{"id":2532,"date":"2004-09-15T10:31:58","date_gmt":"2004-09-15T15:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2532.html"},"modified":"2004-09-15T10:31:58","modified_gmt":"2004-09-15T15:31:58","slug":"ashcroft-just-cant-seem-to-stay-away-from-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ashcroft-just-cant-seem-to-stay-away-from-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashcroft just can’t seem to stay away from trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poor John Ashcroft. Poor choices<\/a>, twisted priorities<\/a>, and widespread disdain<\/a> have made his tenure as attorney general an embarrassing failure. He’s released memos that Bush later disavowed<\/a>, he’s suffered crushing defeats<\/a> at the Supreme Court, he’s issued highly dubious<\/a> terrorist threat warnings, and he’s even fought with Congress<\/a> over documents to which lawmakers are legally entitled. And yet, Bush thinks he’s doing a great job.<\/p>\n

Ashcroft has also had a few legal controversies that should have forced him from office. In 2001, Ashcroft was investigated for violating federal campaign finance laws and found to have accepted over $110,000<\/a> in illegal contributions shortly before becoming attorney general. Making matters worse, there’s evidence that he lied under oath<\/a> to the 9\/11 Commission earlier this year.<\/p>\n

And now, Ashcroft is in hot water yet again. The attorney general who could do no right may have illegally used tax dollars to lobby<\/a> on behalf of the Patriot Act.<\/p>\n

…Ashcroft spent more than $200,000 in taxpayer money on trips to 32 cities in August and September 2003 to drum up support for the Patriot Act. <\/p>\n

A new Government Accountability Office study of the trips found that Ashcroft and his staff spent more than $77,000 for air transportation, according to congressional staffers who have been briefed on the findings. Nearly $40,000 was spent on hotels and other travel expenses, and U.S. attorney’s offices spent more than $80,000 for conference room rentals and other costs, the staff members said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the Center for American Progress noted<\/a> yesterday, this is a definite no-no.
\n<\/p>\n

A 2002 federal law<\/a> explicitly prohibits federal funds from being used by any executive branch agency — including the Justice Department — to lobby the public for support or defeat of legislation pending before the Congress. Ashcroft’s trips came immediately after the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan amendment<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), which would have limited the Patriot Act \u2013 something Ashcroft opposed and was using public money to campaign against. Ashcroft even traveled to Otter’s home district<\/a> to publicly lobby Otter’s constituents against reforming the Patriot Act. Again, this behavior by a Cabinet secretary is prohibited by federal law. After two months of Ashcroft’s taxpayer-financed trips, Congress reconvened from its summer recess and stripped out the provision from the final bill behind closed doors in a conference committee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, this has not gone unnoticed on the Hill, where calls for an investigation<\/a> have already begun.<\/p>\n

A leading House Democrat asked the Justice Department’s watchdog Tuesday to investigate Attorney General John Ashcroft’s trips last year to promote the anti-terror Patriot Act.<\/p>\n

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, contends a pair of speaking tours Ashcroft took broke laws barring publicity campaigns and grassroots lobbying by executive branch officials, unless authorized by Congress.<\/p>\n

Conyers requested the investigation in a letter to Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department’s inspector general. A spokesman for Fine said no decision has been made on the request.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The law Ashcroft appears to have run afoul of is the very same law Bush’s Department of Health and Human Services violated last year<\/a> with taxpayer financed propaganda masquerading<\/a> as “video news releases” sent to local TV stations nationwide.<\/p>\n

Given the circumstances, it seems the Bush administration just doesn’t care to follow this particular provision of the federal code. Will an inquiry be forthcoming? Like Tapped’s Jeffrey Dubner<\/a>, I’m not optimistic.<\/p>\n

If the Department of Health and Human Services is allowed to get a way with this kind of malfeasance, I can’t imagine the highest law-enforcement agency in the land will be held to account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poor John Ashcroft. Poor choices, twisted priorities, and widespread disdain have made his tenure as attorney general an embarrassing failure. He’s released memos that Bush later disavowed, he’s suffered crushing defeats at the Supreme Court, he’s issued highly dubious terrorist threat warnings, and he’s even fought with Congress over documents to which lawmakers are legally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}