can we indict bush on rico charges?

Further to my posts (here and here) about Zogby apparently being 'persuaded' by the administration into not polling certain questions, I decided to take a quick look at the RICO laws.

I came across an article by Marci Hamilton titled "It's Time For A RICO Prosecution of the Catholic Church." Firstly, here are some of her credentials:

"Professor Hamilton is an internationally recognized expert on constitutional and copyright law. She is frequently asked to advise Congress and state legislatures on the constitutionality of pending legislation and to consult in cases before the United States Supreme Court. ...

Professor Hamilton clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court and Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit." (link)

And here are some of the relevant parts of her article:

"Recently, Governor Frank Keating, a former federal prosecutor, compared the Catholic Church's instinct for secrecy to that of La Cosa Nostra. He plainly hit a nerve:

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles called for his resignation.

Keating has been the one pure voice for truth in the Church since the scandal began. Mahony is the Cardinal who has refused to cooperate with Los Angeles prosecutors, or even to fill out the anonymous questionnaire intended to help the Church itself assess the scandal.

Tragically, Keating lost the fight; and Mahony won. The members of Keating's own oversight committee for the Church, the lay National Review Board, joined Mahony in calling for his resignation.

Worse, rather than mounting a defense of Keating, the Church allowed him to be forced out. And it did so knowing full well the public was watching particularly closely, for the Bishops were getting ready for their annual meeting. The message could not have been clearer: True internal Church reform is not going to happen. Clear-eyed critics like Keating will be shown the door.

Keating now no longer heads the Board. In his gutsy resignation letter, he stuck to his guns: "My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology. . . . To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church."

Why did Keating's remarks so deeply anger the Church? The answer is that this reference touched on the Church's own worst, and likely unacknowledged, nightmare: that it is in fact corrupt and that the federal RICO (Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute might be used against it

That prospect is not as unlikely as the statute's title may indicate. RICO has not only been used against the mafia; it has also been used to target apparently legitimate organizations, such as corrupt labor unions, as well. It is now time to use it against the Catholic Church.

Why the Analogy to La Cosa Nostra Was Apt

Imagine a large, wealthy, and hierarchical organization that persists in believing it is above the law. Over many decades, the organization has employed a tradition of blood brother secrecy to keep its illegal actions from being analyzed or criticized in the press, or prosecuted and punished by legal authorities. It employs powerful, adept, and highly-paid lawyers, and resists judicial process whenever it can.

Meanwhile, the organization's leaders are united in a secret bond that requires them to do whatever it takes to protect the organization from scandal. For them, the cover-up of serious crimes is a way of life, a feature of their everyday business.

[snip]

And in any event, the Church need not be the twin of La Cosa Nostra to properly face prosecution under the RICO statute. All it needs to be is what it is: An organization that has repeatedly been used to perpetrate and cover-up serious crimes, including obstruction of justice.

It's High Time For a RICO Prosecution of the Church

RICO is needed, because local prosecutions are not going to suffice. Some brave local and county prosecutors are going after the Church's crimes in the interests of the children who have been hurt so terribly. But others foolishly continue to trust the Church to set things right itself - something it has had the opportunity to do for decades, and never really tried, let alone succeeded in.

Instead, for years, the Church told the newspapers not to report the stories and the prosecutors not to charge the perpetrators and the parents not to report the crimes..."

Some of that sounds familiar, no?

Of course, I'm not the first to suggest that the administration is 'the model of a criminal organization' - in fact, i imagine that La Cosa Nostra is watching them closely and trying to codfy some of the lessons and processes. And this isn't the first time i've suggested that many members of the media could be wrapped up into a RICO indictment - the possible difference now is that we now have prima facie evidence that the administration has directly 'reached out' to Zogby and apparently asked them not to ask certain questions. Given that this has apparently happened at least once, it's not absurd to imagine that it has happened on other occassions, and with other polling companies and also with media companies.

Of course, no-one doubts that this sort of thing occurs regularly with this administration (and probably many previous adminiistrations) - but it would be totally sweet if someone like Patrick Fitzgerald actually asked some questions about the practice.

i dont pretend to know anything about the relevant laws, and i assume that its not appropriate for Special Prosecutors to go on fishing expeditions, however the maxim is that a grand jury would "indict a ham sandwich". If fitzgerald wanted to get nosey, in the process of questioning someone like Matt Cooper or Bob Novak, fitzgerald could maybe ask them whether plame-gate was the only occassion that karl rove had called them and warned them 'not to go out on a limb' on a particular story. If i was a betting man, i'd probably be predisposed to leaning toward the proposition that karl rove did this sort of thing all the time - sometimes for reasons which are defendable, and other times for the purposes of covering up criminality. We already have at least one precedent of Rove getting on the phone and either directly commiting a crime, or at at a minimum being peripherally involved in a conspiracy to commit a treasonous crime - and we know that he was holiday-bound at the time - its easy to imagine that it was all in a days work for him...

Pat Fitzgerald has a reputation for navigating his way through prosecutions by nabbing a particular player and then squeezing them in order to move the indictments higher up the criminal food chain. To the extent that he is permitted, I recommend that he ask zogby (and others) whether he was asked not to continue polling on impeachment, and i'd recommend that fitzgerald ask zogby whether he was 'warned off' the 911 story, and i'd ask whether there have been any other stories that he has been warned off. and if i was fitzgerald, i'd ask whether there were any other stories that he had been warned off. and if i was fitzgerald, i'd ask the same questions of every other journalist and pollster that i came in contact with. and if i was fitzgerald, i'd pay close attention to sibel edmonds' comments that there is only one ball of crimes - and it doesnt matter where you start, if you properly investigate one crime, you'll inevitably stumble across all the others.

Let me repeat, if Fitzgerald asks a handful of journos about which stories karl rove had 'suggested' they 'dont go out on a limb', i'm sure that he could unravel the entire criminal enterprise. if that sounds like too much of a fishing expedition, there are a couple of stories which seem somewhat analagous to the zogby/impeachment situation.

If we accept that something smells fishy with the fact that Zogby has done an about-face on the impeachment question, then we can look at other examples where zogby has polled a particular question which received a 'surprising' response, and decided not to poll that issue again. Zogby's 911 pollobviously fits the bill - I wonder if there are any others. Another issue that comes to mind is the 2004 election - John Conyers' report was the closest thing to an independent investigation into the shenanigans, and yet it was virtually invisible. Here's the money quote from conyers which would have been splashed across the front page of every newspaper in a functioning democracy:

"With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio."

Suspicions were so high that maverick reporter Keith Olbermann even had to state that there was no 'media lockdown' - to anyone watching closely, it appeared as though Olbermann was the only one who didnt get the memo.

What are the other issues that got ignored by the media? The Downing Street Memos come to mind. Was that the result of a karl rove sooper-dooper-ring-around special? probably.

Ok - so so far we've seen rovian media-lockdowns on:
1) impeachment
2) lying about going to war
3) stolen elections
4) 911 poll
5) pre-war protests
6 ) RNC04 protests

thats a pretty good collection in 5 fucking long years. are there any more (so far)? put them in the comments.