Sideways
The senior Justice Department official who sent a letter to a Republican senator falsely claiming that the department did not allow guns to be “walked” to drug smugglers in Mexico during the Fast and Furious investigation left the department Wednesday to become dean of the Baltimore School of Law.
Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich told Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa — who had initiated Congress’s Fast and Furious probe — that accusations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico were “false.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said “I am proud of the work done by the Office of Legislative Affairs under Ron’s watch to advance legislation vital to ensuring justice.”
Weich was also mentioned in connection misleading Congress in regard to a bribery scandal involving officials in the US Virgin Islands. Those officials were said to have accepted bribes to favor the proposal of a certain company which needed their approval to do business. “On April 24, 2012 the Daily Caller reported that U.S. Department of Justice official Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich plans to resign his position shortly for allegedly providing misleading information to congress relative to the Virgin Islands bribery scandal and other matters.” According to another Daily Caller article:
In February, Weich denied the Justice Department’s involvement in another scandal. The Daily Caller learned that the DOJ had failed to arrest and prosecute several indicted financial criminals because of an alleged bribery scheme. Weich said the DOJ had no knowledge of any bribery.
But TheDC’s investigation unearthed allegations that two DOJ prosecutors on a team of more than 25 accepted cash bribes from indicted finance executives in the U.S. Virgin Islands. And USVI Gov. John de Jongh allegedly accepted part of at least $20 million in cash bribes in exchange for favors from his administration. At least five other prosecutors, according to TheDC’s well-placed source in the DOJ, were compromised.
The scandal involved not only Virgin Islands officials, but impinged on circles frequented by Barney Frank, who took free rids on a Virgin Island’s power broker’s private jet. Frank denied any wrongdoing saying it was no crime to have pals with money.
The Maine News Wire Dot Com, recently published an article headlined, “Sussman associates entangled in Virgin Islands bribery scandal,” that reads: “Associates of Congreewoman Chellie Pingree’s husband, billionaire hedge fund investor, S. Donald Sussman, have become key players in a bribery scandal that is rocking the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Sussman has been a resident of the USVI for years, and uses a controversial tax shelter managed by the Virgin Islands Economic Development Commission (EDC) for his company, Trust Asset Management. Though parameters of the tax shelter require his residence in the USVI, Sussman has recently claimed that he is a resident of Maine, since his 2011 marriage to U.S. Congresswoman Pingree. Pingree and Sussman continue to frequent their multiple mansions in the islands, and have entertained notable figures on their private jet vacations, including Congressman and former chair of the Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank. Details of Sussman’s tax shelter use were reported by the Weekly Standard in 2010.”
Even Barack Obama has been dragged into the mess. Sussman is a major donor to left wing and Democratic Party causes. “Sussman sits on the board of the Center for American Progress, the Democracy Alliance and the dovish Israel Policy Forum, and he’s been one of the top contributors to left-leaning 527 organizations during the 2010 election cycle. ”
Gary James, who recently relocated to St. Croix from New York, has contacted Congressmen, Rangel and Conyers concerning the perception of political collusion between particular members of the US Department of Justice and VI government officials under indictment, which is why execution of the federal sealed indictments was truncated. In his (James) letter to the congressmen, he said, “I am concerned that there are efforts underway to link President Obama’s reelection campaign with short circuiting movement on the alleged VI government corruption case, for political reasons.”
James is heading up a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in New York City, on behalf of the reelection of President Obama, and they are formulating a fundraiser a fall fundraiser for the Obama campaign. A spokesperson for Gary James said, “We trust that President Obama will in short order distance his reelection the campaign in order to avoid any perception of collusion with the administration of the non-voting Virgin Islands governor.”
Given the degree of incivility and partisanship rampant in Washington today, it is probably wise for Weich to get out of the line of fire and retire to the sedate and rarified atmosphere of academia. Otherwise people might get the wrong idea about a lot of things.
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A market solution. Firms decline to hire Baltimore Law graduates. Judges decline to offer clerkss.
Monaco was called by Somerset Maugham, “A sunny place for shady people.”
There will be many more foul things scuttling off into the darkness over the next few months. That is why I expect the MSM to jump on the bandwagon. If it bleeds it leads and scandal and corruption are not far behind. The Clown Posse is bound to be good for a few headlines. We need a poll on who does the best perp walk.
Weich is just a little rat. Some big rats are jumping ship also;
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/06/13/oh_my_aflcio_pulling_campaign_funds_from_obama_reelect
Labor Unions are dumping the Won. That, of course, has nothing to do with Obumbler dumping on them in Wisconsin. Pure Co-ink-see-dink.
It looks like the Won’s bad week is stretching into a bad month. Lets see, the vote on Holder’s contempt charge comes up later this week, doesn’t it? The Greek vote this coming Sunday on killing off the EU. So it might get worse.
Robert Heinlein said, “Someone who goes broke in a big way never seems to miss a meal. It’s the poor guy who is shy half a buck that has to tighten his belt.”
And so it is with crooks. Scooter Libby goes to jail for lying in an investigation about a non-crime based on information he provided to the investigators himself. Charlie Rangel, Al Sharpton, Bwany Fwank, Sandy Burglar, et. al, get away with multiple major crimes. You just have to be a big enough criminal that it embarasses a lot of important people.
And by the way, Fitzgerald just quit his job….
So a shamelessly lying stooge for left-wing creeps is moving to academia? How appropriate. He’ll fit right in.
Fitzgerald is out? Fitzgerald is out?
Well, that must mean that Chicago is all cleaned up, now that they put Blagojevich away.
Heh,heh,heh……
What a country, huh?
I heard that there may be an opening for an adjunct professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. Easy work, no publication history of scholarly articles in law reviews required …
In total contrast, I offer the following:
To all within reach of New York City: a fabulous exhibition of THE LIFE OF WINSTON CHURCHILL is on view right now in midtown at the J. P. Morgan Library — complete with voice recordings of the great man making his most famous speeches, letters in his own handwriting, photographs, and artifacts.
Go see this treasure trove of material on the man who, more than any other, saved Western Civilization by standing fast when all hope seemed lost, and Britain stood alone against the might of the Axis Powers. If that doesn’t get your blood up, nothing will:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bplrxec
In years gone by this would have made front page news. With corruption so rampant I believe the public just expects all left-wing polls to be corrupt and it is OK just as long as the checks keep coming. Further, I believe that the MSM in bed with the corrupt polls.
If I am wrong this story will propagate. If I am right the story will be swept under the rug. We shall see how much traction this story gets.
Reply to 1. Blast From the Past “A market solution.”
Alt-market solution: Invest in government!
Something the little guy isn’t allowed to do.
(Wait a minute! I can buy shares in some sectors: I think I just saw a way to trade a politically directed market. Thanks, Blast! Think FNMA pops, Jan-Feb 2009, before they took it away after the pump-n-dump)
We could send Bam to St. Croix next January.
Of course, he’d renamed the island. What’s the Hawaiian for “Land of the Jug-eared god”?
Actually, who lives on St. Helena these days?
An Préachán
We could send Bam to St. Croix next January.
Of course, he’d rename the island. What’s the Hawaiian for “Land of the Jug-eared god”?
Actually, I wonder who lives on St. Helena these days?
An Préachán
Thanks Wretch for another fine article.
I have been following this story from the day the Brian Terry got shot with a F&F gun.
But this is kind of bugging me…
Why is no one following the money? All these agencies have maticulus and detailed budgets. It is my understanding that black ops were of the military type only… has the bridge into the political realm been breached on such? Byway of the justice department?
Why has Issa not examined this front? Are government agencies even audited anymore? Can this be the reason that the Senate and administration reject the whole idea of a budget? Even Hitler took meticulous records of his dirty deeds.
The fact that F & F did not pass the smell test is not of concern anymore… that ship has sailed. What concerns me is the administrations tactic of “buying time.” Time for what?
When you consider that 93% of the administration has never held a private sector job is scary enough. Every solution they come up with makes matters worse for everyone but them.
This whole matter leaves me with a sense of foreboding that I just can’t shake. There is something afoot, and considering the damage done by the administration already, I cannot for the life of me figure out what they are up to.
If you just look at the way they passed HC in the dead of the night on Christmas Eve byway of the most corrupt methodology ever seen in US history, I think my fear is rational, and warranted.
Your Thoughts… Please.
PS: I did the math on the “stimulus”. Then I did it again. And again. I come up about a $160 billion short of what was allocated, and what was spent. Where did that money go? Just think about it, all those “shovel ready” jobs… Construction on any public infrastructure job requires that bonds be sold before they even start at the drafting table. All those signs went up at union work sites that had already been funded. What? Needless to say: there are issues.
Follow the money.
#13
Bloggers who could be researching and looking into the issues mentioned here, are too busy protecting themselves against SWATTing by a very minor character in the scheme of things. It’s hard to follow the money when your door is being kicked down.
$160 billion is missing?
“…sedate and rarefied atmosphere of academia…” I like that, Wretchard, I like it a lot. I’m sure he will contribute mightily to the school’s reputation. He may introduce a whole area of study that has been sadly neglected: Stonewalling 101, How To Dodge A Perjury Rap, Foiling FOIA, Congressional Inquiries and Other Comedy Acts, Black Budgeting,… That’s a master’s-level program right there.
So the termite is moved a law school. The rot is deep, our institutions so thoroughly compromised. The law schools churn out amoral opportunitists and capricious judges, public education and universities deliberatly addle their students and the media-entertainment industrial complex revels in decadence and serves as enforcer of political correctness.
We face the opposite of the assembly lines of the second world war which, safe and unmolested oceans away from the fighting, churned out an endless and unstoppable arsenal of democracy. Denying Obama a second term will still leave in place generations of work and renewal to be done within the institutions and ‘factories’ of our society.
Given the degree of incivility and partisanship rampant in Washington today, it is probably wise for Weich to get out of the line of fire and retire to the sedate and rarified atmosphere of academia.
And in that sedate and rarified – and politically poisoned – atmosphere, he will merrily preach to students the gospel of the Holder DOJ: that your team may prevail, with the Federal winds at your back, by all means necessary. I believe @15 oMan has already seen the catalog which Weich is preparing for his cozy tenure.
Thanks for mentioning the ongoing bribery scandal Wretchard. It is but one of many existential scandals we live under. Our corruption certainly hits well above our weight.
(FWIW, here are more: http://cruciansinfocus.com/)
I’ve long contended that the U.S.V.I. has essentially been a democrat testbed for modelling what entrenched D’rats may expect to get away with. We’re a progressive petri dish. Consequently I’ve taken to calling us “The “little city that ain’t”…We’ve got all the “urban” vices -and then some- with next to none of the sophisticated cultural perks.
We are governed through an hybrid corporatist-croney-socialist system gussied up with a thin veneer of ‘democracy’. Where Rome’s elite relied upon bread and circuses financed by tributes and loot from imperial provinces, we have a perpetual carnival of political rally chicken legs and government jobs financed by Uncle Sam. …We’re the province that’s looting the imperials.
It’s not terribly different from the sugarcane plantation days system which once ruled the local roost wherein an enslaved class is pressed to work their fingers to the bone to support our massahs in style. Our massah’s in turn ‘protect’ their “investments” and “revenue streams” by seeing to the feeding and working health of their chattels through a class of freer slaves -who’ve been granted a higher station- and indentured servants to keep the simmering but cowed rabble in line…But hey, at least we workers are allowed to plant our own little plots of ground provisions to save us from Massah’s free starvation diet plan, and our ‘hospitals’ don’t enthusiastically chase us down to pay for our bleedings – government monopoly ‘hospitals’ don’t much care about remaining solvent…And today there are air ambulance services to see to the health of our betters.
Once upon a time our main forms of self-defense relied upon the incompetent caprices endemic throughout the plantation system and the ability of the enslaved to engage in petty acts of defiance which [hopefully] fell below the threat threshold of the aristocracy’s watchers. Cut the cane, don’t get too uppity, don’t revolt and all would be well. Like in many third-world satrapies, if you could keep your head down, avoid massah’s minions, you could live relatively unscathed -if impoverished and whip scarred- independent lives. Unfortunately, this too is changing for the worse as the Federal spigot pours resources into increasing the revenue collection and policing efficiencies of an expanding galaxy of local and federal authorities, but dedicates next to nothing toward [really] cleaning out the corruption of the “rule of law” engaged in by said galaxy of authorities. Our sociopolitical design margin has, and still does, require massive injections of other people’s (Stateside) free money distributed -as our apparently un-beholden administrators see fit- by a network of local patrons who are all known to have the goods on each other. This is wedded to the maintenance of traditional scapegoats to mollify and misdirect the ire of deh people dem who’ve been browbeaten into apathy. In other words, the stability of our modern plantation system depends upon biting the hand that feeds – but not too hard as to cause a Fireburn. Stability, Virgin Islands style, means that we’re in a perpetual state of collapse for everyone but the patrons and minions charged with distributing unearned monies. Sound familiar?
I’m pretty sure that if it were possible to get away with, or if there was enough unsupervised free stateside money made available, our local government would decree that everyone shall henceforth become a dependent ‘employee’ of the V.I. – All for our own good of course.
3. stoicheion, regarding Barry’s Bad Month. Don’t forget, the Supremes are due to rule on ObamaCare soon. Let’s hope the decision makes June 2012 a game changer.
8. Beverly. The exhibit sounds wonderful. Regarding Churchill’s remarkable legacy: In the 1950s, schoolchildren in So. America had an assignment to write letters to the Greatest Man in the World. One girl mailed her letter in an envelope with no address, just those critical words. Weeks/months later that letter, which had passed through countless post offices and crossed the ocean, was delivered to Winston Churchill.
Lets see, the vote on Holder’s contempt charge comes up later this week, doesn’t it? The Greek vote this coming Sunday on killing off the EU. So it might get worse.
Don’t forget the SCOTUS Obamacare vote — also this month.
Middle East Caldron sure started bubbling higher today… Economy sure didn’t get better today ether…. I don’t smoke but sure wish 0bama would hurry up and legalize Pot, we need more young people to get into a mellow state before things get much hotter!
The apparently vast scope of corrupt activity in today’s federal executive branch seems to be so pervasive that it overwhelms the senses. Therein lies a problem: It is hard to keep track of this fast-moving torrent of criminality and venality. There have been so many scandals that one forgets about many of them over time. In a previous recent thread someone mentioned Pigford, which I had forgotten about. I could toss in the obvious scandal of Obama & co. defying a federal judge’s order to lift his defacto moratorium on Gulf drilling, or the 440 “Congressional districts” invented by the Stimulus-to-Nowhere website for disbursement of funds, or . . . you get the picture.
How does one present all this to the public? There eyes would glaze over trying to absorb this. It is in the same category as the numbing effect of the cascade of spending: so much being spent that the average citizen is too fatigued from it all to be scandalized. To top it off, several “experts” have labeled this administration “scandal-free,” and not been challenged on it.
How do you change the narrative to push against this tide? How do you make people listen and grasp the scope and seriousness of all this corruption?
Beverly,
Though I’m half a world away and will not get the chance to see the Churchill exhibit, thank you for bringing it up. It is always good to remember him, particularly in times of trouble like this. Whenever I think the outlook is dim, I try to remember how much worse it could be (Summer 1940?) and how Winston Churchill faced up to a vastly more dangerous situation. We can handle this one–I’m hoping it’s late 1943 for us!
Employment been falling (yet unemployment not really changing), large layoffs announced and more looming, To Big To Fail lose billions and then jokes about how accidental it all is, Numerous serious scandals (unstable Administration), collapsing “major” trading partner (EU), Middle East burner on high and the DJI is up, oil up and Gold up? It’s all Whacked! The spin is only picking up speed…
Don Rodrigo @22
“How do you make people listen and grasp the scope and seriousness of all this corruption?”
Short of having the means to build boats for friends and family, I suspect that we really can’t do much of anything to help people comprehend and act to counter the massive tide of corruption that’s inundating the land. The levees are breached and they’re likely going to have to feel its effects first…Good and hard.
…And many of us are feelin’ it as we dog paddle to keep our heads above the torrent. It’s sink or swim time in America.
They’re likely going to have to feel its effects first…Good and hard.
And a friend of mine has: from the DOJ. He innocently deposited cash from one bank to another in small amounts on a number of occasions and was flagged by the DOJ for “money laundering.” The DOJ officials offered to “drop the charges” if he let them keep 60% of his account that they had seized. It was blatant extortion and officials from other federal agencies agreed with my friend to that effect. The DOJ eventually dropped the whole thing and my friend got to keep all his money. I suspect a DOJ higher-up got wind of the abuse. I would not be surprised if there are a number of such DOJ-originated scams going on, being stopped, and then popping up elsewhere in the agency.
“Fitzgerald just quit his job.”
Well, why wouldn’t he? His work is done.
OT, but priceless:
Noted helmet-head Anna Wintour is sponsoring/making “Bark for Obama” T-Shirts
Never mind the initial dopiness of the lunch with Anna/Michelle/Jessicanose Parker raffle, introducing “dog” into an Obama narrative seems to be a spectacularly clueless move.
Note the universally scornful comments in reply to the item, which appears in the Washington Post. I find it very telling that a liberal paper receives such comments.
I hope the Obama campaign keeps rolling out more and more such idiocy.
Don Rod:”The DOJ officials offered to “drop the charges” if he let them keep 60% of his account that they had seized. ”
Here in Kalifornia, our public officials have gone full bore trolling and extorting dollars from private citizens. I know one civil engineer who was sued by the state, falsely, for inadequately filing for a tract map. There was no injury to anyone; the tract map was approved. He so far has coughed up $16 k to an attorney and the State still won’t tell him how much they want to fine him. In our fascist State, a guilty verdict is a near certainty and the only question is how much he will have to cough up.
I know another nearly bankrupt hardwood flooring contractor, who the City of Santa Clarita has threatened to imprison because he didn’t file for workman’s comp insurance for a part time helper. The State and Cities are sending out roving inspectors looking for construction vans at construction sites, ( kinda like the EPA drones), where they might catch some workmen’s comp miscreants. Illegals are exempt from prosecution of course.
I heard that Chuck Norris once visited the Virgin Islands.
now they’re more properly known as just “The Islands.”
wws @30
Lol!
…Unfortunately we compromised our own virginity long ago.
I sometimes wish there really was a Chuck Norris type (not a hooded scythe-wielding one) who could come to the rescue and b-slap some of our misleaders -and their enabling posse- into fiscal responsibility…But therein lies an all too familiar madness.
19. GDI
I had forgotten, thanks. If the Won’s pet project gets killed by the Supremes it will really shiver his timbers.
As far as my forgetting, I’m old and ‘So many scandals, so little time’.
http://www.askheritage.org/why-is-the-media-not-investigating-obama_administration-scandals/
I had also forgotten about lightsquared.
22. Don Rodrigo: “Therein lies a problem: It is hard to keep track of this fast-moving torrent of criminality and venality. There have been so many scandals that one forgets about many of them over time.”
Perhaps David Limbaugh’s recent release:
Crimes Against Liberty:An Indictment of President Barack Obama
would serve as a good reminder.
tom