disclose, denny

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Hastert's travel to Turkey

Here are some details about a couple of Hastert's recent trips to Turkey, from an article in something called The International Post:
"During a (nov) 2002 visit with the Prime Minister in Turkey, Dennis Hastert stated:

It was a very good meeting that we had with the new Prime Minister. … We are committed as our country, the United States, to work with Turkey, to carry on. We see Turkey as a very stable country, as a matter of fact the model for stability and moderation and democracy. "
(Miguel found the official travel report here)

and this from WaPo about a Dec04 trip:
"Folks in Europe are still talking about that splendid, 10-day, pre-Christmas tour of Europe led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to attend the 60th anniversary ceremonies of the Battle of the Bulge. The group stopped to… visit more troops at Incirlik air base in Turkey…

Hastert took four staffers to help him.... (and maybe Mrs Hastert?)

Support personnel... [were] amazed the plane got off the ground in Turkey -- what with all the fine rugs and pashminas -- not to mention some Turkish-made shotguns Hastert and Dingell bought. "
That's some good shopping, they were only in Turkey for a night.
(Miguel found the trip report here)

Further, the aforementioned International Post article quoted above says:
"With such a display of hospitality, it is not surprising that Speaker Hastert invited his Turkish friends for a visit in May 2005. The Anatolia News Agency reported on the trip:

Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc has indicated today that his visit to the US Congress will be the first ever one by a Turkish parliament Speaker…

Arinc will be in Washington DC upon an invitation from US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert.

(snip)

Parliament Speaker Bülent Arınç visited Washington between May 24-27 as the guest of Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Arınç also attended a reception hosted in his honor by Hastert. …

Arınç, who completed his meetings in Washington D.C. arrived in Chicago on May 27. …

Arınç, who got information from Turkish Consul General Naci Koru about the work of the Turkish Consulate General in Chicago on Saturday… met Turkish community in Chicago on May 29.

[snip]

Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, who is currently in the United States upon formal invitation of the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, met representatives of the Jewish community and of the Assembly of the Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) on Wednesday. "

Note that in response to Hastert's response letter in VF, Sibel scoffed:
"7) In the VF article Hastert’s spokesman says that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. [American-Turkish Council] or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: “He does not know these organizations.”

a. Please refer to Mr. Hastert’s trips to Turkey (all trips that took place- 1996-2002); its sponsors…they are self evident. Now how can he claim not knowing these entities (very intimately)?"
crossposted at wotisitgood4

Friday, February 24, 2006

meria heller

sibel was on the meria heller show this week - i'll write up the interview over the weekend, but miguel has this:
"Here is the quote from the Maria Heller show about Hastert:

“…what happened was, FBI had this information since 1997. In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this (VF) article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress.”"


update - more of the interview here

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hastert & Government Reform

Miguel also points to this from 1997 CAMPAIGN FINANCE IMPROPRIETIES AND POSSIBLE VIOLATIONS OF LAW HEARING before the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight:
"Chairman Burton: This Committee's hearings will cover many subjects . . . . Our initial focus has been how political parties took or raised contributions from foreign sources. I am gravely concerned about foreign governments, foreign companies or foreign nationals trying to influence our electoral processes.”
Hastert was on the Comittee. He said the following, presumably with a straight face:
"Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I think the real question of these hearings addressed the searing question of have the election laws of these United States been broken? And have the election laws of this country been broken or circumvented by the campaign committee of the chief law enforcement officer of this Nation?

The real issue here is will these hearings be used by some to divert our attention from that issue and instead use it for a launching platform for, quote, campaign reform, end quote.

Mr. Chairman, we need to keep our focus on one question: Have the election laws of this country been broken intentionally or unintentionally? As chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice, I want to simply and directly state my concerns about the potential threat to our country's security that may have been and may continue to be posed by foreign influences on our electoral process.

The peril associated with direct foreign influence on our elections should be obvious. This Nation is a democracy and a democracy is not for sale. And one more point: If foreign governments have been contributing to U.S. elections, they have not been doing so for our benefit. Any such contributions would, by definition, imperil our Nation's security, since the reasons for contributions would likely be to secure favors and extend influence. I won't belabor the point, but it is central to this inquiry.

[snip]

As Judge Sirica once said, in a different context, follow the money, follow the money, follow the money.

[snip]

It concerns me, and I think it should concern every American, that there are so many people close to the President who believe that they may have committed a crime...."

Crossposted at wotisitgood4

Hastert, Turkey & Livingston

In Sibel's response to the Hastert letter in VF - She specifically refers to both the ATC and Livingston:
"7) In the VF article Hastert’s spokesman says that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. [American-Turkish Council] or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: “He does not know these organizations.”:
a. Please refer to Mr. Hastert’s trips to Turkey (all trips that took place- 1996-2002); its sponsors…they are self evident. Now how can he claim not knowing these entities (very intimately)?

b. Also, should we refer to Mr. Hastert’s dealing with the named foreign organization via [former House Speaker] Bob Livingston’s lobbying firm (Livingston Group)?"
She's not being particularly coy here - and I'm pretty sure that this is somehow connected to this odd statement she made last month which set off a flurry of speculation:
"He (Bob Livingston) is charging $1.2m - he's charging Turkey - and this is not the government of Turkish Republic, this is umm - who are these people who are paying him $1.2m per year? to do what? that is the question."
The FARA forms specify that the official client is the Turkish Embassy - is it possible that some of the Embassy's financing comes from somewhere other than the Turkish Government? I would have assumed not - but perhaps the embassy has some 'external' fundraising. Even if that was the case, I would have assumed that the Turkish Govt had some oversight of the Embassy's budget, and therefore was at least aware of the big chunks of money being shovelled at Livingston (and similarly Feith and Perle's IAI)

In the comments here, some sugegsted that maybe it was the the Turkish military who was financing the lobbying expense, or perhaps the ATC (and/or ATAA et al). Sibel's comments above suggest that the ATC et al may have been the vehicle for bribing Hastert - it's possible that the same groups were the vehicle for paying Livingston and Perle/Feith.

I know that Turkey has been through some tough financial times in the past decade, but I absolutely don't believe that Turkey couldn't have come up with say $20million to pay for 'lobbying' expenses in DC if required (as has been suggested), therefore we can probably assume that if the ATC is paying the Turkish Embassy in order to shovel money at Hastert and Livingston et al, then it is for purposes other than for the specific benefit of Turkey - that is, the money from the ATC is to benefit the ATC (or more specifically, to benefit certain members of the ATC).

The FBI has the answer to all these questions, recorded, translated and transcribed - it sure would be helpful if they let us in on their secrets.

FWIW, "Friends of Bob Livingston PAC" doled out $310,000 in the years 2000 to 2006, and in the same period, the Livingston Group PAC handed out $450,000 - and it was generally spread far and wide (amongst Republicans)

cross-posted at wotisitgood4

Monday, February 20, 2006

Hastert and Abramoff

Speaking of mobbed up, let's not forget Mr Hastert's relationship with Jack Abramoff:
"DAVID SHUSTER: "But the Speaker himself may be in some political trouble. Abramoff held fundraisers for Hastert. And after one event at Abramoff's restaurant that raised $21,000, the House Speaker sent a letter to Interior Secretary Gayle Norton pressuring her to stop a casino in Louisiana. That new casino would have competed with an Abramoff client."" (link)
and
" House Speaker Dennis Hastert became the latest lawmaker to dump campaign contributions from clients of high-flying lobbyist Jack Abramoff, giving about $70,000 to charity Tuesday." (link)
Apparently Denny was so concerned about 'appearances' that he was happy to depart ways with Abramoff's $70,000 - but he isn't so worried about appearances that he is hoping to ride out the VF?TUrkish bribery claims when all he has to do is disclose his campaign contributions - and he doesn't even have any excuse for not disclosing...

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Hastert's War on Drugs

Speaking of Hastert and the War on Drugs (tm) - I'd forgotten about an episode from Sep 2004.

Here's Jack Schafer of Slate in an article called "Dennis Hastert on Dope - Two heartbeats from the presidency, an absolute nut job":
"We enter the Fox News Sunday interview transcript just after host Chris Wallace introduces the subject of 527s, such as MoveOn.org and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Hastert starts complaining about the power flexed by non-political party groups:
HASTERT: Here in this campaign, quote, unquote, "reform," you take party power away from the party, you take the philosophical ideas away from the party, and give them to these independent groups.

You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where—if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from. And I—

WALLACE (interrupting): Excuse me?

HASTERT: Well, that's what he's been for a number years—George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there.

WALLACE: You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?

HASTERT: I'm saying I don't know where groups—could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know. The fact is we don't know where this money comes from.

Before, transparency—and what we're talking about in transparency in election reform is you know where the money comes from. You get a $25 check or a $2,500 check or $25,000 check, put it up on the Internet. You know where it comes from, and there it is."
Even Chris Wallace couldn't believe the hatchet job that Hastert was performing. In fact, I imagine that Hastert had to swallow hard when he drew the short straw to pull out the knife at the GOP strategy meeting that week.

Hastert could hardly complain that he probably wasn't the man for the job, given that he himself had taken money from the Turkish drug mafia - could he? (actually, he could probably brag about it and everyone else at the table would have nodded silently)

Apparently Denny got all defensive about it - here's Josh Marshall a few days later:
"You'll remember a couple days ago we noted House Speaker Denny Hastert suggesting that George Soros may get his money from drug cartels or other such groups.

I've talked to reporters who've asked Hastert this around the convention hall. And he's been aggressively restating the 'charge.' I'm told he even shoved his finger in the chest of one of them when repeating it.

Now Soros has written this letter to Hastert, asking him to put up or shut up, or, more specifically "either substantiate these claims -- which you canont do because they are false -- or publicly apologize for attempting to defame my character and damage my reputation."
protesting too much, and all that.

Hastert was forced to respond to Soros:
"Dear Mr. Soros:
[snip]
I never implied that you were a criminal and I never would, that's not my style. I will state clearly that I believe your agenda is dangerous, extreme and wrong for America. I also believe that 527 political organizations set a dangerous precedent for political discourse because we don't know where the money comes from. For all we know, funding for some of the 527s might come from foreign sources or worse. Giving special interests more power and less accountability, while taking power away from political parties is a sad, but inevitable result of the campaign finance law that we enacted into law in the last session of Congress. It is my hope that we will take more effective action in the future to bring more transparency to the political process, as we take equally effective action to limit the power of the special interests."
see chutzpa: (Yiddish) unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity

I don't particularly want to focus on the drug element at the moment - but let's look at two of the above statements:
HASTERT: transparency—and what we're talking about in transparency in election reform is you know where the money comes from. You get a $25 check... put it up on the Internet. You know where it comes from, and there it is.
and
HASTERT: For all we know, funding... might come from foreign sources or worse.
Anyone disagree with that? That sounds pretty reasonable right? "You get a $25 check... put it up on the Internet. " Plain as day, in his own words. I can imagine that statement might find its way into the Vanity Fair LTE and elsewhere in our campaign.

I agree with Mr Hastert - transparency is important, as a matter of course, and even more so when there are serious allegations of wrongdoing. David Rose's article made some very specific allegations - and Mr Hastert could presumably have debunked those allegations quite easily by disclosing his campaign contibution data - for all of his PACs, from 1996 to 2002 - but he refused.

Think about that - Hastert preferred to weather allegations that he was in the pocket of 'foreign sources or worse' rather disclose all his campaign contributions. Let's be clear, the only reason the law was written such that it excluded sub$200 donations was to minimize the required paper work. There's no suggestion that sub$200 donors have any right to privacy or any such thing - in fact, many politicians open their books completely - so Hastert doesn't have any defense, other than claiming 'preposterous' at every available opportunity.

Even when the tenacious Melanie Sloan at CREW filed a complaint with FEC, Hastert proactively stripped relevant information from the data that he sent to FEC - surely it would have been simpler to hand over the information, complete and intact, rather than *ahem* 're-purpose' it for FEC.

He sure is acting like a man with something to hide.

disclose, denny

crossposted at wotisitgood4

Hastert's finances

another point from miguel - Hastert has never been rich. His personal finance details can be found here at opensecrets - his net worth is measured in the hundreds of thousands - a rank pauper by congressfolk standards. This is not surprising, given that he spent "16 years of teaching and coaching at Yorkville High School." (link)

One possible implication of this is that he was possibly susceptible to "tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information." (link)

Putting two kids through school can be kinda expensive, huh Denny?

The other possible implication is that Hastert didn't actually receive, at least not directly, the purported $500,000 that was apparently the price discussed for pulling the Armenian Genocide resolution. Of course, just because the money doesn't appear in his official statements doesn't mean that it was never paid. There are plenty of ways to hide the money - for example, in the freezer, or in french commodes, or by employing family members, or many other variations.

With the family member option in mind, I had a quick look at Hastert's family. As it happens, he has two sons (this from 2002):
"Joshua, 27, the oldest, in 1999 ran a record label and record store in DeKalb known locally as Seven Dead Arson, a name inspired by a news headline. After Hastert became speaker, Joshua moved to Washington and became a lobbyist, one of the rare ones who work the Capitol with a pierced ear. This summer, Joshua Hastert was named a principal member of the lobbying firm Federal Legislative Associates.

Joshua Hastert says his father has not changed much as speaker. He says key to his father’s style is “making sure everyone’s side is heard.”

His younger brother Ethan, 24, just wrapped up a stint as an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and is now at Northwestern University’s law school."
I wouldn't normally like to bring family into this - but given that one son worked for Cheney, and another is a newbie lobbyist, I figure they might be worth a closer look given that both Cheney and nepotism in lobbying seems to be the flavours of the day.

This from WaPo in 2003:
"Joshua Hastert, who represents high-tech and small businesses at Federal Legislative Associates, will not approach his father but has not ruled out lobbying other House leaders, Hastert spokesman John Feehery said."
Then:
"Hastert's son jumped to a bigger firm last year, Podesta Mattoon, where the Speaker's close adviser, Daniel Mattoon, is a name partner"
And then this from the Boston Globe last month:
"The website promoting the lobbying services of Joshua Hastert is enticing: ''Josh has long-standing relationships with numerous offices on Capitol Hill and in the administration as well as a unique understanding of the legislative process."

Unique, indeed. Hastert is the son of J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, making him one of dozens of high-powered lobbyists with family connections to members of Congress. Joshua Hastert, who says he does not lobby House Republican leaders, is registered as a lobbyist for clients ranging from Amgen, a biotech company, to Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor."
As noted, nepotism and lobbying in DC go together like a horse and carriage, love & marriage... so nothing unique there at all.

Ethan graduated Northwestern University’s law school in 2005 - his other claim to fame was in 2004:
"(AP) -- A son of House Speaker Dennis Hastert was arrested Saturday on charges including driving under the influence of alcohol, the speaker's office said.

Ethan Hastert was cited for several offenses, including DUI, in the early-morning hours, according to a press release from Hastert's office.

"It's regrettable, but as always, Ethan enjoys my love and full support in the face of this difficult situation,'' Hastert, R-Ill., said in the statement. "Now, we must respect the legal process while this matter is resolved.''

Hastert's spokesman, John McGovern, declined to elaborate, referring questions to police."
I'm not sure what the 'several offenses' were - for some reason this story didn't get picked up very much. It was one of those AP stories that wasnt picked up on the wires - I only found one mention of it. (although the NYT carried it )

I hope he was doing drugs - although the thought of any Hastert at a rave with his shirt off is somewhat disconcerting - mostly because:
"Chairman Hastert had broad oversight for the Departments of State, Defense and Justice, as well as the nation's War on Drugs..."
in any case, Hastert probably could have done with some extra funds in those early years.

another question that Miguel asked:
"why did the Turks start putting Hastert on the payroll in the 1996-1997 time frame? Hastert did not become House Speaker until 1999. Before then, he was Chief Deputy Whip. I believe Dick Armey was Majority Leader and Tom Delay was Whip.

Why did the Turkish mafia guys choose Hastert instead of Delay, Armey or Gingrich?"
I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe because it was cheap? Maybe they already had Delay, Armey & Gingrich on the payroll? Maybe because Hastert was involved in the War on Drugs(TM)? I'm not sure when his involvement in the WoD began - perhaps Hastert joined the WoD at the request of the Turkish mafia who relied on the 'War' for their profits...

cross-posted at wotitisgood4

Randy Evans and FEC

One other thing that i noticed is that Randy Evans also represents HFCC "in connection with all matters pending before the FEC" - we must presume that the VF response was at least partially related to the response to FEC - probably the content, and perhaps the timing.

However the content of the letter to VF is substantially different to the 'justifications' offered in the affadavit to FEC (at least as represented in FEC's response). That strikes me as being really odd (as does the timing).

They are obviously a lot smarter, or a lot stupider, than we are. I can barely think of a plausible scenario.

If I was Evans, it would make sense to respond to VF immediately after the article was published - but after that window of opportunity had passed, it would be best to keep quiet. Having said that, almost by the time that the magazine had hit the newstands, he must have been aware of CREW's complaint. Similarly, if I was Evans, I'd probably make it my business to know when FEC was releasing their response to CREW - and I'd probably hope to have a pretty good understanding of whether there was likely to be anything damaging in the FEC report. But his actions don't seem to reflect any such thing...

Some conspiracy-minded folk might argue that Evans' absurd response in VF was an intentional attempt to fan some flames, only to have them doused by the FEC report - but to the extent that Hastert was seen to be exonerated (ie the aforementioned 'dousing') by the FEC report, then surely a better strategy would have been to let the exoneration speak for itself, without flaming the suspicion in advance with such obvious nonsense. Having said all that, if it wasn't for Miguel and I, the strategy would very probably have been successful - but if so, that would more likely have been by accident, rather than design - they still would have been better off just to let the FEC report speak for itself.

What are the other possibilities?

Is it possible that they were nervous about the FEC report because they were concerned about a possible negative outcome and were trying some pre-emptive media strike? It's difficult to imagine a scenario where that makes any logical/strategic sense.

Is it possible that Evans originally tried to get VF to publish a letter that was full of garbage (akin to the HFCC response to FEC) that VF knew to be false and they refused? again, difficult to imagine - and if it was the case, Evans' best game would have been to accept their refusal to print and just shutup. In fact, judging by the original Rose article, the lawyers were all over the story from the beginning - there sure is a lot missing from the article, and Sibel said that Hastert's camp was repeatedly offered the opportunity to input.

It would be kinda funny if FEC accepted Evans' nonsense response but VF wouldn't accept it, even in an LTE.

there's something happening here. what it is aint exactly clear.

crossposted at wotisitgood4

Dallas Ingemunson

Miguel has made a few good points in the last couple of days - let me deal with a few in this post:

Miguel A):
"Hey, I just fond something else. The FEC report says Hastert's treasurer listed name and address of everyone making a contribution under $200. But NOT THE AMOUNT. One of the red flags would be amounts just under $200, such as a lot of contributions for $195. But since amounts are not listed, there is no way to evaluate.
[snip]
This is significant, if true, for it could render the list almost totally useless. You could not match the amounts on the list with the previously reported unitemized totals. Just as importantly, if you get a list of names that look suspicious, you cannot estimate how much each suspicious individuals might have donated. Does that make sense?"
Yep - sure does make sense. HFCC responded simply to the 'foreign names', 'foreign addresses' and 'foreign banks' claims - which are all largely irrelevant and are not responsive to the main claim.

Miguel B):
"The letter to CREW from the FEC says documents related to the case will be placed in the public record within 30 days. Should we wait for the 30 days to pass before filing the FOIA request?"
The law dealing with that is called the "Statement of Policy Regarding Disclosure of Closed Enforcement and Related Files" - details here (legalese warning).

Firstly, it isn't immediately obvious whether FEC will release all of the documents that they have - although I can't see any particular reason why they wouldn't.

As noted above, there isn't likely to be much useful in the documents that FEC has - just names and addresses, and it isn't obvious that would be of much assistance. It is possible that the list would also include the dates of the contributions which may be of some use/interest - specifically if we can identify periods of high activity outside of the 'annual events'.

Perhaps the best that we could hope for is to find some fake names and addresses. Also, we would learn the answer to how many names were listed on each page, which would answer the question I asked yesterday. Further, it is possible that HFCC made some supporting claims in their affadavit that were not mentioned in FEC's response to CREW.


Earlier, I asked:
"is it standard practice that the assistant treasurer would respond to a complaint of this nature? Or did they nominate her for the job so that she could correctly claim that the statement was true 'to her knowledge'?"
Miguel C):
"One issue you brought up is the Treasurer vs. Assistant Treasurer. Here is what FEC regs says about this issue:
"Assistant Treasurer

The Commission urges every committee to designate an assistant treasurer on its Statement of Organization. An assistant treasurer may assume the treasurer’s duties when the treasurer is unavailable or has resigned. 102.7(a)."
So the assistant treasurer is supposedly there when the Treasurer is unavailable. Kind of convenient that Hastert's treasurer wasn't around when it came time to sign the affadavit, huh?"
It sure does look a little convenient. Anyone have any thoughts?

Incidentally, FEC's response lists some dates in the meta-data of the report, although the meaning of them isnt entirely clear:
Date Complaint Filed: August 16, 05
Date of Notification: August 22, 2005
Last Response Received: Sep 7, 2005
Date Activated: Nov 7, 2005
Expiration of Statute of Limitations: (rolling from) Jan1 05 to Dec31 06
I presume that 'notification' means that HFCC was notified on that day, and that all responses from HFCC were received Sep 7, and perhaps FEC 'activated' an official investigation a month later (?). (alternatively, perhaps the initial back and forth was between CREW and FEC, and HFCC wasn't officially contacted till Nov 7 when the investigation was opened.)

Anyhow, for one reason or other, Treasurer Dallas Ingemunson wasn't available - either to write the affadavit or sign any of the documents - even though Dallas Ingemunson was personally named as a respondent in the affadavit. Incidentally, at least according to one political reporter, Dallas Ingemunson, is regarded as Hastert's "political godfather".

crossposted at wotisitgood4

Friday, February 17, 2006

disingenuous denny hastert

further to my previous post called "is Hastert bamboozling?", we learnt from the FEC response to CREW's complaint that 70% of the contributions to Hastert For Congress were in "annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events."

In that post, I speculated that the average contribution was likely to be approximately $50 (based purely on the 80/20 rule). I don't really understand how these events are organised - are these 'contributions' effectively ticket prices (with different strata)? or are they 'open' events where the participant literally makes a donation? or are there different events with different ticket prices - say $150 per plate at one event, and other events where you walk by and get your photo taken with him for $25? etc... once we know that, i suspect that we can look into the historical record and get a better fix on the exact size on the average donation size for the "70% of the contributions" - but for the moment, I'm quite comfortable assuming an average of approximately $50 for these 70% of contributions.

Consider that HFCC plucked this apparently random statistic in an attempt to show themselves in the best light.

Given that we are primarily interested in understanding whether HFCC received an inordinate number of marginally-less-than-$200 contributions, as described in the wiretaps, then maybe Hastert has inadvertently given us a window into the other 30% of 'individual contributions'.

Excuse the math for a minute, but there are some things that we know, and with some interpolation, we may be able to ascertain the things that we dont know (to paraphrase Rumsfeld).

According Rose, between April 96 and Dec 02, Hastert received $483,000 in undisclosed contributions. I believe that Rose started his analysis in April because the Q1, 96 numbers are missing from Hastert's official filings. I learnt that Hastert's total contributions from individuals in Q1 were $50,000 - and Hastert's Q2 numbers show a 50/50 split between disclosed and undisclosed. Therefore, I assumed that half of his Q1 individual contributions were also undisclosed. Therefore, between 96 and 02, I have pegged Hastert's undisclosed contributions at (483+25) = $508,000.

According to FEC, Hastert "attached a list of all unitemized contributions from 1996 to 2002" - so I'm going to assume that includes all of 1996 (i.e. including Q1). And we know that "70% of the contributions came from annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events." For reasons that I've outlined, I'm assuming that the average of those contributions is $50.

Following on, we have 2 unknowns - the total number of contributions (let's call that Y), and the average size of contributions that occur outside of these 'annual events' (let's call that Z) - such that the equation at hand is:
(70% * $50 * Y) + (30% * $Z * Y) = $508,000
If we knew the value of Y ( total number of contributions), we could solve for Z (the average size of contributions that occur outside of these 'annual events') - and if Z was suspiciously high, then we'd be some way toward proving our point - which is that Hastert was on the receiving end of "tens of thousands of dollars" of contributions which were designed to skirt the $200 reporting requirement.

Thanks to FEC, we have a small glimpse into understanding Y. FEC notes that Hastert's affadavit "included a 159-page attachment listing the names and addresses of all individuals who contributed less than $200 between 1996 and 2002."

The question, then, is how many contributors per page? If there is a standard reporting procedure/format, and if we can get that information, then we can determine how many contributors Hastert had, and we will then know the average size of the contributions that occur outside the regular 'annual event' channels.

My guess is that this number will look 'somewhat' high, but won't 'prove' anything, specifically. However, if my hunch is correct, it will demonstrate that Hastert's random claim that "70% of the contributions came from annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events" is intentionally disingenuous - which would certainly focus our attention.

lemme ask around.

(if necessary, we could also do some research into the validity of my guesstimate that the average 'annual event' contribution is $50)

crossposted at wotisitgood4

is Hastert bamboozling?

Here's an important update to my post about Hastert's response to CREW's claim (i also posted an update in that post):

the amazing miguel in the comments notes that:
"The report does not quote the assistant treasurer as saying "70% of funds", it says "70% of contributions". In other words, 70% of the contributors were at these annual events. But 70% of contributers contributing an average of..let's say $25 per person..is less then the 30% of contributors who contribute $199/person."
(NB - on revision of the original letter, I've just noticed that it actually says "70% of THE contributions")

I'm *kicking* myself TWICE. once for making the transcription error, and twice for falling for it. Miguel is correct - the way Hastert framed the sentence could mean either a) 'funds' (aka 'gross contributions') or b) 'contributors'. Most probably the latter.

The question then becomes whether the language was intended to be misleading in the context of CREW's filing (even while being technically correct). If Hastert's claim doesn't speak to the heart of the issue, then why would they include it as evidence against that claim?

Here is the language:
"70% of the contributions came from annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events"
(FWIW: also, note that FEC is paraphrasing, rather than actually quoting directly from the affadavit.)

For want of a better starting point, let's presume the 80/20 rule which would give us an average of $50 for each of the contributors at these events. I'm not sure how much further we should extrapolate the numbers... for now. But let me just state, for the record, that if they made this claim (out of the blue) to 'prove' the point, and if it doesn't actually lend much credence to their case, then it would appear that they are trying to bamboozle.
(see here for speculation about the numbers)

cross-posted at wotisitgood4

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Hastert responds to CREW

updated - see below
-----------------
This just in from CREW:
February 13, 2006
FEC Responds to CREW's Complaint Requesting Investigation into Foreign Donations to Speaker Hastert's Campaign

On August 16, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requesting an investigation into whether Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's campaign committee illegally accepted campaign contributions from foreign nationals in 2000 and 2001.

CREW based its complaint on an article appearing in the September issue of Vanity Fair in which it was reported that former F.B.I. translator Sibel Edomonds reviewed wiretap recordings involving an F.B.I. target at Chicago, Illinois' Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. According to Ms. Edmonds, the recordings indicated that an F.B.I. target had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions to be sent to Rep. Hastert's campaign committee in small (i.e., less than $200) checks that did not have to be itemized.

Hastert for Congress received $110,860.75 in unitemized contributions in 2001 and $72,275 in unitemized contributions in 2000.

Federal election campaign law strictly prohibits foreign nationals from making political contributions and prohibits political committees from accepting campaign contributions from foreign nationals. If a committee receives a contribution of questionable legality, it must make at least one written or oral request for evidence that the contribution is legal and either confirm the legality of the contribution or refund the contribution.

Today, CREW received an answer from the Federal Elections Commission. In their reponse, they wrote:

"On January 24, 2006, the Federal Election Commission reviewed the allegations in your complaint dated August 16, 2005, and found that, on the basis of the information provided in your complaint, and information provided by the Hastert for Congress Committee and Dallas Ingemunson, in her official capacity as treasurer, there is no reason to believe the respondents violated the Act or Commission regulations as alleged in the complaint. Accordingly, on January 24, 2006, the Commission closed the file in this matter."
FEC's full response here (pdf).

From the pdf (my transcription, errors are mine):
"HFCC (Hastert for Congress) responded via affadavit that it never knowingly accepted contributions from foreign nationals, and attached a list of all unitemized contributions from 1996 to 2002, none of which seem to be of questionable origin

[snip]

To refute these allegations, HFCC provided a detailed affadavit from it's assistant treasurer, which included a 159-page attachment listing the names and addresses of all individuals who contributed less than $200 between 1996 and 2002. In her affadavit, the assistant treasurer stated... to her knowledge, HFCC "never solicited, accepted or received funds from a contributor or donor using a foreign passport, providing a foreign address , using a check... from a foreign bank... [or] where the bank identification or the account ownership information imprinted on the contribution check indicates a foreign address

[snip]

The assistant treasurer also stated that over 90% of all unitemized contributions came from residents of Illinois and that 70% of the contributions came from annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events from Speaker Hastert's District"
(NB: the word 'the' added on revision - as i noted "errors are mine"!)

*cough* bullshit *cough*

we've already outlined many of the reasons that the "no foreign passport / foreign address / foreign bank" claim tells us nothing. If the purpose of these sub$200 donations was to hide below the radar, as is claimed in the wiretaps and the VF article, then of course they wouldn't use a foreign bank or foreign address as the vehicle.

CREW's initial filing specifically asked about 'foreign names' and 'foreign nationals' - but the complaint was framed in such a way that it didn't capture many of the more nefarious tricky financing schemes - such as chanelling the money in cash contributions, or using fake names and addresses, or using Abramoff-type vehicles etc.

We need to get a new FOIA request filed with FEC, the FBI & DOJ which is written such that the answer we receive is actually responsive to the claims in Vanity Fair. I'll contact POGO again.

Based on my analysis it seems most improbable that 70% of funds came from an "annual events" in any year unless she is saying that there are many annual events throught the year. I doubt that the treasurer is lying about any of the specific claims that she makes in the affadavit. see update below.

Along the same lines, is it standard practice that the assistant treasurer would respond to a complaint of this nature? Or did they nominate her for the job so that she could correctly claim that the statement was true 'to her knowledge'?

One other point to consider, Hastert's lawyer knew that this response was imminent when he wrote the letter to VF - I don't know what it means, if anything

update: the amazing miguel in the comments notes that:
"The report does not quote the assistant treasurer as saying "70% of funds", it says "70% of contributions". In other words, 70% of the contributors were at these annual events. But 70% of contributers contributing an average of..let's say $25 per person..is less then the 30% of contributors who contribute $199/person."
(NB - on revision of the original letter, I've just noticed that it actually says "70% of THE contributions")

I'm *kicking* myself TWICE. once for making the transcription error, and twice for falling for it. Miguel is correct - the way Hastert framed the sentence could mean either a) 'funds' (aka 'gross contributions') or b) 'contributors'. Most probably the latter.

The question then becomes whether the language was intended to be misleading in the context of CREW's filing (even while being technically correct). If Hastert's claim doesn't speak to the heart of the issue, then why would they include it as evidence against that claim?

Here is the language:
"70% of the contributions came from annual low-ticket-price (between $25 and $150) events"
(FWIW: also, note that FEC is paraphrasing, rather than actually quoting directly from the affadavit.)

For want of a better starting point, let's presume the 80/20 rule which would give us an average of $50 for each of the contributors at these events. I'm not sure how much further we should extrapolate the numbers... for now. But let me just state, for the record, that if they made this claim (out of the blue) to 'prove' the point, and if it doesn't actually lend much credence to their case, then it would appear that they are trying to bamboozle.
(see here for some speculation about how we might ascertain the missing numbers)

(Cross-posted at wotisitgood4)

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Hastert for Congress Unitemized Contributions

Hastert For Congress Committee is the PAC named in David Rose's article as being of particular interest.

Rose writes:
"According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

Hastert himself was never heard in the recordings, Edmonds told investigators, and it is possible that the claims of covert payments were hollow boasts. Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000. In contrast, un-itemized contributions in the same period to the committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, were only $99,000..."
Sibel seems to suggest that Hastert for Congress isn't the only PAC that was involved with these bribes - she asks:
"Why doesn’t Hastert disclose all the contributions (those under $200), to all his PACs (he has several) for the years between 1997 and 2001?"
I've rummaged through the official Hastert for Congress filings (from here) and picked out the contributions from individuals.

There isn't anything that is conclusive, but the main thing that seems to stand out is that Hastert's non-itemized contributions remain quite stable over the period, even while his stature grew, and his itemized contributions exploded. This seems to support the story-line that Sibel suggests - i.e. that the unitemized contributions in those early years were 'padded' somehow...

If Hastert simply discloses his data, then he can remove the cloud over his name...

----
Unitemized Individual Contributions (itemized in brackets)
1996
Q1 $25,000 ($25k) (#1)
Q2 $20,000 ($19k)
Q3 $29,000 ($66k)
Q4 $5,000 ($18k)
total - $79,000

1997
1H) $26,000 ($65k)
2H) 23,000 ($70)
total - $49,000

1998
1Q) $17,000 ($48k)
2Q) $8,000 ($12k)
3Q) $20,000 ($64k)
4Q) $2,000 ($23k)
total - $47,000

1999
1H) $45,000 ($236k)
2H) $34,000 ($243k)
total - $79,000

2000
1Q - $17,000 ($17k)
2Q - $15,000 ($41k)
3Q - $23,000 ($141k)
4Q - $ 12,000 ($110k)
total - $67,000

2001
1H - $65,000 ($329k)
2H - $45,000 ($359k)
total - $109,000

2002
1Q - $11,000 ($162K)
2Q - $15,000 ($116K)
3Q - $32,000 ($306K)
4Q - $8,000 ($137K)
total - $66,000

2003
1Q -$38,000 ($308K)
2Q - $34,000 ($294K)
3Q - $25,000 ($240k)
4Q - $16,000 ($314K)
total - $113,000

2004
1Q - $16,000 ($408K)
2Q - $36,000 ($446K)
3Q - $49,000 ($460K)
4Q - $20,000 ($218K)
total - $121,000

2005
1Q - $37,000 ($362K)
2Q - $19,000 ($329K)
3Q - $34,000 ($352K)
4Q - $10,000 ($313K)
total - $100,000

notes
1. I can't find the Q1, 96 report. However the Q2 report has the YTD Individual Contributions listed as $89,000, and the Q2 as $40,000. Therefore the Q1 Total from Individs is $49,000. I've split that in half (itemized/non-itemized) which is the same ratio as Q2. (N.B. the actual split has been redacted for some reason)
2. note that there is some rounding

crossposted at wotisitgood4

open secrets

Here is some more of Hastert's campaign contribution data from Open Secrets.org

Again, this data isn't particularly useful for our current purposes, but here it is.

1995-96
Total Receipts: $948,369
Source of Funds:
PACs $550,187 (58.0%)
Individuals $362,676 (38.2%)

---------

1997-1998
Total Receipts: $1,019,580
Source of Funds:
Small Individual contributions(<$200) $130,941 (12.8%)
Large Individual contributions ($200+) $262,341 (25.7%)

---------
2000
Raised: $2,386,942
Source of Funds:
PACs: $1,307,648 (55%)
Individuals: $1,004,692 (42%)

----------
2002
Raised: $2,995,170
Source of Funds:
PACs: $1,319,855 (44%)
Individuals: $1,588,870 (53%)

-----------
2003-2004
Total Receipts: $4,862,029
Source of Funds:
Individual contributions $2,924,677 (60.2%)
PAC contributions 1,911,381 (39.3%)
---------

Also, OpenSecrets notes that "PAC contributions and large donations from individuals are the two biggest sources of contributions for most members of Congress. In the 2000 elections, winning U.S. House candidates collected about 42% of their money from PACs, 37% from individual contributions of $200 or more, and 15% from small individual contributions.

KOMPAC

I've been burrowing through some campaign finance data for Mr Hastert.

Here, for reference, are the details of Hastert's Keep Our Majority Leadership PAC (KOMPAC)

The data is from OpenSecrets.org and doesn't include the sub-$200 breakout - but I'll post it here for the record.

NB - The VF article doesn't mention KOMPAC, and I'm not particularly interested in KOMPAC for our current purposes
-----------------
kopmpac 98
Total Receipts $130,600
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more $12,004
-----------------
kompac2000
Total Receipts $2,178,369
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more $952,589
-----------------
kompac 2002
Total Receipts $1,824,153
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more $442,702
-----------------
kompac 04
Total Receipts $2,641,098
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more $555,786
----------------

If we decide that we want to take a closer look at KOMPAC, the actual filing data (which will give us the unitemized contributions) are here

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Citizens for Hastert and KOMPAC

from Miguel:
"Hastert controls two political war chests -- his election fund named Citizens for Hastert and KOMPAC, the acronym for the speaker's Keep Our Majority political action committee.

Scratched from Hastert's political calendar is a February $5,000-per-person fund-raiser in Hawaii for KOMPAC and an April event in Orlando for his re-election fund. This would have been KOMPAC's third Hawaiian fund-raiser. Most of the political money Hastert raises goes to bankroll Republican candidates. Hastert, who is a top draw for donors, will continue to travel extensively headlining fund-raisers to benefit Republicans." (link)
Does anyone have a list of Hastert's PACs? There's Citizens for Hastert, Hastert for Congress and KOMPAC - any others?

crossposted at wotisitgood4

more soon

Apologies for light posting - I was hoping to have some more detail up by now.

Things are chugging away in the background - I'll have some more soon.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Hastert Loves Wiretaps

This just in:
"Speaker Dennis Hastert provided a strident defense of a controversial warrantless wiretapping program Saturday while drawing comparisons between two of his party's most revered former presidents and the office's current occupant.

[snip]

And “sometimes to do that you have to do some fairly extraordinary things,” he said, such as listen in on possible terrorist-related communications.

[snip]

“If you're a foreign national” and interested in harming Americans, he said, “then you better watch out because we'll do everything we can to stop you.”" (link)
Priceless.

Cross posted at wotisitgood4

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Randy Evans

i've had this post in my 'draft' box for a week or so - i thought that i had published this already. apologies. here are some random facts about Hastert's lawyer, Randy Evans

* from miguel: randy evans has been Hastert's private counsel since the day Hastert took over the Speakership.

"The Evans connection is very interesting. He is the [Governor] Perdue-appointed chair of the State Election board, and active in pushing the Voter-ID law. Randy is also counsel for the Republican Party of Georgia."

--------------------
disinfopedia:
"Randolph "Randy" Evans, the chair of the Financial Institutions practice at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP (MLA), "handles high profile, complex litigation matters in state and federal courts throughout the United States for some of the largest companies in the world." [1]

Evans served as outside counsel to both Newt Gingrich and J. Dennis Hastert, Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, as well as to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt and former Representative from Oklahoma and House GOP Chairman J.C. Watts ( "as well as a number of other United States Senators and Congressmen as client.")

Evans is chairman of the board of the Newt Gingrich Companies. He is also chairman of the board of the J.C. Watts Companies."

-------------------
"Evans made his first mark in the area of Speaker politics and law in February 1988 when he assisted then Congressman Newt Gingrich with the drafting of the ethics complaint against then Speaker Jim Wright. Eventually, Speaker Wright resigned, leading to Gingrich’s elevation to Minority Whip of the House GOP Conference in 1989."

"Evans continued in the area following Mr. Gingrich’s resignation. In 1999, newly elected Speaker J. Dennis Hastert kept Mr. Evans on as his counsel. ... Evans announced the negotiation and approval of a book contract for the publication of a book by Speaker Hastert to be published by Regnery Publishing"

------------
"Randy Evans has served as General Counsel to the Georgia Republican Party since his appointment by then Georgia GOP Chairman Ralph Reed. He was reappointed by Georgia GOP Chairman Alec Pointevint in 2003. In addition, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue appointed, (and the Georgia State Senate confirmed) Mr. Evans to the Georgia State Election Board in 2003. While serving as Presiding Justice, Chief Justice Norman Fletcher of the Georgia Supreme Court appointed Mr. Evans as a Special Master of the Court."
----------

In 1999, david corn reported on the details of Gingrich's first divorce (Randy Evans was representing him) - apparently it was a mystery at the time why Newt didn't settle quietly - rather than publicly airing a lot of his dirty laundry. Let's hope Evans takes the same approach with the Hastert case!


crossposted at wotisitgood4

Hastert issues in Vanity Fair

i keep scouring the Vanity Fair article looking for the Denny-related paragraphs for reference. I've decided to bring them all together, here in one place. That should help me, and you.

First reference:
"It may be more than another embarrassing security scandal. One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago. Toward the end of 2001, Edmonds was asked to translate some of the thousands of calls that had been recorded by this operation, some dating back to 1997.

Edmonds has given confidential testimony inside a secure Sensitive Compartmented Information facility on several occasions: to congressional staffers, to investigators from the O.I.G., and to the staff from the 9/11 commission. Sources familiar with this testimony say that, in addition to her allegations about the Dickersons, she reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information. “The Dickersons,” says one official familiar with the case, “are only the tip of the iceberg.” "
second reference:
"Echoing Cole and German, one of the congressional staffers who heard Edmonds’s secure testimony likens the FBI to a family, “and you don’t take your problems outside it. They think they’re the best law enforcement agency in the world, that they’re beyond criticism and beyond reproach.” To an outside observer that ethos alone might explain the use of the state secrets privilege against Edmonds. But, the staffer adds, some of the wiretaps she said she translated “mentioned government officials.” Here may lie an entirely different dimension to her case. Vanity Fair has established that around the time the Dickersons visited the Edmondses, in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Its subject was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. “There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on, “the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion,” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.

Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn’t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

Hastert himself was never heard in the recordings, Edmonds told investigators, and it is possible that the claims of covert payments were hollow boasts. Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000. In contrast, un-itemized contributions in the same period to the committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw of Florida, declared a higher total in un-itemized donations than Hastert over the same period: $552,000. The other three declared far less. Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Joe Barton, of Texas, claimed $265,000; Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, of California, got $212,000; and Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, of California, recorded $110,000.

Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings also contained repeated references to Hastert’s flip-flop, in the fall of 2000, over an issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government – the continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide. For many years, attempts had been made to get the house to pass a genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000, when Hastert, as Speaker, announced that he would give it his backing and see that it received a full house vote. He had a clear political reason, as analysts noted at the time: a California Republican incumbent, locked in a tight congressional race, was looking to win over his district’s large Armenian community. Thanks to Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed the International Relations Committee by a large majority. Then, on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert withdrew it.

At the time, he explained his decision by saying that he had received a letter from President Clinton arguing that the genocide resolution, if passed, would harm U.S. interests. Again, the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was ever made to Hastert or his campaign. Nevertheless, a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000.

Hastert’s spokesman says the congressman withdrew the genocide resolution only because of the approach from Clinton, “and to insinuate anything else just doesn’t make any sense.” He adds that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: “He does not know these organizations.” Hastert is “unaware of Turkish interests making donations,” the spokesman says, and his staff has “not seen any pattern of donors with foreign names.” "


crossposted at wotisitgood4

Saturday, February 11, 2006

hastert, bribes

another thing that i wanted to mention is that there is some discrepancy in the Rose article regarding the 'price' of the bribe.

there is some confusion about this.

Rose claims (separately)that:
a) "According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks."
b) " a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000. "
c) "The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information."
d) "Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000."
Without any evidence - it's my guess that b) is nonsense - and that misunderstanding leads to a lot of misinformed speculation. It's my guess that we are only looking for "tens of thousands" - not half a million. My best guess is that the fact that the $483k approximates the $500k (in b)) is mostly a coincidence.

Miguel asked earlier why the Turks were financing Hastert at such an early stage (before he was Speaker) - but I'm not sure that we can presume that was the case. I haven't really looked into the data - but we needn't be constrained by the time-frames suggested by Rose. If we assume for a minute that the Turkish lobby only paid Hastert "tens of thousands" then the calculations - and the time frames, and the magnitude - kinda get portrayed in a different light.

Update 1: Miguel in the comments: "Yes, lukery, but remember Sibel wrote in her response to Evans letter: "The article correctly establishes the timeline (Hastert receiving illegal donations) as 1996 to 2002."
Noticed she put in the word "correctly"."

Update 2: Oldschool in the comments rightly notes that the whole thing screams cash bribes, not piddly donations to the campaign fund - we 'know' that Hastert was collecting brown bags full o' cash. The reason that we are currently focusing on the sub$200 donations is that there is literally a paper trail which could prove Sibel's claims. But Oldschool is correct to note that the difference between the "tens of thousands" and the $500k is undoubtedly of the stuffed envelope variety.
cross-posted at wotisitgood4

money laundering

Miguel writes in, again:
"I pinged a high-level person at Common Cause about this story, and they said they had never heard of anyone bundling unitemized contributions before. Here was their take on it:

"I have not heard of this practice - but then I am endlessly surprised at the various schemes for raising funds. This one, however, sounds too logistically complex for what is likely not a huge amount of money, and very risky given it's foreign contributions."

This will be part of the challenge we face: some of the mainstream campaign finance reform groups might not have sufficient imagination to believe that contributions can be bundled this way.

The big question: how are the Turkish nationals able to handle this "logistically complex" problem of getting all their friends to write checks under $200? "

Miguel adds:
"It just occurred to me that this campaign finance scheme is a little bit like "smurfing" in the world of money laundering. A "smurf" opens up a bank account for just under $10,000, which is the threshold after which banks have to report to the tax authorities. So if a criminal organizations wants to hide illegal money, they sometimes use these smurfs to open up hundreds of small bank accounts.

In this case, the Turks appeared to be "smurfing" the campaign system by writing checks under $200."

Indeed - that's exactly what it is (although i'm unfamiliar with the term) - I apologise if that wasn't made clear earlier. It's a standard trick (in both legal and illegal activities) - you look at the law, see what you are permitted to do, and then find a way around it.

The person at Common Cause has a valid point in that "tens of thousands" isn't a whole lot of money - although at the same time, we've seen that just about every other congresscritter can be bought for that amount.

Let's go back to David Rose:
"According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings. "
Rose specifically says that the contributions were in 'checks' - that language may or may not precise - and even if his language is literally true, he's only quoting people in the wiretaps - and their language may or may not be precise it may be shorthand for 'contributions'. Again, I'm not exactly sure about the campaign finance laws - is it possible to donate in cash? If it is possible to donate in cash, then it doesn't make much sense that they would use checks if they were trying to get the cash in Hastert's account(s) without any fingerprints.

Similarly, if it is possible to donate in cash (presumably with 'receipts' with a name and address), and presuming they were specifically trying to launder the money, then I expect that most of the names and addresses are either:
a) completely fictitious or
b) a bunch of repeats (i.e. just a few people making many donations of $199)
On the other hand, if cash donations are forbidden, then Rose must be correct when he talks of checks. Obviously. The question remains, though, why would they bundle a whole bunch of checks under the $200 radar? Common Cause suggests that it would be "logistically complex" - i guess they are presuming that the bribers would have to round up hundreds of individual donors - but that wouldn't make any sense. If they had hundreds of donors, then they wouldn't have to hide under the $200 radar - the donations would simply appear to come from a particular lobbying/interest group. Therefore, if this money did indeed come via checks (or 'cheques' as we call 'em here), my bet is that the 'tens of thousands' came from just a handful of bank accounts. And if that's the case, then it's more than likely that the owners of those bank accounts have broken the law by donating more than the legal maximum - and they 'knew' that they could get away with it because the $<200 don't need to be disclosed.

The person from Common Cause also says that its "very risky given it's foreign contributions" - but again, this misses the point. If the purpose was to get around the laws, then the purported 'donors' wouldn't be foreign - the money will have been washed through a US citizen - perhaps the secretary or someone else at the ATAA who would be a 'legitimate' donor.

Let me add here, that those looking for 'foreign names' in Denny's donor list ought be careful - the answer will neither prove or disprove anything.

I do agree with the person at Common Cause when they say "I am endlessly surprised at the various schemes for raising funds" - that's the point. If there's a way, it'll be done.

Having said that, none of this is very elaborate, or unusual - just consider as an example that Christine DeLay 'worked' for Alexander Strategy Group.

(cross-posted at wotisitgood4)

Update: for all of the reasons mentioned above, Denny must Disclose! Fully. Any partial nonsense like 'in October, only $1000 wasn't from Illinois' can never be satisfactory

Friday, February 10, 2006

bradblog shoutout

thanks to bradblog for a shoutout.

brad is promising a bunch of new exciting things in the next little while. stay tuned.

Thanks, Democrats.com

Bob at Democrats.com has pointed to this blog in a post very 'generously' called "Can An Australian Blogger Bring Down Speaker Hastert?" and he put out a call for other bloggers to help out and cover the story. (Thanks Bob)

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Democracy Now: Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes?

Back in August 05 (when the VF article was published), Democracy Now interviewed Sibel and David Rose in a piece called "Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and Approve Weapons Sales?"

I've emailed them to see if they want to do a followup piece (news and/or interview) in response to Evans' letter

John Laesch

* over at bradblog, John Laesch left the following comment:
"My name is John Laesch and I am the Democrat who is running against Dennis J. Hastert in Illinois' 14th District.

I served as an intelligence analyst for the United States Navy; having spoken to Mrs. Edmonds personally, I see no reason to doubt her statments. Why would she make all of this up - which is what Hastert's spin doctors are saying.

If Mr. Hastert wants to come clean, then he needs to open up his records and prove to the world that he is innocent.

I would be happy to open up my campaign contributions and I would welcome anyone to join that effort by logging on to www.john06.com and making a financial contribution.

I am one of 50 Veteran Democrats running for U.S. Congress with hopes of restoring integrity to Washington. People need a government they can trust.

Respectfully,
John Laesch"
He seems like the perfect 'candidate' for taking the lead in getting Hastert to disclose his campaign contributions. He has a bigger platform, and significant motivation...

I'll try to get in contact with him.

cross-posted at Wotisitgood4

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

hastert and sibel

a couple of days ago, 'anonymous' in the comments suggested that we jointly compose a letter to Vanity Fair in response to Randy Evans' most unsatisfying and belated response to An Inconvenient Patriot where Hastert was accused by " several sources in the congress and several sources within the FBI counterintelligence division" of accepting a bunch of small campaign contributions as the price for torpedoing the Armenian Genocide resolution.

Anon's comment in full was:
"Maybe you could take the lead on a response LTE to VF? Here's my suggestion: Post the Evans letter and your drafted response based on Miguel's points. Keeping bumping to the top of page and add a call-out to your readership to suggest new points/questions with a one-week deadline. You post revised drafts on Wednesday and Friday which incorporate the best points your readers raise. Then submit to Rose, the LTE editor and the publisher of VF."
Incidentally, miguel tells me that:
"Hastert later told the reporter (Ed Fanselow) that he had sent all his data to the FEC and asked them to speed up their inquiry."
I haven't been able to (yet) verify that part of the story - however Evans doesn't mention it in his letter to VF. Interesting, no? If Hastert lied to the reporter about that, then he was obviously just trying to kick the can down the road.

The always-helpful and ever-industrious Miguel has penned a proposed letter to VF which he humbly calls a 'first stab':
"Dear Editor,

You published a letter from Randy Evans, Counsel to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, last month which would, on the surface at least, appear to clear the most powerful member of the U.S. Congress of any suspicion of taking illicit campaign contributions from Turkish nationals in exchange for political favors. However, I would like to point out that Mr. Evans’ letter raises more questions than it answers about the large number of unitemized contributions received by Mr. Hastert from 1996-2002.

Mr. Evans tries to frame the debate about Hastert’s contributions of less than $200 by singling out the month of October, 2000, during which time Evans claims that Hastert’s own records show that the unitemized contributions totalled to “less than $9,200”. The main problem with this line of argument is that Mr. Rose never specified in the article what time frame the Turkish nationals would have made the bundled contributions; in fact, Mr. Rose’s analysis suggest that contributions were made over several years, not just in one single month. More importantly,
however, is that Mr. Evans does not address the question of whether Hastert’s internal records reveal an unusually large number of Turkic sounding names, which would be the primary metric that might indicate that the translated wiretaps were more than “hollow boasts”. Finally, it should be pointed out that Evans’ letter may have given some readers the misleading impression that Hastert has released the list of his previously unitemized donations to public scrutiny. A review of Hastert’s filings with the Federal Election Commission, however, reveals that none of this data has to date been made public. If Mr. Hastert truly “retains
information on the identity and residence of contributors, including those contributing less than $200”, as Evans claims, then one would think the Speaker should back up his Counsel’s claims by publishing all this data to put this issue to rest once and for all. After all, the decisions Dennis Hastert makes on a daily basis affect all Americans, and not just the residents of the Speaker’s own Congressional District."

a pretty good 'first stab' huh?

lemme make a few randomish (and in no particular order) points:

1. we are already behind anon's suggested timeframe, because we only saw the text of the letters today - that's ok though because VF is a monthly magazine.

2. it's a great idea to jointly compose an LTE - but I suggest that we individually also send in our submissions. my guess is that the more LTEs they receive on any particular subject, the more likely they are to publish one of them.

3. having said that, our ultimate goal is to get Hastert to release all of the details of his campaign financing. With that in mind, we need to remember not to get caught in the weeds by poking holes in Evans' response and arguing about details.

4. We should aim to move this beyond the LTE pages of VF. I've been tossing around in my head a couple of broader campaign ideas - I haven't cemented any great ideas yet, but we shuold come up with a plan by Monday morning.

5. Randy Evans has made a career for himself representing dodgy repug causes - so he's undoubtedly pretty smart. We should be cognizant of which rabbit holes he is trying to force us into, and try to reverse-engineer why he is pointing us in that particular direction, and devise a strategy from that knowledge/awareness. eg 'from illinois', 'october 2000', and last but not least, the fact that the only issue that Evans even addressed was the issue of small contributions (rather than the more serious charges)

6. does anyone know if Evans is a new recruit to the Hastert cause? has Evans worked for hastert before? Did Haster recruit him to deal with this particular 'problem'?

7. as per above, can anyone verify that Hastert told Faneslow that he has submitted his contribution info to FEC? can anyone verify whether that has actually been done? and if so, why and when? was it in response to CREW's efforts?

7. re CREW, i emailed them yesterday but havent heard back from them. similarly, Faneslow.

8. re 'Turkic sounding names' as the 'primary metric' - my guess is that we steer away from this line of thinking. i dont know the detail of the reporting requirements of $199 contributions, but if they really were laundering the contributions, then it is likely that the 'donations' were in cash, and the accompanying documentation was probably falsified. if they did a reasonable job trying to cover their tracks, it's likely there are as many Jane Smiths as Ebru Orals.

9. re "less than $9,200 was donated in October 2000" - firstly, the resolution flip-flop was on the 19th of the month - is Evans trying to argue that bribes usually come immediately before and immediately after a resolution? Secondly, "Hastert for Congress received $110,860.75 in unitemized contributions in 2001 and $72,275 in unitemized contributions in 2000" - therefore $9200 was simply an average month - why didnt Evans make that point? presumably that would strengthen his case - and we can presume that he isnt an idiot. why isn't that dog barking?

10. Evans: " only five contributors (whose donations amounted to less than $1,000 total) were from somewhere other than Illinois." - is he trying to filibuster? try as i might, i've not been able to come up with a scenario where five contributions of less than $200 can be anything other than "less than $1,000 total"

11. Sibel also makes some great points, of course:
a) "Why did Hastert’s office refuse to provide Vanity Fair with information refuting the claims prior to the article being published despite many attempts by VF?" - there's no good answer to that.

b) sibel also points to another comment that has intrigued me before: "Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials."

c) sibel: "Why doesn’t Hastert disclose all the contributions (those under $200), to all his PACs (he has several)"

d) sibel: "should we refer to Mr. Hastert’s dealing with the named foreign organization via [former House Speaker] Bob Livingston’s lobbying firm (Livingston Group)?" - this is intriguing - i've written extensively about the livingston connection, start here (and more here, and here) sibel has only recently begun discussing the Livingston connection.

12. there's some more on Evans here:
"Quick Summary of Randy Evans

The attorney who responded for Hastert has a rather high profile background himself.

Randy Evans of Georgia has served on the Georgia State Board of Elections since April 2003. He was the head of the legal team for the Bush-Cheney '04 Reelection in Georgia. He is general counsel of the Georgia Republican Party.

He has served as an attorney who advises the House Republican leadership on government ethics. His clients include the former and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Evans has been Chairman of Gingrich Holdings, Inc. Evans is serving as Special Master for the Georgia Supreme Court.

Randy Evans is chairman of the board of the J.C. Watts Companies (http://www.jcwatts.com/bios/bio5.html). Watts represented Oklahoma’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives for eight years through January 7, 2003. Watts served as Chair of the House Republican Conference and served on a number of key committees during his tenure in Congress, including the Armed Services Committee, the Select Homeland Security Committee, the Military Readiness Subcommittee and the Procurement Subcommittee."

anyways - that's about it for my random thoughts of the evening. the main points seem to be:
a) hastert is feeling some heat (from somewhere?), otherwise they would have kept quiet and not re-opened this can o' pandoras.
b) the time seems ripe for broadening the campaign beyond VF. let me mull some possibilities over the next couple of days - suggestions are most welcome. hopefully i'll hear back soon from a couple of the people ive tried to contact so that i can co-ordinate with CREW et al
c) our main goal is to get denny to disclose all of his campaign contributions - and we need to make sure that all our efforts are directed toward that goal. i.e. we need to resist getting dragged into the weeds by Evans

cross posted at wotisitgood4

Denny Hastert, please disclose

(this post has been bumped up to the intro post)

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

hastert and sibel

Update for DU'ers - i put together a post on Hastert's real crimes yesterday with the latest that we know. Also, don't miss the blog for the new film about Sibel here.
---------------------------------

BradBlog has the VF letter from Haster's Lawyer, David Rose's response, and a response from sibel.

Update: miguel has helpfully transcribed the text of the letters (thnx miguel!)
"Hastert’s Money Trail

“An Inconvenient Patriot” (September) by David Rose, contains references to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert which could suggest that accusations in a wiretap concerning unaccounted-for contributions were credible and possibly true; those references were themselves unfounded. Unlike many public officials, Speaker Hastert retains information on the identity and residence of contributors, including those contributing less than $200. Those records indicate that there was no basis for suggesting that there were numerous unaccounted-for contributions, much less hundreds of thousands of them. The facts are: the data regarding contributions of less than $200 provide the identity of the donors of Speaker
Hastert’s un-itemized contributions, confirming that none were of questionable
origin or legality. In fact, less than $9,200 (not $500,000, or even tens of thousands of dollars) was donated in October 2000, and only five contributors (whose donations amounted to less than $1,000 total) were from somewhere other than Illinois.

Randy Evans
Counsel to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
Atlanta, GA

DAVID ROSE REPLIES: My article did not suggest that the alleged contents of F.B.I. wiretaps in which the Turkish targets spoke of donations to Mr. Hastert’s campaign were credible or true. Indeed, it stated that their claims may have been “hollow boasts”. The point is that the contents have been described by the former F.B.I. translator Sibel Edmonds to congressional investigators, but only under conditions of strict secrecy, and as long as the government persists in smothering her case beneath the state-secrets privilege, there is no possibility of testing the veracity of any of her allegations, the reported Hastert wiretaps included. "
As many have noted - a very weak response from Evans, and also a soft response from David Rose. Let's see if we can get Hastert's full records released.

and Sibel's response (from BradBlog):
"1) Why is Hastert refusing to declare all donations?

On August 16, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requesting an investigation into whether Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s campaign committee illegally accepted campaign contributions from foreign nationals in 2000 and 2001. Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, stated “if Hastert for Congress received an unusually large number of contributions in amounts just under $200 in a relatively condensed period of time, the treasurer’s suspicions should have been raised, particularly if many of these checks appeared to be made out by individuals with foreign names.” “As a result,” Sloan continued, “the treasurer should have followed the procedures outlined by the FEC to discover whether, in fact, the campaign illegally received contributions from foreign nationals.”

“The sheer number of small contributions should have raised a red flag. Hastert’s campaign committee was obligated to ensure that no laws were being broken. It is now time for a thorough investigation into Hastert’s finances.”

2) Why did Hastert’s office refuse to provide Vanity Fair with information refuting the claims prior to the article being published despite many attempts by VF?

3) The article correctly establishes the timeline (Hastert receiving illegal donations) as 1996 to 2002. Why did Randy Evans pick only October 2000 for his letter in response to the article on Hastert by VF?

4) One of the sources for VF on wiretaps involving Dennis Hastert is identified as an FBI Counterintelligence official who worked on this particular case; does Mr. Evans accuse this source of lying?:

“It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Its subject was explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. “There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on, “the official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion,” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

5) Mr. Evans states: ‘… and only five contributors (whose donations amounted to less than $1,000 total) were from somewhere other than Illinois.’

Nothing in the VF article suggested that questionable donations only came from OUTSIDE Illinois. It is likely that many (most) came from within Illinois – after all – Chicago is certainly in Illinois.

6) Why doesn’t Hastert disclose all the contributions (those under $200), to all his PACs (he has several) for the years between 1997 and 2001? Many congressman do just that; why not come clean & show us yours Mr. Hastert?

7) In the VF article Hastert’s spokesman says that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. [American-Turkish Council] or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: “He does not know these organizations.”

a. Please refer to Mr. Hastert’s trips to Turkey (all trips that took place- 1996-2002); its sponsors…they are self evident. Now how can he claim not knowing these entities (very intimately)?

b. Also, should we refer to Mr. Hastert’s dealing with the named foreign organization via [former House Speaker] Bob Livingston’s lobbying firm (Livingston Group)?

8) Finally, the article by VF had several sources in the congress and several sources within the FBI counterintelligence division. I was not cited as a source." (emph in orig)

cross-posted at wotisitgood4

(start here for my other sibel posts)


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