Unlike the Computergate trial, which ran nearly six weeks this past fall
and was largely a battle of documents, DeWeese’s trial is shaping up as
a battle of witnesses, with an array likely to be called by both sides. (Patriot-News, 1/23/12)
Curious why documents won't figure largely in craven liar Bill DeWeese's trial on illegal electioneering, even though the Office of Attorney General is in possession of reams of documents that inciminate Bill DeWeese and his state-paid aides on illegal electioneering?
Documents such as campaign-related faxes and emails among DeWeese's state-paid aides using DeWeese's state fax-machines and state email during the state workday?
Documents such as campaign-related faxes and emails among DeWeese's state-paid aides using DeWeese's state fax-machines and state email during the state workday?
Documents such as emails among DeWeese, a top state-paid aide, and a state-paid contractor detailing illegal campaign work performed by the state contractor?
Documents such as emails showing a state-paid DeWeese staffer worked on DeWeese's 2006 re-election campaign from DeWeese's district office, then transferred to DeWeese's Harrisburg office where he continued to perform political work?
Not just documents, but grand jury testimony from DeWeesese staffers that DeWeese knew about the bonus scheme?
Documents such as an the infamous "U R welcome" email from DeWeese himself in which he explicitly acknowledged a bonus awarded for campaign work?
Why, with this plethora of evidence proving that DeWeese engaged in illegal electioneering, would the Office of Attorney General not even try to use it in a trial on charges of illegal electioneering?
The answer lies in a 2007 negotiation between DeWeese and then-Attorney General and Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Corbett.
Corbett issued subpoenas to caucus employees, which DeWeese unsuccessfully fought to quash. Shortly after the Supreme Court shot down DeWeese's motion, DeWeese agreed to turn over selected documents and drop legal challenges to grand jury subpoenas.
DeWeese failed to turn over documents in his possession that incriminated DeWeese or top DeWeese aides, yet no charges were filed. Many of these documents found their way to the OAG through other routes, but none were ever used against DeWeese or his aides.
There doesn't appear to be anything illegal about this arrangement, whether formal or informal - Corbett granted immunity to hundreds of grand jury witnesses, some of whose immunity agreements remain confidential under seal. But the delusional DeWeese still clings to the laughable claim that he escaped indictment because of a lack of evidence. Corbett, meanwhile, clings to the claim that indictments in "Bonusgate" were based upon the evidence and not political considerations.
Now, prosecutors are faced with trying a suspected criminal without using the best evidence available to them, all because of a short-sighted agreement struck to expedite a criminal investigation along a political timeline.
23 comments:
'JoePa' takes the fall
A slow Tom Corbett throws Joe Paterno
under the bus
http://www.yardbird.com/joe_paterno_takes_the_fall.htm
Costopoulos says DeWeese was a "24/7 legislator" who was "hands off" and too trusting. Canm you have that both ways?
U r welcome.
Bill said the day 12 of his friends/employees were indicted and he wasn't was the happiest day of his life. It was crazy to allow HWD to roll over on staff. He should have been indicted for the bonus trial, and the rest. He surely knew "politics" was going on. Or was he "shocked...shocked" to hear about it.
On PoliticsPA site they have a poll on whether DeWeese will be convicted. So far only 56% say he will be convicted. Are 44% of Pennsylvanians deluded?
DeWeese's argument seems to be he was a poor kid, a veteran, and he wanted to be good to people. Is that a defese for stealing? Wasn't Rod Blogoivich a poor kid?
One of the funniest moments of the day (can only guess this is accurate from twitter reports) was when his attorney suggested he had to learn about French Impressionism on the taxpayer dime because the state gives money to the Philadelphia art museum. I wonder how the jury is processing that one. To quote Sheila Broflovski, "what what what?"
Well, DeWeese Attorney clearly has had the first two witnesses Patty Grill and Johnny Price admit they fudged their own Comp Time and that is why they took Immunity.
They also admitted DeWeese had nothing to do with Comp Time, Leave Time, Personal days, and Vacations, and they did not know when employees were using Comp time while working on Campaigns which is legal under the law.
Furthermore, both witnesses agreed that deWeese was never serious about firing anyone who did not campaign since he never fired anyone in his 35 years of Public Office.
So far, the PAOAG looks like they spent more state money in investigating DeWeese and nothing to show for it.
'Tom Corbett is amoral, and not particularly smart. You don't have to be particularly sharp in a drawer full of spatulas'
'Corbett feared with apparently characteristic paranoia that his political opponents might somehow have tampered with the jury.
Candidate Corbett ordered the entire staff of BCI agents to drop everything to perform background investigations of all 350-odd potential jurors'
'The political AG's office had become media driven.
This is where the media drove it'
'The AG's office would be converted into a political machine for Tom Corbett'
Democrats Mike Veon say Corbett and his cronies do the same things but no one will investigate ....
Just how far did these political and prosecutorial abuses go? As the Romans used to say in their final days of Praetorian Guard corruption, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? "Who will guard the guardians themselves?"
The farcical yet ultimately tragic canard that the Jerry Sandusky pedophile investigation languished in the AG's office for almost two years because it was before "a slow grand jury" is a disingenuous and ridiculous lie, associates of Tom Corbett say.
The sad truth is it was before a slow attorney general who was running for governor.
The reality is that, since 2007, a large percentage of grand juror time was devoted exclusively to "Bonusgate." In Tom Corbett's election playbook and timetable, there would be little grand jury time for anything else, including sodomized children.
One way to look at it is as a simple matter of priorities.
It was explained to me like this: There are only two statewide grand juries meeting at any time. And those two grand juries do not meet over the summer months, between May to September. When they do meet, it is only part time, most often only for several hours a week.
Grand juries are furthermore disbanded after 18 months, when a new set of grand jurors must be sworn in and restart an investigation, basically from scratch. In other words, even the most earnest grand jurors have very limited resources of time. They may indict a ham sandwich, but they must do it like a short order cook: fast and greasy.
From 2007 to 2010, the grand juries were almost completely saturated by witnesses and evidence involving Corbett's "Bonusgate" legislative bonus prosecutions.
During this period Tom Corbett was also running for governor, basing his campaign on the controversial theory that he was a "Bonusgate reformer." So there had to be, if only for purely political reasons, "Bonusgate" results.
There was little time for anything else but "Bonusgate," save drug prosecutions, which also made Tom Corbett -- or any present-day prosecutor -- look good to voters.
Manzo on the stand: after testimony and outcome of this trial, I assume he gets sentenced. If Veon gets 6 years, and Manzo invented and ran the bonus program, took huge bonus and big bonuses for his wife and his mistress, lied to Corbett's face and later admittedly on the stand, what does Manzo deserve?
How does a guy like Pat Grill (or Bob Caton, or so many others) stay on the job, keep his pension and bonus, and actually get promoted, after he takes immunity and admits crimes in public testimony?
It was nice to read about manzo squirming on the stand today.
Pat Grill was a Truck Driver but Todd Eachus put him in charge of Research?
Hope DeWeese gets off and goes back to being the Leader and fires all of Eachus's Appointments.
They stink to high heaven.
Anonymous said... It was nice to read about manzo squirming on the stand today.
January 24, 2012 9:39 PM
Manzo did not just squirm an odor came from his pants.
Sidella slithered tongue looked like a forked tongue of a snake.
These two punks were horrible and ineefective as Democratic Staffers.
Both belong in Prison.
Why try to put it all on staff? DeWeese was in charge, and maybe doing wrong even if "everyone does it" isn't a saving grace. The big boss, who used staff not just for politics, getting him dates, running his errands and buying his condoms, but as props to make himself feel more important, deserves punishment. He should get at least as much as Veon.
DeWeese'a accounability should be at least as great as Veon's. At least a 6 year sentewnce. Same goes for Manzo.
Judges Tipstaffs run errands and it is legal. Heck, FBI Hoover used Agents to cut his grass, wash his car, and clean his house.
High Public Officials often have staffers that do errands so they can concentrate on the legislation that needs to be studied, argued, passed in committees and then by the Legislature itself.
What Bill DeWeeese did not do and every Prosecution and Defense witness to date said it, is that DeWeese was not in charge of the Comp Time to be used on campaigns, that was Manso Job.
Even Manso admitted that under oath, so did Sidella, and Staffers to DeWeese.
If employees violated the policies on their own that is on them, not DeWeese.
DeWeese has had more employees that proved they did it right, did not violate rules on camapigning, more than the ones that broke the law and needed Immunity to testify for the PAOAG.
Anonymous said... Pat Grill was a Truck Driver but Todd Eachus put him in charge of Research? Hope DeWeese gets off and goes back to being the Leader and fires all of Eachus's Appointments. They stink to high heaven. January 24, 2012 11:55 PM
Sorry, but the Democratic House Leadership is in bad need of more Reforms.
Husband and wives teams employed there must be disbanded and some sent elsewhere in Government.
Nothing ruins morale more than having family members and spouses on the same payroll, where favortism happens that hurts others without such relationships.
Todd Eachus was a Used Car Salesman and was in charge when Bonusgate happen, even more than Mike Veon.
Anyone brought in by him, needs to be re-evaluated.
The Attorney General made a big mistake on DeWeese.
DeWeese was the wrong target, at teh wrong time, for the wrong reasons.
The AG Staff was actually Tom Corbett's Election to Governor Staffing as Kevin Sidella pointed out.
DeWeese's Leadership and the Democratic Caucus brought in a 16 year Republican District Attorney, Republican Inspector General, and Chief Legal Counsel for Republican Tom Ridge TO INVESTIGATE DEMOCRATS.
This because Mike Veon, Mike Manzo and Kevin Sidella did not to cooperate with an investigation intiated under DeWeese Leadership and New Reforms.
Tom Corbett OAG made critical errors in their investigations, sloppy note taking, and not forthcoming with their own notes on DeWeese exculpatory evidence.
They will be investigated for Civil Prosecutors Misconduct and maybe more on the criminal side too.
Sure..Manzo Should have sit down with Bill Chadwick hired by the Democratic Caucus and tell him what he knew.
Manzo was in charge and lied his way to the top, stole at the top, and then lied to DeWeese, Chadwick and the OAG, Hello?
Corbett should have understood once DeWeese ordered an invetsigation into the Democratic House, it was an honest move that an honest man makes, no cover ups like Sidella, Manzo, and Veon.
Too many of the most culpable did get immunity - i.e., Sidella, Eric Webb, and others - but "U R Welcome" DeWeese should have been charged in Bonusgate. Why wasn't he? As for the Chadwick investigation, that seemed like mostly an effort to save DeWeese, and a taxpayer funded one at that. If DeWeese was so clean, and Sidella so guilty, why did DeWeese keep paying Sidella for years after the Chadwick investigation?
The investigation by DeWeese was an honest move an honest man would do? Really? R U Kidding? Was his taking the 5th amendment rather than testifying in the Veon trial an honest move that an honest man would do?
Seems like Manzo ignored DeWeese's direction and took whatever money he could.
This looks like the weakest of Corbett's cases but the witnesses who plead will say whatever to try to save their own butts.
It's amazing when 90 to 95% of all employees of legislators did a limited amount of campaigning on state time during this time period and Corbett tries to make DeWeese the fall guy.
If Corbett as AG had agreed to let all employees go on probation of some sort and pay back the money earned while performing campaign work on state time, the millions saved on the prosecution could have been used to have one or ten more investigators putting
Sandusky away in a more timely manner.
Politics at their worst.
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