Newsweek: GOP repeatedly pushed Iglesias to prosecute a group that was registering minority voters

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17888551/site/newsweek/

Rove: A Moving Target

Newsweek

April 9, 2007 issue - New disclosures in the U.S. attorney controversy have increased the pressure on White House aide Karl Rove. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's ex-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testified last week that "during the run-up to the midterm elections," the A.G. told him Rove had "complained" that David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, and two other federal prosecutors, were not doing enough to prosecute voter fraud—a top GOP priority. It was shortly after that, Sampson said, that Iglesias got added to the list of U.S. attorneys to be fired. (Iglesias told NEWSWEEK he had been repeatedly pushed by New Mexico GOP officials to prosecute workers for ACORN, an activist group that was registering voters in minority neighborhoods, but he found no cases worth bringing.) Justice was also forced to correct its earlier assertion that Rove did not play "any role" in replacing the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. Sampson's e-mails showed he had described the replacement as "important to ... Karl." Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy warned the White House that even a Gonzales resignation would not "short-circuit" his probe, vowing to block confirmation hearings for any successor unless he gets Rove under oath. (Bush has refused to allow Rove and other White House officials to testify in public.) White House spokeswoman Dana Perino reaffirmed Bush's "100 percent" backing of Gonzales, and the A.G. vowed to carry on.

The inquiries are only multiplying. The Office of Special Counsel has begun its own investigation into whether Iglesias's dismissal was a violation of both the Hatch Act (which prohibits federal employees from being fired for "political" reasons) and a law that bars discrimination against military-service members, said an official, anonymous when talking about an internal matter. Justice officials have at times suggested one reason Iglesias was fired is that he spent too much time away from the office because he is in the naval reserves. The agency's director, Scott Bloch, recently pledged "aggressive" enforcement of the law, which is increasingly important given the growing number of National Guard and military reserves called up for service in Iraq.

—Michael Isikoff

:wow:

[yardwork]

1. This entire attorney scandal is all about stealing elections

It was run by Rove as part of his effort to "elect" Republicans by any means necessary.

[weezy2736]

5. Funny how all their money

and cheating ends up helping us in the end. I'm all for playing fair, but I love catching someone else.
:popcorn:

[Norquist Nemesis]

14. Yes, but also looking toward the future elections

Specifically, 2008.

[wtmusic]

2. drip...drip....drip....

:D

[IWantAChange]

3. Pop all the corn you can buy - the lights haven't even been dimmed yet....

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Sydnie]

4. Yet, all the money they gave Sproul for his deceptions

don't seem to warrant investigation, huh?

http://baltimorechronicle.com/070505Miller-Irmus.shtml

[Botany]

9. And the last money .... about 1.5 million .... that Sproul got went ......

.... "to help" in the Ohio recount. When the hell is the media going to admit that
2004 was stolen?

BTW Did I ever tell you that you are my Fav?

[glitch]

10. Exactly. What about Sproul? The attorneys who didn't pursue Sproul's crimes need scrutiny.nt

[Supersedeas]

13. According to the GoP/Media Establishment--attorneys serve at the will of Dimson

[annabanana]

6. YAY!

That's right! I want. .

"More, More More!"



(enjoy the earworm, folks)

[KansDem]

7. "Mississippi Burning"...again

Unbelievable.

Instead of pursuing these activists in pickup trucks with confederate flags and blowing them away, the new KKK is trying to use the judicial system to harass and intimidate advocates of democracy.

Just 43 years later...

[Laughing Mirror]

16. Same thing. Registering minorities is voter fraud to them

So minorities voting is illegal.

It's the good ole reliable KKK system alive & well in Washington, DC.

That picture in the article of Rove and partner out there hoofing it up says it all. Where are there hoods?

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. The new definition of chutzpah:

The Bush White House calling in all reservists to serve in his war of choice, then going back to their government jobs and removing the non-Bushies for taking too much time off from work.

[WiseButAngrySara]

17. Talk about ironic hypocrisy! B* didn't serve and

certainly shouldn't have stated "It's hard work" about anything, because he doesn't work hard and takes way too much time off from his supposed 'hard work'!

[Igel]

11. ACORN's been caught doing more than a few wrong

things with voter registrations. Forging them, keeping copies for later foot work, submitting them without sufficient documentation, holding some and not submitting them. In 2004 it's probably accurate to say they registered a 13-year-old in New Mexico to vote ... a kid that never filled out the form. In 2005 it was revealed that 3k of the registration forms they submitted in the state the previous year were just wrong: information wrong, too many in the same handwriting. There are suspicions that they only register dems in some areas/incidents, a counter to the Sproul/Arizona "they only register repubs" scandal the same year.

ACORN forever says that it can't be held responsible. It's the people they hire or contract with that are responsible. People buy the "I'm in charge but I'm not responsible" line; to be fair, ACORN's revised some of it's policies in that regard after the 2004-related scandals.

In any case, the New Mexico cases were fairly small potatoes. "He found no cases worth bringing" sums it up.

[TankLV]

26. On the other hand, the REPUKE firm hired to do just that in Nevada is still scott free...

They were CAUGHT throwing away Dem forms and submitting only REPUKE forms - and this is a PROVEN FACT of 1000's of instances STATEWIDE in 2004, but aparently that was not of sufficient interest.

Yeah - I'll spend ALL my time investigating REPUKE wrongdoing, thankyouverymuch...

[Igel]

27. And so's Acorn off pretty much scott-free.

Are similar acts by people of different political parties to be dealt with differently? Note that the response was similar ... not responsible, we can't monitor our employees, the guilty parties have been let go. They both suck. Partisanship as principle is common enough, but partisanship as the basis for law enforcement ...?

Sounds suspiciously like the way most people describe *.

No thank you. What's bad for the goose is also bad for the gander.

[peacetalksforall]

12. The light is being turned up to teach us how they 'arrange'

success. Success being control of everything.

They need people, make that players.

I believe that they coordinated the dirty tricks in Florida and Ohio (and Georgia and and more). How did they get the police to help with road-blocks in Florida? How do they get election officials workers to pull of the tricks? Why are there not any whistle-blowers? Did they not pull off these tricks with participants who played along with their varieties of theft?

Or were there whistleblowers who were brushed off because they went to right wing media or to the Dept of Justice or to a right wing appointed civic employee behind the counter at a state office?

Are we wrong about the variety of thefts that have been reported and some that have been testified to in a Congressional hearing?

If the ones being investigated today have validity, why not yesterday?

When are we going to get them for those? Any truth bringers around?

[tgnyc]

15. God I hope Leahy burries these racist fucks!

[WiseButAngrySara]

18. KNR. ....n/t

[Javaman]

19. Owww...that one hurt my brain...

so abu gonadzalez who is a "minority" told his toady sampson to have Iglesias, who is also a "minority", to investigate a group that was helping to register minorities to vote...

wow.

just plain wow.

[Raksha]

30. Well, it's NOT like the Repukes can't find Uncle Tom toadies

to do their dirty work if they make it profitable enough for them. Think about Ken Blackwell--he was actually their candidate for Governor of Ohio!!! A black secretary of state who worked overtime to suppress the black vote, and quite successfully too.

[BuyingThyme]

20. The Democratic Party has basically been certified corruption free...

while the Puke Party has basically been certified corruption based.

Imagine what would have happened if the Puke US attorneys had been pushed to work against the Pukes.

Republicans are evil. There is no longer any reason for any person to be a Republican. It's over. Republicans are evil.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

21. Those people have a lot of gall - considering all the Repub. election theft that happened.

Considering they stole BOTH Presidential elections.

[Zambero]

23. That's a classic way of diverting attention from their own misdeeds

Accuse the opposition of the exact crimes you're engaged in. Of course this only works if you have a bullet-proof majority in both Houses of Congress that will let you get away with it. The GOP majorities were supposed to hold up for another 20 years according to Uncle Karl's "winning" long-term strategy, but somehow reality set in and rained down on their crooked little parade!

[Zambero]

22. So this is what being a "Uniter" was all about?

Looks like the "decider" decided to be a divider after all -- to use U.S. attorneys to divide targeted citizens from their civil and voting rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. Lester Maddox would certainly be proud!

[Rainscents]

24. Isn't this fun, watching these fuckers crumble?!!!

I'm loving it! :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Forkboy]

25. It's fun,but they're not totally crumbled yet

And it's gonna take awhile to repair this.

So I'll share the popcorn but I'm angry eating it. :)

[senseandsensibility]

28. Thanks for the link

I'm going to read the whole article now. I heard Thom Hartmann talking about this today, and I'm glad it's being covered elsewhere. Has it been on cable at all?

[fooj]

29. Power THROUGH PROJECTION!

F*cking, lying thugs. Have I said recently how much I LOATHE these people?

[salin]

32. What was the name of the GOP operative - who ran "voter registration"

operations in several states (including, iirc, Nevada, West Virginia and others) where workers were told to throw away any registrations that declared the DEm party - and there were reports of folks turning up to vote to find that their party registration had been changed? The guy was working out of a number of states - and after the 2004 elections was, irrc, was connected to the RNC through contracts? Wish I could remember his name and/or the orgs name. Seems pretty germaine to these stories. Yes this is PROJECTION. A Two-fer - call attention away from what we are doing (voter registration shennanigans) while trying to depress "new voters" registered by others. GRRR.

[salin]

33. A Link to an Oct 2004 piece from a Las Vegas tv station

George Knapp, Investigative Reporter
Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations

Oct. 13) -- Federal, state, and local officials are gathering information about allegations of voter registration fraud that were first raised Channel 8 Eyewitness News.

An employee of a private voter registration firm alleges that his bosses trashed registration forms filled out by Democratic voters because they only wanted to sign up Republican voters.

The allegations have set off a political firestorm stretching from Las Vegas to Washington D.C., and beyond.

--- snip ---

Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of America, along with 300 other people. He says he got into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms that had been filed by democrats.

"They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them out," said Eric Russell. One of those forms belonged to Daren Gray, who was shocked to learn that the re-registration form he filled out was never turned in.

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe

[salin]

34. Another from CBS news in Az in Oct of 2004

Voter Fraud Charges Out West

TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 14, 2004

CBS) By CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Officials in Oregon have launched a criminal investigation after receiving numerous complaints that a Republican-affiliated group was destroying registration forms filed by Democratic voters statewide, Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury told CBSNews.com.

Meanwhile, CBS affiliate KLAS-TV is reporting accusations of similar malfeasance in Nevada.

Both state's allegations are linked to a Phoenix political consulting firm called Sproul & Associates run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican Party. Sproul & Associates has received nearly $500,000 from the Republican National Committee this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

... more at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/14/politics/main649380.shtml

[salin]

35. and another piece from West Virgina in October 2004:

Campaign 2004: Voter registration workers cry foul
Wednesday, October 20, 2004

By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



An ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drive in Western Pennsylvania has triggered accusations that workers were cheated out of wages and given instructions to avoid adding anyone to the voter rolls who might support the Democratic presidential nominee.

Sproul & Associates, a consulting firm based in Chandler, Ariz., hired to conduct the drive by the Republican National Committee, employed several hundred canvassers throughout the state to register new voters. Some workers yesterday said they were told to avoid registering Democrats or anyone who indicated support for Democratic nominee John F. Kerry.

"We were told that if they wanted to register Democrat, there was no way we were to register them to vote," said Michele Tharp, of Meadville, who said she was sent out to canvass door-to-door and outside businesses in Meadville, Crawford County. "We were only to register Republicans."

... more at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04294/398767.stm

[19jet54]

31. Rove Scum...

... just like pond scum, only scummier :applause:

[wordpix]

36. Why is Orrin Hatch doing the hatchet job for BushCo on this? Is there something he doesn't want un-

covered about himself in this Gonzogate scandal? :shrug: He is just OUTRAGED and visibly angry that Leahy says Gonzo's statements have been contradictory. :puke:

There is some reason why Hatchet man is so angry about this probe. :eyes: