On US Attorney Biskupic, The Democrats Have Bupkis

Attorney General Gonzalez has brought this upon himself and his party - with his ghastly handling of the Eight Men Out firings, he has created the environment in which Democrats can exploit every case with political overtones.

The latest "outrage" occurred in Wisconsin - let's have the NY Times editors set the stage with their simple and unresearched opinion:

As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state’s Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s “corruption” to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. “It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic’s office.

So the basic theory seems to be that Mr. Biskupic brought an absurdly weak case to please his zealous, politicized overlords in Washington and ensure his own job security.  That theory was fine-tuned a bit in a subsequent AP story covering the request by Senate Judiciary Democrats for  more info:

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to provide documents related to the prosecution of a former state worker in Wisconsin whose bid-rigging conviction was overturned last week by a federal appeals court.

Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and five other Democratic senators said in a letter sent Tuesday that they were "concerned whether or not politics may have played a role" in the case against Georgia Thompson.

And why was Biskupic vulnerable and eager to please?  Apparently he was not tough on vote fraud:

The senators asked Tuesday for documents that would show whether Biskupic was considered for dismissal and replacement after Bush's re-election. Reports of voter fraud in the 2004 presidential election had prompted a federal investigation, but Biskupic reported in 2005 that the probe found no evidence of partisan efforts to sway the outcome. Democratic candidate John Kerry narrowly carried the state.

The senators also asked for communications between the Justice Department and the White House or outside parties regarding possible voter fraud in Wisconsin, the case against Thompson and Biskupic's handling of those cases. The committee said it wanted the documents by the end of the week.

So let's see - Biskupic was a stand-up guy who announced in late 2005 that he wouldn't be prosecuting vote fraud in his district.  Just as with New Mexico's US Attorney Iglesias, who drew fire from his home state Senator, Biskupic found himself under pressure from the two Wisconsin Senators, Democrats Kohl and Feingold... OK, maybe not.

But Biskupic knew he needed something!  So in Oct 2005 he announced that, in cooperation with the Democratic State Attorney General Lautenschlager and the Democratic Dane County District Attorney, he would cooperatively investigate allegations of corruption in the governor's travel office:

Federal, state and Dane County authorities have launched a joint investigation into a travel contract given to the company of a major contributor to Gov. Jim Doyle, officials said Thursday.

The investigation will be conducted by both the FBI and the state's Division of Criminal Investigation, which is supervised by Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager. Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard also will play a role in the process.

"By working together, we want to avoid any accusations of bias," said U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic in Milwaukee.

They want to avoid any accusations of bias?  Ooops!

Well.  Ms. Thompson was indicted in January of 2006; a verdict was returned in June and she was sentenced in September.  The Times finesses this timeline by telling us that Ms. Thompson was "sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger".  However, various Dem bloggers are a bit overexcited - here is The Carpetbagger (my emphasis):

We do know, however, that shortly before a close election, Biskupic brought extremely thin criminal charges against a top Doyle administration official who apparently did nothing wrong.

"Shortly"?  To a geologist, it was the blink of an eye, but in politics, January to November isn't "shortly".

The Brad Blog also staggers on this:

...see the letter from Leahy for more details on the heels of a surprise Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that issued an order immediately overturning a case brought by Biskupic against Georgia Thompson, an aide to Wisconsin's Democratic governor, Jim Doyle. Just in time for the '06 election we might add. (It didn't help; Doyle won anyway.)

"Just in time"?  Inventory managers are swooning at this nine month "just in time" concept.

Well.  Dem theorists will want to explain why Biskupic, in cooperation with two Democrats, brought a laughably weak case in January, then risked repudiation and humiliation by going to trial in the late spring.  Surely if the case was this weak and motivated simply by politics, he would have announced the indictment in the fall and been shamed in court over the winter. 

But wait!  Biskupic won convictions on two counts!  Not only did he seem to believe in his case, but he managed to push it past a jury.

I will have more, but that is a start.  My Bold Prediction - Biskupic comes through this unscathed, or, as Yogi Berra might have said, there is no "there" here.

ERRATA:  Useful defense background here; coverage of the appeals court decision here.

A BIT MORE:  Two Dems to the defense:

Two Democratic prosecutors who were consulted during Biskupic's probe of the Doyle administration defended Biskupic against the charges.

"I in no way see the decision by U.S. Attorney Biskupic to pursue charges against Georgia Thompson as a political one," said former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, who often feuded with Doyle.

Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, a Madison Democrat, called Biskupic "a respected, apolitical career prosecutor."

Comments

[clarice]

Bltsflk**I have a splitting sinus headache today and you pop up with something that takes a careful read..just darn, TM.

[rouxdsla]

From the MJS article

"Biskupic signed the indictment against Thompson, but the case is being investigated jointly by the offices of the U.S. attorney, the state attorney general and the Dane County district attorney. Biskupic has recused himself from the portion of the inquiry that concerns Adelman and its employees because Craig Adelman is the brother of U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who presides over cases in the Eastern District. That portion of the case is now in the hands of Stephen Sinnott, U.S. attorney for the state's Western District."

He apparently recused himself from part of the case.

[fschmieg]

It is very sad to me that we are wasting our precious time on this junk when the country is in such peril from our enemies. Also, take the ridiculous situation that the Democratic presidential candidates refuse to debate at a Fox News sponsored event. Now that is down right unAmerican. The left-wingers who have forced this on the Democrats are a true danger to this country. To try to silence people you disagree with in that way!

[Pofarmer]

It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Am I to understand that if Bush had just terminated them all upon his reelection, that noone would have said a word?

Did I ever tell ya about this big Bridge in Brooklyn I got fer sale?

[Pofarmer]

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling.

Shocking, shocking I tell you.

I wonder if Libby will get the same consideration given the statements from the jury after the trial?

Yeah, I won't hold my breath.

[Forbes]

I know I personally look forward to Sen. Leahy, and his fellow committee Democrats, investigating all US Attorney convictions overturned on appeal. For if there is no other standard for politicizing the US Attorney's Office, it is most assuredly the appointment of incompetents as the US Attorney. And what other measure of incompetence is there but a conviction overturned on appeal. Let the Committee investigations commence. I look forward to Senators Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein, Durbin, Feingold, et.al. lecturing the rest of us on the fine points of federal prosecution and litigation.
;-)

[TexasToast]

Gee Tom

The entire USAGate was supposed to be "bupkis" - didn't turn out that way.

[Roger]

NM and a new home. 2008 dem running for President. Joe worked for Kerry to avoid subpeonas and sued later.

Plame worked on energy companies(probably foreign) so I would wonder a little about Brian. Brian know anyone who owns power things that are foreign? Gonazalez has to turn over classified documents regarding the AGs and they probably over lap Plame, since she may have been part of the 'criteria' for the AGs; she was never prosecuted for criminal conspiracy charges by Fitz 'by arrangement.'

So, now, we need some documents. They may involve Plame. They may involve energy companies from Brewster's Millions(don't forget there were other energy consultant Plames that came out during Plame) that Brian may know, kinda; like we all knew who Wells might have been.

Anyway, seems like witch hunting blackmail by the "dems' justice committee." I don't think they don't know what they are doing for one second. Well, never deal with CIA. Find one, sell 'em out fast and keep your money. Brian's friend may already have lost his............

Patterns Plame may have bought outside of the Iraq purchases:

The Algeria bombings remind us of why we shouldn't help the US or it's allies. I think this time it was Pelosi and Syria helping us with Iran; terrorists responded and I guess that's bad for the dems historically, but good for Al. Maybe dems need to resopnd to terrorists and it's really not their fault(9/11) Algeria, and next Syria.

[Tom Maguire]

He apparently recused himself from part of the case.

Don't I know it. For a while I thought Sinnott he handled the trial, since Adelman was involved there, but eventually I became convinced that Sinnott only handled the follow-up investigation with the Adelman people - for example, it is Biskupic who signed off on the prosecution's sentencing memorandum.

No charges have been filed against anyone at Adelman, BTW.

And Sinnott? He was an interim US Atty, made the short list for the permanent spot, and was passed over in June 2006 in favor of Erik Peterson.

I have a splitting sinus headache today and you pop up with something that takes a careful read..just darn, TM.

I am a new man since I got hopped up on DayQuil, but my head was also splitting earlier. Next - a post on Mr. Mxyzptlk.

Seriously, these mid-western names are a boon for Googlers - with Biskupic and Lautenschlager (the State AG), how can you miss?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Mxyzptlk

[clarice]

I've been away from Milwaukee too long to be certain of how to even pronounce his name--but my guess would be bis-coo-pich with the accent on the middle syllable.

[Roger]

Googled the names. College, cities, seem familiar........Biskupic is an acid? Yes, I heard they hired that too, but it smokes alot. This is real old stuff so I looked up
http://www.fightingbob.com/weblog.cfm?PostID=2039.
This really is funny but reminds me alot of USAID empoyees in Africa.

Anyway, what your saying is that they're mad that ceasing existence is possible and, in fact, the answer to religion and God somebody only did it once and they multi versed bodies to other locations. The problem with multi verse is it is an obvious attempt to continue existence of all things. Like if you see a UFO or a planet and cease them, they come right back. So, like, who would be behind continuing existence when we know the answer is to cease it? Well, that'd be lucifer trying to be Satan. Name games and numbers are for fools and Luciferians. Ending it is more fun.

That Algerian terror sure was hard to figure.

It'll be neat to 'watch all this and laugh.'

[Roger]

I didn't know about the book or I would have responded last night, but the Pope knows all this................

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070411/sc_nm/pope_evolution_dc

You know, there might be something to the Sinnot, but I'm not Anglican - they go after balls too!

Maybe I'll go withc hunting.

[Tom Maguire]

The entire USAGate was supposed to be "bupkis" - didn't turn out that way.

Tex, the Russian Army scored occasional victories during their rout back to Moscow in 1941 - Biskupic will be one of them.

(Not to say that the Dems are the German Army, natch...)

[PeterUK.]

Yes the Wehrmacht was very good,if it hadn't been for Adolf,they might have won.

[topsecretk9]

I posted about this recently and thought I point out the latest wierd development (it reminded me of crux of the similar arrangement Peter Lance alleged Fitz had with some 9-11 informant)

U.S. drop charges against man accused of posing as FBI agent

The Associated Press
Published: April 11, 2007

CHICAGO: Prosecutors abruptly dropped charges Wednesday against a man accused of illegally posing as an FBI agent, saying they need a better Arabic-to-English translation of a telephone call that was a key piece of evidence.

Jawad Al-Arouri, 47, also known as Jack Mustafa, was ordered freed from custody at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow. An FBI affidavit had quoted a witness as saying Al-Arouri claimed to be an FBI agent, flashed a gun and proposed a scheme to squeeze $500,000 (€374,000) out of an unnamed third person. Impersonating an agent was the only charge.

Al-Arouri was described by defense attorneys in August 2006 as a man who befriended Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah and fed information about him to FBI agents in an investigation of alleged Palestinian terrorism.

Salah, 53, was acquitted in February of taking part in a racketeering scheme that involved delivering money to bankroll a Hamas terrorist campaign. He was convicted at the same time of lying under oath.

Prosecutors have never confirmed nor disputed statements by Salah attorneys that Al-Arouri was an FBI informant in the Salah investigation.

Before the start of trial, Salah attorneys demanded more information concerning one of the counts in the indictment which they said was based on Al-Arouri's role as an FBI mole who spied on Salah for years.

Faced with having to turn over information about Al-Arouri, federal prosecutors dropped the charge that apparently would have been based on his testimony. Al-Arouri was arrested last Wednesday by FBI agents.

Salah attorney Michael E. Deutsch on Wednesday was sharply critical of the government's claim that the charges of impersonating an FBI agent were dropped over the need for a better translation of a telephone call.

"Do you believe that? Something's fishy here," Deutsch said. He said the government used 15 different Arabic translators in the Salah case.

"I think there's a war going on at the FBI between people who want to protect this guy and people who want to do the right thing," Deutsch said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment when asked about Deutsch's remarks. He said the investigation was ongoing.

Deutsch filed papers with U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve before the Salah trial saying that the FBI itself had investigated Al-Arouri and found that he was an unreliable informant. He said that showed the weakness of the case against his client.

here's another:

Feds drop charges Oak Lawn man played G-man Man was long-time government informant

April 11, 2007
Staff writer Chris Hack
Federal prosecutors today abruptly dismissed charges they filed last week against a mysterious Oak Lawn man who long served as a key government informant against alleged Hamas operative Mohammed Salah.

Jawad Al-Arouri, who's also known as Jack Mustafa, was charged Friday with impersonating a FBI agent. According to the complaint, he claimed he was a FBI agent and tried to shake down a local resident for $500,000.

During a five-minute court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Jenkins said the charges would be dropped because officials aren't confident they have a reliable translation of a secretly tape-recorded, Arabic conversation at the heart of the case against Al-Arouri. Jenkins said prosecutors have the right to refile the charges and that their investigation continues.

"This is not the end of the matter for the United States," Jenkins told federal Magistrate Morton Denlow. "We do intend to proceed with it."

Al-Arouri wept and blew a kiss to his lawyer when he heard the charge would be dropped and he'd be released from federal custody later today. Defense attorney Beau Brindley said he didn't expect new charges to be filed.

"I think it's more of an indication of the insufficiency -- the weakness -- of the government's evidence in this case," Brindley said after the hearing. "The case never should have been charged."

Al-Arouri, 47, was a key figure in the decade-long investigation of Bridgeview resident Salah. According to court records, Al-Arouri befriended Salah when he returned to Bridgeview after a stint in an Israeli prison in the 1990s, and later told the feds that Salah was plotting Middle East terrorist attacks from the south suburb.

After the lengthy probe, Salah was indicted in 2004 on federal charges alleging he served as a high-ranking operative of Hamas, a militant Palestinian group that's considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. But on the eve of trial, prosecutors suddenly dropped the terrorism charge and announced Al-Arouri would no longer be testifying.

After a four-month trial, Salah was acquitted of the most serious remaining charge of racketeering. He was convicted of the relatively minor charge of obstruction of justice and is to be sentenced this summer.

Salah's defense attorneys were outraged at the last-minute decision by prosecutors to not call Al-Arouri as a witness, especially since records showed the FBI had much earlier discredited him as an informant in another terrorism case. Observing in court today, Salah's team felt the latest development in the saga of the former FBI informant smelled bad.

"What, you guys don't have Arabic translators?" Salah defense attorney Erica Thompson sarcastically asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur as she left the courtroom. "That's stunning."

[Jeff Dobbs]

Yes, well one argument said bupkis, the other said Gonzales gone by April Fools.

Neither was right.

Neither will probably be right if making predictions at this point either.

[Psycheout]

Tom is right again. This was much ado about nothing.

[sylvia]

This whole system for appointing Attorney Generals seems a little strange for me and something I wasn't aware about until recently. Since these AG's are responsible for investigating political mischief, it does seem a little biased that these AG's can be hired and fired at will by the chief of the politcal party in power at the time. This does seem to be a system that could be easily abused, or at least easily give the appearance of abuse.

I'm not sure how this system was started, as in, is this as old as the constitutional times, but this does seem to be part of the system of checks and balances that might need a little tune-up in order to avoid spectacles like this in the future, although I'm not sure exactly at this point how this could be done effectively.

[Pofarmer]

You'd rather have an unelected, unaccountable beauracrat heading up the entire Justice Department?

[cathyf]

but this does seem to be part of the system of checks and balances that might need a little tune-up in order to avoid spectacles like this in the future

Just like they thought back in 1487. Of course they turned out to be rather horrifyingly wrong...

[xoff]

One does have to wonder why Biskupic only prosecutes Democrats.

Is it that Democrats are the ones committing all of the crimes?

Or could there be politics at work?

[sophy]

Welcome to our game world, my friend asks me to buy some wakfu gold .

[LOTRO Gold]

When you have LOTRO Gold, you can get more!