I just heard that some members of Congress are seeking to refer Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi for contempt because she did not release all the Epstein Files last Friday, as required by law. I’ll get to my thoughts about that in a few minutes. In the meantime, here’s a relevant story about my own dealings with Congress, lightly edited (in the spirit of the season) to obscure the main participants. You may find it enjoyable, ghastly, unsurprising, or all three!
During my last years for federal service, I occupied a position that was held in bipartisan regard for being nonpartisan and competent, not due to anything I did, but by virtue of the job. Around the same time, the Benghazi affair became a cause célèbre in partisan politics. To remind, in its most basic/factual form, a group of armed men took over an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, setting fire to it, which led to the death of the American Ambassador. The Obama Administration blamed an obscure anti-Islamic internet video for causing the event, and Democrats rallied around the theme the incident was tragic but unavoidable. Republicans called it a cover-up, suggesting it was a planned terrorist attack. Neither side was entirely truthful.
Congress asked the administration to present all it knew, including classified material, about the attack. Due to my position, I was tasked with writing the summary which was appended onto a massive report, including never-released video footage of the event. The entire effort was exhaustive and authoritative: once you read the report and see the video, you can come to only one conclusion. I can say that because I asked a staffer for one Senator–a man known for his fierce honesty who would one-day run for President–why the Senator did not watch the video, and the staffer told me “because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep going on television and saying the things he wants to say.” That passes for honesty in DC.
Which is to say partisans of one stripe or another were very unhappy with the report, and called it part of the cover-up. Anyone who knows my politics (which were publicly obscure at the time, as a federal civil servant) knows the likelihood I engaged in a cover-up to aid Secretary Clinton’s campaign was beyond fantastical. Still one Congressional staffer was so angry he requested I turn over all the raw material used to develop the report. I refused, citing the agreement between the Congress and the administration that the report answered the Congressional request, period, end of sentence. This enraged the individual so much, the staffer then spent the rest of the year developing language to be included in the appropriations (or was it the authorization?) law specifically targeting me (not by name, but by position) and my organization. My budget was cut by about twenty percent (if I remember correctly). The remaining amount was frozen until my organization’s leadership acknowledged I had been counselled and given a performance improvement plan (normally a way to redress serious personal under-performance in government). The staffer then tucked the provisions away in a classified annex to the law, which passed!
To say the least, I was shocked, and my organization’s leadership was outraged. I was asked to complete the original task as an honest broker, and was now being punished for doing so. When my boss asked a senior Senator why this language was included in the classified annex, she responded, “what classified annex?” Note I said “senior”; that’s a clue. The good news in all this is that the staffer had spent so much time completing his work of vengeance, the fiscal year was almost over. Meaning the law explaining what I was supposed to do came after I had already spent all the money.
My organization of course had to explain the discrepancy between what I had done and what the Congress had belatedly directed me to do. We dutifully responded with an official note that stated we would have happily acted in accord with the law, but the law came too late to do so. And my boss stated I had been counselled, without mentioning the counselling amounted to a perfect performance rating and sizable bonus.
All of which is to highlight that Washington is a place of strange goings-on, some partisan, some just plain silly. Congress can pass a law (signed by the President) that states “pigs can fly,” but gosh-darnit, Des Moines International Airport (DSM) need not worry, because your pigs will still not fly. Politicians say one thing and do another, or perhaps try even a third. There is always an element of show, or theater if you prefer. Take the Epstein files (please!). If the law says do something that you can’t possibly do (like review mounds of material) in time, it just won’t happen. In the rush to meet the deadline, the Department of Justice (DOJ) already posted some pictures that were not properly reviewed to protect the identities of victims. Not that that matters, apparently.
If Congress wants to refer charges on AG Bondi, it will refer them to . . . (wait for it), the DOJ. You know, the governmental department run by . . . AG Pam Bondi. I wonder what they’ll do with it? But wait, I hear there is a special provision in such circumstances where the Congress can make a referral directly to a federal judge. Who can try the case, and if convicted, refer the defendant for arrest by (wait a little longer) . . . the DOJ. That is so much better. No, that’s not it. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie announced on Sunday that they are pursuing “inherent contempt”charges against AG Bondi, which requires no judge or trial. The House simply orders its Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest the offending figure. What do you think AG Bondi’s security detail will do? Enquiring minds want to know! Everybody involved with this issue in Washington knows all this is nonsense. Now you do, too.
What lessons shall we draw here? First, if you want to spend your Christmas season dreaming of incriminating Epstein photos, you have my sympathies. Sugar-plum fairies are a better option. Second, nothing in DC is as it seems. That is politics, and the sooner one learns that, the clearer one sees. Finally, while a wise mentor once told me “no good deed goes unpunished,” there remains a great deal of satisfaction for doing the right thing in the end.
*Apologies to A Christmas Story. At least no one got shot in the eye-glasses by a BB-gun in my story.
As a principal player in another episode of Pat’s tale, I recall supporting the SSCI’s call for intelligence related to the 2012 Benghazi affair—during which four Americans were killed, including the Ambassador.
Both chambers, in their oversight role, would investigate the incident. I was offended by SSCI finding #11 in the declassified report: “The DNI’s Office of Analytic Integrity and Standards (AIS) failed to provide complete and accurate information to Congress during its review of the Benghazi attacks. The Committee found AIS’s methodology in assembling documents to be flawed. Despite repeated requests from the Committee, AIS also refused to provide complete, accurate, and thoroughly cited information to Congress.” The report further stated that “there was significant confusion within AIS about their efforts to bring together documents for the BIR [Benghazi Intelligence Review]. Although the review was presented to the Committee as comprehensive, it was not even thorough. The Committee found that AIS believed it was tasked to find some illustrative documents (that may not have been verified by analysts as significant or priority documents), as opposed to providing all Benghazi documents to Congress.”
Although, I speak with much bias, I will set the record straight. The review was thorough. The IC provided the SSCI hundreds of documents. AIS was not confused. We provided all relevant analytic products and all key collection reports. We did not provide every collection report that included the words “Benghazi” of “Libya.” I estimate that that stack would have consisted of tens of thousands or raw, unevaluated, mostly irrelevant reports.
To its credit, the SSCI allowed the ODNI to comment on the draft report before it was published in January 2014. The DNI knew that AIS was not confused and had accomplished the task in a reasonable manner. I drafted some verbiage for the DNI to use in his response to the SSCI. In the end, the wording under Finding #11 was not changed. I concluded that the SSCI had succumbed to a “triple-dog-dare” to cast a shadow on the ODNI.