Reassuring? Not.
The White House is falling all over itself trying to escape blame for rushing Bernard Kerik's nomination, before finding out as much as they needed to. After all, it wouldn't do for anyone connected to the administration to admit a mistake.
More importantly, if we believe Scott McClellan that they did a "very thorough" look at his "public, financial and personal background", that would suggest that they knew all about the details that Newsweek, The New York Daily News, and New York Newsday have been breaking in the last week, and that they didn't have a problem with them. In fact, the NY Times article I quoted from cites a source as saying they "spent more time than most" with the Kerik vetting.
So, the fact that he had tried to help a New Jersey company connected to organized crime was OK.
It didn't bother them that he had received numerous large ($1000+) cash gifts, which he did not report (in violation of department regulations), from an executive at that company, at a time when it was doing business with the City. These gifts included paying for his wedding reception, a jewel-encrusted badge from Tiffany's, and designer furniture for his newborn daughter's bedroom. (City ethics regulations bar gifts over $50 from someone doing business with the city.)
I guess they figured that it was OK that Kerik had his friends helping out with his expenses, since he had so much trouble with handling money. He'd declared bankruptcy when he was a rookie cop, and when he became Corrections Commissioner, his only apparent asset was a condo in foreclosure. A New Jersey judge issued a warrant for Kerik resulting from litigation over the condo, and Kerik's unpaid fees. Since the papers found this out, I'm sure the "very thorough" White House knew about it. And I guess there were no qualms that one of these "friends" was indicted on a federal stock swindle, along with various Italian gentlemen with nicknames like "The Snake" and "The Bull," just days after the furniture purchase.
The White House also probably knew that later, Kerik had been renting an apartment in Battery Park City, so that he wouldn't have to bring either of the two women with whom he was having an affair back to the house in New Jersey where his wife and children lived. They probably thought that showed consideration for his wife's feelings.
Apparently the White House, or specifically the office of Alberto Gonzales, nominee for Attorney General, also knew about the conversion of the Corrections Department into a Tammany Hall-style machine using department employees on Republican campaigns. They probably thought this made good sense, and wanted him to do the same for them.
The "very thorough" vetting must also have turned up Kerik's testimony in a civil suit, brought by a deputy warden claiming he had been denied promotion after he reprimanded one of the women Kerik was sleeping with. (Had I mentioned that one of his affairs was with a subordinate?) This didn't seem like a good reason to deny him the nomination, I guess.
I'm sure the White House was also up-to-speed on Kerik's overseas activities. Since the newspapers had no trouble finding nine people at the hospital in Saudi Arabia where he had worked providing security, the White House must have known that they described Kerik as working as a "thug", and investigating the private lives of women who the hospital director had his eye on. And, since they actually are inside the government, the White House guys probably knew more than the news organizations about why Kerik left Iraq early, with no public explanation, with the job undone. They probably had also asked Kerik about the suspicion that Kerik was mainly in Iraq while his house in New Jersey was being remodeled, and left when security in the Green Zone took a turn for the worse. I guess they figured none of this was going to bother anyone. Heck, look at Donald Rumsfeld's record!
They probably also knew that many of Kerik's money problems had vanished when he cashed in $6.2 million of those stock options from the makers of Taser stun-guns, when he took a position on their board. And of course, since New York had been a big customer of Taser, who better to have on their board than the former Police Commissioner. And the fact that Kerik had been almost as busy doing appearances promoting Tasers as he had promoting Bush wouldn't disqualify him from heading the part of the federal government most likely to cut huge contracts to Taser.
And, as did we all, they knew that Kerik had absolutely no experience running a federal bureaucracy, fighting for budgets in Congress, or actually leaving an organization working better after his tenure than before, not that that might matter when defending the country on the biggest issue Bush used in his campaign.
So, we can all rest easier now, because it isn't like the people at the White House are "asleep at the switch" and sending up completely unqualified scoundrels to head vital departments of the government. Not at all. They are "working hard" to provide our country with the finest, most talented and experienced officials and setting a high moral standard for leadership. Wasn't that what Bush was promising, leadership?
Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, has been following the sordid tale.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - Senior administration officials on Sunday defended the White House review of Bernard B. Kerik's background before his nomination as secretary of homeland security. One official said that even "controversial" material uncovered in a weeklong review had not appeared to endanger Mr. Kerik's confirmation.So, it was only this issue with the nanny that disqualified him, and they would have known about that if he hadn't hidden it from them. Myself, I'm still thinking that the "Have you actually seen her green card yourself?" question would have revealed it, but that's me.
In interviews, the officials denied that the White House review of Mr. Kerik's background had been rushed. Scott McClellan, President Bush's press secretary, called it "a very thorough vetting process" that "looked at all the issues relating to his public, financial and personal background." But they said that there had been no way to discover - without Mr. Kerik volunteering the information - that his family's nanny was most likely an illegal alien, or that he had failed to pay the proper taxes related to her employment. It was that issue alone, they say, that terminated his nomination.
More importantly, if we believe Scott McClellan that they did a "very thorough" look at his "public, financial and personal background", that would suggest that they knew all about the details that Newsweek, The New York Daily News, and New York Newsday have been breaking in the last week, and that they didn't have a problem with them. In fact, the NY Times article I quoted from cites a source as saying they "spent more time than most" with the Kerik vetting.
So, the fact that he had tried to help a New Jersey company connected to organized crime was OK.
It didn't bother them that he had received numerous large ($1000+) cash gifts, which he did not report (in violation of department regulations), from an executive at that company, at a time when it was doing business with the City. These gifts included paying for his wedding reception, a jewel-encrusted badge from Tiffany's, and designer furniture for his newborn daughter's bedroom. (City ethics regulations bar gifts over $50 from someone doing business with the city.)
I guess they figured that it was OK that Kerik had his friends helping out with his expenses, since he had so much trouble with handling money. He'd declared bankruptcy when he was a rookie cop, and when he became Corrections Commissioner, his only apparent asset was a condo in foreclosure. A New Jersey judge issued a warrant for Kerik resulting from litigation over the condo, and Kerik's unpaid fees. Since the papers found this out, I'm sure the "very thorough" White House knew about it. And I guess there were no qualms that one of these "friends" was indicted on a federal stock swindle, along with various Italian gentlemen with nicknames like "The Snake" and "The Bull," just days after the furniture purchase.
The White House also probably knew that later, Kerik had been renting an apartment in Battery Park City, so that he wouldn't have to bring either of the two women with whom he was having an affair back to the house in New Jersey where his wife and children lived. They probably thought that showed consideration for his wife's feelings.
Apparently the White House, or specifically the office of Alberto Gonzales, nominee for Attorney General, also knew about the conversion of the Corrections Department into a Tammany Hall-style machine using department employees on Republican campaigns. They probably thought this made good sense, and wanted him to do the same for them.
The "very thorough" vetting must also have turned up Kerik's testimony in a civil suit, brought by a deputy warden claiming he had been denied promotion after he reprimanded one of the women Kerik was sleeping with. (Had I mentioned that one of his affairs was with a subordinate?) This didn't seem like a good reason to deny him the nomination, I guess.
I'm sure the White House was also up-to-speed on Kerik's overseas activities. Since the newspapers had no trouble finding nine people at the hospital in Saudi Arabia where he had worked providing security, the White House must have known that they described Kerik as working as a "thug", and investigating the private lives of women who the hospital director had his eye on. And, since they actually are inside the government, the White House guys probably knew more than the news organizations about why Kerik left Iraq early, with no public explanation, with the job undone. They probably had also asked Kerik about the suspicion that Kerik was mainly in Iraq while his house in New Jersey was being remodeled, and left when security in the Green Zone took a turn for the worse. I guess they figured none of this was going to bother anyone. Heck, look at Donald Rumsfeld's record!
They probably also knew that many of Kerik's money problems had vanished when he cashed in $6.2 million of those stock options from the makers of Taser stun-guns, when he took a position on their board. And of course, since New York had been a big customer of Taser, who better to have on their board than the former Police Commissioner. And the fact that Kerik had been almost as busy doing appearances promoting Tasers as he had promoting Bush wouldn't disqualify him from heading the part of the federal government most likely to cut huge contracts to Taser.
And, as did we all, they knew that Kerik had absolutely no experience running a federal bureaucracy, fighting for budgets in Congress, or actually leaving an organization working better after his tenure than before, not that that might matter when defending the country on the biggest issue Bush used in his campaign.
So, we can all rest easier now, because it isn't like the people at the White House are "asleep at the switch" and sending up completely unqualified scoundrels to head vital departments of the government. Not at all. They are "working hard" to provide our country with the finest, most talented and experienced officials and setting a high moral standard for leadership. Wasn't that what Bush was promising, leadership?
Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, has been following the sordid tale.
posted by Paul at 9:57 AM |
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