Bush & Ashcroft Refuse to Reveal Details of FBI Boston Mob Cases

OKCSubmariner, Associated Press | September 6, 2001 | Patrick B. Briley

[OKCSubmariner]

President Bush is planning to claim executive privilege in a showdown with a GOP-led House panel in an effort to block lawmaker's access to documents about DOJ prosecutors and FBI decision making pertaining to a 13 year old FBI case with Boston mobsters and Clinton era corruption.

President Bush is expected to make an executive privilege claim to keep Dan Burton's House Government Reform Committee from seeing memos involving three Clinton-era criminal cases and the Boston mob case.

The committee served Attorney General John Ashcroft Thursday with a subpoena that demanded access to the documents and enlarged its demands to include more cases.

Committee Chairman,Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, is charging that Bush's position is a direct challenge to Congress' oversight authority in the Constitution.

"If this unprecedented policy is permitted to stand, Congress will not be able to exercise meaningful oversight of the executive branch," Burton reportedly said.

Attorney General Ashcroft has said it is the Bush administration's intent to set a new precedent and to reverse the time honored practice of sharing DOJ prosecutors' deliberative documents with congressional committees.

Burton's committee has tried since after Bush's election to obtain DOJ memos about decisions in cases involving Democratic fund raising, a former Clinton White House official and a former federal drug enforcement agent.

The House Reform Committee's subpoena served Thursday on AG Ashcroft requested those documents and was extended to also request 13 new types of documents pertaining the FBI's handling of mob informants in the Boston area over three decades.

[OKCSubmariner]

The AP reporter who broke this story is John Soloman. Bush ordered FBI director Mueller (Ashcroft recused himself) to have Soloman's phone records subpoened during the time Soloman was reporting Fed wiretaps that showed Torticelli was soliciting mob money from mob figures.

Bush wanted the Fed leaks on the wiretaps stopped. But it is almost unprecedented for the DOJ or USG for that mattter to go after a reporter's phone records, especially when the DOJ could go after the source of the wiretap leaks in the USG directly.

How many other things did the DOJ and FBI vacuum up from Soloman's phone records besides just the Torticelli case?

I know the answer to that question because Soloman was talking directly to and receiving documents from Mike McNulty about Waco and a well known former KFORTV reporter about the OKC bombing case.

I suspect that Bush was really trying to protect the mob and the FBI in shutting down Soloman over Tortecelli's connections to the mob and shutting down Burton over the 13 year old Boston mob case. I suspect Bush has mob ties.

I also suspect Bush is trying to shutdown all investigations by reporters of USG corruption in Waco, OKC Bombing, etc via leaks to reporters via law enforcement and USG officials.

What Bush and Mueller did to Soloman is criminal, outrageous, and suggests we have a very dangerous threat to our freedoms and lives in the White House and at DOJ and at FBI. I am a Republican and I do not like what I am reading and hearing about Bush, Mueller and Ashcroft these days.

[OKCSubmariner]

See reply #41

[OKCSubmariner]

Judge Parker or LSJohn, please help us out with secreagent's request in reply #40. Thanks.

[OKCSubmariner]

Please see reply #41

[Travelgirl]

Seems people can't recognize Leadership when it just might be before their very eyes. I sure hope you are right.

[OKCSubmariner]

Please replies #8,35,& 41.

[OKCSubmariner]

Please see replies #35 and #41

[smolensk]

We AREN'T living under a free Republican form of government people! We are living under a CORPORATE MONARCHY!!! WHEN are we going to WAKE UP! My eastern bloc friends (living here and shocked) tell me that American people are going to get just what they deserve - a government like they had!

[smolensk]

Sounds like 'good ole' Skull and Bones stuff to me! I was finished with Bush (even though I voted for him) when I heard about him being a member of 'the society'. Now I don't know who I'll vote for????

[FormerLurker]

We are in deep trouble in the country. The people are at grave risk.

That's sort of an understatement I think.

[america-rules]

Yea, the white right wing wacko pubbie who will only get 1 percent of the vote is who you should vote for.

[secretagent]

Thanks for the links request to Judge Parker and LS John.But it is almost unprecedented for the DOJ or USG for that mattter to go after a reporter's phone records, especially when the DOJ could go after the source of the wiretap leaks in the USG directly. Provocative point, especially with the apparent focus on this reporter but I wonder if Bush's DOJ might have a more prosaic goal: stopping leaks in general with a new resolve, and Soloman just happened to get their attention first. They might have just chosen the most direct route to tracing the leaks.BTW, I tend to oppose special confidentiality privileges for "the press", for one reason since that requires the government to decide who belongs and who doesn't, setting up a de-facto official press. Give all citizens immunity or none.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Well now I know what all the conversations in the Y2K bunkers were like.

[Lion's Cub]

It's my impression that Bush is somehow protecting Clinton or the Clinton period. Does anybody know what Bush is doing?

Yes. He is doing his best to usher in the one-world government. Whether the UN and the one-world government will be able to consolidate enough control under Bush to be able to appoint one of the Clintons to the UN under Bush's term remains to be seen. But Bush has to keep that option open for whoever might make the appointment. It is clear that Bush and Clinton work for the same cause.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Sorry you totally lost me there... too many dotted lines and scatter points. There are a thousand possible legitimate explanations for why any investigative reporter would be covering this story AND Waco. I mean hell what reporter hasn't covered Waco. Despite my screen name I'm a show-me anti-conspiracy guy. You might as well said it was George Sr. with the candlestick in the conservatory.

However! I do think there is something very wrong with an FBI case that's been open for 13 yrs. Whether it's total incompetence or something sinister I don't know. My only point is that such ridiculousness is deserving of Congressional oversight even if it means having to put up with Sideshow Congressman Waxynostrilsman's circus.

[Lazamataz]

"If this unprecedented policy is permitted to stand, Congress will not be able to exercise meaningful oversight of the executive branch," Burton reportedly said.

Well, not like they have much meaningful oversight NOW, but, in order to preserve the last shred of oversight available.... this precedent must not be allowed to stand.

[rambo316]

I am outraged about this and I hope my fellow Conservatives are as outraged about this. Rush brought this up on his show at the very end and he had to end the show and then Hannity was absent and then when I wrote Hannity's producer, he wrote me back asking me what Executive priviledge was being invoked. Wonderful isn't it. It is sad but I am starting to see the hypocracy with Rush and Sean. I want to see the same outrage expressed at Bush and Ashcroft as there was at the Treasonous/Rapist, Slick Willy. Or is it going to be like when our plane and crew were captured by the Chicoms and Bush wrote that letter of capitulation to the Commies saying that we were sorry for entering their airspace and Rush and Hannity and a few others were saying that it was not a letter of capitulation or sorrow. It was, damn it.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, where are you? America needs you.

[rambo316]

My fellow Freepers, please keep this story alive. Bump.

[Landru]

I hope I'm right too, TG.

But I'm willing to give this man our POTUS the benefit of a doubt anytime; especially if & when it ever comes between chosing him & a quisling worm smear-artist from The Associated Press.
And Solomon is among the worst of them all; damned-near subhuman & certainly an American-hating Leftist of the First Order as far as I'm concerned.

My believeing Dubya on this without his having to say anything?
Isn't all that "clever," fringe when you take a moment & frame *the matter* the way it really, "is?"
Yup. ;^)