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Tuesday, May 23, 2006
They want to censure who?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A conservative group in California has launched a campaign to censure Jimmy Carter. To add insult to injury, it’s not really about the former president at all.
With the conservative base showing increasing signs of staying home this year, Republicans have made a lot of the possibility that if Democrats take over Congress this fall they will hold punitive investigations of the Bush administration, with censure or even impeachment in their wake.
Picking up on that thought, the group Move America Forward has just laid down $100,000 to air a 30-second spot calling for a sort of preemptive strike on Carter, who the ad accuses of cozying up with various enemies of the United States including Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
“If Congress has an itchy finger to censure someone, they should start with former President Jimmy Carter,” the ad says. You can catch it at www.censurecarter.com.
McCain, Reed listed as potential witnesses
Both could be called in Washington corruption trial, prosecutor says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bloomberg wire service reported Monday that U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ralph Reed, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, may be called as prosecution witnesses in the trial of David Safavian, a former White House official accused of concealing ties to disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
During jury selection, federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg listed McCain, who oversaw a Senate investigation into Abramoff’s activities, Reed, Abramoff and others as potential witnesses. Safavian, 38, oversaw federal procurement at the White House Office of Management and Budget until he resigned in September.
Bloomberg quoted U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman as saying that prosecutors are “not going to call all of those people.”
Safavian is charged with concealing Abramoff’s interest in government business when seeking permission to accept airfare for a Scotland golf trip from Abramoff in 2002. Safavian is also accused of obstructing inquiries into the matter. He has pleaded not guilty.
At Monday’s debate between the two GOP candidates for lieutenant governor in Canton, rival Casey Cagle pointedly asked Reed if he would be willing to testify in the Safavian trial. Also, Cagle asked, “would you plead the Fifth?”
Reed replied he would testify if asked, and that he would not take refuge in his right not to incriminate himself. Reed and U.S. Rep. Bob Ney were on the 2002 golf trip with Safavian. Reed has been accused of no wrongdoing. Ney has been named, indirectly, in the guilty pleas of Abramoff and his associates.
