AS THE WORLD TURNS... TOM DELAY'S LITTLE ETHICS STOOGE, "DOC" HASTINGS, MAKES ONE TOO MANY MISSTEPS

When Tom DeLay picked Washington rubber stamp nonentity Richard Norman Hastings (AKA- "Doc") to take over the House Ethics Committee-- after Republicans on it voted to give DeLay a gentle wrist slap-- he knew exactly what he was doing. DeLay simply picked someone who is inherently dishonest, someone with no scruples whatsoever and someone so utterly and inexorably compromised that nothing would ever make him forget his main job: protecting DeLay's and Blunt's carefully constructed Republican Culture of Corruption.

"Doc" is a slippery character and he's managed to evade the long arm of the law for quite some time, thanks in large part to a complacent, if not collaborative media. Many people know about Doolittle's and Pombo's and DeLay's role in the Marianas Islands scandal. Far fewer know of "Doc's" equally execrable participation. The wheels, however, may be starting to come off ole Doc's Pasco corruptionmobile now.

Last week CREW filed a complaint against "Doc," (as well as against Senator "Sneaky Pete" Domenici and Heather Wilson).

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate whether Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and his former chief of staff, Ed Cassidy, violated House rules by improperly contacting a sitting U.S. Attorney.

The U.S. Attorney in Seattle, Washington, John McKay, testified before the Senate that, in 2004, during a series of vote recounts in which a Democrat was narrowly elected governor of Washington, Rep. Hasting’s then-Chief of Staff Ed Cassidy called, informing him that “the purpose of the call was to inquire on behalf of Congressman Hastings” about the status of the ongoing investigation to inquire about the status of a federal investigation into voter fraud. Mr. McKay was “concerned and dismayed by the call,” believing the conversation might constitute obstruction of justice.

When asked about the call, Rep. Hastings claimed that Mr. Cassidy’s call to Mr. McKay was “entirely appropriate,” and that the call was “a simple inquiry and nothing more.” Mr. Cassidy claimed that his conversation with Mr. McKay “was a routine effort to determine whether allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 gubernatorial election were, or were not, being investigated by federal authorities.”

Mr. Cassidy’s call to Mr. McKay -- at Rep. Hastings’ behest -- violates chapter 7 of the House ethics manual, which prohibits members from contacting executive or agency officials regarding the merits of matters under their formal consideration. House rules also state that if a member wants to affect the outcome of a matter in litigation, the member can file a brief with the court, make a floor statement, or insert a statement into the Congressional Record. Directly calling officials to influence an on-going enforcement matter is not an option.

Moreover, the rules state that a member may not claim he or she was merely requesting “background information” or a “status report” because the House has recognized that such requests “may in effect be an indirect or subtle effort to influence the substantive outcome of the proceedings.”

The conduct of Rep. Hastings and Mr. Cassidy may also violate the requirement that members conduct themselves in a manner that “reflects creditably on the House.” In a precedent cited by the House ethics committee when it admonished former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), the House has held that members are prohibited from asking an executive branch employee to engage in an activity having an impermissible political purpose.

CREW’s complaint alleges that Mr. Cassidy contacted Mr. McKay to discuss an ongoing investigative matter for the impermissible political purpose of impacting the Washington gubernatorial election.

Yesterday the Ellen Tauscher of Washington state, Congressman Adam Smith, said he "absolutely" supports an ethics investigation of Hastings. OK, Congressman Smith are you going to refer your "absolutely" to the committee? Unless some member of Congress does, "Doc" gets to slither away... again.

Somebody has to say it: When it comes to poweful pols exerting pressure, a mere phone call can convey all the intimidation of a mob contract

It was a grotesque charade back when Vice President Cheney got away with all those "visits" to the CIA to help the team there make the "right" calls on all that crappy "intelligence" he and his people wanted blessed as credible. Oh sure, the CIA issued some kind of declaration insisting that there had been no coercion, no attempt to influence its work product, which remained pure as a mountain stream.

Still, we knew even as we were hearing about those "visits" that the veep's CIA stakeout was totally without precedent, and was totally inappropriate if not actually illegal. And all it took was possession of a minimally functional brain to know that there was only one reason he was doing it. He wasn't bringing doughnuts to his poor overworked pals, the guys 'n' gals at Langley. It was muscle--pure muscle. Anyone who thinks there is the tiniest possibility that this is less than 100 percent absolutely certain is too stupid to live and should be institutionalized pronto.

Now, when a U.S. attorney gets a call from a powerful congressman of his/her own party and home state or worse still from a U.S. senator--a personal call, mind you, not a staff inquiry, which goodness knows can be intimidating enough--"asking" for information about the status of an investigation, a question that both the U.S. attorney and the powerful pol know is forbidden, the pol doesn't have to make open threats to deliver a message.

Let's say you're a U.S. attorney in Washington State, for example, and you get a call from someone who's not only a local U.S. representative but the Official Hand-Picked Stooge (having been personally chosen to jam up the House We Got No Ethics Committee) of probably the second most powerful man in the other Washington. He doesn't have to make specific reference to the continued structural integrity of your kneecaps to (as we said) deliver a message.

Ditto in New Mexico. Senator Pete can tell us that all he did was ask the merest wisp of a question. And Representative Heather . . . well, it's a little hard to put an innocent spin on it when she thinks it helps her case to claim that she was offering the guy a chance to exonerate himself of this tidal wave of accusations of disloyalty.

Now imagine that you're the guy, the U.S. attorney--the person on whose independence and professionalism rests the application of federal law in your district--sweating on the other end of these phone calls. The fact that you occupy a position like U.S. attorney means you're no political neophyte. You didn't just fall off the turnip truck; you understand that the "subtext" of this conversation is: "I have a pipeline to people who when they're finished with you you'll wish that ALL that happened to you was you got shitcanned."

I mean, we all know this, don't we? Isn't it about time that somebody said it?

WILL HEATHER WILSON, THE LATEST BUSH REGIME CRIMINAL OPERATOR EXPOSED, RESIGN TODAY? OR IS SHE WAITING TO SEE IF SHE CAN SLITHER OUT OF THIS ONE?

Hillary Clinton once referred to the same people who are behind the Bush Regime-- pre-Bush-- as "a vast right-wing conspiracy." A better and more precise phrase would be to point out that they are also a vast criminal enterprise. While Libby was being found guilty on 4 out of 5 counts of purgery, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the FBI, the Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings into why the Bush Regime fired 8 Federal Prosecutors without cause-- 8 Republican prosecutors, I might add, all of whom had been doing a great job pursuing criminals.

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) called him on Oct. 16 -- while she was locked in a tight battle for re-election -- to say she had heard that his ongoing criminal investigation into local Albuquerque Democrats may have produced indictments that Iglesias was sitting on.

"What can you tell me about sealed indictments?" Wilson asked, according to Iglesias' sworn testimony before the committee today.

Iglesias said "red flags" immediately went up in his mind about the conversation because it was unethical for him to talk about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly on matters as sensitive as the timing of indictments.

Iglesias testified that he was "evasive and unresponsive" and Wilson and her mentor, U.S. Senator Pete Domenici-- after he also called and asked pointedly if Iglesias would file charges before Wilson's election-- went crying to Alberto Gonzales, who then fired Iglesias, previous a GOP hero and role model. Domenici slammed the phone down on Igelsias when he didn't get the answers he wanted-- typical bully tactics from a powerful, out-of-control senator towards a public servant-- and Iglesias was freaked out. "I felt sick afterward... I felt leaned on, I felt pressured to get these matters moving," Iglesias testified this morning.

Five other fired prosecutors will be testifying today. This is very brave of them since they have been threatened, Nazi-style, by Gonzales' thugs. "Bud Cummins, who was dismissed from his position as U.S. Attorney for Arkansas, said he had been threatened with retaliation by the Bush administration if he testified before Congress voluntarily. Cummins provided the committees with an e-mail he sent the five other prosecutors appearing with him today which detailed a tense conversation the former Arkansas federal prosecutor had with a senior Justice Department official regarding their public comments about the firings."

Hard to imagine this is the United States of America, isn't it? But under this illegitimate president who stole the presidency twice and has operated our government as though it were a criminal gang, this is just more of the same. If Democrats and any Republicans who are not complicit with this crime empire do not take real action, they will be judged by history as equally guilty. And this is about more than just making political points. This goes to the heart and soul of our threatened democracy.

Democrats, including Sen. Charles Schumer (NY) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (Calif.), who are leading today's hearings, have raised questions about whether the firings were politically motivated ousters designed to quell some of the investigations the prosecutors were running. Four of the eight led probes of important Republicans, while Iglesias was involved in the lengthy probe of Democrats and had drawn fire from local Republicans who expected a quicker indictments... In a carefully worded statement yesterday, the Senate Ethics Committee revealed that a preliminary inquiry was underway with regard to Domenici's role in speaking to Iglesias about an active criminal investigation. The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is formally known, has not commented on the Wilson allegations.

The Congressional Ethics Committees almost never take any serious action against their comfy little old boys network so I have little expectations that Domenici or Wilson will suffer at their hands. But both will be up for election next year and both should face very stiff opposition. I expect Governor Bill Richardson to consider the New Mexico senate seat just thrown away by Domenici unless Hillary picks him to be her running mate (instead of Mark Warner). The money he's racing now for his "presidential" race can be transfered to a Senate race. Tom Udall (NM-03) might also consider switching from the House to the Senate (along with his Colorado brother) and he's got over $700,000 left over from his recent House re-election. Other possiblities to put the senile, doddering, pissed-off Domenici out of his misery are Lt. Governor Diane Denish and Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez.


UPDATE; OH... AND CORRUPT OLD DOC HASTINGS LOOKS LIKE HE WAS GUILTY IN THIS TOO, NO SURPRISE THERE

Doc Hastings (R-WA) was installed by Tom DeLay as chairman of the ethics committee for one reason and one reason only: he is a crook with absolutely no ethics and was willing to whitewash DeLay's criminal activities where other Republicans with more dignity and more respect for America wouldn't. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that he is also connected to the deepening scandal surrounding the firing of 8 Federal Prosecutors. The U.S. Attorney for Washington State testified this morning in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Hastings pressured him to interfere in Washington's gubernatorial election results. When McKay told him the call was "improper," Hasting's chef of staff slammed down the phone. Hastings is believed responsible for getting McKay fired by Gonzales. Think Progress has the video clip. [UPDATE: More Hastings criminal behavior.]

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy compared the firings to the Watergate dismissals. "Not since the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Nixon forced the firing of the Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, have we witnessed anything like this," he said.

A KEY TO REPUBLICAN ETHICS PROBLEMS IN THE HOUSE: DOC HASTINGS, YAKIMA'S CROOKED CONGRESSMAN

The GOP has been in power in the House for a very long time. In 1994 the country was sick of the arrogance and almost blasé corruption of the then long-entrenched Democratic Party. A new invigorated House Republican caucus led by firebrand Newt Gingrich put one over on the voters with a solemn promise that they would change things. Well, actually they did change things. But not what they promised to change. They said they would stop corruption. Instead they substituted Republican corruption, even more venal in scope and magnitude, for Democratic corruption. (Now my fear is that instead of real progressive reformers like Francine Busby, Coleen Rowley, Jerry McNerney, Ned Lamont, Rick Penberthy, Jan Schneider, honest and idealistic men and women who seriously want to fix the problem, the Democrats will wind up in Congress with sleazy, slimy pols like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer in control, realpolitik hacks who have long since discarded any sense of integrity or idealism in the quest for power-- just like Gingrich and DeLay.) I guess we'll have to deal with that after November. At least, I hope so (in a perverse way).

Now, we need to keep our eye on the ball that is still in the air: the Republican Culture of Corruption, systematically put in place by the worst of the worst, the worst lowlifes to ever stalk the halls of Congress (and K Street): Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Rick Santorum, Roy Blunt, John Boehner, Jerry Lewis, Bill Frist, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Conrad Burns, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Deborah Pryce, Bob Ney and, in some ways, worst of all... Doc Hastings.

Who? Doc Hastings is the Republican Representative from Pasco, near Yakima, Washington and he was personally installed by his friend and ally, then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to derail the House ethics committee and keep it from investigating the culture of corruption being fostered by DeLay and his crime network. When the actual Ethics chairman, Joel Hefley of Colorado allowed an investigation of DeLay to go forward (and eventually slightly chasten DeLay, the Little Bug Man, Capo di Tutti Capi of the Republican crime wave, fired Hefley, ruined his career, assigned his most corrupted lieutenant, Bob Ney to teach the GOP version of ethics to freshmen congressmen, and installed the corrupt, slavish hack Hastings as head of the historically bipartisan committee. Hastings did a great job-- for DeLay.

Today's Seattle Times does an unflattering profile on Hastings called "Ethics Panel Stalled; What's Up Doc?" The Times starts off by explaining how Hastings was able to avoid pressure to investigate blatant criminals like Cunningham, Ney, and, of course, DeLay, all men either now in or soon headed for lives behind bars.

"Since 2005, newspaper editorials have denounced Hastings & Co. for 'nap time' on the 'do-nothing' 'feckless' and 'inert' ethics committee, accusing it of 'flatlining' and 'ossifying.' Unmoved, Hastings hasn't responded to the criticism. But he is papering the press about such issues as asparagus growers, the apple industry and Northwest wineries... Even GOP members have questioned the ethics committee's credibility recently. A frustrated Republican proposed a congressional inspector general to look into ethics issues, saying the committee is paralyzed."

Hastings has been coming under increasing pressure to explain why he has derailed not just the Ethics Committee in Congress but actually conspired to rid the U.S. Congress of ethics itself! And then there's the little matter of Hastings' involvement with Abramoff's slave labor colony in the Marianas Islands. Hastings refuses to answer any questions... about anything... except asparagus farming and wineries. In his 11 dreadful years in Congress he has held exactly one press conference in Washington, DC. The guy is so lame and clueless that his official campaign website is crawling with pictures of Dick Cheney, a man so reviled by Americans that he is less admired than OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson and barely beats out Paris Hilton on the popularity spectrum. Maybe he thinks no one notices.

Although Hastings resides in the very heart of the Culture of Corruption, his remote district is so red and so out-of-touch, that almost no one considers him to be vulnerable unless a mega-tsunami of revulsion with the Republican rubber-stamp Congress sweeps virtually the whole pack of them out of power in November. The Democrat who is challenging him in WA-04 is Richard Wright, the kind of good-government type who would give a corrupt sleazebag like Hastings nightmares if he represented a less partisan district.

CULTURE OF UTTER CORRUPTION

People who are part of the blogosphere-- like you and me and Ken-- are painfully aware of all the corruption in D.C. these days. I don't mean all the normal corruption; I'm talking about this whole Republican Culture of Corruption that trumps anything that anyone has ever done before. I mean, let's be real, the Republicans had a point-- it was essentially wrong, but it was a point (and much of the mass media swallowed it entirely either through stupidity, laziness or partisan venality)-- that corruption is bi-partisan. The problem with this corruption pandemic sweeping Washington is all about power and with power, particularly the power of the purse, firmly in the hands of the Republicans, virtually all the systematic bribes are going to the Republican Party, it's myriad offshoots (like the K Street Project and the Ohio GOP political machine), and, of course, first and foremost, it's self-entitled greedball members, from big players like Dr. Frist, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, Conrad Burns, Jerry Lewis, Charles Taylor, Duncan Hunter, John Doolittle, Katherine Harris, Denny Hastert, Roy Blunt, John Boehner to pathetic bottom feeders like "Duke" Cunningham, Virgil Goode, Rick Santorum, Richard Pombo, Tom Feeney, Marilyn Musgrave, etc.

But, primarily because the mass media buys into the Republicans' misleading "corruption is bi-partisan" defense, the general public barely knows anything about it. At most, some relatively astute citizens know about a "bad apple" or two like someone named Cunningham or someone named Abramoff or that DeLay fella down in Texas. But when it comes to their own representative? It's pathetic. Jerry Lewis, for example, is one of the dozen most corrupt scumbags prowling the corridors of power. He's from a relatively backward Southern California area, "the high desert," where he's got every lever of power sewn up and all the mass media in his pocket. Although he's on the verge of indictment for taking bribes from the same crooked contractors who were paying off Cunningham-- Lewis was the chairman; Cunningham was just small potatoes-- there is no primary challenge, no big-name, or even medium name, Democrat challenging him, no local media uproar... In fact there's barely a whisper of what he's been up to. The Democrat who is challenging him, Louie Contreras, is on his own, waging a brave, lonely battle with barely an acknowledgment from the DCCC that there's a race on.

And Lewis' constituents only know him as "our guy" and think he brings home the bacon. Meanwhile all the bacon's going into his own home and he's utterly sold out the district to Big Business interests. A 5 minute look at his voting record would convince virtually anyone that he is their mortal enemy, voting against everything they want from the government, particularly as relates to basics like health care.

This week's TIME Magazine has a story about Bush's very ethically-challenged Justice Department threatening that if Congress doesn't start policing itself, the Feds will step in and do it for 'em. (I'm sure they're all shaking in their boots-- not!) "A senior federal law enforcement official told TIME that the paralyzed and often lax House ethics committee has created a vacuum that prosecutors won't hesitate to fill. The House’s internal mechanism for keeping corruption in check is 'broken,' says the official."

After DeLay summarily fired Joel Hefly (R-CO), the Republican head of the non-partisan House Ethics Committee, for daring to allow the committee to criticize (mildly) his rampant Mafia-like regime, he inserted in his place "Doc" Hastings (R-WA), an extremely compromised Republican hack, with illicit connections to some of the worst of the DeLay/Abramoff scandals. Hastings promptly closed down the Ethics Committee, exactly what DeLay appointed him to do. So, for example, even after newspapers started writing about Randy "Duke" Cunningham's bribe-taking, no House investigation was launched and even after Cunningham was clearly headed for prison and it was as clear as day that he had been taking millions of dollars in bribes from Republican defense contractors he wasn't even removed from the super-sensitive Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Intelligence Committee, access to which he had made millions from.

Larceny and avarice are in the blood of many men and it's up to the voters to be a little discerning about who they entrust with the spending of their tax dollars. Are the Democrats automatically less corrupt than the Republicans? Not a chance. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, operates like a mirror image of Tom DeLay in terms of being a self-serving, ruthless and hysterically authoritarian. He hired one of his cronies, a corrupt corporate lobbyist to run the DCCC's finances. But he doesn't have the power to be nearly as bad as DeLay-- yet. Mark Taibbi, in a brilliant ROLLING STONE essay about the endemic corruption of the Republicans in Congress, end with a serious warning: "The Democrats, whose innocence in the crimes of the last five years to date corresponds exactly to their lack of opportunities for corruption, may now get a chance at the helm. But it won't take much exposure to cheap stunts like a beaming Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi signing a 'Declaration of Honest Leadership' before people begin to remember how much the other guys can suck, too. Bush haters are celebrating this week as old villains descend to the death chamber, but they should be careful what they wish for. Trusting Washington to fix itself is a whole new kind of torture."

Can we expect Washington do anything about corruption? Well, obviously not with leaders like DeLay, Blunt, Hastert and Boehner, all creatures whose very essence in based on power and corruption. And I would expect no less from Emanuel on the Democratic side of the aisle. Are there men and women of good will in Congress who actually do want to change the system enough to take away the corruption? I absolutely know there are. Take a look at this little QuickTime video of Ned Lamont where he talks about the #1 biggest problem in Congress. I don't think there is any legislation that will solve the problem of personal greed, avarice and lust, but public financing of campaigns will go a long way towards taking the constant frenzied money hunt out of day-to-day politics. That would be a step towards Washington "fixing" itself, a big one.

WOULD IT SHOCK ANYONE IF DeLAY & CO. WERE RUNNING A PIMPING SERVICE FROM CAPITOL HILL? WOULD ANYTHING SURPRISE YOU ABOUT THESE LOWLIFE CROOKS?

I don't know if DeLay and his gang were running a traditional pimping service from their Capitol Hill offices or not. There is virtually nothing I could read about these people that would surprise me! The heady combination of frightened, lazy, bigoted bucktoothed rednecks, a fatally corrupted mass media and "democracy" has thrown up some might scary specimens in the past... but nothing comparable to Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, Rick Santorum, Randy Cunningham, Dick Pombo, Bill Frist, John Doolittle, George W Bush, Duncan Hunter, Conrad Burns, Jerry Lewis, Roy Blunt, Denny Hastert, and the team of vicious and crooked self-serving fascists who have done America so wrong in the last half dozen years.

I mean forget simple bribery for which many of them will soon be relocating to the federal prison system! Selling national security secrets, fixing elections, creating a cozy career environment between congressional offices, Big Business and the K-Street lobbying establishment, turning "charities" into political honeypots, stealing from government-funded programs to bolster campaign coffers, corrupting the relationship between churches and state to the detriment of both... all these things and so much more mark the Republican culture of corruption which has come to be so pervasive in Washington. And the newest kink? Feeding Wall Street brokers inside government info so their clients-- and certain familiar congressional figures-- could benefit from day-trading.

In 1997 Congress passed legislation favoring day traders which began the downward spiral that eventually lead to the GOP leadership scheming with day trading firms to exchange insider information-- see you thought Bill Frist was the only stock manipulating crook in the Congress!-- for quick profits in day trading. John Byrne of The Raw Story has uncovered an immense scandal involving Republican-controlled committees, like the "Duke" Cunningham/Henry Bonilla-infected Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (not to mention Duncan Hunter's Armed Services Committee or Jerry Lewis' Appropriations Committee), "passing on information to stock brokers on how the House is going to vote on legislation that affects large companies..." Last November Washington Democratic congressman Brian Baird officially requested that Tom DeLay's specially-installed, ethicless House Ethics Committee Chairman, "Doc" Hastings open an investigation into this practice. Hastings, who was installed in his position to PREVENT ethics investigations that would slow down the GOP corruption mechanisms, ignored Baird's concerns.


FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: THE DELAY-SANTORUM K STREET PROJECT MEETS WALL STREET

In today's HILL Jim Snyder shows how Republicrook scum like Santorum and DeLay were able to mix their K Street Project and Wall Street's unrestrained greed to benefit the GOP-- and themselves. If you want to be able to follow the mechanics the DeLay Crime Family worked out in this scam, this article is a must!

This could turn into a big story-- at least in the blogosphere-- this weekend. THE DAILY SANDWICH has just started the ball rolling.

CUNNINGHAM'S SAGA IS FAR FROM OVER. THIS IS THE GUY WHO COULD ACTUALLY BRING DOWN BUSH-- IF THE MEDIA WOULD STOP HUSHING IT UP

Last May/June there were two news stories the media was completely unwilling to cover and those two stories-- Ohio's CoinGate scandal and Duke Cunningham's myriad bribery cases-- are why I started DWT. Although Tom DeLay beat him to the punch indictment-wise, Cunningham was the first of the current crop of Republican congressional bad apples to actually plead guilty for what dozens and dozens of them have been up to: bribery-- taking money in return for favors done in regard to their official capacities. When I sat down a few months ago and talked with San Diego Democrat Francine Busby she was 100% positive that Cunningham would not last until the '06 election and she's been campaigning tirelessly and effectively as though he resigned when he first announced he wouldn't be seeking re-election and it became obvious that he would try to cut a leniency deal with the authorities. Busby will make a GREAT congresswoman in the 50th but a leniency deal is not what we should be looking for here.

From the first article I ever posted on The Dukester, I had no doubt he wasn't working alone. (At the time DeLay was calling him a hero and a man of "high integrity" and, perhaps compared to DeLay and his other close associates... no, even among that crew, Cunningham was a lowlife.) DeLay's handpicked and very crooked "Ethics" Committee Chairman, "Doc" Hastings, refused to allow any investigations of Cunningham.) Randy "Duke" Cunningham is very much a part of more than just the pervasive Republican Culture of Corruption. He is part of the Tom DeLay Crime Machine and the last thing anyone should want is just to see this turn into an open-and-shut case (which is exactly what Bush and DeLay want to see). First of all, crooked Republican Congressloon Jerry Lewis was in on the majority of Cunningham's bribes. The two of them operated as a pair when it came to shaking down defense contractors. But I haven't heard about Lewis being dragged away to be fingerprinted. I haven't heard a peep about the Big Bear extremist in the Mainstream Media.

But that is the least of the real Randy "Duke" Cunningham story. If anyone ever had a reason to feel certain about getting a presidential pardon out of Bush on his way out, it would be Cunningham. That's because Cunningham was selling advance pardons for Bush to dependable GOP crooks. In fact, this is the most interesting-- and, of course, least covered-- part of the Cunningham saga.

Thomas "Gus" Kontogiannis is a very wealthy, very corrupt and very convicted Republican criminal from Long Island, a felon-- and a business associate of Cunningham's, but one who is rarely mentioned in the press. TOO DANGEROUS-- way too dangerous. That's because this is the one that touches Bush directly. Kontogiannis is a big time GOP donor (he even financed his own candidate for Congress, who lost and who was later indicted with him for cheating the NYC public school system on a fraudulent computer deal). Almost 3 years ago to the day, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty in a bid-rigging, bribe and kickback scheme. Using Cunningham's long time modus operandi, Kontogiannis bought an inexpensive boat for a great deal of money, as a way to funnel almost half a million dollars into Cunningham's pockets. But unlike dozens of other rich Republican "businessmen," Kontogiannis wasn't looking for fat, padded contracts from the Defense Department and Intelligence agencies Cunningham had oversight of. Nope; what Kontogiannis needed was a presidential pardon. And he paid $400,000 for Cunningham to be the middleman between him and Bush. Cunningham can't grant pardons; neither can Rove or Cheney, nor Bush's old dad nor Bill Clinton. Only George W Bush can grant a presidential pardon. My bet is that he's already promised one to the Dukester in '08 if he just keeps his trap shut. So instead we'll hear about lots and lots of little bribes that amount to a tiny fraction of the real criminality in the Duke Cunningham Criminal Caper.

WHY THE HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE REFUSES TO INVESTIGATE DELAY-- MEET "DOC" HASTINGS, A CROOKED POL FROM YAKIMA

Chances are you never heard of "Doc" (as in Baby Doc) Hastings... unless you're an avid tracker of egregious Republicrooks destined for infamy and, hopefully, prison. Doc Hastings is a very very bad apple, one of the most rotten in a wormy bushel. If you go back into the DownWithTyranny Archives to June 23, you'll find a piece I did on Doc called "DOC HASTINGS FEELING THE HEAT AFTER PROTECTING DELAY." Apparently he didn't feel enough heat. He's still protecting DeLay. But of course, this is the ONLY reason why DeLay made this corrupt crook the chairman of the House Ethics Committee. Hastings latest excuse-- in a long line of excuses, none ever valid-- for not investigating for the most ethically-challenged House leader in the history of the United States is that "we don't have the resources."

Doc would rather just echo DeLay's desperate lies that Austin's D.A., Ronnie Earle-- who has spent much of his professional life going after corrupt politicians, OVERWHELMINGLY Democratic ones-- is a partisan on a vendetta. Norman Ornstein, at the conservative American Enterprise Institute was incredulous that the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee would publicly identify himself with this kind of trash. "It's outrageous for the chairman of the ethics committee to virtually endorse the idea that the indictment is a political vendetta. It's a matter that is before the committee." But, as Ornstein should know, that kind of partisanship is par for the course for Doc, who was hand-picked by DeLay after he fired Colorado Republican Joel Hefley when the Ethics Committee UNANIMOUSLY reprimanded DeLay several times for ethics violations. (DeLay also has contributed generously to Doc's campaign coffers and, of course, Doc has refused to join other Republican congressman in returning the tainted money.)

Doc's strategy for preventing the House Ethics Committee from taking further action against his master has been to keep it from meeting-- something he has been successful in doing for almost half a year! Considering this is the most corrupt Congress in modern history-- with indictments served or about to be served on a dozen members, that is quite an "achievement" (something the citizens of the Yakima area should be very ashamed of). After taking over from Hefley, Hastings purposely provoked a partisan staffing conundrum inside the committee-- with the intention of protecting DeLay from bipartisan investigation-- effectively closing down his own committee, and thus allowing corrupt Republicans like Richard Pombo, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Charles Taylor, Bob Ney and many others to steal with utter impunity. Hastings himself is closely tied, financially, to DeLay's now-arrested and indicted consiglieri, GOP lobbyist and murder suspect Jack Abramoff. Doc is up to his ears in a slave labor scandal in the Marianas Islands and should himself be the subject of serious investigations, not sitting in a position to prevent investigations!

DOC HASTINGS FEELING THE HEAT AFTER PROTECTING DELAY

The House Ethics Committee is the one (and only) House committee run in a bipartisan manner. There are an equal number or Republicans and Democrats, although the majority party gets to name the chairman. Last year, in light of the most outrageous and blatant ethics violations by GOP House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay-- violations that should have landed him in prison-- even the Republicans on the committee backed some VERY MILD admonitions against DeLay. Predictably, DeLay went berserk and purged the committee, ridding it of the fair-minded chairman, Joel Hefley, and putting a dependably corrupt crook and strong ally, "Doc" Hastings in his place. Hastings immediately provoked a series of confrontations with Democrats on the committee by trying to tamper with the structure of the committee's work in a way to specifically protect DeLay. The committee deadlocked and ceased to function-- and crooked politicians like DeLay and Randy "Duke" Cunningham continue to run amuck.

Hastings is a right-wing hack from rural central Washington State (Yakima area). Howard Dean has suggested, rather mildly, that Hastings allow the investigation of DeLay to proceed from which he should recuse himself due to his close lobbying ties to The Hammer (the very root of why DeLay is being charged with criminal activities in Texas and why the House needs to expel him). Although Hastings somehow forgot to disclose it, newly-released documents show he had a lucrative financial relationship with lobbyists at a Seattle law firm that was part of the DeLay/Abramoff scam empire for financing DeLay's gangster empire. (And, predictably, the firm's star lobbyist, DeLay's consiglieri Jack Abramoff, has been another Republicrook arranger of lavish overseas trips for DeLay and pals.) Local Washington State newspapers are starting to scratch their editorial heads about Doc's apparent sleazy behavior. His hometown paper in Pasco, the Tri-City Herald, for example, went into details of Hastings' ties to Preston Gates & Ellis, the Seattle law firm linked to some of DeLay's shenanigans, and to one of its big lobbying clients in the 1990s, the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American colony. The law firm got Hastings to support efforts to prevent the federal minimum wage from being imposed on the Marianas' sweat-shop clothing factories. The headline on the article was "Hastings' Link to Islands Sullies Ethics Post." Taking advantage of and victimizing (like in bilking them for millions of dollars) American Indians as well as colonial natives appears to be a Abramoff/DeLay specialty. To have the chairman of the Ethics Committee involved in this fits right in with the Bush governing principles of having foxes watching the hen houses.

And now that Hastings is feeling the heat, he's ready to jump ship and run for cover. Painting himself-- as they always do-- as a "victim," Hastings is "threatening" to resign as committee chairman. One anonymous Republican committee staffer told the Associated Press that "Doc has had just about enough of this. He'd like to find a face-saving way out." I'm sure he would.