George W. Bush

Nine U.S. attorneys removed; watchdogs found one was fired over political complaints

9 U.S. attorneys

The Justice Department's inspector general and its professional-responsibility office reported in 2008 that the process used to pick nine U.S. attorneys for removal in 2006 was “fundamentally flawed and subjective.” They found that New Mexico's David Iglesias “was removed because of complaints to the Department of Justice and the White House by New Mexico Republican members of Congress and party activists about Iglesias's handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases,” and that other reasons given afterward were “after-the-fact rationalizations.” The report notes that U.S. attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President and can be removed for no reason,” and says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “bears primary responsibility” for the flawed process. A special prosecutor concluded in July 2010 that criminal prosecution was not warranted, while the Justice Department said Gonzales had made “inaccurate and misleading” statements about the firings.

Sources: Justice Department inspector general and OPR report (Sept. 2008) · CNN (July 21, 2010)

He commuted the prison sentence of a convicted White House aide

30-month sentence erased

On July 2, 2007 Bush commuted the 30-month prison term of Lewis Libby, who had been convicted of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury. The commutation left in place his $250,000 fine and two years of supervised release. President Trump gave Libby a full pardon on April 13, 2018.

Their response: Bush: “I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”

Sources: Justice Department commutations list · Bush's statement (White House archive) · Justice Department, pardons granted by President Trump, 2017 to 2021

White House said anyone involved in the CIA leak would be gone; Rove kept his job

After a July 2003 column by Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, press secretary Scott McClellan said on Sept. 29, 2003: “If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.” Asked on June 10, 2004 whether he stood by his pledge “to fire anyone found to have” leaked the name, Bush answered “Yes.” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later said he was Novak’s source, and the investigation identified Bush adviser Karl Rove as another official who revealed her identity to journalists; Rove was still deputy White House chief of staff in March 2007. Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted on March 6, 2007 of four of five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI, not of the leak itself.

Their response: Bush narrowed the pledge on July 18, 2005: “if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.” On July 12, 2007 he said: “I’m aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I’ve often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, I did it.” Armitage told CBS News: “I didn’t try to out anybody.”

Sources: Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, White House (Sept. 29, 2003) · President Bush news conference, Savannah, White House (June 10, 2004) · President Bush and Prime Minister Singh press availability, White House (July 18, 2005) · Special Counsel press release on Libby indictment, Justice Department (Oct. 28, 2005) · NBC News: Juror says Libby was guilty but was the fall guy (March 6, 2007) · President Bush press conference, White House (July 12, 2007) · CBS News (Sept. 7, 2006)

House held Bush’s chief of staff and former counsel in contempt; judge rejected immunity claim

On Feb. 14, 2008 the House voted 223-32 to hold White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas in the inquiry into the firing of U.S. attorneys; 163 Republicans did not vote. Bush had instructed Miers to invoke absolute immunity from compelled testimony to Congress, a protection the administration claimed for senior presidential aides. On July 31, 2008, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that the claim “is without any support in the case law” and “entirely unsupported by existing case law”, and that Bolten had to describe the documents he was withholding.

Their response: The administration argued, as the judge summarized it, that court involvement in such a dispute at Congress’s request would be “unprecedented” and that Congress had no authority to demand a privilege log from the White House. The judge did not rule on whether executive privilege covered any specific document or answer.

Sources: Memorandum Opinion, Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers, No. 08-0409, D.D.C. (July 31, 2008) · House Clerk, Roll Call 60, H. Res. 982 (Feb. 14, 2008)

U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was held 3.5 years in a military brig without charge on Bush’s order

Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested on a material-witness warrant in 2002, was moved to a Navy brig in South Carolina after Bush signed an order designating him an “enemy combatant”; the government said he had entered the country to blow up buildings. The Supreme Court in June 2004 ruled only that his challenge had been filed in the wrong court, and in September 2005 a federal appeals court held that the president had the authority to detain him. Two months later, days before the government’s Supreme Court brief was due, he was indicted in Florida on charges that, the same appeals court wrote on Dec. 21, 2005, “made no mention of the acts upon which the government purported to base its military detention”; the court said the government had “held Padilla militarily for three and a half years” and left “the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake.” A Florida jury convicted him in August 2007 of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas and of supporting terrorists.

Their response: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on the 2007 verdict, called it “a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters.” The appeals court itself noted the government’s facts “are not necessarily inconsistent or without basis.”

Sources: U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, Padilla v. Hanft order (Dec. 21, 2005) · Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. Padilla syllabus (June 28, 2004) · Justice Department release on conviction (Aug. 16, 2007)

Watchdog: 762 immigrants jailed after 9/11 were held until the FBI cleared them; some were abused

The Justice Department’s inspector general reported in June 2003 that 762 non-citizens were detained on immigration charges in the Sept. 11 investigation under an unwritten “hold until cleared” policy. Clearance by the FBI took an average of 80 days, fewer than 3 percent were cleared within three weeks, and the report said agents in New York “made little attempt to distinguish” people actually suspected of terrorism ties from immigrants encountered by chance. Those placed in the high-security unit of a federal jail in Brooklyn were locked down 23 hours a day, and the inspector general found “a pattern of physical and verbal abuse by some” corrections staff there. The Supreme Court later ruled, in 2009 and 2017, that detainees could not pursue damages claims over the policy against Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other senior officials.

Their response: CNN reported that Justice Department officials “insisted the government’s actions were consistent with court rulings and within the law.” The inspector general wrote that the department “was faced with monumental challenges” and that “nearly all of the 762 aliens we examined violated immigration laws.”

Sources: Justice Department inspector general, The September 11 Detainees (June 2003) · CNN (June 2, 2003) · Supreme Court, Ziglar v. Abbasi (June 19, 2017) · Supreme Court, Ashcroft v. Iqbal syllabus (May 18, 2009)

CIA destroyed 92 interrogation videotapes after White House lawyers said to keep them; no charges

On Nov. 9, 2005 the CIA destroyed videotapes, 92 by the Associated Press’s account, of the 2002 interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects, including waterboarding, on the order of clandestine service chief Jose Rodriguez. The AP reported that White House lawyers, including counsels Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, had told the agency not to destroy them, and the New York Times reported that the CIA had withheld the tapes’ existence from federal courts and the Sept. 11 commission. Bush’s attorney general named prosecutor John Durham to investigate in January 2008; on Nov. 9, 2010 the Justice Department said Durham “will not pursue criminal charges.” A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee study, published with dissenting minority views, found from CIA records that at least 26 of 119 detainees “were wrongfully held” and that no CIA officer briefed Bush on the specific techniques before April 2006.

Their response: CIA Director Michael Hayden said in December 2007 the tapes were destroyed “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries.” Rodriguez’s lawyer called him “a hero and a patriot, who simply wanted to protect his people and his country.” The CIA told the Senate committee that Bush’s memoir says he discussed the program with CIA Director George Tenet in 2002 “and personally approved the techniques.”

Sources: Justice Department statement (Nov. 9, 2010) · Associated Press via Seattle Times (July 25, 2010) · New York Times (Nov. 9, 2010) · Los Angeles Times (Dec. 7, 2007) · Senate Intelligence Committee study, S. Rept. 113-288 (Dec. 2014)

Senate Armed Services panel tied detainee abuse to Rumsfeld’s orders; 11 soldiers were convicted

A Senate Armed Services Committee report dated Nov. 20, 2008 concluded that abuse of detainees in U.S. custody “cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own.” It found that after Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002 determination that a Geneva Conventions provision on humane treatment did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity and stress positions were authorized, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s approval of aggressive techniques for Guantanamo “was a direct cause of detainee abuse there” and contributed to abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of crimes over the 2003 Abu Ghraib abuse. The one officer charged with prisoner abuse was acquitted of those charges and later cleared, and the general in charge of the prisons was demoted.

Their response: Bush, May 6, 2004, said he was “sorry for the humiliations suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliations suffered by their families,” called the acts “abhorrent” and said those responsible “will be brought to justice.” He said Rumsfeld would stay in his Cabinet.

Sources: Senate Armed Services Committee, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody (Nov. 20, 2008) · CNN, Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal Fast Facts · CNN (May 7, 2004)

Watchdog found “widespread and serious misuse” of FBI demands for phone and bank records

The Justice Department’s inspector general reported in March 2007 that the FBI’s use of national security letters, which demand customer records without a judge’s approval, grew from about 8,500 requests in 2000 to about 39,000 in 2003, 56,000 in 2004 and 47,000 in 2005, more than 143,000 over the three years, and that its misuse of them in many instances “violated NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, or the FBI’s own internal policies.” The FBI obtained phone records from three companies with more than 700 “exigent letters” that falsely said subpoenas had already been requested, and 22 percent of the case files the auditors sampled held a violation the FBI had not reported. The inspector general said he did not find that agents “sought to intentionally misuse” the letters and blamed “mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance, and lack of adequate oversight.”

Their response: Bush, March 10, 2007: “First of all, I want to compliment the IG for good and necessary work.” He said of the FBI director, “he took responsibility, as he should have. And I have confidence in Director Mueller, as I do in the Attorney General.” He added that the report “also made it clear that these letters were important to the security of the United States.”

Sources: Justice Department inspector general, testimony on national security letters (March 20, 2007) · White House transcript (March 10, 2007)

U.S. paid $2 million and apologized to an Oregon lawyer jailed as a “material witness” by mistake

$2M settlement paid to Mayfield by the government (2006)

Brandon Mayfield, a U.S. citizen and lawyer in Oregon, was arrested on May 6, 2004 as a material witness after the FBI wrongly matched his fingerprint to one found after the Madrid train bombings; he was released two weeks later, and in November 2006 the Justice Department paid him $2 million and apologized in writing. The department’s inspector general found the FBI lab did not know he was Muslim when it made the match and that his religion “was not the sole or primary cause” of its failure to catch the error, though one examiner admitted the lab might have rechecked sooner had the suspect been someone without his profile. A 2005 study by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU identified at least 70 men jailed as material witnesses in terrorism investigations after Sept. 11, all but one Muslim and 17 of them U.S. citizens; by its count 42 were released without any charge and the government apologized to at least 13. In 2011 the Supreme Court ruled that Ashcroft was immune from a suit by another man jailed as a material witness.

Their response: The government’s written apology: “The United States of America apologizes to Mr. Brandon Mayfield and his family for the suffering caused by the FBI’s misidentification of Mr. Mayfield’s fingerprint and the resulting investigation of Mr. Mayfield, including his arrest as a material witness in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the execution of search warrants and other court orders in the Mayfield family home and in Mr. Mayfield’s law office.” A Justice Department statement said he was not targeted because of his faith and that the FBI had improved its fingerprint process “to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield does not happen again.”

Sources: Justice Department inspector general, review of the Mayfield case (2006) · CNN (Nov. 29, 2006) · Human Rights Watch and ACLU, Witness to Abuse (June 2005) · Supreme Court, Ashcroft v. al-Kidd syllabus (May 31, 2011)

U.S. sent Canadian Maher Arar to Syria, where he was jailed nearly a year; Canada later cleared him

Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer born in Syria, was stopped while changing planes at New York’s JFK airport on Sept. 26, 2002; U.S. immigration officials ruled him a member of a terrorist group and, though he asked to be returned to Canada, flew him to Jordan on Oct. 8, 2002, after which Syria took him into custody. A Canadian judicial inquiry concluded in 2006 that he had no links to terrorist groups and that Canadian police had given the United States misleading information; Canada apologized and paid him 10.5 million Canadian dollars in compensation, plus legal fees. The Bush administration did not apologize, and a U.S. appeals court in 2008 upheld the dismissal of his lawsuit, saying it could not create a damages claim for him. Separately, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2012 that German citizen Khaled el-Masri was seized in Macedonia in 2003, handed to the CIA and held in Afghanistan for more than four months; the court ordered Macedonia, not the United States, to compensate him.

Their response: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a House committee on Oct. 24, 2007: “we do not think this case was handled as it should have been.” The Homeland Security inspector general’s public summary says immigration officials “determined that removing Arar to Syria would be consistent with the Convention Against Torture.” The U.S. ambassador to Canada said the United States “found its own reasons” to keep Arar on a watch list, in CBC’s paraphrase.

Sources: Homeland Security inspector general, The Removal of a Canadian Citizen to Syria, unclassified summary (March 2008) · CBC News (Jan. 25, 2007) · CBC News (Oct. 24, 2007) · U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, Arar v. Ashcroft (June 30, 2008) · The Guardian (Dec. 13, 2012) · CBC News (Jan. 26, 2007)

Watchdogs found Justice Department officials broke the law by hiring career staff on politics

Three joint reports by the Justice Department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility in 2008 found that political appointees used party and ideology to fill career jobs, which civil service law forbids. They concluded that Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, the department’s White House liaison, “violated federal law and Department policy” in choosing immigration judges, for whom the White House was the principal source of candidates, and that Goodling did the same in vetting career prosecutors. A second report found the same of the committee screening honors-program applicants, and a third found that Civil Rights Division official Bradley Schlozman broke the Civil Service Reform Act and made false statements to the Senate: 63 of the 65 lawyers he hired whose politics were evident were Republican or conservative. Prosecutors declined to charge Schlozman on Jan. 9, 2009; the main figures had already left the department and could not be disciplined.

Their response: Goodling declined to be interviewed by the investigators; she had told Congress there “were times I crossed the line probably in my reference calls” by asking political questions. The reports say Attorney General Michael Mukasey “announced that the Department intended to implement all of these recommendations.” The reports made no finding that Bush knew of the practices.

Sources: OIG/OPR: Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General (July 28, 2008) · OIG/OPR: Politicized Hiring in the Department of Justice Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program (June 24, 2008) · OIG/OPR: Politicized Hiring and Other Improper Personnel Actions in the Civil Rights Division (July 2, 2008; released Jan. 13, 2009)

Bush ordered wiretaps without court warrants; watchdogs faulted the legal basis

In October 2001 Bush authorized the National Security Agency to intercept, without court orders, international communications into and out of the United States of people suspected of terrorist ties; the New York Times disclosed it on Dec. 16, 2005 and Bush confirmed it the next day. A 2009 report by five inspectors general found the first legal opinion was written by a single Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, which the Justice Department inspector general called “extraordinary and inappropriate”, producing an analysis that “at a minimum was factually flawed.” It also recounts how, in March 2004, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and chief of staff Andrew Card went to the hospital bed of Attorney General John Ashcroft to get the program re-approved, how Bush re-authorized it without Justice Department sign-off, and how he changed it days later after the FBI director told him he was considering resigning. A district court later found the government liable under the surveillance law to two plaintiffs in a suit by an Islamic charity and its lawyers; in 2012 an appeals court threw out the award because the government had not waived its immunity from damages, without ruling the program lawful.

Their response: Bush, radio address, Dec. 17, 2005: “I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.” At a Jan. 26, 2006 news conference he said of the program: “And it’s legal.”

Sources: Unclassified Report on the President’s Surveillance Program, Inspectors General of DOD, DOJ, CIA, NSA and ODNI (July 10, 2009) · President’s Radio Address, White House (Dec. 17, 2005) · Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama, No. 11-15468, 9th Cir. (Aug. 7, 2012) · Press Conference of the President, White House (Jan. 26, 2006)

Supreme Court ruled against Bush’s detention policies four times in four years

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (June 2004) the court held that a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant must get “a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.” In Rasul v. Bush (June 2004, 6-3) it held that federal courts can hear challenges from Guantanamo detainees. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (June 2006, 5-3) it held that the military commissions Bush created by order lacked “the power to proceed” because their structure and procedures violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. In Boumediene v. Bush (June 2008, 5-4) it held that Guantanamo detainees have the constitutional right to habeas corpus and that a 2006 law stripping the courts of those cases was “an unconstitutional suspension of the writ.” The rulings were not total defeats: the Hamdi plurality also concluded that Congress had authorized the detention of combatants, and the same day the court sided with the government on jurisdiction in Rumsfeld v. Padilla.

Their response: Bush, in Rome on June 12, 2008, the day of the Boumediene ruling: “It’s a Supreme Court decision; we’ll abide by the Court’s decision. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. It’s a deeply divided Court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented, and their dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security.”

Sources: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, No. 03-6696, syllabus (June 28, 2004) · Rasul v. Bush, No. 03-334, syllabus (June 28, 2004) · Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, No. 05-184, syllabus (June 29, 2006) · Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, syllabus (June 12, 2008) · Joint press availability with Prime Minister Berlusconi, White House (June 12, 2008) · Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. Padilla syllabus (June 28, 2004)

Justice ethics office found misconduct by authors of interrogation memos; finding was overruled

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded in a July 29, 2009 report that John Yoo “committed intentional professional misconduct” and that Jay Bybee “committed professional misconduct” in writing legal opinions, the main ones dated Aug. 1, 2002, on the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects. Yoo was a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel and Bybee its head. On Jan. 5, 2010, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis declined to adopt the findings, concluded the two had shown “poor judgment” rather than misconduct, and refused to let the findings be referred to state bar authorities.

Their response: Margolis memo: “I do not adopt OPR’s findings of misconduct. This decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda.” He wrote that he was “unpersuaded” the office had identified a “known, unambiguous obligation or standard” the lawyers violated. Bush’s memoir, as summarized by the New York Times, says he personally approved the techniques in 2002 after government lawyers assured him the program would be lawful.

Sources: Office of Professional Responsibility report on the Office of Legal Counsel’s interrogation memoranda (July 29, 2009), copy hosted by the ACLU · Memorandum of Decision, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis (Jan. 5, 2010), House Judiciary Committee copy via Wayback Machine · New York Times: No Criminal Charges Sought Over C.I.A. Tapes (Nov. 9, 2010)

Senate panel: key prewar claims on Iraq and al-Qaida were not backed by the intelligence

The Senate Intelligence Committee, then led by Democrats, approved a report by a 10-5 vote that compared Bush administration statements before the Iraq war with the intelligence available at the time. It found that statements by Bush and his secretary of state suggesting Iraq and al-Qaida “had a partnership” were “not substantiated by the intelligence”, and that statements by Bush and Cheney that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists “were contradicted by available intelligence information.” The same report found that statements on Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons “were substantiated by intelligence information”, and those on its nuclear program “generally substantiated” though they “did not convey the substantial disagreements” among agencies. A separate commission that Bush appointed reported in 2005 that the intelligence itself was “dead wrong” and that analysts “universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.”

Their response: Sen. Kit Bond, the committee’s Republican vice chairman, called the report “political theatre”: “It is ironic that the Democrats would knowingly distort and misrepresent the Committee’s findings and the intelligence in an effort to prove that the Administration distorted and mischaracterized the intelligence.” His statement said the report “was written solely by Democratic staffers” and reviewed no statements by Democrats.

Sources: S. Rept. 110-345, Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information (June 5, 2008) · Senate Intelligence Committee majority press release (June 5, 2008) · Vice Chairman Bond press release: Phase II Report is Political Theatre (June 5, 2008) · Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, report (March 31, 2005)

Special counsel: Bush White House political office broke the Hatch Act with taxpayer funds

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the agency that enforces the ban on government-funded electioneering, reported in January 2011 that the White House Office of Political Affairs gave about 75 political briefings to appointees at 20 federal agencies between 2001 and 2007, nearly all of them inside federal agencies. It found that the office’s staff “violated the Hatch Act”, that it steered Cabinet officials’ travel to help Republican candidates before the 2006 midterms, that some of that travel was wrongly classed as official, and that “U.S. Treasury funds were unlawfully used to finance efforts to pursue Republican victories at the polls in 2006.” It called the activity “the type of electioneering proscribed by the Hatch Act.” No one was disciplined because all those involved had left government.

Their response: Former political affairs officials told investigators the briefings were “morale boosting tools” and “no more than informational discussions about the political landscape.” The report itself notes that “comparable allegations” about the same office “abounded during the Clinton administration” and that the special counsel did not investigate earlier administrations.

Sources: U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Investigation of Political Activities by White House and Federal Agency Officials During the 2006 Midterm Elections (January 2011), via Wayback Machine

Two senior Bush officials convicted in Abramoff lobbying scandal; 485 White House contacts logged

20 convicted, pleading guilty or awaiting trial (Justice Dept., 2009)

J. Steven Griles, the No. 2 official at the Interior Department from 2001 to 2005, pleaded guilty on March 23, 2007 to obstructing a Senate investigation by lying about his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and was sentenced to 10 months in prison and a $30,000 fine. David Safavian, who became the White House budget office’s top procurement official, was convicted of one count of obstruction and three of false statements for hiding help he gave Abramoff around a golf trip to Scotland, and was sentenced to a year in prison in 2009. A bipartisan staff report of the House Government Reform Committee, then chaired by Republican Tom Davis, counted 485 lobbying contacts between Abramoff’s team and White House officials from January 2001 to March 2004, based on the firm’s billing records and emails. By October 2009 the Justice Department counted 20 people convicted, pleading guilty or awaiting trial in the case. President Trump gave Safavian a full pardon in February 2020.

Their response: Bush, Jan. 26, 2006: “You know, I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don’t know him.” The committee report cautioned that the billing records might be padded: if they are “fraudulent”, they claim “meetings, telephone calls, and meals or drinks with White House officials that did not happen.”

Sources: Justice Department press release 07-455: Griles sentenced (June 26, 2007) · Justice Department press release 09-1116: Safavian sentenced (Oct. 16, 2009) · House Committee on Government Reform staff report on Abramoff (Sept. 29, 2006), via Wayback Machine · Press Conference of the President, White House (Jan. 26, 2006) · Justice Department, pardons granted by President Trump, 2017 to 2021

Cheney’s former company won Iraq oil work without competition; GAO faulted the planning order behind it

$1.4B obligated on the sole-source oil contract, fiscal 2003 (GAO)

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root received a sole-source Army contract to restore Iraq’s oil infrastructure, on which nearly $1.4 billion was obligated in fiscal 2003; Cheney had been Halliburton’s chief executive until 2000. The Government Accountability Office found in June 2004 that the contract itself was “properly awarded” under an urgency exception, but that the $1.9 million planning order that led to it was outside the scope of the contract it was issued under and should have been competed or separately justified. Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers’ top civilian contracting officer, testified to Congress in 2005 about the KBR contracts and was demoted soon after.

Their response: CBS News reported that Greenhouse’s supervisors said she was performing poorly and that “The Army Corps of Engineers denies her claims.” FactCheck.org found Cheney received $398,548 in deferred salary from Halliburton as vice president, pay earned earlier that the company could not raise or lower, that he bought insurance guaranteeing it, and that he and his wife assigned any profit on their stock options to charity.

Sources: GAO-04-605, Rebuilding Iraq: Fiscal Year 2003 Contract Award Procedures and Management Challenges (June 2004), via Wayback Machine · CBS News / AP: Iraq Whistleblowers Vilified, Demoted (Aug. 25, 2007) · FactCheck.org: Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on Halliburton (Sept. 2004)

Auditor: U.S. occupation authority could not account for $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds

$8.8B in Iraqi funds not accounted for (inspector general, via CNN)

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported on Jan. 30, 2005 that the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led body that ran Iraq until June 2004 under administrator Paul Bremer, could not show how $8.8 billion it passed to Iraqi ministries was used. The money was Iraqi oil revenue held in the Development Fund for Iraq, not U.S. taxpayer funds. The auditor said the authority “did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls”; at one ministry 8,206 guards were on the payroll but only 602 could be confirmed. The audit did not say the money was stolen, only that its use could not be verified.

Their response: Bremer, in a written reply included in the audit: “The IG auditors presume that the coalition could achieve a standard of budgetary transparency and execution that even peaceful Western nations would have trouble meeting within a year, especially in the midst of a war.” The Defense Department also disputed the findings.

Sources: CNN: Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds (Jan. 30, 2005)

Interior watchdog found oil-royalty staff took gifts from, and had sex with, industry contacts

Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney reported in September 2008 on “a culture of ethical failure” at the Minerals Management Service, the office that collected oil and gas royalties. Between 2002 and 2006 nearly a third of the royalty-in-kind staff took gifts from oil and gas companies they did business with; two marketers accepted them on at least 135 occasions, and some staff had “brief sexual relationships with industry contacts.” A program supervisor used illegal drugs, had sex with subordinates and took paid outside work pitching a consulting firm to companies he dealt with. One former senior official pleaded guilty to a criminal charge; the Justice Department declined to prosecute two others.

Their response: Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a written statement, as reported by NPR, that he was outraged by the immoral behavior, illegal activities and appalling misconduct. Devaney wrote that Kempthorne had “already taken assertive steps to replace key leadership and staff.” NPR noted a similar scandal at the same agency in 1990, before Bush took office.

Sources: Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney, memorandum to Secretary Kempthorne and investigative report (posted Sept. 10, 2008), via Wayback Machine · NPR: Sex Scandal At Federal Agency Is Not New (Sept. 11, 2008)

Medicare chief threatened actuary over drug benefit’s cost; GAO called his pay improper

While Congress debated Bush’s Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003, Medicare administrator Thomas Scully ordered the program’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, not to give lawmakers his cost estimates and, the Health and Human Services inspector general found, “threatened to sanction” him if he did. Scully’s assistant warned Foster that “the consequences of insubordination are extremely severe.” On Sept. 7, 2004 the Government Accountability Office ruled that federal law bars paying the salary of an official who stops an employee from communicating with Congress, called the payments to Scully improper, and recommended the department recover Scully’s pay from the date of the gag order until he left.

Their response: The department’s lawyers and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel argued the pay restriction was unconstitutional because, in GAO’s summary, it “limits the President’s ability to supervise and control the work of subordinate officers and employees of the executive branch.” GAO said it would apply the law “absent an opinion from a federal court” striking it down.

Sources: GAO decision B-302911, Department of Health and Human Services: Chief Actuary’s Communications with Congress (Sept. 7, 2004)

GAO found “covert propaganda”: a paid columnist and fake news segments promoting Bush policies

$113,441 first task order to the columnist (GAO)

The Government Accountability Office ruled on Sept. 30, 2005 that the Education Department broke the law by paying commentator Armstrong Williams, through the public relations firm Ketchum, to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on air and in print without disclosing the government’s role. It called the arrangement “covert propaganda” and said the department also violated the Antideficiency Act. In May 2004 GAO had ruled the same about Medicare video segments on the new drug law, sent to TV stations as ready-made news stories that ended “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting” with no mention that the government produced them.

Their response: Bush, Jan. 26, 2005, asked whether paying commentators was a proper use of government funds: “No.” He added: “we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.” He said “we didn’t know about this in the White House” and that the Education Department had made a mistake.

Sources: GAO decision B-305368, Department of Education: Contract to Obtain Services of Armstrong Williams (Sept. 30, 2005) · GAO decision B-302710, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Video News Releases (May 19, 2004) · Press Conference of the President, White House (Jan. 26, 2005)

White House aides used Republican Party email for official business; millions of emails went missing

An interim staff report of the House Oversight Committee, then led by Democrat Henry Waxman, found in June 2007 that at least 88 White House officials had Republican National Committee email accounts, that the party had kept no email at all for 51 of them, and that Karl Rove’s account held 140,216 messages, more than half exchanged with government addresses. The report said the practice may have violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires official records to be kept. Separately, private groups sued over gaps in the White House’s own email archive from 2003 to 2005; when the suits were settled in December 2009, the National Security Archive, one of the plaintiffs, said the government had “found, sorted and properly categorized 22 million more emails than they could find in late 2005,” citing a government declaration, and the government agreed to restore 94 days from backup tapes.

Their response: Press secretary Dana Perino, April 12, 2007: “Well, I will admit it, we screwed up and we’re trying to fix it.” The next day she said “we have seen no basis to conclude that there was any intentional wrongdoing with the use of these emails” and that “missing” might mean “misplaced, or not necessarily lost forever.”

Sources: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, The Use of RNC E-Mail Accounts by White House Officials (June 18, 2007), via Wayback Machine · National Security Archive: agreement on restoration of missing Bush White House e-mails (Dec. 14, 2009) · Press Briefing by Dana Perino, White House (April 12, 2007) · Press Briefing by Dana Perino, White House (April 13, 2007)

Bush order let ex-presidents and their heirs block release of White House records

Executive Order 13233, signed Nov. 1, 2001, required the National Archives to withhold a former president’s records whenever that former president claimed privilege, let a former president’s designated representative make the claim after his death, and extended the arrangement to former vice presidents. It was issued after the Bush White House had three times delayed the scheduled release of 68,000 pages of Reagan-era records. On Oct. 1, 2007, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Archivist’s reliance on one section of the order to delay releases was “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law”; she found the challenges to the other sections were not yet ripe. President Obama revoked the order on Jan. 21, 2009.

Their response: The order’s own text says it was issued “consistent with the requirements of the Constitution and the Presidential Records Act” and rests on the Supreme Court’s recognition that former presidents may assert privilege over their records.

Sources: Executive Order 13233, Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act (Nov. 1, 2001), National Archives · Memorandum Opinion, American Historical Association v. National Archives, D.D.C. (Oct. 1, 2007), copy hosted by the National Security Archive · Executive Order 13489, Presidential Records, Federal Register (Jan. 21, 2009) · National Security Archive: Court Rules Delay in Release of Presidential Papers is Illegal (Oct. 1, 2007)

Cheney kept his energy task force’s records secret, and the courts sided with him

Vice President Cheney led a 2001 task force that wrote the administration’s energy policy and refused to disclose whom it met; the Washington Post reported that he met executives including Enron chairman Kenneth Lay. The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch sued, arguing that industry figures were in effect members, which would have made the group subject to a federal law requiring advisory committees to disclose their work. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in June 2004 that the lower court had not given enough weight to the separation of powers, and on May 10, 2005 the full D.C. Circuit ordered the suits dismissed, holding that outsiders are not members of such a committee unless they have a vote or a veto. No court found the task force broke the law.

Their response: The D.C. Circuit: “we hold that plaintiffs have failed to establish any duty, let alone a clear and indisputable duty, owed to them by the federal government.” It noted that officials told congressional auditors that attendance at task force meetings “was limited to federal officers and employees.”

Sources: In re Cheney, 406 F.3d 723 (D.C. Cir. en banc, May 10, 2005) · Cheney v. United States District Court, No. 03-475, syllabus (June 24, 2004) · NBC News: Cheney’s day before Supreme Court (April 26, 2004)

Bush used signing statements to challenge more than 1,000 provisions of laws he signed

Instead of vetoing bills, Bush often signed them while declaring that he would treat parts as optional or unconstitutional. The Congressional Research Service counted 161 signing statements, 127 of which (79%) raised constitutional objections, covering “more than 1,000 distinct provisions of law”; President Clinton issued 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised objections. Among the laws Bush qualified were the ban on cruel treatment of detainees and reporting requirements under the Patriot Act. A bipartisan American Bar Association task force said in July 2006 that statements asserting a right to disregard laws “undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.”

Their response: The Congressional Research Service noted that “the nature and scope of the objections raised by the Bush II Administration mirrored those of prior Administrations” and that the difference was their number; the bar association task force itself said Bush “is not the first president to use signing statements.”

Sources: Congressional Research Service, Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and Institutional Implications (RL33667) · American Bar Association press release on its signing statements task force (July 24, 2006), via Wayback Machine

White House aide and former oil lobbyist edited government climate reports to stress doubt

Philip Cooney, chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and before that a lawyer and lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, edited federal climate science reports by hand, documents released in June 2005 by a whistleblower group showed. In a report to Congress, “earth is undergoing rapid change” became “may be undergoing change”, former government climate official Rick Piltz told CBS News. A December 2007 report by the House Oversight Committee, then led by Democrats, said Cooney and other council officials made at least 294 edits to the administration’s climate research plan “to exaggerate or emphasize scientific uncertainties or to deemphasize or diminish the importance of the human role in global warming.”

Their response: White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the editing as “part of our inter-agency review process.” Council chairman James Connaughton told the committee most comments “echoed nearly verbatim or appropriately reflected the substance of the 2001 National Academies of Science report”; Cooney testified his edits were recommendations the program’s director could reject.

Sources: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration (December 2007), via Wayback Machine · The Guardian: Ex-oil lobbyist watered down US climate research (June 9, 2005) · CBS News, 60 Minutes: Rewriting The Science (March 2006)

EPA watchdog: White House had cautions removed from air-quality statements after Sept. 11

The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general reported on Aug. 21, 2003 that when the agency announced on Sept. 18, 2001 that the air in Lower Manhattan was “safe” to breathe, “it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement.” It found that the White House Council on Environmental Quality “influenced” the agency’s early press releases “when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.” The report said “national security concerns and the desire to reopen Wall Street” also played a role. It added that an agency draft evaluation later concluded that, after the first few days, outdoor air was unlikely to harm the general population.

Their response: The acting EPA administrator replied that the report “placed too much emphasis on EPA’s press releases”, that the “safe” statement responded to public concern about asbestos, and that the agency “never withheld data from the public.” No White House response was found in the report.

Sources: EPA Office of Inspector General, EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse, Report No. 2003-P-00012 (Aug. 21, 2003)

Bush pardoned a fraudster, then took it back a day later after his father’s donation surfaced

$28,500 from his father to the Republican Party

On Dec. 23, 2008 Bush granted 19 pardons, including one to Isaac Toussie, a New York developer who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud and to lying to the federal housing department. The next day the White House said Bush had told the pardon attorney not to carry it out, after news reports that Toussie’s father had given $28,500 to the Republican Party that April, months before the pardon request. The request had gone to the White House counsel without the Justice Department pardon office’s recommendation, because Toussie had not waited the five years its rules require. Over two terms Bush granted 189 pardons and 11 commutations, according to Justice Department statistics.

Their response: White House statement, Dec. 24, 2008: “Based on information that has subsequently come to light, the President has directed the Pardon Attorney not to execute and deliver a Grant of Clemency to Mr. Toussie.” Press secretary Dana Perino said neither the counsel’s office nor Bush had known of a contribution that “might create an appearance of impropriety”, and that vetting donations in pardon reviews would be “highly inappropriate.”

Sources: Statement by the Press Secretary, White House (Dec. 24, 2008) · Associated Press via Salt Lake Tribune: Bush withdraws 1 of 19 pardons he issued Tuesday (Dec. 25, 2008) · Justice Department, Office of the Pardon Attorney: Clemency Statistics

President’s brother had a $2 million Chinese chip deal; his firm sold to schools using No Child funds

$2M in stock promised over five years (Reuters)

Neil Bush, the president’s brother, testified in a 2003 divorce deposition that he had signed an August 2002 contract with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing, a company backed by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, that would pay him $2 million in stock over five years; he acknowledged having no background in semiconductors and said he had not yet received any stock. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 that his education-software company, Ignite! Learning, had raised about $23 million from investors including his parents and the heads of a Kuwaiti company and a Chinese computer firm, and that at least 13 school districts had bought its $3,800 learning centers with funds from the No Child Left Behind Act, the president’s signature education law. Neither report showed that the president took any action to help his brother.

Their response: Neil Bush, by email to the Los Angeles Times: “Not one of these associates by the way has ever asked for any access to either of my political brothers, not one White House tour, not one autographed photo, and not one Lincoln bedroom overnight stay.” On the chip deal he told the divorce lawyer: “I personally would object to the assumption that they’re investing $2 million in me.”

Sources: Reuters via CNN: Bush brother’s divorce reveals sex romps (Nov. 25, 2003) · Los Angeles Times: Bush’s Family Profits From “No Child” Act (Oct. 22, 2006)

House Republicans’ Katrina inquiry found “a failure of leadership”; FEMA chief had little disaster experience

$1.5B in early FEMA Katrina contracts, over 80% not fully competed (House)

Michael Brown, a lawyer who joined the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2001 under his friend Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s 2000 campaign manager, became its director in 2003 after a decade as a commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. A week after Bush told him “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” he was pulled from the Hurricane Katrina response, and he resigned on Sept. 12, 2005. A House select committee whose 11 members were all Republicans reported in February 2006 that Katrina “was a failure of leadership,” that “earlier presidential involvement might have resulted in a more effective response,” and that the White House “discounted information that ultimately proved accurate.” It also found that more than 80 percent of FEMA’s $1.5 billion in early contracts were awarded with no or limited competition, while noting that emergency rules allowed this and warning against “misdirected, even baseless charges against contractors.”

Their response: Bush, Sept. 13, 2005: “to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Brown “managed over 160 disasters during his tenure at FEMA” and “has done everything he possibly could.” A FEMA official said Brown believed a Time magazine report that his resume overstated his experience was inaccurate.

Sources: House select committee, A Failure of Initiative, H. Rept. 109-377 (Feb. 15, 2006) · CNN (Sept. 12, 2005) · CNN (Nov. 4, 2005) · White House transcript (Sept. 2, 2005) · White House transcript (Sept. 13, 2005)

Final audit of Iraq rebuilding: at least $8 billion of $60 billion in U.S. funds was wasted

At least $8B wasted of $60B (special inspector general, 2013)

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, wrote in his final report in March 2013: “Ultimately, we estimate that the Iraq program wasted at least $8 billion.” The United States provided $60.64 billion for relief and reconstruction from 2003 through 2012. The office’s investigations led to 104 indictments and 82 convictions, but Bowen wrote that “waste was the paramount problem” rather than fraud, and faulted the cost-plus contracts used early in the program as “too wasteful.” The period covers both the Bush and Obama administrations, and the report does not divide the waste between them.

Their response: The report credits Bush’s second ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who “embraced SIGIR’s oversight work” and asked the Pentagon to end the cost-plus contracts.

Sources: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Learning From Iraq (March 2013) · Same report, mirror copy

Army gave a false account of Pat Tillman’s death; inquiry could not show what the White House knew

Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former NFL player, was killed by fellow U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, but his family was not told of the friendly fire until late May, after his memorial service. The Defense Department’s inspector general found his Silver Star rested on documents with “materially inaccurate statements” that “erroneously implied that CPL Tillman died by enemy fire,” and the Army sanctioned seven officers, four of them generals; a general’s memo of April 29, 2004 had warned superiors so that the president would not make “unknowing statements” about the death. The House Oversight Committee, then led by Democrats, reported in July 2008 that its effort to learn what top officials knew “was frustrated by a near universal lack of recall,” and that 1,500 pages of White House records held no discussion of the friendly fire. It also could not trace who gave reporters the false story that Pvt. Jessica Lynch “fought fiercely” before her capture in Iraq in 2003.

Their response: Army Secretary Pete Geren denied there was a “conspiracy . . . to deceive the public” and blamed “a perfect storm of mistakes, misjudgments, and a failure of leadership.” Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the committee: “I don’t recall when I was told and I don’t recall who told me.” The committee’s Republicans agreed officials showed “carelessness and incompetence” but wrote that the record was “incomplete, and therefore inconclusive” on whether anyone purposefully distorted information.

Sources: House Oversight Committee, Misleading Information From the Battlefield, H. Rept. 110-858 (2008)

Education watchdog: Bush’s Reading First program broke the law in choosing who judged grant bids

The Education Department’s inspector general reported in September 2006 that in Reading First, a program of about $1 billion a year under Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, “the selection of the expert review panel was not in compliance with the law.” Six panelists had “significant professional connections” to a teaching method tied to one commercial program, the department’s conflict screening missed all of them, and officials “took actions that call into question whether they violated” the ban on federal control of school curriculum. The report quotes the program’s director writing of one publisher: “They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them.” The department said the director, Chris Doherty, was resigning within days.

Their response: Education Secretary Margaret Spellings: “When something undermines the credibility of this department, or the standing of any program, I’m going to spring into action.” She said the problems predated her tenure and objected to the use of the e-mails, which she said could give an unfair picture of a person’s intentions. The Associated Press noted a separate review that week found the program was helping schools raise achievement.

Sources: Education Department inspector general, The Reading First Program’s Grant Application Process (Sept. 2006) · Associated Press via Boston Globe (Sept. 23, 2006)

Interior watchdog: appointee with no science training reshaped endangered-species reports

The Interior Department’s inspector general confirmed in a 2007 report that Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service, “has been heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping the Endangered Species Program’s scientific reports from the field.” She was a civil engineer with “no formal educational background in natural sciences.” The report said “we discovered no illegal activity on her part” but found she broke federal ethics rules by giving nonpublic documents to outside groups, including the California Farm Bureau Federation and the Pacific Legal Foundation, which had challenged species protections. Her resignation was announced on May 1, 2007, a week before a House hearing on her conduct.

Their response: MacDonald told investigators that a document being exempt from public release “did not mean she could not release it to a personal friend,” a lawyer at one of the groups, the Washington Post reported from the report. Interior spokesman Hugh Vickery declined to comment, calling it “a personnel matter.”

Sources: Interior Department inspector general, report on Julie MacDonald (2007) · Washington Post (March 30, 2007) · Associated Press via Boston Globe (May 1, 2007)

State Dept. watchdog accused of blocking Iraq fraud inquiries quit; his brother advised Blackwater

The House Oversight Committee’s Democratic chairman wrote in September 2007 that seven current and former staff members accused State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, a Bush appointee, of halting investigations “to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment,” including by refusing to send investigators to examine $3 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. At a Nov. 14, 2007 hearing he denied that his brother sat on the advisory board of Blackwater, the security contractor whose guards had shot Iraqi civilians in Baghdad that September, then acknowledged it and withdrew from Blackwater matters; he resigned on Dec. 7, 2007, and no formal finding on the interference claims has been reported. Bush’s Justice Department indicted five Blackwater guards in December 2008, charging them with killing 14 unarmed civilians; four were later convicted and were pardoned by President Trump in December 2020.

Their response: Krongard called the allegations “replete with inaccuracies including those made by persons with their own agendas.” In his resignation letter he cited “inherent structural and conceptual defects” in the inspector general’s job. A State Department spokesman said: “We thank him for his dedication to public service and wish him well in the future.”

Sources: Washington Post (Sept. 19, 2007) · ABC News (Nov. 14, 2007) · Los Angeles Times (Dec. 8, 2007) · Justice Department release on Blackwater indictment (Dec. 8, 2008) · White House clemency statement (Dec. 22, 2020)

GAO: health department watchdog delayed an audit of Florida’s pension fund at the request of Gov. Jeb Bush’s office

Janet Rehnquist became inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department in August 2001. The General Accounting Office reported in June 2003 that on April 15, 2002, the day before her auditors were to meet Florida officials about an audit of the state retirement system, the Florida governor’s chief of staff called the HHS secretary’s office to ask for a delay; the request was referred to Rehnquist, who postponed the audit for a few days and then, in an email, until July, and after further scheduling problems the work did not begin until September. The governor was the president’s brother Jeb Bush, who won re-election that November. The draft audit found about $517 million in excess federal contributions, and the GAO wrote that “it is conceivable that the report could have been available by election day” had the audit begun as planned. It concluded that some of her actions, “including her decision to delay a politically sensitive audit,” “created the perception that she lacked appropriate independence in certain situations.” Rehnquist announced her resignation on March 4, 2003, effective June 1.

Their response: Rehnquist told the GAO that audits are frequently delayed, that her decision was not politically motivated and that the audit would not have been finished before the election even if it had begun in April. She said that in hindsight she could have handled the request differently but did not believe she had acted inappropriately.

Sources: General Accounting Office, GAO-03-685: Review of the Management of Inspector General Operations (June 2003) · Miller Center, University of Virginia: George W. Bush, life before the presidency · National Governors Association: Gov. Jeb Bush

GOP operatives jammed Democrats’ Election Day phone lines in 2002; one conviction was overturned

On Election Day 2002 in New Hampshire, hired telemarketers tied up five Democratic Party phone lines and one at a firefighters union offering rides to the polls for about 85 minutes, in a Senate race the Republican won 51 to 46 percent. The state Republican Party’s executive director and a party consultant pleaded guilty and served seven and three months. James Tobin, the Republican National Committee’s New England director and later Bush’s 2004 campaign chairman for the region, was convicted in 2005 of telephone harassment charges and acquitted of conspiring against voters’ rights; an appeals court threw out the conviction in March 2007, saying the jury had been wrongly instructed and that “this statute is not a close fit for what Tobin did.” On remand the trial judge acquitted him, and the appeals court upheld the acquittal on Jan. 7, 2009. A separate indictment in Maine, charging him with lying to the FBI, was dismissed as a vindictive prosecution, and the government dropped its appeal in May 2009, so no conviction of Tobin stands. Trial exhibits showed Tobin made two dozen calls to the White House political office in the three days around the election; prosecutors did not use them and accused no White House official of wrongdoing.

Their response: A lawyer for the Republican National Committee, Robert Kelner: “On Election Day, as anybody involved in politics knows, there’s a tremendous volume of calls between political operatives in the field and political operatives in Washington.” White House spokesman Ken Lisaius: “As policy, we don’t discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts.” The party said it paid Tobin’s legal bills because he told officials he had committed no crime.

Sources: U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, United States v. Tobin (March 21, 2007) · Associated Press via CNN (April 11, 2006) · U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, United States v. Tobin (Jan. 7, 2009) · Bangor Daily News (May 26, 2009)

Cheney’s office said it was not an “entity within the executive branch” for secrecy inspections

An executive order on classified information, revised by Bush in 2003, has the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office check how executive agencies handle secrets. Vice President Cheney’s office complied in 2001 and 2002, then stopped and blocked an inspection in 2004, according to letters released in June 2007 by the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee. His staff told the office that it “does not believe it is included in the definition of ‘agency’” and is not an “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” The oversight office’s director asked the attorney general to rule in January 2007 and wrote that Cheney’s office had suggested abolishing the oversight office. The White House sided with Cheney, saying Bush never meant the provision to apply to the vice president.

Their response: Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn: “We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law.” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, June 22, 2007: “The President and the Vice President are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.” Cheney’s office would neither confirm nor deny that it sought to abolish the oversight office.

Sources: CNN (June 22, 2007) · White House press briefing (June 22, 2007)

Pentagon fed talking points to TV military analysts; two reviews found no rules were broken

From 2002 to 2008 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon held 147 events, including briefings and trips to Iraq and Guantanamo, for 74 retired officers who appeared as military analysts on television, and gave them talking points, the Pentagon’s inspector general found; four analysts said they were dropped “because they were critical.” The New York Times exposed the program in April 2008, reporting that some analysts with defense-contractor ties sought business advantage from the access, and the Pentagon suspended it. The Government Accountability Office concluded in 2009 that the department “attempted to favorably influence public opinion” but “did not violate the publicity or propaganda prohibition.” The inspector general withdrew a first report clearing the program as too flawed to rely on, then concluded in 2011 that it complied with Defense Department rules.

Their response: A Pentagon spokesman called the outreach “nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people.” Rumsfeld told investigators he did not recall ordering a critical analyst, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, removed from the invitation list. One retired officer recalled Rumsfeld saying: “You guys influence a wide range of people. We’d like to be sure you have the facts.”

Sources: New York Times (Dec. 25, 2011) · New York Times (May 6, 2009) · Washington Times (July 25, 2009) · The Guardian (April 23, 2008)

President’s uncle collected $2.7 million from sale of a defense contractor that grew on Iraq war work

$2.7M in cash and stock from the 2006 sale (LA Times, SEC filings)

William H.T. “Bucky” Bush, the president’s uncle, joined the board of St. Louis defense contractor Engineered Support Systems in 2000, months before his nephew’s election. The company’s earnings hit records on military contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan, some awarded without competition, including a $48.8 million deal to refurbish military trailers. The Los Angeles Times reported from securities filings that he cashed in options worth about $450,000 in January 2005, shortly after the company announced about $77 million in new orders for kits to re-armor and refurbish military equipment in Iraq, and received just under $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 when the company was sold in 2006. Neither report showed that the president or his uncle intervened to win a contract; the 2006 story said regulators and prosecutors were examining the company’s late disclosure of a government stop order.

Their response: William Bush, in a 2005 interview: “I don’t make any calls to the 202 area code.” He said he took legal advice before joining the board. A company vice president said “Having a Bush doesn’t hurt” but that the uncle played no role in winning government contracts and that Democrats also sat on the board.

Sources: Los Angeles Times (Feb. 23, 2005) · Los Angeles Times (March 23, 2006)

Before office: SEC dropped inquiry into Bush’s Harken stock sale; $606,000 baseball stake paid $14.9 million

$14.9M payout from the 1998 Texas Rangers sale (Washington Post)

On June 22, 1990 Bush, then a director of Harken Energy, sold all 212,140 of his shares at $4 each just before the end of a quarter in which the company posted large losses, and filed the required notice of the sale eight months late. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an insider-trading inquiry in 1991 and closed it in October 1993, writing that “no enforcement action is contemplated with respect to him” while adding that this “must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated”; its enforcement chief said “there was no case there.” Bush invested $606,302 in the Texas Rangers, whose value rose with a ballpark that the city of Arlington helped fund with $135 million from a voter-approved sales tax, and received $14.9 million, including a 10 percent bonus for assembling the deal, when the team was sold in 1998.

Their response: Bush, July 8, 2002: “the SEC fully looked into the matter” and “there’s no ‘there’ there.” Asked why the sale report was late: “I still haven’t figured it out completely.” His lawyer said board members were not told of the quarter’s losses until three weeks after the sale.

Sources: Washington Post, Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings (July 30, 1999) · Washington Post, 1999 series on Bush’s baseball years (July 31, 1999) · White House news conference (July 8, 2002)