Folks, this is unreal. Short story: Ann Coulter dodges voter fraud charges because her ex-boyfriend at the FBI had the investigation shut down. Meanwhile, democratic voter registration drive volunteers are only now getting out of jail as their cases get reviewed by an incredulous court...
This is Justice in America under Alberto Gonzalez.
All the detail after the flip, but for now, I think it is important to realize that the FBI is contained within the Department of Justice. Alberto Gonzalez, as Attorney General, is ultimately responsible. (OK, George Bush, as the leader of the Executive Branch is ultimately responsible, but you know what I mean...)
One other thing before we hit the details: if you think Ann Coulter's "little problem" went unnoticed by Karl Rove and the rest of the shit-bags that run the seedier side of the GOP... if you think they had nothing to do with this... well, you're just crazy. There's no doubt this runs all the way to the White House.
And I want to know this: Where's Congress?
OK - flip for the stomach-turning details.
First, credit where due: BradBlog is all over everything and anything relating to clean elections. TalkingPointsMemo has been tracking everything and anything related to voter fraud investigations at the DOJ. They are the primary sources for this post.
Starting from the top, here's the original story of Coulter's crime, from early 2006:
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections records show Coulter voted last week in Palm Beach's council election. Problem is, she cast her ballot in a precinct 4 miles north of the precinct where she owns a home --- and that could be a big no-no.
Coulter, who owns a $1.8 million crib on Seabreeze Avenue, should have voted in Precinct 1198. It covers most homes on her street. Instead, records show, she voted in Precinct 1196, at the northern tip of the island.
...
"She never lived here," said Suzanne Frisbie, owner of the Indian Road home. "I'm Ann's Realtor, and she used this address to forward mail when she moved from New York."
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Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter's registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.
"We're not a policing agency," says Elections Chief Deputy Charmaine Kelly. "You do not have to show proof that you live at your address. But when you sign the registration application, you also take an oath that everything you wrote is the truth.
"If someone brings us proof that a person falsified a registration, we'll check into it, then refer the matter to the state attorney's office if necessary."
It didn't take her long to lawyer up. Who'd she get as her lawyer?
Conservative pundit and best-selling political writer Ann Coulter has hired a white-glove, White House-connected law firm to fight allegations she voted illegally in February's Town of Palm Beach election.
And the attorney from the Miami-based Kenny Nachwalter firm is no stranger to Palm Beach voting. Marcos Jimenez --- who was, along with the more famous Olson, one of the lead attorneys who fought for George W. Bush's side in the 2000 presidential election snafu here --- was assigned to Coulter.
Jimenez, by the way, also knows a thing or two about criminals. Appointed by Bush as U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida in 2002, Jimenez was charged with going after terrorists, drug dealers and wayward union bosses.
Sheesh, whoda think that she'd be so connected to the White House? That's really something, isn't it?
What's more amazing than that? Well, there's the fact that when you're lawyered up like that, you can get away with quite a bit, apparently... But not so much that your case won't be, eventually, turned over to a prosecutor...
Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney's office by Friday.
Anderson added that Coulter, since the allegations surfaced, made "efforts to distract and divert focus on the process regarding this complaint. ... I did express my frustration to the state attorney in a recent meeting and warned him I may need his services," according to an article in the Palm Beach Post.
But getting the law involved turned out to be pretty damned hard. Huh. Who woulda figgur'd?
Lambiet's item today covers PB County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson's difficulty in finding a local law enforcement agency with the stones --- or at least, the jurisdiction --- to take on the hypocritical pundit even though a police report completed in late November, requested by Anderson, indicates that Coulter could be facing two third degree felony charges, along with one first degree misdemeanor, if charged.
Newly added to the previously known allegations of Voter Fraud --- when Coulter used her realtor's address instead of her own on her Voter Registration Application --- is the allegation by the Palm Beach Police Department that Coulter seems to also have given that same, incorrect address when applying for a driver's license after moving to the tony Sunshine State 'hood, where her fellow GOP propagandist Rush Limbaugh has recently had his own troubles following the rule of law.
The allegation concerning Driver's License Fraud would be yet another third degree felony, according to the Palm Beach Police Department report!
The BRAD BLOG has obtained the complete PBPD report (linked below), summarized by Lambiet as revealing that Coulter "could end up charged with: one felony count for signing a voter form claiming she lived at her Realtor's Indian Road home instead of her Seabreeze Avenue homestead; one felony count for 'unauthorized possession of a driver's license,' also for providing the same wrong address when obtaining her license; and a misdemeanor for knowingly voting in the wrong precinct."
Lambiet reports that Anderson has been making the rounds seeking a law enforcement outlet with the proper jurisdiction since, he says, the PB County Supervisor of Elections office is "not an investigative agency" and given that there has been "significant interest from the community" in seeing the matter addressed. But, so far, Florida authorities have yet to touch the case. According to Lambiet...
In November, the gangly Anderson went to the town's police department. But Palm Beach's Finest weren't interested.
And Tuesday, Anderson met with a sheriff's deputy. PBSO will get back to him.
He could end up having to take it up with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Why's Anderson making those rounds? Because he was told that State Attorney Barry Krischer — a Democrat whose recent attempt to prosecute another conservative pundit, Rush Limbaugh, for alleged doctor shopping, went limp — needs police action before he brings formal charges.
Catch-22, anyone?
And that's where things stoof, until Friday... This is the latest:
First, Lambiet reports that the Palm Beach Sheriffs Office, which had been investigating the matter, has closed the case after an FBI agent interceded on Coulter's behalf. The PBSO had been investigating Coulter's fraudulent, knowing use of the wrong address on her voter registration form, a third-degree felony, and the fact that she subsequently, knowingly voted at the wrong precinct.
Second, the reason offered by the FBI man for Coulter's use of a phony address on her form --- actually that of her Palm Beach County real estate agent --- was because of claims that she was being "stalked" by a conservative BRAD BLOG guest blogger!
After the FBI intercession, as Lambiet reports, the PBSO investigator shut down the probe "without interviewing Coulter; a Realtor, whose Indian Road address Coulter used; or neighbors of Coulter's Seabreeze homestead."
Now, we should take a look at her excuse - her complaint about the "stalker". First of all, there is no record of any court case or official complaint made by Coulter regarding the pursuit of any charges. Secondly, the "stalker" they refer to seems to be this guy:
The BRAD BLOG spoke this morning with the "stalker" in question, as named by Lambiet, longtime Coulter critic, and founder of Citizens for Principled Conservatism, Dan Borchers, who tells us that "Ann Coulter used a false allegation as a 'get out of jail free card'" on her voter fraud charges.
Lambiet, who spoke with Borchers for his piece, didn't report that allegation, but hinted that something wasn't adding up in [the FBI's] intercession in the matter. He wonders why an FBI profiler from the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, VA, "who went after the Unabomber [would] take time from his busy day to even think about a municipal election snafu?"
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County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, meanwhile, decried what he called "FBI intrusion."
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Anderson and Lambiet aren't the only ones dubious about the FBI's intervention on behalf of Coulter or the excuse that a "stalker" led her to use her realtor's address on her voter registration form....
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Borchers was contacted in 1998 by the FBI and had a "five minute interview with them" shortly after he says he began handing out fliers in the DC area titled "WANTED: The Truth About Ann Coulter," seeking tips on the rightwing celebrity. Feeling she has betrayed the Conservative movement with her anti-Conservative behavior, rhetoric, and tactics, Borchers has long been collecting information for a biography of Coulter. He has created several short videos outlining what he sees as her hypocritical use of Christianity and a her persistent use of hate-speech and death-threats in her books, columns, and personal appearances.
"There were never any charges filed, and I never heard from the FBI again," Borchers told us.
Huh. But here's where things get really weird. And disturbing. (from the same piece)
The FBI man in question, Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, was Coulter's former boyfriend!
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Fitzgerald wouldn't reply to Lambiet, but he reports that after the Post contacted the bureau for comment on the matter, the FBI "immediately launched an internal review of the agent's involvement."
"We're looking into it," bureau spokeswoman Ann Todd said.
She declined to say whether Fitzgerald acted on his personal behalf or as an FBI agent or on someone else's orders.
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County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, meanwhile, decried what he called "FBI intrusion."
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"This doesn't bode well in terms of the public's impression that celebrities receive preferential treatment," Anderson said. "I'm curious about how anyone can justify the FBI's intrusion."
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"Fitzgerald was Ann Coulter's boyfriend in 1998 and 1999," Borchers told The BRAD BLOG, "And since then, she has used him as her personal FBI resources for her own purposes."
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In October of 1998, the Washington Post media critic, Howard Kurtz interviewed Coulter in conjunction with the release of her book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. Kurtz reported that "Coulter seems to flit from one relationship to the next," describing her recent breakup with Bob Guccione, Jr., the son of the Penthouse magazine publisher. "Now she's involved with an FBI agent," he reported.
Additional evidence obtained by The BRAD BLOG, indicates that Coulter's Florida voter fraud charges may not be the first time her man at the FBI may have interceded on her behalf...
You should go read the entire piece over at BradBlog for the rest of the story - the extent that the conservative machine has been able to leverage the FBI for their own purposes is simply breath-taking, and you need to know about it... An example comes further down in that linked piece...
But that's a larger story. I want to stick to this story for now, and contrast Coulter's treatment to the treatment of some other folks...
From TalkingPointsMemo:
At TPMmuckraker at the moment, we're giving a very close look to the 'voter fraud' claims in Wisconsin that Karl Rove was so interested in. GOP activists were incredibly disappointed and angry when the US Attorney in Milwaukee brought only a tiny handful of prosecutions, after the activists had charged a massive conspiracy to steal the 2004 elections from Republicans. But the government actually lost a stunningly high percentage of even those cases because they were so weak.
Cynthia C. Alicea, 25, was indicted for double-voting. The evidence was that election officials found she'd registered to vote twice. She was acquited because it turned out election officials told her to fill out another card because the first one had been filled out wrong. Pretty lurid stuff. There was no evidence she'd ever voted twice. The other three people indicted in Milwaukee for double voting were acquited too.
Out of the tiny number of bona fide voter fraud cases, the great majority fall into two categories. The first are cases where workers hired in voter registration drives appear to sign up non-existent people to get paid more money from the sponsors of the drive. The actual examples of this are exceedingly rare. But since the people don't exist, no one ever shows up to vote in their name.
The second are felons or parolees who either register to vote or actually vote, in most cases not knowing they're not eligible to vote.
One great example from the Times article is the case of 43 year old grandmother Kimberly Prude ...
Ms. Prude’s path to jail began after she attended a Democratic rally in Milwaukee featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton in late 2004. Along with hundreds of others, she marched to City Hall and registered to vote. Soon after, she sent in an absentee ballot.
Four years earlier, though, Ms. Prude had been convicted of trying to cash a counterfeit county government check worth $1,254. She was placed on six years’ probation.
Ms. Prude said she believed that she was permitted to vote because she was not in jail or on parole, she testified in court. Told by her probation officer that she could not vote, she said she immediately called City Hall to rescind her vote, a step she was told was not necessary.
"I made a big mistake, like I said, and I truly apologize for it," Ms. Prude said during her trial in 2005. That vote, though, resulted in a felony conviction and sent her to jail for violating probation.
The whole thing really does pretty much come down to a thankfully not very successful effort to send a bunch of poor blacks to prison for unintentional voting violations.
Past Justice Department policy was not to indict in cases where there was no clear intent to tamper with an election. But the Bush administration did away with that policy leading to serious time for hardened vote criminals like Ms. Prude.
Another example is that of Pakistani immigrant Usman Ali. He'd been in the US for ten years and owned a jewelry store. He was in line one day at the DMV when a clerk put a registration form in front of him along with other forms. Ali hastily filled it out. He never made any attempt to vote. But the mistake got him deported back to Pakistan where he's now trying to rebuild his life with his US citizen wife and daughter.
We're certainly lucky to be rid of Mr. Ali and his efforts to undermine our democracy.
Most of the examples, like these, are genuinely disgusting -- non-malicious errors for which people get serious punishment because federal prosecutors are under immense pressure to find someone to indict for voter fraud.
(my emphasis added)
Federal officials are bringing voter fraud cases. The DOJ, under Gonzalez, is putting people in jail for bogus violations of election law. Check that. The DOJ, under Gonzalez, is putting Democrats in jail for bogus violations of election law.
If we can't get our Congress to investigate this - if we can't get this US Attorney scandal to drill down into these cases, specifically - we will have lost the single greatest opportunity to expose and prosecute the most important corruption case regarding Civil and Electoral Rights since 2000.
You see, the scandal isn't about which prosecutors were fired. It's really about the reason they were fired, and the reason the Federal Prosecutor in Florida hasn't been fired... Why the prosecutor that put Ms. Prude in jail - and wasted his department's resources when his number one priority, according to Alberto Gonzalez, is protecting us from terrorism... why he hasn't been fired...
Bottom line? This is simply something that must be taken up by John Conyers and Patrick Leahy. Call them early and call them often.