Contempt fo Congress for ex-White House Aides creeps Forward another notch.

Moving at the lightening pace of a snail backing-up, the House Judiciary Committee has today, four months after their initial commitee vote of approval, finally issued a report to the full House on Contempt Citations against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers for failing to honor Congressional Subpeonas to testify on the DOJ Purge.

WASHINGTON - House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush's key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department's purge of federal prosecutors last winter.

Naturally the White House was impressed by this bold move by the Democrats to enforce the - what do you call it, oh yeah - the Rule of Law.

The White House shrugged off the ultimatum, saying the information is off-limits under executive privilege and that the aides in question — White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former presidential counselor Harriet Miers — are immune from prosecution.

"It won't go anywhere," predicted White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Or will it?

The White House is naturally quite confident that Miers, Bolten (and Rove who is also threatened by this contempt action) won't be prosecuted because - well, they have the prosecutors under their thumb don't they?

Assuming the full House votes to confirm the contempt citations - isn't it sickening that we have to "Hope" for this? - the issue would then be referred to District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, who like all of those who were placed in the Justice department in lieu of prosecutors who were either too aggressive with Republicans (Carol Lam) or too lenient on Democrats (David Iglesias) for the White House's taste was placed in his position using a loophole in the Patriot Act which by-passed Senate Confirmation.

With this in mind it should be a surprise that the White House sounds pretty smug.

The White House showed no signs of budging, maintaining that the law does not require a U.S. attorney to prosecute someone carrying out a president's invocation of executive privilege.

"This Congress is proving to be the all time champion of investigations," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "If the Judiciary Committee really wanted facts instead of headlines, they should have accepted the president's offer of accommodation to interview current and former advisers."

Although the DOJ has already Officially stated that it will not enforce the law - contempt of congress against White House officals, one thing that might undermine their confidence is the fact that the Patriot Act Loophole has since been closed, which means that Jeffrey A. Taylor's time as the DC USA is coming to a close.

In fact, by my Calender Taylor's last day should have been Oct 12th (120 Days after the repeal was passed) but so far he's still there which is weird and I think quite possibly illegal. So naturally, I'm not surprised - are you?

Anywho, with or without Gonzalez's handpicked stooge lackey Mr. Taylor we still have the Mukasey problem to contend with. The Waterboarding Wonder is about about as likely to enforce the law against his soon to be bosses former aides as he's likely to find and hang-on to the Constitution with both hands covered in super-glue.

Justice sure does get slippery after a thick coating of GOP elbow grease.

This is just one additional step in a long and drawn out political tango. The only real option left for finding out exactly how and why 9 U.S. Attorney's were summarily fired without any cause that anyone in the DOJ can find will be to implement Inherent Contempt. Once Congress votes to hold Miers, Bolten and Rove in Contempt letters will fly back and forth furiously while the Mukasey DOJ (God, it's hurts just to type that) sits on it's hands and spins over the corpse of their constitutional oaths.

Eventually, Congress will be forced to vote again - this time having absolutely no choice - they will find these three scoff-laws guilty of Inherent Contempt of the Congress and have the House Sargent at Arms arrest and detain them in the House's own jail just as previous occured in 1927.

In McGrain v. Daugherty, a recusant witness (the AG's brother) refused to comply with issued subpoenas. The Senate issued a warrant authorizing its sergeant at arms to take custody of the witness and bring him before the bar of the Senate to answer questions. The deputy sergeant at arms went to Cincinnati, Ohio to pick up the uncooperative witness to place him in custody. The witness objected by filing habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court upheld Congressional legal authority to use its own process to compel persons to appear and testify on issues needed to enable Congress to exercise its Constitutional legislative function.

This action by the House would force Rove, Miers and Bolten to - get this - file a writ of Habeaus Corpus or else be indefinately detained until they either they squawk or produce the documents which explain how - in all likelyhood - our Justice Deptartment was nearly hijacked by the RNC!!

This one case has so far been the only situation where the Democratic Congres has shown any true spine. Besides their stand on SCHIP, holding fast on this issue has managed to succeed in forcing half a dozen DOJ Officials out of office including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, otherwise Dems have repeatedly rolled-over on Funding the Iraq War, Illegal Wiretapping, Sabre-rattling at Iran, Granting Immunity to the Telcoms and now the Mukasey nomination. The one thing we can't afford to do is to let our Representatives once again turn gelatinous before this job gets done.

Any Vichy-Crats in the House who fail to fail to uphold the law and hold the Bush Criminals accountable will be getting a personlized Call-Out Action Diary from yours truly. Count on it.

In the meanwhile Rep. John Conyers deserves your praise and support, he's been fighting the good fight - albiet at sub-glacial speeds while dotting every "T" and crossing every "I" - and we should never forget it.

John.Conyers@mail.house.gov

Conyers Blog
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax

Vyan

House will seek Contempt Charges against Bolten & Miers

According to reports from the Politico, the House could vote on Contempt of Congress Charges against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Counsel Harriet Miers as soon as next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) are surveying the House Democratic caucus to determine whether it will support holding White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt for ducking subpoenas in the continuing investigation into the firing of nine US attorneys.

According to Bresnahan of Politico, Conyers said the contempt motion could be brought "as early as next week," but that Pelosi had not made a final decision on the vote, saying it would be more likely in two weeks.

Democrats believe they have the votes to hold Miers and Bolten in contempt, Bresnahan says. If a criminal contempt resolution passes, it would light new fires in a White House already struggling to stave off additional controversy. The House Judiciary Committee approved a contempt resolution after both failed to show up for a July hearing, but it was not brought to the House floor for a vote.

Although the Justice Dept under Alberto Gonzales has already indicated that they will not seek to prosecute such charges such they be voted on by the Congress there is still the possibility that Congress may persue the option of Inherent Contempt against Bolten and Miers for their refusal to honor congressional subpeona's in the U.S. Attorney Firing matter.

Charges against Bolten and Miers were originally voted on by Conyer's judiciary committee this past July, but since the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the issue has remained on the back-burner. What remains to be learned from Bolten and Miers is exactly how far into the White House did efforts to use the power of the Justice Dept to support Republican electoral success extend. In the process clear violations of the Hatch Act and the Voting Rights Act may have occured. Contrary to claims that these charges are merely a partisan attack by the Democrats, the seriousness of these claims has been underscored by the DOJ's Inspector General who has been reported to be looking into criminal charges against former AG Alberto Gonzales for lying to Congress about his involvement.

At a speech on Friday, ousted U.S. attorney John McKay revealed that the “U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month.”

Vyan

Edwards 2004 campaign illegally targeted by Rove & Gonzales

Chicago Court Orders Discovery of DOJ Political Prosecutions
HARPERS
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED October 13, 2007

Senior Republican operatives appear to have targeted John Edwards early in the process of the 2004 presidential election as the most likely Democratic nominee and opponent of the Bush-Cheney reelection effort. Extensively resourced efforts were launched within both FEC and DOJ to go after Edwards’s campaign funding resources, with a particularly ferocious focus on trial lawyers. At the same time, the Justice Department took quite extraordinary steps to camouflage its conduct, for fairly obvious reasons—it was sensitive to the potentially adverse damage to the Bush Administration and its re-election efforts that would result from the disclosure of its use of the machinery of the criminal justice process to attack a political adversary.

......................

Improper White House manipulation of criminal justice machinery took a consistent form: political appointees, acting on White House instructions, would “allocate resources” and “deny resources.” When Rove wanted people “taken out,” copious resources—FBI investigators and prosecutors—would be allocated to concocting a case. When Rove wanted to shield Republican operatives who came under suspicion, federal prosecutors would be fired, transferred, retired or reassigned with regularity. The so-called U.S. Attorneys scandal is one manifestation of this process, but in fact it is reflected in a consistent pattern of dealings that stretch back to the beginning of the Bush Administration.

Papers filed in the Beam case provide further evidence of how the scheme was surreptitiously carried out. It appears that Justice Department lawyers involved in the scheme improperly issued subpoenas to financial institutions designed to collect information on campaign fundraisers for Edwards. The subpoenas were marked with a legend saying that their existence was to be treated as a secret. Since the subpoenas were issued in violation of federal laws protecting the secrecy of information by financial institutions, one has to suspect that this extraordinary step was taken because the Justice Department officials involved knew their conduct was unlawful and sought to obscure that fact by avoiding detection. In any event, the existence of the subpoenas was not a fact entitled to protection. The prosecutors also invoked grand jury secrecy requirements as a reason for maintaining secrecy, a contention which is sure to raise eyebrows in light of the aggressive leaking of grand jury materials in a wide array of political prosecutions. More likely, the prosecutors were extreme anxious to insure that the full breadth of the scheme targeting the Edwards campaign be kept out of public knowledge.

.........................

Gonzales personally authorized a small army of nearly 100 federal agents to raid a law office and simultaneously raid the homes of its employees and their families. Indeed, one agent commented about how he had been flown in from Iraq to help find out why American citizens had made contributions to the John Edwards campaign.

more at:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-900...

Tortured Logic of Dana Perino

Revelations about a new secret series of torture memos have gotten things really hopping at the White House.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Now:

Bush: 'This government does not torture people'

Then:

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

Comey had assumed that these people are actually capable of shame, but from watching the Perino Parade of Obfuscation with the White House Press Corp, it appears not.

The following video is from C-SPAN 2, broadcast on October 5, 2007.

Full Transcript

Q I wanted to ask about the President's statement this morning on the interrogation method. He said -- he repeated, obviously, what he did yesterday, that the government doesn't torture -- the U.S. government doesn't torture people. But these memos make it sound like the definition of what's permissible is so expansive that you could say we don't torture and almost anything could be true falling into that. What do you say to that?

MS. PERINO: Well, what I say is the United States' policy and our laws is not to torture. We meet the laws and we also meet our international obligations. There's a public document that interprets the statute that is from the Office of Legal Opinion, from the Justice Department. It's on the website for anybody to read. Any additional documents are classified for a reason, because they have to deal with interrogation techniques.

What the President said today is, yes, we do interrogate al Qaeda terrorists. These are people who intend to harm us. We do not torture them. And the appropriate members of the Congress were briefed, and there has been no changes from that December 2004 opinion that everyone has available to them -- in addition to the briefings that the Hill has had.

Q Any of the briefing -- any of the members of Congress who have been briefed, are those the same ones who are complaining about the --

MS. PERINO: Intelligence Committee members were briefed.

The Intelligence Comittee members were briefed you say? Except that, they weren't.

From Intelligence Comittee Chairman Jay Rockefeller:

The Administration can’t have it both ways. I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program.

The reality is, the Administration refused to disclose the program to the full Committee for five years, and they have refused to turn over key legal documents since day one. As I have said from the beginning, Congress has a constitutional responsibility to determine whether the program is the best means for obtaining reliable information, whether it is fully supported by the law, and whether it is in the best interest of the United States.

We don't torture, but even "if" we did - so what right?

Q But, Dana, Republicans, like Colin Powell, John McCain, have said that if torture is going on, that could be detrimental to the United States around the world. So why leave any ambiguity out there? Why not let --

MS. PERINO: I think the key word is "if," and I don't think there is ambiguity. We are not torturing.

Q You said there's no shift in policy --

MS. PERINO: Well, what would make it better, what would make it better, that we should tell everybody exactly what we have?

Q Not everybody -- not everybody.

MS. PERINO: You want to know the techniques that we use so we can tell exactly al Qaeda what we're going to do? That's absurd.

Q No, but these members of Congress -- not us, these members of Congress have security clearances; they see classified information all the time.

MS. PERINO: And the intelligence community was fully briefed.

Right, the intelligence community was fully briefed. All of them were told that up until 2006 that Water-Boarding was part of U.S. policy until Gen Hayden removed it from the list of "approved" techniques.

Q They're saying that they did not -- they were not fully briefed. You're saying "fully briefed." That's your definition of fully briefed, just like it's your definition of torture. Jay Rockefeller, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, is saying they haven't seen the memos. So how can they be fully briefed if they haven't seen the memos? And why did you keep them secret if there's nothing in there that you're trying to hide?

MS. PERINO: The memos -- they are applications that fall within the law, which is to not torture. It is absolutely important -- it's critically important that we keep this information secret. It is secret for a reason. We don't go around classifying things just for the -- willy-nilly. You do it for a reason. And I would object to anyone saying that this President would not do whatever needs to be done within the law to make sure that people are taken care of. And we have worked with Congress --

Q But you have questions by people in his own administration -- Goldsmith, you're got Jim Comey come forward and raise questions about whether or not it's been legal. It's not just Democrats on the Hill. People in your own Justice Department --

MS. PERINO: And I said that reasonable people can disagree on complex questions. But I will say, also, that we have paid scrupulous attention to the law, and we have made sure that we take the time that it takes in order to debate these issues.

The combiniations memo was signed by Steven Bradbury, who at the time was undergoing pressure as he sought to be confirmed for a promotion and an environment where those who spoke out like Comey were considered "weak".

“On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,” said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.

“We are likely to hear the words: ‘If we don’t do this, people will die,’” Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions.

“It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ‘no’ when it matters most,” he said. “It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.”

Add to this the fact that if Bradbury's opinion were to strict it would put government agents at risk of potential prosecution for "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment.

“If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,” Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, “then they are now saying that officials broke current law.”

So naturally, Bradbury broadened the standard and gave legal carte-blanche to torturing al Qeada suspects. And now Dana Perino is running around trying to justify and excuse it all. How? Cuz Al Qaeda is so mean to us.

Q The American people and the President were horrified when they saw the photographs of really, truly sadistic moments a couple years ago.

MS. PERINO: In Abu Graib? As was the President.

Q And we did torture.

MS. PERINO: The President said that that was abhorrent. He said that it was absolutely inappropriate, and that anyone should be held to account.

Q How do we know that it's over now? How do we know -- there's testimony, there's still testimony, there's secrecy. Do you think that alleged terrorist is not going to know he might be tortured by the U.S.? Our whole methods are so abominable, horrific. And I think we're really a shame

MS. PERINO: What about the people who cut off the heads of American soldiers and put them on the video --

Q That's horrible. We're not --

MS. PERINO: Yes, really bad. We don't torture. We get the terrorists here and we interrogate them.

Q The Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11, which you keep bringing up.

MS. PERINO: Helen, al Qaeda certainly is in Iraq, and they have murdered our citizens all around the world, and many of the citizens of our allies, as well. And the information that we get from these interrogation programs has not only protected people here, but in --

Q They're about 18 percent, and we brought them in.

MS. PERINO: No, Helen.

Q The Iraqis are fighting for their country.

If they're fighting for their country, just what is it that we're fighting for?

Vyan

From the Frying Pan to the Fireball : Chertoff the worst possible replacement for Gone-Zo

As had been rumored before the announcement by Alberto Gonzales of his resignation this morning, the front-runner for his slot as Attorney General is none other than Michael Chertoff.

The Tiny Sliver of a Man behind The Brownie!

Hard to believe, but apparently true since the latest news isn't who'll replace Gonzales, it's that Bush Crony Clay Johnson just might be replacing Chertoff at DHS.

As I've said before, everytime you could imagine the stupidest possible thing in the world - George Bush is mostly likely to do that very thing.

Before we get into why Chertoff is an abominably bad choice, let quickly refresh our memories on how many interesting resignations we've had in the Bush Administration since the November 2006 Elections. (Pardon me if I indulge in a little Shadenfreude!)

• Albert Gonzales resigns amidst an intense Congressional Investigation on his multiple lies to Congress over the Politization of the DOJ, the Domestic Spying Program and Torture.
• Karl Rove just ahead of subpoenas for his testimony on the DOJ firing scandal, followed very likely by Contempt of Congress citations two weeks ago.
• DOJ executive Brad Schlozman resigned on Aug 20th while under investigation by the Inspector General for his involvment in politicizing and practicing employment discrimination at the Civil Rights Division of DOJ.
• Press Secretary Tony Snow announced his resignation on August 17.
• White House Counselor Dan Bartlett resigned in June.
• Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace announced his retirement under direction of Rumsfeld replacment Robert Gates in order to avoid a tough re-confirmation fight with Congress in June.
• Former Assistant Secratary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was forced out of his position at the World Bank after allegations of incompetence and nepotism in May. (Not connected to the New Congress - but still funny!)
• White House Political Director and assistant to Karl Rove, Sara Taylor resigned abruptly in May just before testifying (kinda) to Congress over White House involvement in the DOJ Scandal.
• Deputy NSC head J.D. Crouch retired in May to "Spend more time with his family"
• Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty resigned in May just as he was scheduled to testify to Congress in May about the prosecutor purge.
• USAID head Randy Tobias resigned after allegations of his use of a call girl service.
• Karl Rove Protege and Patriot Act Replacment U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin resigned in May amid renewed allegations that he had been involved in an illegal voter caging scheme while working with the RNC in 2004.
• DOJ/White House Liason Monica Goodling Resigned just prior to her testimony on the DOJ Scandal in April for which she was granted immunity after initially refusing to talk and where she admitted to violations of the Hatch Act.
• DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson resigned in March - even though he was still on the payroll - as the DOJ Firing Scandal initially broke.
• White House Counsel Harriet Miers left in January and is now looking at Contempt of Congress charges for her refusal to testify about her involvement in the DOJ firings.
• After two turbulent recess appointments as UN Ambassador John Bolton resigned in late 2006.
• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with numerous possible investigations from War Crimes to tampering with pre-war intelligence looming, resigned (for the third time) just one day before the November Elections.

As can be seen here, there is clearly a pattern among various levels of the Administration that When the Going Gets Tough, the Bushies Get Going!!

And just think, if we didn't have a Democratic Congress all of these people would very likely still be in their positions.

Now it looks like Chertoff will not be an back-door recess appointment since Gonzales will not be leaving until September 17th, right in the middle of Congress getting down and dirty with the Patreaus President's report on Iraq - are you thinking they might be a tad too distracted while making the next decision on contining the surge or implementing a bit of surge protection to really get into the nitty gritty with Chertoff? I am and I'm betting the White House is too.

But then again how could they forget this?

• Harry Reid calling for Chertoff's resignation "after the government dropped Las Vegas from a list of cities considered potential high-risk targets eligible for special anti-terrorism grants.".
• "An 11-member, all-Republican Congressional panel released a scathing report on the leadership failures before, during and after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. While there is no shortage of incompetent public officials involved in this tragedy, one stands out above the rest. That person is Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff."
• Even Brownie thought Chertoff should go because "FEMA had been "marginalized" by Chertoff and his predecessor, Tom Ridge," and had been a significant factor in the agencies failure to perform during Katrina.
• Michael Chertoff strongly supported the Dubai Ports Deal, despites warnings from the Coast Guard of possible terrorist infiltration.
• And then or course, there's Chertoff's Gut.

Although the final resignation of Gonzo can only be seen as a good thing for America and Democracy in the long term, the apparent nominal replacement of Chertoff seems like the beginning of an even larger nightmare of cronyism and incompetence. The only window of hope for a return to sanity we might have is the possibiity that Chertoff's confirmation will fail leaving Solicitor General Paul Clement in charge as interim AG to continue investigations of the Gonzales regime at the DOJ and seriously consider an Independent Counsel to look at the various misdeeds of the Bush White House while Gonzales headed things at justice.

Update: But even that ray of light seems incredibly slim as there are indications that he too will support the stonewall since he has already signed on to the President's excessive use of Executive Priviledge and may be just as much of a Federalist Society Wack-Job as Gonzo.

If Clement doesn't want to play ball, Congress will have to continue on the path they've already set - Inherent Contempt - but at least we don't have to Impeach the Bastard anymore so we can already consider that a win. If this were a war of atrition, I'd say the Dems have already taken quite a few scalps without having to pull the Impeachment trigger - yet.

Vyan

Olberman on Gonzales Testimony

Olbermann on Gonzales Testimony

It's Official : DOJ will not enforce House Contempt Charges

Just two days after the House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to seek Contempt of Congress charges against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for refusing to testify on their involvement in the firing and replacing of 9 U.S. Attorney's by partisan shill's... the DOJ has announced that it will not enforce the law.

"As it considers the contempt resolutions, we think it is important that the Committee appreciate fully the longstanding Department of Justice position, articulated during Administrations of both parties, that "the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the President or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege."

As occured during the 1980's in the case of EPA Administratior Ann Gorsuch, where the DOJ refused to persue a Contempt Citation against an Administration Official where the President had exerted executive priviledge.

the Office of Legal Counsel issued an Opinion concluding that the statute is unconstitutional to the extent it requires a U.S. Attorney to prosecute a contempt action where the noncompliance is based on the President's assertion of executive privilege: In OLC's view, a U.S. Attorney thus "is not required to refer a contempt citation in these circumstances to a grand jury or otherwise to prosecute an Executive Branch official who is carrying out the President's [executive privilege] instruction." 8 Op. O.L.C. 101, 102.

From current reports the vote by the full house on Contempt will not occur until after the August recess - which means this issue has some time to simmer fully before it boils over.

Once that vote occurs there are two primary courses of action which can be taken by the House, once is to go to the courts and seek to force the President to prove the legitimacy of his Executive Priviledge claims.

The other option, rather than allowing the Administration to continue to run out the clock is for the House to invoke Inherent Contempt, and have Miers and Bolten brought by in their Sargeant at Arm to either testify or rot in the Houses own detention until deciding to do so.

Some would argue that jurisdiction would limit the ability of the House Sargeant at Arms from bringing Meirs and Bolten into custody - "They could stand across the street from the Capitol and still be safe" - but history has shown that not to be the case.

The Supreme Court has affirmed Congressional power to frog-march witnesses before the bar of Congress. In McGrain v. Daugherty, a recusant witness (the AG's brother) refused to comply with issued subpoenas. The Senate issued a warrant authorizing its sergeant at arms to take custody of the witness and bring him before the bar of the Senate to answer questions. The deputy sergeant at arms went to Cincinnati, Ohio to pick up the uncooperative witness to place him in custody. The witness objected by filing habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court upheld Congressional legal authority to use its own process to compel persons to appear and testify on issues needed to enable Congress to exercise its Constitutional legislative function.

If the House can have the Attorney General's brother arrested in Cincinnati, they can go get Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in Virginia. Oh, and irony of having Meirs or Bolten file Habeaus Motions against their detention would be most delicious.

One other matter which shouldn't be ignored concerning the Gorsuch case - she eventually did provide the information Congress was looking for.

After legal cases and a Court dismissal of the Executive Branch's suit, the parties reached an agreement to provide documents.

Not only that EPA Official Rita Lavelle served jail time.

Indicted for lying to Congress; convicted; sentenced to 6 months in prison, 5 years probation thereafter, and a fine of $10,000

If the Bush Administration is looking to repeat the path followed by Reagan, when he attempted to hide abuse of the Superfund program and they ended up the losing side of established case law, he's headed down a road that they aren't likely to survive.

Vyan

Grillin' Gonzo over an open flame of Congressional Contempt!

Yesterday's hearing was quite a show as our erstwhile Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was slowly and thoroughly roasted on an open spit in the Senate - I should've brought pop-corn.

In fact, if anything, Gonzales's ridiculous testimony made sure of one thing - that the House Judiciary Committee would have no choice but to issue Contempt of Congress citations against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for refusing to testify and reveal their own rolls in the ongoing Fuster-cluck that is Gonzo-Gate.

Although Congress has yet to issues similar citations against Gonzo himself, it remains abundantly clear that they hold him in the deepest of contempt.

That says that his little midnight ride to Ashcroft's bedside was completely innocent - "We just wanted to inform him of the Consensus of Gang Of Eight" that the Domestic Spying program that the Justice Department had declared illegal - which was similar too, but "not the same one the President revealed" needed to be continued despite the objection of then Acting Attorney General James Comey.

Unfortunately at least half the members of the Gang of Eight seem to disagree with that.

Jane Harmon.

That doesn’t make any sense to me," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said of Gonzales’ testimony. She said the TSP was "the only program we were ever briefed about." "We were briefed on the operational details — period — not the legal underpinnings," Harman said.

Jay Rockefeller.

The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program.

Nancy Pelosi.

>"She made clear her disagreement with the program continuing despite [former Deputy Attorney General Jame] Comey’s objection."

Tom Daschle:

Between 2002 and 2004, the White House notified me in classified briefings about NSA programs related to the war on terrorism. The briefer made clear they were not seeking my advice or consent, but were simply informing me about new actions. If subsequent public accounts are accurate, it now also appears the briefers omitted key details, including important information about the scope of the program.

Even with some of the more troublesome - and potentially illegal - details omitted, I still raised significant concern about these actions. As such, I am surprised and disappointed that the White House would now suggest that none of us informed of the program objected.

So the scenario that Gonzales lays out - that he was simply going to inform Ashcroft of what the Gang of Eight thought and had "asked them to do" - is complete and total pile of crap. And what's truly amazing is that he tried to lay this story off on Members of Congress who happen to have the Gang of Eight on Speed-Dial!

Also as reported on Countdown Tonight - the AP has revealed a document that completely undercuts the "Gonzales version of the facts."

The AP reports that a four-page memo sent by then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte in May 2006 confirms that a March 2004 White House intelligence briefing for top congressional leaders was on “the Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

During his questioning Senator Dodd addressed Gonzales on the issue of Torture, pointing to the recently signed executive order by Bush which has banned the CIA from using sexual abuse and nudity in their interrogations. Dodd also pointed out that the Senate had just received communications from the head JAG from each of the four primary branches of the armed forces (Army, Air Force, Navy & Marines) indicating their unanimous consensus that the use of Stress Positions, Dogs, and Waterboarding are Grave Breaches of Geneva and constitute "Torture" - yet Gonzales would not admit to agreeing with that assessment under oath, instead claiming...

I can not discuss specific techniques used, but we (America) do not torture.

Dodd astutely pointed out that if the President feels that sexual abuse rises to the level of such a heinous act that it should be specifically prohibited, the fact that he doesn't include Waterboarding on his list tends to indicate exactly the opposite - the it doesn't rise to the level of being "torture" in his eyes.

When asked specifically about the ramifications of Hamdan V Rumsfled Gonzales claimed that the Supreme Court had required humane treatment of "Enemy Combatants affiliated with Al Qaeda".

Dodd blanched.

"Does this mean that you don't believe the Geneva Conventions apply to other types of Enemy Combatants who are not members of Al-Qaeda?" (Y'know - like the Shia Militias currently engaging in Genocide in Iraq?) Gonzales refused to answer.

And as it turns out, yet again, he was wrong.

The Supremes made no specific mention of "Al Qaeda" in their ruling, they only established that person with that status of "Enemy Combatants" were indeed protected under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

One of the most amazing claims made by Gonzales was that he didn't commit perjury before Congress when he claimed that he "hadn't talked to any of his subordinates" regarding the firing and replacing of 8 (or was it 9) U.S. Attorneys because they were "witnesses."

Except that he did talk to Monica Goodling, and yesterday tried to explain that he was simply "comforting a distraught young woman by explaining that nothing wrong or illegal had occurred in his opinion."

So did he try to explain why he had previously lied to Congress when he said he didn't have a conversation like this and that's why his recollection was "so faulty" on so many key details involving why these attorney's were dismissed?

Not really.

How exactly did he know "nothing wrong or illegal happened" if he didn't really know or remember what did happen? And the moment when Senator Feinstein asked him "How many U.S. Attorney's were fired for cause"

He couldn't name any. He did name examples of misconduct, such as using your official capacity to "help out a buddy".

Feinstien : "Did any of the fired U.S. Attorney's do this?"

Gonzales: "No"

Feinstein jumped on this by pointing out - "You mean to say that there attorney's were fired without reasonable justification?"

Gonzales: Uh....

Senator Arlen Specter ("D" if you happen to watch Faux News, "R" to the rest of us) may have made one of the most ominous pronouncements during the hearing.

My suggestion to you is you review your testimony to find out if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable," Specter said. Time reports, "The maximum penalty for being caught lying to Congress is five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 per count. Specter wryly noted to reporters during a break that there is a jail in the Capitol complex."

Amen to that.

This point was brought home by the recent Judiciary Committee report which indicates that Bush's Justice Department may have broken as many as 52 laws.

The memorandum says the probe has turned up evidence that some of the U.S. attorneys were improperly selected for firing because of their handling of vote fraud allegations, public corruption cases or other cases that could affect close elections. It also says that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior Justice aides "appear to have made false or misleading statements to Congress, many of which sought to minimize the role of White House personnel."

In addition, the memorandum asserts repeatedly that the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was the first administration official to broach the idea of firing U.S. attorneys shortly after the 2004 election -- an assertion the White House has said is not true.

This dimbulb is a blight on our nation and our system of justice. Bush won't fire him, so he needs to be Impeached and Removed. If that isn't crystal clear by now, it never will be.

Vyan

Hey Congress: It's "Go" Time!

There comes a point where tough talk simply doesn't cut it anymore; where words, threats and promises just aren't enough.

Literally, it's time to either sh*t or get off the fracking pot on two critical fronts.

1. Iraq Prime Minister Maliki says that U.S. Troops can "leave whenever they want." It's time we took him up on his offer.

2. The White House has blatantly defied Congressional Subpoenas, refusing to let Harriet Miers even appear to testify and denying access to documents related to the death of Pat Tillman. It's time that our Congress returned us to a nation of checks and balances by invoking their power of Inherent Contempt.

The ironic thing is that in order to move forward on the first issue, we may have to push the second to it's ultimate conclusion.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."

One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a U.S. lab."

Al-Maliki said his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks — "particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference."

But he said if necessary, Iraqi police and soldiers could fill the void left by the departure of coalition forces.

"We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want," he said.

Despite Maliki's claim that the Iraqi forces can take control of their own country, Sen Lindsey Graham today on Meet the Press wasn't buying it. Surprise, surprise.

The surge is working, we've accomplished things in the last two weeks in Anbar province that we could never do before. Let [our troops] win, don't pull them out now for political reasons.

Sen Jim Webb responded back forcefully.

It's taken a lot longer than two weeks. The President announced [the implementation] of his surge strategy in January. He promised that that all provinces of Iraq would be under Iraqi control by the end of the year, clearly that is not going to happen.

We need to do the hard work of putting together a political solution. The Iraqi Military isn't fighting al-Qaeda - what we've got going on there is "hillbilly" justice. These militia groups are fighting them, they don't like al-Qaeda, they won't like them when we leave.

The difficulty in this situation is oddly that just about everyone is at least particularly right simultaneously. The just released report that the Iraqi government has failed most of it's benchmarks does indicate that more time is needed for them to pull together the political reconciliation that needs to happen, yet at the same time our own troops have been pushed to the brink of their endurance and beyond with stop-loss and repeated deployments.

Time is what the Iraqis need, but time and patience isn't what we have any more of. Certainly not according to the latest polls.

Newsweek 7-11: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?"

68% Disapprove. 27% Approve

Do you think President Bush's 'surge' plan increasing U.S. troops in Iraq has been a success or a failure?"

All - 22% Success - 64% Failure

(D) - 7% Success - 85% Failure
(R) - 47% Success - 31% Failure

Our Troop Levels in Iraq?

19% Immediate Withdrawal - 24% Out Next Spring - 40% Fall Back to our Bases - 13% Make No Cutbacks

If they are truly a sovereign nation, Iraqis have to come up with the solution to their problems on their own and they have to do it on their own timetable, however we may be able to jump start that process a bit - but not by using our military.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - just as we did with the Dayton Peace Accords and the the Belfast Agreement it's time to put together a Summit Conference between all the major factions and forces vying for control of Iraq. This "Reconciliation Commission" - featuring a relatively small group of diplomatic representatives of the Sunni, Shia, Kurds, even al-Sistani and al-Sadr - needs to come together and hammer out the broad framework that can unite the nation and end the violence.

That is the only way this will work.

The current strategy of using our military forces as cannon fodder buffering an ever escalating civil war while the Iraqi parliament bickers and dithers is simply a recipe for failure, just as it would be if we were waiting for our own congress to take the initiative on any number of issues from immigration to health care while lives hang in the balance.

It's time we changed direction and put away some of our partisan manipulations just as Webb admonished Graham today.

Webb: This is one thing I object to, which is politicians who attempt to put their political views in the mouths of soldiers. The view of military reflect those of the general public. Only 35% of the U.S. Military agrees with the policies of this President.

And here with hit the crux of this problem - the President.

With his Veto of the Iraq Redeployment Bill several weeks ago Bush pretty much showed everyone just whose boss - at least for the moment.

The White House has issued signing statements that rationalize their clear violations of federal law. They've violated FISA, the Hatch Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Geneva Convention, the War Crimes Act and the UN Conventions against torture. Now they've blatantly thumbed their nose at Congressional subpoenas.

Congress has to ACT.

And at this point in time, there is only one viable path left.

Impeachment and Removal, though frankly necessary, is not yet a possibility except as a pointless exercise in vainglory. Just as failed subpoenas have further emboldened the rampant lawlessness of this Presidency, a failed Impeachment Vote or even a failure to Remove in the Senate would make Bush nigh unto a God. All powerful. Unstoppable. That can't happen.

Standard Contempt of Congress continues to have a limited possibility of success with Alberto Gonzales' hand-picked U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor still in place in D.C. until his Patriot Act enabled appointment expires in 3 months.

Only the Congress's power of Inherent Contempt cuts out the middlemen, and gets right to the heart of the issue.

It's time - as Congress John Conyers alluded to in his letter to Harriet Miers attorney George T. Manning upon learning of her intent not to testify - to pull the trigger.

A refusal to appear before the Subcommittee tomorrow could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings, including but not limited to proceedings under 2 U.S.C. § 194 and under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives.

Inherent Contempt allows for the Congress to order the House Sargent at Arms to take the witness - in this case Miers - into custody and hold them in the Capital Jail where only Congress has jurisdiction. It is debatable whether a person held in such a way could be pardoned, my feeling is that they could not be - which means that either Miers cracks and testifies or she rots until the end of this Congressional Session.

It is my firm belief that without direct and damning testimony from Miers tantamount to that provided by former Nixon Counsel John Dean - Nobody is going to be Impeached - except for maybe Abu Gonzales for repeated perjury and obstruction with Monica Goodling, but Commander Guy and Fourthbranch's impenetrable shield of loyal lackeys will have kept them safe until they can slip out the back of Marine One on January 20, 2009.

This can't be allowed to happen.

Congress has to step up. The White House must be put on notice. Their numerous crimes, incompetence, deliberate willful ignorance and stonewalling has to end and it will only happen when Congress realizes - in order to save the legal fabric of our nation from completely unraveling, in order to save what's left of Iraq and finally begin Real Diplomacy, in order to save what's left of our armed forces, in order to get serious about stopping Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan - This is GO Time!

Congress has to Finally Win one of these battles with the White House before they can even begin to deal with the next issue like the obvious obstruction at play in the Libby Commute, or the next such as changing course in Iraq before or even after September. The White House is long overdue for a Congressionally delivered bloody nose.

It's GO NOW, or not at all.

Contact John Conyers and let him know that the time has come to take that next step at:

John.Conyers@mail.house.gov

Conyers Blog
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax

Vyan

Bush DOJ is a Disgrace

An article in the Denver Post cuts through the rhetoric and double-talk and explains exactly how much damage GWB has done to our system of Justice.

Bush justice is a national disgrace
By John S. Koppel
Article Last Updated: 07/05/2007 11:48:30 PM MDT


As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.

The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.

In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJ in particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civil rights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, as well as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal government conduct nor "politics as usual," but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate - which, in fact, I believe it eclipses.

In more than a quarter of a century at the DOJ, I have never before seen such consistent and marked disrespect on the part of the highest ranking government policymakers for both law and ethics. It is especially unheard of for U.S. attorneys to be targeted and removed on the basis of pressure and complaints from political figures dissatisfied with their handling of politically sensitive investigations and their unwillingness to "play ball." Enough information has already been disclosed to support the conclusion that this is exactly what happened here, at least in the case of former U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico (and quite possibly in several others as well). Law enforcement is not supposed to be a political team sport, and prosecutorial independence and integrity are not "performance problems."

Vyan

Avoiding the Executive Privilege Sand Trap

In the last few days Contempt of Congress charges have begun to be considered against White House Personnel, new subpoenas have been issued for information on the NSA Domestic Spying program while the previously issued subpoenas on the White House's involvement in the DOJ firings have been rejected on the grounds of "Executive Priviledge."

We can now expect that these issues will be stalled in the courts for the next few months, and that if it reaches the SCOTUS that they in all likelyhood will rule in a 5-4 split for the White House.

But something Jonathan Turley said last night on Countdown just might be the key to breaking through this logjam and turn that very dim scenario on it's head.

last night on MSNBC’s Countdown, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley claimed that Congress may be able to "get around the executive privilege in court" by saying "we are investigating a potential crime." Turley said this was possible because warrantless wiretapping is "a federal crime" that "the president has ordered hundreds of people to do."

Turley correctly points out that a Federal Judge has already found that the NSA program is unconstitutional, extremely illegal and ordered it stopped immediately.

Judge Taylor found that the program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was passed in the 1970s to curb executive abuses that included spying on civil rights leaders and Members of Congress. FISA requires a warrant before the executive can wiretap Americans. Judge Taylor also found that the program violated the separation of powers because it circumvented Congress’s power to regulate presidential authority, and that it violated Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution. The government appealed the decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted a stay of the decision pending appeal.

Although the Sixth Circuit has granted the stay allowing the program to continue, Judge Taylor's current rulings are controlling. The Program is Illegal.

In addition to this we have the crime of perjury committed by Alberto Gonzales when he testified before congress and claimed that "there were no major disputes" concerning the program. This contrast dramatically with the testimony of James Comey who recounted the dramatic attempt by Gonzales and Andrew Card to stage a sickbed intervention on former Attorney General John Ashcroft in order to have him override the decent of his own legal experts and implement what they said was an illegal program - and the mass resignations which nearly ensued.

Back at the Justice Department, there is an equally extraordinary scene. Appalled by the White House’s heavy-handed attempt to coerce the gravely ill attorney general, virtually the entire top leadership of the Justice Department is threatening to resign. The group includes the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum and the chief of the Criminal Division, Chris Wray. Some of them gather in the conference room of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who describes Ashcroft’s bravely turning away the president’s men from his hospital bed. The mood that night in the conference room was tense–and sober. "This was a showdown," says a former senior Justice Department official who was there. "Everybody understood the choice they were making and the gravity of the situation. Everybody knew what the stakes were." A different source estimated that as many as 30 top DOJ officials would have resigned.

Former OLC attorney John Bradbury has testified to Congress that the program mentioned by Comey is not the same one that was revealed by the president and described by Gonzales to congress as not being under dispute.

MR. BRADBURY: Well, all I’ll say is what the attorney general has said, which is that disagreements arose, disagreements were addressed and resolved; however, those disagreements did not — were not about the particular activities that the president has publicly described, that we have termed the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

But this issue isn't the only problem, you see the previous program - the one that was rejected by the OLC and over which both Comey, Ashcroft and others threatened to resign if implement - WAS IMPLEMENTED BY THE WHITE HOUSE ANYWAY despite their objections and refusal to sign off on it.

SCHUMER: OK. And then did you meet with Mr. Card?

COMEY: I did. I went with Mr. Olson driving — my security detail drove us to the White House. We went into the West Wing. Mr. Card would not allow Mr. Olson to enter his office. He asked Mr. Olson to please sit outside in his sitting area. I relented and went in to meet with Mr. Card alone. We met, had a discussion, which was much more — much calmer than the discussion on the telephone.

After — I don’t remember how long, 10 or 15 minutes — Mr. Gonzales arrived and brought Mr. Olson into the room. And the four of us had a discussion. [...]

SCHUMER: Can you tell us what happened the next day?

COMEY: The program was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality. And I prepared a letter of resignation, intending to resign the next day, Friday, March the 12th.

Let me re-emphasize this point, the reason that Comey and 30 other members of the Justice Department were willing to resign isn't because of threat that the president would authorize an illegal program - it's because HE DID authorize and implement an illegal program over the objections of just about everyone at DOJ.

(NOTE: Ashcroft asked Comey to wait until Monday and he felt better - so that they could RESIGN TOGETHER!)

On Friday, the day Comey had originally planned to resign he had a private meeting with the president - afterwhich Bush decided to change the program in order for it to be "legal" in the view of the OLC.

COMEY: Right. We had the president’s direction to do what we believed, what the Justice Department believed was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality.

And so we then set out to do that. And we did that.

It took some weeks for the DOJ to resolve the legal issues, and in the meanwhile the illegal version of the program continued to perculate away in the background.

If the program which Judge Ann Digg-Taylor determined to be illegal was the post-DOJ modified version, the pre-DOJ version must have been completely off the charts.

A numerous set of crimes were indeed committed here particularly gross violations of FISA.

In addition to the illegality of the NSA spying there is also the specture of multiple crimes involving the purging of the DOJ (which in hindsight may have been at least partially prompted by the previous battles between DOJ and the White House over the NSA issue.)

First and foremost there is the Hatch Act which prohibits the...

• use of official authority or influence to interfere with an election
• solicitation or discouragement of political activity of anyone with business before their agency
• from engaging in political activity while on duty, or in a government office.

Agencies prohibited by the Hatch Act from political activity include the Department of Justice (Criminal Division).

We now know from Monica Goodling's testimony that she engaged in partisan solitication of potential hires for career positions through-out the DOJ, and that she did so with the knowledge and apparent approval of her bosses.

Although it's true that US Attorney's serve at the "Pleasure of the President" it is another matter when the White House's political wing uses a Patriot Act provision to avoid Senate scrutiny in order to slide into place several replacement USA's like Tim Griffin who had a known history of "influencing and interfering with elections", and Brad Schlozman who had violated DOJ guidelines to charge election workers with voter fraud just prior to an election (because of it's potential to influence the outcome) in a case that was found to be completely without merit.

Psst.. Voter Suppression is a Crime, particularly when voters are targeted on the basis of race - it's a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Despite their initial protestations that the White House had nothing to do with the DOJ Firings and Replacements we now learn from Solicitor General Paul Clement's refusal to abide by Congressional Subpoenas that the White House was intimately involved.

Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals.

Which happens to be all the things that Gonzales, McNulty, Goodling and Sampson just didn't seem to know when they all testified before congress.

Whatta coinkydink?

If the real reason these USA's were fired and summarily replaced with "Loyal Bushies" was to facilitate the implementation of a vast voter suppression scheme for the 2008 elections - ladies and gentlement we have a very massive criminal conspiracy implement and directed out of the White House.

Congress would have great latitude to fully investigate such a crime as has been pointed out by Columbia University law professor Michael Dorf...

the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon that, "where the President asserts only a generalized need for confidentiality, [executive privilege] must yield to the interests of the government and defendants in a criminal prosecution."

It also should be noted that the courts decision in US V Nixon was unanimous.

In both the NSA and DOJ purging cases, there is ample and compelling evidence based on existing Congressional testimony and documentation that multple crimes may have been committed by various White House personnel and that in a manner similar to US V Nixon, the claim of executive privilege should be voided and the relevant documents provided to Congress without delay.

Vyan

Conyers Seeks Contempt of Congress against WH over DOJ-Gate

Showdown at the DC Corral via The Hill

House Judiciary Committee Democrats warned yesterday they would pursue a contempt of Congress motion if the White House fails respond to subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

The deadline for a response is Thursday, June 28. If the White House does not comply, it opens the possibility of a constitutional showdown between the two branches. In an ironic twist, the Department of Justice (DoJ) would be called on to enforce the contempt motion.

Folks, this ratchets things up to an entire new level because contempt of Congress is a criminal violation which can, and in some cases has, led to both fines of as high as $10,000 and prison terms as long as 6 months, plus 5 years probation (in the case of former EPA Offical Rita Lavelle who was convicted of Perjury in 2004)

More from Conyers.

"The House and Senate judiciary committees have issued subpoenas to the White House for documents and testimony," said Conyers. "We’re still hopeful they may cooperate. But it’s still possible that enforcement action may be taken."

"We want to know where the lines go from the DoJ to the White House," he said. "That’s where these bread crumbs keep leading us and then they get lost in the snow or something."

Right now the specific targets of the Contempt Charges would include White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, whom the subpoenas have been directed to, as well as former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director - and Karl Rove Deputy - Sara "Cummins was Lazy" Taylor.

Although Taylor has accepted her subpoena and agreed to testify just why would Conyers want additional White House documents? Well, maybe because of what Kyle Sampson told them behind closed doors according to Karen Tumulty at Time.

In private testimony that is being released this afternoon by the commitee, Alberto Gonzales’s former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson told investigators that Gonzales himself initially resisted the idea of bypassing the Senators from Arkansas to install Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Pressure to do it, he suggested, was coming from officials at the White House–specifically, White House political director Sara Taylor, her deputy Scott Jennings and Chris Oprison, the associate White House counsel. Sampson described himself and Goodling as "open to the idea," which is not the same as instigating it.

If Conyers' Judiciary Committee passes the contempt vote, the procedures is then for the measure to be referred to the full House - if it passes there as well it becomes a criminal matter, only this is also where things also get a bit sticky.

The standard procedure from this point is for the Contempt charges to be taken up by the sitting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who would then convene a Grand Jury prior to issueing indictments. That U.S. Attorney currently happens to be Jeffrey A. Taylor who was appointed by Alberto Gonzales as an interim replacement USA by-passing Senate Confirmation under a loophole in the Patriot Act (although it should be noted - no one was fired to make room for Taylor as his appointment took place in September of 2006, several months before the "purging of the Big 8".)

Unlike most of the replacement Attorneys, Taylor actually does have some prosecutorial experience from 5 years he spent as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. He's served as Majority Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee (under Senator Orrin Hatch and helped draft many provisions of the Patriot Act) and has been an Conselor at the DOJ assisting both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales on matters of "national security, terrorism, and criminal litigation and policy".

So would Mr. Taylor deign to actually call a Grand Jury to investigate various White House personnel for contempt of congress, when - to some extent - it might essentially involve an investigation of his own appointment!?

Wikipedia isn't so sure.

Under 2 U.S.C. § 194, once either the House or the Senate issues a citation for contempt of Congress, it is referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."[4] It is unclear (as of President Bush's March 20, 2007 declaration that he would not comply with Congressional subpoenas on this matter) whether Mr. Taylor would fulfill this duty to convene a grand jury, or resist Congress at the direction of Bush or Gonzales.

I'm less cynical about this since as I noted above, Taylor actually wasn't a part of the White House Purge and Politicize Plan for the DOJ apparently instigated Taylor, Jennings and Oprison (according to Sampson) - but we won't really know the truth of that until the rubber meats the road on this issue and the full Congress approves the contempt citation, assuming things even get that far.

But as of last week, questions about Taylor's loyalty - or lack thereof - to the rule of law might be a moot point. You see the Patriot Act provision which allowed for Mr. Taylor to be appointed and to remain U.S. Attorney indefinately - was repealed. The passage of this law started a 120 day countdown on the continued service of all intermin U.S. Attorneys including Taylor - who is now has only 113 days left. Once that time expires, and if another U.S. Attorney is not confirmed by the Senate and appointed - the new replacement won't be chosen by Gonzales, it'll be chosen by the District Court.

(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of--

`(1) the qualification of a United States attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title; or

`(2) the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section.

`(d) If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.'.

The DC District Court has a total of 13 Active Judges (plus a number of magistrates and senior judges), one of whom we all know happens to be Judge Reggie Walton, and exactly which of the 13 might have on his docket the task of replacing Mr. Taylor in October is somewhat unclear. But even if Taylor does decide to punt on any Contempt of Congress charges against the White House - where it should be pointed out he's never served - his court appointed successor probably won't.

Certainly the White House will counter sue arguing that this is a matter of "Executive Priveledge" which is a issue that will be argued by the Disrict Court in DC, previous attempts to avoid producing documents to Congress by the executive branch in this manner have not exactly gone well.

• A House Subcommitee voted to find Secretary of Commerce Roger Morton in Contempt in 1975 - Rogers eventually produced the requested documents.
• The Senate Select Committe on Intelligence voted to find Henry Kissenger in Contempt in 1975 also - the matter was dropped when the Chairman was satisfied by "sufficient compliance" with the subpoena.
• The House Subcommitte on Interstate and Foreign Commerce voted to find Secretary of Heath, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano in contempt in 1978 - Califano complied with the subpoena one month later.
• The Full House voted to find EPA Administrator Ann Gorsuch in Contempt in 1983 - The Executive Branches counter suit was dismissed by the courts, and the documents were eventually provided.
• The Full House voted to find EPA Official Rita Lavelle in contempt in 1983 also - Lavelle was eventually imprisoned for lying to Congress involving mis-handling of the Superfund program.
• The House Government Reform and Oversight Committe voted to hold White House Counsel Jack Quinn, White House Director of Administration David Quinn and aide Matthew Moore in contempt in 1996 - the subpoened documents were provided just hours before the full house was to consider the contempt measure.

In most cases (that I've been able to review so far this morning), the Executive Branch has usually caved to Congressional pressure once we start talking about Contempt of Congress. Clearly that doesn't mean we can expect this White House to do that (when have they ever done what reasonable people expected?), but neither can they hope to have a Taylor as a nice Loyal Bushie in place to protect their backsides as the DC USA for all that much longer.

This game of Face-Off should get very interesting, very soon if this Judiciary Vote passes and begins to move to the House Floor.

Just how many White House Rat-fuckers do you think will by jumping Ship for the Immunity Rope once that happens?

Vyan

Sens Kennedy, Whitehouse Demand Investigation into "Caging"

As I've previous written about here , here and here the issue of Voter Caging by former U.S. Attorney and Rovian Stooge Tim Griffin appears to be finally heating up on capital hill.

Via Thinkprogress

This afternoon, Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, calling on him to promptly investigate allegations that the Republican National Committee and its former research director Tim Griffin may have been involved in voter suppression tactics.

The story so far in a nutshell.

In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin, the former Rove protege who was placed as a U.S. attorney in Arkansas, led a "caging" scheme to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida. In response, Griffin said recently, "I didn’t cage animals, I’m not a zookeeper." Former RNC researcher Monica Goodling, who dismissively characterized "caging" as a "direct-mail term," acknowledged discussing concerns about Griffin’s involvement in caging with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty in preparation for his testimony before Congress.

Now I have serious doubts that Gonzales will actually conduct such an investigation, just as he failed to either intervene or conduct an investigation of the hundreds of thousands of violations of Presidential Records Act via use of political email accounts which occured both while he was White House Counsel and Attorney General, but his imminent failure to do so, or to appoint a Special Counsel, not to mention the IG Obstuction Investigation of his little improptu chat with Monica Goodling and the Midnight Ride to AG Ashcroft's bedside, will add another yet pressure point on ole' Gonzo that could be used as leverage to either force his resignation or impeach him outright for dereliction of duty.

I'm betting hoping on the latter.

Add this to the report today by the GSA that as a result of Bush's 1,100 signing statements 30 percent of the laws passed by Congress last year were not enforced.

Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.

In a sample set of 19 provisions, the GAO found that "10 provisions were executed as written, 6 were not, and 3 were not triggered and so there was no agency action to examine."

The real question here of course, is how will this essential stalemate between the White House and Congress over the implementation fo the laws via signing statements, and the Attorney Generals role and responsibilities for ensuring that the rule of law be followed, will play itself out in the courts? Because frankly, the courts are exactly where all of this is eventually headed.

I don't think things will be looking very sunny for Gonzo judging by how courts have treated many of the other more radical views of this president, particularly those exposed by uber-wingnut John Yoo, such as warrantless domestic wiretaping (which a Federal Judge found to be completely illegal and unconstitutional)...

"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion. ". . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."

Or how they ruled on Bush's original Military Commissions (which the Supreme Court found to be completely unauthorized by statute and in violation of international law) or their subsequent attempts to try them as "enemy combatants' (which two military judges found the court had no jurisdiction for) or the recent Fourth Circuit opinion which ruled the Bush Administration could not indefinately detain U.S. Citizens or foreign nationals living in the U.S. without charges.

"The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention," the Court said

With these decisions and case law already in effect, the arguement I would expect the Bush Administrtion to make in defense of Gonzales and Caging (ie. that the President has the inherent authority to waive the Presidential Records Act, to ignore violations of the Voting Rights Act - particualrly when they benefit the Republican Party - and to ignore the demands of Congress to fully investigate this lawlessness) are going to fall flat on their face like a Jackie Chan prat fall.

And it's gonna hurt too.

Vyan

Do Neo-Con/Artists really believe their own B.S.?

Do the wingnuts really believe their own bull-crap our are they just trying to convince the rest of us by convincing themselves?

Case in point: Poor Little Timmeh Griffin, in the midst of crying his eyes out because It's Hard out there for a Political Pimp, says he's been so misunderstood, and the Internets are so mean...

Obviously, I’ve seen the Internet stuff about caging. First of all, the allegations that are on the Internet and have spread through the tabloids are completely and absolutely false, number one. And ridiculous. Caging, as you may know, I had it looked up, is a direct-mail term for basically organizing returned mail. ... And I’ll just say that it’s so untrue. ... This is all made up and faux pas. I didn’t cage votes, I didn’t cage mail, I didn’t cage animals, I’m not a zookeeper.

Pardon me, but did he just call African American Soldiers in Iraq - Animals?

First of all, the entire "Caging" stuff didn't come from "The Internets" or from "Tabloids" - it came from the BBC and Greg Palast's New York Times Best Seller "Armed Madhouse."

Via Truthout...

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts.

Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.

One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas.

...

Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

According to these emails, Tim Griffin was intimately involved in these attempts to block black servicemen - who were very likely to be Democrats - from their right to vote.

"Caging" is not just a "direct mail term" - it's a violation of the Voting Rights Act and oh by the way - it's unconstitutional.

Amendment XV

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Tim didn't have to "have it looked up" - he was the one who told Monica Goodling about it as he bragged that the U.S. Press hadn't yet picked up the BBC story.

Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television’s premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove’s office, Griffin boasted that, "No [US] national media picked up" the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.

Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling

It should also be noted, for the few of us who've been hiding under a rock for the past couple weeks, that Griffin's tearful depature as the Non-Senate Confirmed Interim U.S. Attorney for Arkansas ended abruptly after Greg Palast shared all of his documentation on that little "direct mailing scheme" of his with Judiciary Chairman John Conyers.

Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’

Coincidence? I think not.

This is not made up. This is not a faux pas.

Tim now says that "Public Service isn't worth it" as he goes from one public service job as a U.S. Attorney with no practical prosecutorial experience to a public service job working in the presidential campaign of a guy who hasn't yet announced he's running for president.

A regular Mr. Private Sector that Griffin is.

Maybe the fact that he couldn't find a job for a reputable law firm has something to do with it.

"His timing is just bad," says a Washington recruiter at a national search firm. "He’s a politico, not a litigator, which people just don’t care about. If you’re a U.S. attorney with no experience someone is not going to bring you on board to create or enhance a practice."

Now it's fairly unlikely that Justice will ever be served in Tim's case since his ole pal Monica and Brad Scholzman have already purged and politicized the DOJ's Civil Rights Division of practically anyone who might actually try to prosecute Mr. Griffin for his crimes by filling it with "Good (white male christian right-wing) Americans."

I admit I might be reading between the lines here but I wonder - why should they care if a few "black animals" lost their right to vote, eh?

Or even worse - if some of those Damn-dirty Democrats had their civil rights violated?

So Griffin can cry his crocodile tears about how he's been treated so unfairly and is now a pariah in the legal profession he's worked "so hard" to master, but he's still going to get off scott free instead of serving the five years in federal prison he deserves for voter suppression.

Who'se he trying to kid? The rest of us or himself?

Vyan

DOJ Inspector General looking into Obstruction by Gonzo

From Thinkprogress.

The Senate Judiciary Committee revealed today that the Justice Department’s Inspector General Glenn Fine is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have acted unethically or illegally by attempting to "coach" Monica Goodling’s testimony.

As we all should know AG Gonzales set a new land-speed record for "I don't recall" during his own Congressional testimony on the Attorney firings matter. He justified this lack of recollection by claiming that...

I haven't talked to any of the witnesses

...which would have been his own staff, regarding the matter. However as was revealed during Monica Goodling's testimony to the House - he did speak with her. And even a crack justice expert like Monica didn't think it...

was appropriate for us to talk at that point.

Apparently neither does the DOJ's Inspector General.

Responding to a letter from Sen. Leahy regarding this matter, Fine responded.

In your letter, you referred to Monica Goodling’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 23, 2007, in which she stated that she had a meeting with the Attorney General in which the process leading to the removal of certain U.S. Attorneys was discussed. You asked whether our investigation includes this matter.

This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter.

Let me just say that this just might mean that Alberto Gonzales may be in early stage Libby mode, because Obstruction of Justice happens to be one of the charges that will be putting him behind bars for 30 months.

If carried through to it's full conclusion, this investigation could very easily lead to a Grand Jury and indictment of Gonzales, but before we get too optimistic that this little barnicle might be removed from the Halls of Justice we have to remember what an outstanding job the DOJ has done at investigating itself so far.

Pat Leahy certainly has his doubts.

The last time an internal investigation at the Department of Justice got too close for comfort the White House shut it down. I hope this investigation will not suffer the same fate as the OPR inquiry into the warrantlesss wiretapping program. This internal investigation is an important step in getting to the truth behind this matter, and they should be allowed to do their jobs without interference from this Administration.

That OPR investigation which was intended to determine if the information which had been gathered via the NSA's domestic spying program had been misused was derailed by a lack of security access. Access which had been denied - according to Testimony by Alberto Gonzales - under the discretion and direction of the President.

But despite this I happen to feel that there are reasons for optimism that some measure of justice just might be implemented. Unlike the NSA case, security clearances are not at issue in the DOJ Attorney firing situation - so that avenue of blockages is closed. Secondly the FBI's own internal investigation - which parralleled the OPR's attempted audit - looked into the use and abuse of national security letters and discovered that the agency had potentially violated the law and it's own rules more than 1000 times.

And this was from only a sample of just ten percent of their domestic spying cases.

Just as the FBI wasn't able to block this audit, I think it's unlikely that DOJ will be able to block the efforts of it's own Inspector General as Leahy suggests.

But then again, with the Administration, practically anything seems possible and highly probable particular when it involves covering up for the President's misdeeds.

Vyan

P.S.

As some of us might not recall, one of the suggested articles for the Impeachment of Bill Clinton supplied by Kenneth Starr to the House judiciary commitee was the allegation that Clinton had attempted to Witness Tamper and Obstuct Justice with his secretary Betty Currie by questioning her regarding the other Monica immediately after his own deposition in the Jones case - even though Betty Currie was not a witness in that case and at that time Starr did not have authority to investigate Lewinsky (even though he already was). With this precedent in place, the House juduciary committee already has plenty of evidence to Impeach Gonzales for Contempt of Congress, Obstruction and attempted Witness Tampering with This Monica.

How ironic would that be?