The marriage of two former Interior Department appointees, Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles and Solicitor and Deputy Chief of Staff Sue Ellen Wooldridge made headlines last spring, as it occurred three days after Griles entered into a plea agreement with Wooldridge's most recent employer, the Department of Justice. Talking heads abound suggested that it was an attempt by Griles, who had once been Wooldridge's boss, to protect himself from further prosecution by envoking spousal privilege.
After the last volleyin the Washington Post's four-part take-down of "a branch of government unto himself" Dick Cheney, I think the nuptial motivation may have been a bit misplaced. Wooldridge was clearly outted as one of the VP's moles in the Interior Department (and one should not forget, later in the Justice Department). In regards to the 2001-2 Klamath River Basin drought, the WaPo reported:
Bush and Cheney couldn't afford to anger thousands of solidly Republican farmers and ranchers during the midterm elections and beyond. The case also was rapidly becoming a test for conservatives nationwide of the administration's commitment to fixing what they saw as an imbalance between conservation and economics.
"What does the law say?" Christie, the former aide, recalled the vice president asking. "Isn't there some way around it?"
Next, Cheney called Wooldridge, who was then deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and the woman handling the Klamath situation.
Aides praise Cheney's habit of reaching down to officials who are best informed on a subject he is tackling. But the effect of his calls often leads those mid-level officials scrambling to do what they presume to be his bidding.
That's what happened when a mortified Wooldridge finally returned the vice president's call, after receiving a tart follow-up inquiry from one of his aides. Cheney, she said, "was coming from the perspective that the farmers had to be able to farm -- that was his concern. The fact that the vice president was interested meant that everyone paid attention."
Cheney made sure that attention did not wander. He had Wooldridge brief his staff weekly and, Smith said, he also called the interior secretary directly.
The WaPo pointed out in the first sentence of this segment that Wooldridge at the time was the "19th-ranking Interior Department official"; however, a mere three years later, she held the office of Solicitor, the third-ranking position., after Secretary Gale Norton, and her yet undisclosed romantic partner, Steve Griles (their relationship apparently began in February, 2003.) Wooldridge became Solicitor in June, 2004, as a Bush recess appointment, at a time when the initial revelations of Jack Abramoff's misdeeds were being reported, mostly by the Washington Post.
Senator John McCain, after the initial story broke in the post in late February, 2004, subpoenaed thousands of documents from Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's firm, and held three hearings beginning in September, 2004. However, at no time during the 2004 hearings, despite having plenty of evidence, did McCain indicate that individuals at the DoI, DoJ or even the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy were party to the Abramoff scandal. This delay allowed the Interior Department to place one of its most compromised, politically and personally, players in the position of "gatekeeper" for DoI documents and employees, while, ostensibly, removing Wooldridge from her dangerous proximity, as Deputy Chief of Staff, to the Secretary. It is not at all surprising then, that when Griles' central role in the Abramoff affair became apparent though Senate testimony and related released documents, that Cheney's mole was moved out of DoI altogether, but into a position where she would have direct oversight into Interior affairs - as Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, a position previously held by none other than close Cheney friend and fellow Wyomingite, Thomas Sansonetti.
Griles was one of the few people at Interior who knew of Wooldridge's long-time connection to Cheney, and marrying him essentially shut-off that line of attack by would be detractors. One now has to wonder if the huge outpouring of support for leniency (91 letters) in Griles' sentencing was orchestrated as a reward for this nuptial sacrifice.
Italia Federici, however, has not been so lucky, and, having been so thoroughly spurned, has agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Is she a threat at all to Wooldridge? Yesterday, while combing through CREW's pile of FOIA documents released by DoI, I came across this entry in Gale Norton's calendar:
Tuesday, July 10, 2001: 1:00 - 2:00 pm: Italia Federici, Wooldridge, Bettenberg, Ruff, Pfiefle.
William Bettenberg was Director of the Office of Policy Analysis, specializing in hydroelectricity, according to his July 19, 2001 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He was also, however, Director of the Minerals Management Service during the Reagan Administration, and an expert on allowing BigEnergy to run off with billions in unpaid royalties. Eric Ruff was DoI communications director, and Mark Pfeifle, Norton's press secretary.
When I first noticed that meeting eighteen months ago, I figured it was related to CREA's ANWR campaign, as three weeks later Federici scored a meeting with DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham's CoE, joined by a Teamster's organizer and GOP PR guru, William Greener. However, Wooldridge wasn't directly involved at that time in ANWR, although she had represented Norton and the DoI on Cheney's Energy Task Force working group. And the inclusion of Bettenberg was thoroughly confusing, as he was completely wrapped up in hydroelectric at the time.
While the WaPo's article leaves out the specific timeframe regarding his first contact with Wooldridge, it clearly was in the midst of the initial 2001 crisis, which came to a head in early summer 2001,
when hundreds of farmers and their supporters used torches and crowbars to open the headgates of an irrigation canal four times in one week. Local sheriffs and police stood by, claiming lack of jurisdiction. Now National Park Service police and FBI agents guard the headwaters, but that hasn’t deterred the farmers. They are laying a pipeline that will take water from Upper Klamath Lake directly to the irrigation ditches, bypassing the headgates.
Was the July 10th meeting in response to the call placed a couple weeks earlier by Cheney? There's nothing to indicate one way or another, but clearly, Federici, who at the time was romantically involved with Steve Griles (who was nominated, but not yet confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Interior) and Wooldridge were working on some project together, a project that was important enough for Norton herself to be involved, needed the expertise of Bettelberg, and was a communications/PR issue.
If Cheney Inc. was worried about Griles, it seems clear that they would have figured a way out to silence Federici. It seems, however, that the real danger is Wooldridge, and effectively shutting down Griles' subpoenaed testimony was a nearly brilliant move. Of course, Griles thought he'd be spending three months of newly wedded-bliss in home confinement at the time. I wonder if he's rethinking the wedding now that he's looking at ten months in Club Fed.
Update: McClatchy is reporting that the House Resources Committee, chaired by Nick Rahall (D-WV) is opening hearings on the Klamath due to the WaPo's reporting:
House panel to investigate Cheney's Klamath River actions
David Whitney | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 28, 2007 07:58:29 PM
WASHINGTON — The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings into Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago.
"It certainly appears that this administration will stop at nothing to achieve political gain from natural resources disasters," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the panel.
Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California asked for the hearing in a letter to Rahall after the Washington Post reported on details of Cheney's intervention.
According to the newspaper, Cheney personally contacted Sue Ellen Wooldridge — a Northern Californian who then was Interior Secretary Gale Norton's top aide for the Klamath — about his concerns over the Bureau of Land Management's decision to stop deliveries of irrigation water. At the time the region was emerging from a severe drought in 2001, and the BLM was enforcing a finding by scientists that water diversions to farmers would harm endangered salmon and suckerfish.
Initially posted at Wampum. The whole sordid Abramoff/Griles/Wooldridge/Federici/Norton/Norquist affair is documented for the past two years here. In addition, at the time, there was quite a bit of speculation as to Karl Rove's part in the whole Klamath deal.