By The Prowler on 6.18.07 @ 12:08AM
New interest in Rep. Emanuel's voter naturalization record.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel is ducking questions about
his role in the Immigration and Naturalization Service's
Citizenship USA Initiative, which he helped direct back in 1996
during the Clinton Administration.
Emanuel, in his capacity as a senior White House adviser to
President Bill Clinton, was well known in
Department of Justice circles as a "shadow Attorney General,"
according to a former Clinton DOJ official.
"Rahm won't say anything about it now, he's scared out of his
mind that he's going to get tarred for his role in this thing, but
he was very much involved in directing policy at DOJ, particularly
on immigration policy," says the former official now in private
practice in New York.
Meanwhile, Emanuel has been attempting to send reporters asking
about his role of late in other directions. According to a reporter
for a Chicago daily who asked Emanuel about his activities at DOJ,
"He said that it was all a Harold Ickes
operation."
Emanuel was identified in a 2000 DOJ Inspector General report as
a key player in a taxpayer-funded scheme to fast-track legal and
illegal immigrants through any means possible for citizenship so
that they could vote for the Democrat party. The program was called
Citizenship USA.
CUSA outsourced some INS citizenship requirement programs
(English language testing, for example), and was designed to speed
up citizenship opportunities so that newly minted citizens could
vote for the Democrat party, if not in 1996, then in 1998 and
2000.
Emanuel has denied any role, though the 2000 report makes clear
he was involved. Now, as reporters have begun asking questions,
Emanuel has refused to comment. According to one eyewitness, when
Emanuel was recently approached by a Los Angeles Times
reporter who has been asking about CUSA, the congressman from
Illinois turned and walked quickly in the other direction.
topics:
Bill Clinton, Immigration
