Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Little Black Books

The culture of corruption in Washington about which we're learning is outrageous for its sheer immorality. But I haven't seen any discussion of a major implication of all this. One of the reasons personal background checks are integral to so many jobs in government---particularly those in the intelligence community, presidential appointments, etc---is not to catch illegal behavior in and of itself. Personal vetting and background checks are important because they help weed out those who might be susceptible to blackmail by either a domestic or foreign entity.

Particularly during wartime, what are the implications for national security when so many of those in the governing party harbor nasty little personal secrets they'd do anything to keep hidden? This is not just about golf outings and Indian casinos. These are people casting votes to authorize military action against other countries and making decisions about how money gets spent to detect nuclear material at our ports. And we can be sure of this: while the rest of us may only be learning about the extent of this criminality now, every major foreign intelligence service---and that obviously includes the Russians, Chinese and Israelis---has had the personal goods on this bunch for a long time.

How has all this impacted national security? What arms have been twisted along the way?

49 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

To take one that's already out in public, just google "Tom DeLay" + "Russian" + "money". The most powerful Republican in Congress, bought by shady Russian weapons and energy people. Neat.

1/11/2006 6:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's room for fascinating game theory here.

When you have a successful blackmailer, you either do what he says or if he wants so much that your BATNA is preferable you let the truth come out.

But what if you have two blackmailers, and they disagree? What if there are three? If they don't know about each other, the first time they disagree whichever one you don't go along with, might expose you. But when they do that, they lose all further influence on you. Are they better off to write you off, or accept less than total control?

And if they accept only partial control when there's a second blackmailer, would they accept that when you just refuse to cooperate on your most important issues? It can turn into a complex negotiation.

So OK, you're a senator and you're getting blackmailed by six different foreign intelligence services, and they do know about each other. Any one of them can turn you in and spoil it for the rest. When it's time for you to vote, do they vote among themselves about how to make you vote? Do they take turns?

But all of them will want to see the classified stuff you get. And of course if you give it to them, they can blackmail you for espionage too.

If it comes to that, though, the Administration can do more effective blackmail. If a foeign country says that Senator Warner is their spy, but the FBI etc says they're lying, who will the public believe? Would the media even publicise it? But if the FBI says you're a spy you could wind up a lot worse off than just losing your Senate seat. So is there really such a security risk? If you can be blackmailed and the Administration knows about it, it seems like they'd have first dibs. They can tell the russians and the israelis etc to back off. Because they can blackmail you worse.

There are a lot of urban legends about J Edgar Hoover using the FBI to collect blackmail material on legislators etc. Sometimes he shared it with presidents and sometimes not. I haven't seen solid evidence for it, but I see no reason to disbelieve it. Why would that tradition end with Hoover?

The problem with catching every minor bureaucrat who has access to classified material is that there are so many of them, it takes a lot of effort to find the blackmail material on all of them. While the foreign powers only need a few of them to get secrets. But there aren't that many legislators.

It makes a certain amount of sense to make a scandal about a few legislators to keep the rest in line. "See, that guy didn't cooperate enough. You're going to cooperate, aren't you?" So my natural temptation is to look at every congressional scandal and assume that the legislator had been subject to blackmail before the scandal broke. But while that's plausible in most cases, it's sheer speculation. Some of them could be garden-variety scandals that the administration didn't get hushed up. But thinking like a conspiracy-theorist, imagine a legislator who has an affair with an employee, and who either doesn't go along well enough or merely was chosen to be an example. And so the girl gets kidnapped, and he doesn't know whether she's alive when the media confront him about it. And then the body is discovered, and the tabloids speculate that he had her killed. And it goes on and on and on....

1/11/2006 6:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post and comment above.

1/11/2006 6:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, maybe blackmail enters into it, but my Occam's Razor explanation is that all it took was money to get Republicans to write favorable legislation and vote a particular way. Highest bidder wins. Case in point - Abramoff arranging to funnel a million bucks from Russian energy interests to Delay in exchange for favorable votes.

Curiously, within the last 6 months almost every gas station in my area has been closed and then quickly reopened as a Lukoil station. And more pop up every day. I'd never even heard of Lukoil before this year, and now they dominate the local market. Related to the Abramoff scheme above? I dunno. Odd coincidence, though.

1/11/2006 8:14 AM  
Blogger Roy said...

Am I the only person in the US that remembers all of the corruption in the early 90's. It was a Democrat problem because they controlled Washington, now that the Republicans are in charge it is a Republican problem. Maybe, just maybe it is an istitutional problem that stems from two parties monopolizing political power.

1/11/2006 12:21 PM  
Blogger wendyo said...

Travelgate, Whitewater and Bonergate seem a little quaint in retrospect. Which "corruption" are you referring to Roy?

1/11/2006 12:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd love to see Tim Russert or Wolf Blitzer make this connection, although I am not holding my breath. As to the above - I think Roy may be refering to floating checks. Definately a Democrat issue.

1/11/2006 12:41 PM  
Blogger wendyo said...

Cashing bad checks at the Congressional post office v. bilking Indian tribes out of $44 million and duping their core constituency (Christian right wing) into facilitating this fraud?

I think Abramoff still wins this pathetic contest. Even Rostenkowski looks quaint by comparison.

1/11/2006 1:04 PM  
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1/11/2006 2:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I suspect we will learn what arms have been twisted as time goes on, we always do.

1/11/2006 3:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've often wonder do people like Richard Perle and others that sit on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board have any screening or is being a FOB enough to get you any job in Washington now.

War and Piece has some interesting connections with Duke Cunningham

What else was for sale, for example: "And isn't it wonderful to know that Cunningham, who has admitted to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors working through companies affiliated with Kontogiannis, sat on the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 Attacks? I mean, Cunningham could never have been bought off by Saudi interests, could he have?"

1/12/2006 6:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Roy, Lloyd Bentson was caught charging $10,000 for breakfasts with himself. He was shut down.

That was the 90's.
NOW the REPS set up shop via the K Street project to institutionalize the same behavior.

It is really different now, although all congressmen have huge pressure to raise millions for campaigns.

Until there is public financing of campaigns, no private money, until then, this is how it is going to be.

1/12/2006 9:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The great corruption of the early 1990's (actually mostly occurring in the 1980's) surrounded the S&L corruption, which was an elite issue more than a partisan one. Most of the great corruption schemes can be uncovered by simply monitoring the activities of Ivy League law and business school grads! Now that is an NSA program to get behind!

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