The Office of Special Counsel has opened a wide-ranging investigation into the intermingling of politics and government under Bush.
the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.
The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.
For the time being anyway, concerns about peak schadenfreude may be misplaced.
***Update***
Commenters remind me that Scott Bloch, head of the OSC, comes from the same Bushie hack mold as popular favorites like Michael Brown and Alberto Gonzales. So don’t get too excited, the point could be to hold five or six half-assed interviews and release a heavily redacted report declaring everybody completely innocent.
Maybe, maybe not. We’ll know if the White House tries to block the OSC’s access to officials and classified information. If he gets full access without a fight we can be fairly sure that a total whitewash is in the works.
Crust
When are the Democrats going to subpoena Rove (and Miers) in Attorneygate?
From a political point of view, I would think now is the ideal time. Bush is stonewalling across the board. He alone is standing by AGAG and insisting (through Fielding) that he won’t negotiate on interviews of Rove and Miers. So Bush is playing over-the-top hardball. Maybe I have too much residual faith in our press corps, but I don’t think even they could maintain a straight face and say the Democrats are being unreasonable if they subpoena Rove and Miers in this environment. Eventually, Gonzales will resign and then it will be a little bit harder politically to issue subpoenas. (Though even then still eminently reasonable in my view. This whole need to be reluctant in issuing subpoenas strikes me as a bit absurd, but that’s another story.)
Jackmormon
Must. Not. Get. Hopes. Up.
Tlaloc
The OSC is part of the executive branch IIRC. Won’t this be just another slapped together faux investigation to convince congress that they don’t have to make real inquiries?
Do we have any reason to believe this investigation will be thorough?
Teak111
The guy who runs the office of Special Council is a Bush appointee. This is a plant story and a shame invesitgation meant to distract congress, the asmer people, and provide the President CYA when asked Rove questions.
“We will take the evidence where it leads us,” Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. “We will not leave any stone unturned.”
Shorter Teak: Scotty, he’s a heckuva guy, heckuva guy.
p.lukasiak
Tim, it appears that this guy is a political hack…
its tough to find Republicans who have been targeted for Hatch Act violations… http://www.osc.gov/pressnew.htm
(and considering the signs of Rove’s involvement with Abramoff that are almost a year old, don’t you find it odd that this investigation is starting NOW?)
Rome Again
Saying it and doing it are two different things.
Teak111
So this guy is leading the investigation into Rove. How nice.
href=”http://www.counterbias.com/307.html”>om/307.html
href=”www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501725.html”>
Teak111
User error.
Rome Again
We’ve all become so cynical. This Teflon administration is getting away with ruining the entire governmental structure of our society and nothing seems to stop them.
I’m sick of cynicism, when will the good guys finally get around to throwing these bums out?
DougJ
Don’t worry, the OSC is itself a tool of the Bush administration. Check out press releases about their previous investigations — pretty much all Democrats (or bureaucrats not associated with either party).
This goes nowhere. It’s a smoke screen.
Look, the entire federal government consists of “loyal Bushies” (with a few notable exceptions, such as Lam, Iglesias, and Comey, all of whom have been fired, of course). The media is not interested in investigating any of this.
The media isn’t going to come in and save us nor is the federal government. We need to keep fighting, keep writing letters to the editor, keep harassing national reporters to cover these issues, and so on.
Otherwise, it will all go away.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
The bottom line is, if you moonbats had had your way in 2000 Saddam would still be in power. Nothing else matters; the Iraqi people have their freedom.
That’s my stock-spoof answer to every possible assault on this Administration. Also, teh gayz aren’t getting married in the Great State of Texas yet. Reason enough to vote Republican for the next 75 years, if you ask spoof-me.
Mr Furious
This is bullshit. The OSC is a presidential appointee and reports to the White House. This is a whitewash waiting to happen. I can hear it now…
“See! After this ‘independant, non-partisan’ investigation it was determined nothing was wrong… There is no need for Rove and Miers to testify. Congress is on a fishing expedition…”
DougJ
I don’t mean “the entire federal government”, I mean the everyone who works for the executive branch, of course.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Well, that’s a relief!
Fuck it, Vermont and a half-dozen other states are about to impeach this motherfucking asshole anyway. Not sure about the legal ramifications of all that; but for what it’s worth, I did find this on Wikipedia:
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
One should hope that at least 50% of the media is pretty tired of the White House’s bullshit at this point, though. We’ll see.
Pelosi for President!
DougJ
I’m sure most reporters are, but the people in power — Rich Stengel, Fred Hiatt, and the like — are still busy sucking up to them.
Not much is going to come of this or any other investigation. We may be able to get Wolfowitz and Gonzo deposed, but we won’t get much more. The Democrats are right to investigate, but the media went in the tank a long time ago. No way this gets the play it deserves in the press. Not a chance in hell.
Zifnab
This is one of the classic flaws of Democracy. Sometimes you pick the wrong guy. In our case, we picked the wrong guy about 200+ times in the House, 50+ times in the Senate, and we made the same mistake twice in the Oval Office.
When you elect an entire party structure that is designed to lie, cheat, and steal its way through the political system… its like a wild-fire at this point. Bush has been rooted in office for 6 years. He’s done a terrible job of fortifying his position, but the White House is inherently powerful and the GOP machine is well-oiled and strong.
Dems have been at work for four months and they’ve hit a stumbling block at every turn. You can’t get mad over slow progress in a fiscal quarter when we’ve been going full-bore in the wrong direction since the turn of the century.
Dreggas
No link to the comment yet but here’s a link to the post at TPM
Bush: 2006 election was mandate for Baghdad ‘surge’.
RSA
From Teak111’s link:
How much credibility do you suppose any investigative report out of Bloch’s office will have, whatever the outcome, given that he’s under investigation himself? I think of Bush’s government as Orwellian, but this is positively Alice in Wonderland. It’s like thinking Attorney General Gonzales should be the ultimate authority in determining whether he’s done anything wrong. Oh, wait. . .
Vladi G
Big game hunting? This like hunting for grizzly bears in the desert, than saying that there must not be any bears anywhere.
This is an inside job. Nothing is going to happen. It’s money laundering, republican government style.
Dreggas
And now The GOP in their neverending quest to blame the holy CLenis are threatening that if the dems subpoena emails etc, they will subpoena emails from the clinton admin.
{ Channeling Susan Powter }
STOP THE INSANITY!
Tsulagi
LOL. I read the post, follow the link to the LA Times story, and while reading that I’m already thinking “bullshit” before opening the comments. Looks like I wasn’t the first or only one with that thought. What, you don’t trust the integrity of the Great Decider and his Band of Brownies?
Yeah, I smell sham too. Let’s see, how long will their investigation run? I’m guessing until sometime around 1/20/09. In the meantime, requests to testify at Congressional hearings or for documents will be stonewalled because the matter is already being investigated by the “independent” OSC.
But you can have faith there could potentially be grave repercussions for the admin from OSC. Yep, saw that in one of the press releases DougJ linked to, one titled “High Level NASA Hatch Investigations Present Cautionary Tale. Sounds serious.
Seems the NASA Administrator in his official capacity spoke at an event in Houston during the 04 campaign season. DeLay introduced him, then Dr. Griffin said “The space program has had no better friends in its entire existence than Tom DeLay. He’s still with us, and we need to keep him there. There just are no better people.”
OSC found no wrongdoing. Nope, not acting in your official capacity or office endorsing a political candidate. But, they thought Griffin could have exercised better judgment. The penalty? “Special Counsel Scott Bloch has sent a firm warning letter detailing OSC’s concerns to Dr. Griffin.” Oooooh, I bet that caused a load in that astronaut wannabe’s Depends.
Yep, I’m sure the admin is shaking at the possibility of receiving similar firm letters from the OSC in the distant future.
Zifnab
You must be joking. This isn’t a game of tag. Congressmen can’t just subpeona whatever they damn well please without some vener of a cause. And even if they could, what would they hope to find except more fodder for FOX News? This is just pathetic. The most empty threat I’ve ever heard.
RandyH
At first read, I thought this might be good news. Then I googled the name Scott J. Bloch and the hope just washed away.
This guy was originally came out of private practice to become Bush’s chief council for the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Then he was appointed to this new position where he immediately re-interpreted longstanding policy so as to not enforce discrimination cases based on a federal employee’s sexual orientation. When pressed by Congress to restore investigations into these cases, he punted and the White House told him that they are “committed to protecting rights of employees regardless of sexual orientation.” He issued a statement that the policies were back to normal, that they were prosecuting for such discrimination, but that was all doublespeak.
By this time, he had shipped out the career lawyers and investigators who were committed to the purpose of the office – protecting government whistleblowers and those discriminated against, etc. – and replaced them with graduates of christian law schools, many of the new staff and consultants being brought in sight-unseen. Sound familiar?
So mush more out there… bottom line though – this guy is a wingnut crony put in position to protect The Leader from investigation, prevent FOIA requests from being filled and overlook overt discrimination and whistle blowing throughout the federal government. With him in place as top investigator of government corruption, the rats have nothing to fear and honest career employees know they have to keep their mouths zipped until Bush is out of office or risk retaliation from their politically-appointed superiors.
Here’s an interesting compilation of documents regarding his time in office. (PDF)
Dreggas
I wish I was
demimondian
The right response would be to tell the GOP “Great idea! Doing things this way will establish a precedent for how this kind of thing should be handled in a less contentious environment. Why don’t you make a proposal for how you want such documents handled, we’ll hash something out, and then we’ll apply that to the current administration, too?”
JKing
White House psy ops, pure & simple
Zifnab
Damnit. This is just one more reason for Congressional Dems to learn to keep their noses clean. Honestly, I’m not too frightened about stupid threats like these, but its a great excuse for Blue Dogs to start ducking and dodging and talking about Congressional/ Executive/ Security/ Priviledge/ Right-to-Privacy/ Razel-Frazel/ Bullshit.
*sigh*
BadTux
The only way to get at the truth here is impeachment of George W. Bush. Will it happen? That would require stones that thus far the Democrats have not shown. Republicans were willing to impeach Bill Clinton over a blow-job that while unseemly was quite legal, but apparently breaking dozens of laws prohibiting federal civil servants from engaging in political activity, engaging in obstruction of justice, etc. doesn’t rate impeachment. Remember, breaking the law is fine, it’s only blow jobs that are wrong! Or is it IOIYAR (It’s Ok If You’re A Republican)?
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
douglasfactors
Perhaps I’m being overoptimistic, but the fact that Scott Bloch is being raked over the coals for his actions at OSC could mean that he now has to conduct a legitimate investigation in order to save his own skin.
Also, if the OSC investigation leads to a prosecution before the Merit Systems Protection Board, I’m confident that the case will be judged fairly. By statute, the Board is bipartisan, i.e., no more than two of the three members can belong to the same party. More to the point, it’s a hack-free agency. The Board does have a number of political appointees, but none of them are zealots.
Dreggas
Hey uh…Tim might want to update with this:
The “hunter” is also hunted
Blue Shark
Jeez Karl…
…Did all Y’all do anything untoward?
…”Hell No!”
…There you have it folks. End of inquiry.