New York Times To Congress--It's Subpoena Time

An editorial in this morning's New York Times neatly sums up Bradley Schlozman's testimony concerning the ACORN indictments and his role in the politicization of the Department of Justice.

Mr. Schlozman said it did not occur to him that the indictments could affect the campaign. That is hard to believe since the Justice Department’s guidelines tell prosecutors not to bring vote fraud investigations right before an election, so as not to affect the outcome. He also claimed, laughably, that he did not know that Acorn was a liberal-leaning group.

Mr. Schlozman fits neatly into the larger picture. Prosecutors who refused to use their offices to help Republicans win elections, like John McKay in Washington State, and David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired. Prosecutors who used their offices to help Republicans did well.

All roads in this scandal lead to the White House. The White House refuses to make Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Scott Jennings, Sara Taylor and William Kelley available for testimony under oath and have generally stonewalled regarding critical emails. At long last the Times editorial board has concluded

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.

The Nattering Nabob says, "My God, even the New York Times gets it." The Nattering Nabob is right.

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Todd Graves--US Attorney Target Number 10?

Pressrelease 365 reports the following:

Kansas City, MO 04/09/07 - Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari unearthed a US Department of Justice memo revealing the Office of the Attorney General had targeted not eight but ten US Attorneys including the former attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Todd P. Graves. The documents were obtained during Medical Supply Chain's discovery related to the civil antitrust action Medical Supply Chain, Inc. v. Novation LLC, et al, Western District of Missouri case #05-210-CV-W-ODS filed on March 9, 2005.

The e-mail dated January 9th, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to Harriet Miers and William Kelley at the White House, shows the ten U.S. Attorneys that were first selected to voluntarily resign or face termination. Attorneys that resigned were redacted. Todd P. Graves of Missouri resigned March 24, 2006.

Why would Samuel Lipari be in a position to unearth this tidbit. Well, it seems that his company Medical Supply Chain, has been actively engaged in a civil anti-trust suit against Novation, LLC, Volunteer Hospital Association (VHA), University Health System Consortium (UHC) and Neoforma, Inc. Lipari claims the companies "were involved in a scheme to monopolize hospital supplies to defraud Medicare through payments to administrators and kickbacks. The scheme resulted in almost all of Kansas City, Missouri St. Luke's hospital's one hundred million dollar supply budget being purchased through Novation LLC. St. Luke's merged with University of Kansas Hospital after Irene Cumming, CEO of the University of Kansas Hospital was given a job by University Health System Consortium (UHC) on March 19, 2007."

It appears that Todd Graves had been investigating and prosecuting Medicare fraud cases. Lipari claims that "Bradley Schlozman failed to prosecute public corruption related to the Medical Supply Chain litigation."

I have long suspected Todd Graves was one of the targeted, but redacted, prosecutors, but that is because a Graves family member was implicated in a separate scandal involving Matt Blunt and state fee offices. A scandal later investigated by Bud Cummins. ePluribusMedia's mit2174 published an article making the connection entitled Heffelfinger, Graves, and the U.S. Attorney "purge" on Thursday, March 15, 2007. Thomas Heffelfinger "resigned February 28, 2006 to return to the private sector. At the time, he cited "personal" and "financial" reasons for his resignation. (sources: Pioneer Press, 2/15/06; Star Tribune, 2/15/06)." He was replaced by Rachel Paulose.

What is new is the implication that Schlozman was not brought in to engage in voter suppression or to clean up after Grave's problems with the Fee License Scandal, but to squelch a particular medicare fraud investigation. I don't know whether to believe Lipari's assertion, but it bears watching. Lipari might simply be trying to stir the pot to help his civil suit.

On a possibly "related" note Minnesota Campaign Report's mswsm has written an interesting report entitled Why the Deception about Paulose's Work History and Residency? that seems to imply Paulose, who had been active in health care litigation, was sent from Washington to protect one of her former clients, a Minneapolis base health care company. Again a stretch, but given the way the Department of Justice has been politicized one that doesn't seem as far fetched as it would have a few years ago.

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US Attorney--Patronage Opportunity?

The Next Hurrah points to an interesting email exchange between Kyle Sampson and Bill Kelley on December 7, 2006. You will recall that December 7 was the day the Gonzales 7 were fired. It was also the day Rachel Paulose and other US Attorneys were to be approved.

11:19, Kelley emailed Sampson in a panic.

Our leg folks are all up in arms that we are doing this on the last day when things can be gummed up by unhappy Senators. There's no way to pull back til tomorrow, is there? I should have flagged the timing for them earlier -- but they never raised the issue of timing until things were underway.

To which Sampson replied:

Too late, right? Calls to USAs are happening as we speak. And Sens. Kyl and Domenici already have been notified (and are ok). Do they think Sen. Ensign will be concerned (I don't)? And none of these USAs has been promoted by a House member.

To which Kelley responded:

I told them it is too late, but I said I would confirm with you. I think it is clear that they are overreacting, and I've told them that. I don't know if Ensign is close to the Nevada guy, but I would think he'd welcome a new patronage opportunity.

White House to US Attorneys, you are not performing important public service, your job is just another patronage office. Heck of a job gang.

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Curious Phrasing

The Kansas City Star (a McClatchy newspaper) is reporting this morning that "Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006, that she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who'd resigned two days earlier as the No. 3 official at the CIA."

As you might recall, on May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales' chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." Curious phrasing.

I wonder if Mr. Sampson would be willing to talk under oath about why Justice and the White House had a problem with Ms Lam and not with her high profile Republican targets--Dusty Foggo or Rep. Lewis. It is pretty obvious that Sampson's solution to the Lam problem was to fire Lam.

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