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USAs: Disruption of Corruption Investigation via Committee? Chiara and Ryan

by mswsm

Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 08:42:04 PM EST

promoted - cho
cross-posted Daily Kos
with jennybravo

The Dems are doing a great job, but there are dots missing.

On March 22, 2007 ex-USA David Iglesias was on Hardball. Matthews asked Inglesias if there was any commonality to the firings of the USAs.

IGLESIAS: I can probably pull out a couple of commonalities. One is that most of us had pending--reportedly had pending corruption matters. That`s one thing. Three out of the eight of us were on the Southwest border. Another commonality is we were extremely productive. Carol Lam and Paul Charlton and I, as your commentator stated earlier, in the top 10. Charlton was number one.

We have heard about some of the pending corruption case, but very little has been said about Margaret Chiara and Kevin Ryan. These two ex-USAs didn't testify and it appears that they weren't even invited to the hearing.

Today were heard very little about them. Why?

commentary :: :: :: buzz-it!

Five of the ex-USAs, Chiara, Bogden, McKay, Iglesias, and Charlton, were all on the Native American Issues Subcommittee (NAIS) at the DoJ. Chiara was the Chair and the others were members. Chiara was the second Chair of NAIS to leave in one year. In Feb. of 2006 the then-Chair of the NAIS, USA Thomas Heffelfinger, resigned. At the time it didn't seem odd to most people, except may be to CREW. CREW had filed a lawsuit because they wanted to know what Heffelfinger was doing.

The National Indian Gaming Commission is holding back information about its possible contacts with the key players in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, a watchdog group said on Tuesday.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) announced the filing of a lawsuit to force the NIGC to reveal what it knows about Abramoff and Republicans with ties to the disgraced lobbyist. "The American public has a right to know what NIGC knew and what role administration officials played in these scandals," said Melanie Sloan, the non-profit group's executive director.
The lawsuit comes after CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act request on March 18 seeking "any contact" that NIGC may have had with a long list of players in the debacle. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana are among those whose names have surfaced in recent months as a Senate committee, federal investigators and the media have delved into the controversy.
. . . .
Tom Heffelfinger, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, will testify as well. He helped create the Indian Gaming Working Group, an inter-agency task force that has played a role in the Abramoff investigation. The task force includes the NIGC, the Inspector General, the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the FBI -- Chiara has her own discussion of NAIS and IGWG -- the purpose of IGWG is:

The IGWG
In February 2003, in an effort to identify and direct resources to Indian gaming matters, the FBI and NIGC created the IGWG. The IGWG's purpose is to identify resources to address the most pressing criminal violations in the area of Indian gaming. This group consists of representatives from a variety of FBI subprograms (i.e. Economic Crimes Unit, Money Laundering Unit, LCN/Organized Crime Unit, Asian Organized Crime Unit, Public Corruption/Government Fraud Unit, Cryptographic Racketeering Analysis Unit, and Indian Country Special Jurisdiction Unit) and other federal agencies, which include Department of Interior Office of Inspector General (DOI-OIG), NIGC, Internal Revenue Service Tribal Government Section (IRS-TGS), Department of Treasure Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement Services (BIA-OLES). The IGWG meets monthly to review Indian gaming cases deemed to have a significant impact on the Indian gaming industry. As a result of these meetings, several investigations have been initiated and the IGWG, through its member agencies, has provided financial resources, travel funds, liaison assistance, personnel resources, coordination assistance and consultation.

Thus, it is very likely that Chiara was up to her ears in Republican corruption investigations. Which leads to Ryan.

Ryan was part of another intra-agency committee that has been gutted, Corporate Fraud Task Force (CFTF). This committee was started in 2002 under an Executive Order. They oversee corruption cases like Enron, Iraq contractors, and ABRAMOFF. More specifically (and worth a read):

Corruption: In separate cases shared with the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section, former lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff, former public-relations specialist Michael P.S. Scanlon, and former lobbyists Tony C. Rudy and Neil G. Volz, once members of Representative Robert W. Ney's staff, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy involving a kickback scheme that defrauded Abramoff's clients of approximately $25 million. Abramoff, Rudy and Volz also pleaded guilty to other related charges.
. . .
Additionally, a former General Services Administration official was convicted after trial on obstruction and false statement charges. In a joint case with the USAO, Central District of Illinois, the Fraud Section obtained a guilty plea from a former Middle East regional vice president of Eagle Global Logistics, Inc. (EGL), to a charge of major fraud against the United States stemming from a $1.14 million billing scheme involving a subcontract for the U.S. Army in Iraq. EGL provided air-cargo transportation for military equipment and supplies into Iraq.

The members on the Corporate Fraud Task Force are not selected, they automatically serve on the committee based on their job titles. So what DoJ job titles are on the Corporate Fraud Task Force?

Members of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force
The following Department officials are members of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force:
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Assistant Attorney General Criminal Division
Assistant Attorney General Tax Division
United States Attorney for the Central District of California
United States Attorney for the Northern District of California
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas
The following agency officials are members of the interagency group of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force:
The Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of Labor
The Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission
The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
The Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
The Chief Inspector of the United States Postal Inspection Service
The Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight

In 2002 the Corporate Fraud Task Force from the DoJ was: Wray, O'Connor, Yang, Ryan, Fitzgerald, Mauskopf, Comey, Meehan, Shelby. The only USAs left from the original committee-- Patrick Fitzgerald and Patrick Meehan. Puts the discussion of Fitz in a whole new light.

One last point...On Dec. 6, 2007 there is an indictment against a SF woman, Deborah Palfrey, for running a prostitution service in the Washington D.C. area since 1993. Further, the investigation was with the IRS and USPS - an intra-agency investigation. Then on Dec. 7, 2007, seven USA's are fired - including USA Ryan from the SF area. Is this why he was fired at the last minute? Seems odd that a "loyal, do nothing Bushie" would get fired. Doesn't it?

USAs: Disruption of Corruption Investigation via Committee? Chiara and Ryan | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)

Wong-Yang (5.00 / 2) (#1)

Very interesting and great pulling together about information. The NAIS connection has been buggin a lot of us... great job.

On a side note, I was intrigued by the Wong-Yang item. In an earlier piece we identified her as one of the ones to resign after the Pat Act Reauthorization in our piece 14 U.S. Attorneys Never Officially Nominated by President

There are four others that have resigned since March 2006 for reasons other than promotion to another government position or retirement: Central California - Debra Wong-Yang; Western Missouri - Todd Graves; Puerto Rico - Humberto S. Garcia; and Middle Tennessee -James K. Vines. Except for Garcia, where President Bush just nominated Rosa E. Rodriguez on 1-16-07, an acting or interim is now running the district.

With all that's come out since that piece, can't help but wonder if Wong-Yang was forced out as well.

from a companion piece What We Know about the 14

CALIFORNIA, CENTRAL - District Court 9th circuit - George S. Cardona

Acting - appointed November 20^th, 2006.

"I became acting U.S. attorney under the Vacancy Reform Act when no one else was appointed. The act says the chief assistant is to serve as acting if the U.S. attorney position is vacant," Cardona said.

Replaces - Debra Wong Yang who resigned October 21^st, 2006

Background

Debra Wong Yang was appointed in May 2002 by President George W. Bush.

After becoming United States Attorney, Ms. Yang was selected to serve on President Bush's Corporate Fraud Task Force and to chair the Attorney General's Advisory Committee on Civil Rights. She was appointed by the Attorney General to sit on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and on the Intellectual Property Task Force. She also serves on the Ninth Circuit Jury Reform Committee.
Prior to being appointed United States Attorney, Ms. Yang was a California state judge. She was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1997 and became a member of the Los Angeles Superior Court bench in 2000. As a judge, Ms. Yang acted as the Supervising Judge for the Hollywood Courthouse. She sat on the Criminal Law Advisory Committee and the Subcommittee on the Quality of Judicial Service for the Court's Judicial Council.

Debra Wong Yang is still the featured US Attorney on the US DOJ website, however the US Attorney listing names George Cardona as her replacement.

According to UCLA Law bio for George Cardona:

Professor Cardona was notes and topics editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review. He then clerked for Dolores K. Sloviter of the Third Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. From 1987 to 1989, he worked as an associate in the Tax Work Group of Irell & Manella in Los Angeles; and from 1989 through 1991, he worked as a Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. For the next seven years he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, first in the Central District of California as, for a time, Deputy Chief of the Major Frauds section, then in 1998 in the Northern District of California as Chief of the Appeals Section, and later returning again to the Central District as Chief of the Criminal Division. For exceptional work, he received the Director's Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service.

by Cho on Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 09:44:58 PM EST

Haven't really dug into the Corp. Fraud (5.00 / 3) (#2)

people yet. Just noticed the connection between names and gutting of committees that seem to deal with the meat of the Abramoff et. al corruption.

by mswsm on Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 11:34:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

: This is a great catch (5.00 / 2) (#3)

Wong-Yang resigned in Oct, shortly after the DOJ sent out some information to all USA's about the process for resigning since some had inquired. I'll try to see if I can dig up the email/document from the document dumps. It seemed very timely.

by standingup on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 11:25:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]