Brad Jacobson has filed the first in a series of exclusives at RAW STORY concerning GOP operative and Bush-appointed FEC commissioner Caroline Hunter. [Disclosure: Jacobson has blogged at The BRAD BLOG in the past.] Here’s the lede for his first excellent investigative report yesterday:
Legal experts say Hunter’s submission of such statements under oath is a serious ethical and professional breach which could warrant a bar review and potential disbarment. At the time, Hunter was serving as deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee.
The report goes on to detail how Hunter — who, as The BRAD BLOG has highlighted over the years, had previously been allowed to serve as a commissioner on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — deceptively misrepresented the facts, on behalf of the RNC, in a 2004 voter caging hearing in federal court.
Jacobson quotes election law experts, including two long-time former DoJ Voting Section attorneys, who argue that while the way she couched her sworn testimony may “shield her from perjury charges,” the statements she gave may “still pose ethical problems that potentially could result in her disbarment.”…
Garry Hebert, who spent more than twenty years prosecuting voting rights cases at the DoJ told Jacobson after reviewing the Hunter matter: “If a lawyer makes a misleading statement in sworn testimony to the court, and then the court not only finds that the statement was misleading but it turns out to be ‘belied’ by the actual facts in the case, I think a state bar would be interested in that.”
Both Deborah Rhode, a Stanford University legal ethics professor, and Joe Rich, a long-serving former DoJ Voting Section chief, offered similar assessments.
While it wasn’t mentioned in Jacobson’s first article in the series, Hunter was appointed to her position at the FEC after serving as a commissioner on the EAC, the dreadfully-failed body responsible for overseeing federal certification for the nation’s electronic voting systems.
As The BRAD BLOG detailed in 2007, after being nominated for the EAC post by George W. Bush that year, Hunter, despite her known record of involvement in voter caging chicanery in Ohio in 2004 and her lack of election administration experience (as required by law for commissioners) was approved for the commission without either a public hearing in the Senate Rules Committee, as chaired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), or even a recorded vote in the U.S. Senate. She was allowed to take her position on the EAC by simple unanimous consent on the floor.
Be sure to check out Jacobson’s superb reporting for the details on exactly what Hunter is accused of having done, and the slippery way in which she did it.
Related coverage of Hunter at The BRAD BLOG:
2/16/07: “Unqualified, Inexperienced GOP Operative, White House Liaison/Employee, Approved By Senate for EAC Post Without Public Hearing, Recorded Vote”
3/16/07: “NY Times on the Phony ‘Voter Fraud’ Claims Behind U.S. Attorney Purge”
5/21/07: “McClatchy: Bush Operative Von Spakovsky, Now Head of the FEC, Strong-Armed the EAC and the DoJ Voting Rights Unit on ‘Voter Fraud’ Issues While Serving as DoJ Appointee”
A related connecting-the-dots post-script: The BRAD BLOG has filed dozens of reports on RNC vote caging over the years, including details on one of the lead GOP operative/cagers from 2004, former Karl Rove protégé Tim Griffin.
Griffin was the one who had authored a number of the voter caging-related e-mails that Hunter misleadingly testified in regard to, as Jacobson details in his story. (Our articles concerning Griffin are indexed here).
In the wake of Bush’s U.S. Attorney Purge scandal in 2007, Griffin, who had replaced one of the purged U.S. Attorneys in Arkansas’ Eastern District, was forced to tearily resign his new post as his role in the caging schemes during the 2004 Presidential Election came to came to light during Congressional hearings.
Nonetheless, as most shamed GOPers do, Griffin is now attempting his return from ignominy and is now running for the U.S. Congress in Arkansas’ 2nd District.
Old vote suppressors never die. They just count on the media forgetting about — or never having covered in the first place — their nefarious, anti-democracy schemes.
UPDATE 3/31/10 1:23pm PT: Part II of Jacobson’s series has now been posted at RAW. This chapter picks up on Hunter’s EAC ascendancy, as we briefly noted above, and offers a detailed, connect-the-dots report on the various nefarious RNC players who gamed the EAC — as assisted by Hunter — to bury reports on the GOP’s “voter fraud” fraud and more. Long time readers of The BRAD BLOG may be familiar with much of what Jacobson reports in Part II, but he’s done a tremendous job in tying together many of the various odds and ends that we’ve covered in separate articles over the year.
His second report (assisted by Muriel Kane this time out) is very well worth the read even if you think you’re familiar with all of these data points, as even I picked up a few items that I hadn’t been previously familiar with!
I’d like to get that old ‘k-street’ series dvd to see if Caroline Critchfield Hitcher and Hunter are the same people.
I’m trying to see where the news is here. By all means, people should be aware of this issue, and perhaps RAW Story connected a couple of more dots? And by all means, every effort should be made to root out the Bush moles. The most damning thing here is that a Democrat-controlled Senate shoes her in, especially after 2000 and 2004 (but again, this is not new news). Or was this in the turnover from the 2006 elections when Republicans were trying to sneak in the moles? Please help me understand, Brad.
Nothing negative will happen to Caroline Hunter as a result of her lies and deceptions. No accountability, nothing. Mark my words.
@Steve Heller #3: Steve, I think you are mistaken. I suspect she will be re-appointed by Obama to the FEC/EAC as a show of “bi-partisanship.” After all, the Federal Prosecutor in Alabama is still on duty, and so many other Bush/Cheney “moles” have not been fired.
I don’t think Obama/Rahm/Axelrod have ever met a criminal or liar from the Bush/Cheney era that they don’t like or admire.
Cosimo asked:
A couple of noteworthy/newsworthy points. Jacobson highlights what had flown under the radar way back when, when Hunter original offered her misleading testimony concerning the RNC’s 2004 vote suppression effort. Back then, she was just an RNC operative (who would later become a WH employee).
Later, when she became EAC chair, these points were ignored entirely, and with her EAC “experience”, she was then easily able to vault to FEC. Especially as she was part of the deal when the FEC nominations were being held up to block the insidious GOP “voter fraud” fraudster Hans von Spakovsky from being permanently installed as chair, after his recess appointment had expired.
Most were so pleased that standoff had ended, they probably didn’t bother looking at Hunter’s dark background. Now that we know about it, someone can hopefully bring it to the attention of the state where she has her law license, so they can review what appears to be clearly and blatantly misleading a federal court on a very serious issue.
Next, the second part of Jacobson’s series has just been posted, and delves deep into Hunter’s EAC appointment and tenure. A lot of the points we’ve covered here at BRAD BLOG over the years, but it’s great to see many of the data points pulled together and dots connected — particularly as this is an election year, and as sure as the sun rises in the East, all of these GOP “voter fraud” fraudsters names will soon be in the news making their dubious claims all over again as November nears.
Be sure to read Jacobson’s Part II here.
And I hope that answers your question, Cosimo.
Yes, thank you very much for that, Brad. I had indeed already read part 2, but I’m glad I forgot to mention that. And I’m thankful that even if I read stuff elsewhere, I can come here to make sense of it. I rarely see other sources directly answering questions posed by commenters. I’m eternally grateful for that.
GO FLORIDIOT, GO! Damn steeler got me down.
http://tarpley.net/
http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/
Although, I have to say…what’s up with the negative crap towards the Dali Lama? I swear, after I heard him speak, I wished all Americans would listen.