Katherine Shields Found Not Guilty

Remember Bradley Schlozman? One of the things bad Brad did while interim US attorney in Kansas City last winter was indict local Democrat Katherine Shields for mortgage fraud in the middle of her race for mayor. Of course that indictment came down before everybody in America realized that Mr. Schlozman was just another loyal Bushie who was sent to Kansas City to tend to Karl Rove's business of electing Republicans by indicting Democrats.

Well, earlier today Katherine and her husband Phil Cardarella were found not guilty. Are we surprised? After all that we have learned about the Gonzales "Just Us" department, I'm not.

In fairness, two of the other defendants were found guilty of participating in a scheme to buy the Cardarellas' house for an inflated price. Apparently, there was insufficient proof that the Shields and her husband were aware of, or stood to gain by, the fradulent transaction that had been organized by a con artist named Raymond Zwego. Zwego pleaded guilty before trial and testified for the prosecution.

In this case, there was a crime. There was just no evidence that either Shields or Cardarella was involved. They marketed their house for $700,000 and that is how much they received. The con man and his crew organized a scheme to "borrow" $1,100,000 to "buy" the house for $1,200,000. According to the Kansas City Star Zwego put the extra $400,000 in his pocket.

Thanks Brad, in your zeal to get a Democrat during the middle of an election, a real bad guy, Raymond Zwego, is going to get a reduced sentence.

There's more: "Katherine Shields Found Not Guilty" >>

DOJ's Elston resigns

Another senior DOJ official, Michael Elston, has resigned. According to a DOJ anonymous source, Elston has accepted a job at a Washington law firm and his last day at the scandal-laden DOJ is next Friday.

McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, became the fifth department official to leave his post since the controversy over the firings rocked the nation's top law enforcement agency....

... Elston's name first surfaced when one of the fired U.S. attorneys, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, disclosed in March that Elston had phoned him to suggest that senior department officials would retaliate against the prosecutors if they discussed their firings publicly.

In an e-mail written to five of the ousted U.S. attorneys minutes after the Elston call, Cummins said of the conversation: "I was tempted to challenge him and say something movie-like such as `are you threatening ME???'"

The department denied that Elston was trying to intimidate or silence the dismissed U.S. attorneys.

Elston's name also showed up on numerous e-mails in which department officials weighed which U.S. attorneys to fire. In one e-mail, he was informed about how the department would deal with the fallout from the firings.

In recent testimony, the former interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Bradley Schlozman, disclosed that he sought approval from Elston before bringing indictments for voter-registration fraud against four workers for a liberal-leaning group [ACORN] just days before the 2006 election. Department policy discourages such prosecutions on the eve of elections.

Elston's boss, McNulty, announced recently that he would leave his job at the end of the summer.

Paul Kiel itemizes some of Elston's "hit jobs" at the DOJ :

-- He allegedly called three of the fired U.S. attorneys [Charlton, McKay, and Cummins] and made an implicit threat that the Justice Department would detail the reasons for their firings if they didn't stay quiet.

-- He allegedly rejected a large number of applicants to Justice Department positions because they were Democrats.

-- When Carol Lam, the former U.S. attorney for San Diego, asked to stay on the job longer in order to deal with some outstanding prosecutions (the expanding Duke Cunningham case among them), Elston told her not to think about her cases, that she should be gone in "weeks, not months" and said "these instructions were 'coming from the very highest levels of the government.'"

-- He called around to the U.S. attorneys whom he had placed on one of the draft firing lists to apologize when he discovered that his list would be turned over to Congress.

Let me get this straight: Schlozman fingered Elston in getting approval for the ACORN indictments by going over Craig Donsanto's head. As Corpus Juris explained, "...everyone agrees the indictments flew in the face of Donsanto's own manual, DoJ rules and long standing tradition." And now Elston plans to leave the DOJ. Uh-huh.

The rats are deserting the sinking ship at the Bush Administration's DOJ. Now if only the WH firewall, er, I mean AG Gonzales would resign. But don't hold your breath.

POSTSCRIPT: Background on the ACORN indictments are here and here and here.

UPDATE: WaPo adds a few details and a statement from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

"Alberto Gonzales appears to be the last man standing, but he should have been the first to go," Schumer said. "Almost every official involved in the U.S. attorney firings is gone, but that doesn't change the simple fact that the buck stops with the attorney general."

Indeed.

There's more: "DOJ's Elston resigns" >>

I Am Afraid Monica's Freudian Slip Is Showing or How Rachel Paulose Can't Catch A Break.

God I love this job. I have been following the really brain dead public relations campaign to rehabilitate the fading career of Rachel Poulose. Rachel is a young Republican with a wonderful resume. She seems to have some problem with the "little people." Shortly after she took the job of US Attorney in Minneapolis, four of her top aides got so fed up with her imperious ways they took demotions rather than spend time working with her directly. Instead of learning the obvious life lessons from that early debacle, she apparently has decided to fight back. As near as I can tell she has surrounded herself with a truly clueless PR posse that has done an absolutely crappy job. For example, last monday she tried to reintroduce herself just days before Monica Goodling was going to testify. That reintroduction didn't go very well. Neither did Katherine Kersten's followup whine.

Luckily for Rachel, Monica didn't have a lot to say about her, and it was mostly good. Monica did make some unfortunate comments about Rachel's predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger. Heffelfinger was the very model of a loyal Republican US Attorney right up to last week. All through the US Attorney scandal, even after he was found to be on the list of attorneys to be fired, he insisted that his resignation was entirely voluntary.

As has been typical of the Gonzales Justice Department, Monica found a way to really anger the former US Attorney. She criticized his professional work. As will be revealed below, the Clucking Stool thinks she might have suffered what we used to call a Freudian slip.

In response to a question from Representative Keith Ellison, Monica said, "There were some concerns that he (Heffelfinger) spent an extraordinary amount of time as the leader of the Native American subcommittee of the AGAC (Attorney General's Advisory Committee)."

Heffelfinger replied by telling KARE11 News he was "extraordinarily outraged" to hear his work criticized. Heffelfinger was proud of his work with Native Americans. He told the AP, again quoting KARE11,

"I did spent a lot of time on it," Heffelfinger said of the American Indian issue. "That's what I was instructed to do" by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Given the higher rates of violence suffered by American Indians, Heffelfinger said, the time was warranted, but it didn't take away from other priorities.

"I had to work hard, but I was comfortable with the mix of my local responsibilities and my Native American responsibilities," said Heffelfinger, who oversaw his office's investigation into the 2005 shooting that claimed 10 lives on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in far northern Minnesota.

Throughout the US Attorney scandal there is a common theme, a theme most of the loyal Bushies like Sampson, Goodling and their boss have yet to figure out--you just don't tell a proud professional that the work he is proudest of is crap, not unless you really want to have your hat handed to you.

This morning the LA Times carried a story by Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer, and former Minnesota native, tying Heffelfinger's good work on behalf of Native Americans to another overarching theme of the Gonzales justice department--the ongoing Republican campaign to suppress the minority vote. Yep, Heffelfinger refused to take part in a campaign to suppress the Native American vote, a campaign that involves two of our old favorites, Brad Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky.

As you will recall Von Spakovsky and Schlozman are voting suppression specialists linked to Republican voter suppression campaigns in Missouri and Georgia. Since most poor people of color are Democrats, from the point of view of Brad and Hans suppressing the vote of poor people of color is a good thing.

The basic Republican voter suppression plan, as advanced in Missouri and Georgia, is for local Republicans to plant the frightening image in the minds of the local media and the general public of thousands of poor black people showing up at the polls to vote Democratic dozens of times.

For a lot of technical reasons the kind of "voter fraud" that concerns Republicans is virtually non-existent. That doesn't stop the patented Republican voter suppression campaign. The Republican solution to the terrible, but non-existant, problem of "voter fraud" is to require each voter to present a special and expensive voter ID card at the polling place on election day. Republican legislatures eagerly enact such laws. Members of the local media write puff pieces singing the praises of Republicans who have solved a truly frightening problem.

Since poor people can't afford to pay a lot for their voter or state ID, or they might not realize they need one until the last minute, voter suppression of the poor Democratic minority is almost a sure thing.

Ordinarily, the United States Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is all over such state statutes. After all poll taxes and the like are illegal under Federal law, and have been since Jim Crow days. Enter Schlozman and Von Spakovsky. Their job was to overrule or otherwise defang the career professionals in the civil rights division. Theirs was the most successful part of the Republican voter suppression campaign in the last couple of elections. In both, the Civil Rights Division, now largely manned by loyal Bushies, was essentially neutered. Fortunately, opponents didn't need DoJ help to convince the courts that the Missouri and Georgia laws were illegal.

There are 32,000 Native Americans living in the Saint Paul area alone. The ID they use in their daily lives is the ID card issued by their tribe. It is widely thought that a lot of those Native Americans vote for Democrats.

According to LA Times:

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

Heffelfinger had one of his staff e-mail the Civil Rights Division. It was made clear that Heffelfinger was very concerned about Kiffmeyer's directive and believed something needed to be done. The Times article continues

About three months after Heffelfinger's office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

"I have come to the conclusion that his expressed concern for Indian voting rights is at least part of the reason that Tom Heffelfinger was placed on the list to be fired," said Joseph D. Rich, former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Rich, who retired in 2005 after 37 years as a career department lawyer — 24 of them in Republican administrations — was closely involved in the Minnesota ID issue

Rich is the lawyer who received the e-mails from a member of Heffelfinger's staff. Rich started working the case. According to Rich Schlozman and Von Spakovsky promptly placed impossible conditions on the conduct of the investigation effectively squelching it.

According to the Star Tribune, one of Rachel Paulose's first acts after appointment was "to remove Lewis, who had written the 2004 e-mails to Washington expressing concern about American Indian voting rights." I wonder if that's when her management problems began?

UPDATE: I just remembered Hans Von Spakosky has a confirmation hearing scheduled for June 13. With this story breaking right now, maybe he is the guy who can't catch a break?

There's more: "I Am Afraid Monica's Freudian Slip Is Showing or How Rachel Paulose Can't Catch A Break." >>

House Judiciary Committee Chair and Members Ask Gonzales Follow-Up Questions About Todd Graves Firing.

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker reports that

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), along with subcommittee chair Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) wrote Alberto Gonzales today to press for details about the firing of U.S. Attorney for Kansas City Todd Graves and the subsequent hiring of Bradley Schlozman.

Here is part of the letter. The full text can be found at the link.

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are writing to formally restate Chairman Conyers' request at the end of your recent appearance before the House Judiciary Committee for the prompt production of all documents, in unredacted form, relating to the termination of Todd Graves, the former United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, who we now know was the ninth U.S. Attorney forced to resign by the Department in 2006.

This request would also cover all documents relevant to the selection of Brad Schlozman as the interim replacement for Mr. Graves, including documents regarding other candidates considered for this position, if any. As we understand it, this will require a new search by the Department of Justice, in addition to providing unredacted copies of already-produced proposed termination lists.

We also have concerns with your suggestion that Mr. Graves' termination was somehow not part of the same process that led to the other terminations, given the fact that Mr. Graves appeared on Kyle Sampson's proposed termination list that was transmitted to Harriet Miers in January 2006, just weeks before Mr. Graves was asked to resign.

As Representative Lofgren pointed out in her questioning, there are disturbing indications that the decision to fire Mr. Graves was related to his disagreement with a voter fraud lawsuit pushed by Mr. Schlozman, the very person eventually named by you to succeed Mr. Graves as an interim U.S. Attorney. Notwithstanding your assertions, our review indicates that the district court decision dismissing that lawsuit focused on much more than the procedural defect of naming the wrong defendant....

Given these troubling circumstances, in addition to receiving the requested documents, we also request that you promptly explain your understanding of the facts regarding this termination and replacement, including but not limited to who placed Mr. Graves on the termination list and why, who was consulted on his termination and on his replacement by Mr. Schlozman, and who made the final decisions. In addition, please identify all current and former Department employees with information on this issue so that they may be interviewed, just as we have interviewed present and former Department personnel on the other eight terminations. Finally, please inform us whether any other United States Attorneys were terminated or asked to resign during President Bush's second term and, if so, who they were and the Department's basis for the termination or requested resignation.

I wonder if he is going to answer? Probably not. Given his performance the other day, it is pretty obvious he holds the committee in contempt. He won't worry about the letter until the committee starts talking about impeachment.

I wonder if the letter will be reported in the Star? Nah. Why would the Star report something involving the Kansas City US Attorney scandal? We Red State people can't handle the truth. Yes, Steve Kraske I am taunting you.

UPDATE: I have added the last substantive paragraph to give a little more flavor.

There's more: "House Judiciary Committee Chair and Members Ask Gonzales Follow-Up Questions About Todd Graves Firing." >>

Kansas City Star Denies It Should Have Disclosed Ties To Powerful GOP Law Firm

As you might recall a couple of weeks ago the Kansas City Star, a McCLatchy Newspaper, found itself at ground zero of the Brad Schlozman story, but for two days refused to run Greg Gordon's excellent piece on Schlozman's role in the 2006 election. Critics complained that when the Star finally did run the story, it was edited to soften criticism of the local GOP and several of it's players including Governor Matt Blunt and St. Louis lawyer Mark "Thor" Hearne, national counsel to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, who set up a nonprofit group to publicize allegations of voter fraud. It turns out that Hearne is a member of the very powerful Missouri Law Firm, Lathrop & Gage. Both the Kansas City Star and Governor Blunt are Lathrop & Gage clients.

Chris Tackett guest blogging at Brad's Blog recently interviewed The Star's Deputy National Editor, Keith Chrostowski hunting for answers. Long story and a lot of mealy mouthing short, Chrostowki says the Star couldn't find space for the story on the day it was released by McClatchy, denies it consulted with Lathrop and Gage about the story, denies the edits changed the story in any material way, and denies the Star had any ethical obligation to report that both the Star and Matt Blunt are clients of Lathrop & Gage, who is the employer of one of the people at the heart of the story, the heart hidden from the public by the Star's edits.

Interesting story within a story. Without Brad's Blog and the Internet, how many folks would ever be aware that the Star had a dog in the fight it was covering.

There's more: "Kansas City Star Denies It Should Have Disclosed Ties To Powerful GOP Law Firm" >>

Todd Graves' Statement

TPMmuckraker has just posted Todd Graves full statement concerning his forced resignation. Here it is.

This would be humorous if we were not talking about the United States Department of Justice. First, you tell me that DOJ staffers were making secret hit lists and my name was on one of them. Then, you tell me that a staffer for Missouri’s senior Senator had a hit list so secret that not even the Senator knew about it.
I was an elected state prosecutor before I was appointed US Attorney. As a prosecutor I was always fiercely independent--I just called balls and strikes. For instance, when I gave now Senator Claire McCaskill her non-prosecution letter in 2004, I didn’t ask for permission, I just did the right thing. I thought that was my job.

When I first interviewed in 2001 with the United States Attorney screening committee at DOJ, I was asked to give the panel one attribute that describes me. I said independent. Apparently, that was the wrong attribute.

Public office is not an entitlement. I served nearly 12 years as a public prosecutor. It was a privilege. I loved every minute, but it is far better to take a graceful exit than to do something that you should be ashamed of.

"Ashamed of"? I wonder what was he asked to do that would have caused him shame. I imagine a lot of others are wondering the same.

There's more: "Todd Graves' Statement" >>

Graves Pushed Out For Performance Reasons

Why is it reading any story touched by Steve Kraske involving the Missouri GOP like looking for clues on a treasure map? The other day he re-wrote Greg Gordon's excellent story with an eye to hiding Missouri GOP involvement and now he is co-author of a story with the normally outstanding Dave Helling requiring the reader to work hard to find gems sown in the story's lining.

For example a close reading of Dave Helling and Steve Kraske's Kansas City Star article confirms that Graves was fired. In one paragraph they indicate that Senator Kit Bond personally became involved with Graves’ tenure when Graves’ departure was imminent in early 2006.

“Senator Bond … upon (Graves’) request personally called the White House to gain Todd extra time to wrap up case work before his departure,” Marchio’s statement said.

This thread is picked up several paragraphs down when they write

A person in Bond’s office who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the discussions said the White House rejected Bond’s efforts on Graves’ behalf because of “performance” concerns. E-mails from the Justice Department and the White House have used similar language in discussing the other U.S. attorneys who were fired.

If Todd Graves voluntarily resigned why would he ask Bond to contact the White House to gain additional time to finish up his cases? It's pretty obvious that Graves was asked to leave. John Marshall is right. Graves was the 9th US Attorney fired. My question is why can't Helling and Graves report facts using simple declarative sentences?

Please note that there is another very important fact buried in these passages. Bond didn't contact Alberto Gonzales, he contacted the White House. If Bond wanted to help Graves gain a little more time to finish his work why didn't he go to Alberto Gonzales or one of his people?

Two theories have emerged about Todd Graves departure from his US Attorney job in Kansas City. The first is that he was pushed out because he and his wife were involved in a "fee office scandal." Helling does a fine job describing that scandal. I have always thought the fee office scandal was a phony because the "fee office" system, which is without doubt a lingering vestige of corrupt patronage politics, has been a prime tool used by generations of Missouri governors (both Republican and Democrat)to pay off supporters. Democrats bitching about Blunt's fee office appointments is sort of like the pot calling the kettle black. (I know I am going to be pummelled, but that's the way the story looks to the average Missourian.)

The second is that Graves was pushed out because he wasn't a loyal Bushie. He just didn't prosecute Democrats with sufficient vigour and he wasn't in love with voter fraud cases. The appointment and well documented performance of Bradley Schlozman seems to support this theory. Graves public record as US Attorney also supports the second theory. I, for one, have often connected Graves departure to his wife's involvement in the fee office scandal, but on reflection theory number two seems to be closer to the truth.

It looks like Karl Rove's Missouri adventure has come undone. Claire McCaskill was elected and Bradley Schlozman is going to be talking to congress. As for Todd Graves, while he didn't get a signing bonus at some large law firm he has attracted some pretty good young legal talent and has opened his own shiny new law firm.

Now if we could just get Helling and Kraske to write in clear declarative sentences about the hidden activities of Missouri's GOP, all would be right with the world. Of course, reading their stories for hidden clues is sort of fun.

UPDATE: Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post writes in simple declarative sentences.

Graves is the second U.S. attorney whose ouster is known to have been encouraged by the office of a Republican senator. Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) complained last October about New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, who was later fired.

There's more: "Graves Pushed Out For Performance Reasons" >>

Congress Beginning To Take Notice of Bradley Schlozman

McClatchy's Greg Gordon and Margaret Talev are reporting this morning that

Congressional investigators are beginning to focus on accusations that a top civil rights official at the Justice Department illegally hired lawyers based on their political affiliations, especially for sensitive voting rights jobs. . . . .

A congressional aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees want to look beyond Goodling to see whether other department officials may have skewed recruiting and hiring to favor Republican applicants. Investigators have heard allegations that Schlozman showed a political bias in hiring and hope the department will permit him to be interviewed voluntarily, the aide said.

The story indicates that Claire McCaskill really wants to put Schlozman under oath.

UPDATE: Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker is reporting that since 2003 not a single black has been hired by the criminal section of Civil Rights Division. As a result there are only 2 black attorneys out of 50 in the criminal section.

As Richard Ugelow, the former deputy section chief of the employment section in the Civil Rights Division puts it, "We would sue employers for having numbers like that." Ugelow, you might have guessed, is one of the dozens of career lawyers who have left the division in the past six years.

ABC's Washington D.C. affiliate WJLA-TV deserves credit for crunching the numbers. Kiel notes:

The Justice Department responded to WJLA-TV's story by saying that the Civil Rights Division as a whole is the most diverse office in the Department of Justice.

I guess they just don't want black lawyers charging and trying white businessmen. That could be bad for Republican fundraising.

There's more: "Congress Beginning To Take Notice of Bradley Schlozman" >>

Bradley Schlozman's KC Activities Profiled

Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe has written an extensive article about Bradley Schlozman, the loyal Bushie who apparently wrecked the Civil Rights Division before being named interim USA in Kansas City. He recently left KC to return to main Justice.

Of his work at the Civil Rights division David Becker, a former voting rights division trial attorney, said that Schlozman's efforts were a "wolf guarding the henhouse situation." In March of 2006, Schlozman was appointed interim USA in Kansas City. As Savege reports during the summer of 2006

the liberal activist group ACORN paid workers $8 an hour to sign up new voters in poor neighborhoods around the country. Later, ACORN's Kansas City chapter discovered that several workers filled out registration forms fraudulently instead of finding real people to sign up. ACORN fired the workers and alerted law enforcement.

Schlozman moved fast, so fast that his office got one of the names on the indictments wrong. He announced the indictments of four former ACORN workers on Nov. 1, 2006, warning that "this national investigation is very much ongoing." Missouri Republicans seized on the indictments to blast Democrats in the campaign endgame.

Critics later accused Schlozman of violating the Justice Department's own rules. A 1995 Justice election crime manual says "federal prosecutors . . . should be extremely careful not to conduct overt investigations during the preelection period" to avoid "chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities" and causing "the investigation itself to become a campaign issue."

"In investigating election fraud matters, the Justice Department must refrain from any conduct which has the possibility of affecting the election itself," the manual states, adding in underlining that "most, if not all, investigation of alleged election crime must await the end of the election to which the allegation relates."

When interviewed by Savage, main justice's spokesperson said that Scholzman had received permission to file the voting fraud cases just before the election. The DoJ spokesman cited an "unwritten exception" to the general Department of Justice Guidelines as justifying the indictments. Apparently, it was OK to publicly file the politically charged indictments five days before the election because "investigators need not interview voters for such cases." If you believe that you must also believe the Gonzales 8 were fired for "performance related reasons."

Schlozman announced on November 3, 2007, that he had assigned an Assistant US Attorney Matt Whitworth and members of the FBI to guard against election fraud. He urged members of the public to report cases of voter fraud to Whitworth and the FBI.

As it turned out according to a November 8, 2006, story in the local Kansas City legal publication The Daily Record

Don Ledford, public affairs director for U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman in Kansas City, didn't have any complaints to report.

Of course, Karl Rove had a complaint. Claire McCaskill won.

I want to thank TMP commenter "Mrs Panstreppon" for her work on the Schlozman story. Citzen journalism rocks.
________________________

Previously we blogged about the outstanding article written by Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers detailing the GOP's Missouri 2006 voter suppression campaign. It seems Howard Beale of FiredUp Missouri has written a piece riping the Kansas City Star's eviscerated version of the Gordon article which focuses on Schlozman and the Department of Justice while downplaying Missouri GOP's involvement. You might want to give it a look. Oddly the Star is a McClatchy Newspaper.

UPDATE: Blue Girl points out that Brad Friedman has his own take on the Star's edit of the Gordon story. You might want to give it a look. The Star was shameless in its efforts to help the Missouri GOP.

There's more: "Bradley Schlozman's KC Activities Profiled" >>

Purple Missouri Target of Republican Voter Suppression Campaign

Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers is reporting that Claire McCaskill was the target of a coordinated voter suppression campaign conducted by Missouri's Republican legislature, Matt Blunt, and the Karl Rove Justice Department, lead by voter suppression specialist Brad Schlozman. Hiding behind claims of massive "voter fraud" the Republican voter suppression efforts were cynically aimed directly at minority and poor voters. The Republican campaign was thwarted by timely rulings of from Federal and Missouri courts. As evidence of the coordinated nature of the Republican voter suppression campaign Gordon points to the following:

-Schlozman, while he was acting civil rights chief, authorized a suit accusing the state of failing to eliminate legions of ineligible people from lists of registered voters. A federal judge tossed out the suit this April 13, saying Democratic Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan couldn't police local registration rolls and noting that the government had produced no evidence of fraud.

-The Missouri General Assembly - with the White House's help - narrowly passed a law requiring voters to show photo identification cards, which Carnahan estimated would disenfranchise 200,000 voters. The state Supreme Court voided the law as unconstitutional before the election.

-Two weeks before the election, the St. Louis Board of Elections sent letters threatening to disqualify 5,000 newly registered minority voters if they failed to verify their identities promptly, a move - instigated by a Republican appointee - that may have violated federal law. After an outcry, the board rescinded the threat.

-Five days before the election, Schlozman, then interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, announced indictments of four voter-registration workers for a Democratic-leaning group on charges of submitting phony applications, despite a Justice Department policy discouraging such action close to an election.

-In an interview with conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt a couple of days before the election, Rove said he'd just visited Missouri and had met with Republican strategists who "are well aware of" the threat of voter fraud. He said the party had "a large number of lawyers that are standing by, trained and ready to intervene" to keep the election clean.

Last August Ajbari Asim wrote in a Washington Post Op-ed of the then soon to be held unconstitutional Missouri voter ID law:

Blunt and others say the law will prevent fraud. Their opponents rightly point out that the measure disproportionately affects those who have been disfranchised in the past, such as the poor and racial minorities. Besides, they argue, Missouri hasn't exactly suffered from an epidemic of imposters showing up to vote.

As one of the lawsuits filed to block the measure puts it, "It is statistically more likely for a Missourian to be struck by a bolt of lightning than to have his or her vote canceled by someone posing as another voter to cast a ballot."

You can read the Missouri Supreme Court opinion in Weinschenk v. Missouri here.

UPDATE: For a sample of how this story is being blogged locally, you might want to check out KC Blue Blog's comment.

Elected officials inside the Missouri Republican Party may have knowingly worked with political operatives in accomplishing this goal. Thomas Hearne, a high dollar Republican from St. Louis, founded the non-profit Center for American Voting Rights, in Feb. 2005. This center was used as the hub for drafting reports that purposely launched hysteria campaigns involving non existent voter fraud, or cases that were investigated and found to be nothing, to give the appearance that it was a massive problem in Missouri and other swing states. For the record, over the last 5 years nationwide there have only been a total of just over 100 cases total.

Republican State Senator Delbert Scott (R-MO), along with other Republican State Representatives and Senators worked with Mr. Hearne to draft legislation to restrict lower income voters through their "Voter ID Bill" which was found to be unconstitutional. In making the argument Republican State Representatives and Senators, including every Lee's Summit State Representative, may have been told to make these hyped up, fake claims of "preventing dogs and cats from voting, etc." in speeches and local newspaper articles to create an illusion that the bill was needed, so that the real reason wasn't focused on.

There's more: "Purple Missouri Target of Republican Voter Suppression Campaign" >>

Kansas City ACORN voter fraud indictments violated policy

Interesting timing. I just finished my U.S. attorney post and learned that Talking Point Memo's Muckraker.com had just posted about Bradley Schlozman's indictments of four ACORN workers.

The entire Muckraker post is worth reading, but here are the highlights.

• Schlozman's indictments broke with longstanding Justice Department policy to NOT bring election charges just before a vote because it "can intimidate minority voters, affect voter turnout and potentially even influence the result of the election."
• At the time, the indictments were trumpeted as the first of a national investigation of widespread fraud. No charges were ever filed anywhere else against ACORN workers.
• The fraud was likely perpetrated on ACORN and wasn't an effort BY ACORN to sway the election.
  
• One of the indictments targeted the wrong person, perhaps proof of how fast they were rushed to get them into court before the election.
• Only six fraudulent voters were ever registered. Only two people have pleaded guilty. (I originally reported on one.)

There's more: "Kansas City ACORN voter fraud indictments violated policy" >>

Putting the US attorney scandal into perspective for Kansas & Missouri

[This is a cross-post from my blog In This Moment. If you've been following the US attorney scandal on this blog, you might want to skip down to the new material about the voting fraud issues in Kansas and to the unanswered questions.]

I have to admit there are moments when the screaming fits and scandals of Washington, D.C., seem far removed from life out here on the prairie. This isn't one of those times.

The scandal in the U.S. Department of Justice has now reached into the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City and possibly into the 2006 election in Missouri. What may be Republican efforts to target core constituencies of the Democratic Party may also have reached into the 2006 election in Kansas and into the 2007 Kansas legislative session.

If those of us out here in the great middle weren't concerned before, it's time to pay attention now.

This post is an attempt to put all of this into perspective and to pose the questions that remain unanswered.

Two issues are paramount.

• The quality of federal law enforcement in the Kansas City region
• The fairness of elections in Kansas and Missouri

When I covered northeastern Kansas and the Kansas Legislature for The Wichita Eagle, I quickly realized that although U.S. attorneys are political appointees, their jobs were and are not political. They are charged with enforcing federal law in their regions.

They take on cases involving drugs, civil rights, corruption and a multitude of other issues. Our safety and the health of our democracy depends on the professionalism and fairness of U.S. attorneys.

The first issue before us is this: Was a U.S. Attorney named Todd Graves forced out in Kansas City for no other reason than the fact that he was, well, fair and professional? Was he forced out because he would not bow to the demands of the Bush Administration that he use his office to unfairly target Democratic constituencies for voting fraud charges?

(The KC Star's Steve Kraske reviews Graves approach to his job.)

Graves resigned in March 2006, a few months after his name was put on a White House target list. Graves told The Kansas City Star that he is thankful that he left because the "current environment at the department can only be described as toxic." Graves also told the reporter that he didn't know his name was on what appears to be a hit list.

So perhaps Graves wasn't forced out. Why would he have quit if he didn't know he was on the hit list?

Look, though, at what happened when he left. Within 13 days of his departure, the White House appointed Brad Schlozman, a justice department official who had already filed a voter fraud case against Missouri.

Thirteen days? If the Department of Justice didn't know Graves was leaving, how did it find a replacement at what amounts to warp speed? But then again, Missouri was a battleground state in November. The victory of Claire McCaskill helped secure the Senate for Democrats. At the time Schlozman was sent to Kansas City, the Missouri Senate race was still neck and neck.

What did Schlozman do when he got to Missouri? A week before the election, he prosecuted ACORN workers for allegedly filing false voter registration forms. This is the only federal case filed against ACORN in the nation. ACORN works in urban areas with key Democratic constituencies.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Kansas pushed hard in the 2007 session for a bill requiring voter identification, a measure Democrats think is aimed at thinning out some of their core voters. Even its supporters say the bill is designed to fix a voting fraud problem that apparently doesn't exist in the Sunflower State.

Also just before the November election, the Wichita Eagle reported that Spanish-speaking voters were facing difficulties in registering to vote. The Kansas election system is run by its secretary of state, an office held by a Republican.

Unanswered Questions

What does it all mean? Do all these events go together, or is this a vast coincidence?

Honestly, I don't know.

The Bushie's choice for the Kansas City U.S. attorney office has a record of putting politics before professionalism. The case Schlozman filed against Missouri before coming to the Kansas City office was dismissed by a federal judge last month. The judge said she found no evidence of major voter fraud in the state.

The voting fraud case Schlozman filed just before the election eventually ended up with one ACORN worker pleading guilty in February to falsely registering one Kansas City woman. According to a Feb. 7, 2007, Kansas City Star story ACORN itself informed authorities in October 2006 of irregularities by three of its workers. (I'm not linking to the story because I found it in a library database open only to registered members of the library.)

Schlozman said at the time that the ACORN charges weren't political. ACORN's own involvement in the case seems to indicate that. However, the fact that the entire case ended in one person pleading guilty to doing something wrong one time indicates that the case may have been overblown. But then again, shouldn't even one crime be prosecuted?

Questions have also been raised regarding Graves.

I don't have good answers to the questions raised by all of this. However, I do know that antics of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and crew have destroyed the credibility of that department.

Never before did I question the integrity of a U.S. attorney. I do now. Never before did I question the integrity of elections out here on the prairie. Unfortunately, I do now.

There's more: "Putting the US attorney scandal into perspective for Kansas & Missouri" >>

"Why I Left the Civil Rights Division" by Bob Kengle

There is no better examination of the evil done the US Department of Justice by the current administration than that found in Bob Kengle explanation of why he left the Civil Rights Division. As Paul Kiel points out "the Civil Rights Division, and specifically the voting section there . . . is probably the worst case of politicization at the department." If you understand the institutionalized evil inflicted on the civil rights division by Brad Schlozman and his superiors and cohorts you begin to understand the assault justice and the rule of law have suffered at the hands of Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove. Read Kengle's letter. It should be required reading for everyone concerned about justice.

There's more: ""Why I Left the Civil Rights Division" by Bob Kengle" >>

Todd Graves Didn't Play By Rove Rules

Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star reports this morning that Todd Graves was probably shown the door as Kansas City's US Attorney because he didn't play by Karl Rove's rules.

We know that eight ousted U.S. attorneys got the boot because they no longer were seen as supremely loyal to President Bush.

Now it appears that — to his credit — former U.S. attorney Todd Graves of the Western District of Missouri can be added to the group of eight.

The precise motivation for Graves’ departure in March 2006 may never be known. Based on his brief statement Friday, Graves may not know either.

But, like the others, Graves had not always gone along with the Karl Rove-written GOP playbook when it came to using the Justice Department to improve Republican odds at the polls.

It seems Graves was an Ashcroft man. He had few Gonzales (Rove) connections. Brad Schlozman is clearly a loyal Bushie (Rovian) operative. Blue Girl, give the story a look.

Question, given Alberto's performance before the Senate Committee can we now cut the pretense and identify Karl Rove as the "real" Attorney General?

There's more: "Todd Graves Didn't Play By Rove Rules" >>

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.

There's more: "Todd Graves--US Attorney Target Number 10?" >>

Meet John F. Wood

NEWS RELEASE
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

APRIL 11, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JOHN F. WOOD SWORN IN AS U.S. ATTORNEY

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – John F. Wood was sworn in as United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri this morning, following unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Wood oversees a staff of 119, including 59 attorneys and 60 non-attorney support personnel. The office is responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the district, including crimes related to terrorism, firearms, narcotics, child exploitation, and public corruption. The office also handles the defense of civil cases brought against the United States and the collection of debts owed to the United States.

Mr. Wood, 37, is a native Missourian. After graduating with Honors from the University of Virginia, he served on the staff of U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth of Missouri. Following his service for Sen. Danforth, Mr. Wood attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and served as Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review.

Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge J. Michael Luttig on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States. He then practiced law at a leading national law firm.

Mr. Wood joined the Bush Administration in 2001 and held several prominent positions prior to becoming U.S. Attorney. He has previously served at the Department of Justice as a Deputy Associate Attorney General and as a Counselor to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. He has also worked at the White House as Deputy General Counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. His last job prior to being nominated by the President to serve as U.S. Attorney was as Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is the third largest department of the federal government with approximately 180,000 employees and an annual budget of over $40 billion.

Mr. Wood’s wife, Julie, is Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She is a native of the Kansas City area. They have one son.

****************
This news release, as well as additional information about the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is available on-line at

www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html
Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106
www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html
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Wood replaces interim Bradley J. Schlozman whose job experience included a stint as a deputy in Justice's civil rights division where, among other things, he helped overrule career government lawyers by approving a Texas redistricting plan pushed by Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), then House majority leader.

The Washington Post reports that like Schlozman, Wood has never prosecuted a case. The Post disagrees with Wood's official press release. It says that immediately prior to taking up his job in Kansas City Wood was counselor to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty. Of course given McNulty's present notoriety that job might be something Wood doesn't want to talk about.

Back from the Beltway Wood, a cousin of Kit Bond, has spent little time in Missouri for at least a decade. Wood looks like a guy who is trying to find a job on the Federal Bench or maybe take his cousin's place in the Senate. He is blessed with a golden resume and lots of ambition. Bond should probably buy him a Garmin GPS to find his way from downtown to the Plaza. For those who don't live in KC, Garmin International, Inc. is headquartered at N 38 deg 51.333 min, W 094 deg 47.941 min.
Garmin World Headquarters

There's more: "Meet John F. Wood" >>