The Blue State

Hastert blames Democrats for Foley attention

Dennis Hastert on the Rush Limbaugh radio show:

"We have a story to tell and the Democrats ... in my view have put thisthing forward to try to block us from telling our story, to try to putus on defense," the speaker said in a radio interview with conservativetalk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Oh really?  What story is that, Mr. Hastert?  The pretend story about how your party was honest and forthright from very beginning?  This guy has no credibility whatsoever -- and it comes as no surprise that even the conservative Washington Times newspaper is calling for Hastert's resignation.

Most importantly, blaming the Democrats for this story only illustrates the hesitation among many Republicans about what to do next.  The GOP leadership had it all under control for years.  As long as they could keep Foley's perverted tendencies under their web, they might have been able to get away with it.  But it got out, and now they are back-tracking.  The only thing Hastert can do now is blame the Democrats, because he knows no other alternative.

That is the only thing the Republicans ever know how to do.  When President Clinton conducted air strikes on terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan, he was accused of wagging the dog.  But after 9/11, he was criticized for not doing enough.

These Republicans have no plan for this country other than scaring their constituents about Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, and gay people.  Now that they aren't in control of their own message, these GOP leaders are whining about it.  But this sort of thing happens when the public discovers the truth about how corrupt this Congress is -- especially when it involves children who were preyed upon by a public official and kept secret by partisan leaders -- all of which were supposed to be serving American taxpayers.  Shameful.

Growing rift between Hastert and Boehner

Behind the scenes, John Boehner (R-OH) is positioning himself very well to become the next Speaker of the House at least until January, assuming the Democrats are in a good position to take back majority in November

Amid the predatorgate scandal that has blossomed into an indictment of current Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL), who knew about Foley's e-mail last year, the conservative Washington Times Editorial Board called for the resignation Speaker Hastert.  And now Hastert's key ally, Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner, is turning against him.

On a Cincinnati radio station, Boehner said the responsibility falls on the shoulders of Hastert:

"I believe I talked to the speaker, and he told me it had been takencare of," he said, when asked about the e-mails that were not sexuallyexplicit. He said that had occurred last spring.

"In myposition, it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The clerk of theHouse, who runs the page program, the page board, all report to thespeaker, and I believed it had been dealt with. Again, I didn't knowthe context of what even the original message (said)," he added.

Boehnernoted that his daughter had been a Senate page several years ago, andsaid of Foley, "if I'd known anything about the context of all thiswhen it occurred, I'd have drug him out of there by his shirt sleeves."

Now that is Politics 101.  When you begin to lose power, other politicians, regardless of party, see it as a weakness and take advantage of you.  Don't get me wrong: Hastert should resign.  But Boehner would probably be an even more polarizing House Speaker.  In fact, John Boehner said on Hardball last week that he believes Saddam had a "supportive role" in 9/11.  So by Dennis Hastert's departure, we would be going from corrupt to just plain loony!

Hastert thinks 1st Amendment kills Americans

What House Speaker Dennis Hastert said this week reminds us all why we need a new House Speaker after November's midterm election:

Declaring that "loose lips" kill Americans, atop congressional Republican leader said on Wednesday the House ofRepresentatives will debate a resolution condemning the U.S. media forexposing details of secret intelligence programs.

Themove heaps more criticism on The New York Times and other newspapersthat reported last week on a secret program by the U.S. TreasuryDepartment that tracks private bank records.

"Whatwe're talking about is people who are leaking classified information.It's not news. It's classified information our government is using tofight terrorists," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois.

First of all, "loose lips" do not kill Americans, loose-minded policies kill Americans.  We have 2,500 soldiers that have died in a war that I would like to believe was fought to help protect our 1st Amendment right to move our lips freely.

Also, isn't it interesting that every Republican lawmaker and pundit is jumping at the New York Times?  The Wall Street Journal reported the same thing.  Oh wait, could it be that they are attacking the New York Times because it is liberal, and not attacking the Wall Street Journal because it is conservative?  Gee, I wonder.  If anything, loose lips put CIA agents like Valerie Plame in danger.  Of course, that's an issue that Republicans don't want to talk about because, as usual, it's an ongoing investigation.

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Other blogs writing about this issue: The Sun is Not Hot, First Draft, Thorn Tree, Chatter, Tom's Irrelevant Musings, Orthopraxy.
 

Justice Department standoff ended in compromise

Just when the blogosphere thought that it knew the full extent of the incident between Dennis Hastert and the Justice Department, it turns out that there is much more to it.  In the end, it almost resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to Saturday's New York Times:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller III,and senior officials and career prosecutors at the Justice Departmenttold associates this week that they were prepared to quit if the WhiteHouse directed them to relinquish evidence seized in a bitterlydisputed search of a House member's office, government officials saidFriday.

One week ago from today, FBI agents raided the property of Democratic Congressman William Jefferson for his role in the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal.  Instead of the Republicans using Jefferson as a poster-boy for Democratic campaign hypocrisy (culture of corruption), House Speaker Dennis Hastert and a number of Republican leaders rhetorically attacked the Justice Department, saying that the raid constituted an effort by the inflated Executive Branch to exercise unwarranted power over the lawmakers that make up the Legislative Branch.  Of course though, the raid was warranted by a judge, therefore perfectly legal.

The Justice Department responded to this rhetorical attack by leaking information, which might or might not be true, to ABC News that embarrassed Dennis Hastert by hinting that he was also part of the Jack Abramoff probe.

Hastert responded to these attacks by going on the radio and slamming the Justice Department for over-stepping its boundary by engaging in that FBI raid on Jefferson's property.  With a firestorm already under way, President Bush had a few choices to make.  He could fight Hastert and the rest of the Legislative Branch by letting the Justice Department disclose all of the Jefferson documents found in the raid.  Or, could tell the Justice Department to return all of the confiscated documents.  Instead of one of those two decisions, Bush chose to take the middle ground: seal the documents for 45 days and hope that the two sides, the Department of Justice and Dennis Hastert, can work out a deal in that time.

This New York Times column shows how if Bush had chosen to order the Justice Department to return all the documents seized, then both the Attorney General and FBI Director would have resigned, along with their deputies.  They did not want to be prevented from doing their job, which is enforcing the law.  Putting it simply, Bush is already isolated anyway.  Those resignations would only have isolated him even more, turning part of his own cabinet against him and awarding Hastert ultimate power.  Instead, the President made the wiser move by taking the middle ground solution.  Just imagine though if it had gone the other way.

As far as the raid goes, I think that I speak for most Americans in saying that if FBI investigations and raids can target normal Americans, the same should apply for members of Congress.  No lawmaker on Capitol Hill, whether Democrat or Republican, should be above the law.

House support for immigration bill may hinge on Hastert bribery probe

President Bush made a very compassionate gesture to House Speaker Dennis Hastert yesterday.  As the Speaker faced an almost certain Justice Department probe, Bush decided to cut his fellow Republican a break by ordering the Justice Department to seal for 45 days the documents seized from an FBI raid on the property of a Democratic Congressman involved in Jack Abramoff's bribery scandal -- which Hastert is likely part of.

Of course, there was much more to it than that.  Here is how we got to this point:

• May 20th: Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's property raided by FBI because he was connected to the Abramoff probe.
• May 23rd - 24th: House Speaker Dennis Hastert complained about the raid, citing too much Executive power over Congressional lawmakers -- while knowing that he too had connections with Abramoff.
• Late May 24th: Executive Branch sources told ABC News' blog that Hastert was also part of the Abramoff probe.
• Early May 25th: Hastert complained on the radio about both the Jefferson raid and how Administration officials tried to embarrass him by leaking information to ABC News.
• May 25th: Bush agreed to seal for 45 days the documents seized from William Jefferson's property.

What many political news and blog sites all over the internet have overlooked is how incredibly significant this is.  The question everyone is asking is exactly why would the Administration want to go after the House Speaker like this?  Even though Hastert did complain about the increase in Executive power because of the raid, the Administration would not have raised the ante on the Speaker if they did not want something from him.

44 days from now, the Justice Department will unseal the evidence found as a result of the raid on Jefferson's property.  The talk about Jefferson will mean everyone else being probed in the Abramoff scandal, such as Dennis Hastert, will face political trouble as a result.  In this election year, the Republicans cannot tolerate another member of their leadership being in trouble with the law.

Think about it though.  Bush has the upper hand on Hastert when it comes to controlling what happens in 44 days.  However, Hastert has the upper hand on Bush when it comes to immigration.  The Speaker is refusing to bring the comprehensive immigration bill, which the Senate approved last night, to the House floor unless a majority of House Republicans support it.  Both the Senate and the White House have asked the Speaker to lift that rule just once.  Hastert has refused.  But with the certain Abramoff probe looming 44 days from now, Bush has his trump card.

This evaluation of the situation would conclude that a Bush-Hastert deal is in the works.  Bush would have to protect Hastert from political trouble in exchange for the House Speaker agreeing to bring the immigration bill to a vote.  Protecting Hastert means that Bush would order the Justice Department to keep sealed anything that might hurt Hastert politically.  As a result, by the power invested in the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert would introduce the immigration bill regardless of how fussy things would get between himself and anti-immigration social conservatives like James Sensenbrenner.  The minority of Republicans in support of the bill would then vote with Democrats, ultimately resulting in the passage of the bill.

Putting it simply, the Republicans are desperate to pass the immigration bill featuring the guest worker program.  They need something to tell voters not to vote for an alternative this November.  Until now, there seemed to be no way that social conservatives in the House would budge on a guest worker program.  But because the Speaker of the House controls when bills can be introduced, the White House might use Hastert's possible political troubles as a bargaining chip to get him to act on immigration.

For political science students out there, such as myself, this is a prime example of power politics at its trickiest.  On a positive note for Democrats, a very decent immigration bill would get passed.  On the down-side, the Republicans would obtain their first major legislative victory since before the Social Security fallout last year.

Abramoff snitched on Hastert

We all pretty much knew that there was some deeper reason as to why Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert came to the defense of a Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, whose property was raided because he illegally took a bribe from an undercover FBI informant.  Think about it: with all the hyper-partisanship in today's political era, why would a Republican Speaker, whose party is facing the possibility of an election defeat this November, help a Democrat facing an ethical scandal?

Hastert tried to give the excuse that he opposed the search because it demonstrated a dangerous increase in Executive power.  But if that was the case, then how come he was not up in arms when the USA Today story broke the story that telephone companies handed over to the NSA personal phone information of millions of Americans?  Consistency has often been an issue with this GOP majority.  So there had to have been some sort of deeper motive that pushed Hastert to condemn these kinds of government raids, like the kind against Rep. Jefferson.

Late last night, we got our answer.  Brian Ross of ABC News broke the story that Dennis Hastert himself is under investigation for links to Jack Abramoff, who is in the midst of a bribery scandal:

Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three yearsago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on anIndian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

Theother tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff whoreportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part ofhis plea agreement with the government.

The letter was writtenshortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned byAbramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at thetime.

Almost immediately after this story broke, the Justice Department issued a denial that Speaker Hastert was under investigation:

"The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation."

Then ABC News issued a second report elaborating on the investigation a bit more.  It turns out that Abramoff snitched on Hastert:

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal lawenforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported thatSpeaker of the House Dennis Hastert is "in the mix" in the FBIinvestigation of corruption in Congress.

Speaker Hastert said tonight the story was "absolutely untrue" and has demanded ABC News retract its story.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that convicted lobbyist JackAbramoff has provided information to the FBI about Hastert and anumber of other members of Congress that have broadened the scope ofthe investigation. Sources would not divulge details of the Abramoff’sinformation.

Therefore, don't expect this Congressional bribery investigation to end with the Speaker.  Being that this Abramoff investigation is on the mind of Hastert, it certainly does explain why he reacted so aggressively against the government raid on William Jefferson's property.  It was not the well-being of the constitution that Hastert was worried about, it was himself.