Maybe Rep Harmon should resign

[TayTay]

READ ME:

Excerpt, but READ the whole http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/dem-rep-harman-did-urge-times-not-to-publish-wiretapping-expose/">short entry at The Washington Post Blog, Who Runs Govt by former Talking Points Memo reporter Greg Sargent

The Plum LineGreg Sargent's blog
Dem Rep Harman Did Urge Times Not To Publish Wiretapping Expose!

But now Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis sends over a more detailed statement from Keller explaining what really happened:

Congresswoman Harman spoke to Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman in late October or early November, 2004, apparently at the request of General Hayden. She urged that The Times not publish the story. She did not speak to me, and I don’t remember her being a significant factor in my decision. In 2005, when we were getting ready to publish, Phil met with a group of congressional leaders familiar with the eavesdropping program, including Ms. Harman. They all argued that The Times should not publish. The Times published the story a few days later.

So Harman did urge the paper’s Washington bureau chief not to publish. While the timing is slightly fuzzy, it seems fair to assume in light of the CQ story that it was in fact before the election.

Wow. So Dem Rep Harman appears to have worked behind the scenes to dissuade publication of a blockbuster expose about Bush that could have put her own party’s nominee in the White House and changed the history of the last four years. And, according to Keller, she apparently did this at the request of Michael Hayden, Bush’s National Security Agency chief.

[beachmom]

1. Oh, God, this story keeps getting worse and worse.

I am beginning to think "Blue Dog" is Greek for corrupt. "Blue Dog" means having zero principles. Yes, Harmon should go. I hope Pelosi throws her under the bus. Very, very good that Harmon did NOT get that Intelligence chairmanship.

Penny for John Kerry's thoughts on this one.

[karynnj]

2. I think she should resign too

The fact that she apparently did this because she thought it would give her a desired leadership position makes it completely sleazy. It is interesting that Keller says that Phil met with a group of leaders familiar with the program and they all urged not to publish. I suspect that it might have been more that they were complicit due to having knowledge and keeping silent.

I don't really know if this would have helped Kerry in that time frame. Bush would have claimed that the spying was just of terrorists and people speaking to them and that it was needed to keep America safe. Kerry would have the tougher decision on how to respond. I would hope Kerry would have answered as he did in 2005 when it came out - because not condemning it as strongly as he did would later haunt him as badly as the IWR vote. I would bet given the emotion of his 2005 response that he would have condemned it. Given the mood then, I would guess that the number of libertarians Kerry would have gained might be less than the number of on the fence people who did go to Kerry, who would have been swayed by the likely Republican response that it showed Kerry was too weak to make the hard (in reality illegal) decisions to keep us safe.

In fact, the last few weeks were spent with Kerry speaking of "our kids" being killed by ammo from known storage dumps that were left unguarded. Here Kerry was accusing Bush of what was clearly negligence in their planning. It was a cavalier disregard of the lives and safety of our forces. In addition, Kerry's own war experiences led him to state this bluntly and emotionally - having lost friends and suffered himself from a similar betrayal. Those charges and the way he levied them sounded more real and heart felt than anything he said on the war before - because the emotion was so genuine and obvious. Replacing that with the more complicated and more ambiguous spying on people charge would likely have been a good change of topic - for George Bush. He had no good answer for why known ammo dumps were not secured for months, on spying, many would accept his WOT answer.

[beachmom]

3. Uh oh. Kerry took money from Haim Saban, as did a lot of prominent Democrats

http://www.newsmeat.com/media_political_donations/Haim_Saban.php

$4,000. 3 of the 4 donations were when he was running for re-election to the Senate, only 1 for the presidential campaign.

Although, apparently Saban was not wiretapped. Still, I really don't like these moneymen lobbying a House Speaker to make a certain Congresswoman a committee chairwoman. It is SO unseemly.

This diarist has a theory:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/21/722607/-Jane-Harman-is-the-Horsehead-in-the-Bed

I don't know.

[karynnj]

4. I don't see this as a problem

Kerry got 4 different donations, $1000 each, over a period of 8 years. At the time they were given, Saban was simply a wealthy American Jew, who contributed to many Democrats. Many of his donations were for exactly $1000. It might be that he attended fund raisers for which this was the entry price.

We all know that Kerry spoke against the way elections are funded and that he wrote legislation that would change it. The problem is that the current system works well for embedded incumbents and the number of people willing to follow Wellstone and Kerry were few in number. He had to operate within the existing system. There is absolutely no suggestion here that Kerry did anything for Saban. These are absolutely legal contributions from an American citizen.

[beachmom]

5. All true, but it still stinks that he "had to operate within the existing system".

I don't think it's wrong to express disgust with that system from time to time.

[karynnj]

7. I agree - the existing system is an open invitation to corrupting officials

For every Kerry, who I sincerely believe has not traded actions or votes for money, there are many who have. In fact, in fairness to many, Kerry in addition to having integrity had the connections to many wealthy people, the visibility, charm and ability to convince people that he was worth supporting because he is a real statesman that not all of them have. Even then, there is a sense in his Senate speech where he speaks of the time needed to raise the money and his view that people giving this kind of money could create a situation where people feel they no longer can have a voice that the system distorted a representatives relations with the people.

Saban, though was not a criminal or a person of known low character when he wrote those checks. Unless there is some claim that he pressured Kerry on anything before or after those checks, I don't see anything wrong here in what he did. (The same goes for all the other Democrats - except those like Harmon.) I know people who gave over a $1000 to either Obama or Hillary Clinton - they did it because they wanted to support their campaigns. Those contributions represented a far greater percent of their assets than Saban's did.

[TayTay]

8. I would be shocked if ANY Dem didn't take Saban money

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saban_Entertainment">Haim Saban, the TV mogul and developer of the series Power Rangers has given money to every Democrat for years. There is a Saban Center at the Democratically aligned Brookings Institute. (Sen. Kerry spoke at the Saban Center a few weeks ago.)

(I am surprised that the amount from Saban is so low for Sen. Kerry. Ah, the man did run for President and Saban is a MAJOR Democratic supporter and fundraiser. This is not to damn anyone for pointing out this money may be less than pure. That well may be or it may not be, depends on more information coming out. But $4000 for a Pres candidate or even a Senate candidate is not much money. The real value of these folks is not the money they give themselves but the amounts they can raise as bundlers. I do not know what amount that would be for Saban, but it is considerable.)

We need publicly funded federal elections. That is the only way to get rid of even the suspicion of something being not right in terms of money and influence. (And this taints the innocent as well as the guilty. That is the thing with money, it is inherently corrupting.)

[beachmom]

11. You're right. If he was a bundler for Kerry's presidential campaign

we are talking a LOT of money. And it just looks bad, even if Kerry has not done anything wrong. It's like being exposed to the public over and over again -- that is what the money does. AIG, Fannie/Freddie, and so on. Any time something makes headlines, it seems they've thrown a few bucks to Kerry, because he is a prominent elected Democratic official.

[karynnj]

14. Companies are different

The fact is that almost all people work for a company. The vast majority of people who contribute do not do it because their company tells them people to contribute to - though I know that happens in some cases. Because Kerry successfully raised money in 2004 through the web and obviously through money men as well. I am not surprised that his name will come up each and every time they pick a company or industry. He, in fact, will often now be at the top because Obama and Clinton are not in the Senate.

I also doubt that Saban was a Kerry bundler, because it would then make no sense that he gave Bush $2000 and Kerry $1000.

[beachmom]

15. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

It is true that some stray activists who make donations may have worked for a certain company, and their donation had nothing to do with that company's interests. However, those donors are in the minority. I think that higher ups in companies are (wink, wink) encouraged to make donations to certain candidates. If it was no big deal for employees to give, then why is it in campaign finance law now that it be disclosed? Because there has been a practice for individuals to give for which it was to influence as a company, not as an individual.

However, I did want to point out one AIG employee who probably donated to the Obama campaign, and was sincere with his support for Obama probably not having to do with his company. Here is his letter of resignation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html

But is still working there:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/04/aig_executive_who_penned_drama.html

Betrayal:

http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/56151/

Jake DeSantis, a 40-year-old commodities trader at AIG, was an unlikely face of Wall Street greed. Stocky and clean cut, with an abiding moral streak, he’d worked summers for a bricklayer in the shadow of shuttered steel mills outside Pittsburgh; he was valedictorian of his high-school class and attended college at MIT. Compared with the way many of his Wall Street brethren lived, with their Gulfstreams, Hamptons mansions, and fleets of luxury cars, his life wasn’t one to invite scorn. He had canvassed for Obama in Scranton on Election Day and drove a Prius. His division at AIG was profitable. And since joining the company in 1998, he had never traded a single credit-default swap.

So I will grant any $$ he donated to the Obama campaign was sincere. But slightly OT, this shows how weird our politics have gotten. This guy should have voted GOP, because he is rich, and wants tax cuts. But he voted Dem because the GOP has turned into this weird party. I bet you, though, that Jake would have to acknowledge that even after everything that happened, I wonder if he still doesn't regret his vote given Palin was on the other ticket.

[karynnj]

17. We will have to disagree

I know that my husband and I contributed moderate amounts to campaigns back into the 1980s. I also know that AT&T asked everyone to contribute into their PAC which "would go to people who voted the "right" way". I never contributed because I didn't like some people they supported. I know that a level up not contributing would have been harder because many of my friends ended up in those levels.

I never heard anyone ever suggest personal contributions to those Senators or Congressmen.

I looked at the AIG contributions over the many years. The amount Kerry got was, I think, about 1/3 what Bush got - and the CEO was a Bush Pioneer fund raiser. That makes it more likely that the contributions to Kerry were from Democrats, who wanted Bush out or liked Kerry. Many of their employees live in CT, NY, and NJ - so many of them being Democrats is no surprise. Looking back at earlier years, Kerry got very little money from employees of the company - especially when compared to others on the banking and Finance committees. The amount in any Senate race, was unlike Dodd's 6 digit amounts, far too small to suggest political influence buying.

[beachmom]

20. That is only anecdotal, and as I posited in my previous post:

if it was no big deal, then why does campaign finance law require disclosure based on company employee donations? Are you suggesting that this is an unfair law and should be repealed? Because it seems to me that there was a very good reason why that kind of transparency was written into the law. I suspect John Kerry supported such transparency as well. I think you are upset because in your own case your donations were pure, and that you feel Kerry is also untainted. Clearly, this type of fundraising was abused in the past, which is why it is required to disclose now. And we really don't know which employees are donating sincerely for personal reasons and which employees (higher ups, of course) are trying to peddle influence through the back door.

I think it is perfectly fine to distinguish between corporate PAC money, which I find unacceptable under all circumstances, and individual employees from a company donating money. The media does a poor job in highlighting this difference, so I understand your frustration. However, it does not serve the Senator well to write off these donations in full, when we simply do not know the reason why these employees donated.

[karynnj]

24. The reason the law was passed was so a watchdog

could see patterns where a legislator has an unusual amount of contributions from the same company. This could be legit - if he lived in the area or had worked in the company etc or it could be something that should be investigated. This allows investigators to see patterns that if suspicious should be investigated. That was why I mentioned looking at Kerry's - which were rather small other than for the Presidential campaign. What I am saying is that I don't see the type of pattern I would expect.

1) On the Presidential race, the fact that the CEO was a Bush fund raiser makes it unlikely that the company pushed people to donate to Kerry. It is reasonable that employees donated that amount of money for purely political reasons. It is known that some top executives donate to both sides, because they want to be able to say they donated to the President. There is NO WAY for Kerry to know whether people contribute wanting to back a winner or they believe in his views.

2) Senate races - From memory, there was one election where Kerry got about $15,000 and the rest he got a minimal amount or none at all. These numbers are far lower than most other banking or Finance committee members. To me, Baucus's numbers and Dodd's numbers are suspicious. I don't think there is an AIG/MT link and he is not super well know. Dodd's numbers were I think about 3 times as high as Kerry's - and he did not raise huge sums as a Presidential candidate and a lot of his money was from the PAC.

I don't think Kerry is completely pure - but I do think that he has set a higher bar for himself than most of his peers. I told you what the situation through 1998 in what was then the country's largest corporation - the only one I have personal knowledge of. The policy seemed consistent over decades.

How should Kerry have raised the money needed to seriously run for President - taking no money from anyone who works for a corporation? Can he take money from self employed small businessmen? People in the military? With Saban, he was not someone that any one would feel the need to turn down his contributions.

The fact is that 1996 had many finance corruption scandals as did HRC's 2008 primary campaign. Kerry really didn't.

[beachmom]

26. No, he needs to take the money, because he needs it.

And then have to put up with the headlines exposing the numbers from time to time. That is the life of a Senator, even a clean one.

I guess my position is in the middle. I think the info should be out there, and when I see he gets thousands from AIG employees I cringe, but feel it is insufficient information to determine anything. I guess I am equally annoyed when either the media condemns him with the numbers or when you completely excuse him for the numbers. The truth as to what those numbers mean is unknowable. Insufficient data.

[karynnj]

27. That is the same place I am - I certainly think the information should be public

I think the two things that open secrets or similar organizations could do to make their charts more useful are:

- To exclude money for Presidential races from the comparison of Senators
- To have 4 columns, total contributions, PAC contributions, Individual Contributions, number of elections data collected for

The first point is just that including the Presidential contributions makes the comparisons for the more successful losers (Kerry and McCain) to other Senators very misleading. Far more individuals contribute to the Presidential nominee than to even my own Senator much less other Senators. This information could be included on an additional table - or added as additional columns to give total contributions.

Otherwise, the consequence of running for President will be that your reputation on this issue is forever damaged. It also distorts the analysis as it shifts the focus to Senators like Kerry and McCain from other Senators, whose numbers weren't as easily explained. Also consider that their opponents in the Presidential race aren't always included in the comparisons.

The second is just to give more complete information so people can more easily come to conclusions. For instance, last year the Freddie and Fannie numbers were thrown out. The top people were Obama, Dodd and Kerry. But, if you looked at PAC numbers the top three were Republicans on key committees in the House and Senate and Kerry and Obama were near the bottom with $2,000 and $6,000 respectively. It is not because the total number is not important, it is. It is because the other number is important as well.

As to me always defending him on this - it is because in each case, the FMs, AIG, and Saban, I see nothing that makes me feel that he did anything beyond standard run of the mill fundraising. I can't say that in Dodd's case and don't.

I defended him earlier in this exchange because I seriously could not believe that $4000 over 8 years from a solid Democratic contributor could possibly be anything other than just taking a contribution. It's just not big enough. You questioned if he was a Kerry bundler, which he wasn't. He was a huge Clinton donor, who was the number 1 fund raiser for HRC. It appears that he was basically uninterested in Gore, Kerry or Obama.

On AIG, I wrote why the numbers did not look suspicious to me. Others can reject my reasons why I thought that, but it was not just taking him on faith. Had I done that, I wouldn't have looked through the various years to see the size of donations given. Look at how much Baucus or Dodd got versus the amount Kerry got minus the Presidential money.

[beachmom]

28. The reason why I brought up Saban's name in the first place is,

right or wrong, it makes Kerry look bad. Most people don't analyze this stuff like we do. Kerry was on that list under a headline that "top Democrats" received donations from him. I am not going to censor info on this forum. It came out, I checked the list, and his name was on it.

[TayTay]

16. He was, but he was a major Clinton backer first

and he backed Dems second. Look up his history last year.

[karynnj]

18. Here is a nice article on that - he is colorful

He funded Clinton in the 1990s, gave millions to his foundation and library and was the number 1 HRC fund raiser. Contrast that to giving Senator Kerry $1000, while giving Bush $2000 - he split his money between Gore and Bush too.

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/08/13/Profile-of-Fundraiser-Haim-Saban?page=1#page=1

[globalvillage]

21. $4,000?

LOL.

[YvonneCa]

6. With this disclosure AND what I heard yesterday...

...true or not...that Alberto Gonzales wanted to keep her on board with the wiretapping (because he knew she supported the program), I think you are right.

I actually like representative Harmon. I think she is very knowledgeable and has done a good job for California. But this is a BIG mistake in judgment. I love what beachmom said: "I am beginning to think "Blue Dog" is Greek for corrupt." :)

[wisteria]

9. This is just another example of some Democrats that worked against Sen. Kerry's back

in 2004. I don't know if the published NYT story was watered down (perhaps at the request of some of those who supported the program)and that an explosive story would have penetrated the fear instilled in the electorate in 2004 and changed the outcome of the election, but, any elected Democrat leader who takes directions from Republican leadership and considers their own self-interest above our nation's and the party needs to go.

[TayTay]

10. Link to long CQ story on this

This is the original story exposing Rep Harmon's involvement with AIPAC and Atty Gen Gonzales and the whole sordid deal.

http://static.cqpolitics.com/harman-3098436-page1.html

Off Topic, but anyone else marveling at the irony of Rep Harmon, champion of illegal wiretapping getting busted on, ah, a wiretap. Sometimes I really, really, really believe in karmic justice.

[beachmom]

12. It's really rich, isn't it? It actually made me smile.

Although this was a wiretap that did have a warrant, remember guys, I prayed and hoped that the member of Congress who nearly was wiretapped without a warrant in the Middle East was one of the capitulating Dems. And now we learn this.

[karynnj]

19. lol

I guess She got what she deserved getting caught this way.

[wisteria]

22. LOL, what comes around goes around. n/t

[Mass]

23. I was listening to her today, and she was whining that the wiretap was illegal.

When the CNN reporter reminded her that she had agreed with these wiretaps, she said it was only for people suspected of terrorism.

[wisteria]

25. No one was immune from the Bush Administrations wiretapping. n/t

[beachmom]

13. More discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8359916#8360803

on the front page of dkos, too:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/21/722691/-Rep.-Harman-lobbied-NYT-to-spike-wiretapping-story-at-Bushs-behest