The Corrosive Convenience of Anonymous Leaks

October 03, 2016

I already know what you think of the New York Times story on Donald Trump's tax returns. If you like Trump, you think this is a giant nothing-burger. If anything, it provides evidence that he — or more likely, he and his accountants and lawyers — really know their stuff when it comes to following the law and minimizing his tax burden.

If you're a Trump fan, this is also further evidence that the mainstream media will violate the law in order to smear and attack the Republican presidential candidate no matter who it is.

At some point, media voices who tsk-tsk the general public's skepticism and suspension of the media should ask themselves how often confidential, legally protected documents about prominent Democrats get anonymously leaked to reporters.

Back in 1999, George W. Bush's Yale transcripts were leaked to The New Yorker.

Back in 2008, Helen Jones-Kelley, director of Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services, checked state computer systems for information on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber." She was placed on unpaid leave for one month.

Back in 2009, an unidentified U.S. Attorney's office staffer "accidentally" mailed a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal, alleging financial misdeeds by Michael Steele to a Washington Post reporter right around the time Steele was running for RNC Chair. Nothing ever came out of that investigation, but the damage was done; the front-page headline "STEELE UNDER INVESTIGATION" still ran.

In 2011, Rick Perry's college transcripts were leaked to the Huffington Post.

Earlier this year, a jury found that Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane leaked confidential investigative material to a Philadelphia newspaper to get revenge on a political enemy.

Have there been leaks of information damaging to Democratic lawmakers? Sure, if you go back far enough. Back in 1998, a judge ruled prosecutors in Kenneth Starr's office leaked grand jury information.

The Chicago Tribune went to great lengths to unseal the divorce records of Democrat Blair Hull and Republican Jack Ryan in 2004. Of course, both men were running against . . . Barack Obama. You know who Blair Hull tried to recruit to work for his campaign early in the 2004 cycle? A Chicago-based political consultant named . . . David Axelrod.

Republicans should be bothered by the thought of Russian hackers breaching firewalls at the Democratic National Committee and in other places and dumping all of the once-thought-secure messages and documents on WikiLeaks. But if you're wondering why a lot of Republicans aren't all that upset about Russian hackers acting as a partisan investigative force . . . this is why. They think the game is rigged; they think a lot of people who have jobs that involve handling sensitive information — legal documents, tax returns, education transcripts, financial documents, confidential state records — see themselves as having a preeminent partisan duty to expose any information that could harm Republicans or help Democrats, in violation of any other oaths, rules, regulations or laws. That perception may be an excessive generalization, but it's not false.

These documents may have been leaked by some non-government source, of course. We may never know. That's the thing about anonymous sources — you can't rule out the potential source that would most undermine faith in the system.

If you don't like Trump, then this is further evidence that he's a giant fraud, a phenomenal business failure who has managed to salvage his reputation by shifting from an actual mogul to a celebrity playing a mogul. His riches from the past decade or two owe more to his celebrity status than his actual business acumen.

Why Block a Bill to Help Fix a Suicide Hotline for Veterans?

Every time Harry Reid talks about how much he cares about veterans, he should have his ridiculous blocking of a good, bipartisan bill thrown in his face.

Unbelievable.

More than one-third of calls to a suicide hotline for troubled veterans are not being answered according the VA's Veterans Crisis hotline's former director.

New statistics show that 22 veterans commit suicide per day, and around the same time the latest statistics came to light a bill to increase the efficiency of the suicide hotline dedicated to veterans was blocked.

Iowa Congressman David Young thought he had a slam dunk with the "No Veterans Crisis Line Call Should Go Unanswered Act." In fact, it flew through the U.S. House with a 357-0 vote. At the time a member of his staff told WOWT 6 News that the bill should pass quickly.

This week all progress came to a stop. The bill didn't fail on the floor; it never made it there.

"Unfortunately politics do get in the way sometimes," said Young, "but I'm still hopeful that we can try to get this done."

Young seemed reluctant to place blame on any individual, but Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was more than happy to tweet his dissatisfaction with U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

"David Young has worked hard on a bill to make sure no call to the veterans crisis call line goes unanswered, but Harry Reid blocked it," wrote Ryan.

There is some belief that the motivation could be purely political.

Ya think?

The crisis hotline received more than 500,000 calls last year. The toll-free hotline number is 800-273-8255.

'Officials Did Not Believe That These Costs Needed to Be Monitored'

Your tax dollars at work, America: The Inspector General at the Department of Housing and Urban Development finds the department is paying way more in legal fees than they're supposed to be paying.

We projected that at least $9.2 million of the $16.5 million that the three agencies paid for outside legal services during the period October 2007 to September 2012 could be unsupported. HUD did not provide adequate oversight of legal costs because officials did not believe that these costs needed to be monitored since they were small in relation to HUD's overall budget. Although total legal costs at Moving to Work agencies declined from 2010 to 2015, the agencies continued to incur relatively higher costs for legal services compared to non-Moving to Work agencies.

Apparently the folks who are "moving to work" the most are overpaid lawyers.

ADDENDA: No, really, for once there is genuine, actual news involving Kim Kardashian.