Former U.S. Attorney John McKay is complaining that Congressman Doc Hastings's aide asked him about his apparent unwillingness to investigate allegations of fraud in the 2004 gubernatorial election.
McKay should have (but didn't) investigate King County's illegal counting of provisional ballots from unregistered "fatal pend" voters. I first reported this in The Stranger in October 2005. King County has just recently released additional records which contradict Ron Sims' and Dean Logan's previous denials and confirm -- ballots from 170 unregistered voters were unlawfully counted and that County officials knew more about this than they previously admitted.
Recall that a "fatal pend" is voter who returned an incomplete registration form and is ineligible to vote unless he submits a complete form by the deadline. When I wrote the October 2005 article for The Stranger I knew enough to conclude that King County unlawfully counted provisional ballots from "more than 100" of these ineligible voters. It took several more months for Ron Sims to release the voter database transaction logs which contained a lot more detail; it took me several more weeks to analyze the data and compose a list of 213 provisional voters who appeared to be likely fatal pends. After several more months of back-and-forth with the county over records requests, I got a spreadsheet that lists the registration status (according to the county) of each hypothesized fatal pend. The county's original spreadsheet is here. I added some analysis in this version. The county's explanatory e-mails are here.
Of the 213 voters in my original list, at least 170 had not properly registered in time for the election. (It appears that 31 were probably registered in time for the election. The county's spreadsheet claims that 9 others were registered in time, but the transaction log doesn't support this. 3 others appeared to have been duplicate registrations, where the voter was properly registered after all, but the county appeared not to have verified the ballot envelope signature against the proper registration) A few of the 170 were "fatal pend" for missing a valid residence address or birth date on both the registration form and ballot envelope. Most were "fatal pend" for failing to sign the oath on the registration form. For 45 of these, the county reported that no signed registration form had been received prior to the certification of the election. 10 had submitted a signed registration form, but not in time to be eligible. 110 had a signature on the registration form, but not below the oath as required by law (And canvassing board member Dan Satterberg told me when I interviewed him for The Stranger that the board's policy is to reject registration unless the oath is signed).
As it turns out, when the fatal pend provisional ballots were accepted for tabulation, the voters' registration status changed to "active", meaning they're wrongly shown as eligible to vote in subsequent elections. (The improper change to those voter registration records also contributed to the reduced gap between votes and voters in the revised voter file of January 7, 2005). Some of these people have indeed submitted valid registration forms. But 96 are still wrongly listed as eligible to vote (and some have voted since November 2004) even though they've never submitted a valid registration.
All of this alone shows that Dean Logan and Ron Sims gave false information to the news media when they angrily denied my report in The Stranger in the days before the County Executive's election. Logan told Keith Ervin of the Times that
fatal-pend ballots were counted only if voters completed their registrations in full [citing legal advice from county attorney Janine Joly] ... Logan said he recalled the fatal pends involved missing or incomplete date of birth or incomplete address. He said he didn't recall whether missing signatures were specifically discussed.Sims' office confirmed Logan's statement. But they should have done a better job of reviewing their own files before issuing a false denial. This October 2004 e-mail, redacted under a claim of attorney-client privilege, shows that Logan and Bill Huennekens sought legal advice about unsigned registrations. And this January 2005 e-mail shows that Huennekens knew that some fatal pend voters were wrongly activated and asked to have those cleaned up. (my query of the transaction log shows that only 16 of the wrongly activated fatal pends were deactivated at that time).
There are still a number of disturbing questions about this incident. Not the least of which is why didn't Bill Huennekens come clean in January 2005 when he clearly knew that a number of provisional ballots had been unlawfully counted and the voters improperly activated?
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 07, 2007 12:35 PM | Email ThisNo one believed you about the voting irregularities at the time it mattered most.
Few of us care about the release US attorneys... except perhaps the moonbats trying to find another conspiracy to power their tinfoil hats.
Perhaps someone can explain why all the chewing on this and why it should matter to me.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on March 7, 2007 01:06 PMThat right there is the bit you pressure the federal prosecutor to examine. The county and state both denied wrongdoing... then had the person that actually filled out the form admit an entire layer of accountability was skipped by the simple expedient of a little quick math.
Posted by: Al on March 7, 2007 01:15 PMWhy should it matter to you? - If you don't want open and honest elections then it doesn't matter to you. If so, please forgot posting to this blog.
Posted by: me on March 7, 2007 01:18 PMDid you present this "evidence" to the FBI? That was the proper way to start an investigation.
The US atty is an officer of the court. HIs independence as an impartial prosecutor is destroyed if he can be removed because of partisan political pressure over his decision to prosecute a case. The DOJ and the republicans have egg on their face over this apparent effort to force his removal.
�In an interview, McKay said his handling of the 2004 Washington governor�s race came back to haunt him when he was interviewed about a federal judgeship by then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers and others in her office.
McKay said he was asked in the late summer or early fall of 2006 to explain the criticism of how he�d �mishandled� the governor�s race investigation. McKay didn�t reveal who asked the question, but he said it wasn�t Miers.
McKay didn�t get the nomination�
"�State Republicans made quite a ruckus about the lack of an investigation � one Republican, Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Association of Washington, even wrote to Hastings demanding that Hastings �please ask the White House to replace Mr. McKay.� Cc�ed on the letter (pdf) (which calls McKay a Democrat, even though he is a Republican), were John Fund of The Wall Street Journal�s editorial board, Greg Van Tatenhove, a former U.S. attorney who was successfully nominated to the federal bench, and Bob Williams of the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, who went so far as to file a formal complaint with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2005 about McKay�s handling of the voter fraud allegations.
McCabe also claims to have �urged the President to fire McKay.� How, where, and when he did that is not clear.�
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/ar chives/002696.php
1. Even if Stefan were absolutely, 100%, undeniably correct about the issue on this post, that does absolutely nothing to explain (a) whether a crime was committed, or (b) whether it would have been a crime that a FEDERAL (rather than state) prosecutor has any jurisdiction to bring charges about. (Federal prosecutors can ONLY bring charges about federal laws; the converse applies to state prosecutors.)
2. Where, oh where, was this issue in the multimillion dollar election lawsuit that the Republican party brought? Maybe someone should re-explain to Stefan and others who continue to believe that there was some sort of criminal conspiracy afoot that teams of lawyers and investigators searched under every rock for a "fraud" argument to try to get the election overturned (or re-run) but didn't find anything that could persuade a Republican judge that there was "any" evidence of fraud in the election.
3. Hey, "me," and other similar-minded folks: U.S. Attorney McKay was a REPUBLICAN, appointed by Bush II, who was suddenly fired in the middle of his term. Get your facts straight. And the true facts are indeed astonishing: highly unusual, mid-term firings of respected U.S. Attorneys; conflicting and unsubstantiated explanations from Justice Dept. officials about why they were fired; and all of this amid "unprecedented" types of phone calls from members of Congress (and/or their staffs) to the U.S. Attorneys about ongoing, politically-charged corruption investigations.....Nothing to see there, right?
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 7, 2007 02:14 PMDid you present this "evidence" to the FBI? That was the proper way to start an investigation.
The US atty is an officer of the court. HIs independence as an impartial prosecutor is destroyed if he can be removed because of partisan political pressure over his decision to prosecute a case. The DOJ and the republicans have egg on their face over this apparent effort to force his removal.
"In an interview, McKay said his handling of the 2004 Washington governor�s race came back to haunt him when he was interviewed about a federal judgeship by then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers and others in her office.
McKay said he was asked in the late summer or early fall of 2006 to explain the criticism of how he�d "mishandled" the governor's race investigation. McKay didn't reveal who asked the question, but he said it wasn't Miers.
McKay didn't get the nomination"
"State Republicans made quite a ruckus about the lack of an investigation � one Republican, Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Association of Washington, even wrote to Hastings demanding that Hastings "please ask the White House to replace Mr. McKay." Cc'ed on the letter (pdf) (which calls McKay a Democrat, even though he is a Republican), were John Fund of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, Greg Van Tatenhove, a former U.S. attorney who was successfully nominated to the federal bench, and Bob Williams of the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, who went so far as to file a formal complaint with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2005 about McKay�s handling of the voter fraud allegations.
"urged the President to fire McKay." How, where, and when he did that is not clear."
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/ar chives/002696.php
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 02:14 PMIn fact, when he came into office G.W. Bush did just what Clinton did when he started -- he fired many if not all of the U.S. Attorneys from the prior administration. When he did that, nobody claimed that he was doing anything improper (just, as you point out, nobody did w/ Clinton).
But what's breathtaking about this situation is that Bush fired his *own* appointees! These are loyal, long-serving Republican prosecutors that the Bush administration chose. The question is, why did they suddenly find their own appointees inadequate and take the extremely unusual step of firing them?
Let's do a little compare and contrast on this.
Replacing U.S. Attorneys as part of a change in administrations (or because of actual performance issues, or just because you don't like the guy or gal you appointed): Perfectly permissible.
Firing a U.S. Attorney because he or she won't direct criminal prosecutions for political advantage to a particular candidate or party: At a minimum, unethical, and possibly illegal.
Get the difference?
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 7, 2007 02:38 PMPlease do a bit of reading before "discovering" something that is wrong.
They have dumped roughly triple the # of their own U.S. attorneys in the last 6 months compared to the total (in-term) of the last 25 years.
Posted by: Obi-poo on March 7, 2007 02:47 PMThank you Stefan. I'm not a lawyer.....nor am I in love with the law like some of these JackAsses. I can assure you that most reasonable-thinking laymen look at the facts you have presented and conclude something was terribly wrong. And you have managed to clearly document so many issues like this that the ACCUMULATION of all your findings is simply overwhelming. Perhaps it is time for your book......or better yet a 6-page or less EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of what you have found.
The difficulty about posting a THREAD at a time about an issue is that the LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS will always minimize you by saying it isn't that important. However, the CUMMULATIVE impact of all you have found certainly is.
I know it takes an extraordinary amount of time to merely stay on top of current developments....but I believe a CONCISE, CONSOLIDATED, DOCUMENTED EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of key findings would be extremely helpful.
Could the newspapers ignore it like they have the bits & pieces???
Thanks again Stefan.
Reasonable people get it.
McKay....not sure what his motives were for not aggressively stepping in. Time will tell. Just follow McKay's career and finances. Then you will certainly know.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 7, 2007 03:24 PMCan you cite any report of this? I seem to recall that Bush did NOT do so, nor did many if any other administrations fire U.S. Attorneys wholesale - that's why Clinton's action was so reprehensible. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen on March 7, 2007 03:43 PM"3. Hey, "me," and other similar-minded folks: U.S. Attorney McKay was a REPUBLICAN, appointed by Bush II, who was suddenly fired in the middle of his term. Get your facts straight. And the true facts are indeed astonishing: highly unusual, mid-term firings of respected U.S. Attorneys; conflicting and unsubstantiated explanations from Justice Dept. officials about why they were fired; and all of this amid "unprecedented" types of phone calls from members of Congress (and/or their staffs) to the U.S. Attorneys about ongoing, politically-charged corruption investigations.....Nothing to see there, right?
Firing a U.S. Attorney because he or she won't direct criminal prosecutions for political advantage to a particular candidate or party: At a minimum, unethical, and possibly illegal.
These are loyal, long-serving Republican prosecutors"
Vonnegut - John McKay was hired by Bush and fired by Bush - Plain and simple - he should have at least investigated the election controversies but apparently did nothing. It is quite apparent from the investigation by Stefan and others that many things were amiss and documentable but McKay did nothing.
This is not about politics but about doing the right thing when confronted with a controversy in your job. McKay did absolutely nothing which was 100% wrong!
If you did nothing nothing in your job how long would it be before you were fired? And yes McKay it appears that McKay is 'closet' democrat.
Where, oh where, was this issue in the multimillion dollar election lawsuit that the Republican party brought?Contrary to your belief that the trial allowed a top-to-bottom examination of King County elections, it did not. There were only a few months for discovery, and King County sandbagged discovery requests just as they stonewalled my public records requests. And if you believe that all of the employees were entirely honest and forthcoming in their depositions, then I have a Space Needle I'd like to sell you.
You are correct in that Judge Bridges ruled that "No testimony has been placed before the Court to suggest fraud or intentional misconduct". I don't know whether the counting of the fatal pend ballots would be considered fraud or not. But I have no doubt they would have been ruled to be illegal votes. Unfortunately, the litigants didn't know about them at the time and could not have not placed them before the Court.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on March 7, 2007 04:34 PM"John McKay was hired by Bush and fired by Bush - Plain and simple - he should have at least investigated the election controversies but apparently did nothing. It is quite apparent from the investigation by Stefan and others that many things were amiss and documentable but McKay did nothing."
So did Shark or "me" present any evidence to the FBI?
McKay could only investigate allegations of a crime, not just mistakenly counted ballots. McKay invited evidence to be presented to the FBI. Did you or anyone else present any evidence to the FBI about a possible crime. Did you present any complaints at all to the FBI.
If not why not.
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 04:41 PMCan you provide that documentation please?
Posted by: me on March 7, 2007 04:52 PMThanks, Stefan for the tireless search for INTEGRITY.
what we need is a hungry (but honest & independent) free-lance investig. journalist with no axe to grind.
turn him/her loose. publish in or saturate non-traditional, non-local & non-MSM controlled media. see what others think. true, it's a local (ho hum) thing to most Americans, but lots o' local things make it to, say, Readers Digest etc etc & other papers hungry for a story.
who knows--pasta tossed on the wall sometimes sticks.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on March 7, 2007 05:22 PM"So what is the formal process to have potential crimes investigated, whether they are at the State or Federal level?"
You go to the cops and tell them what you know. It's not rocket science.
McKay asked concerned people to provide evidence to the FBI. Did anybody go to the FBI with any evidence of wrongdoing?
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 05:30 PMPlease provide a citation backing you opinion and then provide an explanation of the letter to John McKay at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/03/06/2003604079.pdf
as to why John McKay did not automatically refer the investigation to the FBI or initiate the investigation himself. From what I have seen, nothing happened which was totally wrong.
Posted by: me on March 7, 2007 05:43 PMWhat? Did he live under a bush? Am I missing something here?
Posted by: jeremy in greenwood on March 7, 2007 05:44 PMCut the bullshit. If you have EVIDENCE of wrongdoing you presented it to the cops. No evidence no investigation. Here the US atty designated the FBI to receive such evidence.
A politically motivated complaint by the BIA is NOT EVIDENCE. There is not one piece of evidence in that BIA letter. The US atty is not the investigative arm of the republican party, it must follow the law.
No evidence of wrongdoing, no investigation.
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 06:20 PMMy comments are not a politically biased but merely a request for totally open and honest elections which did not occur in the last governor's election. As you implied - the democrats have the power so there was no evidence of wrong doing, so the Democrats chose not to investigate. Any shred of wrong doing should have been investigated without question.
So since your mind is made up and wrongly so we will have to chose to disagree and that you and your ilk have chosen not to want 'open and honest' elections! (Please remember this is a democratic state so the bias is there!)
Posted by: me on March 7, 2007 06:38 PMFeb. 11: President Clinton nominates Miami prosecutor Janet Reno for the post of Attorney General
March 23: At her first news conference as Attorney General, Janet Reno announces the firing of all U.S. Attorneys, the (93) top federal prosecutors in the nation, saying the administration wants to put in its own people.
Did John McKay wait for the FBI to investigate before acting on the UW Medical School and King County Hospital Medicare/caid billing fraud?
Luckily for the taxpayers the investigation was started in 2000 before McKay became a US Attorney
Did John McKay wait for the FBI to investigate before prosecuting UW professor Daniel Storm for dumping hazardous material
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/306457_dump08.html
"The evidence is there"
If the evidence is there, what specifically was it and why wasn't it submitted to the FBI.
I don't believe there was any credible evidence. And that's why nothing was given to the FBI.
Right now it looks like McKay was removed because of political complaints by disgruntled republican/BIA activists over the recount. That looks pretty damn sleazy and is destructive of the rule of law.
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 09:37 PMDid you submit your complaint to the FBI or US atty?
Still waiting for an answer.
Posted by: chew2 on March 7, 2007 09:41 PMOh my God! How terrible it must be to pour ethyl ether into a sewer drain that contains dihydrogen monoxide! There is an extremely alarming chemical reaction that will occur fairly rapidly as a result of mixing these two extremely dangerous and potentially lethal chemicals:
C2H5-O-C2H5 + H20 = 2(C2H5OH)
That is right -- add one molecule of hazardous dihydrogen monoxide to one molecule of hazardous ethyl ether, and you get two molecules of hazardous ethyl alcohol. This is a fairly rapid chemical reaction, and one which should be avoided at all costs!
It has been a blessing to have John McKay protecting us from all these hazardous environmental chemicals, especially the extremely hazardous ethyl alcohol which is formed by disposal of ethyl ether into an ordinary sewer system. Too bad the next U.S. Attorney will probably spend his or her energy prosecuting real criminals who have caused real harm to society.
Posted by: Richard Pope on March 8, 2007 12:26 AMConcerned Citizen: You're wrong. Here's a freerepublic reprint of most of an article about Bush firing and replacing "dozens" of U.S. attorneys in 2001. (Title: "As Bush Replaces Prosecutors, a Formidable One Stays On." Link: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b2de4e70eb6.htm) The article begins, "Nearly five months after President George W. Bush was sworn into office, his administration has begun to replace dozens of top federal prosecutors, ousting Democratic appointees across the country and installing Republican selections."
So, Concerned, do you still think that what Clinton did was "reprehensible"? If so, I assume you're ready to condemn Bush for the same exact thing.
My point though was that in 2001 *no one* condemned Bush and in 1993 *no one* pilloried Clinton for replacing the prior administration's prosecutors. It's the normal thing when a new president comes in to bring in his own crop of U.S. attorneys. Everybody accepts that presidents have the power to do that (whether it promotes good government is another question).
What's *abnormal* is for a president to fire his own appointees. That raises questions. In this case, those questions point to potentially illegal or at least unethical conduct.
I wonder how many of you would be so carefree about evidence of political pressure being put on U.S. attorneys after the 2008 election, when we (hopefully!) have a Democratic president. All you defenders of the Bush approach who want to see it repeated in a Democratic administration, raise your hand....
I for one don't want any Congressman, Senator, or President of any party putting polical pressure on prosecutors. Does anybody here care about that and think suspicions of that kind of wrongdoing are worth investigating? Or are you content to let it happen as long as it's your for the benefit of your own team?
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 8, 2007 03:18 AM
It is not customary for the president to replace a sitting US atty because of political complaints about his decisions. And you can see why. It would call into question the independence and impartiality of the prosecutor to fairly administer the laws.
Let's try this again, real slow. Nobody complained when Clinton replaced all the prosecutors when he came into office; likewise, nobody complained when Bush came into office in 2001 and did pretty much the same thing.
Here's the difference between 2001 and now....try to follow it. Just read the following, nice and slow, and see if you can understand the difference between what's going on now and the lack of any outrage when BOTH Bush and Clinton came into office and each replaced all or nearly all of the U.S. Attorneys.
Replacing U.S. Attorneys as a whole as part of a change in administrations: Perfectly OK, as everyone to this point has agreed.
Firing a particular U.S. Attorney because he or she is upholding a solemn oath and refuses to play political games with criminal prosecutions: Possibly illegal, and at a minimum, unethical.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?view=210
Posted by: chew2 on March 8, 2007 12:17 PMThe problem with commenters on this site is that so many of you are starting out from myths and proceeding to indict (if you will) McKay, etc. Do I think that McKay "should have at least done some investigation?" Sure. That's exactly what he did -- your real problem is not the lack of an investigation, you just wish the investigation had come to a different result. From a Seattle Times article: "Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, said that in 2004 and 2005 prosecutors and the FBI jointly monitored the election. 'We not only had senior people within our office coordinating our investigation, but we worked jointly with the Department of Justice's Public Integrity section,' she said."
The problem with the fire-breathing accusations about McKay on this thread is that so many people are assuming, *with no evidence whatsoever* other than the fact that McKay didn't bring charges, that he did so because he did "nothing" or was politically motivated (even including the brain-dead assertion that he was politically motivated against bringing charges because he's a Democrat when he's a Republican, Bush appointee!).
An honorable U.S. Attorney (which I thought McKay was before AND after the 2004 election, despite the fact that I'm a Democrat), Republican, Democrat, or Independent, will look at a politically charged case and make his or her best judgment about whether a criminal case can be brought. All prosecutors are bound by ethical rules to bring criminal charges only where they solemnly believe that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- given the crushing impact of an incomplete criminal case being brought against someone, even if they're acquitted. It's critical that no one attempt to bring politics into these things -- or federal prosecutors would just spend all of their time on witch-hunts against the opposition party, while burying any and all charges against those in their own party.
You didn't hear too much about McKay's efforts in 2004 and 2005 because U.S. Attorneys (like all prosecutors) have a strict ethical obligation NOT to talk about the facts behind their decisions not to bring indictments.
I absolutely believe that it was reasonble for McKay not to bring charges after seeing everything on this website. A judge saw everything that the Republicans had, including whatever the Republicans' attorneys found of value from this website, and found no evidence of fraud. Yes, that only covers what was known through the trial, but like Stefan I haven't seen any criminal "smoking guns" come out since then. Yes, I said "like Stefan" -- Stefan says on this very thread that *he doesn't know* whether his new evidence is evidence of a crime. That does not fit anyone's bill for charging someone with a crime.
Indeed, with even Stefan saying that he doesn't know whether his latest info is evidence of a crime, how can ANYONE say that McKay is incompetent (or biased, or whatever) for not bringing charges?
McKay's performance evaluations from the Bush Justice Dept. were stellar, prior to his firing. Now, take a step back. Look at McKay's unblemished record. Think about the fact that he did do an investigation and like the Republican-appointed judge, found either zero or insufficient evidence of fraud to justify a criminal prosecution in 2004 and 2005.
Now, what is it that McKay did wrong again? Why was he actually fired?
Posted by: Vonn on March 8, 2007 12:36 PMYes, aren't we all just "human shells"? Human bodies, just mortal shells -- hopefully containing something intangible and worthwhile inside.
Like integrity, for example. Which I think McKay has -- something very frustrating to people who apparently wished for him to use his position improperly.
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 8, 2007 12:46 PMYou are just making stuff up out of thin air at this point. You call the investigation that McKay did a "cursory overview" and say that there is "no evidence he did anything more than some oversight."
Do you have secret access to the inner workings of a U.S. Attorney's office to allow you to say these things? I sure don't. But here's what we do know:
1. If McKay dropped the ball by not really doing an investigation of a major issue (and the 2004 election was a major issue, regardless of what you thought about how it should come out), that could well be grounds for firing. Problem is, his Justice Dept. honchos sure haven't even suggested any such thing.
2. In fact, McKay's Justice Dept. reviews were glowing. Hardly what you'd expect for a guy who did a "cursory" investigation of a critical set of issues.
3. The spokesperson generally described the work by McKay's office, in coordination with the Justice Dept., on the 2004 election. Sure doesn't sound "cursory" to me.
4. "Irregularities" in an election aren't automatically criminal. That's why the judge in Chelan found that while there were irregularities in the vote, there was no evidence of ANY deliberate wrongdoing in the election. None. Hardly the basis for charging someone with a crime, don't you think?
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 8, 2007 01:41 PM
Even if the "fatal pend" ballots were improperly counted, what federal crime are you claiming was committed? Isn't that a question of state law?
Shark says he developed this "evidence" in Ocotober 2005 although his emails with King Cty date to 2007. Why didn't he bring this to the FBI or US atty then? The recount contest was long over and any monitoring by the US atty had I assumed ended. You can't fault the US atty for not following up something that wasn't developed until 2006-2007.
Posted by: chew2 on March 8, 2007 02:23 PMI don't know if that's correct. Can you point me to the statute that you are speaking of?
Can you also point me to the email or other evidence that shows that an official "knew".
Posted by: chew2 on March 8, 2007 03:13 PMYou don't know what he did, exactly. I don't, either. The guy has had glowing reviews through his career. And you feel comfortable just assuming that he didn't take the investigation where it needed to go, and saying he was "cursory"?
The other part of this is that the U.S. Attorney can only enforce federal laws. The U.S. Attorneys have no power at all to address state election "irregularities" unless a crime -- a FEDERAL crime -- was committed. So, there's no way for you or me to know whether McKay subpoenaed or otherwise got the "fatal pend" records. There's also no way for you to know whether he NEEDED those records to prove (or rule out) a federal crime.
In other words, I'm sorry to say this, but you don't know the first thing about what you're making pronouncements about. You have no idea what federal crimes are possibly implicated. You have no idea what would prove (or disprove) those crimes. You have no idea what McKay did to gather the evidence about alleged crimes -- except, again, for the glowing performance reviews, general description of what was done, and the lack of any claim by DOJ that McKay fell down on this part of his job.
This would be like me sitting at my desk and saying that an electrical engineer did a "cursory" and inadequate job because I don't like how much power is being output by the power plant he designed.
I'm not an electrical engineer. You're not a lawyer -- and you haven't the faintest idea of whether McKay actually did a poor, great, or fair job on this thing.
Save some honor and intellectual integrity for yourself on this, and just admit that you have no evidence that McKay did anything wrong.
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 8, 2007 03:19 PM
I don't have the emails proving it occurred. That's what I would have liked McCay to have subpoaened and investigated. As stated, I saw no evidence of the fact that he did that.
Posted by: Palouse on March 8, 2007 03:35 PMInstead of your approach of accusing decorated public servants of misconduct just because you don't have "evidence" that they did things *right*, maybe you could consider another approach. (Interestingly, it's the same one that they use in the criminal law -- where you have to have evidence of guilt before pronouncing someone guilty. Imagine that.)
I've gone to the trouble of looking up evidence for you. See, you can use the same internet that you like to use to make wild accusations without proof to actually *check* the truth of what you're saying. In just a few minutes, I was able to use this nifty tool to find exactly the sort of evidence that you wanted to have before you could pronounce McKay innocent. Pal, let me introduce you to something called "Google," which by your OWN standards shows that you have carelessly but repeatedly slandered an upstanding man (from your own party no less!).
John McKay, in 2005, from http://www.evergreenpolitics.com/ep/2007/03/michael_hood_pu.html:
McKay said his office did more investigating on the case than he could say at the time.
"We closely monitored the civil case in Chelan County. We weren't announcing that publicly at the time and were careful not to imply it. People might have misconstrued that we were 'actively investigating,' which we were not."
If it had been an "active investigation," it would have meant the feds had individuals who were targets because there was evidence that they'd conspired to harm the election.
"There was no evidence like that," he said.
"On the one hand, we didn't want to inhibit somebody from coming forward if they had evidence of criminal fraud. On the other hand, we couldn't just say, 'Ok, this stinks, we're going to convene a grand jury.' That would have been irresponsible."
"I relished it because I knew what the right thing to do was- that is- look for evidence, and make decisons based on the law and evidence. Never respond to political pressure. That's what prosecutors do."
You owe John McKay an apology, Pal. Will you prove yourself better than bottom feeders who don't care about the truth, even when it's presented to them on a silver platter?
Posted by: Vonnegut on March 8, 2007 08:41 PMLike I stated previously, instead of relying on the Chelan case to do the investigation for him, he should have been *ACTIVELY* investigating the case. In an election where you have more votes than voters, there should have been an active investigation by his office. If he had actually done some research into the fatal pend ballots and subpoaened all of the communications by the election department, who knows what would have been uncovered? We might never know.
You really will read anything just to suit your predetermined world view, won't you?
McKay was explaining a specific type of federal investigation, one that can ONLY be conducted where he has certain evidence: For it to have been an "active investigation," it would have meant the feds had INDIVIDUALS WHO WERE TARGETS because there was EVIDENCE that they'd CONSPIRED TO HARM AN ELECTION.
McKay can't just start an "active" federal investigation, which has defined rules and procedures, because he wants to. Or because Stefan wants him to, or because that would make your day. By law, he had to have EVIDENCE to merit that type of investigation. Did he have it?
"There was no evidence like that," he said.
You can play word games all you want with McKay's description of what he did. In his investigation, he scrupulously followed the law, which of course is a prosecutor's first responsibility. He didn't find the evidence to support an indictment, but he "relished" the investigative work that he did -- precisely because he was doing his job exactly the way that he should.
Sure, you wish he'd had a reason to find actual "targets," people who could be identified as possible suspects in a federal criminal conspiracy. Then he would've had a basis for an "active" investigation. But the evidence just wasn't there to do that.
Finally, McKay was open about this (legally-madated) approach, right in the middle of the election lawsuit. As Stefan himself posted in April 2005, McKay's office was monitoring the filings in the state court case and "any active investigation" if there was to be one would follow the state case. http://soundpolitics.com/archives/004261.html
Go back to that SP thread and see the reaction of SPers to this outrageous conduct by McKay in monitoring the state lawsuit rather than conducting a full federal investigation in the middle of the state case. Here are some examples:
"Do I want the feds to come in? Yes. In spades. I do believe, however, that there are serious jurisdiction issues involved."
"From a legal standpoint, the Feds could get involved now. From a political standpoint, I'm glad they are patiently waiting until they have all the depositions and see the Court Case unfold. These Election Depts. still have jobs to do. Having to respond to multiple investigations at the same time renders them even more useless than they are now (if that's possible in KingCo)."
"What I take this to mean is that the Feds are staying out of this until the state has it out in court. If anything goofy happens at that point, I would assume the Feds would move. You have to remember, the Federal government is not someone you invite in your backyard - politically speaking - lightly, because they do and will start pulling rank on everybody."
So, not only is it wrong under the law to say that McKay should've had an "active" investigation going rather than monitoring the state case and other information that came in -- but it's also 20/20 hindsight at odds with what at least some folks (including Mr. Cynical) were saying AT THE TIME.
Palouse, maybe if you were U.S. Attorney you'd feel free to ignore things like the rules on when a federal prosecutor can conduct an "active investigation." But you're not, and I'm glad that the fired U.S. attorneys -- unlike you -- actually cared about things like that.
Posted by: Vonn on March 9, 2007 11:55 AMToday's Times has an article entitled “McKay ‘stunned’ by report on Bush.” In it, David Bowermaster writes:
"After talking to McCabe, McKay said, he called Mark Ferbrache, supervisory special agent at the FBI, and asked him to assign Special Agent Joe Quinn to review McCabe's evidence. McCabe confirms he received a phone call from Quinn a few days later, and McCabe sent him documents supporting his forgery allegations. But McCabe remains dissatisfied with Quinn's response. "[Quinn] seemed distracted, almost bothered that he was talking to me about it," McCabe said. "He never instituted an investigation; no one was ever questioned.”
I had the same response when I called the FBI. I believe I called Ferbrache and spoke with Quinn by phone. I called to bring to their attention the systemic problem of remarking and remaking absentee ballots that came to light in my litigation against Pierce County in 1996. You may recall, the group CLEAN successfully sued then Pierce County Auditor Cathy Pearsal-Stipek (D) in Thurston County over election law violations. That decision was reversed on appeal after the AG’s office (Gregoire at the time) intervened albeit as an amicus but argued for reversal of the trial court's decision.
Nevertheless, the Pierce County Auditor testified that her office had remarked over 25,000 ballots in that election. Since that was a national election (Clinton) , I thought the FBI or Justice Department would be interested. I thought it was unbelievable that over 25,000 absentee ballots (nearly 19% of the vote in Pierce County) would have to be remade or remarked by election workers chosen by Stipek. As you know, activist Dale Washam filed for recall and eventually “won” in the State Supreme Court the right to recall the Pierce County Auditor (Stipek) for lying in a sworn deposition about her credentials. Stipek’s husband was an official in the Teamster’s union and the ballot remarking operation occurred in an unmarked warehouse owned and/or shared with the electrician’s union. As for the FBI, I got the distinct impression that they did not want to deal with the mess perhaps believing it was a state problem. But the Secretary of State’s Office did not want to deal with it and deferred to county. So, who do you call?
"As for the FBI, I got the distinct impression that they did not want to deal with the mess perhaps believing it was a state problem."
Maybe because whatever problems you were pointing to, it wasn't a crime. That's what they concluded about the trumped up "fraud" charges in the 2004 election.
More from the Seattle Times:
"McKay says he and ***four attorneys*** in his office worked closely with the FBI and the Department of Justice to monitor complaints of criminal wrongdoing."
"McKay said Quinn examined [BIA's] McCabe's materials [alleged forged ballots] "and it was not the conclusion of the FBI that they were forgeries."
"McKay asked Sullivan to create a task force of federal, state and county prosecutors to look into how and why the felons voted in violation of state laws.
Ultimately, Sullivan told McKay "there was no disagreement on the task force" that a federal case could not be brought on the felon voters."
"McKay said that at the conclusion of the trial, Sullivan, Short, Ferbrache and others conducted a conference call with Foreman to see if there was any evidence of criminality that had not been introduced at the trial. "We left absolutely no stone unturned," McKay said. "We were assured by [Foreman] that he did not have any evidence."
"McKay insists that top prosecutors in his office and agents from the FBI conducted a "very active" review of allegations of fraud during the election but filed no charges and did not convene a federal grand jury because "we never found any evidence of criminal conduct.""
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003615329_mckay13m.html
"Never found any evidence of criminal conduct".
And we should note that McKay consulted with the DOJ's election fraud experts.
Posted by: chew2 on March 13, 2007 08:50 AM