The Washington Post reports that a Democratic House leadership would likely name Rep. Alcee Hastings the head of the House Intelligence Committee, and that the Congressional Black Caucus is insisting on this, given that Rep. Hastings is first in line because of seniority; Michael Barone reports that "Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is said to be determined to [name] Alcee Hastings" to the spot.
In 1989 the Senate removed then-federal judge Hastings, convicting him of conspiracy to take a bribe and perjury; the Senate vote was 69-25, and on one of the counts the vote was 34-21 even among Democratic senators alone. Hastings had been acquitted at his criminal trial some years before, which is to say that he wasn't proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But shouldn't the standard for deciding who'll be head of the Intelligence Committee be more than just seniority plus he hasn't been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.
UPDATE: Whoops — I inadvertently dropped the "likely" in "would likely name" when I first posted this post; sorry about that, and thanks to the commenters for alerting me to this. The "likely" is my interpretation of the Postarticle, which reports that Harman, the other leading candidate, seems to be almost sure to be off the committee, that skipping over Hastings would be "problematic," and that "skipping over Hastings might cause a real rupture with the Congressional Black Caucus, Pelosi aides fear," though the article also says that conservative Democrats are opposed to Jefferson, and that a compromise candidate has been suggested. Barone, on the other hand, reports that it's said to be certain; and while he's conservative and might have a jaundiced view as a result, he also knows a very great deal about current politics, so I'm inclined to credit his reporting on this.
His impeachment was an interesting illustration of how the size of the federal government has gotten out of hand. Bottom line is that the Senate is too busy (or feels it is) to take impeachment seriously. They essentially had him tried by a committee of a dozen members, and then the entire Senate voted on whether to approve their findings, and did so by the required margin. While the committee proceedings were videotaped, only another dozen senators bothered to get copies -- whether they reviewed them cannot be known.
As I recall, a district court overturned the decision, and the Supremes reversed that (I suspect on justiciability issues).
It says their is pressure on Pelosi from the CBC to appoint Hastings. The article makes it clear that she has not said she would do so and is clearly looking at other alternatives.
It seems negligently misleading to post this story as if a House Democratic leadership is committed to naming Hastings to this post.
It's not clear why this means that they "didn't take it seriously." Isn't most legislation handled the same way? Committees do the work and then report to the full Senate.
Here's how it was described in Rehnquist's opinion in Nixon:I don't see what's wrong with that.
Falconetti: first, they did hold a trial. That's what the impeachment was. Second, you seem to be operating under the mistaken impression that a committee chairmanship is an entitlement. They can treat him as if he's not sufficiently qualified for the job by virtue of the behavior, criminal or not, which led to his impeachment.
It's not clear why this means that they "didn't take it seriously." Isn't most legislation handled the same way? Committees do the work and then report to the full Senate.
I'd be the last to say that congress takes legislation seriously, either! The manner of proceeding just leaves a distaste. They're supposed to hold a trial. Instead 12 Senators hear the evidence. 12 more *may* have bothered to listen to it. Most of them, 76 members, neither hear nor review the evidence, yet rule on guilt. I suspect we'd be aghast at the idea of the jury where three members actually attend the trial or look at videotapes, report back, and the remainder vote on whether to accept their report and convict.
My further note is that this illustrates how unwieldy the modern national government has become. The original arrangement was, I'd assume, set up to deal with problems of a president, VP, and maybe 20-40 federal judges. And a Senate that actually had the time to try a case. With a civilian government with around million employees, and probably thousands of judges, and a busy Senate, it's a far less personal situation than it was back then.
Look at copyright law- rather than being a balanced evaluation of the effect of proposed changes (presumably taking into account the other 99 percent of the public), it ends up being a negotiating session between large ISPs, consumer electronics manufacturers and copyright holders.
In the end the legislature becomes a clearinghouse for transferring property rights from one portion of society to another. They didnt take a few billion taxpayer dollars out of the federal budget and give it to Disney, but extending copyright another 25 years had the same overall effect.
A problem is that voters barely understand economics or property rights and thus are incapable of understanding that they are constantly under attack in a thousand subtle ways. There is also far too little voter interest in the structure or functioning of the federal government. Most people grasp susbstantive issues relatively easily (murder is a crime, self defense is not, etc) but understanding concepts like enumerated powers is beyond most people. Most people dont even know we have 3 branches of government or what common law is.
I dont even know where to start in fixing the problem.
Now Prof Volokh might say this post in not relevant, but I am fairly certain most people can read the subtext of the instapundit point. Trying to scare people away from voting Democrat by bringing up reasons to avoid a democratic majority. So when you ask Seriously? To be fair you should look at the current head of the House Intelligence Committee and ask "seriously?" of him as well.
* http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/us/22able.html
(source)
Anything published in the NY Times is likely to be biased against the president, the military, the country and the Republican party and slanted toward the position of the Democratic party. Don't try to use it in any purportedly balanced discussion.
I did see a criminal trial of a federal judge (Robert Aguilar) and it caused me some concern about his actions, but interestingly enough, he was not accused of being personally corrupt, just trying to use his influence to help some relatives.
As far as perjury goes, I think a fair case could be made (1) that our late Chief Justice may have committed perjury during his confirmation hearings over whether he harrassed black voters during either the 1960 or 1964 presidential election; (2) that Clarence Thomas' testimony concerning the Anita Hill matter was perjury; and (3)of course, Clinton's testimony during the Paula Jones case and before the Independent Counsel's grand jury was perjury (especially, the grand jury testimony). But, they each overcame these instances.
No, not a bad sign for the country, just for the Times. The country has lots of more trustworthy news outlets. The Times' earnings and stock price are plummeting.
It is the Times that is doing the sliming, the others are just pointing it out. And how great it is that today the Internet allows them almost as loud a voice as the once monopolist MSM.
The really sad thing is that the current regime at the Times thinks political propaganda is more important than news reporting. Sad, sad, sad.
I should correct my remarks about Rehnquist: he supposedly harrassed black voters during a 1962 election, and may have lied about his role in such activities, and some scholars and commentators think he lied about whether a memo he authored while Justice Jackson's law clerk in which the memo supported upholding Plessy v. Ferguson reflected Justice Jackson's views (as Rehnquist said) or Rehnquist's views as a law clerk. Justice Jackson's personal secretary, for one, said that Rehnquist lied about this issue, and recent scholarly findings of Jackson's papers support the secretary. But, Rehnquist was also a very affable Chief Justice, a remarkable writer, and undoubtedly a brilliant legal mind, so some might be inclined to forgive him and say he was not disqualified from being a Justice even if he lied during his confirmation hearings in 1971 and 1986.
Of course, if we are forgiving of Rehnquist, why not forgive Hastings. How about it Eugene: if a liar and possible perjurer was good enough for our Chief Justice, why is a possible perjurer and possibly corrupt ex-federal judge disqualified from serving as Chief of the House Intelligence Committee? At least with Hastings, his sins were publicly aired, and the voters choose him anyway.
Then why make it only three years? Why not an indefinite suspension of clearance to communicate both to him and the public the seriousness of his offense?
Yes, I heard that on CBS.
And what the hell is a conservaive Democrat?
Syd, I disagree. Who better to understand perjury than one who may have committed it? I thought it was fitting that Rehnquist should preside over Clinton's perjury impeachment proceedings
I suppose you could argue that it would be nice to have an expert on impeachment on the Judiciary committee and Alcee Hastings certainly knows all about it from first-hand experience.
Is this the Ghost of October Surprises Past back to haunt us?
Biased jerk.
What are you talking about?
The Justice department investigation concluded that Berger inadvertantly left the Archives with copies (not originals) of classified documents while researching for his testimony before the 9/11 commission. He then destroyed them upon learning of his mistake. Berger got a $50,000 fine and a suspension of his clearance. What in there merits jail time? If he had given them to a newspaper or to Al Qaeda, then sure I could see the argument, but as far as we know, he didn't.
If Crazy Train is referencing what I think he is, he is slightly mistaken. Bush was campaigning with a candidate who admitted to adultery, I believe with one of his office staff, but DENIED that he strangled her in the fashion she alleged on her call to 911.
Berger confessed to deliberately removing top-secret documents and destroying them. Classified documents are usually plainly marked on every page (both sides) in the top and bottom margins. They’re also usually inserted into a marked folder with lots of color-coding that depends on the level of clearance. While you might accidentally get one thin document mixed up with your own papers, multiple documents strains credibility past the breaking point. Then there is the matter of the notes he put in his pants pockets.
One story (from Wikipedia) says the documents he stole were unmarked printouts off a hard drive and could not have had annotations in the margins. I find this story very hard to believe. Classified content is usually printed out on special paper that has pre-printed security labels. To do otherwise is to violate security procedures.
Why would Berger destroy the documents? He makes his offense more serious by doing so. He surely knows better.
Indeed, I have heard any number of instances similar to the one above, where clearances are either rejected or revoked on mere suspicion of ill deeds. One even for bad credit.
And I suspect that the standards for my "Q" clearance were lower than those for the level of clearance required for chairing the Intelligence Committee. Theoretically, I might have had access to nuclear weapons technology (I never did, and made sure that I didn't - those who did (I was mostly at Sandia) had their travel outside the country seriously limited, etc.) I would think that operational information about ongoing intelligence operations would call for higher levels of security. As was, it entailed a six month FBI investigation, where the references I gave were asked for more references, and they were asked for more. I later heard from people I barely knew that they had been interviewed on my behalf.
As opposed to Elliott Abrams, who actually plead guilty but was still later appointed to a high intelligence position? I notice no comment on this on this blog.
(Personally, I think Abrams and Hastings ought to be shot, but I take corruption and dishonesty among government officials more seriously than most).
OK, well that's all right then.
If you're a Democrat, is this the man you want in charge of the House Intelligence Committee next year?
Nick
Yes, though that presumes that Pelosi has a mind to make up. Which is unclear given past statements such as this:
Er, isn't really the essence of separation of powers...
Mind you that's not the actual quote, which is, in full, from the news wire transcript:
It's not a rhetorical question - I have never researched the issue and am hoping some one else already has the answer handy.
Nick
I apologize for getting a bit hot about the confusion. It wasn't justified.
In fact if the worry is the revelation of classified material I would be far more worried about the congressmen we don't have scandals about. It is the skeletons in the closet that made one susceptible to blackmail and people are way more likely to commit treason to avoid having their marriage destroyed, their career ruined and potential being sent to jail that they are for some cash.
--
As for Buerger give me a fucking break. He violated some procedural rules but made no attempt to turn that information over to anyone else or otherwise cause anyone harm. Even if he did it all on purpose my primary reaction is so?
Surely if this sort of 'innocent' (as in no public revelation) violation of security clearance deserves jail time and a bar from future government service than anyone who participated, covered up or interfered with the Plane investigation deserves to be locked up for life.
I mean in the Palm case a CIA operatives identity was purposely revealed permanently destroying a national security asset for political gain. This is obviously more serious. So applying your precedent for Buerger we should be clearing out Cheney and all his staff right now since even if they didn't participate in the revelation themselves surely they are doing what they can to slow the prosecution.
Only extreme partisan blindness could worry about Buerger's little slip and ignore what appears to be an organized plan to reveal sensitive material for political gain.