Stan Collender Wonders Why Nobody in the Bush Administration Has Gone to Jail

The Bush administration has, he believes, embezzled $15 billion:

The Bush Administration's Teapot Dome | Capital Gains and Games: Discussions about the federal budget like the ones we often engage in here at CG&G, typically focus on "formulation," that is, on the process and politics of putting the budget together and getting it enacted.  That's the part we all generally agree is broken, not working properly, overly politicized, and...well...you get the picture.

But this story from Friday's Washington Post, which talks about $15 billion in spending on Iraq that can't be accounted for properly, or in some cases at all, shows that the other stage of federal budgeting -- implementation -- is similarly broken, not working properly, and...well...you certainly get this picture as well.

In fact, it appears as if virtually every procedure and law designed to prevent just this type of malfeasance was circumvented.... The Pentagon's own inspector general confirmed that this lack of concern for procedural safeguards was blatant and commonplace.  That makes it hard to come to any conclusion other than that they were ignored rather than expedited or poorly executed. It's also hard to come to any conclusion other than that the spending of taxpayer funds in Iraq bordered on, or actually was, simple and straightforward corruption. 

Given the magnitude of the spending involved, Iraq may be the Bush administration's contribution to the biggest public corruption scandals of all time like Boss Tweed in New York, James Michael Curley in Boston, and Teapot Dome.

My question is whether any one, that is, any individual, will be prosecuted for their actions.  The hearing at which the Pentagon IG testified was designed to put the focus on the Bush administration's despicably bad implementation of the Iraq spending.  That obviously had political overtones but was also, and very obviously given the IG's finding's, completely deserved. But the laws and spending rules were broken by individuals and there are three reasons why they should be cirninally prosecuted.

First, we need to know whether they were ordered to ignor the laws and regulations.... Second... the Antideficiency Act... calls for civil penalties and jail time.... Third, not prosecuting the individuals and instead allowing this situation to be nothing more than a political scandal will encourage others to do this again, or keep doing it now...

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.

Comments

[jimbo]

Corrupt Iraq spending is another facet of the giant shake-down racket the GOP has become. They have used their control of the government to enrich themselves and their friends. The K Street Project, earmarks, no-bid contracts and what we know about spending in Iraq all point to corruption. I suspect there are kickbacks and payoffs to be found all through the Bush
administration and in congressional offices. Bonus suspicion: More than a few young ideologues who staffed the CPA came home with bricks of Benjamins in their backpacks. Query: Did returning CPA staffers have to endure Customs inspections?

[christofay]

"Why Nobody in the Bush Administration Has Gone to Jail"

Because the jails are full of the blackies and that corrupt govenator Spiegleman is my guess.

And didn't Rush prove the danger of passing through unprivatized customs inspectors?

[Eric Rasmusen]

Precisely who is supposed to have stolen the money? Are you claiming that George Bush is $15 billion richer now?

[Eric Rasmusen]

Precisely who is supposed to have stolen the money? Are you claiming that George Bush is $15 billion richer now?

[Eric Rasmusen]

Precisely who is supposed to have stolen the money? Are you claiming that George Bush is $15 billion richer now?

[save_the_rustbelt]

Speaking as someone who has some expertise in forensic accounting, the word "embezzled" has a very specific meaning and is likely misused here.

If economists are going to delve into accounting they should at least get the terminology correct.

Bush wasted hundreds of billions. The accounting is atrocious no doubt. That is not the same thing as embezzlement.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Speaking as someone who has some expertise in forensic accounting, the word "embezzled" has a very specific meaning and is likely misused here.

If economists are going to delve into accounting they should at least get the terminology correct.

Bush wasted hundreds of billions. The accounting is atrocious no doubt. That is not the same thing as embezzlement.

[corvid]

This missing $15 billion is the least of it. The entire Bush administration is PREDOMINANTLY a criminal enterprise. If we end up with a Democrat in the White House next year and it turns out that virtually everyone in the Bush administration doesn't end up in prison or on trial in The Hague, then, clearly, the Democrats will be complicit in the coverup.

[Doctor Jay]

It is Stan's point that some of the behavior highlighted by the IG is, in fact, criminal behavior, sanctionable by fines and imprisonment. That is to say, felonies were committed.

Arguing about whether it was "embezzlement" is a sideshow. However, the only organization with even a potential shot to prosecute the violations outlined by the IG is the DOJ. Which highlights, again, why Bush wanted to put a completely loyal and subservient flunky in charge of it. Will Mukasey prosecute these people, or will we have to wait for a new administration?

Can Congress or Obama manage to put McCain on the spot with this kind of thing in September?

[Just Curious]

I take it as a given that the last day of the Bush administration will see a flood of pardons greater than Johnstown. What I want to know is, can a President pardon himself?

[save_the_rustbelt]

Doctor Jay:

There are many types of financial frauds and embezzlement is only one.

As Dr. Delong is constantly berating the media for not using the language he deems to be correct, what goes around comes around.

It is quite possible that some government employees have embezzled funds, which is different that the Bush administration embezzling funds.

The Bush administration is just incompetent and sinister and evil and .....

[capitalistpig]

Hey Rasmusen, post it one more time and maybe it will miraculously not be stupid!

[jerry]

It's not Rasmusen's fault. The dups are usually an artifact of a bad interaction between front end browser, slow internet, and slower backend server. It appears to be that typepad is so stupid as to not be able to prevent duplicate posts, much less detect them. Haloscam is marginally smarter. It doesn't prevent duplicate posts, but it tries to detect duplicates. Haloscam's problem is that it detects duplicates that never actually posted.

This web we love was a) written mostly by idiots and b) shows how humans are satisficers and c) shows how VC and investors reward idiots.

[Anderson]

"What I want to know is, can a President pardon himself?"

No one knows, because it's never happened. The arguments I've seen lean towards yes, he can, b/c the pardon power is plenary, i.e., unlimited in scope (except of course it's only for federal offenses, not state).

I would like to think that the SCOTUS would make a distinction in the case of self-pardoning -- no man can be a judge in his own cause, etc. -- but color me doubtful.

[christofay]

If it isn't embezzling, then what is it?

I think to be on the safe size any DOJ new hire from 2001 through 2008 should be fired just to be on the safe side.

Republican privatizing on the whole is just legal graft, on a related note.

[Programmer]

"This web we love was a) written mostly by idiots and b) shows how humans are satisficers and c) shows how VC and investors reward idiots."

The author of this note has no programming experience and less than no knowledge of either internet history or internet technology.

For instance, the BIND DNS implementation proved able to scale from an internet of 5000 nodes to the present without major change. Does this sound like the work of idiots?

In retrospect, some decisions (such as the original HTML charity principle) were suboptimal or even outright errors. This simply proves that the designers and implementers of the internet were merely geniuses, not actual gods.

[jerry]

bind dns? A more wretched hive of bugs, security holes and poor design that you'll ever find. I wonder if the number of CERT advisories concerning bind dns is even a countable number!

next time Programmer, use djbdns.

[Matt]

If we steal taxpayer money, we should steal it for domestic projects.

[Barry]

jerry: "It's not Rasmusen's fault. "

To clarify, the repeated posts were not his fault; the idiocy is.

[Corvid]

Can a president pardon himself? Maybe, but not on an international scale. We need an aggressive movement in this country and overseas to bring up Bush and all his people--and Tony Blair with them--on appropriate charges in The Hague. If Bush cannot be captured and forced to stand trial, he should be tried in absentia. But our first priority must be to physically get these people over there.

[Kelly]

Why would smirk pardon himself? That's way too much trouble. If he suspects anything will be done after the election he can just pull a nixon.
Just pardon cheney for whatever he's done then resign and cheney can pardon him. Win-win.

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Just Curious,

I seem to remember that treason is not a pardonable offense.

Save_the_Rustbelt,

Your point is well taken. (I'm also an accountant -- but I hate those forensic jobs, where materiality is $0.01!) Dick Cheney is in the clear on this one: he managed to sell his $45 million retirement package from Halliburton to some broker, so there is no question of his benefiting personally from the grossly immoral un-bid contracts that he is feeding them.

On the other hand, could we maybe make the case for collateral benefit: he's looking after his friends out of the kindness of his heart?

[anon]

I fervently hope for more war crimes Youtube vids.

[Tuco]

15 billion taxpayer dollars get "privatized".

Some of which, freshly laundered and lobbyistized, will reappear in support of McSame who ain't doing so hot raising money and who is currently palling around with his buddy George on the campaign trail. Those Rethugs are just one big happy (crime) family.

[J Thomas]

$15,000,000,000. The total spending will amount to well over $2,000,000,000,000. So this is under 1%. In a war zone.

However, our military simply doesn't have enough accountants watching things to even keep track. Somehow as the budget ballooned the oversight of the budget stayed the same.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jmFDo41pzc_FoDSJP7IaYenqXasA

The accounting problems aren't spread over the whole two trillion dollars we will spend. The survey didn't check everything, they only checked some things. Was it a random sample? Probably not. Probably they preferentially looked at things that looked suspicious. So we have no way to know how bad it will be.

"In a stunning accountability failure, out of $8.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer funded defense contracts for Iraq, $7.7 billion seems to be missing."

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86569/

That's half of the missing money. Were they 77/82 at picking bad contracts? Or did they choose contracts at random? Somewhere inbetween?

There's every reason to think this is the tip of the iceberg, but not much evidence just how big that iceberg really is.

[Kelly]

This may be the root of the problem;
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PENTAGON AUDITORS CITE SCANT STAFF – LAX OVERSIGHT SEEN AS OPENING AGENCY TO FRAUD AND ABUSE: Defense Department auditors said they have been unable to oversee tens of billions of dollars in military spending because of manpower shortfalls, leaving the Pentagon "more vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse." The Defense Department's inspector general, in a report to Congress obtained by a watchdog group, said its internal auditors have been unable to keep pace with the expansion in the military budget in recent years. The report said the defense budget doubled to $600 billion in fiscal 2007 from $300 billion in fiscal 2000, while the number of auditors essentially remained constant. That left individual auditors responsible for more than $2 billion in defense spending last year, up from the $642 million each auditor had to oversee in 2000. The disconnect between the size of the budget and the number of auditors devoted to monitoring it means large amounts of military spending receive little to no oversight, according to the report. In this year's budget, Congress approved an additional $24 million for Pentagon auditors. But the auditors, in the report, argue they will need at least $25 million more to meet their requirements. The Pentagon inspector general said it plans to hire at least 481 personnel in the next seven years, expanding to more than 1,900 full-time employees. (Wall Street Journal)