TPMtv: May 14, 2007: Why isn't the firing of Lam being addressed?

[babylonsister]

Run time: 06:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxSo7keS0dI   Posted on YouTube: May 14, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 15, 2007 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 726

 
http://tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2007/may/14/tpmtv_guide_monday_may_14

Special Guests Blog
TPMtv Guide: Monday, May 14
bcraw's picture
By Ben Craw | bio

Alberto Gonza- aahhh- yaawwwwn. Excuse me. But Alberto Gonzales seems to have pulled off an improbable feat with his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday: he made the mainstream media bored to death of the U.S. Attorney scandal. Just three days after his second round of congressional testimony, and his name was not heard once on any of the Sunday talk shows. The reason is that everyone seems to have realized that no matter what he says, no matter how far his credibility plummets, no matter what more emerges from this scandal, Alberto Gonzales isn’t going anywhere.

We explained why Bush can’t and won’t fire Gonzales in a past episode of TPMtv. But in today’s episode, we explain why this scandal is still far from a dead horse. The most important aspect of the whole story still hasn’t been adequately investigated: the firing of Carol Lam.

In his testimony before the Senate back on March 29, Kyle Sampson declared that his “real problem we have right now with Carol Lam” e-mail that he sent to a White House official on May 11, 2006 – one day after Lam had informed the Justice Department that she planned to execute a search warrant on CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo – in fact had absolutely nothing to do with Lam’s burgeoning investigation.

There has been scant follow-up to Sampson’s explanation of that e-mail, with essentially no pertinent questions regarding Lam coming up during Alberto Gonzales’s testimony before the House last Thursday. But there really ought to be, because Lam’s written answers to questions from Congress from earlier this month set off some serious alarm bells here at TPM HQ.

more...

[Monkeyman]

1. Hey

[whistle]

2. Very interesting

....kick

[L. Coyote]

3. 30 U.S. attorneys investigate BILKING BILLIONS, Medicare, Medicaid, Military’s Healthcare

Lam was litigating Medicare Fraud.

How is it that $$ BILLIONS $$ of fraud does not put CEOs in jail?
How is it that $$ BILLIONS $$ of fraud cases seem to evaporate or settle for so little?
How were those $$ BILLIONS $$ in lobbying by single industries spent? Where do those bucks STOP?

May 10, 2006 - Lam litigation: HHS Seeks to block Medicate payments to nations #2 Hospital corporation, Tenet Healthcare.
May 11, 2006 - Kyle Sampson e-mails deputy White House counsel William Kelley, re "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam ....

ADD TO TIMELINE right after the firings:
Dec. 7, 2006 - Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, calls seven U.S. Attorneys to ask for their resignations.
Dec. 13, 2006 - McNulty curbs USAs, Prosecutor powers, centralized decision at highest levels, quashes independent corporate fraud decision making.

SEE: US Attorney Firing: Voter Fraud, Medicare Fraud, WHICH IS IT ???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x853813

==============================
DOJ Revises Corporate Fraud Procedures
Jason McLure - Legal Times - December 13, 2006
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1165917921963


Bending to pressure from Congress, a federal judge and a lobbying campaign by business and legal groups, the Justice Department announced a number of immediate changes to its corporate-fraud charging policies Tuesday.
.......
The changes, announced in a Tuesday speech by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a legal conference in New York, are a step back from the government's aggressive anti-fraud prosecution tactics outlined in the so-called Thompson memo, named for former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, in 2003.

In the speech, McNulty said the new guidelines were designed to address the "perception, well founded -- or not," that the Justice Department's policies were "chilling attorney-client communications" and hurting the effectiveness of corporate lawyers ...................

For certain types of sensitive attorney-client information, such as the advice a defense attorney gave to the management of a corporation facing a fraud investigation, prosecutors are now required to obtain the approval of the Justice Department's No. 2 official in Washington -- currently McNulty.

For privileged factual material a company has obtained through an internal investigation into an alleged fraud, such as transcripts of interviews with culpable employees, prosecutors will need to obtain the approval of the local U.S. Attorney in their district, who can only sign off on such a request with the approval of the head of the DOJ's Criminal Division in Washington, currently Alice Fisher.

Previously, prosecutors had wide latitude to issue such requests on their own ....

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May 23, 2004 -Denver Post by Anne C. Mulkern
When Advocates Become Regulators
President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm

Thomas A. Scully .... former hospital lobbyist presided over an agency that helped a chain he once represented win a favorable settlement in a Medicare fraud case.

Thomas A. Scully represented the nation's for-profit hospitals as a lobbyist before being hired by the Bush administration in June 2001 to head the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Eight months after Scully arrived at the Medicare and Medicaid agency, it moved to settle final claims involving HCA .........