Adam Ciongoli ....Alito's "Corner Man"

[HeatherDawn]

On January 10th during the Alito hearings Senator Durbin mentions at the beginning of his 20 minute round of questioning that he had a "disagreement" during the break of the hearings with Adam Ciongoli whom Senator Durbin referred to as Alito's "Corner Man".

Adam Ciongoli has been featured on EVERY cable news outlet over the last few days fiercely supporting the Alito nomination. He is labeled only as a 'former Alito clerk'.

He is much more than that though, as Counselor to the Attorney General John Ashcroft, he served as the principal legal advisor in the Office of the Attorney General. He was known as 'Ashcroft's right hand'. During that time he was a key drafter of the Patriot Act and implementing the Unitary Executive theory in Bush's administration.
He was also put in charge of the 9/11 Commission:

http://www.becomethemedia.com/news/2003/WH_delays_911_investigation.htm

"The administration decided that the 9/11 commission would have to channel its requests to obtain documents and interview personnel from the executive branch through the Justice Department. Adam G. Ciongoli, counselor to the attorney general who was assigned to take on this role, says he has merely acted as a "facilitator."

But Commissioner Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, says that Mr. Ciongoli is acting as a political gatekeeper, "cherry picking" the documents the White House wants to withhold. "It's obvious that they're sifting the information to the 9/11 commission now," he says. "We're way, way late here. The picture is not encouraging."


Prior to that position, Ciongoli served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, which he joined in April 1999.

From 1996 to 1999, Ciongoli practiced appellate law in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, where he worked along side Kenneth Starr.

He also served as a law clerk to United States Circuit Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1995 to 1996.

Ciongoli graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude, and holds a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ciongoli is now Vice President of Time Warner.

The reason I believe Alito was selcted by the Bush administration to be the next Supreme Court Justice is because of the Unitary Executive theory, Adam Ciongoli also supports this theory, which everyone should read (see link below)

Samuel Alito in a 2001 appearance before the conservative Federalist
Society, he said he continued to believe in the idea of the \"unitary
executive.\" That concept holds that the Constitution gives the
president all federal executive power, and means Congress likely could
not grant agency heads powers outside the president\'s reach.

This is a link to an extensive history of the theory of the Unitary Executive and its implementation by the Bush administration:

http://www.users.muohio.edu/kelleycs/paper.pdf

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. this man is a menace. I can only imagine how editorial policies

at time Warner have changed.

for more information,

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Ashcroft-Patriot-Games1feb04.htm

Its mostly about Ashcroft, but the stuff about his footsoldier, Ciogoli is scary.

[grasswire]

2. opus dei?

Has anyone considered that in the case of Alito? Are these guys part of a larger scheme?

And what about P-2? Are there connections?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. good point. Hadn't thought of that one. Opus Dei are certifiable.

Then again, The Rat in Rome loves them even more than JPII did.

[HeatherDawn]

5. Opus Dei and Fascism

Link to a FAQ regarding Opus Dei and Fascism

http://www.mond.at/opus.dei/opus.dei.uo.faq.html

[HeatherDawn]

3. Fascism Ciongoli Time Warner

Yeah I read that article when I was researching Ciongoli. I am trying to research all of Alito's former clerks and Justice Department Officials and find out what positions they hold now. I am sure corporate america is run by these lawyers.

The below I cut from the Fascism thread to tie it in with what happens when the government officials like Ciongoli get involoved in running corporations:

"Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from another planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of political and economic changes these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany.

Business tightened its grip on the state in both Italy and Germany by means of intricate webs of cartels and business associations. These associations exercised a high degree of control over the businesses of their members. They frequently controlled pricing, supply and the licensing of patented technology. These associations were private but were entirely legal. Neither Germany nor Italy had effective antitrust laws, and the proliferation of business associations was generally encouraged by government.

This was an era eerily like our own, insofar as economists and businessmen constantly clamoured for self-regulation in business. By the mid 1920s, however, self-regulation had become self-imposed regimentation. By means of monopoly and cartel, the businessmen had wrought for themselves a "command and control" economy that replaced the free market. The business associations of Italy and Germany at this time are perhaps history's most perfect illustration of Adam Smith's famous dictum: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.""