House Intelligence: The Trouble with Hastings

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He may not be a former spy, but he’s got better cred on intelligence issues than the outgoing House intelligence committee chair, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI). (Hoekstra’s off-kilter ramblings have included charging CIA employees are al Qaeda sympathizers, and insisting WMDs still exist in Iraq after the White House has dropped the cause.) Besides, despite having little background in the cloak-and-dagger world, Hastings is said to have boned up on the subject since joining the intelligence panel in 1999.

So why do people think Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) isn’t fit to lead the House intelligence committee?

The answer lies all the way back in 1981 — when James Watt became Secretary of the Interior, the Berlin Wall was still up, disco wasn’t yet ironic, and Alcee Hastings was a federal judge in Florida.

That year, according to Congress, Hastings and a friend tried to shake down a defendant facing trial in Hastings’ courtroom for $150,000. In exchange, the two promised a reduced jail sentence and the return of over $800,000 in confiscated property.

A jury acquitted Hastings of criminal charges stemming from the scandal, but in 1989 a team of lawmakers — including Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), among others — prosecuted Hastings in Congress, and the Senate voted to strip him of his judgeship.

Hastings was only the sixth person in history to be impeached, convicted and removed from office by Congress, according to news accounts at the time.

The House prosecution based much of its case on a brief, cryptic conversation between Hastings and his friend, lawyer William Borders, who handled the arrangements of the scam.

“See, I had, I talked to him and he, he wrote some things down for me,” Borders told Hastings in the conversation, recorded by an FBI wiretap.

“I understand,” Hastings responded.

“And then I was supposed to go back and get some more things,” Borders said.

“Alright. I understand. Well, then, there’s no great big problem at all. I’ll, I’ll see to it that, uh, I communicate with him. I’ll send the stuff off to Columbia in the morning,” Hastings replied.

The FBI believed Borders was telling Hastings he’d received a $25,000 down payment (“he wrote some things down for me”) and he was going to get the balance later (“I was supposed to go back and get some more things”). The Feds said Hastings was telling Borders he’d prepared the necessary paperwork for the order and would put it through (“I’ll send the stuff off to Columbia in the morning”), according to a 1989 account from the Orlando Sentinel.

As it turned out, Borders had not been negotiating with a confidante of the defendant facing trial, but with an undercover FBI agent. He was arrested and later convicted of bribery. There was evidence that linked Hastings to Borders’ scheme beyond the one cryptic call, but it was all circumstantial. For instance, Borders promised his contact that Hastings would have dinner at a time and date and at a restaurant of his contact’s choosing; Hastings did so. Borders called that proof Hastings was in on the scheme; Hastings said Borders made plans to meet at the restaurant but never showed.

As a result, the criminal case against Hastings fell apart. But Congress had concerns, and with a grave bipartisan prosecution and impeachment, removed Hastings from the federal bench. Interestingly, Borders refused to testify before Congress, even when granted immunity to do so.

Hastings has never conceded any role in the affair, insisting that Borders — a well-known fundraiser for former president Jimmy Carter — was acting alone, essentially running a con on wealthy defendants.

The intel committee Hastings would chair — insiders call it “Hipsee” (for HPSCI, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s acronym) — was borne from the fiery furnace of scandal: following a torrent of gross constitutional violations by the CIA, the Pentagon and the FBI in the 1960s and 70s, Congress created the committee as part of its effort to rein in the spooks. But less than 30 years later the committee gave birth to its own scandal, when committee member Duke Cunningham was revealed to have taken millions in bribes in exchange for wiring secret government contracts to certain companies.

Duke’s in prison, but massive investigations into his misdeeds are still being carried out by the FBI, the CIA, the IRS and the Pentagon’s criminal investigators.

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