NOTE: Entries on these pages contain excerpts from the news stories or external pages to which the entry is linked.

November 2004
Criminal Contempt

    

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- A Providence, Rhode Island, television reporter was convicted of criminal contempt Thursday for refusing to say who gave him an FBI videotape showing a city official taking a bribe.

Jim Taricani, of WJAR, is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres on December 9. The undercover tape was aired prominently and repeatedly by the station.

Taricani faces up to six months in prison.

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Excerpt made on Friday November 19, 2004 at 12:22 AM | View Full Entry »
Ethical Lapses

    

House Republicans voted to change their rules today to allow members indicted for a felony to remain in a leadership post.

The rule change, which party leaders said could benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, was approved by a voice vote in a closed meeting of Republican House members.

Under the revised rule, members of the Republican Steering Committee would have 30 days to decide whether to take any action against an indicted party's leader. That changes an 11-year-old party rule that required any indicted member to step down from a leadership post.

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Excerpt made on Wednesday November 17, 2004 at 02:10 PM | View Full Entry »
Soft Leakers And Liberal Democrats

    
    

CIA plans to purge its agency
Sources say White House has ordered new chief to eliminate officers who were disloyal to Bush

WASHINGTON -- The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

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Excerpt made on Monday November 15, 2004 at 03:00 AM | View Full Entry »