Not just for Ted Stevens, but was it also related to Scooter Libby?
[Update a few minutes later]
This just points out that while elections matter, they don’t necessarily matter as much as they should, due to entrenched civil servants below appointment level, which is why the CIA seemed to be at war with the Bush administration for much of the past eight years (not to mention the State Department). And the administration never seemed willing to even try to do anything about it (for instance, no one was ever fired for all of the leaks to the New York Times). I’d be curious to know if Ms. Morris ever prosecuted a Democrat.
Yes, the country has never recovered from FDR’s hat trick. He put his people (Democrats of course) in place, and then created the “civil service”, insuring that they couldn’t be replaced if the elections went against him. The political appointees have very little power, because the power to hire/fire has been denied them. You can make a case that we became a fascist state the moment FDR got the civil service act passed.
I’m not sure that I’d agree with that. If anything, having a bureaucracy with a mind of its own militates against a fascist state, since one of the characteristics of a fascist state is a dictator, or at least someone with a great deal of discretionary power. It’s hard to be a dictator (or a “decider”) when the bureaucracy is at war with you.
Too bad they’re never going to be at war with the current president.
What is Brenda Morris, that you post about her? Where does it say that a fascist state cannot have many “dictators”? The bureaucracy has a great deal of discretionary power but very little in the way of accountability. The elected heads have been reduced to scapegoats, as witnessed with the heck Bush caught over his choice of CIA head. Who spoke out in anger that the CIA sent a househusband to investigate one of the biggest issues of the day? Who lost their job over it? Anyone on the CIA side? Permanent, unelected, unaccountable, we don’t have a dragon, we have a hydra. Doesn’t make me feel any safer.
actually, Brenda Morris Reported to
William Welch, head of the Public Integrity Section,
the PI Section reported to the Head of the Criminal
Division.
The Criminal Division Head reports to the Deputy Attorney
General, and the DAG appoints to the Attorney General.
So, Mike Mukasey (Bush’s Guy) screwed up this supervision, Mark Filip the DAG (Bush’s Guy)
screwed up supervision of the Criminal Division,
the Assistant Attorney General in charge
of the Criminal Division was a Presidential
Appointee (Bush’s Guy),
The director of the Public Integrity Section is a
career Civil Servant, as was ADA Morris, but,
there was lots of people over them who were
all Bushites, and not doing their job.
At the end of the day, the problem is the PI section
has a national beat, and they do poorly in trial,
they don’t have a good feel for the courts, they
don’t have a good feel for the juries and they
don’t have a good set of relationships with the local
attorneys.
This case is just typical, if they had developed the
case and brought it to trial using the Anchorage DA
they could have dealt with their problems, and,
that this was just screwing up the paperwork.
Most of the documents were sent 5 time zones away,
the lead attorney (Morris) was unfamiliar with the
case, and brendan sullivan was beating her up
procedurally.
Stevens dropped $5Million on a top drawer defense,
and they just kept the PI team on the ropes the whole time.
This doesn’t make Stevens an innocent man, having an
oil field company rebuild his house, furnish it, and
charge him 60K defies expectation.
But like Bill Ayers, prosecutorial misconduct has
barred any chance of a working trial on these charges.
The point, Mr. Lee, is that the political appointees have no tools with which to “do their job” when it comes to controlling the civil servants, which is, after all, the point of the civil service. The political was assumed to be corrupt, and the careerists were assumed to be competent, so the civil service was set up to remove the power of the politic people to affect the bureaucrats. No attempt was made to protect the political from the bureaucrats, and we have seen the fallout with the CIA war with Bush, this prosecution, and the FBI medals and promotions after Waco. Look up the “Washington Monthly” when it was edited by Charles Peters. No Republican, he had a lot to say about the games the permanent government plays with the elected government. The elected government has no role other then scapegoat, if the permanent government is acting against them, as you post has kindly shown.
Why doesn’t it make Stevens an innocent man? If he were the least bit guilty, they wouldn’t of had to fake the evidence, would they? This was not “misconduct”, this was Fraud, and the Judge has acted accordingly. It certainly doesn’t “defy expectation”. Anyone who knows someone in construction and similar industries knows they have busy and slow periods. If you time it right, you can do a favor for a friend and get a great deal. I’ve done it myself. Alaska has got to be worse. Having to keep people around for winter, when everything breaks……
Robert
The DOJ is not being accused of faking evidence.
They are being accused of Brady violations.
That is a very serious offense in court and
they are being beaten pretty hard for it
“A key witness had made inconsistent statements and that the value of Stevens’ renovations might have been far less than prosecutors contended in court. It was the final straw for a prosecution team that repeatedly mishandled witnesses and evidence.” If no one else is accusing them of faking evidence, I am. Turning the fact that Stevens got a perfectly legal gift into “evidence” that he illegally got too large a gift and tried to hide it is Vile.