Day: April 17, 2007

Attorney Pay-Back Firing Goo Bound to Stick to White House

Trish

Damn good editorial in the Palm Beach Post on the Attorney General hearings, now set for Thursday.

The vice president, speaking on Face The Nation, pronounced the official White House spin: “This took place inside the Justice Department. The one who needs to answer to that and lay out on the record the specifics of what transpired is the attorney general.” But Mr. Cheney’s claim that “this took place inside the Justice Department” is ludicrous.

Cheney’s claim that “this took place inside the Justice Department” is ludicrous.

Even though hundreds of e-mails concerning the firings might be missing, enough exist to show that the White House was heavily involved…David C. Iglesias of New Mexico was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., complained to the White House about Mr. Iglesias’ failure to indict Democrats before last November’s elections. Before the firings were announced, Karl Rove assured the chairman of the New Mexico GOP that Mr. Iglesias “was gone.”

Not only does Mr. Gonzales have to claim that the White House didn’t play an improper role, he has to repeat the equally unbelievable claim that he didn’t play a central role – despite testimony to the contrary from his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson and Michael A. Battle, director of the office in charge of U.S. attorneys.

Even as Mr. Gonzales prepared last week for his testimony, another cover story was contradicted. Bush administration officials had claimed that no replacements for the attorneys had been chosen in advance. In fact, they had been. The White House wants to confine the scandal to Justice. But in all this, Alberto Gonzales clearly isn’t on his own.

The big question is, how much less approval can George Bush earn and still finish his term? We’re betting his ratings will go still lower, as even Republicans are repelled by his incompetence and deceit.

Our Nominee for Next Bush AG: Patrick Fitzgerald

Jon Ponder

Assuming Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales is asked to resign over the purge of U.S. attorneys, we would nominate the USA who is probably best known to the public: Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, the special prosecutor who successfully tried Cheney aide Scooter Libby for perjury in the CIA Leak scandal.

Fitzgerald is only deficient in quality required to serve Dear Leader: he is not a loyal Bushie.

Fitzgerald has all the qualities required to be attorney general in a GOP administration: legal knowledge and experience, political savvy and membership in the Republican Party.

He is only deficient in quality required to serve Dear Leader: he is not a loyal Bushie.

It’s this deficiency, however, that would make his nomination sail through the approval process in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Even so, there is some new evidence Fitzgerald may have whiffed on going up the chain in the Libby trial. Either he didn’t know about Karl Rove’s secret email system, or he deliberately failed to subpoena all of Rove’s correspondence.

Update: In the comments, Greg Bacon suggests another candidate who would definitely clear the Senate: former Sen. Fred Thompson. As Greg points out, we know he can play a prosecutor on TV.

Evidence Mounts That Bush Is at Center of Prosecutor Purge

Jon Ponder

Sampson Says Bush Conferred with Gonzales on Firing US Attorney Iglesias

It is one of the foundational lies of the Bush era that the president doesn’t read polls. He reads them — he just doesn’t give a damn what they say. In fact, starting at the top, no one in the Bush administration cares about public opinion, especially including the opinions of the Democrats who control the Congress.

A group of USAs had to go to mask the firing of Carol Lam so Bush played his “l’etat c’est moi” card and added Iglesias, who, like Lam, had one of the best conviction rates in the country.

So why are the Bushies being so squirrely about the congressional investigation into the prosecutor purge? Why did Karl Rove delete months worth of secret emails? Why did it take A.G. Alberto Gonzales two weeks to memorize his testimony in the matter? Why did Monica Goodling, a Christian nationalist mole in the Justice Dept., say she would plead the Fifth out of fear she might be forced to lie under oath?

The answer: George W. Bush.

Unlike the Scooter Libby scandal, where the wagons were circled to protect Vice Pres. Cheney, it appears that Dear Leader himself is at the center of the prosecutor purge.

On Sunday, the Albequerque Journal reported that the president may have personally added the name of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico to the purge list at the behest of Sen. Pete Domenici, the state’s senior Republican:

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports that Kyle Sampson, the top aide to Gonzales whom the Bushies tossed overboard like they did Libby, has confirmed Bush’s involvement in the firing of Iglesias:

[Sampson] told Senate investigators over the weekend that the attorney general told him in early March that he and Bush had discussed U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias’ performance before the November election, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said in a briefing with reporters.

This does not change the theory that the underlying motive in the purge was to put the San Diego federal prosecutor Carol Lam out of business in order to hobble investigations into Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the ranking member on Appropriations, and his lobbyist cronies. A group of prosecutors had to be fired in order to avoid the appearance that Lam was being singled out.

Since a group had to go, Bush played his “l’etat c’est moi” card and added to the list Iglesias, who, like Lam, had one of the best conviction rates in the country. Now the Bushies must go to any extreme measure to protect their king, including trying to delay the endgame until the end of his term in 2009.