Yet Another Purged U.S. Attorney?

Via Thinkprogress

A former West Virginia federal prosecutor said Friday the White House fired him in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation but never told him why.

Karl K. "Kasey" Warner said he has "concerns" and sees parallels between himself and eight other ousted U.S. attorneys. Congress and an internal Justice Department agency are investigating whether those firings were politically motivated.

Oh no, here we go again!

After the original eight firings, last week during the Gonzales hearings we were informed of a possible ninth and tenth!

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers via Bradblog.

"After hours of testimony, the first and most basic question remains: who created the list of US Attorneys to be fired and why? As I said in the hearing, the bread crumbs are steadily leading toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"We learned from the media today that Todd Graves was the ninth fired US Attorney, and Thomas Heffelfenger of Minnesota may have been the 10th. That begs the question that my colleague, Rep. Sánchez asked earlier, are there any others?

Today we seem to have the answer to that question. Number 11 has arrived.

Warner would not elaborate on what concerned him about his August 2005 firing but rejected the idea that he was fired over his performance.

"The facts speak for themselves. Look into how I ran my office. See how I managed the office," Warner said. "If they want to look at the cases I had and the corruption cases we have now, people can come to their own conclusions about why I was let go."

Warner said he refused to resign when asked by the Justice Department, responding that he took his direction from President Bush.

"Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I'd been fired, no reason given," Warner recounted in a telephone interview.

Now is it possible this firing had nothing what-so-ever to do with politics? Sure, it's possible. But with this administration, one that politicized the selection of personnel for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq... (as documented by Washpo's Rajiv Chandrasekaran - via Marc Cooper)... just about everything is about politics with Bushgov.

Instead of seasoned experts putting together the New Iraq, the Bushies employed snot-nosed Young Republicans whose top skills -- beyong organizing keg parties-- were dumbly herding into a polling booth and voting GOP or having a Republican-connected Mommy or Daddy. This stuff should make anyone's blood boil. The job selection was done, by the way, by another mediocre party hack, Jim O'Beirne, hubby of the grotesque right-wing pundit and Republican cheerleader Kate O'Beirne:

Let me reiterate, because they we're willing to put crass partisan politics above picking up the pieces in Iraq when they had a chance, their ineptitude led to a loss in confidence between the U.S., the U.S. installed Iraq Government and the people of Iraq - these partisan punk-asses essentially lit the fuse for the time-bomb that exploded into the insurgency once Abu Ghraib was revealed.

Just how bad was it? This bad.

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting...

... Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort..

A University for Home-schooled evangelicals? Why that seems familiar - oh yeah, I know who this reminds me of. Monica Goodling.

"You have a Monica problem," Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, "She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted." [...]

Me thinks I detect a wee bit of a pattern here.

And guess what, that pattern doesn't seem to end with Warner. Here comes Number 12!

Warner's statements echo those by former Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who in March said he believed he was fired for investigating corruption in a Republican governor's administration.

The Justice Department said DiBiagio was fired for writing e-mails calling for "front-page" corruption indictments before Election Day.

That's right, investigate a legitimate curruption case by a Republican and risk getting fired, but trump up a bogus case against Democrats just in time to derail an election and you - Mr. Loyal Bushie - are home free.

BushGov in a nutshell: Partisanship First, Competance Never.

Vyan

The Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping down the Black Vote

From Democracy Now.

Another scandal is brewing inside Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department. Former Justice Department attorneys have publicly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the department's Civil Rights Division which was formed 50 years ago to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. According to a recent report by the McClatchy newspapers, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

And since black and minority voters tend to favor Democrats by over 10 to 1 - they have become the perfect targets to help Republicans over the hump in marginal races.

We've all of course become quite familiar with Karl Rove's Infamous Power-Point Presentation. Reports from L.A. Times today indicate the the GSA isn't the only place it made an appearance.

The Los Angeles Times has learned that similar presentations were made by other White House staff members, including Rove, to other Cabinet agencies. During such presentations, employees said they got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans.

Presentations such as this, which are clearly intended to draft government employees into becoming partisan operatives are clear violations of the Hatch Act. But what happens when these types of tactics are employed by the very people whose job is to protect the integrity of the vote?

People such as Bob Bennet disgraced former head of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections where he had helped improperly purge over a hundred thousand voters from the Ohio roles.

Leading up to the 2004 vote, Bennett oversaw the quiet purge of some 168,000 registered voters from the Cuyahoga rolls, including 24.93% of the entire city of Cleveland, which voted 83% for Kerry. In one inner city majority African American ward, 51% of the voters were purged. Centered on precincts that voted more than 80% for John Kerry, this purge may well have meant a net loss to the Democrats of tens of thousands of votes in an election that was officially decided statewide by less than 119,000.

And Bennet was far from alone.

Parallel purges were conducted by Republican-controlled boards of election in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) where some 105,000 voters were purged from the rolls, and in Lucas County (Toledo), where some 28,000 were purged in an unprecedented move in late August 2004. These remain the only three counties in the state known to have conducted massive registration purges prior to the 2004 election. The three mass urban purges decimated the rolls in heavily Democratic areas. Since then, another 170,000 voters have been purged from the rolls in Franklin County, primarily in the heavily Democratic Columbus precincts. Many rural Republican counties, like Miami, practice a “no-purge” policy.

In case you've lost count that over 300,000 voters, mostly democratic, purged from the roles and denied their right to vote - in a race that was decided by a difference of 119,000!

A race that kept George W. Bush in the White House.

So has the DOJ been investigating this? Not so much, they've been busy firing their own and chasing their tails on alleged "voter fraud" cases.

Rich: At least two U.S. attorneys were fired after failing to bring voter fraud cases. Last year the Boston Globe reported the Bush administration is filling the permanent ranks of the Civil Rights Division with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights. This has led to the Civil Rights Division focusing more on cases alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians.

Now I personally feel that legitimate calls to look at so-called "Reverse Discrimination" do need to occur, as well as religious discrimination - but the facts are and have long been that black people are far more likely to be on the receiving end of negative discrimination than any other group.

From the latest FBI Hate Crimes Statistics (which are reported by local law enforcement and compiled by the FBI independent of the Civil Rights Division).

In 2005 there were 828 recorded incidents of Anti-White Discrimination contrasted with 2,630 incidents of Anti-Black Discrimination for a 3 to 1 ratio. But then when you look at things in a per capita basis taking into account that Black people are only 12% (or 1/8th) of the overall population the likelihood of any individual black person being discriminated against versus a white person rises to 25 to 1.

Similarly the vast majority of cases of religious discrimination recorded were Anti-Jewish (848), compared to Anti-Catholic (58), Anti-Protestant (57) and even Anti-Muslim (128). Incidents of anti-Male-Homosexual bias (621) far outstrip incidents against all other religions (93).

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,314 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

* 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.
* 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic.
* 7.8 percent were anti-other (unspecified) religion.
* 4.6 percent were anti-Catholic.
* 4.4 percent were anti-Protestant.
* 3.2 percent were anti-multiple religions, (i.e., groups of individuals of varying religions).
* 0.4 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism.

Contrary to popular belief most hate crimes are not acts of violence or aggression, rather they are acts intended to intimidate.

Of the 8,380 hate crime offenses in 2005:

* 30.3 percent were intimidation.
* 30.2 percent were destruction/damage/vandalism.
* 18.7 percent were simple assault.
* 12.7 percent were aggravated assault.
* The remaining 8.2 percent of hate crimes were comprised of additional crimes against persons, property, and society.

It seems to me that the priorities of the Civil Rights Division should be clear - yet the Bush Administration doesn't see it that way according to for CRD head Joseph Rich.

JOSEPH RICH: Well, I was at the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division right out of law school in ’68 and worked twenty-four of the thirty-six years I was there under Republican administrations, starting with Ramsey Clark, John Mitchell, through Ed Meese, Janet Reno and finally this administration with Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft.

This administration is the first administration that I felt had politicized the department to the extent that it has. And I had been the head of the Voting Section for the last six years that I was there, from 1999 to 2005, and I think the Voting Section has always been a section that is of political interest, but never had been politicized to the extent that it was in this administration.

So exactly what was it they did?

...there was two major things that concerned me the most. The first was, in the voting area, some of the major decisions made were contrary to recommendations from the career people, such as myself, and in my judgment were made for partisan political reasons. These were redistricting decisions in places like Mississippi and Texas. There was a voter ID law in Georgia that was decided just after I left the department in 2005.

Redistricting so that democratic voters have left influence in Violation of the Voting Rights Act? Check. Implementing onerous ID requirements which echo the use of the "Poll Tax" and "Literacy Tests" which was used for decades to keep blacks from voting? Check. What else?

JOSEPH RICH: Well, another thing that happened in this administration right from the outset was a great priority on voter fraud. It continued to increase through 2004 and then, I think, particularly after I left in 2006. The priority on voter fraud -- voter fraud is done by the Criminal Division. The Civil Rights Division works on voter intimidation based on race during elections. And the increase in emphasis on voter fraud became more and more apparent, to the point that last year Bradley Schlozman, who had been one of the ones responsible for politicizing the Civil Rights Division -- he had been there from 2003 to 2006. He was one of the first -- I think the first -- interim US attorney appointed under the PATRIOT Act, that gave the Attorney General the authority to appoint people without confirmation indefinitely. He was appointed in Missouri, a battleground state in 2006.

Five days before the election last fall in Missouri, he brought five voter fraud cases against members of -- or I think employees of ACORN for alleged voter fraud. This was contrary to longstanding department policy not to bring or even investigate voter fraud cases shortly before an election because of the sensitivity to having any impact on elections. The longstanding policy was one in which, if there was evidence of voter fraud, the investigation would take place, unless there was a real emergency, after the election.

The fact that that happened in Missouri, the fact that the United States attorneys in New Mexico and Washington, who were following the priority of investigating vigorously voter fraud and yet were removed because they did not indict, is extremely disturbing, because they were doing their job, but in their professional judgment they did not have evidence to bring the cases, and that appears to have been a major factor in their removal.

So if Rich is correct, and I strongly suspect that he is, this set of firings has sent a clear signal thruout the remain USA's. I shudder to think exactly what kind of pre-emptive prosecutions can we expect prior to the 2008 Congressional and Presidential Elections which just might create a hostile atmosphere to various democratic get-out-the-vote operations which might be critical in battleground states and close elections?

Vyan

Skeptical Senator's Rake Gonzo over the Coals

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - His job in jeopardy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted Thursday he played only a minor role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. Skeptical senators reacted with disbelief.

"We have to evaluate whether you are really being forthright," Sen. Arlen Specter bluntly informed the nation's chief law enforcement officer.

The Pennsylvania Republican said Gonzales' description was "significantly if not totally at variance with the facts."

In a long turn in the witness chair, Gonzales said that despite initial administration claims that the prosecutors had been fired for inadequate performance, he approved their dismissals without looking at their job evaluations.

Offering an apology to the eight and their families for their treatment, he said he had "never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the American people" on that or any other matter.

Both Senator Leahy and Specter were highly skeptical of Gonzales' testimony. Specter, the ranking Republican on the committee (who has on previous Gonzales appearances while he was Chairman had refused to let him be sworn in) at one point even stated as Gonzales insisted that his involvement was "limited" that either "You are not being candid with us or we have to begin to seriously question your judgement and competence."

Gonzales offered a scenario to the Senators where he claims to have approved the removal of eight U.S. Attorneys based on recommendations primarily compiled by his Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson even though he himself had only cursory knowledge with any reasons for six of those included on the final list and no knowledge of the reasons for two of of the firings at the time of his approval.

Of those attorney's which he had heard complains, such as allegations that Prosecutor Carol Lam in San Diego had not persued enough gun and immigration cases, or complaints from Senator Dominici about Prosecutor David Iglesias in New Mexico, Gonzales claimed neither to have investigated the veracity of these complaints, used the nominal U.S. Attorney evaluation E.A.R.S. system in his determination or even talked to any of the U.S. Attorney's in question as part of a management effort to help them correct any problems in their handling their duties - with the exception of Prosecutor Bogden whom who spoke too after he had been fired.

Update:During his testimony he confirmed that he had spoken not only with Dominici (about whom the Senate has confirmed an ethics investigation) regarding Iglesias, but also with Karl Rove and President Bush. Iglesias vigorously maintains that he was fired for political reasons.

Regarding the removal of H. E. "Bud" Cummins in Arkansas, Gonzales maintained that his resignation was approved in June, prior to the late 2006 purge, and that it's justifications had to do with his own desire to spend time with his family and that fact that their was already another "Well Qualified Candidate" available. That candidate was Karl Rove's former assistant and Monica Goodling's former boss in 2000.

To say that most Senators, which the exception of Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) who did little but praise the beseiged Attorney General's service and qualifications, where highly dubious and visibly angered by some of Gonzales claims would be an understatment. Even Republican Senator Sam Brownback looked nothing but pained as he asked Gonzales to explain the reasons for each firing decision in the most prefunctory way imaginable.

In response to Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) Gonzales vigorously claimed that they persure cases without a partisan bias or regard to party. "We prosecuted Republican Bob Ney." They also prosecuted Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham and rewarded the U.S. Attorney responsible for that successful prosecuting, Carol Lam, with being fired.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) reflected what may be the general sentiment even among some Republicans on the committee.

COBURN: Mr. Attorney General, it’s my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. It was handled incompetently, the communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there was misstatements, that’s a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered, and I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.

The Newspaper Op-ed Pages have been even less kind than the Senate. The New York Times editorial page:

Gonzales v. Gonzales

Published: April 20, 2007
If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

Dana Milbank writes in Maybe Gonzales Won't Recall His Painful Day on the Hill:

Alberto Gonzales's tenure as attorney general was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. yesterday by Tom Coburn, M.D.
The good doctor, who also happens to be a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made this clinical judgment after watching Gonzales suffer through four hours of painful testimony. The Oklahoman listed the cause of death as management failure and other complications of the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Andrew Cohen writes in a WaPo columnn called Out of Touch, Out of Line, and Running Out of Time:

If there was one single moment in this morning's testimony by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee that encapsulates the sheer gall and shamelessness of the man in the hot seat, it occurred at about 10:52 when he said that questions about "partisan politics" within the Justice Department actually are an insult to (and criticism of) the career attorneys who bring controversial cases. For that cruelly cynical statement alone-- pretending that legitimate criticism of his own failed leadership as Attorney General actually is instead unfair criticism of some of the victims within the Justice Department-- Gonzales deserves to be fired. Not in a month. Not in a week. Today.

*********************

...for Gonzales to try to defend himself and his lackeys from attack before the Committee by playing the "career professionals" card is not only disingenuous it is downright appalling. It demonstrates once and for all that Gonzales isn't merely a hapless hack in over his head and a lethargic lapdog for the White House. It demonstrates that he is willing to say or do anything to protect himself and his allies at the expense of the people he purports to lead. It demonstrates that he is still unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for his own lack of leadership that has led directly to this controversy. And it proves conclusively that he is a big part of the problem and certainly not the solution at the Department.

Editorial from the Boston Globe:

No support for either Gonzales
April 20, 2007

IT IS DIFFICULT to say which version of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's role in the firing of eight US attorneys more disqualifies him as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. There is his version, in which he was only tangentially involved in an unprecedented mid term purge of federal prosecutors. If that is true, he allowed unsupervised underlings to handle one of the most important responsibilities of the Justice Department.

The other version is the one described by three of those aides: that Gonzales was closely involved in selecting US attorneys to be fired and building a case against them. If that version is true, Gonzales was lying again yesterday when he downplayed his role in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In either case, he should have long since resigned.

The reactions to the testimony from some of the fired U.S. Attorney's has been even more scathing if possible: Former Washington U.S. Attorney John McKay:

Gonzales cited McKay’s authorship of a letter criticizing delays in implementing a law enforcement information-sharing program, as well as comments he made to the Seattle P-I last fall about the staffing levels in his office.

“Generally I recollect there being serious concerns about his judgment,” Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee. […]

“I think it’s a sad day for the Department of Justice,” said McKay, who previously represented the Western District of Washington. “The attorney general missed an opportunity to testify with honor.”

Asked to elaborate, McKay declined, saying, “The senators savaged him enough. I certainly don’t want to talk about his absurd allegations. He’s obviously so disconnected he has no idea what my performance was like and what my judgment was like, and I’ll just leave it at that.”

Former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias:

Iglesias watched the hearings from a naval base at Newport, R.I. He’s finishing a naval reserve deployment and called the hearings “painful to watch.”

“I can only liken Mr. Gonzales’ testimony to a bloodied swimmer in a shark tank. He’s really getting beat up,” Iglesias said. […]

“Now we’re hearing from the A.G. that he apologized on how this was handled. That doesn’t quite get us to where we need to go which was that they shouldn’t have done it. Kyle Sampson stated that under oath a couple of weeks ago, that the Department of Justice should have never gone down this path and if he had it to do over he would have never put me on that list,” Iglesias said.

With the President continuing in his bubble-tinted-view of the situation with claims that "Gonzales performed well" before the Senate, the likelyhood that he'll ask for Gonzales' resignation is about the same as the likelyhood that Abu will give it. Republican Senators have shown that they'd like this entire embarrising episode to end, but the choice before Democrats is weather it's better for the nation to continue to draw this out - as they've reportedly already issued subpoenas for the testimony of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers - or look at the information they already have before them, which clearly indicates that Gonzales may have Obstructed Justice and knowingly lied to Congress, and seek his immediate Impeachment and Removal from Office as is their constitutional right.

Vyan

RNC To Waxman: We’ll Only Show You The Emails We Want You To See

Source: Thinkprogress

In a new letter to the Republican National Committee, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman writes that the RNC has provided only minimal information regarding White House officials’ use of RNC e-mail accounts. The purpose of Waxman’s inquiry was in part to determine the extent that White House staff used “non-governmental e-mail accounts to conduct official government business.”

In the new letter, Waxman reveals that the RNC’s response thus far has been to propose that any Congressional requests for emails be filtered through “eight search terms, such as ‘political briefing,’ ‘Hatch Act,’ and ‘2008.’” Waxman notes that these proposed search terms would not have produced the RNC email that transmitted a copy of Karl Rove’s Powerpoint slides that were presented at a General Services Administration meeting. That e-mail read: “Please do not email this out or let people see it. It is a close hold and we’re not supposed to be emailing it around.”

Waxman says that before Congress can agree to the RNC’s proposed “search terms,” the RNC must provide basic information about the extent their email accounts have been used to transact government business:

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/18/waxman... /

---

This issue has also been looked at by diarist on Dailykos who surmises that the letter sent by White House directing the RNC to refuse the Waxman document requests just might amount to Obstruction of Justice.

Vyan

Quick Truths

From Thinkprogress:

On the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of Saddam’s statue, up to one million Iraqi Shias summoned by Moqtada al-Sadr “have gathered in the holy city of Najaf for a mass demonstration calling for US-led troops to leave Iraq.”

The Washington Post interviews a man who helped sledgehammer Saddam’s statue: “We got rid of a tyrant and tyranny. But we were surprised that after one thief had left, another 40 replaced him. Now, we regret that Saddam Hussein is gone, no matter how much we hated him.”

President Bush heads to the Arizona border today for a speech debuting his new, more hard-line conservative approach to immigration “devised after weeks of closed-door meetings with Republican senators.”

Salon.com has uncovered further evidence that the military, in a desperate effort to fill its ranks for President Bush’s escalation, “sent soldiers with acute post-traumatic stress disorder, severe back injuries and other serious war wounds back to Iraq.”

“After weeks of arguing over when the military will run out of money, House and Senate Republicans hope to up the rhetorical ante this week by formally calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to bring the House back from a two-week spring recess to finish drafting the controversial $120 billion-plus Iraq War spending bill.”

From Randi Rhodes:

On top of Bush’s BS surge, we now learn that an additional 12,000 National Guard troops will be shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why did the Ft. Irwin troops give Chimpy such an icy reception on Wednesday? Maybe they are sick of badly injured troops being denied rehab and getting sent to their base to falsely bolster manpower readiness stats. Criminal.

AUDIO: Cheney keeps lying about Iraq/al-Qaeda links then never existed. On Limbaugh yesterday, Cheney used Zarqawi as his proof.

FACT: Saddam and Osama hated each other, and Hussein tried to get Zarqawi himself but Zarqawi was protected inside the US controlled no-fly zone.

FACT: There were zero credible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda and the White House knew that BEFORE the war.

FACT: What did the bin Laden’s and Hussein (and Bush’s) actually have in common? Their bank.

Meanwhile, chlorine gas shows up again as a suicide car bomber kills at least 27 in Iraq.

From hometown hero to being happy to be tucked away in a state psych ward, Bush’s throw away soldiers find themselves lost and suicidal once they get home.

Even the new Army uniforms are all f’d up.

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney tap dances over lying about being a lifelong hunter. He’s hunted twice in life…once at age 15, once last year, when he first joined the NRA.

John Edwards takes some heat over soliciting donations from those who sent well wishes to Elizabeth via their campaign’s website.

Minnesota’s aborting pigpens in the name of the RNC.

Giuliani vs Rapture Right…can a pro-choice Republican make it through a presidential primary nowadays?

And a Purge of the Prosecutors update: People are demoting themselves in protest of the Bible quoting, 33 year old US Attorney in Minneapolis. Moreover, Rachel Paulose is best friends with Monica “5^th Amendment” Goodling.

Karl Rove crony Tim Griffin claimed to have prosecuted 40 cases. In fact, he only served as an assistant on 3 cases, all settled in plea bargains.

And one of the excuses offered for the purge of David Iglesias was his attendance record. Turns out he’s a Navy Reserve officer. Whoops.

TPM: Is This Monica Goodling!

On Friday Josh Marshall released a video blog that investigates whether former Justice Dept Official Monica Goodling had been part of the Bush Opposition Research Team during the 2000 debates based on video and documents from that time.

Click to View Video

I think to most people with decent eyesight, the answer to that question just might be "Hell, Yes!"

Based on a year 2000 dcumentary on oppo-research head Tim Griffin (who was selected as one of the recent replacement U.S. Attorney's) TPM breaks down the scene frame-by-frame then compares the image of a blonde woman to various pictures of Monica Goodling with are still available from Pat Robertson's Regent University.

Tim can even be heard saying "Hey, Monica..."

Documentatation of Monica's employement during that period can be confirmed via Law.com

After graduating in 1999, Goodling landed a job at the D.C. headquarters of the Republican National Committee just as the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign was ramping up. Goodling's position put her inside the newly created war room for political opposition research. There, she worked alongside a crew of party faithful who would later shepherd her through the ranks at Justice.

Among Goodling's close associates were Barbara Comstock, head of opposition research for the RNC and later the chief spokeswoman for Ashcroft; Griffin, Comstock's deputy, whom Goodling would later help to win the interim appointment to replace one of the eight ousted U.S. Attorneys in Arkansas; and Mark Corallo, who in 2003 took the helm of the Justice Department's Public Affairs Office after Comstock.

Following Comstock into John Ashcroft's Justice Deptartment, Monica rose through the ranks quickly due to her hard work, and tendency to even toil through the night on issues such as the Patriot Act, ultimately becoming the primary point person on judicial nominees.

Later in 2005 after rotating through a stint of prosecutorial training she became the DOJ White House Liason, a senior member of Alberto Gonzales staff who performed...

as the gatekeeper for the White House for all 400-some political appointees in the Justice Department, from U.S. Attorneys and marshals to secretaries.

So what we have here is a hard-core card-carring Christo-Fascist Fundie (like her good friend Rachel "The Wicked Witch of the East" Paulose) , educated by Pat Robertson's Law school which has always been intended to produce hard-right wing Madison Society styled prosecutors and judges for eventually appointment to the Supreme Court and the destruction of Wade, becoming a high end RNC political operative and then moving on to become the point person on all political appointees in the Justice Department.

Gee, I don't know what ever might stink to high heaven in that situation.

All snark aside, If there's still a skeleton hiding in the closet of the prosecutor purge that hasn't already been revealed in the previous doco dumps of DOJ emails - in which Monica is featured prominently, even as an attendee of November 27th meeting with AG Gonzales just ten days before the firings - Monica knows where it's buried.

After announcing that she would plead the 5th Amendment to Congress, and on the same day as Josh's report was released, Monica resigned from the Justice Dept, without giving a full explaination.

I am hereby submitting my resignation to the Office of the Attorney General, effective April 7, 2007. It has been an honor to have served at the Department of Justice for the past five years. May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America.

But it's clear to me, particular after listening to Josh, that her resignation was most likely pre-emptive to avoid being fired if she refused to participate in the DOJ's own internal probe into possible Hatch Act Violations.

Updated

The Hatch Act restricts the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government, District of Columbia government and some state and local employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. In 1993, Congress passed legislation that significantly amended the Hatch Act as it applies to federal and D.C. employees (5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7326). (These amendments did not change the provisions that apply to state and local employees. 5 U.S.C. §§ 1501- 1508.) Under the amendments most federal and D.C. employees are now permitted to take an active part in political management and political campaigns. A small group of federal employees are subject to greater restrictions and continue to be prohibited from engaging in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns.

Those employees subject to increased restrictions on political activities include those working at:

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Criminal Division (Department of Justice)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Federal Election Commission
  
• Office of Special Counsel
  
• National Security Agency
• National Security Council

The situation has become so bad, that even Newt Gingrich has stated that Alberto Gonzales has to go.

"The public would be much better served to have another attorney general," said Newt Gingrich. "I cannot imagine how he’s going to be effective for the rest of his administration. They’re going to be involved in endless hearings."

Vyan

The Worst Thing about the Prosecutor Purge

is the likelyhood that current and future prosecutions will be tainted with the stench of partisanship either rightly or wrongly by defense attorneys.

In fact, it's already begun.

A lawyer for former Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes told a judge yesterday "there is no way" his client will plead guilty to charges stemming from the Randy "Duke" Cunningham bribery scandal.

The lawyer, Mark Geragos, also said he planned to seek dismissal of the case because he has reason to believe former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam may have leaked secret grand jury documents to the media.

Geragos contended that Lam wanted the indictments to happen before she was forced from office by the Bush administration.

Geragos, an alumni of defending Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson, is clearly making an argument that Lam was forced to break the rules (and the law) because of the unjustified prosecutor purge and politic in Washington intended to shield high-profile Republicans under investigation.

Lam was meeting resistance from bosses in the Justice Department, who had rejected drafts of indictments against Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, saying they needed revisions.

Lam, Geragos theorized, wanted to force reluctant officials to go along with her plans by leaking details of the indictments before they were officially released.

"These indictments as to my client were returned hours before Ms. Lam was to exit. . . . If it did come back to Carol Lam, it would strike me as the most compelling reason for dismissal," Geragos told the court.

And exactly how does Geragos know that Lam was meeting resistance? The doco and email dumps that have been coming out for the last few weeks of Gonzo-Gate.

Geragos did not specify, either inside or outside of court, what caused him to believe that the Department of Justice had rejected drafts of the indictments. In court he referred to e-mails – unearthed as part of the congressional investigation of the controversial firings of Lam and seven other U.S. attorneys – that supposedly bolster his position. After court, he would not elaborate.

Whether this argument by Geragos is factual or simply yet another one of his famous dramatic ploys currently remains to be seen. Either way it sets a very ugly precedent for the ability of the remaining 93 Federal prosecutors - particularly the 8 replacements - to conduct their duties without suspicion of their motives and tactics.

Exactly how many legitimate cases will be put in jeopardy, and how many bogus ones will be pressed forward without cause - is anyones guess.

How exactly are impartial and fair justice to be implemented with the hobgoblins of paranoia and doubt reining unchecked through our court system?

Vyan

How Sampson Drove the Bus Over Gonzo!

In his Senate testimony yesterday, former DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson strove hard to be a "Loyal Bushie" and continually denied that the unprecedented mid-term firing of 8 U.S. Attorney's was for "political reasons" - but in doing so he may have damaged the credibility of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales beyond all hope of repair.

From the NYTimes.

Mr. Sampson flatly contradicted the attorney general’s claim that he did not participate in the selection of the prosecutors to be fired and never had a conversation about "where things stood." Mr. Sampson testified that Mr. Gonzales was "aware of this process from the beginning," and that the two men regularly discussed where things stood. Mr. Sampson also confirmed that Mr. Gonzales was at the Nov. 27 meeting where the selected prosecutors’ fates were sealed.

Under oath Sampson stated.

"I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate."

Just as a refresher, that would be this statement made by Gonzales on 3/12/07 that:

"I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on."

Yet According to Sampson Gonzales was apparently involved in five discussion of the Attorney firings. Via Atrios.

"So he (Gonzales) was involved in discussions in contrast to his statement" this month? Specter asked.

"Yes." Sampson replied.

Sen. Charles Schumer then asked about Gonzales also claiming that he saw no documents on this matter.

Sampson replied: "I don't think it's entirely accurate."

Schumer: "There was repeated discussions??

Sampson: "Yes...at least five."

Forgetting one single meeting most people could understand, maybe two - but five!? It seems to me where headed full bore for Libby-ville (where Scooter claims that he first heard about Valerie Plame-Wilsons' CIA connection from Tim Russert was contradicted by at least six seperate witnesses)

How's that grill taste Abu?

Still, Sampson probably felt little qualms about revealing Abu mis-statements since he continued to hold to the Administration line that the President has discretion to fire anyone at anytime for ANY REASON - but this time the reason certainly wasn't politics - oh - heaven forfend not!

NYTimes.

The administration insists that purge was not about partisan politics. But Mr. Sampson’s alternative explanation was not very credible — that the decision about which of these distinguished prosecutors should be fired was left in the hands of someone as young and inept as Mr. Sampson. If this were an aboveboard, professional process, it strains credulity that virtually no documents were produced when decisions were made, and that none of his recommendations to Mr. Gonzales were in writing.

Sampson claimed not to be able to fully explain the purge, since the final decision was made by Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales:

Mr. Sampson’s claim that he had only casual knowledge of these highly sensitive investigations was implausible, unless we are to believe that Mr. Gonzales runs a department in which the chief of staff is merely a political hack who has no hand in its substantive work. He added to the suspicions that partisan politics were involved when he made the alarming admission that in the middle of the Scooter Libby investigation, he suggested firing Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago who was the special prosecutor in the case.

Sampson also attempted to claim that Carol Lam was fired for her failure to pursue immigration cases, however Diane Feinstein wasn't going for it.

Feinstein told Sampson, "It is a real surprise to me that you would say here that the reason for her dismissal was immigration cases." She then revealed a letter of commendation to Carol Lam dated Feb. 15, 2007, signed by the director of field operations of the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency. She read some excerpts to Sampson:

The letter concludes, "I speak for my entire staff when I say that we are honored to have had the privilege of working with you and your staff for the past four years. ... Again, thank you for your support; you will be missed."

Despites Sampsons unbelievable denials at least one former U.S. Attorney, Joseph Rich, has come out and flatly stated that the firings weren't just political, but were intended Fix The Vote.

From the LA Times.

I spent more than 35 years in the (Justice) department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.

At least two of the recently fired U.S. attorneys, John McKay in Seattle and David C. Iglesias in New Mexico, were targeted largely because they refused to prosecute voting fraud cases that implicated Democrats or voters likely to vote for Democrats.

After six hours of testimony Sampson finally admitted that the firings, particularly of David Iglesias may have been a mistake. Hmmm. ya think?

From Thinkprogress.

SCHUMER: Do you still think David Iglesias deserved to be fired?

SAMPSON: Senator, looking back on all of this, I wish that we could do it over again.

SCHUMER: So you’re saying you think he shouldn’t have been fired?

SAMPSON: Senator, I don’t know. That was a decision that was made. In hindsight, in hindsight, I wish the Department hadn’t gone down this road at all, and I regret my role in it, and that’s one of the reasons I resigned.

SCHUMER: So if the choice were up to you, just thinking back on that fateful December 7, would you now — knowing what you know now — have put David Iglesias on a list, choice solely up to you if he should be fired?

SAMPSON: In hindsight, sitting here today –

SCHUMER: Correct.

SAMPSON: I would not.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda is not exactly the way to run a country. Particularly when one of the Attorney on the hit-list was Patrick Fitzgerald.

The Washington Post reported recently that Patrick Fitzgerald — the special prosecutor in the Libby trial — was given a poor ranking by the Bush administration despite being described by his colleagues as a "legal star":

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking was drawn up by Kyle Sampson, but the reference to Fitzgerald "is in a portion of the memo that Justice has refused to turn over to Congress."

Exactly how Abu intends to squirm his way out of this fine mess should be somewhat entertaining, but I for one think that his days are marked and numbered.

If this is how a tried and true "Loyal Bushie" treats him, the Senators who've been bullied by Bush for the last six years should greet him with a wide warm embrace when he testifies next month.

Oh yes, it will be old home week.

Vyan

The Impending White House Email Disaster

Yesterday my boss - who isn't the most net savvy guy in the world - got an email from Paypal claiming that there was a problem with his credit card, so he logged into his account and updated his information.

Today he discovered an unexplained withdrawal for $2,600 from his Checkccard account. This is just minutes after I'd taken a look at this suspicious email and discovered that it didn't come from Paypal at all and instead directed the user to a domain called dancesforlifes.com which featured a facimile of the paypal login and html code that directed his Id, Password and credit card information to a Gmail address.

Oh shit!.

All of this I mention just to point out that email security is not a joke and that many people will go to great lengths to get at the sensitive information we'd prefer to protect, on and it appears that much of the staff of the White House has switched to using personal email accounts.

From Thinkprogress.

Via Muckraker, U.S. News reports that "just a week after E-mails in the U.S. attorneys case became a main focus of congressional Democrats probing the firings, several aides said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence."

"We just got a bit lazy," said one aide. "We knew E-mails could be subpoenaed. We saw that with the Clintons but I don't think anybody saw that we were doing anything wrong."

But rather than use RNC accounts, "they have subsequently bought their own private E-mail system through a cellular phone or Blackberry server. When asked how he communicated, one aide pulled out a new personal cellphone and said, ‘texting.’"

As was pointed out in the Recommended Diary by citizen92 earlier this week, allowing their communications to be stored on unsecured non-government servers is security threat simply waiting to be exploited. All some needs to do is crack the password and their in.

The White House is a huge target for electronic espionage by friendly and hostile foreign powers. For those of you who may have visited Washington, this may be evident when you stroll by the various embassies scattered around the city -- with their unusual sculptures of antennas and wires on their roofs. The Russians have a compound just three blocks north of the White House.

The US Government spends undisclosed amounts on countermeasures to protect its critical information and its secure networks. And it has the experts to make sure that those countermeasures are working.

But what if someone in the White House chooses to not use those counter-measures (simply to avoid leaving a subpoena-able trail of bread-crumbs) and as a results gets their password jacked?

I personally know how easy this is to accomplish. Not simply because of what happened to my boss yesterday, but because once upon a time one of best friends was a hacker. Not just any hacker - The Hacker. Kevin Mitnick (who later spent several years on the run from federal authorities) and I went to High School together, and way back in the late 70's I got to see first hand how he used to create password phishing programs just like the one I described at the top of this post to access LAUSD, USC and UCLA logon accounts.

Ah, the classics never fade away it seems.

Besides the security issues, this also may blow WH claims of extended executive priveledge completley out of the water. From Josh Marshall.

"[T]his may have been too clever by half. If the president’s aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can’t have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege."

And they certainly can't use that claim to protect emails on their personal blackberry and cell phone now can they?

Oh, and by the way - other federal agencies have banned this practice for security reasons.

A reader who has a security role at a federal agency writes, "On the issue of using outside/unofficial e-mail address from official sites, the CIO at [redacted] has expressly forbade the practice for security reasons as it is all too easy to put sensitive information in an e-mail. ... Needless to say, hearing that the WH does not mandate that practice and lets [Rove] do 95% of his e-mailing from a blackberry, presumably with access to an unofficial address, is quite shocking. Still find it absolutely amazing that his clearance has not been revoked."

"Amazing" simply isn't the world for it.

Getting zapped for a couple grand is pretty bad, but just imagine how much of the nation's assets are being put a risk by these WH jackasses?

I think Fraking Criminally Negligent is a good set of words for it - how 'bout that?

Vyan

Huffpo: Impeach Gonzales Now!

Arianna Huffington's latest piece on HuffingtonPost makes the astute arguement that rather than allowing Bush to play beat the clock on the end of his administration, Congress should move toward Impeachment Hearings of Alberto ("Fredo") Gonzales now rather than later.

If the president continues trying to run out the clock on this scandal, Congress should immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Alberto Gonzales. It's the quickest way to the truth.

Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, [Vicky Toensing's Husband] Joe DiGenova said that if Congress insists on issuing subpoenas, the White House will surely contest them, and the ensuing litigation will last until the end of Bush's term. DiGenova's point was that Congress should go ahead and compromise, but my takeaway was just the opposite: if Bush's game is to stall, Congress should play the impeachment card since, as Robert Kuttner points out, "an impeachment inquiry could be completed in a matter of months."

Kuttner calls Gonzales the administration's "point man for serial assaults against the rule of law." And his sordid track record as White House counsel and AG bears this out: Guantanamo, the misuse of "national security letters," the abuse of the Patriot Act, the illegal spying on American citizens, and now his lies about his involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings.

Bush has 21 months left in office. That's far too long to continue with an Attorney General with such contempt for the law.

Although much of the question of "who really authorized the firings" has since shifted toward the Whitehouse and the 18-Day gap the question of Alberto's personal complicity in the firings and his false statements to congress.

Jan 18:

I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.

And

I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons

Problem is, there's more than circumstantial evidence that he did exactly that.

[Fired U.S. Attorney] John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could undermine a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said that White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy William Kelley "actually asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me."

McKay said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the question -- which he took as a challenge to his 2004 decision -- surprised him because the issue was reviewed by his office and supported by the FBI's office in Seattle. "We expected to be supported by people in Washington, D.C., when me make tough decisions like that," McKay said.

And so far has completely stood behind his decision.

Listen, we made a decision at the Department as to the appropriate way forward. There was nothing improper about the decision here ... There’s no evidence whatsoever, and it’s reckless and irresponsible to allege that these decisions were based in any way on improper motives.

Even if he claims he doesn't remember making it.

I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on ... That’s basically what I knew as attorney general.

With more and more information coming out from the various doco and email dumps, not to mention the testimony from Carlon Lam and David Iglesias that these firings were definately political...

"If [my firing] was performance based, there is no way they would have agreed to have allowed me to list them as a reference," he said. "In fact, they agreed, telling me that the true nature was political, not performance."

Congress already has more than enough information and evidence to force Gonzales out based on the numerous crimes he's either committed or aided with these firings including...

• Misrepresentations to Congress (18 U.S.C. § 1505)
• Obstruction of Justice (18 U.S.C. § 1512 (c))
• Witness Tampering (18 U.S.C. § 1512 (b))

Rove and Miers can wait on the hook behind their phony "executive priveledge shield (which is supposed to only apply to direct conversations with the President rather than between those two) in the meantime. I for one prefer my Turdblossom's well sauteed and marinated in fear and guilt before the final slow roast on a Congressional Spit.

Gonzales himself, since he no longer works in the White House, has no "exective priveledge" to hide behind. They must subpeona him to explain himself, and if he continues to lie - or worse refuses the subpeona as he's threatened to do - I say "Impeach His Punk Ass".

Vyan

Serving the President's Pleasure

Last Sunday during the penultimate episode of this season of Battlestar Galactica a prosecutor uttered the following phrase when asked by the Colonial President to persue Genocide charges against her predecessor based largely on a fleeting glimpse of of him during a hazy recovered memory.

I plan to prosecute on charges I can prove. But of course you can always fire me and have me replaced since I do serve at the pleasure of the President

The irony of that statement coming out at that particular moment in time by a prosecutor to the President - in the midst of Gonzales-Gate - to me was like a lightening bolt hitting the White House porch.

Was it just a coincidence, or were the people at BSG up to a little subversive mischief with a particular partisan bent?

To answer that question I reached out to a contact I had made on the show last year at an SC film festival and asked about the scene. He emailed me back and said:

That scene was shot in early December. It has to be a coincidence, right?

Yeah, ok fine. Gotta be.

From it's inception this show has been re-conceived from it's cheesy 70's origins into a provacative (and only slightly distorted) mirror of our own struggles with issues in the aftermath of a catastraphic mass murder such as 9/11. Just what barriers do you cross in persuit of the survival of your way of life? Do you use torture? Kangaroo Courts? Retaliatory Genocide? Rigged Elections? In the past my contact has told me how the shows producers take delicious glee in placing the words of George W Bush into the mouth of President Laura Roslyn knowing that the actress Mary McDonnel is an extreme "ultra liberal" who would freak if she realized what she was really saying.

Still in this case one conspiracy theory by Hollywood was shot down in flames, IMO it really was just a coincidence, maybe a slight flicker of the show "West Wing" which used that phrase quite often, not a wry indictment of the Bush Administration.

But then again as I look at today's New York Times it seem another conspiracy is growing by leaps and bounds.

WASHINGTON, March 24 — An accumulating body of evidence is at odds with the statements of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that he played little role in the deliberations over the dismissal of eight United States attorneys.

Mr. Gonzales has said he did not take part in any discussions of the dismissal effort, and left the planning and execution of the removals up to D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff.

But e-mail messages and other documents released by the Justice Department in recent days suggest that Mr. Gonzales was told of the dismissal plan on at least two occasions, in 2005 when the plan was devised and again in late 2006 shortly before the firings were carried out.

Oops. Was that a little white-lie Mr. G? Didn't take part in any discussions? How about two discussions Mr. Attorney General, hm?

But what's even more interesting is that Gonzo (aka Fredo) might just be pulling a Libby and falling on the sword for ole Turdblossom.

The conflicts between the documentary record and Mr. Gonzales’s version of events have contributed to an erosion of support for him in Congress, where lawmakers from both parties have called for him to step down. They have also fed suspicions by some Democrats that the ousters, from the start, may have been orchestrated by the White House, and most particularly, by Karl Rove, the White House political adviser.

Although many of the right such as Tom Delay and Fred Barnes have claimed that this is a "Made up partisan scandal" - there is the very real possibiilty that a series of crimes may have indeed been committed as Adam Cohen outlined this week.

First there's Lying to Congress.

1. Misrepresentations to Congress. The relevant provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1505, is very broad. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and also to "impede" it in getting information. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty indicated to Congress that the White House’s involvement in firing the United States attorneys was minimal, something that Justice Department e-mail messages suggest to be untrue.

Second, Obstructing Justice.

2. Calling the Prosecutors. As part of the Sarbanes-Oxley reforms, Congress passed an extremely broad obstruction of justice provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (c), which applies to anyone who corruptly "obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so," including U.S. attorney investigations.

David Iglesias, the New Mexico United States attorney, says Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, called him and asked whether he intended to bring indictments in a corruption case against Democrats before last November’s election. Mr. Iglesias said he "felt pressured" by the call. If members of Congress try to get a United States attorney to indict people he wasn’t certain he wanted to indict, or try to affect the timing of an indictment, they may be violating the law.

Hmm.. shades of President Roslyn?

Third - Tampering with Witnesses.

3. Witness Tampering. 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (b) makes it illegal to intimidate Congressional witnesses. Michael Elston, Mr. McNulty’s chief of staff, contacted one of the fired attorneys, H. E. Cummins, and suggested, according to Mr. Cummins, that if he kept speaking out, there would be retaliation. Mr. Cummins took the call as a threat, and sent an e-mail message to other fired prosecutors warning them of it. Several of them told Congress that if Mr. Elston had placed a similar call to one of their witnesses in a criminal case, they would have opened an investigation of it.

And Congress should also open an investigation...

The forth crime, is the juciest. It's the one that puts the lie to Tony Snow-job's "Serving at the Pleasure" canard. You see, the President can't improperly fire a U.S. Attorney for just any willy nilly reason - not if that firing is done to impeded an ongoing investigation.

4. Firing the Attorneys. United States attorneys can be fired whenever a president wants, but not, as § 1512 (c) puts it, to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding.

Let’s take the case of Carol Lam, United States attorney in San Diego. The day the news broke that Ms. Lam, who had already put one Republican congressman in jail, was investigating a second one, Mr. Sampson wrote an e-mail message referring to the "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." He said it made him think that it was time to start looking for a replacement.

Also...

Congress has also started investigating the removal of Fred Black, the United States attorney in Guam, who was replaced when he began investigating the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Anyone involved in firing a United States attorney to obstruct or influence an official proceeding could have broken the law.

Just to put this in perspective, besides the fact the Scooter Libby was just convicted for Obstruction of Justice and False Statements - if we jump in the way-back machine and remember almost ten years ago, Four of the Eleven Allegations made by Ken Starr against President Bill Clinton recommending his impeachment were for - wait for it - Obstruction of Justice and a fifth was for Witness Tampering.

With this in mind, and with connections growing stronger between these firings and the White House (despite their quaasi-legal attempts to hide their email trail on non-government servers and the odd 18-day gap) President Bush just might come to regret one particular statement he made this week as much as Clinton regrets saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."

However, in Bush's case he didn't deny involvement - he actually endorsed the firings.

Mr. Bush, in his Saturday radio address, again came to the defense of Mr. Gonzales, his longtime friend and legal adviser. "I strongly support the attorney general in this decision" to remove the United States attorneys, President Bush said.

If these firings were engineered specifically as a result of attempts to improperly influence the U.S. Attorneys into questionable prosecutions against Democrats and to halt ongoing legitimate prosecutions against Republicans A Crime was Commited and the President may have just admitted Complicity in that Crime.

If so, the dueling House and Senate "Show Trials" which are begining to shape up just might rival Ringing Bros as one of the Greatest On Earth, as well as the ignoble end of the Bush Administration.

Vyan

P.S. Battlestar Galactica's Season finale airs tonight on Sci Fi (10pm), and it just might have a few more interestingly ironic nuggets for us neo-conspiracy buffs.

The Subpoenas are coming - the Subpoenas are Coming!

Rejecting the ridiculous "we'll talk to Congress, but only on super-double-secret-background" offer from the White House, the House has voted to issue subpoenas for the testimony of Harriet Miers and Karl Rove.

A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for
President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

Naturally White House spokesman Tony Snow thought it was a great idea, and warned that the President shouldn't try to resist the Congressional probe.

Evidently, [The President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

Opps, I'm sorry - that was Tony Snow talking about President Clinton way back in the 90's - this is what he has to say about his current bosses pugnatious posture of fighting the subpoenas of Rove and Miers.

I asked whether the president was perhaps overly confrontational at this stage of the game. “I don’t think it’s confrontational,” Snow said. “We feel pretty comfortable with the constitutional argument.” …

The White House, Snow said, is determined to avoid “hearings or the trappings of hearings” when White House officials talk to Congress. “They’re looking for hands up, cameras on,” Snow said of Democrats. “They’re talking about a show trial.”

This view was a follow up on these previous comments by varous members of the WH Staff including Snow.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow: Well, as you know, Ed, it has been traditional in all White Houses not to have staffers testify on Capitol Hill. [3/13/07]

White House Counselor Dan Bartlett: I find it highly unlikely that a member of the White House staff would testify publicly to these matters. [3/13/07]

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): No, I think you’re violating a precedent there that should not be violated. … I believe that under the separation of powers, there are limits to the extent to which Congress can subpoena or demand testimony from those who were closest to the president. [3/15/07]

Here's what Bush himself had to say about it.

“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. The initial response by Democrats unfortunately shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts. It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials. And I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available. I proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse, and I hope they don’t choose confrontation. I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials.”

Might not such a threat to "make key White House documents unavailable" be tantamount both to obstuction of justice and contempt of congress?

Oddly enough it seems that when confronted with multiple series of bogus scandals from issues regarding the fanclub for Socks the Cat, and whether or not the Clinton's had used their Christmas Card list to solicit campaign donations - in point of fact - the Clinton Whitehouse never refused to offer Congressional testimony by any member of it's senior staff.

From Thinkprogress.

According to the Congressional Research Service, under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions. The aides who testified included some of Clinton’s closest advisors:

Harold Ickes, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff - 7/28/94

George Stephanopoulos, Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy - 8/4/94

John Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary - 8/5/94

Bruce R. Lindsey, Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President - 1/16/96

Samuel Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs - 9/11/97

Beth Nolan, Counsel to the President - 5/4/00

In contrast, between 2000 and 2004, Bush allowed only one of his closest advisers, then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to appear in front of Congress. He has also refused three invitations from Congress for his aides to testify, a first since President Richard Nixon in 1972. Clinton did not refuse any.

When we're dealing with a situation where it appears the White House may have attempted to turn the Justice Dept into it's personal political gestapo - targeting Democrats in tight races while giving Republicans with ethics and criminal issues a pass, while allowing campaign donors to dictate criminal policy - we have a situation which is far more eggregious than who spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom, paid for the Socks the Cat fanclub, or whether Vice President Gore made campaign calls using the wrong telephone.

The fact that all the Purged Prosecutors were loyal Republicans and after the Senate voted 94-2 to reverse the Patriot Act loophole which allowed the Bushies to pull this hat trick in the first place, the likelyhood that anyone can take the claim that this is a "Partisan Witchhunt" is somewhere been slim and less than nill.

I for one, am glad it looks like Bush will do the stupid thing - yet again - and not only dig in his heels to carve a moat around Gonzales (eventually forcing his Impeachment), but also try to defy the will of Congress and take this issue to the Supreme Court.

Where, me thinks, he'll lose and lose badly.

The more he tries to stick his fingers into this leaking boat - the faster the water rises. This Prez, IMO is headed for the Big Fall. That's right Regime Change ™, and the sad thing is he'll never see it coming.

Vyan

Quick Truths

From Thinkprogress

18: The percentage of Iraqis that have confidence in U.S.-led coalition troops as the war enters its fifth year today. Six in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going badly, and only one-third expect things to improve in the next year. Nearly 90 percent “say they live in fear that the violence ravaging their country will strike themselves and the people with whom they live.”

Almost two years before the FBI publicly admitted this month that “it had ignored its own rules when demanding telephone and financial records about private citizens, a top official in that program warned the bureau about widespread lapses.”

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired “after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud,” had been “heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes.”

Last week, the White House pressured the Office of Management and Budget to withhold earmark data from the public. OMB Director Rob Portman said privately last week: “My hands are tied” due to directives from the White House. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) remarked, “I think the American people should be very disappointed.”

A new twist on the “illegal immigration hunts” sponsored by right-wing college groups: A Boise State University student group is “promoting a speech about immigration with a ‘food stamp drawing’ that requires climbing through a hole in a fence and offering fake identification for a shot at winning dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.”

And From Randi Rhodes

Valerie Plame Wilson testified Friday morning under oath in front of the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Everything we’ve told you thus far on the outing of this undercover CIA agent has been confirmed by the CIA itself in advance of the hearing. Randi has the must-hear clips and analysis.

Meanwhile, Americans are against a Libby pardon 3 to 1.

New evidence puts 1) Karl Rove at the heart of the purge of the prosecutors, and 2) shows that Gonzales lied to Congress (what else is new). Expanded info/explanation

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) becomes the 2^nd Republican calling for Gonzales to go.

The buzz is that, like in the case of Libby, a guilty Gonzales will go down but Rove, like a doughy pasty white cockroach, will survive. Plus, a 3^rd Republican, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R - CA), says Gonzales should go.

VIDEO: One of the purged prosecutors speaks out

From our No S**t File, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confessions were exaggerated. Gee, really?

Moreover, KSM’s BS “confession” not only failed as a new-cycle topic changer, it also means that the truly guilty parties have a better chance at getting away with the crimes he that he has taken credit for committing. Chimpy, you’re doing a heckuva job.

Evangelicals come out against torture (how very brave and just 6 short years after it started).

More black site prisons…

Also, Rep. Jean Schmitt (R-OH) plays slip & slide in a pool of vomit. LOL!!!

FLASHBACK VIDEO: Schmitt calling Murtha a coward on the floor of the House

And Grandpa McCain takes the “Straight Talk Express” out of storage, adding a twist of irony to his already shattered credibility.