Michael Chertoff, UNLEASHING THE DOGS OF POLITICS: In Chertoff's record, shades of politics

[L. Coyote]

"UNLEASHING THE DOGS OF POLITICS" is a play on the "dogs of war," but, given all the dirty tricks and crimes, RATS might be more appropriate. Either way, their actions speak for themselves. This thread focuses on Chertoff.

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In Chertoff's record, shades of politics
His past at Justice may be a hurdle if he's picked to succeed Alberto Gonzales as attorney general.

By David G. Savage and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 4, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chertoff4sep04,1,4610879.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true


WASHINGTON -- Shortly after President Bush took office in 2001, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's criminal division, met with the conservative group Judicial Watch. It wanted criminal charges brought against Hillary Rodham Clinton in connection with a lavish fundraising event in Los Angeles the year before.

"Chertoff personally assured us he would pursue it," the group's president, Tom Fitton, said recently, recalling the meeting with several top Justice officials. "They said they weren't afraid of taking on the Clintons."

....

In the mid-1990s Chertoff, acting as counsel to an investigative committee led by then-Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.), led an aggressive investigation of then-President Clinton and his wife. He probed the Clintons' Arkansas real estate dealings, Hillary Clinton's Little Rock law firm, and the actions of her staff after the suicide of White House lawyer Vincent Foster.

At Justice, Chertoff set in motion a little-noticed policy change that led to more aggressive prosecutions. Some, like the Rosen case, were dogged by allegations of partisanship.

Rosen, the fundraising director for Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign, was indicted on suspicion of underreporting donations used to throw an L.A. gala for the Clintons in 2000.

Key to the government's case was a claim by California businessman Peter Paul, who hosted the event, that about $1.1 million had been spent on the program -- not the $400,000 reported to the Federal Election Commission.

But at the time, there was no legal limit on the size of contributions such as donated entertainment .......

[L. Coyote]

1. Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution

Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution

Chertoff and the Politics of Prosecution
Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution
by Scott Horton - 07 Sept. 2007
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/content/view/1640/81


Current and former Justice Department officials I have interviewed have consistently identified Michael Chertoff, his successor Alice Fisher and his protégé Noel Hillman, as figures with a strong interest in political prosecutions. Each apparently took an interest in the Siegelman case for all the wrong reasons, I am told, and each had regular communications with the White House throughout this period.

But the Siegelman case was only one of many cases with political overtones which were closely dogged by loyal Republican Party activists at the top of the criminal process at Justice. Today the Los Angeles Times is offering more evidence linking Chertoff to political vendettas using the prosecutorial resources of the Department of Justice.

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[L. Coyote]

2. UNDERNEWS: MICHAEL CHERTOFF: UNCONSTITUTIONAL, UNDEMOCRACTIC & INCOMPETENT

Gotta love it when you find someone who has done your homework. Check out this list of Chertoff articles. Some of the "politics" is found between the lines, like the "forced removal" of Dem voters from New Orleans/LA by inaction.

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UNDERNEWS is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who has covered Washington under nine presidents and edited alternative journals since 1964. The Review is an online journal and archive of alternative news. It has been on the web since 1995.

August 27, 2007
MICHAEL CHERTOFF: UNCONSTITUTIONAL, UNDEMOCRACTIC & INCOMPETENT
http://prorev.com/2007/08/michael-chertoff-unconstitutional.htm



WIKIPEDIA - Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law October 26, 2001.

As head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the outer limits of legality in coercive interrogation sessions.

Most recently Chertoff has managed the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina. .....

ELAINE CASSEL, COUNTERPUNCH, 2003 (http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel06112003.html) - I have been watching John Ashcroft so long that it is getting to be a little boring. . . But now I have a new gremlin to watch, someone who is as intent on undermining the law and Constitution as Ashcroft. I am referring to the man behind the criminal prosecution of terrorists, Michael Chertoff. ......

INDYBAY, 2005 (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/03/07/29722.php) - Post 9/11, Chertoff played a key role limiting or eliminating civil rights and liberties protections by promoting actions such as using 'material witness' warrants to incarcerate people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, interviewing thousands of Middle Eastern and South Asian men who entered the U.S. lawfully before and after the 9/11 attacks, denying a defendant facing the death penalty the fundamental right to face and question his accusers, and holding suspects indefinitely without counsel as enemy combatants............

DEMOCRATS.COM (http://www.democrats.com/node/6129) - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was DHS Sec. Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned ......

HISTORIAN DAVID BRINKLEY (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/katrina-whitewash-michae_b_61975.html) - Clearly Chertoff didn't just make a mistake during the first days of Katrina--he did virtually nothing at all, which was by far the greater sin. ..........

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The long list continues.....

[Name removed]

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