The Associated Press is reporting, quoting unnamed sources, that Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing a criminal indictment of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius based on a still-secret joint finding by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Justice Department that Sebelius received payments from a secretive conservative organization – thought to be tied to two wealthy drug dealers (known to their customers as the “Coke Brothers”) and an associate of theirs in the arms trafficking business – in order to intentionally damage the functionality, credibility, and roll-out of the web site for the federal Obamacare exchange.
According to the sources, Sebelius received cash, a remodeled kitchen, and a red Tibetan Mastiff puppy (sired by a champion) valued at over $100,000, with the total compensation approaching $425,000.
In return, Sebelius agreed to publicly confirm and amplify statements made by President Obama and others – statements which Sebelius knew to be false – about the readiness of the exchange, the impact of the law on health insurance prices and on doctors’ willingness to remain practicing medicine, the ability to “keep your plan” or “keep your doctor” if you like them, the assertion that they would not delay various deadlines, and other deceptions made to a gullible media along the lines of “everything’s going as planned.”
AP’s sources state that the Department of Justice has captured (on both audio and video) a meeting of Secretary Sebelius with a representative of the organization in which an unidentified man, speaking with a heavy South African accent, argues that Sebelius should not receive as much money as previously agreed because the Exchange web site implementation by CGI Federal was so utterly incompetent that at least a third of Sebelius’ responsibilities under their agreement were not needed; the system would destroy trust in itself without Sebelius’ help.
Sebelius would have none of it, saying that the ineptness of the contractor and the hopelessly inefficient and bureaucratic staff at HHS were “some incredible dumb luck but I still did my part by refusing to offer even a ‘first year business student’ level of management or oversight.”
The goal of the “brothers” was to fatally damage the trust of Americans in the Obamacare exchanges specifically, Obamacare more generally, and “big government” most broadly, especially among young adults and college students. In this, they seem to have succeeded, according to Obama administration internal polling cited in the criminal complaint against Sebelius.
The conservatives, through the front organization, further agreed to hire Sebelius to a “consulting” position if she were fired by President Obama. In that position, she would work with former Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette who heads an anti-conservative “Republican” lobbying organization. In the same recorded conversation, the South African speaking for the organization says, “While Steve pretends to be a Republican, you can pretend to be a Democrat. Two can play at that game.”
However, both sides considered the “hire-if-fired” contingency unnecessary given the president’s unwillingness to terminate the employment of other high-ranking officials whose records implied incompetence, corruption, or both, particularly Eric Holder himself, which the AP reporter notes as an ironic twist in this rapidly evolving story on this first day of April, 2014.
