allegations

We knew it was only a matter of time:

Rebekah Brooks, the loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, resigned Friday as chief executive of his embattled British newspapers, becoming the biggest casualty so far in the phone hacking scandal at a Sunday tabloid.

Murdoch had vigorously defended Brooks in the face of demands from politicians that she step down, and had previously refused to accept her resignation.

Brooks was editor of News of the World between 2000 and 2003, the time of the most explosive allegations to hit Murdoch's News Corp. media empire, and she has been in charge of News International's four British newspapers since 2007.

Of course this does not absolve her of any wrongdoing, but the fact that the Murdoch's accepted her resignation doesn't bode well for the media empire, especially with the announcement yesterday from the FBI that they have launched an investigation into the possible hacking of 9/11 victims here in the U.S.

The self proclaimed “America’s toughest sheriff” is in some trouble:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now the target of a federal grand jury probe, according to the Maricopa county manager.

Manager David Smith tells 12 News he has been called as a witness in the investigation, as well as Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson.

Sources say the investigation is tied to allegations of abuse of power relating to targeting political opponents and enemies for harassment and investigation. Smith says that includes threatening investigations against opponents when there is no probable cause and intimidating county employees at their homes.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A South Carolina House panel is holding a hearing today on the pending impeachment of Mark Sanford. So far not much has come out of it, but I did just get this in my inbox:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Embattled SC Gov. Mark Sanford faces 37 ethics charges he broke travel, campaign funding laws.

I’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

UPDATE:

NPR has more:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday.

It's up to the state attorney general to decide whether to file criminal charges. Sanford's lawyers have claimed the allegations involve minor and technical aspects of the law.

So we could be looking at an actual criminal trial against the once future face of the GOP.

It looks like Bill Richardson will be cleared of any wrong doing in the pay to play scandal:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won't be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor's large political donors, someone familiar with the case said.
The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because federal officials had not disclosed results of the probe.

That’s good news. I think Richardson could be a valuable asset to the administration, but this prevented that. Now that he is cleared maybe we can start using him more.

It looks like Norm is going to have more of a battle than just trying to steal an election:

The FBI is investigating allegations that former Senator Norm Coleman had clothing and other items purchased on his behalf by a longtime friend and businessman Nasser Kazeminy, according to a source in Minnesota who was interviewed recently by federal agents.

E.K. Watkins, a spokesman for the Minnesota FBI, would neither confirm nor deny the report. The source provided details of the interview to the Huffington Post, in addition to copies of business cards left by the agents.

The FBI has also been conducting interviews in Texas, according to media reports, in regards to different allegations that Kazeminy tried to steer $75,000 to Coleman through his wife's employer. Up to this point, there have not been reports of any FBI work taking place in Coleman's home state.

So the Republicans are keeping the people of Minnesota from their constitutionally entitled two Senator representation, by trying to keep Coleman in the fight – a person now under federal investigation. Now that is classy.

Especially when it comes to corruption:

Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.

Of course Steele is denying it:

Steele spokesman Curt Anderson said he did not know what information the federal agents were seeking, but he dismissed Fabian's allegations as patently false. "It's from, what, a convicted felon? And it has no substantiation in fact," he said.

But it looks like the information was obtained through an error by the WaPo, giving more to it’s validity:

The U.S. attorney's office inadvertently sent the confidential document, a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal, to The Washington Post after the newspaper requested the prosecution's sentencing memorandum.

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein declined to comment. Fabian could not be reached, and his attorney, James Wyda, declined to comment.

According to the filing, Wyda gave prosecutors "documents supporting [the] allegations." Wyda wrote in the memorandum that the government declined to credit Fabian for cooperating "presumably because its investigation is ongoing."

So it looks like the government has evidence against Steele in this. Suddenly people not paying all their taxes seems so minor.

The right wing conspiracy nut jobs have been having a field day bogging down our courts with claims that Obama isn’t eligible to be President, claiming he is not an actual citizen. Well the latest claim has been shot down by the SCOTUS:

The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.

I wondered out loud the other day why the party that is all for tort reform is burdening our courts with such outlandish allegations. Will someone in the media ask some right wingers, who support these lawsuits, why they feel it important to burden the courts now?