a very long time? Relatives of military people and military personnel would typically first complain to those in authority and in the service. What happened to those complaints? Haven’t dozens of senior officers and doctors known? Haven’t at least mid-level White House people known? Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn what, if anything, Rumsfeld knew? Don’t the quick firings and positive publicity for Gates seem like intentional distraction for a more serious, long-standing problem?
Yes on all counts.
Pro-democracy demonstrators clubbed and detained by police in St. Petersburg.
If you have only a vague sense of how bad things have become in Putin’s Russia, you might be interested in Michael Specter’s recent piece in The New Yorker.
Late update: More on the St. Petersburg clash here.