The story goes like this: in the late 1990s, then-Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton founded a group called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, with her friend from the campaign trail Italia Federici in charge.
When Norton became Interior Secretary in 2001, CREA became a conduit for access between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Norton’s chief deputy at the Interior Department, Steven Griles, with Griles pressing Abramoff for donations to CREA and Abramoff, in return, seeking privileged access to the Interior Department on behalf of his Indian gaming clients.
Yesterday, Griles was sentenced to prison for his role in the scandal, as the Washington Post reports:
Griles, 59, the highest-ranking federal official convicted in the Abramoff scandal, apologized for his actions and cited 24 years of public service. “This has been the most difficult time,” Griles said, pausing to break down in tears, “in my life. My guilty plea has brought me great shame and embarrassment. I have lost my business, my income and, most importantly, my reputation.”
Griles, who is not cooperating with the federal investigation, was introduced to the now-convicted lobbyist by a girlfriend who ran an advocacy group co-founded by former interior secretary Gale Norton and financed by Abramoff’s Indian tribal clients.
The government contended that Abramoff thought that if he and his tribal clients contributed money to the group, then he would gain special access to Griles through the girlfriend, Italia Federici.
Federici pleaded guilty this month to tax and perjury charges and agreed to cooperate with the government. She admitted to acting as a go-between, shuttling information and lobbying requests from Abramoff to Griles…
As we’ve discussed previously, Norton’s resignation from the Interior Department last year is widely considered to be related to this scandal, and her subordinates are taking the fall for activities she could not have been completely ignorant of. Not to mention that Griles and Federici hooked up somehow. It’s a small world, true, but it would be yet another leap of faith to rule out their mutual ties to Gale Norton, Italia Federici’s longtime employer and benefactor–and Steven Griles’ immediate supervisor at the Interior Department.
For reasons no one has ever explained to our satisfaction, connecting the final, seemingly obvious dot here has been strictly taboo, in the press and during the Congressional investigation (which took place while Norton’s fellow Republicans were in the majority). But maybe that’s why one has subordinates.
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According to this site, http://www.indianz.c… “Griles hired K&L Gates, previously known as Preston Gates Ellis. The firm was the first to hire Abramoff, who brought in several wealthy tribal clients.”
Maybe Lamborn is just green with envy. http://www.coloradop…
They have learned how to make the buck stop lower while profiting in dollars from it. The days of them taking responsibility for their actions are LONG over.
What administration holds the record for most officials indicted or convicted/plead guilty while in office? How about for most officials forced out due to scandal, in addition to the rest?
The Bush Administration has been trying to hold in the ooze of corruption for a while now, but it’s starting to leak from multiple pores…
My first guess would be Reagan….
…the most corrupt administrations have been Jackson, Grant, Harding, Reagan, and Bush Too. I think Reagan’s holds most of the records, but give GW a chance, he still has 18 months or so.
Whether it’s Laptop (he who must not be named) or The Exterminator (Tom DeLay, whose name can be used), public officials who break the law must be given no sympathy and no quarter.
Either party. I’m just as glad to see Wm Jefferson get his as Jack Abramoff.
Nixon got nailed because he outsourced. When the plumbers got caught, they squealed. Also Nixon had people in his admin who still put principles of govt service at top priority–they were uncomfortable when confronted with the ethical breaches of others and so were willing to leak.
Bush II (and Bush I but less) used a different business plan–the first requirement is loyalty and willingness to keep silence to protect higher-ups. Competence or dedication to performance is way down the list. So every time, the subordinates get sacrificed but the inner circle is protected. And because they control all info as executive privelege, there are no leaks, and no malcontent Deep Throats. None of them will talk–as long as they can protect the documentation, there is no way to get hard evidence, only circumstantial.
Abramoff may be a key vulnerability–he knew a lot, and he may be enuf outside the cabal to want to save his own hide. As far as I know he is still “cooperating with authorities.”
we hear a lot about how Abramoff soaked the naive Indian tribes for hundreds of millions for supposedly helping fix gaming operation licenses, but the big money in the Department of the Interior has to do with oil leases.
Griles was involved with that, but not convicted. I want to know more about this. Anyone ?
The long-term shame of the DOI – it’s exploitation of native lands for oil, gas, and coal – will continue for so long as they can continue to con the courts into believing that they can’t make a computer work.
The lawsuit surrounding the failure of the BIA to pay proper royalties and the scandalous and dubiously legal way the government “negotiated” on behalf of the tribes with corporate interests has continued through two administrations, and unless the next President steps up and actually tries to own the problem, it will continue for as many more as the government can milk out of excuses and lies.
Griles may know more than a little about it, but he’s not likely to ever get involved in the settlement or lawsuit discussions about it. Good riddance to him for what they did manage to convict him of…
Griles has a long and inglorious history, of course, at Interior, even during his first stint. That was when he signed off on a deal that basically handed over lots of federal land (west of the Roan Plateau) to the oil and gas industry in what was then called the “Great Oil Shale Giveaway.” That land has since produced lots of revenue–for private corporations–and about $2.50 an acre for you and I, fee total.
(The history of the Roan Plateau–former Naval Oil Shale Reserve–also has its roots here; amidst the speculative fervor of the early 20th century around oil shale mine claims, the President reserved a few lands, no good commie symp that he was. The other lands were eventually (and controversially) patented, passing into private–and eventually oil and gas company–hands, with all claim to federal ownership of any mineral revenue handed over by J Stephen in the 1980s.
I wasn’t aware of that one. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
When the relief sought is recusal of a disqualified judicial officer, however, the injury suffered by a party required to complete judicial proceedings overseen by that officer is by its nature irreparable. As the Supreme Court has explained: The remedy by appeal is inadequate. It comes after the trial and, if prejudice exist, it has worked its evil and a judgment of it in a reviewing tribunal is precarious. It goes there fortified by presumptions, and nothing can be more elusive of estimate or decision than a disposition of a mind in which there is a personal ingredient. Berger v. United States, 255 U.S. 22, 36 (1921); see In re United States, 666 F.2d 690, 694 (1st Cir. 1981) (“A case involving a motion for disqualification is clearly distinguishable from those where a party alleges an error of law that … may be fully addressed and remedied on appeal”). The parties agree that after his elevation to Special Master-Monitor status, Kieffer was serving as a judicial officer. Although this court does not seem to have ruled upon the propriety of seeking the recusal of a judicial officer by petition for a writ of mandamus, every circuit to have addressed the issue has found it proper. The First through Seventh Circuits and the Tenth Circuit have each issued the writ for this purpose, see In re Boston’s Children First, 244 F.3d 164 (1st Cir. 2001); In re IBM Corp., 45 F.3d 641 (2d Cir. 1995); In re Antar, 71 F.3d 97 (3d Cir. 1995); In re Sch. Asbestos Litig., 977 F.2d 764 (3d Cir. 1992); In re Rodgers, 537 F.2d 1196 (4th Cir. 1976); In re Faulkner, 856 F.2d 716 (5th Cir. 1988); In re Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 919 F.2d 1136 (6th Cir. 1990) (en banc); In re Hatcher, 150 F.3d 631 (7th Cir. 1998); In re Edgar, 93 F.3d 256 (7th Cir. 1996); Nichols v. Alley, 71 F.3d 347 (10th Cir. 1995), and the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have suggested they would do so in an appropriate case. See Pfizer, Inc. v. Lord, 456 F.2d 532, 536- 37 (8th Cir. 1972) (holding mandamus is an appropriate avenue to review recusal decision but denying the writ on the facts presented); Cordoza v. Pac. States Steel Corp., 320 F.3d 989, 999 (9th Cir. 2003) (similar); In re Lopez-Lukis, 113 F.3d 1187, 1188 (11th Cir. 1997) (denying writ seeking review of recusal decision because “petitioners have not carried their burden of showing their right to issuance of a writ of mandamus”). The Federal Circuit looks to the law of the regional circuit in which the officer to be recused sits. Baldwin Hardware Corp. v. FrankSu Enter. Corp., 78 F.3d 550, 556- 57 (1996); In re Solex Robotics, Inc., Misc. No. 725, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 1595 (Jan. 17, 2003) (unpublished). We join the unanimous view of our sister circuits and hold that we will issue a writ of mandamus compelling recusal of a judicial officer where the party seeking the writ demonstrates a clear and indisputable right to relief… A judicial claim to an “inherent power” is not to be indulged lightly, lest it excuse overreaching “[t]he judicial Power” actually granted to federal courts by Article III of the Constitution of the United States, and the customs and usages that inform the meaning of that phrase… The relevant standard is to be found at 28 U.S.C. В§ 455(a): A judicial officer must be disqualified from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” that is, questioned by one fully apprised of the surrounding circumstances. Sao Paulo State of the Federative Republic of Brazil v. Am. Tobacco Co., Inc., 535 U.S. 229, 232-33 (2002) (per curiam), Elouise Pepion Cobell et al Appellees v. Gale A. Norton, Secretary of the Interior et al appellants No. 02-5374 334 F.3d 1128, 2003.CDC.000017 July 18, 2003
From Henry Weinstein of the L.A. Times (it even made it to the Pest http://www.denverpos…):
That Secretary Norton would go to bat for a fellow soldier is as unsurprising as it is depressing. Whether it is Mitch Morrissey, Mary Mullarkey, and the Dems at Pols with respect to the Manzanares affair or the Bush Family Crime Syndicate[tm] and their good soldiers like Gale Norton (Griles) and Two-Faced Tom Tancredo (Scooter Libby), the cry is always the same: “Leniency for OUR guy, but throw the book at the other guy!”