Justice probe has a new target (John Nowacki)

[maddezmom]

Source: Chicago Tribune

By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published May 9, 2007, 9:56 PM CDT


WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON—As Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales prepares to testify Thursday on the controversial firings of federal prosecutors, congressional investigators are scrutinizing the role of a little-known but high-ranking Justice Department official who helped shape the department's widely criticized response to those dismissals.

John Nowacki—who had limited courtroom experience when he was promoted into a senior position overseeing federal prosecutors—has quietly played a key role in the campaign to contain the fallout. That campaign, as much as the dismissals themselves, has crippled the department and threatens to topple Gonzales.

~snip~

Nowacki, 35, has not been accused of wrongdoing, and he did not return e-mails or calls seeking comments. A Justice Department spokesman said in a statement that Nowacki "plans to comply" with the committee's interview request, and the department noted that trial work is not a prerequisite for his current job.

The former director of legal policy at a right-leaning think tank, Nowacki worked closely with Goodling to track the progress of congressional investigations and helped fashion testimony by top Justice Department officials, according to records released in the inquiry. That testimony is under review by departmental watchdogs trying to determine if Justice Department authorities intentionally misled Congress.

~snip~

Goodling and other agency officials engaged in damage control frequently dealt directly with Nowacki, bypassing his boss in the executive office of U.S. attorneys, Michael Battle, a former judge and prosecutor.


Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070509attorneys,1,4333719.story?track=rss

---

Great blog with loads of info on Nowacki:
Mister Apologist
Document Dump- John Nowacki
http://misterapologist.blogspot.com/2007/03/document-dump-john-nowacki.html

[formercia]

1. Another suit.

Ideology over the Constitution.

[MisterApologist]

2. its about damn time

I'm really glad to hear that Nowacki is getting the scrutiny he deserves.... This guy is going to be a key witness to get to the bottom of the attorney firing and its genesis. Prepare to hold your nose at the shit that comes from this guy...

thanks for the kind words and link..

[maddezmom]

4. Thanks for all the great research

:thumbsup:

[tanyev]

3. K & R

[benld74]

5. Damn, another one, just like I said a month ago, just like termites

once you find 1 you damn well know there is a nest somewhere!

[Straight Shooter]

6. Let's see what Nowacki had to say about politicizing the DoJ in 2002 ...

Judge The Senate Judiciary Committee Not By What It Says, But What It Has Done
By John Nowacki
CNSNews.com Commentary
June 06, 2002

<snip>If you judged them by what they say, you'd think they were serious about ending what they've called a vacancy crisis in the judiciary. That they cared about making sure that litigants before overburdened courts had access to justice. Or that nominees and (bush) himself should be dealt with fairly.

<snip>
Leahy has also said nominees should get a Senate vote within 60 days . . . but Estrada was nominated 393 days ago. Leahy has said the D.C. Circuit's docket is "by far the most complex and difficult in the nation," but with four of 12 seats on that court empty, Leahy hasn't done a thing to fill those vacancies.

Instead, he's looked for excuses to stall and delay. Last month, he seized the opportunity after several special interest groups asked him to deny Estrada a hearing until September, claiming - a year after Estrada's nomination - that they needed time to examine the nominee's record. Not that the extra time for dirt digging will prove useful; a staffer at a group opposing Estrada admitted several months ago that they really didn't have anything on him.

<snip>
This slow walk on confirmations comes in part from the Democrats' desire to politicize the judiciary. Although they acknowledge that politicization will damage the judiciary's independence, they've still openly embraced political or ideological litmus tests for potential judges. They'd like nothing better than to have nominees who meet their new burden of proof by declaring for the record that they hold certain acceptable political beliefs, all while saying that they would never, ever allow those acceptable political beliefs influence the decisions they render while on the bench.

John Nowacki is Director of Legal Policy at the Free Congress Foundation.

The hypocrisy of the GOP has no bounds.

[phoebe]

7. John Nowacki - Deputy Dir./Legal Policy Free Congress Foundation

http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=126

The Free Congress Research and Education Foundation describes itself in its 1995 annual report as a

"non-partisan, non-profit, tax-exempt research and education institution dedicated to conservative governance, traditional values and institutional reform."

Led by Paul Weyrich, who also co-founded the Heritage Foundation, Free Congress received $5.0 million in grants over the 1992-1994 period to assist it in its efforts "to return to our nation's origins in limited government and personal liberty, despite the overweening power of the leviathan state."

One of Free Congress' major (and now independent) programs is National Empowerment Television, a nation-wide, interactive, 24-hour television network described in 1992 by political commentator David Gergen as "the creation of a new politics in America" for its ability to mobilize and interact with core constituencies on issues ranging from immigration to tax policy to welfare reform. The organization claims that NET now carries "its message of cultural conservatism and anti-Establishment politics into more than 11 million homes.




In 1974, a year after Paul Weyrich had founded the Heritage Foundation with seed money from Colorado brewer Joseph Coors, he launched the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC) with additional backing from the Coors fortune. (The friendship between Coors and Weyrich had begun when Weyrich was an aide to conservative Senator Gordon Allot of Colorado.)

The purpose of the CSFC was to influence the electoral process through fundraising schemes, circulation of propaganda, recruitment of conservative candidates, and grassroots organizing. Out of the CSFC grew the Free Congress Foundation, which has branched out into lobbying for conservative judicial appointments, communications schemes like "National Empowerment Television," and efforts to defeat gay rights initiatives.

Weyrich, a member of the extreme Catholic right and a professed admirer of the pro-Nazi demagogue Father Coughlin, has founded or cofounded numerous right-wing organizations, including the Moral Majority.

The Weyrich juggernaut played a decisive role in the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich and the right-wing Republicans of the 104th Congress. Among its top ten "Censored News stories of 1994," Project Censored cites the press's lack of coverage of the political machinations of Weyrich's Council for National Policy, a secretive high-level strategy-formulating organization whose membership is a Who's Who of the far right.

Admitting that he and his colleagues are not conservatives in the traditional sense, he has described the New Right as "radicals who want to change the existing power structure." Weyrich was one of the earliest commentators to advance the idea that the United States is engulfed in a cultural civil war.

"It may not be with bullets, and it may not be with rockets and missiles, but it is a war, nonetheless. It is a war of ideology, it's a war of ideas, it's a war about our way of life. And it has to be fought with the same intensity, I think, and dedication as you would fight a shooting war."

Free Congress Research and Education Foundation received $1.312 million from the Carthage Foundation (a Scaife family foundation) for general operating support in 1992 and $450,000 from the Bradley Foundation in 1994; it was founded with seed money from the Coors brewery fortune. Free Congress is a mult-issue organization, and Weyrich is one of the political gurus of the conservative movement...



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Sponsors National Empowerment Television (NET TV), the ultraconservative cable network. NET TV received $300,000 from the Scaife Family Foundation in 1992 and more than $40,000 from the Bradley foundation in the same year.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Free Congress sponsors its own satellite network, National Empowerment Television, or NET TV. NET TV (channel 30 in Milwaukee) helps give a national audience to groups like the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association and Phyllis Shlafley's Eagle Forum. NET TV helped torpedo the Lani Guinier nomination. As head of this group, Robert Billings along with Weyrich engineered the formation of the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell as its head. According to investigative reporter Russ Bellant, the Free Congress distributes "virulently homophobic literature."


snip

131 institutional roles for $6,301,192
(show all | hide all)

Year Role Hrs/week Pay Source 990 src

Nowacki, John
2 roles; show | hide | all (2) | profile total pay: $ 143,116
2003 Director / Legal Policy 40 $ 72,870 990 Schedule A, Part I
2002 Director / Legal Policy 40 $ 70,246 990 Schedule A, Part I