My favorite part is the last paragraph. -
"quoted a Texas DPS sergeant as telling an FBI agent that he could not
work on a joint anti-terrorism assignment because most of his unit had
been reassigned to search for the missing Democrats."
jwk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51520-2003Aug12.html
Texas Republicans tried to enlist the help of several federal law
enforcement agencies in May during their unsuccessful attempt to force
missing Democratic state legislators to return to Austin to vote on
congressional redistricting legislation, the Justice Department said
yesterday.
In a report on the findings of an internal investigation, the
department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said that it
documented nine instances in which GOP or state officials had sought
federal law enforcement assistance. In all but one of those cases,
federal officials quickly concluded that they had no role in the state
political dispute and declined to help, the report said.
The exception involved an FBI agent in Corpus Christi who, at the
request of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), called a
Democratic legislator and verified that he and another missing
lawmaker were in Ardmore, Okla. The agent relayed the information to
the state law enforcement agency.
The report said the agent should not have provided the assistance but
did not violate FBI policies.
More than 50 Democratic members of the Texas House fled the capital
for Oklahoma in May, near the end of the state legislature's regular
biennial session. Their absence deprived the House of a quorum and
blocked passage of a Republican plan to redraw the boundaries of the
state's 32 congressional districts.
The Texas redistricting standoff is still going on. Currently, 11 of
the 12 Democratic members of the Texas Senate are at an Albuquerque
hotel, where they fled to prevent action on redistricting during the
second of two 30-day special legislative sessions that Gov. Rick Perry
(R) has called on the issue.
The OIG report paints a portrait of a frantic, sometimes slapdash
attempt by Texas Republicans on May 12 and 13 to locate the missing
Democratic lawmakers and to force them to return to Austin. House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is widely seen as the driving force
behind the redistricting plan, which is designed to produce five or
more new GOP seats in the U.S. House, and his office was at the
forefront of the effort.
According to the report, on May 13, a counsel to DeLay called
Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella in the Justice
Department's office of legislative affairs and asked whether the
Justice Department had any legal authority to intervene in the Texas
dispute. This resulted in a flurry of telephone calls and e-mails
among other senior Justice Department officials, who unanimously
concluded that the department did not have the authority.
One of them, Acting Assistant Attorney General M. Edward Whelan III,
said he thought the idea of involving the Justice Department in the
Texas dispute was "wacko."
The DeLay counsel was Carl Thorsen, a former Justice Department
official. On the same day, he also called a U.S. attorney in Texas and
was told there were no grounds for Justice Department intervention in
the case, the report said.
But Thorsen was not alone in the GOP search for the missing Democrats.
According to the report:
• Texas Deputy Attorney General Jay Kimbrough, acting at the direction
of Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick (R), called an FBI agent in
Ardmore and asked for help in the case.
• The Texas attorney general's office also asked a U.S. attorney in
the state whether he or the FBI could become involved in the case.
• Two FBI agents in Brownsville, Tex., were called by a Texas Ranger,
who inquired about establishing a "trap and trace" on a telephone.
They told the Ranger such an investigative technique requires a court
order.
• Texas state Rep. Jack Stick (R) called a deputy U.S. attorney he
knew and asked whether there was anything "the feds" could do to help.
The report suggested that the search for the Democrats briefly
interfered with anti-terrorism activities in Texas. It quoted a Texas
DPS sergeant as telling an FBI agent that he could not work on a joint
anti-terrorism assignment because most of his unit had been reassigned
to search for the missing Democrats.
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