A little bird sent me a link to a fabulous page with juicy bits on the DC madam case.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Here are a few quotes:
“May 15, 2007 — WMR has learned that the circle of customers in the DC Madam case extends far beyond the customers of Pamela Martin and Associates identifiable from phone lists. Further dissemination of the phone lists has been blocked by US District Judge for DC Gladys Kessler. A number of the escorts of Pamela Martin were invited to “parties” in the Washington DC area, some of which were attended by noted Washington politicians and other VIPs.
The Bush administration and its allies have also attempted to seed disinformation that the phone list consists of Republicans and Democrats. WMR has also learned that the customers of Pamela Martin, extending back to 1993, were overwhelmingly Republicans, particularly Republican congressional members and staff members who were behind the multiple congressional investigations and the ultimate impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.
Although ABC News concluded there was nothing “newsworthy” from the phone records it obtained, several Washington- and New York-based corporate media entities, including newspapers, magazines, and networks are actively pursuing various leads in the case, many of which have been previously reported by WMR. We are also actively pursuing several leads in the burgeoning scandal.”
“May 14, 2007 — WMR has received additional credible information on the patronage of Vice President Dick Cheney, while he was President and CEO of Halliburton in the mid to late 1990s, of the DC Madam’s escort service. We can also report that Cheney’s involvement in the DC Madam saga has now attracted the attention of the so-called “mainstream media.””
“May 14, 2007 — UPDATED — Hookergate involves fired US Attorney. US District Judge for the District of Columbia Gladys Kessler, a Clinton appointee, has re-issued an order prohibiting DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey from releasing any more phone lists of her Pamela Martin & Associates customers. Secrecy of the phone records has been a priority for DC Assistant US Attorney William Cowden. Palfrey released the last four years of ten years of customer phone records to ABC’s “20/20” before Kessler’s March order prohibiting such a release took effect. As WMR reported, ABC and Disney, under pressure from the Bush White House, killed the story and stated that there were no “newsworthy” names on the Madam’s list. Six years of phone records, including those involving mid to late 1990s calls to and from individuals who would become top officials of the Bush administration, were not in the hands of ABC News. WMR has been informed by three well-placed sources that Vice President Dick Cheney, while a part-time resident of McLean, Virginia and while serving as Dallas-based Halliburton’s CEO, was a customer of the DC Madam.
The focus on the DC Hookergate story has now moved to Baltimore, and the firing by the Justice Department in December 2004 of the US Attorney for Maryland, Thomas DiBiagio. DiBiagio was fired, along with a number of other US attorneys, after George W. Bush’s re-election for political reasons. One of DiBiagio’s public corruption targets was the staff of then-Republican Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, some of whom had engaged the services of Madam Palfrey’s escorts. The US Attorney’s office in Baltimore first became involved in the investigation of the prostitution ring after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office and IRS agent Troy Burrus in Baltimore made a criminal referral to the US Attorney’s office in Baltimore. Subsequently, an asset seizure warrant for Palfrey’s assets was issued. Palfrey and her employees used two telephones in Maryland for their escort business, 301 231-5800 in Rockville, near some of the “mansions” in Potomac, Maryland and Great Falls, Virginia described by “20/20” as the locations in DC where Pamela Martin escorts would pay calls, and 410 244-1818 in Baltimore.
After Ehrlich complained to then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey about the aggressiveness of DiBiagio, the Baltimore-based US Attorney was placed on the firing list in the wake of the 2004 election. David Margolis, an Associate Deputy Attorney General, claimed he did not know about any investigations of Ehrlich’s staff by DiBiagio when he informed the number one Justice Department official in Baltimore that the Justice Department had lost confidence in his abilities.
DiBiagio had already witnessed the brutal murder of his Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Luna in December 2003. A husband and father of two, Luna had departed in his vehicle, strangely leaving his cell phone on his desk at his office, and drove a circuitous route through Delaware, New Jersey, and then Pennsylvania before he was found in a creek near the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Denver, PA stabbed to death 36 times, supposedly with his own pen knife. Federal authorities leaned toward a suicide but local investigators treated the death as a homicide. In 2004, DiBiagio claimed he was being pressured to stop his investigation of Ehrlich’s staff for links to gambling (particularly the gambling interests of jailed Maryland/DC GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff), prostitution, and other corruption and filed a threat report with the FBI. The Washington Post and Washington Times then reported that Luna was fearful that DiBiagio was going to fire him, which led to Luna’s “suicide.” It is a charge DiBiagio strongly denied. DiBiagio told the New York Times that the pressure from Ehrlich’s office and the Justice Department served “to intimidate my office and shut down the investigations.” Maryland Democratic Senator Ben Cardin has asked for an investigation of DiBiagio’s firing.
Luna’s death on December 4, 2003 was followed a few days later, on December 10, 2003, by the indictment of Ed Norris, Baltimore Police Commissioner (and later Maryland State Police Superintendent under Governor Bob Ehrlich), for using his Baltimore Police Executive Protective Unit (EPU) to ferry prostitutes to various locations, including posh Baltimore and New York City hotels, including the Baltimore Hyatt. As Maryland State Police Superintendent, Norris was in charge of the Maryland State Police’s Executive Protection Service, which provides security for the Governor in Annapolis. It is noteworthy that one of Palfrey’s employees was identified as a Navy Lieutenant Commander instructor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Like Palfrey, Norris also came under investigation for tax evasion by the Baltimore IRS office. ABC’s 20/20 reported that Madam Palfrey’s escorts were also driven to expensive Washington hotels, including the Hay-Adams. Palfrey, in an interview with Smoking Gun, agreed that it would not be a surprise if some of her escorts were linked to the case of jailed California Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham, Mitchell Wade’s MZM, Inc., and Shirlington Limousine. The limousine service was, according to investigators, involved in transporting escorts to the Watergate and Capitol Hill’s Westin Grand Hotel for “poker parties” with top Republican congressmen and CIA officials. There are also interesting links between Norris and then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Both served together as New York Police Department officers. Luna worked in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office during the time that Kerik first came under a probe by the Brooklyn DA in the late 1990s. Ksrik was tapped to become Bush’s Homeland Security Secretary before it was discovered he had hired a nanny who was an illegal immigrant. Kerik is currently under a federal probe and reportedly faces an imminent indictment. The New York Daily News reported that Kerik commandeered a condominium overlooking the World Trade Center’s “Ground Zero” to carry on extramarital trysts during recovery operations.
Hookergate expands: Cheney (l.), fired US Attorney Thomas DiBiagio (c.), who charged he was fired because of pressure from DOJ and Maryland GOP Governor, and Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich (r.), whose staff was linked to a prostitution ring.
The murder of Luna and the firing of DiBiagio eliminated the threat that the well-heeled customers of the DC/Baltimore prostitution ring, many of them GOP stalwarts, would be exposed prior to the December 2004 presidential election. The attempt by Justice prosecutors and Judge Kessler to limit the criminal case to Palfrey continues the effort to punish the DC Madam and her employees and divert attention away from the customers. In May 2004, at the same time Norris and his chief of staff agreed to a plea deal in the prostitution case and received light sentences, Palfrey came under intense federal investigation. Palfrey claims that she is being scapegoated by the very same people who were her customers.
This past January, after being exposed by the media as running an escort, Brandy Britton, a PhD and former Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus was found hanging in her home in Ellicott City, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Britton’s home had been foreclosed after she was charged with running a prostitution service using the name “Alexis” and has since been identified from Palfrey’s phone lists as one of the Pamela Martin & Associates escorts. Palfrey used the name “Julia.” The Bush administration, clearly concerned about a sex scandal that will bring down more than just former Assistant Secretary of State Randall Tobias, is hoping to keep the focus on “Julia” and her employees, and not on “Backseat.”
For more info on Baltimore connection to the DC Madam case: http://www.yardbird.com/luna.htm”
“May 11, 2007 — Cheney report blowback. As an example of what occurs in Washington when someone goes after the hypocrisy of the Bush administration and the lickspittles in the so-called “main stream media,” this editor was the subject of a verbal barrage this past week on WMAL-AM’s morning drive radio show. Apparently, the ABC-owned radio station did not like our report that Disney/ABC, under pressure from the White House, killed the DC Madam’s list story. The two morning radio hosts also did not like our report that Vice President Dick Cheney is on the list from his time as a part-time resident of McLean, Virginia while he was President and CEO of Halliburton.
WMAL has gone from a relatively apolitical station to a propaganda outlet for right-wing radio blatherers, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Paul Harvey, and Mark Levin, and the two morning guys, “Grandy and Andy,” who did not like our story about Cheney and the Madam.
On the Grandy and Andy web site this morning, the following “case closed” story is posted about the DC Madam’s list: “DC Madam: “There will be no more lists of records from a woman accused of running a Washington DC prostitution ring. A federal judge has barred Deborah Palfrey from releasing any more phone records that could implicate former customers. Palfrey says there was no sex involved and hers was a legitimate escort business.”
The WMAL morning slot was once filled by two hosts who pushed no political agenda: Frank Harden and Jackson Weaver. Weaver was the non-political voice of the National Park Service’s “Smokey the Bear” and cautioned park visitors, “only you can prevent forest fires.” These days, WMAL’s right-wing pontificators figure out ways to put out fires that threaten their corrupt heroes in the Bush administration.
And who are “Grandy and Andy,” who claimed this editor is not a “real journalist” and how do they have so much political insight? Well, Grandy is former Iowa Republican Representative Fred Grandy who many people remember as “Gopher” on “The Love Boat.” Andy is Andy Parks, the former WMAL helicopter traffic reporter who once regularly reported on tie ups from the Beltway to Gude Drive and Braddock Road to Indian Head Highway.”
Gopher (r.) panned our report on Dick Cheney and the Madam. [Click on Gopher if you want instant nausea]. Halliburton has a chopper pilot opening for Andy.
“May 8, 2007 — Cheney on DC Madam’s list. Yesterday, WMR reported on the DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s list: “WMR has been informed that the CEO of a major corporation is a former CEO but, nonetheless, the aforementioned extremely high-level official of the Bush administration. The individual, who is definitely “newsworthy,” reportedly engaged the services of Palfrey’s escort firm while he was the CEO and maintained a residence off Chain Bridge Road in the Ballantrae neighborhood in McLean, Virginia, a few blocks from the headquarters of the CIA.”
Cheney “X’d” off the DC Madam’s list by ABC/Disney.
WMR has confirmed with extremely knowledgeable CIA and Pentagon sources that the former CEO who is on Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s list is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton during the time of his liaisons with the Pamela Martin & Associates escort firm. Palfrey’s phone invoices extend back to 1996 and include calls to and from Cheney. Ironically, in 2000 Cheney was appointed by Bush to head his Vice President selection committee, a task that enabled Cheney to gather detailed personal files on a number of potential candidates, including Bill Frist, George Pataki, John Danforth, Fred Thompson, Chuck Hagel, John Kasich, Chris Cox, Frank Keating, Tom Ridge, Colin Powell, and Jim Gilmore, before he selected himself as the vice presidential candidate.
The White House saw to it that ABC/Disney killed the DC Madam’s story before yet another scandal swamped the Bush administration. Cheney is departing Washington today for a trip to the Middle East, where he will visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the USS John C. Stennis in the Gulf.”
”
May 7, 2007 — On May 4, WMR reported on DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s client list and Friday night’s ABC 20/20 report on it: “ABC News has reportedly scaled down the number of clients who we be outed, possibly as a result of pressure from some of the clients’ attorneys.” ABC caved to intense political pressure from the White House, Palfrey’s clients’ attorneys, and members of Congress and their staffs not to air any additional names from the list. It merely recycled the story about two individuals already named, recently-resigned US Agency for International Development chief Randall Tobias and Pentagon “Shock and Awe” originator Harlan K. Ullman.
ABC’s chief investigative reporter Brian Ross saw his story spiked by senior ABC News executives under pressure from Disney Chairman George Mitchell and CEO Bob Iger, as well as White House officials, including Karl Rove. Anticipating that the DC Madam scandal would name additional Bush administration officials, including what WMR was told is an extremely high-level official in the White House, the Bush administration went to “General Quarters” and sought to kill the story. After reporting that Palfrey’s list contained a senior official at the World Bank, the head of an Air Force Intelligence squadron, the CEO of a major corporation, a White House economist (later said to be an official at the Office of Thrift Supervision across the street from the White House), and the head of a neo-con think tank, Ross said none of the names on Palfrey’s list were “newsworthy.” WMR has been informed that the CEO of a major corporation is a former CEO but, nonetheless, the aforementioned extremely high-level official of the Bush administration. The individual, who is definitely “newsworthy,” reportedly engaged the services of Palfrey’s escort firm while he was the CEO and maintained a residence off Chain Bridge Road in the Ballantrae neighborhood in McLean, Virginia, a few blocks from the headquarters of the CIA. A number of phone calls on Palfrey’ s phone bills are said to have originated from the Ballantrae area of McLean during the time of the CEO’s liaison with the Pamela Martin & Associates escort.
There is now an attempt to shift focus by some neo-con journalists in Washington away from the former CEO to officials of the Clinton administration who were also reportedly Palfrey clients. The White House spin machine is also a work. This editor noticed the top-level White House official was seated conspicuously next to his wife in the back seat of a Secret Service Crown Victoria executive black sedan minus the hallmark tinted windows but with the standard accompanying Secret Service motorcade vehicles traveling east on New York Avenue Thursday evening. In other words, the White House wanted pedestrians along H Street and New York Avenue to see this individual sitting with his wife in the vehicle, something unusual in the post-9/11 era.
ABC/Disney caved on Hookergate as many seasoned observers predicted. Ross has a history of having sensitive stories spiked. In 1998, his four month investigation on pedophiles being hired at Disney theme parks, including a puppet salesman at Disney World, was spiked on the direct orders of then-ABC CEO Michael Eisner.
The Washington elite began to push back in force on the Palfrey story during the middle of last week. The Washington Post started the push back with its hit piece on Montgomery Blair Sibley, Palfrey’s attorney.
A U.S. government source told WMR that he believes there is a definite link between Palfrey’s Pamela Martin & Associates and the Duke Cunningham/Dusty Foggo-connected Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Services, under federal investigation for allegedly helping to arrange for prostitutes to attend CIA contractor-arranged poker parties at the Watergate and Capitol Hill’s Westin Grand Hotel. Unlike its role during the Watergate scandal, the Post is part of the criminal conspiracy to cover up “Hookergate.” A public health nurse told WMR that it is irresponsible and a public health menace not to report cases of contacts with prostitutes in Washington, DC to public health authorities. The reason: With 152.2 AIDS cases per 100,000 people, Washington, DC has the highest AIDS rate in the United States.”
Filed under: Clients, Legal, Media, Palfrey Updates, Politics | 1 Comment »
