Schlozman may alter testimony

[maddezmom]

Source: KCStar

A published report says former U.S. Attorney Brad Schlozman may revise his Senate testimony about a Kansas City voter registration fraud case.

Bloomberg News, citing two unidentified Justice Department officials, said Schlozman wanted to “clarify” the role of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in reviewing his charges against former workers for ACORN, an activist group.

On Tuesday, Schlozman repeatedly told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that the section reviewed and approved the November 2006 grand jury indictments, which accused the former workers of knowingly filing false voter registrations.

Sources told Bloomberg that lawyers in the Public Integrity Section were “infuriated” that Schlozman’s testimony implied that he had prosecuted the ACORN workers “at the direction” of the section.

The clarification, the report said, would emphasize that Schlozman “consulted with the section and was given guidance” but was not ordered or directed to file the charges.



Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/142884.html

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Politics may have played a role in voter fraud allegations in Missouri
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A voter fraud case brought by the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., just five days before last year's pivotal congressional elections was rejected by a Missouri prosecutor as being too weak and as inappropriate to pursue so close to the elections.


Mike Sanders, a Democrat who was Jackson County's prosecutor at the time, declined to elaborate on his reasons for not taking the case, but noted that even if he had sought indictments, he would have been "incredibly reluctant" to bring charges on the eve of balloting.


"As a prosecutor, you have to be incredibly mindful of the power you have and the potential that exercising that power has to influence public opinion just five days before an election," said Sanders, who is now the Jackson County executive.


The disclosure is likely to add fuel to allegations that U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman rushed for political reasons to bring the criminal charges despite a Justice Department policy discouraging pre-election prosecutions. He was appointed to the Missouri job following a controversial tenure in the department's civil rights division.

more:http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17344301.htm

[Peace Patriot]

1. I was wondering about that very thing--his claim that the Public Integrity Section

was the culprit, not him. It sounded so...oh, Bushy. Blaming others. And I was thinking, if I was one of those people in the Public Integrity Section who maybe tried to stop this illegal prosecution (a prosecution aimed at influencing an election), I would be pretty pissed to hear this jerk put the blame on me. I was actually thinking through a scenario--what if? And him going back to his office and the cold stares or angry calls he might have received from people in the Public Integrity Section, and maybe somebody storming into his office and saying, "I'm gonna expose you! You lied!" Now, I don't know a bloody thing about the Public Integrity Section, or whether anybody there really tried to stop it, or advised against it, or maybe weren't for it but caved to pressure and just sat on it. But it was the WAY he said it, and the resemblance to Gonzales' testimony that "senior management" (no names) put together the U.S. Attorneys hit list in a "process." Not him. Not the Attorney General of the U.S. Oh no, HE didn't do it. "Senior management" did it.

Such a crock. Scholzman sounded just like that. Like Gonzales. Or like Bush and his press secretaries forever saying that they "are not going to comment on an on-going investigation." Passing the buck. Taking no responsibilitly. Not caring. As if crimes in their regime had nothing to do with Bush. He's just the president.

Hearing the resemblance to other Bushite lies, and wondering about this "Public Integrity Section" that Scholzman was blaming, I figured they probably had nothing to do with. It was all him. And I had the passing thought, I wonder if anyone will come forward.

Well, apparently someone has--either internally or to the committee. Someone has called him on it. And he has to change his testimony, or be vulnerable to a perjury charge.

It's funny how that stood out to me, of all the B.S. he shoved at the Senate Judiciary Committee that day. Blaming the "Public Integrity Section." Repeatedly.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Just FYI: As I recall, this was not some case of massive "voter fraud"--just 3 or 4

people involved, and I think all but one have been dismissed, for reasons like, the person just made a mistake, there was no ill intent.

It's not as if these few mistakes or even crimes could have changed an election. It was the HEADLINE that Karl Rove wanted: "Democrats accused of voter fraud." It sounds so bad. Just before the election. And--as with many Rove manipulations of the newsstream--its purpose is rather deeper than it appears. Think about it. Would a headline like that change an election outcome? Not likely. So what was it for? And I think the answer is obvious, once you figure it out: It is newsstream headline manipulation to smother any Democratic accusations of real and massive election fraud--via Rove's good buds at Diebold/ES&S, or his other filthy tricks like "voter caging" lists (unfair purging of the voter rolls, aimed at Democrats, U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and black voters in particular). It was a preemptive strike on such charges--a way to disperse the energy around charges of REAL election fraud, and keep the spotlight off it ("oh, they all do it"). It's typical of Rove's mentality to blame others for what he and his junta are doing on a massive scale. It's almost a "rule of thumb": whatever crimes and rotten stuff they are doing, they jump ahead of that accusation and say someone ELSE is doing it. I've noticed this particularly about their charge that Hugo Chavez is a "dictator." I haven't been able to find any credible evidence that he is. None! And is it not the Bush Junta that has asserted powers to torture, powers of indefinite detention, powers to rename prisoners of war as "enemy combatants" so as to deny them basic human rights, powers of pervasive domestic spying, powers of the "unitary executive," powers to obtain your libary reading lists and to "gag" librarians for life about whose reading habits they are looking into, powers to prosecute an unjust, illegal, heinous war. WHO is the "dictator"?

Anyway, this is the real kicker regarding Scholzman's crime. The "voter fraud" was extremely minor and negligible, and possibly even non-existent. It was a POLITICAL prosecution, of a kind that the Department of Justice has RULES AGAINST.

[L. Coyote]

3. Is this a spin-fest or what? Gonzales is innocent, Bush is innocent. It was us small fries.