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Today's Top News
Bush White House Broke Elections Law, Report Says
The report by the Office of Special Counsel finds that the Bush administration's Office of Political Affairs - overseen by Karl Rove - served almost as an extension of the Republican National Committee, developing a "target list" of Congressional races, organizing dozens of briefings for political appointees to press them to work for party candidates, and sending cabinet officials out to help these campaigns.
The report, based on about 100,000 pages of documents and interviews with 80 Bush administration officials in an investigation of more than three years, documented how these political activities accelerated before the 2006 midterm elections.
This included helping coordinate fund-raising by Republican candidates and pressing Bush administration political appointees to help with Republican voter-turnout pitches, particularly in the 72 hours leading up to the election when Democrats took control of the House and Senate for the first time in a dozen years.
The Office of Special Counsel, a relatively obscure federal agency, is charged with enforcing the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Certain members of the White House political staff - including the top aides at the Office of Political Affairs - are exempt, as are the president, vice president and members of the cabinet. But the law still prohibits the use of federal money, even by these officials, to support political causes.
The report found that during the Bush administration, senior staff members at the Office of Political Affairs violated the Hatch Act by organizing 75 political briefings from 2001 to 2007 for Republican appointees at top federal agencies in an effort to enlist them to help Republicans get elected to Congress.
Mr. Rove and Ken Mehlman, who was the director of the office until the end of 2003, did not respond Monday to requests for comment.
Former employees of the office in the Bush administration told investigators that they saw these "political briefings as no more than informational discussions about the political landscape." The investigators found that most of these briefings took place in federal workplaces or while the employees were on duty.
"These briefings created an environment aimed at assisting Republican candidates, constituting political activity within the meaning of the Hatch Act," the 118-page report said.
According to PowerPoint slides the investigators collected, the briefings highlighted the importance of the "G.O.P. ground game" and talked about the "Republican Offensive," in certain states, while detailing the "Republican Defense" in others.
The investigators also found evidence that the Bush White House improperly classified travel by senior officials as official government business, "when it was, in fact, political," and the costs associated with this travel were never reimbursed.
A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel said Monday that because the administration officials had left office, it no longer has jurisdiction to file any charges. It also said that it had not made a formal referral to the Justice Department to ask it to pursue any possible charges.
A Justice Department official on Monday declined to comment when asked if it might file charges based on the report.
The Obama administration, just last week, announced that it was terminating its own version of the Office of Political Affairs, as Mr. Obama decided to move his re-election campaign operation to Chicago, with the duties of the political office being taken up by the Democratic National Committee.
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64 Comments so far
Show AllQuel surprise?! > people in the Bush administration broke laws!
If no one will file charges and no one will prosecute, what's the point of wasting time and money to 'investigate' ???
Is this a great country, or what?
Is this story really "news" to any of you ?
Hey folks, here's just another example of the O'Bomber administration's ratifying the clear law breaking that occurred in the Bush adminstration. The two administrations are sadly seamless. Bush's crimes are O'Bomber's pardons.
It is a serious offense to use federal monies to finance a private political campaign. It is akin to the felony of embezzlement, or larceny after trust, or maybe even false pretenses or forgery, depending upon the manner in which the documents were proffered for payment.
Ken Starr will sleep through or applaud this felony. If the O'Bomber had any political savvy, he would publicly ask Starr to take up the investigation, saying that this sort of skullduggery needs the likes of Kenneth Starr's proven talents to unearth its full extent.
Documentation is always good.
q
Agreed. One more story and one more time nothing will be done.
Illinois Appeals Court has ruled for Rahm already, so the I.D.F. boy is now back on track to become the mayor of Chicago.
Of course there won't be any charges filed based on this report. How silly to even ask the question.
Perfect picture.
The biggest problem is that people refuse to see that Bush and Cheney are winking and smiling at their co-conspirators, the democrats.
Yeah, remember when Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment was 'off the table', even though the Dem's controlled BOTH houses of congress and several representatives TRIED to bring forth charges. THAT was the time for investigations, not now...
And, nobodyknown, that was also the time when a majority of the American people should have been pressuring their reps to investigate.
We are still waiting for a majority or enough of a minority to protest our foreign policies and hold our government accountable for how it represents us.
"donnalou"
Pressuring?
It seems to me that the majority of voters accept all of the corruption as business as usual. That is why they keep voting for democrats and republicans.
So-called "Progressive democrats" are fools. If people remain within a blatantly corrupt, corporate controlled, political party, they are not really progressives. They are fools.
Hey, donnalou;
Every time I write my congressman or senator to ask for investigations, I get a form letter back describing how they don't want to politicize government, or how they agree with the underlying actions taken, even when they are illegal.
We shouldn't have to ask our government to enforce the law anyway.
The day that Pelosi said impeachment was off the table, San Francisco voters had passed a resolution (Proposition J, Nov 7, 2006) calling on their elected representatives including Pelosi to pursue impeachment. Here is some of the text:
"It is the Policy of the people of the City and County of San Francisco to call for
the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for violating the public trust and for knowingly harming the United States of America, the State of California, and the City and County of San Francisco.
"We ... call on our elected federal and state representatives to immediately invoke every available legal mechanism to effect the impeachment and removal from office of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for High
Crimes and Misdemeanors under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America."
What top Democrats and Republicans share is a scorn for democracy and law. They are the law and, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, their idea of democracy is that people and other nations obey them.
It's depressing that so many Americans are willing to ignore and excuse the increasingly tyranical and lawless attitudes of our nation's leaders.
He broke every other law on the books, why not that one too?
A nation of laws: what a joke. The powerful commit crimes with impunity that ordinary Americans go to prison for. The legal system is so corrupt, and we wonder why the country is in turmoil!
Mass murderers bush/ cheney were NEVER elected ! In corrupt fascist amerika will that ever get reported/ investigated ? -nope !
You can also include the Obama administration as being murderers also who should be put in the dock at The Hague along side people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, so that they can be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity that they have committed against the people of the Middle East.
It looks like it's time to remind the New York Times of this famous utterance of Dick Cheney's:
"So?"
One wonders why the NYT even bothers reporting this sort of thing, since it was one of the biggest supporters of the Bush junta.
Dear Oikos:
"SO" is a direct Cheney quote? I love it! It's always nice to have an important quote to hand back to a person when he dies.
"SO" would be a great quote. I did just read that a porno star, on her 6th breast enlargement has died. How many heart jobs had Cheney had? Is his number coming up? If SO, then "SO" will be a quote for the ages, and we can all quote it when he corks off. No one will be non PC we'll just be quoting Cheney
I heard last week that the FBI conducted a nation-wide raid arresting more than 100 people for organized crime. I immediately turned to C-Span only to learn that all 535 Legislators were accounted for. I think the FBI missed the most notorious criminals.
The most notorious criminals are the billionaires. Most congesspeople are their marionettes.
No doubt that the 100 arrested were really just small competitors of the Federal Mafia which hires much worse guys like Ollie Norrth of CIA and The Bin Laden Group via Helliburton and Carrlyle and "The Prince of Darkness" at BlackEyeWater to run drugs and guns all over the world destabilizing every corner of the globe. Wiki "Operation Cyclone" to get just a small whiff of just what a tangled web they've weaved.
If we as a people turn a blind eye to all these federal crimes, it's just a matter of time before they commit these atrocities on their own citizens.
Goodbye American Dream; Hello North Korea. It's way past time to prosecute failure to prosecute.
TJ
I believe MOST of them were the geriatic crowd, just getting in on the free retirement plan. You know, free food, free medical, free housing, cable tv, telephone etc. They just won't be able to go out and witness the scene directly any more, but will see their orders carried out on the evening news. But at their ages, who need to travel any more?
I agree, it is all more a distraction from the important stuff.
Gasp, you mean an administration which came to power through election illegality in the first place would engage in more election illegality?
Wow.
Barry is looking forward. Impeachment is off the table.
Gawd bless AmeriKKKa!
I'm concerned about the people working in the Office of Special Counsel. Since the whole process turns out to be an exercise in futility, the mental health of those lawyers needs to be monitored. Do you suppose they have dark thoughts or are they content to have their work ignored. So why bother? Who was this guy Hatch anyway?
"A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel said Monday that because the administration officials had left office, it no longer has jurisdiction to file any charges. It also said that it had not made a formal referral to the Justice Department to ask it to pursue any possible charges."
Business as usual!
Ayuh.
It wasn't a total waste, though. The Office of Special Counsel WAS able to rake in taxpayer dollars for three years with the "investigation".
the war crimes and global financial terrorism are being committed right now by the obomber regime.
nuff said.
The only thing that need be found out about is what laws were broken: the 'revelation' that Dubya, Cheney, & Co. broke laws is not surprising in the least.
Gosh darn! You mean to tell me Bush and Cheney broke election laws. This is news?
It would not be bipartisan to file charges against conservative criminals
Bush broke laws? Ya don't SAY! I don't believe it.
It is amazing how anyone reading this, not just knowing this, can nonchalantly accept the fact that there is a relatively large part of american people who are above the law, and enjoy in using that knowledge as they know NOTHING will happen to them. It is in essence condoning this really bad part of what is the disaster of the united states. It is just another problem of baby boomers never having been raised to be a part of a functioning society, instead, they were raised to be sociopathic burdens on society.
Damn sure helps to have a complicit mainstream media 'consumerizing' people into not giving a fuck.
I'm not clear on your point about the baby boomers. How have the baby boomers reacted any differently than the prior generation, or even than Generation X, to the existence of a class of people who are above the law? I see no evidence the baby boomers are uniquely indifferent to war criminals in our midst.
Depends on how you want to view people of different generations. Part is how parents raised them, with or without scruples. Another would be some kind of desperation. And as in economic hit men which is certainly another name for some previous type of extortion or bribery. They would be willing to break the law for certain means that would make it enticing for more people to go into such a profession. Or maybe not unlike people who go into law to find ways to get around the law to reach their means. When money is made and ways to make it by breaking the law without getting caught, well in this country I find that to be a certain attraction for far too many people. One thing, as the population grows so does the number of the %age of people who would be willing to make that choice. Think about the soldiers in WWII who found making money in the black market was most likely something easy to do.
Another 100 years down the road, it will be the generation X kids or somebody else.
Are you kidding? The WW2 generation were incredibly brainwashed supporters of american elite policies and the system. We boomers were the ones who looked around and said, "wtf?" Yeah, most boomers sold out in the end but no more than any other generation before or since. Bush hated the 60s revolution and Clinton sold out - and as a boomer, I say f-you to both of them. They and others like them merely continued the oldest worldview on the planet: the rich rule and if you aint rich, be their loyal servant.
'It is just another problem of baby boomers never having been raised to be a part of a functioning society, instead, they were raised to be sociopathic burdens on society.'
Really? That's quite a stereotype.
Donnalou, I resent your classification of baby boomers as sociopathic burdens on society. I am ashamed of the criminals from my generation, but they did not become criminals because of my generation. People like Bush and Cheney were born sociopaths, and their wealth and power allowed them to get away with it. Perhaps some day the USA will again become a nation of laws, but for now, there are laws for the peasants, but no laws for the aristocrats. Time to start erecting guillotines, eh?
"Time to start erecting guillotines, eh?"
your suggestion that killing would solve anything is just plain wrong.
(BTW - Donnalou was quoting another idiotic comment concerning the boomers.)
your suggestion that killing would solve anything is just plain wrong.
Well...it worked for Castro. Cuba is still free, and the USA is still going nuts over that fact.
Especially if we take into consideration that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were all in Tricky Dick's administration. No, the beatniks and the hippies had ziltch to do with the narcissistic/borderline/psychopaths that "have been lead" by a C-average college cheerleader.
What can be done to fix the harm that breaking these laws did?
Even in a pefect world nothing can be done to fix the harm that these criminals have perpetrated.
That's why it's allowed to be 'news'.
Bush is sociopathic so is the Dich C. and Rove
Correction: Psychopathic, they all enjoy genocide.
it's okay - junior had a signing statement, executive order, and a note from his daddy.
nothing to see - move along.
As already implied: laws are broken, laws are not enforced, regulatory agencies stacked with industry insiders who aid and abet fraud and law-breaking etc.
The so-called rule of law is made a mockery of daily. Any Banksters been indicted?
Bush/Cheney flip-off the world, Israel flips offf the world, the Corporate Oligarchy flips off the world.
And Barack Obama, the Clintons and the rest of the D faction flip us off daily.
The motto: "too fuckin bad, there's nothing you can do about it, we have all the power, so sit down and shut the f up."
And we call it a democracy, wow.
Yep, that sums it up very well socialist. It's pretty pathetic. Most people prefer not to see it.
A sharp move for a NASCAR team would be to hire Rove as crew chief. He has broken and bent so many rules and gotten away with it so that any team under his direction would be unbeatable.
No prosecution for the upper class criminals; this is the two americas John Edwards was talking about (for which he was rovianly smeared).