Trevor Blackann to testify against Fraser Verrusio

Place this one in the "We Fully Expected It" file.

In a court filing today, the Justice Department says it plans on calling admitted felon Trevor Blackann to testify against Fraser Verrusio in Mr. Verrusio's upcoming criminal trial:

[T]he discovery identified another example of official assistance, namely Verrusio’s offer to insert the [United Rentals, Inc.] amendments in conference committee....

[A]s reflected in his September 5, 2008, 302, Trevor Blackann will testify that Verrusio offered to insert the amendment at the conference committee stage as a way of protecting the amendment from criticism and subsequent removal. Verrusio was provided this and other 302s under cover of letter dated April 7, 2009. When asked recently by defense counsel about who would testify on this point, we advised that it would be Trevor Blackann.

Mr. Blackann isn't the only person who has implicated Mr. Verrusio in wrongdoing. Jim Hirni and Todd Boulanger have also signed statements detailing Mr. Verrusio's role in this scandal. Although the Justice Department has not publicly said that Mr. Hirni will testify against Mr. Verrusio, it seems probable that he will. From a 2008 Justice Department report (page 24):

One of the public officials (Staffer D^[1]) worked on a House of Representatives committee with responsibility for the federal highway bill. The other public official was Trevor Blackann. Hirni admitted that he offered these public officials the trip in part to influence them to take official action favorable to his and others' efIorts to amend the federal highway bill.

Hirni admitted that during the World Series trip, he, Blackann, and others discussed the federal highway bill and Company A. After the trip, Hirni admitted he and others proposed amendments to the bill to Blackann and Staffer D; sought to identify a public official who could insert their proposed amendments into the Senate's version of the bill; and worked to prevent the removal of one of the amendments once it was added to the bill.

Lastly, we have good news for our long-time readers. The ACR Blog fully expects to find opportunities to post more pictures of Todd Boulanger during the trial of Mr. Verrusio. Since "Staffer D", the DoJ's codename for Mr. Verrusio, appears frequently in Boulanger's Factual Basis for Plea, it is likely that Mr. Boulanger will appear as a witness, too.

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¹ Staffer D is Fraser Verrusio

U.S. v. Horace Cooper: Judge Huvelle's Order

Let's take a look at Judge Huvelle's order in U.S. v. Horace Cooper in its entirety. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Defendant’s motions to dismiss Count 2 [Dkt. 22] and to sever Count 5 [Dkt. 25] are DENIED.

According to the indictment, Count 2 is a Concealment charge. The government alleges that Mr. Cooper concealed his relationship with Team Abramoff by, among other things, using a private email account rather than his official government account and failing to inform his superiors and ethics officials of the things of value he received from Team Abramoff.

Count 5 is an Obstruction of Justice charge related to allegedly false statements Mr. Cooper made before a grand jury. The grand jury was investigating the Team Abramoff corruption, and Mr. Cooper's allegedly false statements occurred long after the corruption.

Both these charges remain intact.

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Defendant’s motion to dismiss Count 4 [Dkt. 24] is GRANTED.

In the opinion of the ACR Blog, this is the most newsworthy item in Judge Huvelle's order. Count 4 relates to allegedly false statements Mr. Cooper made on his 2004 financial disclosure report. This charge has been dismissed.

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Defendant’s motion for a bill of particulars [Dkt. 26] in GRANTED IN PART with respect to paragraph “B”.

We discussed this matter in a previous post.

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Defendant’s motions to dismiss Counts 1 and 3 [Dkt. 21 & 23] and to strike surplusage [Dkt. 28] are taken under advisement.

Judge Huvelle has yet to make a decision on Mr. Cooper's Motion to Dismiss Counts 1 (Conspiracy) and 3 (False Statements). This suggests to us that Judge Huvelle is giving these Motions to Dismiss serious consideration. A dismissal of two other counts would be devastating to the DoJ's case, but not fatal.

The defense's request to strike surplusages is not as important. Basically, the defense wants to remove excess material in the indictment that isn't related to any charge. Some of the excess material relates to meals accepted by Mr. Cooper that were not required to be disclosed.

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A status conference is set for April 7, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. At that conference, the government shall be prepared to inform the Court how it wishes to proceed with respect to Count 1 in light of the uncertainty regarding the Supreme Court’s pending decisions regarding 18 U.S.C. § 1346, and whether it wishes to proceed on Count 3 as currently written.

Count 1 is the Conspiracy to violate the bribery statute charge and 18 U.S.C. § 1346 is the Honest Services Fraud (HSF) statute that currently faces a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court. The ACR Blog doesn't see an alleged violation of HSF in the indictment, and the DoJ claims that the indictment makes no such charge. We can only speculate as to why Judge Huvelle linked HSF with Count 1. We're thinking that the DoJ is a bit shy about connecting a specific thing of value to the performance of a specific official act (bribery). If we're right, then the DoJ is trying to prosecute Mr. Cooper for something closer to HSF, and that would put the DoJ in a precarious position.

We're not sure what Judge Huvelle means when she asks whether the DoJ "wishes to proceed on Count 3 as currently written". Count 3 alleges false statements made by Mr. Cooper in his 2003 disclosure report. We wonder if the DoJ has expressed uncertainty about what it intends to do about Count 3. That said, sloppy inclusion of irrelevant facts make Count 3 a prime candidate for striking "surplusages".

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Because the ACR Blog is an unabashed supporter of the Justice Department, we find it more than a little painful that the DoJ got slapped around as much as it did in Judge Huvelle's order.

BREAKING: Count Four Dismissed in U.S. v. Horace Cooper

Count Four relates to allegedly false statements Horace Cooper made in his 2004 financial disclosure.

U.S. v. Horace Cooper: Bill of Particulars

In U.S. v. Horace Cooper, the prosecution and defense have been haggling over which gifts Mr. Cooper was required to report in his disclosure forms. Also, the defense wants the DoJ to show how they determined the monetary value of gifts (primarily music and sporting event tickets). In fact, one of the motions Mr. Cooper filed last month asked Judge Huvelle to order the DoJ to provide Mr. Cooper with a Bill of Particulars. A Bill of Particulars provides more specific information about the alleged acts of wrongdoing than an indictment.

In a development that pleases the ACR Blog but may be an additional burden for the Justice Department, Judge Huvelle has granted this motion and ordered the Justice Department to give Mr. Cooper a Bill of Particulars. We like this development because such documents may very well provide detailed information on the relevant facts in the case that led to Mr. Cooper's indictment. However, besides being a burden for the DoJ, Judge Huvelle's order may also suggest that she finds the indictment to be somewhat vague.

We haven't written about this matter before because, well, it is quite complicated. According to the DoJ, Mr. Cooper failed to report certain gifts on his 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 financial disclosure forms. The prosecution and defense are arguing about:

1. Which classes of gifts Mr. Cooper was required to be disclosed.
2. The de minimus dollar value of gifts that didn't need to be disclosed.
3. The methodology used to determine the dollar value of gifts.
4. When gifts were received.

These are not trivial matters. The DoJ disclosed its method for determining gift values in documents provided to the court (example).

Recall that Mr. Cooper was indicted on more charges than just allegedly false statements related to his disclosure forms. The DoJ also charged Mr. Cooper with conspiracy to violate the bribery statute. (The defense sees a conspiracy to commit honest services fraud in Count One. Even though the DoJ used the term "honest ... services" in the indictment, we don't see a specific allegation under the HSF statute that the defense does.)

We have two points to make about the conspiracy to violate the bribery statute. First, the indictment strongly suggests that the conspiracy began in December 2001 and lasted until May 2005 (page 7). This will make it extremely difficult for the DoJ to link any gifts outside of this window to the conspiracy charge. Secondly, it is our understanding that the bribery charge will require the DoJ will to link a specific gift to a specific official act. This makes a bribery charge much more difficult to prove than a HSF charge. HSF could be proven by showing that gifts merely influenced a government official's official act.

The ACR Blog suspects that members of the defense team were high-fiving each other in the offices of Ropes & Gray after today's decision. Meanwhile, back at the Department of Justice, some poor sap got assigned the task of drafting a Bill of Particulars. We'd be happy to help - - in our spare time.

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Note: The ACR Blog does not intend for its readers to register with our document hosting site, KeepAndShare.com, in order to view court documents. However, due to the dual reasons that KeepAndShare's security controls are not intuitive and the author of the ACR isn't very smart to begin with, we sometimes don't have the settings set so that documents are public. Sometimes we don't notice because when we check the links, they work for us because we're logged in to our KeepAndShare account. Please comment if any documents are not available to anonymous users. We'll try to make them public when we can.

The End of Majorities

As we became aware of national and international events in the late 1970s / early 1980s, Democrats had maintained a 25-year + majority in the U.S. Congress. Since then, the Republican Party displaced the Democrats in 1994 and the Democrats regained control in 2006. Let's take a quick look at how the majorities have ended.

1994
Democrats attempted a take over of healthcare. Even though it failed, voters dumped the Democrats for pursuing bad public policy.

2006
Individual Republican Congressmen such as Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land), Bob Ney (R-Ohio), John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and others engaged in corrupt activity. The sins of just a handful of men tainted the entire party, and Republicans lost.

2010
Democrats again attempt to take over healthcare. This time they succeed. Voters will dump the Democrats for pursuing bad public policy.

Democrats and Democrats alone are responsible for this reprehensible legislation. But don't forget the Tom DeLays of the world who set up the circumstances that made this debacle possible.

March 21: HAPPY DEPENDENCE DAY!!!

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UPDATE
9:55 p.m. CDT

So we're watching Fox News, and Tom DeLay's ugly mug appears on the TV screen. Mr. DeLay's statements are similar to ours in that he believes the Democrats will pay a price in November for pursuing bad public policy. We just wonder if, like us, he thinks that he bears some responsibility for the biggest new entitlement since his Medicare prescription drug benefit.

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UPDATE
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
8:43 p.m. CDT

The ACR Blog is a big fan of the Wall Street Journal. In fact one of the earliest posts at the old place stated that "The Wall Street Journal editorial page almost never takes positions I disagree with." To underscore how much we admire the WSJ, the ACR Blog tries to mimic the stylebook of James Taranto's Best of the Web column. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know. (The biggest difference between the ACR Blog and Best of the Web is that Mr. Taranto is actually funny.)

Well, imagine our surprise when we read this on the WSJ's editorial page today:

The reality is that ObamaCare is the price of two GOP electoral defeats caused by the failure of the DeLay Congress and a dismal Bush second term. The 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit compromised the GOP on spending and legislative bullying.

We're getting better and better at imitating the Wall Street Journal.

Richard Pombo Proudly Preens With Grover Norquist

Abramoff-linked figures
Grover Norquist (L) and Richard Pombo (R)

Disgraced former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) is attempting a political comeback. He is running in the GOP primary for the open seat in California's 19th Congressional District. The 19th adjoins the district Mr. Pombo formerly represented, California's 11th Congressional district. So why isn't he running against the Democrat that beat him on his own turf in 2006? And does he really think that the path to victory lies in reminding voters of the multiplicity of ties he has/had with Team Abramoff?

The photo above of Messrs. Norquist and Pombo is a originates from Mr. Pombo's new campaign website. Maybe Mr. Pombo also has some photos of himself with Jack Abramoff, or in the Mariana Islands , that he'd like to share on his website to better remind voters of how morally and ethically bankrupt and tied to Team Abramoff he really is?


Mr. Pombo (center) on a junket to the CNMI

Recall how the Final Report of Sen. John McCain's Indian Affairs Committee defined Grover Norquist and his for-sale-to-the-highest-bidder faux conservative group Americans for Tax Reform:

Americans for Tax Reform ("ATR"): a non-profit anti-tax organization headed by conservative activist Grover Norquist to or through which Abramoff or Scanlon directed their Tribal clients to pay money.

Gentle readers, is there a better way to define "Abramoff money launderer?" Or would you prefer the word "conduit"? The Indian Affairs Committee report continues (pp 16-17):

According to one document in the Committee's possession, Abramoff described ATR as "an effective conduit of support for other groups which have provided assistance to Indian gaming's efforts [meaning Abramoff's client the Mississippi Choctaw] to fight the tax proposal."

According to the report, Mr. Abramoff directed the Choctaw to make two separate payments of $60,000 and $25,000 to ATR in 1996 and 1999, respectively. In a footnote on page 17, the Committee quotes from an email written on October 22, 1995 by Mr. Abramoff himself, referring to another client who Mr. Norquist was attempting to bilk for $50,000:

I spoke this evening with Grover. He said that, if they want the taxpayer movement, including him, involved in this issue and anything else which will come up over the course of the next year or so, they need to become a major player with ATR. He recommended that they make a $50,000 contribution to ATR. It seems that on another "sin tax" matter, he is getting a similar contribution to get involved...He would prefer donations to ATR.

Abramoff said that keeping the arrangement with Norquist and ATR secret was important. After all, Abramoff wrote, "[w]e do not want opponents to think we are trying to buy the tax payer [sic] movement."

Of course, this is exactly what they were buying. Not only were Mr. Norquist and his "movement" for sale, Mr. Norquist was eager to use the non-profit tax status of ATR to launder money from Mr. Abramoff's clients so that it could be used for political purposes. The Committee Report (pp 19-21) describes how Mr. Abramoff recommended that the Choctaw hire Abramoff-tinged pseudo-Christian activist Ralph Reed to orchestrate anti-gaming efforts in the South in order to defeat what the tribe thought might be competition for their casino. After paying Mr. Reed over $1,300,000 through Preston Gates, the gang became "uneasy" about this arrangement and searched for another conduit:

Abramoff turned to his long-time friend Norquist to have his group ATR serve as a conduit for [getting] the Choctaw money [to Ralph Reed]. Earlier on May 20, 1999, Norquist had asked Abramoff, "What is the status of the Choctaw stuff. I have a $75K hole in my budget from last year. ouch [sic]". Thus in the fall of 1999, Abramoff reminded himself to "call Ralph re Grover doing pass through." When Abramoff suggested the Choctaw start using ATR as a conduit, the Tribe agreed.

In late 1999, the Choctaw paid ATR $325,000. In a 2005 interview with the Boston Globe, Norquist said that ATR had sent $300,000 of that $325,000 to Citizens Against Legalized Lottery ("CALL"). Norquist explained that he sent the money to CALL because the tribe wanted to block gambling competition in Alabama. [ACR Note: Ralph Reed was associated with CALL. Five days after ATR sent $300,000 to CALL, CALL passed on over 90% of that amount to Mr. Reed.]

Out of the Choctaw's $325,000, ATR apparently kept $25,000 for its services. According to Rogers, Norquist demanded that he receive a management fee for letting ATR be used as a conduit...

Grover Norquist is so wrapped up in the web of lies, deceit, money laundering and corruption woven by Team Abramoff that we cannot imagine why any Republican candidate would want to have their home page disgraced by his presence. It makes us wonder what's next for Mr. Pombo's website - testimonials about his "integrity" from his buddy and the even more disgraced former Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.)?

Mr. Pombo has already lost one "safe" Republican House seat in California. Hopefully the GOP voters in CA-19 value integrity enough to nominate someone other than this scoundrel in the primary or we run the serious risk of losing another. Fortunately, voters in California's Central Valley have indicated that they do.

In Re: Fraser Verrusio

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts issued an order in the criminal case United States v. Fraser C. Verrusio

MINUTE ORDER denying as moot [28] Motion in Limine as to FRASER C. VERRUSIO (1),by Judge Richard W. Roberts on 3/18/10.

The ACR Blog mentioned this motion back in January. Basically, the Justice Department wanted to prohibit Fraser Capone Verrusio and his lawyers from making certain arguments at trial. The government said that advancing the theory that Mr. Verrusio was being subject to a vindictive prosecution was a matter of law to be decided by a judge, not a jury. In our January post, we put forth our reasoning that the prosecution of Mr. Verrusio was being treated in a similar manner to several other Abramoff-linked defendants. Secondly, the government wanted Judge Roberts to prohibit the Verrusio defense from impeaching prosecution witnesses with statements that the witnesses themselves had not made.

While it is clear to us that Judge Roberts has denied the government's motion as moot, it isn't clear to us what happened. Our speculation is that the defense team represented to the Court that it wouldn't make the arguments that the DoJ objected to. With that promise, our speculation goes, Judge Roberts didn't have to rule on the government's motion and ruled it moot.

Horace Cooper: Chaperone?!

Horace Cooper and Dennis Stephens

Our regular readers already know that Todd Boulanger took at least a one day break from drinking on the Hill and did his best to portray himself as a responsible adult by chaperoning Senate staffer Ann Copland's teenage son (and friends) at a Camden Yards baseball game. It was perfectly understandable for Ms. Copland to make such a request, and for Mr. Boulanger, who liked to collect chits, it was a perfectly reasonable way to leave Ms. Copland in a position where she "owed" him a return favor.

But gentle readers, what should the author of the ACR Blog make of this exchange with Horace Cooper, under oath, answering questions put to him before a grand jury:

Q Who introduced you to Jack Abramoff?

A Dennis Stevens [sic].

Q And who is Dennis Stevens [sic]?

A Probably my best friend in washington, D.C. I was in his wedding. I'm the godfather of his son. When he was dating his wife -- his now wife, I was asked to be the chaperone, and we had threesome dates. It's funny now. But I'm now very close to both of them.

Ha Ha - very funny, Mr. Cooper. Perhaps you had to be there.

We've have already pointed out numerous connections between Horace Cooper and Team Abramoff lobbyist William Dennis Stephens in a prior post.

But c'mon: Mr. Cooper was asked to be a chaperone on Mr. Stephens' dates? Really? By whom? Remember this statement was made under oath, so let's accept it as fact. The logical postulates one could make to explain this statement are:

1. Mr. Cooper does not understand the meaning of the word "chaperone", especially in the context of dating.

2. Mr. Stephens' now wife had overly protective parents/guardians, regardless of their daughter's suitor.

3. Something specific about Mr. Stephens triggered the protective instincts of his wife's parents/guardians, but they trusted Mr. Cooper enough to let their daughter date this man provided he was in the company of Mr. Cooper.

But still - just how old were Mr. Stephens and his "date" when they were being chaperoned? This whole episode is just plain creepy to us. We're leaning toward explanation #1 -- that Mr. Cooper improperly used the word "chaperone" in his grand jury testimony. We're also hoping he improperly used the word "threesome", too. Mr. Cooper sounds more like a "third wheel" to us.

Randy Vogel and Shawn Vasell: Nimrods, Poachers, or Both?

Is poaching some sort of strange rite of passage for aspiring Congressional staffers in Montana?

Montana media sources were all abuzz last week with news that a staffer for Abramoff-linked Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) was charged on March 3 with four counts related to the allegedly illegal taking of an elk and abandonment of the carcass. The staffer, Randy Vogel, is of course innocent until proven guilty, but along with a rather lame excuse from Rep. Rehberg's PR flack ("[H]e wasn't on staff at the time of the incident"), "Vogel asked for and was granted an indefinite leave without pay on March 5" .

According to the AP, Mr. Vogel wasn't the only Rehberg staffer in the hunting party on November 17, 2009:

He was with three other hunters that day — including another Rehberg staffer, Mike Waite — and a ranch employee.

Vogel is due to appear in court in Virginia City on Tuesday (March 16) on four charges: harvesting a spike bull elk during closed season, abandoning the carcass in the field, killing more than one elk without authorization and obstruction of a peace officer.

This strange case - Mr. Vogel is claiming it's politically inspired - reminds the ACR Blog of a similarly strange case involving another ill-fated Montana hunting party whose adventure took place on November 26, 2004. Regular readers of the ACR Blog are by now quite familiar with former revolving-door Congressional staffer/Team Abramoff lobbyist Shawn Vasell, but we're guessing few know he was up on similar charges several years back and decided to cop a plea:

Vasell, who worked for [former Montana Senator Conrad] Burns for about a year before stepping down in 2002 to work for Abramoff's firm...pleaded in the poaching case last December [2005]. Vasell admitted to one count of hunting without a license and another count of hunting on private property without permission. In his plea agreement, two other charges of violations of big game laws were dropped and he avoided possible jail time. He was fined $670 and instructed to pay $500 in restitution for the mule deer buck he's posing with in the pictures. The prosecution had planned to have Vassell [sic] as a witness in [hunting party member James] Reger's jury trial, but Reger entered a formal plea Tuesday morning, averting a trial.

Er, ah - what "pictures"? No, we're not referring to that infamous group shot of Team Abramoff Sugar Daddies in which Mr. Vasell appears. Believe it or not gentle readers, in a case that makes Robert "Big Pappa" Turner's web-postings of Capitol Hill drunkenness and debauchery look tame by comparison, the hunting party posted all of the gory details of their illegal activities on the internet - along with highly incriminating pictures of Mr. Vasell proudly posing with his trophy. Here's a sample of just one:


Shawn Vasell posing with his poached Deer

Just like Mr. Turner, the gang made its best effort to purge the story from the internet. Indeed, they went much further than Mr. Turner in not just taking down the incriminating material, they replaced the entire website with an "page under construction" banner. But you can read the entire escapade (and view the pictures) of "Vasell the Killer" here.

Mr. Vasell has a colorful history:

Shawn M. Vasell is a former congressional staffer and lobbyist who served as a senior aide to Senator Conrad Burns, and as aides to then-congressman Porter Goss and judiciary subcommittee chair Senator Spencer Abraham, and, as a lobbyist, was part of Team Abramoff. After working for Porter Goss and Spencer Abraham, Vasell took jobs as a lobbyist for Preston Gates & Ellis, and then the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLC before he was hired by Conrad Burns as his State Director in 2001. After a year-long stint with Burns, Vasell returned to Greenberg Traurig in January 2003. Vasell was listed as a lobbyist for the Saginaw Michigan Tribe in 2003, according to Roll Call...

Mr. Vasell's November 2004 Montana hunting expedition took place only months after Team Abramoff began to unravel, following the exposes of the great Susan Schmidt in the Washington Post. Like Kevin Ring, Mr. Vasell would ultimately assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when called to testify before Senator McCain's oversight hearings. The picture below shows Mr. Vasell's appearance before the Senate Indian Affairs committee.


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Mr. Vasell posing with his "Deer Park" water. The ACR Blog wonders if he poached it from Kevin Ring, seated to his right.

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More recently, Mr. Vasell received immunity¹ from the DoJ, though what he revealed is anyone's guess. He was not called to testify as a witness in Kevin Ring's trial. However, during that trial, Todd Boulanger testified under oath that it was Mr. Vasell that introduced Mr. Ring to future felon Ann Copland, former Chief of Staff to Sen Thad Cochran (R-Miss).

Considering his checkered past, you might think that Mr. Vasell would be sufficiently "toxic" that he would have a difficult time securing employment in Washington DC. But you would be wrong. Hewlett-Packard hired him in 2005 to be a member of their DC-based lobbying team, and he's been there ever since.

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¹ The ACR Blog believes that it is likely that Mr. Vasell received "Queen for a Day" immunity. It is possible that an individual could be prosecuted despite this kind of immunity.

Horace Cooper Motions - Part 1

We know, we know. We haven't been keeping up with trial related developments. Over a week ago, U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle ruled on a series of motions in U.S. v. Horace Cooper. Here's a summary:

Document 27
DENIED: Motion for Change of Venue and for use of Enhanced Jury Selection Procedures

Mr. Cooper wanted his trial moved to Baltimore because the Abramoff case (not Mr. Cooper's case) had received so much attention in Washington, DC. Furthermore, because Cooper's lawyers fear that future jurors in this case will be liars, they wanted "enhanced jury selection procedures". These procedures included:

(A) Individual (rather than group) voir dire.

(B) Attorney-conducted voir dire because Cooper's lawyers think they'd do a better job than Judge Huvelle.

(C) Three additional pre-emptory challenges because Cooper's attorneys think the jury pool will consist of a bunch of liars.

(D) A juror questionnaire to help the defense identify the what they believe are the inevitable biases of jurors.

(E) Limiting Instructions Alone Are Insufficient to Prevent Juror Bias. Cooper's attorneys drone on and on about how jurors are unfair and the "likelihood" that jurors will be "dishonest", but it isn't clear to us what the lawyers wanted.

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Document 29
DENIED: Motion ... for a Pretrial Determination of the Admissibility of Coconspirator Statements

Jack Abramoff, Neil Volz and other unidentified individuals are Mr. Cooper's alleged co-conspirators. Their statements are admissible only if they fall under some sort of hearsay exception for co-conspirators. In order to establish the exception, the Court must determine that (1) a conspiracy existed, (2) that it involved the declarant and the defendant (among others), (3) that the statement was made during the course of the conspiracy, and (4) that the statement was made in furtherance of the conspiracy.

It obviously isn't good for Mr. Cooper that this motion was denied, but it may not be as big of a setback as it first appears. Judge Huvelle may yet determine that no prosecutable conspiracy existed in another motion.

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Document 30
GRANTED: Motion ... to File Additional Pretrial Motions if Necessary

Just as the title of the motion suggests, attorneys for Mr. Cooper received permission to file additional motions beyond the Court's February 28 deadline. Cooper's attorneys said that the "large volume of discovery produced by the government" made this motion necessary.

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... more to come ...

IB in Saginaw Township, Mich.

We've mentioned Saginaw Township, Mich. before. Astute readers may recall that the author of the ACR Blog grew up in Michigan's Saginaw Valley, though I didn't live in Saginaw County.

The ACR Blog has two major premises about the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program, a current fad program to dumb down American schools. First, the academic rigor of IB is far below that of the more popular Advanced Placement (AP) program. Secondly, IB is just plain excessively expensive. Neither of these two criticisms escapes the attention of Sag. Twp. parents.

Last week, Saginaw Township Community Schools (SCTS) published the results of a recent community survey. Like many districts, SCTS is facing severe budget constraints. Prioritizing budget cuts predictably attracts parent attention. While SCTS administrators would prefer not to consider eliminating of the IB Program, SCTS parents view the elimination of IB as a ripe candidate for achieving budget savings. SCTS parents have also accurately determined that IB is not a good academic program.

Here are all the comments about the IB Program submitted to the SCTS board. The ACR Blog did not cherry-pick only the comments that advocate eliminating IB and did not correct for spelling/grammar. One person actually commented in favor of IB (red text). The comment in favor of IB contains such a silly political cliche, we actually wonder if that person is sarcastically mocking IB supporters and actually opposes IB.

p. 70:
3)elimate the IB program-it is not cost effective and only services a very small number of students

p. 71:
Eliminate the IB program or change how it is funded. Fund it through grants, parent pay for it if they want it for their child. Only 6 kids graduated with an IB diploma. That $80,000 a year could be better spent on the the entire student population.

p. 79:
Why don’t we close Mackinaw academy and dump the costly International Baccalaureate program?

p. 81:
How about eliminating the Baccalaurette program...very costly! How many students actually succeed in it???

p. 83:
Why are the cuts ALWAYS at the el. level. Maybe it is time to reassess this. Why do we need an int. baccalaureate program that only reaches a few students when so many ele. children and families will be impacted by the realignment.

p. 85:
A better plan than displacing thousands of children would be to close Plainfield and eliminate the IB program. The IB program means NOTHING to any college in Michigan.

p 87:
Additionally, I would like to ask why the cost/benefit of maintaining the expensive IB program does not ever seem to be a factor when looking at cost-savings. While I recognize that it is certainly a "nice to have" program and it is a feather in the cap of those who so passionately pushed for it,when everything should be "on the table"

p. 88:
Here's a way to save the money: close Plainfield completely, eliminate the IB program at the high school (which is an absurd waste of time for any student doing post-secondary education in Michigan

p. 93:
STCS has superior Special Education opportunities however, these children often seem to be forgotten about as IB/gifted & talented takes the spotlight.

p. 97:
I vote to eliminate the IB program in the high school. It just is not necessary. AP classes serve the same purpose and are more widely accepted at colleges. High level learners are going to succeed no matter if its AP or IB.

p. 98:
I'm glad we are pouring all that money into IB programs when there are so many at risk children falling trough the cracks. It does take a village to raise a child and schools are the only hope for children who have nothing else.

p. 99:
I think that the IB Program at Heritage should be eliminated which would also result in cost reduction. The IB Program should also be eliminated. It gives the top students no advantage over AP classes and is not cost-effective, considering the few students enrolled in the diploma program.

p. 99:
Mostly we need to save money from high school and put it in good use for elementary school. Heritage High school has lot of classes offered double due to IB and AP.

p. 106:
For IB programs, ask the students to pay for 1/4 - 1/2 the cost.

p. 107:
maybe you will have to eliminate drama and orchestra and some of the other extra classes we offer maybe all the money for the High school IB program these all cost a lot and only help a few we need to get back to the basics

p. 113:
My kids are both in high school, and I think a lot of money can be saved by ending the IB program. The colleges in Michigan do not recognize the program and therefore what good does it do for everyone?

p. 117:
Why are we paying for a baccalaureate program that we obviously cannot afford? If we eliminate this program will we truly lose students? I don't believe that

Lastly, here's a prediction from the ACR Blog. Even though IB critics point at both the cost and the poor academic rigor of the program as reasons to eliminate it, school boards will typically identify only the cost aspect when they cut the program. We've made this observation before in this post, although the community at the heart of the post, Santa Ynez, Calif. objected to both the reduced academic rigor and the budget pressures. To this day, Pearland ISD maintains that IB is a good academic program even though a district administrator told the author of the ACR Blog that advanced classes were eliminated at Carleston Elementary in preparation of IB's implementation.

English Teacher's View of IB

We've written about the divisiveness caused by the International Baccalaureate Program in Santa Ynez, California before. In that post, we expressed surprise that Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District board member Jeffery Little would claim that "big-name colleges such as the University of Texas are impressed by students with International Baccalaureate credentials":

Some might find it odd that Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District board member Jeffery Little touts how the University of Texas is impressed with IB Program. Since the Santa Ynez Valley is in California, why didn't Mr. Little mention how the highly regarded University of California system views the IB Program? I suspect the answer is because parents in the Santa Ynez Valley know that the UC schools give more valuable credit to students who go through the Advanced Placement (AP) Program. Mr. Little hopes that no one will check his assertion on how the University of Texas treats the IB Program. Like California's public universities, public universities in Texas universally prefer the AP Program.

Santa Ynez eventually dropped the IB Program due to dual reasons of cost and IB's watered-down curriculum relative to the more popular AP Program. Today, a district English and theater teacher penned an op/ed for the Santa Ynez Valley News putting forth his thoughts about the controversy:

The group [supporting IB] has established faulty premises as truth and used them to generate support for its cause, such as that IB is a ticket to elite institutions of higher learning. This is certifiably false. Our very successful Advanced Placement program actually serves students at least as well as IB with the overwhelming majority of elite U.S. universities and has an edge over IB in how many units a student may be granted for his or her high-end work in high school.

Why would we accept seed money to install a duplicate but competing and mostly non-compatible program that would cost the district additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming years, and water down an already thriving AP program?

"Established faulty premises as truth". As a blogger with the sole purpose of pursuing the truth, we couldn't have said it better ourselves. The Santa Ynez teacher, though, seems to have a way with diplomacy that we don't. The teacher has also succinctly echoed our objections to the IB Program. There is no benefit to it; in fact, the less rigorous curriculum of IB yields fewer and less valuable college credit than AP. There is no reason to strain school district budgets with this exceedingly expensive program when an academically superior and less expensive alternative (the AP Program) already exists. Like the Santa Ynez teacher, we also have been frustrated with how IB supporters do not seem to feel constrained by the truth.

More from the editorial:

ABC+ members claim in recent articles they wish they had known teachers were not happy with the IB program and didn’t want it re-installed. They did, in fact, know how the faculty felt. ABC+ President Michelle De Werd, in addition to being familiar with the brief but contentious history of IB on our campus, polled several of us who had taught it here last summer by e-mail, and she was told it is a program that serves few, benefits less, and actually creates achievement gaps between our high-end students and groups struggling because of language, social or economic difficulties.

We don't doubt that the IB supporters misrepresented whether or not they knew the high school faculty opposed the program. As we've mentioned before, IB supporters seem to have a fleeting relationship with the truth. We're more interested in the claim that IB "actually creates achievement gaps between our high-end students and groups struggling because of language, social or economic difficulties." We've seen no evidence to that effect. We've tried, believe us. We're incredibly interested in any evidence of IB's efficacy. We know of a lone Virginia Tech doctoral thesis that shows minority students who go through the IB-MYP have lower standardized test scores than kids who didn't go through IB, although the decrease was at a statistically insignificant level. We haven't seen any evidence at all comparing performance of IB students against AP students. The College Board, which runs the AP Program, releases aggregate information about its program, but the IB organization does not release similar information about its offering.

Kudos to the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District for improving its curriculum by dumping IB. Kudos to the Santa Ynez teacher for insisting on the highest levels of expectations out of his students.

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Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

In an article entitled Parents, citizens criticize school district's IB program, we learn of the controversy caused by the IB Program in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho:

The International Baccalaureate program came under fire at the Coeur d'Alene district's school board meeting Monday.

Trustees heard from 10 individuals, a mix of parents and concerned citizens, who criticized the advanced learning program, claiming it is part of a United Nations agenda to promote global citizenship and a threat to the nation's sovereignty and the rights of its citizens ...

[A parent] accused district administrators of failing to disclose the nature and purpose of IB to parents and stakeholders when it was promoting initiation of the program several years ago.

"I think something was hidden from that committee."

Parents around the country have voiced this objection before. Parents in Upper St. Clair, Pa., and Corpus Christi, Tex. as well as the Utah State Senate have expressed concerns about IB's anti-Americanism. I can't speak with authority on this subject. I withdrew my child from Pearland ISD when I saw the decreasing academic rigor¹ associated with IB; my child was never in an IB class.

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Cost

Several school districts are cutting IB with the public reason that it costs too much. We wonder if the lower-level academics is another major reason, but the school district must remain quiet about it in order not to offend the snobbish elitists who think the ten-syllable name just sounds cool.

Littleton, Colo.

Chino Valley, Calif.

Charlotte, N.C.

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Analysis of how approximately 175 colleges treat IB and AP. Nearly 90% of colleges prefer AP. Of the remainder, all but one treat IB and AP indifferently.

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¹ Accelerated classes at my son's elementary school were eliminated as Pearland ISD prepared to roll out IB district-wide. The elementary school level version of IB, the IB-PYP, does not allow ability grouping at the classroom level or by academic subject.

Tracy Henke's New Job

Tracy Henke

Long time readers may recall the name Tracy Henke. Ms. Henke was the Justice Department official who zealously guarded taxpayer dollars in an attempt to keep a jail grant for the Mississippi Choctaw, a Team Abramoff tribal client, from ballooning from $9 million to over $16 million. Facts revealed during the course of the corruption trial of Kevin Ring indicate that a senior Justice Department official, David Ayres, overruled Ms. Henke's judgment that $9 million was plenty for Team Abramoff's client. Mr. Ayres invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to provide incriminating evidence against himself and did not testify at Mr. Ring's trial. Neither the government nor the defense called Ms. Henke to testify. The ACR Blog noticed the complicating matter that, at the time of the trial, Ms. Henke worked for Mr. Ayres at The Ashcroft Group.

Well, things have changed. According to Ms. Henke's LinkedIn.com profile, she no longer works at The Ashcroft Group. Earlier this year, she moved to a firm named Thomas Advisors, Inc. According to lobbying records, Thomas Advisors tends to represent groups that have an interest in natural resources. This is a little different from Ms. Henke's expertise of Justice and Homeland Security funding. But what do we know about DC lobbying?

The ACR Blog does not claim to have any inside knowledge related to Ms. Henke's career shift. For all we know, Ms. Henke's departure from The Ashcroft Group was an amicable one. Hopefully, though, this development may mitigate in a small way any conflict of interest that existed when Ms. Henke worked for Mr. Ayres.