U.S. attorney's firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sun, Mar. 18, 2007
WASHINGTON - Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.
Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.
"We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," he wrote. "This remains the case and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."
But the revelation is sure to heighten demands in Congress for a full investigation into whether something other than job performance was behind the Justice Department's dismissals late last year of eight U.S. attorneys, including Lam.
On Sunday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he intends to force President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, to testify and will insist that the testimony be under oath. Leahy, who appeared on ABC's "This Week," said he is "sick and tired" of the administration's changing rationale for the firings.
Justice Department officials originally told Congress that the U.S. attorneys had been dismissed for poor performance. But since it's become known that most of the attorneys received positive job evaluations.
Last week, the Justice Department released e-mails showing that loyalty to President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was among the criteria used to judge U.S. attorneys' performance and that Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers were deeply involved in discussions leading up to the dismissals.
Roehrkasse said the Justice Department would provide additional e-mails to Congress on Monday. The documents were to have been surrendered last week, but Justice officials delayed the delivery, saying they needed more time to prepare them.
In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Feinstein said she'd not yet decided what motivated Lam's dismissal.
"There were clearly U.S. attorneys that were thorns in the side for one reason or another of the Justice Department," Feinstein said. "The attorney general has said he did not know what was going on ... that is very difficult for me to believe."
Feinstein said Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006, that she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who'd resigned two days earlier as the No. 3 official at the CIA.
On May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales' chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."
The e-mail did not spell out what the "real problem" was, and it was unclear whether Kelley and Sampson talked later.
Until now, lawmakers have focused on two of Lam's other inquiries into Republicans as possible ways in which she may have chafed the administration.
Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.
On the same day last year as the Sampson e-mail, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham probe was being expanded to look at the actions of another California Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.
Feinstein did not say how she learned that Lam had notified the Justice Department about her plans to serve search warrants on Foggo, who on May 8 had resigned as the executive director of the CIA. FBI agents seized records from Foggo's CIA offices and his suburban Vienna, Va., home on May 12.
Who Lam notified about her plans was unknown. Ordinarily, information about search warrants in high-profile cases would be passed to the U.S. attorney executive office in Washington. At the time, that office was headed by Michael Battle. Battle, who notified the dismissed U.S. attorneys they were being replaced in December, resigned March 5.
Sampson, who resigned last week, declined comment through his lawyer. Feinstein's office also declined interview requests.
Sampson's May 11 e-mail was released as part of a congressional investigation into the firings last year of Lam and seven other U.S. attorneys, and the Bush administration's changing explanations as to what role politics or performance played.
Democrats say they will investigate whether independent prosecutors were forced out for going after Republican corruption or ignoring pressure to prosecute Democrats in order to sway elections and are expected to seek testimony from Sampson and Kelley as well as Rove and Miers. The White House is scheduled to tell Congress on Tuesday whether it will allow the testimony or invoke executive privilege.
Also this week, the House and Senate are scheduled to vote to undo a law quietly passed last year that stripped the Senate's power to reject interim U.S. attorneys the administration might pick to replace ousted prosecutors.
Meanwhile, the controversy over the firings dominated the Sunday morning political talk shows as lawmakers geared up for more developments in the week ahead.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Gonzales would be forced from his job within a week. Schumer also proposed a short list of three Republican replacements.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the top Republican on the panel, said Congress should consider writing legislation to require the Justice Department to show cause if the administration wants to remove one of its U.S. attorneys.
"Congress has the constitutional authority to set some parameters and guidelines," Specter said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't really want to interfere with the president's basic right to set policy. If he wants immigration cases emphasized, his U.S. attorneys ought to do that. Whatever classifications he wants ought to be followed. But we're learning from this experience. If we find there's a way to better regulate this kind of a situation, Congress ought to act."
The three lawyers Schumer suggested Democrats might support to replace Gonzales are:
-Michael B. Mukasey, who returned last year to the private sector after serving as chief U.S. district court judge of the southern district of New York. Mukasey, a Reagan administration nominee, presided over the terrorism trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 co-defendants.
-Larry Thompson, left the Justice Department in 2003 after serving as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft. Thompson focused on terrorism and corporate crime, including a role in going after Enron Corp.
-James Comey, left the Justice Department in 2005 after serving as Thompson's replacement. Comey is trusted by some Democrats because of his perceived discomfort with some of the administration's terrorism surveillance policies and because he named U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that ended with the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
realcities.com
realcities.com.
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Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing?
Referring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”
The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections:
– Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.
– Wade’s company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to “provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.”
– Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boat’s name was later changed to the “Duke-Stir.” Said one party to the sale: “I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that…Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it — all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.”
– According to Cunningham’s sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.
To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated.
That should raise questions about the White House’s involvement.
UPDATE: Perhaps this was the “real problem” Sampson was referring to: [edit: use link to see chart]
thinkprogress.org
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dailykos.com
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More on Mitchell J. Wade & MZM, Inc.
TPM Cafe
By mrs panstreppon
June 14, 2006
Looking at corporate registrations, property sales, etc., I am struck by how Mitchell Wade put the MZM operation in place in the summer of 2001 as if he was sure big business would roll in. The press has focused more on the bribes paid by Wade to Duke Cunningham than how many former members of intelligence agencies were on MZM's payroll as employees or consultants.
Wade registered MZM, Inc. in Nevada in 1993, presumably when he became a defense and intelligence consultant. He worked for Brent Wilkes's ADCS in the '90s and became friends with Duke Cunningham.
Wade registered 1523 New Hampshire Ave., LLC (1523 NH Ave) in May 2001. In July 2001, Wade, through 1523 NH Ave, bought the property at 1523 New Hampshire Ave. NW in Washington DC for $2.3 million and took a $1.7 million mortgage. The seller was the California Board of Regents.
In July 2001, Wade also registered the Sure Foundation Inc., his so-called charity, which I wrote about here.
According to a 12/05/05 LA Times story, Wade first bribed Cunningham in November 2001 with $12,000 in furnishings. In January 2002, he laid out $50k in cash for the congressman. By the time MZM was awarded its first contract, Wade had paid $100k to Cunningham.
In May 2002, the GSA put MZM on a list of approved technology information providers even thouigh MZM had no experience with government contracts. In August 2002, MZM was awarded its first contract, $140k to provide Dick Cheney's office with computers and furniture. At the end of the month, Wade bought Cunningham's yacht for $140k.
In September 2002, the GSA awarded a five-year blanket contract to MZM that potentially was worth $250 million. Under the contract, the Pentagon could purchase specific computer services from MZM without competition.
From what I have read, the MZM business was different from the ADCS business because most of it was not earmarked. I am interested in who else influenced the GSA and the Pentagon besides Duke Cunningham. News stories have been sketchy on the details as to how Wade initially financed his operation and who was put on the MZM payroll and when.
Lt. General Patrick M. Hughes, former Defense Intelligence Agency director, was a consultant to MZM at least as early as January 2001 through his firm, PMH Enterprises LLC. According to his website in the internet archives, Hughes also was a consultant to Syntek Technologies, Inc. and Senior Advisor for Intelligence Services for Corporate Positioning which was headed by "Dee Smith".
Lt. General Harry E. Soyster, another former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was on the board of the Sure Foundation in 2002. I don't know for sure if he was on MZM's payroll but I'd say it is a fair probability. In the '90s, Soyster helped MPRI, a private security firm, land a big contract for security in the Balkans after he was put on MPRI's payroll. MPRI subsequently was bought out by L3 Communications. Soyster also served on the board of Aura Systems and Xybernaut.
Lt. General Sidney T. Weinstein, former chief of staff at the Defense Intelligence Agency, was on the board of the Sure Foundation in 2002. In one news story, he is quoted as being in favor of the recent appointment of Lt. General Keith B. Alexander as director of the NSA because Alexander had worked under Weinstein. Weinstein retired in 1989 but I don't know what he did afterwards. Again, I think it's fair to say he was probably on MZM's payroll.
Lt. General James C. King became a senior vice-president of MZM immediately after retiring as director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in late 2001. Of all of the offers he must have considered, King chose MZM, a company that had no revenue or contracts when he joined it. Interestingly, King's salary was never made public. King announced his decision to retire in September 2001 before 9/11.
How was Mitchell Wade financing his business in 2001 and 2002? He had a $1.7 million mortgage and some hefty consulting bills plus he had three children to support from his first marriage. One of the possibilities was his second wife's family, the Shipleys. Christiane Denyse Shipley, as reported in a 10/12/97 NY Times wedding announcement, is the daughter of Linwood Parks Shipley, Jr. and Micheline Shipley.
L. Parks Shipley, according to his bio on the DE Miles website, has over 28 years of experience in international banking and finance. According to other news stories, Shipley was a senior executive with Irving Trust. In a 1998 article, he was quoted as chief representative of Banco de Credito Argentina. Shipley is on the board of the Brazilian American and the Argentine American Chambers of Commerce and lived in South America for seven years.
Before he went into banking, Shipley spent sixteen years in public service with a privately-funded organization that engaged in the development of special education and cross-cultural programs with governments in Europe, Africa and Latin America. He was a Yale and Columbia graduate. Maybe Shipley was in the intelligence business.
L. Parks Shipley, Sr. was a partner with Brown Brothers Harriman. Walter V. Shipley, his brother, was CEO of Chemical Bank. We're talking some money here and the Shipley family has been in Maryland since the 1600s so we're also talking pedigrees.
Whoever backed Mitchell Wade must have known that the business was guaranteed to succeed. The mortgage lender must have a good reason for lending Wade $1.7 million even though Wade did not have a viable business in July 2001.
In December 2002, Mitchell and Christiane Wade shelled out $3.3 million for a house at 2412 Tracy Place NW in Washington. MZM had been awarded the big contract by then but the cash had not even started coming in. $3.3 million was a lot to lay out and I did not find any indication that the Wades took out a mortgage.
In September 2005, Athena Solutions, the successor to MZM, Inc., bought the property at 1523 New Hampshire Ave NW for $3.5 million. Athena also bought the Tampa property for $1.4 million which Wade paid $1.0 million for in May 2004.
On 12/01/04, Mitchell Wade bought a 7,442 sq. ft. piece of property with a 22k sq ft warehouse at 235 Holliday St., Baltimore, for $1.29 million from JAC, LLC. The property had an assessed value of $228k. JAC, LLC, registered in April 2004 by Phillip Nochumowitz, bought the building from Nochumowitz in May 2004 but no sale price was given. Athena bought the property from Wade in September 2005 for $1.34 million.
The Nochumowitz family appears to be quite active in Baltimore real estate, according to Lexis-Nexis filings. The question is why did Mitchell Wade buy a warehouse in Baltimore at a seemingly high price and were there any other partners in JAC, LLC.
As an aside, I found a reference to Brigadier General Philip Pushkin in an obituary from the Baltimore Jewish Times. I googled the general and learned that General Philip H. Pushkin is retired from the National Guard Bureau. In another blog entry, I wrote about Matthew Pushkin, president of Pushkin Operational Consultants (POC). POC was awarded a contract by the White House around the same time as MZM in the summer of 2004. I speculated that Matthew Pushkin was related to Dennis Pushkin and noted that Dennis Pushkin was involved in a legal action in Baltimore at one time. Pushkin is not a common name so I wonder if General Pushkin is related to Dennis or Matthew Pushkin.
Skipping forward to June 2005, the Baltimore Sun reported that Colonel John W. Ives was retiring and taking a postion with MZM. Col. Ives was the commander at Fort Meade in Baltimore who signed off on a three-decade master plan to manage the expected explosive growth of the area around Fort Meade. Fort Meade, already home to the NSA, will become the national center of information and defense technology. Fort Meade is Maryland's largest employer with 40k employees and at least 5k more jobs will defintely be relocated there in the next few years.
According to Ives, 20K more jobs could be added at Fort Meade if the Pentagon relocates federal agencies that require secure facilities there. An existing golf course would be eliminated and new construction built to house the agencies in the center of Fort Meade. The golf course would be relocated elsewhere around Fort Meade. There was some speculation that the Metro Line would be extended at a cost of $100 million per mile.
Picerne Military Housing already has a $400 million contract to rebuild military housing at Fort Meade. The project is not off to a good start because, in January 2006, the Army had to evacuate a dozen families from new townhouses that were built by Picerne near a landfill for fear of a methane gas explosion. Apparently, Picerne knew about the buried landfill but kept building anyway, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Picerne is a huge real estate company that has a $3 billion contract in total to re-build military housing around the US. The IT Group was Picerne's partner when it won the contract. At the time, the Carlyle Group was IT's principal stockholder. In January 2002, Carlyle forced the IT Group into a phony bankruptcy. Most of the IT Group's assets were sold off cheap to the Shaw Group in a pre-arranged non-competetive and very shady deal. So the Shaw Group, the largest contractor involved in post-Katrina reconstruction, has a piece of this huge military housing contract.
Any wonder why MZM hired Col. John W. Ives?
And I don't think Athena Solutions will have too much trouble getting new business once the MZM scandal dies down. When Veritas bought MZM and renamed it Athena Solutions, James C. King, now Athena CEO, commented enthusiastically about the involvement of the Veritas Capital Defense and Aerospace Advisory Council in the sale. The Advisory Council includes the Honorable Richard Armitage, General Richard Hawley, General Barry McCaffrey, Admiral Jospeh Prueher, Admiral Leighton Smith and General Anthony Zinni.
More to come.
mrs panstreppon's blog
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