Secrecy Invoked on Abramoff Lawsuits

[Ghost in the Machine]

Secrecy Invoked on Abramoff Lawsuits
Published: 12/1/07, 4:48 PM EDT
By PETE YOST

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is laying out a new secrecy defense in an effort to end a court battle about the White House visits of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The administration agreed last year to produce all responsive records about the visits "without redactions or claims of exemption," according to a court order.

But in a court filing Friday night, administration lawyers said that the Secret Service has identified a category of highly sensitive documents that might contain information sought in a lawsuit about Abramoff's trips to the White House.

The Justice Department, citing a Cold War-era court ruling, declared that the contents of the "Sensitive Security Records" cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show whether Abramoff made more visits to the White House than those already acknowledged.

"The simple act of doing so ... would reveal sensitive information about the methods used by the Secret Service to carry out its protective function," the Justice Department argued.

http://www.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=2754&eeid=5557630&_sitecat=1504&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=ne

[Botany]

1. I knew it .... those dirty commies are at fault.

"The Justice Department, citing a Cold War-era court ruling ...."

[Donnachaidh]

2. John Dean said it on Countdown the other night

The White House is now using the Secrecy acts to protect it's ass from criminal prosecution. :grr:

[malaise]

7. It's that simple n/t

[HowHasItComeToThis]

3. WHEN DO THE MOBS START??????????????

I CANOT BELEIVE WHAT OUR NATION WILL PUT UP WITH

[biscotti]

4. How can a lobbyist's visits

be construed as state secrets? The vary concept initiates ideas of inappropriate, illegal actions have taken place.

[NC_Nurse]

5. Oh, fer Chrissakes!

They stoop ever further....:eyes:

[mac2]

6. Secret Service is too secret?

Seems they swear an oath of office to Bush not the citizens who pay their salaries. "Productive function" for who Bush...certainly not us. I don't feel a bit safer do you?

[L. Coyote]

8. Time has five photographs of Bush and Abramoff. What are the dates on these?

The "Justice" Department. Would that be AG Mukasey? Who exactly?

Abramoff awaits sentencingf on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion convictions in his Washington influence-peddling case, and he is singing to avoid spending time behind bars. No doubt, he has told all on his jokster buddy Bush by now!!

From Yost's AP article:

............

The filing came in a lawsuit by a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch. Another private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also has requested Secret Service records of Abramoff's White House visits, and on Friday, the Justice Department asked that the two suits be consolidated.

To date, the government has turned over Secret Service records referring to seven White House visits by Abramoff ....

"This is an extraordinary development and it raises the specter that there were additional contacts with President Bush or other high White House officials that have yet to be disclosed," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. "We've alleged that the government has committed misconduct in this litigation and frankly this is more fuel for that fire."

...... Abramoff wrote an e-mail to the national editor of Washingtonian magazine saying that Bush had seen him "in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows."

Time magazine reported that its reporters had been shown five photographs of Bush and Abramoff. Most of them, the magazine said, had "the formal look of photos taken at presidential receptions." ...........

[symbolman]

9. I just want to thank you L. Coyote for being on top of everything

You are a Credit to the DU and much appreciated. You bring details to the fore that make many a Scandal come to life, at least for me..

Great post and a killer job, Thanks!

That goes for Ghost in the Machine as well, Kudos!

[L. Coyote]

10. Thanks to you. And, kudos to all the DUers with jobs instead of free time!!

We each do what we can, and absorb the facts of our situation.
We each contribute to others being able to convey that situation.

[Ghost in the Machine]

11. I wish I could recommend *your* reply.....

I remember it being said before about how the chimp knew Abramoff's kids' names.... someone had compared it to "Ken who?".... then it was revealed that he did, in fact, have a longstanding friendship with 'Kenny Boy' Lay....

How much more bullshit do these clowns think they can feed us??

[gratuitous]

12. Abramoff was a lobbyist, not a government official

Well, we'll see if the judge can be hoodwinked as easily as the typical Fox News viewer or Free Republic poster. Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention who's hearing this case.

State secrets are antithetical to democracy, which depends for its very existence on an informed electorate.

[Ghost in the Machine]

13. monday kick

[L. Coyote]

14. Scott Horton just gave this a real scorching damnification. Bush a tyrant, ..tyranny...

The Justice Department’s On-Going ‘State Secrets’ Charade
Scott Horton - Dec 2, 2007 - http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001814

When is information a “state secret” and thus completely exempt from disclosure in legal process, even if its exclusion will produce a manifest injustice? In previous episodes, we have gotten an array of different answers. For instance, we learned that when the Government engages in criminal violations of the FISA statute conspiring with telecommunications companies in the process, with the result that the communications of American citizens are subject to unlawful warrantless surveillance—this is a “state secret.” And likewise, when the Government picks up an innocent man, wrongfully confines him and deprives him of access to counsel and due process, then transports him overseas for the purposes of having him tortured—again a series of criminal acts—this is also a “state secret.” And today we get yet a further installment in what the Bush Justice Department considers to be a “state secret.” It appears that when a convicted felon at the heart of what Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann have labeled the “biggest corruption scandal in American history” pays hundreds of visits to the White House, meeting with the President, the Vice President, and the President’s senior political advisor, and potentially involving them directly or indirectly in his criminal schemes, this, too, is a “state secret” and thus cannot be divulged.

I think we’re detecting a pattern here. “State secrets” it seems has nothing to do with signals intelligence, military planning or armaments—the things traditionally associated with state secrets. No, when the Bush Justice Department uses the term, it means something else: it refers to information which, if disclosed, would be politically embarrassing to the Republican Party, and as to which no other privilege is available. The “state secrets” privilege has literally emerged as the Bush Administration’s new get-out-of-jail-free card.

The AP’s Pete Yost reports:

The Bush Administration is laying out a new secrecy defense in an effort to end a court battle about the White House visits of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. .....

.....

White House responses to inquiries up to this point have furnished specific evidence of intentional evasion–what in other circumstances (as for instance when it is enforcing rather than subverting the law) the Justice Department would call “obstruction of justice.” For instance, Vice President Cheney gave specific guidance to the Secret Service to destroy records of visits to his office and to stop the practice of recording future visits. President Bush made a number of statements refusing to give a specific account of his meetings with Abramoff, which reportedly have been frequent.

.... MUST READ ....

From: President Bush and Jack Abramoff meetings " reportedly have been frequent"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2392986