The War on Weldon Gets Scarier,
Part IV
© Jack Cashill
WorldNetDaily.com
August 23, 2007
This the fourth in a four part series detailing how and why a collaboration of Democratic activists conspired to unseat Pennsylvania congressman, Curt Weldon, in the November 2006 elections. Read parts 1, 2, and 3.
In December 2006, FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee with serious egg on his face.
According to the Associated Press, he confessed to being "exceptionally disappointed” about the leak made public on October 13, 2006 that Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon was under investigation for influence peddling.
That leak, and the subsequent raid prompted by the leak, cost Weldon his House seat.
"Although I usually say I can neither confirm nor deny an investigation, I think it's fair to say in this particular case we are pursuing it,” clarified Mueller, the “it” in question in being the Weldon leak.
What remains unclear is whether the “two sources” that leaked the Weldon story to the McClatchy Newspapers in October 2006 were actually FBI agents.
One was identified as “a federal law enforcement official.” The other was not identified at all. The leak came only after the FBI had handed the case over to the Department of Justice.
As far as Weldon himself knew, Mueller was targeting two of his own agents. That, however, was nine months ago. If the FBI or the Justice Department has made any progress since, this is one secret that they have managed to keep.
There is reason to be skeptical about the case’s successful resolution. As part of his larger 9-11 probe, Weldon had his eye on one Valerie Caproni. As a Clinton-appointed U.S. attorney in New York in 1996, it was she who pulled the NTSB off the TWA Flight 800 investigation and inserted the FBI, a potentially criminal obstruction.
Caproni is now the General Counsel of the FBI.
If the case goes to Justice, the prospects for resolution are just as dim. As I have documented, influential careerists in the DOJ may well have allowed their Democratic sympathies to trump their pursuit of justice.
There is no other good explanation for their eager pursuit of the Valerie Plame investigation and their foot-dragging on the Sandy Berger one. One of them, Howard Sklamberg, is now in charge of investigating Weldon. He should recuse himself immediately.
As with the Plame investigation, also prompted by a leak, if the DOJ does not find something to pin on Weldon or his daughter Karen the larger Democratic collaboration that inspired this case will come under fire.
Especially vulnerable is Melanie Sloan, the head of the liberal watchdog group CREW, whose fingerprints are all over this case.
If investigators look hard enough they are likely to find something on Weldon, his daughter, or his associates. It is likely that they could find something on any member of Congress.
The Los Angeles Times article that prompted this whole fiasco cited twenty-eight congressmen and women whose children worked as lobbyists or consultants.
Among that group, none stood out like Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, who was, according to the Times, “in a class by himself.”
The Times identified three sons and a son-in-law who profited from their relationship to Reid. “In the last four years alone,” claimed the Times, “their firms have collected more than $2 million in lobbying fees from special interests that were represented by the kids and helped by the senator in Washington.”
Reid is now Senate majority leader, lauded by the same media that drove Weldon out of office.
The question that the media should be asking is “Why Weldon?” What about the man inspired Sandy Berger, the Clintons, the Democratic Alliance, CREW, and just about every key player in the Clinton national security apparatus to want Weldon gone.
The answer, and here I speculate: Weldon knew—or was about to learn—what Sandy Berger pilfered from the National Archives. Whatever Berger removed, it was a powerful enough secret to justifying risking his own career and destroying Curt Weldon’s.
To this point, alas, the mainstream media have shown zero interest in discovering what that secret was.
