Steven Biskupic: Maybe he should have been fired

by folkbum

It's all coming together much more clearly now.

We Wisconsin bloggers have been following the Georgia Thompson mess since it started over a year ago. We knew then that the evidence was sketchy: Thompson, someone Governor Jim Doyle didn't hire and never met, slightly fudged a bidding process to keep a travel contract in-state and to save taxpayers money. Doyle's Secretary of Administration, Marc Marotta, who was the liason in that process, did not tell Thompson to rig the bidding or, really, anything beyond the outlines of what he expected a final contract to look like.

Thompson got no personal benefit. Marotta got no personal benefit. Doyle got no personal benefit except the already-spent contributions from people associated with the winning bidders, $20,000 out of millions, two individual donors out of thousands from that campaign.

And on that evidence, a jury not only convicted Thompson but several jurors publicly stated they thought the scandal went higher. (They must have been listeners of Belling or Sykes.) On that evidence, US Attorney Steve Biskupic demanded immediate jail time nowhere near commensurate to the crime.

We Wisconsin bloggers have been following the "voter fraud" stories since they started over two years ago. We knew then that the evidence was sketchy: Steve Biskupic and then-Milwaukee County DA E. Michael McCann, at the prodding of a Doyle-hostile newspaper editorial board and a democracy-hostile state Republican Party, spent eleven months and untold thousands of dollars in taxpayer dollars to secure fewer than two dozen indictments for "fraud," most of felons voting (including the one who showed his "FELON" identification card to the poll worker who registered him, and the one who wore his "I Voted" sticker to meet with parole officer later that day--clearly, not people engaged in "fraud" but rather dumbly unaware that they were not allowed to vote). They hounded people like Cynthia Alicea, who was told to fill out a second registration card because her first was messed up--Biskupic thought she voted twice. (None of that compares with the idiocy of the Republicans themselves, though.)

Biskupic's inability to prove, despite months of wasted resources on the matter, that there was wide-spread Democratic voter fraud led the state's Republican part to complain to the White House's political operation that Biskupic wasn't doing his job. And, indeed, he wasn't, as his myopic focus--fruitless, but single-minded--kept him from investigating the Republicans' documented wide-spread voter intimidation in Democratic wards all across Milwaukee.

And in another case we Wisconsin bloggers have been following since the beginning, earlier this year, Steve Biskupic found that a major state political player--Dennis Troha--was illegally beating campaign contribution requirements by giving his family and friends "loans" to cover those people's contributions to Governor Jim Doyle. Biskupic said not one word about how similar bundles of money flowed to Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (who has also admitted to helping Troha with federal agencies) or to two other Congressmen who greased the wheels for legislation that personally and professionally benefitted Troha. Let's be clear: There is nothing in eveidence that Jim Doyle promised or provided to Troha in exchange for the money, but there is plenty to indicate that Ryan and the other Congressmen did provide help to Troha. At most, Doyle opponents have said that Troha was given the help required by state law to deal with interstate trucking taxes.

Biskupic's prosecution of Troha will almost certainly net a conviction, because the evidence is solidly against him. But the trial will, I bet, focus exclusively on Doyle, not anything else where the trail of quid pro quo seems even clearer. Troha, like Thompson, like the "fraudulent" voters, will not roll on anyone else up the food chain because there is no chain. Biskupic is chasing cases that, when you blow hard enough, can seem like smoke surrounding Democrats, specifically Doyle. But there is no fire there.

As it turns out, it's looking more and more like Steve Biskupic is not doing a good job and ought, perhaps, to have been fired.

But all the smoke he's blowing must have saved his behind. The overturning of Thompson's conviction came at just the wrong time for Biskupic, as now people are starting to connect him more and more clearly to the national US Attorney scandal. And it looks like the Thompson conviction may have saved him from the purge:

Steven M. Biskupic, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, was once targeted for firing by the U.S. Justice Department but given a reprieve for reasons that remain unclear, McClatchy News Service reported Friday.

Congressional investigators looking into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys saw Biskupic's name on a list of attorneys targeted for removal when they were inspecting a department document not yet made public, an attorney for a lawmaker involved in the investigation told McClatchy. The attorney asked for anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the investigation.

It wasn't clear when Biskupic was added to a department hit list of prosecutors, or when he was taken off, or whether those developments were connected to a just-overturned corruption case.

Nevertheless, McClatchy reported that the disclosure aroused investigators' suspicion that Biskupic, who is based in Milwaukee, might have been retained in his job because he agreed to prosecute Democrats. Such politicization of the administration of justice is at the heart of congressional Democrats' concerns over the Bush administration's firings of the U.S. attorneys.

I was interested to find the chart released this week showing the "qualifications" of all 93 US Attorneys, criteria apparently used to determine whether or not to keep them around or purge them. The chart shows specifically whether the Attorneys have (Republican) political experience and solid conservative credentials. Here's the page with Biskupic:You can click for a larger version, or read the original pdf from the House Judiciary Committee (it's in set number one, but the pages are upside-down). Biskupic's record looks pretty thin compared to some of the others. Combined with state party complaints about his performance, you could see why he might have been on the short list to be fired. I mean, he's not even a member of the Federalist Society. (Aside: What kind of uproar would there be in the media right now if we learned that, say, the Clinton administration considered whether their US Attorneys were members of the ACLU? Compare that to the relative silence on the FedSoc column.)

Biskupic insists he was never under any pressure to prosecute Democrats. And, until I see documentary evidence to the contrary, I will believe him. (There are thousands of missing emails still, including the ones that would explain how and when Biskupic got off the purge list.) It strains credibility, however, to suggest that Biskupic wasn't aware of the state Republican Party's disatisfaction with his performance. It strains credibilty to suggest that Biskupic's single-minded focus on making Democrats, specifically Jim Doyle, look more corrupt than the evidence rightly shows they are, was not political.

It also strains credibility, now that the evidence is piling up, to suggest that Biskupic has done his job well.

Too Close for Comfort

by krshorewood

The suspicion about the Georgia Thompson conviction and its proximity to the November election has oozed past the lefty Badger blogs to the op-ed pages of today's New York Times.

The editorial Another Layer of Scandal raises the point:

"The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s “corruption” to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won."

Fortunately the fact that Doyle was running against an empty suit and the Rush Limbaugh buffoonery regarding Michael J. Fox on the stem cell issue enabled the campaign to climb over this obstruction.

On the opposite page Paul Krugman as usual nails it:

"...[I]n Wisconsin, ... the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state’s purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “beyond thin.” But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration."

We in Wisconsin know cheesy. And when the aroma equates Limburger and wafts all the way to New York, you know that we are on to something.

More and more it appears that the federal prosecutor's office, which is supposed to be a tool for justice, seems more a means of extracting Democrats from office.

The Slumber of the Journal Sentinel

by krshorewood

Those who anguish over the so-called "liberal media" should take solace in the editorial staff at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They were strangely somnolent during the Tommy Thompson/Scott Jensen reign when Madison quickly drove away from it's clean politics image and drove over our proud progressive tradition.

Of course this reality will not muzzle Charlie Sykes over at the Journal broadcast division but hey, he has a mob to run.

So now the watchdogs rummaged around and found their dentures to sink into Jim Doyle's behind. With the gallons of ink breathlessly splashed on the front page -- usually -- of the Journal recounting Doyle's supposed corruption, you'd think the current administration stumbled out of the woods and discovered every angle possible to corrupt our government.

While most if not all of the cases against the Doyle administration are literally so flimsy you can see through them, the Georgia Thompson by-stander shooting was the most gossamer of them all.

You don't need to read it here because it is all over the place, but there wasn't much of a case adjacent Thompson as evidenced by her springing from prison this week. This was so much so that Federal Prosecutor Steven Biskupic failed to show up to defend what he did last year.

No matter for the Journal. Every detail real and imaginary was without fail reported as the trial against Thompson unfolded.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for crusading, bold, deep digging journalism. But at the Journal it only goes half way. They seem to run out of gas when it comes to Republicans.

Witness the screaming outrage in the Journal about supposed deals of disgraced business man Troha and Doyle over campaign contributions. This torrent becomes a trickle when it comes to any relationship with Congressman Paul Ryan and Troha.

Sorry George Stanley. We do have the internet and despite your protestations it is easy to verify the coverage in the Journal news-hole lists seriously to the right.

Now this morning we read in the Journal that their victim Thompson, as I had thought, is hundreds of thousands in debt thanks to this fizzled prosecution. This is no get out of jail free card.

When civil servant Thompson washed up on the shore she would be economically ruined. But as usual she is one of the many eggs the right wing breaks when it makes another of their omelets.

When are people going to wake up to the notion that if you yank in under a quarter of a million in annual income, you are just so much detritus to those on the right?

Want more proof? Look at another story that details how after FOUR YEARS an upset father of an Iraq US military fatality forced the Dept. of Defense to finally greet the bodies of returning soldiers with an honor guard, rather than unloading the body "like so much luggage."

Millions in this country see their life-savings sacrificed on the altar of our "free enterprise" healthcare system. But no matter. We somehow vaguely benefit from right-wing business as usual.

I hope someone starts a fund to pass the hat for Thompson.

As for the editors at the Journal, how do they sleep at night? File this whole thing under disgusting.

Thompson emails: Smoking gun or just smoking something?

The Wisconsin GOP thinks it has the smoking gun in the Georgia Thompson "travelgate" case. A press release (.pdf) has copies of emails Thompson sent that, if you squint real hard and imagine things that aren't there, might indicate the the "scandal" goes all the way to the top.

In one email, Thompson mentions that she's arranging for the winning bidder (remember that Thompson's insisting on a final round of bids saved taxpayers money!) Adelman Travel to visit the offices of the Governor, one of the people who would be using the services of the agency. This makes sense to me:

But Doyle spokesman Matt Canter said there was nothing improper about Thompson trying to arrange the visit to the governor's office after the contract was awarded.

"Thompson and her staff went around to government agencies, including the governor's office, to explain the new procedures of the travel contract," Canter said.

Of course, the more important--and completely unasked--question is, If Adelman Travel was so well-connected to the Governor, why would they need Thompson to arrange a visit?

In a second, very long email, from January of 2005, as the bidding process was just getting started, Thompson included one line about Marc Marotta, Governor Doyle's then Administration Secretary (now a high roller in the re-election campaign). The line is about what was included in the Request for Proposals (RFP) sent out to travel agencies. "We included language in the RFP," she wrote, "about hotels and airlines, as Marc Marotta suggested." To the GOP, Marotta's suggestion that (horrors!) the state's travel agency might cover both airlines and hotels is tantamount to his having selected Adelman as quid pro quo for Adelman's contributions to the Doyle campaign. In fact (from the JSOnline link above):

Marotta said he attended one meeting, which his schedule says was held in Ocober 2004, at which a potential $4 million savings by consolidating state travel was discussed.

There you go. But again, an important and unasked question remains. The very next sentence in that Thompson email reads, "I still believe both hotels and airlines need to be bid separately [. . .]." If Thompson was supposedly doing all this to please her supervisors, why would she express reservations, instead of going at it full bore? Seriously, do you really think it would help you with your boss if you went around saying, "Hm, I think my boss may be wrong"?

It doesn't make sense. The GOP is not making a very good case here, and if this is as close as they can get to a smoking gun, then maybe it's the crack they're smoking.

What's more, the Republican-appointed US Attorney who's been on this case--and who secured the conviction against Thompson--thinks the GOP is on crack, too. Again from the JSOnline link, with my emphasis:

U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic, who prosecuted Thompson, said in a statement today that in the course of his investigation, he had examined the e-mail released by the Republican Party and concluded there was nothing in it criminally damaging to Marotta. In fact, Marotta was not even called as a witness in Thompson's trial.

"The public should not presume that anyone else will be charged," Biskupic said. "We are continuing to look at the evidence, but the public is cautioned not to read anything else into it, only that we're being careful. It doesn't necessarily mean that more charges are forthcoming."

Seth Zlotocha called it right the other day when he said that the GOP's relentless negative digs at Doyle--and, in today's case, desperate digs at Doyle--show nothing more than a lack of leadership and a plan from their candidate for governor, Mark Green. If they had something positive to show, they would show it. Green's got nothing, so they have to do the next best thing--stretch the truth about Jim Doyle.

Adelman Travel non-Gate

Surprisingly, there has been news in the world besides that about the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, including the indictment of a state Department of Administration official in the Adelman Travel "pay-for-play" scandal. While the right Cheddarsphere is basking in the news, Cory Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin has a harsh, cold shower for them:

First, the indictment “does not allege a pay-to-play scheme in which the contract was awarded in exchange for the money.” Second, Georgia Thompson was actually hired by the Republican McCallum Administration. Even if one is inclined to believe the right wing conspiracy theories, it would be very difficult to accept that a Republican hire was at the center of a grand Democratic plot. Really now, just think about it. If you are going to plan such an elaborate scheme, why would you make the main player a person that your last opponent hired?

For several days now, the right has been following the grand jury, with hoping Thompson "rolls" on someone higher up. Wigderson, for example, is eating his words with his Thin Mints, but I bet he never expected that the indictment handed down would be against a Republican appointee. It's looking more like there may be no there there, at least not the one the GOP has been hoping for.

Do I support the kind of numbers-cooking Thompson is alleged to have done? Of course not. But I will not judge Jim Doyle or anyone else in the administration based on such a limited indictment. The right would do well to hold its tongue, too.