Just a few notes…
First, as we all should know, getting a subpoena, even in connection with your official work duties, does not indicate that you (or your boss, in the case of staffers) did anything wrong; all it means for sure is that someone thinks you have relevant information in a legal proceeding and wants to compel your testimony. Watcher makes this point here about Rep. Mark Udall and two of his staffers who turned up in the list I put together here, and suggests that maybe those subpoenas had something to do with an activist who camped out in the congressman’s office; she tells her side of the story here.
Radley Balko writes something about the Cunningham 13 refusing to cooperate that makes me think that any future subpoena watch should be able to note whether the the member or staffer intended to honor the subpoena, rejected it on the grounds of congressional privilege, or were still consulting with the House’s general counsel. (Examples of all three types of notifications can be seen here, here and here.
2 responses so far ↓
1 A Watcher // Sep 21, 2007 at 10:09 pm
My post which you kindly quoted above was probably misleading.
I wouldn’t want you or your readers to put the three Udall related subpoenas out of your minds based on that one post. In fact, I think what happened needs very close examination.
It appears to me that Udall and his staff set the woman up to make Udall look moderate. Think Sister Souljah.
I’m a retired Army officer and would normally take Udall’s side when anti-war activists occupied his office for three weeks, and did. Then I discovered that while Udall’s staff testified at her trial that she had interfered with their operation for three weeks, she and the staff had agreed beforehand what form the demonstration would take.
She had followed that agreement until the last day when she announced that she would commit an act of civil disobedience. She was allowed to stay for 10 minutes under the agreement, and as soon as she went over, Udall’s staff called the cops.
Udall got subpoenaed, but asked the judge to quash it, which he did. That might seem reasonable except that the judge then sentenced the woman to a year in jail, 330 days suspended and a $1,000 fine, half suspended. My view is that a judge who is considering that kind of sentence has an obligation to let the defendant present her witnesses, even if they are Congressmen. It would be very surprising if he didn’t know of and approve of his staff’s actions during a 3 week demonstration.
If a Republican congressman had pulled half of this, the Denver Post would be all over it. Udall got special treatment. The Post reported her sentence as a “month” in jail and a $500 fine. It was careful not to write about the agreement and what the actual violation was.
It took about a month for me to piece this story together because of the outright deceptive reporting. I have written about what I found in two different blogs. Recently a self described “lefty” left a comment gleefully observing that no one was paying attention. He’s right.
In any event, my intent with my short post which you linked to was to identify the probable source of the subpoenas, not absolve Mark Udall of wrongdoing. I think the ethics committee should be looking into this. It smells.
Later this evening, I will add another comment with links to a few posts I have written on it, assuming your site allows links.
2 A Watcher // Sep 21, 2007 at 10:13 pm
This is identical to an earlier comment that appears not to have taken.
My post which you kindly quoted above was probably misleading.
I wouldn’t want you or your readers to put the three Udall related subpoenas out of your minds based on that one post. In fact, I think what happened needs very close examination.
It appears to me that Udall and his staff set the woman up to make Udall look moderate. Think Sister Souljah.
I’m a retired Army officer and would normally take Udalls when anti-war activists occupied his office for three weeks, and did. Then I discovered that while Udall’s staff testified at her trial that she had interfered with their operation for three weeks, she and the staff had agreed beforehand what form the demonstration would take.
She had followed that agreement until the last day when she announced that she would commit an act of civil disobedience. She was allowed to stay for 10 minutes under the agreement, and as soon as she went over, Udall’s staff called the cops.
Udall got subpoenaed, but asked the judge to quash it, which he did. That might seem reasonable except that the judge then sentenced the woman to a year in jail, 330 days suspended and a $1,000 fine, half suspended. My view is that a judge who is considering that kind of sentence has an obligation to let the defendant present her witnesses, even if they are Congressmen. It would be very surprising if he didn’t know of and approve of his staff’s actions during a 3 week demonstration.
If a Republican congressman had pulled half of this, the Denver Post would be all over it. Udall got special treatment. The Post reported her sentence as a “month” in jail and a $500 fine. It was careful not to write about the agreement and what the actual violation was.
It took about a month for me to piece this story together because of the outright deceptive reporting. I have written about what I found in two different blogs. Recently a self described “lefty” left a comment gleefully observing that no one was paying attention. He’s right.
In any event, my intent with my short post which you linked to was to identify the probable source of the subpoenas, not absolve Mark Udall of wrongdoing. I think the ethics committee should be looking into this. It smells.
Later this evening, I will add another comment with links to a few posts I have written on it, assuming your site allows links.
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