Yet another drip via Toplokkk

Well, well. It’s a quick plea deal for a long-time former aide to Sen. Thad Chocran in an Abramoff-related pay-to-play matter:

Copland is the latest among more than a dozen congressional aides, lobbyists, lawmakers and Bush administration officials convicted as part of a lobbying scandal spawned by Abramoff, a former high-flying influence peddler now serving a four-year prison term…. 

Among the e-mails filed in court was one from lobbyist Todd Boulanger to his boss saying they should go out of their way to keep Copland happy because ”she’s more valuable to us than a rank-and-file House member.”

More valuable? How so? Don’t you wonder what "value" Ms. Copeland brought to the relationship via her boss, Sen. Cochran? I know I do.

Does this mean more to come in the ever-widening Abramoff probe. One can only hope.

Copland was only charged late in February, which means this was a very quick turn-around on plea negotiations from some enterprising attorney and Copland. It was a piggy-back charge from documentary evidence which surfaced in the Boulanger matter.

Does this mean that Copland has agreed to flip on someone up the chain? As in, her former boss from whose office she abruptly left employment last spring? Or other Senate staffers or Abramoff associates?

Guess we’ll see. But you have to think there was a fairly large weight hanging over Copland’s head to leave two salaries behind, don’t you? (Yes, that’s right, two salaries. Nice work if you can get it.)

I’d note that the WSJ piece on this says that Abramoff had ties to "conservative interest groups" which allowed him to build-up his corrupt lobbying and pay-to-play scheme. Hello Karl and Grover and Ralph. Nice of the WSJ not to mention you, but I suppose that would get embarrassing seeing how Karl writes a column for them regularly and all. Cozy.

Evil cat via gagilas.

The House Judiciary Committee will question Karl Rove and Harriet Miers regarding two distinct but interrelated subjects: the USAtty firings and the Siegelman prosecution.

As Marcy reported, the questioning will be done on the record, transcribed and given under penalty of perjury.

More importantly, the committee will also receive all of the documents they’ve been requesting for quite some time prior to the testimony, including a number of missing e-mails. When you add that to the already large trove of documentary evidence in this matter, it’s a lot to sift through for particularized questions.

Will it also include the illicit ones from Karl’s blackberry?

Which made me wonder what all of you would ask, if you had the opportunity? I’m not talking the usual snarky fare, I’m asking seriously what would you really ask given the opportunity on the USAtty firings and allegations of politicized prosecutions, including but not limited to Siegelman.

Please give some thought to this, because I plan on getting pertinent questions into the hands of a few folks who might ask them. I know how much you relish the opportunity to dig in on these issues, so please do.

Note that Bush’s conversations with his aides were taken off the table. That freed him up to okay testimony from his former staffers because his ass was no longer in the direct line of fire.

Guess once his own CYA was covered, and without Fred Fielding running interference, exposure for Miers and Rove was less crucial. Go figure.

Wonder if that will show in Miers testimony, especially, given her loyalty to Bushie through the years and how she was left dangling out on this mess on her own in the end? Interesting dynamic.

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Gorgeous shot via alpha du centaure.

Federal prosecutors filed their government’s sentencing memorandum in the Dusty Foggo plea deal. This is used by the judge as one of many sources to determine culpability, sentencing breaks or enhancements in terms of going up or down levels in the sentencing guidelines — all of which go into the court’s sentencing calculations.

It is a scorcher. A sampling:

By late 2002, Foggo had become Chief of Support Operations at a crucial Overseas Location, with control over millions of dollars in government funds. He also had a high-level, high-paying position with his best friend [Brent Wilkes] waiting for him, as well as a need for money and powerful contacts so he could pursue his plan to succeed Randall "Duke" Cunningham as one of San Diego’s congressional representatives. All of these circumstances and exigencies presented after September 11 put to the test Foggo’s commitment to the core values of the CIA and to his country. He failed that test and seized the opportunity to abuse his CIA offices through a vast criminal scheme.

Although Foggo has admitted his execution of this years-long scheme, he seems unwilling to truly accept responsibility for its full scope. Instead, in his Statement of Responsibility, he attempts to portray himself as having been "influenced" by Wilkes into a "lapse of judgment."…

Foggo’s goal was to succeed Cunningham at the elected official trough.  Just what the nation needs.

The lawyers in the readership will be cringing at that last bit — because federal judges hate a weasel attempt at acceptance of responsibility in a plea. That one is likely to result in a sentencing enhancement, which can add months to years of prison time.

This whole sordid saga is tied into the morass of money and corruption that so much of Washington has become.  

The halls of power are swimming in a sea of lobbying dollars, no bid contract perks and everything else that goes with courting the seemingly insatiable appetites of people in power and those who surround them.  Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Ed Buckham, Brent Wilkes, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove…the list goes on and on of people the last few years — on both sides of the political aisle — who are so drunk on power and so intent rake in personal perks that they fail to act in the public’s interest.

Those folks who haven’t been imprisoned…yet…are feted on television (YouTube) or in print as power tycoons whose opinions ought to influence to the rest of us.

Wrong. 

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So many things to research, mock and snark about, so little time: Attaturk made me spew my coffee this morning. Bastard. And John Cole followed up with marketing advice for morans. Be sure to watch the Daily Show video at the end. Digby has a problem with moles.

The Democratic Policy Committee is still pushing for answers and accountability on the sodium dichromate leak issue in Iraq. You’ll recall that Halliburton subsidiary KBR was in charge of operations at a water facility in Iraq when this happened:KBR’s employees and American military personnel at the facility are all alleged to have been exposed to sodium dichromate: