It’s a Washington truism:
The cover-up is always worse than the crime.
It is true only in terms of being caught. Convictions associated with a cover-up stem from the effort to block justice and not the original crimes. The sad truth is that elected officials, lobbyists and their financial backers can and do get away with high crimes and misdemeanors.
Sometimes they get caught, but you would be shocked to see what they get away with.
Since 1999 I have been researching a crime wave behind an organized effort to fund the establishment of One-Party-Rule in the USA.
In the 1970s a small group of folks decided to take over America and they did. In 2000 they installed a weak, incurious and self-important man as President. In the years leading up to that coup d'état and in the years after the takeover, a great many crimes were committed against Americans and the world.
Most of those crimes will never be punished. Some will never be discussed.
In 2004 a window on this criminal enterprise was exposed. Then the cover-ups began.
Now it is all unraveling.
To the jump...
As those who have been following my Diaries know, I have been writing about the Republican Culture of Corruption and the Jack Abramoff Scandal for some time now.
I was pulled into this research eight years ago as part of my job at Co-op America, a nonprofit dedicated to harnessing our collective economic power to build a socially just and environmentally sound planet.
Back then we were working on ways we could use that economic power—as consumers, investors, workers and business leaders—to stop sweatshops and end the chronic labor abuse fueling much of Global trade.
In the course of that work I learned about the organized abuse of tens of thousands of Guest Workers on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US Territory in the Western Pacific some 40 miles North of Guam. It was abuse protected by the Government of the CNMI and the US Congress.
I asked myself how that could happen.
I spent time researching the supply chain, the companies involved, the laws that made it possible and the history of the CNMI.
I was appalled. This was very close to modern slavery.
The workers came from many impoverished countries and they were being used as expendable commodities to increase profits of the greedy. They effectively had no rights. Economic pressure and consumer/shareholder demand for corporate accountability could (and did) help end some sweatshops around the globe, but to solve the abuse on this rogue US Territory it would require action from the Federal government.
It seemed that 1999 would be the year when Congressional action would end the abuse. Bills had passed the Senate and had more than enough sponsors to pass the House. Media reports about sweatshops and the abuse on the Mariana Islands seemed to be everywhere. I felt that a major victory was about to happen.
It didn’t.
The effort died in the House of Representatives. It never came up for a vote.
I wondered why. I wanted to know how this happen. I found out.
I found Jack Abramoff.
As I dug into his background, clients, donations and connections to the leadership of the Republican Party and the larger conservative movement, I became amazed at the depth and breadth of, what to me, was a massive scandal.
I didn’t know the half of it.
Abramoff was just a window on a massive scandal. It was corruption on steroids.
The crimes committed on the CNMI were and are horrible (and they continue even as I write this tonight), but they are only a side show in a much larger scandal—a much larger criminal conspiracy to place "Party" above Country and establish One-Party-Rule in America.
It is a scheme that almost worked, but now it is unraveling.
In February 2004, the Washington Post began their Abramoff coverage. This was very bad news for the Republican power structure in and out of Washington DC, because for more than 25 years, Abramoff had been a bag man for the GOP. As Jack told Vanity Fair last year:
"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn’t know me is almost certainly lying," he says. Such lies are not just, well, lies, but dumb to boot, he adds, for, as his own humiliations suggest, old e-mails never die; they just sit on hard drives, waiting to be subpoenaed and then to be leaked to the press. "This is not an age when you can run away from facts," he declares. "I had to deal with my records, and others will have to deal with theirs."
Jack knows where and how many, many crimes were committed. And he is talking.
His specialty was finding off-the-books financing to fund the effort to establish One-Party-Rule in America. In the eighties he converted the College Republicans into a farm club and training camp for Conservative shock troops. Then he had a hand in Iran-Contra and other shadow efforts to fund and support the covert Wars of the Reagan era. That effort took him to South Africa where he worked to protect Apartheid and create bonds with networks of "anti-communists" working across the globe.
By the early 1990s his "cover" was a Hollywood producer, his job was to raise money for the cause. In 1994, he helped collect over $700,000 for GOP candidates. The money was passed through DeLay, who then won over Gingrich’s candidate for GOP Whip. From the beginning of the Gingrich revolution Jack was there and he was a key player.
From 1994 to 1999 there was a GOP crime wave. An incurious national media would often report on the crimes being committed, but never follow-up on the links to the Congressional Leadership. Every now and then a story would start to get traction, but the well organized, funded and unopposed Right Wing Noise Machine could always shut it down or distract the press with a story about Bill Clinton's penis.
Most of the crimes committed in this time period are now past the statute of limitations for prosecution, but not for political exposure. These stories should be exposed and told.
These stories are especially important because they put the players in place for the next crime wave: the 2000 election and its aftermath.
Al Gore won the election.
It took a massive criminal effort to suppress, steal and manufacture votes to put the loser of the election into the White House. It was an effort that needed tons of off-the-books walking around money, especially in Florida.
Jack was in the thick of it and so were many of his fellow travelers. Most, but not all of these crimes are also past the statute of limitations, but the stakes were high in 2000 and more Republicans engaged in activity that even today they feel compelled to cover-up.
After Bush was installed in the White House the graft began to accelerate, but there were problems. Bush was a weak leader with a prissy sense of entitlement. By the spring of 2001 his Party had lost control of the Senate. By the late summer his poll numbers were dropping like a stone and the Senate, NGOs and the press were digging into the crimes and irregularities of the 2000 election.
Then came 9-11.
A Patriot would have used that moment to unite the Country and the World. Instead, Bush and the GOP Gang used to moment to seize power, silence critics and push their dream of One-Party-Rule in the USA.
There was a lot of rhetoric about hunting down those who attacked America, but Republicans focused their fire at political critics and Democrats more than they focused on Al-Queda. Max Cleland, Tom Daschle, Michael Moore, Phil Donahue, the Dixie Chicks, and others had to be stopped, but Bin Laden could get away.
Bush, Rove and the Republican Party politicized the tragedy. It was working. By the 2002 midterms many Democrats were defeated because they asked questions and were portrayed by a newly compliant press as not supporting the newly re-branded George W. Bush—a media creation of conviction and resolve. Behind this narrative was another crime spree.
Once 9-11 insulated Bush from criticism, all bets were off. Thieves, crooks and robbers were placed in charge of one agency after another in the Government. Lobbyists had a free hand: they could write bills; give and receive favors; and they were an important part of the way Bush and the Republican Congress governed Washington. From September 2001 through January 2004 an amazing number of crimes were committed (only a small fraction has been revealed).
During this time, it seemed that the dream of establishing a One-Party-Rule in the USA was happening. That it was already a permanent reality. Democrats were weak and disorganized. Most of those who remained in Congress after 2002 seemed to be on auto-capitulation to Bush and the Republicans.
There was as sense among many in the GOP that nothing would ever stop them. The schemes became more and more blatant. Tom DeLay broke laws to redistrict Texas. Other laws were broken in Georgia, Colorado and many other States. In the 2002 election millions of dollars flowed to fund dirty tricks, voter suppression efforts and out right fraud. And these contributions were rewarded with Legislation and/or favors from the White House to benefit the donors. These were well hidden crimes committed within a system protected by layer upon layer of denial, a Congress allergic to over-sight and a media addicted to being spoon fed their daily narrative from Drudge or the White House.
At the center of these crimes were Jack Abramoff and a network of other GOP money launderers. These were the mules that moved the cash and kept the crimes and the players hidden from view.
These crimes, especially those committed between 2002 and 2004, are subject to prosecution. And that should have many Republicans worried.
The pace of the crime spree picked up again with the Iraq War. Billions are missing and I’m sure that more than a few dollars were washed to find their way back to fund election fraud to keep Bush in office back in 2004. Many more dollars enriched the patrons of the effort to take over America.
When the Washington Post started their Abramoff coverage in early 2004, a window on this massive criminal conspiracy was opened. It had to be managed. It had to be contained.
Fortunately, George W. Bush could count on John McCain.
As news of the Abramoff scandal broke, it was McCain who led the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee’s investigation of Jack Abramoff.
Did I say investigation, sorry my bad, I meant cover-up.
From the start, McCain worked overtime to keep a lid on the most damaging aspects of the Abramoff scandal and slow-walk the investigation.
He shaped the narrative. Abramoff became a rogue lobbyist who took advantage of his GOP pals to rip off some casinos.
McCain converted the scandal into Hollywood "heist/caper" film, knowing that American prejudices against Native Americans and tribal casinos would help hide the damning details of the Abramoff scandal:
- Jack’s role as a 25-year bagman for the GOP: hidden.
- Jack’s close working relationship with the Bush White House: hidden.
- Jack’s close working relationship with the Republican Congressional Leadership: hidden.
- Jack’s role in dirty tricks and off-the-books money for the GOP: hidden.
- Jack’s role in Medicare reform: hidden.
- Jack’s role energy policy: hidden.
McCain actively controlled the story and he put the investigation into slow motion. He ensured that it was a not a factor in the 2004 election. Then he ensured that voters would not know about how closely Abramoff, Rove and Bush worked together. The work of McCain limited the damage the Abramoff scandal had on the GOP in the 2006 election.
He also has suppressed a literal mountain of evidence—over 750,000 pages of documents related to Jack Abramoff, his work and his connections in and out of government.
Only about 8,000 pages of these documents have been released. Here is a snapshot:
There are a lot of crimes embedded in the documents McCain suppressed. I hope that the Democrats in the 110th Congress are correcting McCain’s error and are actually reviewing the massive pile of documents. More than that, I hope they will release them to the public.
Bush and the GOP could not rely on John McCain alone to slow-walk the Abramoff investigation. Sure, the man from Arizonia went beyond the call of duty to obstruct justice, but the scandal was just too big. Crimes were leaking out.
And it was far more than Abramoff. Jack was not an exception to the way the Republican Party governed, he was the rule. He only acted the way they all acted. He was the status quo. By 2005 more scandals emerged. The number of Republicans under investigation increased again in 2006. A pattern was taking shape that connected these many scandals to the larger criminal conspiracy to convert America into a Kleptocracy.
The Bush/McCain cover-up was leaking.
They needed team players in the Justice Department to slow down the wheels of justice. They needed loyal Bushies to stand in the gap and protect the Party.
They found them.
That is what is at the heart of the firings the US Attorneys—an effort to obstruct justice.
Some players are already known like Monica Goodling and some like Robert E. Coughlin are just starting to be exposed for their crimes.
It is not a coincidence that moves by Alberto Gonzales and the Bush White House have had the effect of slow-walking dozens of investigations—after all they have thousands of crimes to cover-up. If they can run out the clock, the crimes will become like the crimes they committed in the 1990s and in the 2000 election. They will move pass legal jeopardy. If they can keep the lid on it, the cover-up just might work.
Not this time. We need to blow the lid off this scandal.
We need to expose this Culture of Corruption and demand change.
We need to extract a political price for the crimes past the Statute of Limitations.
We need to speed things up.
2007 is a year for gathering facts and holding their feet to the fire. 2008 is a year to defeat these scoundrels at the ballot box and put a Democrat in the White House. That will give us a Department of Justice that believes in the law again.
Get involved.
- Write letters, contact the press, call talk shows, post comments, and otherwise promote this effort. Demand the release of these 750,000 pages of documents. Make it clear that you are concerned about the widespread evidence of criminal activity in the Republican Party and the cover-ups of these crimes.
- Research. Follow the money. Find the quid pro quos. Dig into the ties of the GOP to CNMI and Guam, or to Cunningham, or to ripping off Native Americans, or to any of the entry points into the web of scandal. Grab a mask and a shovel and start digging into the many aspects of this cesspool of corruption.
- Get out the truth and hold the GOP accountable in 2007 and 2008. Perhaps Republican candidates will want to explain to voters why they wanted to kill the Abramoff and other corruption investigation. We should force the question.
Let’s push this hard.
Cheers!