Jack bills Hills: House Govt Reform Report

excerpts from Staff Report
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform
109th Congress Tom Davis, Chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Member
September 29, 2006


…..exerting undue influence or corrupting public officials, current laws and regulations failed to protect the fundamental governmental integrity every citizen rightfully expects.

….selling information and entrée that shouldn’t need to be bought while making his clients pay inflated fees for access and influence that shouldn’t be for sale.

The principle that guided the preparation of this report was to let the facts speak for themselves and to avoid characterizations, inferences, and spin.

…..in winning and retaining clients was to convince clients that his contacts with relevant government policy-makers were so strong they would be foolish not to retain his firm. In the world of lobbying, perceived influence often carries just as much weight as actual influence

…..a tendency to describe his clients in a disparaging way and use foul language. In November 2002, for example, he wrote …..“I hate these f***ing ingrates. I told them ....to come up with the dough or prepare for another trail of tears!!! :)”

…..expresses his contempt for a potential client, Guam, and its newly elected Governor Felix Camacho.
"I met with [Camacho’s] his staffer tonight (!!!). the f***ing mother f***er didn’t even have the courtesy to call me or meet with me himself. I told the little twerp that they are off to a rip roaring start, with losers aplenty helping them. he basically told me that they too have concluded that everyone is a bullsh***ter here and that they want to hire us. I said ‘I am not sure you can afford us and frankly, I am none too happy by this little parade.’ He kept pushing, obviously having been given orders to tie up something. He is going to send me their wish list. I told him that we don’t charge anything less than six figures per month …. Let’s see what these pieces of s**t say. I am f***ing pissed. What disrespect".

In response to the Committee’s subpoena, nearly 6,600 pages of billing documents were produced, covering 13 clients from the beginning of 2001 to spring 2004.112

…..The clients ….. Howard Hills …………..

Hills Implicated in Massive DOJ Corruption!

from http://www.correntewire.com/rove_is_the_centerpiece_of_massive_corruption_doj_edition

Rove is the Centerpiece of Massive Corruption: DOJ Edition
Submitted by chicago dyke on Mon, 2007-03-12 17:23.

Abramoff attornies general gonzales rove
Forget Gonzo, let’s tie Rove to criminals more firmly, shall we?


In 2002, GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff was secretly lobbying on behalf of the Guam Superior Court against a judicial reform bill pending in the U.S. Congress. Abramoff won this contract by telling Court officials he had access to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and other Republican leaders. Perhaps due to Abramoff’s lobbying, the judicial reform bill died at the end of the 107th Congress in 2002. Instead of paying Abramoff directly, the Court funneled its payments through 36 separate $9,000 checks made out to a lawyer named Howard Hills in Laguna Beach, California.

In November 2002, a grand jury in Guam began investigating the secret lobbying arrangement. The day after the grand jury issued subpoenas, the Bush Administration demoted the U.S. prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Frederick Black, who had been the acting U.S. attorney in Guam for 12 years. Black was replaced by Leonardo Rapadas, an attorney recommended to Karl Rove by the Guam Republican Party, and barred from investigating public corruption cases.

Citizens for Ethics on Hills & Sanchez Indictments

Guam official, indicted in Abramoff case, resigns
Submitted by crew on 6 July 2007 - 12:59pm. Guam

The fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandal continues. Not all of it is limited to the U.S. And, true to the tradition of late Friday afternoon resignations, it was late on a Friday afternoon in Guam when this news broke. Tony Sanchez, who was indicted in an Abramoff-related case, resigned today:


The announcement comes as Sanchez faces charges in connection with $324,000 in payments from the Superior Court to now disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2002.

Sanchez allegedly had the court funds paid to Abramoff through California attorney Howard Hills, allegedly under the "guise of a professional services contract," according to court documents. Hills also faces charges in connection with the case.

The payments were issued in 36 checks of about $9,000 each to avoid established procurement procedures," the indictment against them states.

new comment
Attorney Howard Hills
Submitted by Anonymous on 6 July 2007 - 1:43pm.
When the Abramoff and all the other investigations concerning the Bush administration have run their course, there will be a lot of attorneys facing prison. Libby was an attorney. Bush will issuing more pardons before he's gone. Lots more.

» reply
watch out for attorneysSubmitted by Anonymous on 8 July 2007 - 10:37pm.
like hal moorman- attorneys who screw their clients playing their interests against their clients.»

Howard Hills: Following Corrupt Campaign Contributions

from The Daily Kos @ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/8/7186/43697


Doolittle Campaign Contributer Indicted and it's Not Even Friday, Guam nails Abramoff Buddy
by AmericanRiverCanyon

Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 10:12:38 AM PDT

Howard Hills, an attorney from Laguna Beach, CA, and a former legal "consultant" of the Court of Guam, was indicted by a Guam Grand Jury February 7 (just yesterday) and charged with conspiracy for unlawful influence as a third degree felony for activities he performed on behalf of Anthony Sanchez and convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Anthony Sanchez, a former Guam Superior Court Administrator, was also charged as a co conspirator with felony charges of conspiracy, theft of property held in trust, and official misconduct back on Dec 13, 2006. Sanchez pleaded not guilty yesterday, and a lawyer for Howard Hills asked for a continuance, Hills is scheduled for arraignment February 21, 2007. Hills is being charged with being a "go between" for Sanchez and Abramoff, by taking 36 checks (or more by other news accounts) totaling $324,000 and depositing them first into his account and then sending the money on to Abramoff.

See new link here from the Marshall Islands' Yokwe Online, Dec 13 '06 article by Aenet Rowa, "Rongelap Attorney Hills and Guam's Sanchez Indicted by Guam Grand Jury http://www.yokwe.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1600

California-based attorney Howard Hills, who represents the Marshall Islands atoll of Rongelap, was indicted Tuesday, December 12, along with former Guam court Administrative Director Tony Sanchez, on charges conneced to $324,000 that the local court paid to lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Guam's Pacific Daily News reported that the summons were issued for the two appear at the Superior Court of Guam at 10 a.m. Feb. 7. Charges of Unlawful influence, Conspiracy for unlawful influence, Theft of property held in trust, and Official misconduct were listed.... In February of this year, Hills wrote to Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks to clarify that it wasn't his call to break payments to Abramoff into smaller, $9,000 checks...."


Read below and you'll see why Hills is trying to weasel out of that part about the size of the checks...

As soon as I read this I started digging to see if I could connect Howard Hills to John Doolittle financially, and I didn't, alas, have to go too far, but first, some more background on this story.

A good link to an older story from Dec 22, 2005, written about how Abramoff was secretly hired by officials on Guam, who pretended to be hiring Howard Hills to do the work, to lobby against Guam judicial reform:
Indicted Lobbyist's Web extends to the Pacific, Abramoff secretly sought to sway Congress for Guam

It seems that Mr. Sanchez, who was just charged yesterday but not mentioned as the possible culprit/fall guy in this article, was pilfering out of the Guam's Superior Court's Judicial Building Fund to pay Abramoff to lobby against Congress giving the Guam Supreme Court juridiction over the Superior Court.

The auditors found that the Superior Court didn't file required reports on the payments to the IRS, didn't have a real contract with Hills describing just what legal services he was providing, and that the Court person (that's Sanchez) was paying Hills in $9000 dollar increments to circumvent a requirment that purchases over $10,000 be done by sealed bid.

The documents filed by Abramoff's home firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP named Hills and not the Superior Court of Guam or (Sanchez on behalf of Guam) as the client.

The Guam Auditor says that $564,039 was spent for the lobby effort, that Hills received $479,000, and that Abramoff recieved $324,000, and that the Court reorganization was held off between 2002 and 2004. You can see the little problem there...every time the money changed hands, there was less of it.


Now for the Humor Link™ , this little episode from Howard Hills point of view, written in 2005 from peace corps online. org: http://peacecorpsonline.org/...

"Former Peace Corps Member Howard Hills Blows Whistle on Jack Abramoff, the Recently Indicted Republican lobbyist who bilked Native American Tribes out of millions of dollars"
(Ah, isn't that cute? He cares, he likes us, he really, really likes us!...)

"Hills said the judge dealt directly with Abramoff and that his only role was passing checks to Abramoff's law firm. "hiring a subcontractor is a very routine thing, ...there were no red flags at that point....Hills said that after he came forward about his role in the scandal, (ARC's note...that's 36 to 49 payment checks later....) he received telephone calls from both Democrats and Republicans who worked with him during his government career.

“It appeared to a lot of people that I was in cahoots with these guys,” he said. “Looking back, I wish I had done it differently. But when I came out and made it clear I had been involved, people supported me. It was like the end of It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart.”

When he started dragging Jimmy Stewart into it, I knew I was going into the Federal Elections Campaign donations records before the night was over.
~~
Let's follow the money and see if Howard Hills gives money to Republicans and to my district's Congressman, John Doolittle, (R) CA- 04

Here's a page from Newsmeat that indicates that Howard Hills is indeed a love bug ♥ when it comes to donating money to Republicans: Newsmeat.com Campaign Contribution Search for Howard Hills There are both Republican oriented PACs and individual donations listed.

Alliance of the West Pac got $2000, 8/1/04 This pac in '06 gives to Republican Senators, gave to losers like George Allen Macaca Breath of VA, Rick "dog" Santorum PA, Conrad Burns MT, Jim Talent of Mo....etc, hah! He did better in 2004 when the recipients like Martinez FL, Specter PA, and Murkowski AK won.

Let's see who else donates to Alliance for the West Pac, a few sample larger donors for the 03- 04 cycle, interesting... Brent Wilkes 6/28/04 $5000 James Jay Baker, Stewart Hall, The Federalist Group, $1000 each James C Barker Oakton VA (hm, Oakton, neighbor of Doolittle?) $500 Carol and Earl Holding, owners of Sinclair Oil $6,500 total

So that's Wilkes, a defense contractor implicated in bribing another congressman, James Baker, the Bush Family Consigliore and Carlyle Group Guy, and some Sinclair Oil Company owners, just for starters. Nice Pac.

Howard Also gave George Macaca Allen (R, VA, loser, '06) a $500 dollar individual donation 9/30/05. Hills sure likes George Allen. Must be a CA orange county thing.

Howard donates frequently to Dana Rohrabacher, (R) CA 46 Rohrabacher is a crazy loon who ran around in Afghanistan with the hill tribes shooting at Russians right after he got elected to Congress. Goes back to Reagan/Ollie North. Yes, Howard Hills has a thing for American Men in Period Military Costumes. First Allen and now this.
Howard's Donations to Dana Rohrabacher(R) CA 46 $400 6/24/06 $300 3/20/05 $1000 2/25/04

Who does Dana Rohrabacher give to? From a search on : http://opensecrets.org/ thanks, opensecrets! John T. Doolittle For Congress, Sacramento CA $1000, 10/13/06 ping!
Howard also gives money to the NewStar Pac Howard Hills, $3000, 3/17/01
And NewStar Pac gives to John Doolittle $5000 during the 2002 cycle ping!
link for Dans Rohrabacher's donation to Doolittle in 10/2006 , the election cycle we just had: http://www.opensecrets.org/...

Let's look at the Newsmeat link again.... Howard Hills also gave the aptly named RICH Pac $500 on 8/31/05
link for RICH PAC donation to John Doolittle on 3/21/06 (actual FEC ticket log) $5000 http://images.nictusa.com/...

There was another donation of $5000 on 9/19/06 to Doolittle from the same RICH PAC
link for RICH PAC donations page of the FEC, Candidates Supported by this PAC, scroll down to see the 2 given for Doolittle in 2006, total $10,000 ping! http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_supopp/C00387670/
And If You Only Click On One Lousy Link In this Diary, Click on This One link for RICH PAC page FEC, Individuals who gave to this Committee, reads like the Hall of Fame of Abramoff's lobbyists' and the Saipanese, (Commonwealth of the N. Marianas Islands) plus Howard Hills is on this page

http://query.nictusa.com/...

Look at all the CNMI names on this list, Babauta, Atalig, Zak, Tenorio, Tenorio, Tan, Benavente.
Now you can see how they do it, they make bribes, then get together and pool the kickback fee money into these PACs and make much larger donations to these Republicans to make sure the CNMI and her sister territories like Guam and Samoa stays "protected". One of the people on this list, Pedro Tenorio, the Resident Rep of CNMI, will be testifying this morning 2/8/07 in front of the Senate Committee on how he thinks they should make exceptions for "imposing" minimum wage and federal immigration standards on the CNMI. Here's a link to a summary of his written testimony: http://www.resrep.gov.mp/press%20releases/hearing%202-2007,%207%20points.htm Pedro Tenorio's webpage also has a link to his full written testimony.

The existing power structure in the CNMI will do and say anything to preserve the status quo of doing absolutely nothing to change the system that pays an imported work force slave wages of $3.05 or less per hour in the island's sweatshops. Jack took money from these overlords and willingly paid it to anyone who would look the other way, including John Doolittle, who serves on the House committee that has juridiction over the CNMI. This diary attempts to show you what we can see of that money trail, as someone has already said, it's what lies beneath.
Almost forgot, one more, Howard Hills gave GW Bush money for his Presidental re election campaign: $1000 on 6/30/03 to Bush/ Cheney '04

Howard Hills has a wife, Lura Hills. She is listed as a "homemaker." She also gave $300 to Dana Rohrabacher in 2005 and $6000 to a PAC in 2004, but I have to stop somewhere.

HILLS, HOWARD LAGUNA BEACH , CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$400primary
06/16/07

HILLS, HOWARD LAGUNA BEACH , CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$400general
06/24/06

HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651
ALLEN, GEORGE (R)Senate - VAFRIENDS OF GEORGE ALLEN
$500primary
09/30/05

Hills, HowardLaguna Beach, CA 92651Howard Hills/Attorney
RICH POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
$500primary
08/31/05

HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$300primary
03/20/05

Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
ALLIANCE FOR THE WEST
$2,000primary
08/01/04

HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$1,000primary
02/25/04

HILLS, HOWARD L MR.LAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651SELF-EMPLOYED/ATTORNEY
BUSH, GEORGE W (R)PresidentBUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC
$1,000primary
06/30/03

Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
12/02/02

Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
12/02/02

Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
10/21/02

Howard HillsLaguna Beach, CA
TAUZIN, WILBERT J II (R)House (LA 03)BILLY TAUZIN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE THE
$1,000primary
08/23/01

HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$200primary
05/01/01

HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651ATTORNEY
NEWSTAR PAC (FKA NEW CENTURY FEDERAL PAC; THE
$3,000primary
03/17/01

HILLS, HOWARD LLAGUANA BEACH, CA 92651
UNDERWOOD, ROBERT A (D)House (GU 00)GUAM'S VOICE IN CONGRESS: ROBERT A UNDERWOOD
$500general
10/23/00

HILLS, HOWARD LLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651ATTORNEY
STOKER, MICHAEL BRIAN (R)House (CA 22)STOKER FOR CONGRESS
$1,000general
06/29/00

Howard Hills Denies Association With Abramoff

from Fired-Up America at http://www.firedupamerica.com/hills_abramoff_rangelop_atoll

Howard Hills Denies Having Business Association With Abramoff
Submitted by Roy Temple on Wed, 01/25/2006

Howard Hills, the California attorney who assisted Abramoff by appearing as the front man on a contract with the Superior Court of Guam in 2001 and 2002 now wants to assure us that Abramoff wasn't in on every deal of his.

In today's Pacific Magazine, Hills fills us in that Abramoff was not involved in his work for Rongelap Atoll. But he goes a little far in his denial:

"The lawyer reiterated that it is impossible for him to involve Abramoff with his Rongelap representation since they were never associates and he never had any business deals with the lobbyist."

But Howard, don't you mean except for that one time, at band camp, when you let Abramoff register as your lobbyist and then you funnelled him $300K + in $9,000 increments from the Superior Court of Guam, all in an attempt to evade procurement guidelines?

Do you remember that time?

Abramoff & Hills: Can Justice Be Trusted?

Can Justice Be Trusted?
by ARI BERMAN
[from the February 20, 2006 issue @ \

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060220&s=berman]

Now that Jack Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress have drawn criminal indictments, the disgraced lobbyist's ties to the Bush Administration are starting to get attention. Reporters are peppering press secretary Scott McClellan with questions about "staff-level meetings" with Abramoff in the White House. Photographs of him with President Bush and other high-level officials are surfacing. Little notice has been paid, however, to the Justice Department, charged with prosecuting Abramoff. Evidence has emerged that the department played an active role in shutting down an investigation of Abramoff's dubious lobbying activities in Guam in November 2002. The story raises questions about whether Justice can be trusted with this historic investigation--and whether top White House officials actively abetted Abramoff's shady dealings as early as 2001.

The Guam story begins in February 2001, when there was legislation before Congress to create a Supreme Court on the island territory, to be above the existing Superior Court. Judges on that court, who wanted to retain the powers of the island's traditional highest court, asked Howard Hills, a lawyer from California, to hire Abramoff to fight the bill. Abramoff's success in blocking higher wage standards in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI)--where workers are paid $3.05 an hour to make clothes bearing "Made in USA" insignia--had given him a reputation there as an influential lobbyist. Hills, Abramoff and Superior Court Judge Alberto Lamorean subsequently reached an agreement at Abramoff's Capitol Hill restaurant, Signatures. At the time Abramoff, a former member of George W. Bush's transition team, was a $750-an-hour lobbyist with access to the highest levels of the Republican Party.

Between February 2001 and July 2002, the Superior Court paid Abramoff $324,000 in lobbying fees, funneling the money in $9,000 increments through Hills to avoid disclosing that Abramoff was the beneficiary. The arrangement caught the eye of Frederick Black, the acting US Attorney on Guam since 1991. "He'd been there a long time," said Lee Radek, former head of Justice's Public Integrity Section, of Black. "I liked him. He had a good reputation." A retired district court judge appointed Black on a temporary basis, but lack of a replacement, his reputation for integrity and his high conviction rate kept him in the post.
At that time Black was leading a larger corruption investigation into Guam Governor Carl Gutierrez's office for diverting government funds for personal gain. To get Black off his back, Gutierrez hired Abramoff through a contract with the Guam International Airport Authority. "Abramoff claimed he had a top political guy at DOJ he could go to, to get rid of Black," says a source close to the investigation. The two met in DC in late 2001 or early 2002, around the time that Abramoff was employed by the Superior Court. Their strategy was to paint Black as a Clintonite, although he'd been named by the first President Bush and Gutierrez himself was a Democrat. "Gutierrez's role was to get Republicans to go to DOJ and the White House and say, Why have you not replaced that Democrat who's been acting US Attorney?" the source says. Before employing Abramoff, Gutierrez also retained Mark Touhey, a high-profile Washington lawyer who's cur rently defending Representative Bob Ney, repeatedly named in Abramoff's guilty plea for taking bribes from the lobbyist in return for official favors. Touhey reportedly met with Justice on at least one occasion to force Black's removal.

Sources confirm that in early November 2002 Black contacted the Public Integrity Section, the unit currently heading the department's Abramoff task force, and asked for assistance in investigating Abramoff's lobbying activities. Black didn't have the resources to conduct investigations of both Gutierrez and Abramoff, and wanted Washington to help on the Abramoff part. Senior officials working closely under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft were also notified of Black's request. Since Black's communication happened to raise serious questions about the integrity of a high-level federal official who was being renominated to his post, Justice forwarded the information to the Deputy Attorney General's office and the Office of Legal Policy (OLP), which generally handles such concerns.

Sources close to the probe say the information was likely passed on to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who worked closely with Justice on such matters. "Those heads of OLP who are pretty well connected deal directly with the White House counsel," says Lee Casey, a former OLP aide under Reagan and Bush I. (Black declined to comment and Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra refused to provide details about an "ongoing criminal investigation.")
Up to this point Abramoff had lobbied to replace Black because Governor Gutierrez had hired him to do so. Now he had a personal stake in Black's investigation--he was a target of it. It's not known whether Abramoff tried to stop Black's investigation of him, but such interference would have been in character. Earlier in the year Abramoff had persuaded Justice to kill a risk-assessment report on Guam and the CNMI, which Black had ordered. The report might have jeopardized the influx of cheap labor to CNMI, where Abramoff had $1.6 million in lobbying contracts. In an e-mail dated October 1, 2001, Abramoff told CNMI officials he learned of the results of the security review from Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins game. Abramoff mentioned an upcoming meeting with Ashcroft and another meeting, at a pickup basketball game, between the Attorney General and an Ashcroft aide who'd become an Abramoff staffer. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this on their own," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out and Justice demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner. Did Abramoff use the same Justice channels to quash Black's inquiry?

Despite Justice's refusal to help him, Black convened a grand jury, which subpoenaed the Abramoff contract with the Superior Court on November 18, 2002. The next day the Bush Administration announced that Black would be replaced as US Attorney and demoted him to Assistant US Attorney, after twelve years on the job. His replacement was Guam's Assistant Attorney General, Leonardo Rapadas. "Fred was removed because he asked to indict Abramoff," says one of Black's colleagues at Justice. "I don't believe it was a coincidence."
Rapadas's conduit to the White House, veteran Washington lobbyist Fred Radewagen, "had access all the way up to Karl Rove," says David Sablan, former head of the Guam Republican Party. At the time of Black's demotion, former Abramoff aide Susan Ralston was working as a top assistant to Rove, a post she still holds.

Before Rapadas's confirmation, in May 2003, law-enforcement officials in Guam had supplied extensive information to Ashcroft and senior Justice officials indicating that he would have to recuse himself from the Gutierrez investigation because he was related to two people implicated in the scandal. Also in May, Guam's new Governor, Felix Camacho, a former Black ally, met with Abramoff in Washington. That same month, Jus tice dispatched Assistant US Attorney Russ Stoddard to Guam. Stoddard proceeded to bar Black from working on any public corruption cases and demanded that all new cases be approved through him, rather than the criminal division--a highly unorthodox procedure. Black's investigation into Abramoff's activities was forceably halted. Reportedly, the FBI and the DOJ Inspector General have begun looking into Black's demotion. Sources close to the IG investigation say its findings will be released soon. But the way Justice silenced Black and Meissner in part prompted Senators Chuck Schumer and Ken Salazar to call for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Abramoff investigation. The circumstances of Black's removal raise several questions. Did the White House interfere to stop Black's investigation? Was Gonzales involved? Was Ashcroft?

More broadly, how can Justice be trusted to investigate a matter in which it is so deeply implicated? Despite the Public Integrity Section's reputation for impartiality, there are few institutional checks to prevent further political meddling into its current investigation of Abramoff. On January 25 Bush nominated the current Public Integrity Section head, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey and named a temporary replacement mid-investigation. Justice can prosecute the case without any political pressure "as long as the targets are members of Congress," says former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. "If, however, you start to develop ties between Congress, Abramoff and people in the White House, it becomes problematic, especially from an appearance perspective. Because of the Deputy Attorney Gen eral's and the Attorney General's ties to the President, the need for an outside counsel becomes greater."

Otherwise, how can the public be sure that the President's man, Alberto Gonzales, will conduct an honest, thorough investigation of Abramoff when the targets might include his top deputies, his former White House colleagues, his predecessor, his boss--indeed, himself?

Howard Hills Is The Hero Of His Own Story

Howard Hills Is The Hero Of His Own Story
Submitted by Roy Temple on Mon, 01/30/2006 - 5:30pm. GOP AbraMafia GOP Culture of Corruption

The name Howard Hills may or may not ring a bell to you. Hills is a former Reagan administration official, worked on the transition team for the first Bush administration, and is a lawyer who has done work for various Pacific Islands over the last 20 years. But Hills is most famous for work he never even performed.
According to an audit by the Office of Public Auditor on Guam, Hills is the Laguna Hills attorney who funnelled $324,000 to lobbyist Jack Abramoff for lobbying services that Abramoff performed on behalf of the Superior Court of Guam. The payments were made in $9,000 increments in order to evade Guam's procurement statutes, and Abramoff never registered on behalf of the Superior Court of Guam, instead he registered as a lobbyist for Howard Hills.
You might think that Howard Hills would be embarassed by the shenanigans he pulled on behalf of Mr. Abramoff, but you would be wrong. Mr. Hills thinks his conduct is a morality tale--a testament to his personal integrity.
On the website, Peace Corps Online, there's a post with the headline: Howard Hills Blows Whistle On Abramoff. That post links back to a story from the Orange County Weekly, in which Howard Hills' self-congratulations continues.
And back in March, Mr. Hills wrote an op-ed for the Coastline Pilot, in which he held himself up as the model of integrity.
This is all very interesting, especially since just last week, Mr. Hills told the Pacific Magazine:
The lawyer reiterated that it is impossible for him to involve Abramoff with his Rongelap representation since they were never associates and he never had any business deals with the lobbyist.
And if all this weren't bizarre enough, sources tell Fired Up! that Hills often brags about that fact that his wife is the sometime nanny of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's triplets. While this has not yet verified, it is clear that Hills and Rohrabacher have some sort of relationship as Hills has given Rohrabacher several thousand dollars in political contributions over the years.
This isn't the first time we have heard about nannies for Rep. Rohrabacher's triplets. Just last week, The Hill reported on a shower for the Rohrabacher's, thrown by Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists, in which they donated cash for the Rohrabacher nanny fund.
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