ON THE PROWL
ON THE PROWL Mental Cruelty Just how bad is the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans? When the House Government Reform Committee was planning on releasing its...
...Berger serves on the board of CREW, which has targeted Republican officeholders and candidates challenging Berger-supported Democrats, including retired Adm...
...Tknd I'm not sure John wants to be that guy...
...It's not a stretch, though, to see Boehner filling that role if he wanted to...
...Berger's Philadelphia law firm, Berger & Montague, is awellknown class action specialist, and Democrat insiders say that Berger has fashioned himself as an "East Coast Bill Lerach," referring to the notorious class-action lawyer based in California...
...Another key figure is CREW's executive director, Melanie Sloan, who worked as a legal counsel to then- Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Riden and minority counsel to ranking House Judiciary Democrat Rep...
...After all, Boehner was part of the famous group of Republicans, who in the early'90s engineered the investigation of the House bank and helped shape the "Contract for America" that swept the party into majority status in 1994...
...says a Democratic staffer on the committee...
...And that was before the report came out...
...CREW is funded by billionaire George Soros, as well as Daniel Berger, one of the Democrat Party's most prolific donors...
...If we fall back to the minority party, we need some leadership more appropriate to backbenchers," says a former Republican congressman still in Washington...
...Curt Weldon, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Menendez, Pennsylvania Gov...
...John McCain...
...Committee chairman Tom Davis is not a popular figure among conservatives, nor does he have many fans at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...
...NOVEMBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 13...
...Nashville Sounds With Majority Leader Bill Frist retiring from the Senate and presumably returning to Nashville, Tennessee, where he makes his home, Washington is wondering what his plans are...
...If Boehner doesn't survive what is expected to be at least a partial leadership purge, look for Republicans to turn to Reps...
...Now, after weathering a brutal two-year cycle that saw Frist challenged by ethics questions and a less than successful (in the eyes of Republican base voters) congressional session, Frist has dropped down to the second tier of potential presidential candidates, after McCain and Gov...
...CREW gained national attention when it was revealed that the group had worked with former Texas Democrat House member Rep...
...She also worked briefly for Sen...
...Berger is also a six-figure contributor to Americans Coming Together, an organized labor-backed Democrat 527, which coordinated get out the vote activities with the Democratic National Committee in 2004...
...Focus on the leak has been at the State Department, but the White House has also asked congressional leaders to investigate whether the leak could have come from Intelligence Committee staff on Capitol Hill...
...John Conyers...
...Look for a more formalized plan to become apparent after the New Year...
...We don't have anything that comes close on our side of the street, and we've got to get something up and running soon...
...In fact, CREW filed ethics complaints in the Senate Ethics Committee against Casey's opponent, Rick Santorum, and coordinated that filing with the Democrat leadership of the Senate, including Schumer's staff...
...You know those chicken restaurants with all those birds on long spits roasting...
...There was a school of thought that Frist would not run in 2008, but instead would take a year or two off, perhaps consider a run for governor of Tennessee in 2010, before running for president in 2012 should a Democrat win in '08...
...Demolition CREW With sources inside the Department of Justice saying that they in fact did not receive full, unredacted versions of e-malls and instant messages between former Rep...
...I would have expected this kind of behavior from a committee run by Democrats...
...CREW also has attacked Weldon, listing him and Santorum on its "most corrupt" list...
...Hey, some of these guys in the administration went over the line, and they don't deserve the courtesy of advance word," says a committee staffer...
...Berger has maxed out his contributions to all these candidates, as well as fundraised for them...
...Mitt Ronmey, should he choose to run...
...Mike Pence and John Shadegg first as options for leader...
...Just about everyone involved in that report is no longer in the White House or even in the administration," says a current White House staffer...
...But now there is growing speculation 12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 ON THE PROWL that Frist will make a serious try for the GOP nomination this time around, with a smaller operation run out of Nashville, not Washington...
...CREW was also involved in the Jack Abramoff scandal, suing the Secret Service for White House visitor logs, for example...
...The Waxman Cometh Speaking of the House Government Reform Committee, ranking Democrat Rep...
...Joseph Sestak, who is challenging Rep...
...With the Foley scandal, CREW established itself as the Democrat scandal tool that Republicans will have to deal with and do battle with in the coming months and years...
...The report was embarrassing for several senior Bush administration officials who were named in the report for receiving and seeking special favors from Abramoff's colleagues and firm...
...I haven't seen Congressman Waxman this excited in years...
...These favors included high-end tickets to concerts and sporting events, and meals at Abramoff's downtown restaurant...
...Chuck Schumer, who, not so coincidentally, oversaw the Senate Democrats' campaign committee for the 2006 cycle...
...Waxman, who has built a career in Washington with show-trial type investigations on the committee, has been unable to hide his glee at what could be coming down the pike in 2007...
...Ed Rendell, and Pennsylvania Senate Democrat candidate Bob Casey, Jr...
...Mark Foley and former congressional pages from the left-wing Democrat operation known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), it was becoming increasingly clear by the end of the first week of the scandal that while Foley's repugnant behavior-and GOP House leadership's decision not to act on rumors of Foley's behavior-got Republicans into the mess, it was CREW's action a month before Election Day that created the storm that doomed Republican hopes for decisive wins in November...
...Chris Bell in filing a House ethics complaint against then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay...
...These guys are doing things that we have to start getting up to speed with," says a former RNC staffer, who did work for the party in political research...
...Play Dead Very quietly, the White House continues to look into rumors that the original source of a leaked, unconfirmed French intelligence report that Osama bin Laden is worm food was from inside the Bush administration...
...It wouldn't have hurt anyone, let alone the committee or the release of the report, to let us know it was coming...
...And according to Democrat insiders, it has spent a disproportionate amount of time working as an opposition research organization for the Democrat Party...
...Eighteen months ago, Frist had an extensive network of advisory groups and a "kitchen cabinet" planning organization meeting regularly to map out what was expected to be the biggest 2008 presidential campaign operation this side of Sen...
...That's what Republicans and Bush administration people are going to look like when we get done with them...
...They played in the dirt with Abramoff and they are paying the price...
...Backbencher Boehner In mid- October House Majority Leader John Boehner was saying he believed his position was secure as leader of his party in the House regardless of the outcome of November's election, but that's not what some inside his caucus are thinking...
...When the House Government Reform Committee was planning on releasing its final report on the Jack Abramoffscandal, the committee chose to release it without giving the Bush administration a heads up...
...Why let them set up straw men to undercut months of hard work by our staff...
...Henry Waxman has had several of his staffers meeting with outside Democrat groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, Ralph Nader's organizations, as well as the left-wing, labor-backed Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), to map out investigations for the committee, should Waxman be elevated to chairman in January...
Vol. 39 • November 2006 • No. 9
