Tag: U.S. Attorney Purge

Bush Calls Out Dems over Prosecutor Purge

Jon Ponder

Pres. Bush is most comfortable when he is attack mode, and at an impromptu news conference this afternoon, he was in the zone:

It will be regrettable if [the Democrats] choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available. I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse. I hope they don’t choose confrontation. I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials….

It’s now my hope that the United States Congress will act appropriately. My administration has made a very reasonable proposal. It’s not too late for Democrats to drop the partisanship and work together. Democrats now have to choose whether they will waste time and provoke an unnecessary confrontation, or whether they will join us in working to do the people’s business…

My concern is, they would rather be involved with partisanship. They view this as an opportunity to score political points…

If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed. And the idea of dragging White House members up there to score political points, or to put the klieg lights out there — which will harm the President’s ability to get good information, Michael — is — I really do believe will show the true nature of this debate.

Was the Prosecutor Purge a Smokescreen for Obstructing Justice?

Jon Ponder

You have heard the White House talking point: “U.S. Attorneys work at the pleasure of the president.” This is irrelevant if the president or his minions fired the prosecutors to stop or impede an investigation. The law in question is 18 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1520, the federal obstruction of justice statute, which makes it illegal “[t]o corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding.”

The case in point is in the prosecutor fired from the San Diego office. Last March, Carol Lam nailed GOP Rep. Duke Cunningham, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee, for taking bribes from defense contractors. Two months later, she was going after the contractors who allgedly bribed Cunningham, She sent a memo to her bosses in D.C. giving them a heads-up that search warrants were ready to go. The next day, Kyle Sampson, Gonzalez’ chief of staff, sent an email to White House lawyers:

“The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam … leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her four-year term expires.”

Lam appears to have been at least indirectly involved in an investigation into two powerful California Republicans out of the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s office:

Sampson … may also have been referring in the May 11 e-mail to a report that morning in the Los Angeles Times concerning a parallel investigation by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles into Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), then the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and Bill Lowery, a former GOP congressman from San Diego who after leaving Congress founded a successful lobbying firm — one of whose clients was [Brent Wilkes, one of the defense contractors alleged to have bribed Cunninghan].

So were eight prosecutors fired to create smokescreen for getting rid of Lam? It certainly sounds like something Busheviks would do.

Top Clinton Aides Testified in Congress 47 Times

Jon Ponder

What Is Bush Hiding?

The Bush White House is refusing to send Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify before Congress. The reason for this, they say, is that there is executive privilege and the fact that there is no precedent for it. This latter bit is, typically, a baldfaced lie:

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

Among the Clinton senior White House staffers who testified were Harold Ickes, assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff; George Stephanopolous, senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy; John Podesta, assistant to the president and staff secretary; Bruce Lindsey, assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president; Sandy Berger, assistant to the president for national security affairs; and Beth Nolan, counsel to the president.

The Clinton administration could have fought these appearances all the way to the Supreme Court. The reason they did not was simple: They didn’t want there to be an appearance that they had something to hide.

The difference now is stark. The Busheviks a) do have something to hide and b) don’t give a damn what anybody thinks. They will take this all the way to the Supremes if for no other reason that to run out the clock.

Where the Candidates Stand on the Fate of AG Gonzalez

Buck Banks

Predictably mixed bag: According to Congressional Quarterly, the 2008 presidential candidates’ positions on what should be done with Attorney General Alberto ‘The Judge” Gonzalez range from “hang him high” to “no comment.”

‘[Gonzalez has] clearly forgotten the difference between his current job as America’s top law enforcement officer and his old job as President Bush’s personal attorney.’
— Hillary Clinton

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, called for Gonzales’ resignation in a March 13 statement in which he accused Gonzales of having “betrayed his public trust by playing politics when his job is to enforce and uphold the law.”

“Attorney General Gonzales should certainly resign now,” Edwards said.

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York called for Gonzales’ resignation during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” and sent an e-mail to supporters March 14 urging them to sign an online petition calling for Gonzales’ resignation.

Clinton wrote that “it is time for the attorney general — who repeatedly and falsely claimed the firings were based on performance — to step down.” She accused Gonzales, a former White House counsel, of having “clearly forgotten the difference between his current job as America’s top law enforcement officer and his old job as President Bush’s personal attorney.”

Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd called for Gonzales’ dismissal if the allegations were found to be true — according to a statement his campaign released Friday to CQPolitics.com.

“Anyone found responsible for these egregious lapses in judgment — up to and including Alberto Gonzales — should be immediately dismissed,” Dodd said.

Republican candidates, on the other hand, have taken a more cautious approach — either by saying calls for Gonzales’ resignation are overhasty, or by declining comment on the matter altogether.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in a March 15 interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, said it was too soon to make a pronouncement about Gonzales’ future.

“We collect facts and interview witnesses before we convict. And we don’t have that information yet,” Romney said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, during a campaign trip in Iowa last week, did not call for Gonzales’ resignation — but said, according to the Des Moines Register, that “congressional hearings are warranted and will take place. And there’s a lot of explaining to do.”

Several other Republican candidates or their campaigns — including that of former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani — have declined to say whether or not Gonzales should resign.

‘Loyalty’ the Litmus Test of Bush Whitehouse

Buck Banks

Just drink your Koolaid: George Bush currently is facing a loyalty test. His “long-favored courtier” (as Jon called him) Alberto Gonzalez has a bipartisan lynch mob ready to leave him twisting in the March zephyrs. The eight U.S. attorneys who were unceremoniously fired failed their loyalty test, according to Karl “Hell’s Cherub” Rove, et. al., and so were summarily sacked.

But as Leonard Pitts notes in his column today, The kind of “loyalty” the Bush administration expects is of the blind, deaf and dumb variety, the kind that enables true believers to dutifully drink their Koolaid and croak at the feet of their monarch/messiah/military leader — and to take a few dozen non-believers with them.

People who applied to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority — the agency governing Iraq — were asked in job interviews about their political party, their opinion of Roe vs. Wade, their religious affiliation and whether or not they voted for Bush in 2000.

First, let me tell you what I’m not here to talk about.

I’m not here to talk about the role politics played in the sacking of eight U.S. attorneys. Or the fact that newly released e-mail exchanges and other documents indicate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputies misled Congress when they said the White House had nothing to do with the decision to fire those attorneys. Or the fact that Gonzales is facing bipartisan calls for his head from angry lawmakers.

All this I will leave to others. I want to talk about a word that jumped out at me in news reports about this latest Washington scandal.

The word: loyalty.

We learn that, in deciding which attorneys to retain and which to release, one factor that weighed prominently in Justice Department deliberations was whether they ”exhibited loyalty” to President Bush. The quote is from an e-mail sent by D. Kyle Sampson, then one of Gonzales’ top aides. Sampson was also author of another note in which he suggested that the “vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.”

It is this notion — that being a ”loyal Bushie” is a qualification for getting or keeping a job — that rankles. And if any of this sounds like déjà vu all over again, that’s only because you’ve been paying attention. Indeed, the revelations spilling out of Gonzales’ office are distressingly familiar.

Take Brownie — please. You remember Michael Brown. Guy had zero experience in disaster management. So naturally, he wound up as head of FEMA, the federal disaster management agency. He was, after all, a ”loyal Bushie” — a friend of a Bush friend. Not that that helped him when a hurricane named Katrina came knocking.
[…]

Bush’s Obvious Choice for His Next Attorney General: Jeb

Jon Ponder

Beltway types think they smell blood at DOJ. Granted, a normal president would have fired an attorney general as bad as Abu Gonzalez — especially in light of his role in the prosecutor purge last December. But whether Pres. Bush will fire his long-favored courtier has become a matter requiring intense speculation by bewigged millionaire pundits in the Capitol, when they are not speculating about the 2008 presidential campaign.

The main qualification George Bush demands from his attorney general, as both John Ashcroft and Gonzalez have proved, is a keen ability to keep his lips in near proximity to the president’s buttocks.

Six years into the Bush era, and despite daily evidence of the president’s rank incompetence at management and governance, the Old Media types still can’t believe he is as bad as his critics say he is. The Old Guard still clings hopefully to the notion that George W. Bush is “resolute” and that “he values loyalty,” while the record shows very clearly that he is simply a self-absorbed, dim-witted and stubborn aristocrat.

Why wouldn’t this president fire Gonzalez? He gave in to criticism on the two most controversial appointments of his presidency: Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the failed nomination of his secretary, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. He screwed up in both cases — waiting to fire Rumsfeld until after the 2006 elections, when it was too late to help his party; and letting Miers, his “Miss Jane Hathaway,” twist in the wind agonizingly for days while his troglodyte base became increasingly lathered over her lack of ideologoical purity.

So, assuming Bush will fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who would he nominate as a replacement? (If you just thought, “his dog, Barney” — get out of my head!) One obvious candidate is his brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida, who has been out of office for over two months, and is undoubtedly tanned and well-rested.

There is a famous precedent, of course. Pres. John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother, Robert Kennedy, as AG. Yes, Bobby earned a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951, whereas Jeb’s 1973 Bachelor degree from the University of Texas was in Latin American Studies. But really the main qualification George Bush demands from his attorney general, as both John Ashcroft and, especially, Gonzalez have proved, is a keen ability to keep his lips in near proximity to the president’s buttocks.

Could Jeb’s nomination muster the 60 votes it would require to pass in the Senate? It seems unlikely but if you look at every other important issue that the Senate has voted on since the Dems took their one-vote majority, the approval of Jeb’s nomination is as likely as not.

If GOP Sen. Domenici Is Forced Out, Dem Gov. Richardson Would Appoint His Replacement

Jon Ponder

The scandal swirling around Pres. Bush’s firing of eight U.S. Attorneys last December could lead to the resignation of Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico — which could change the dynamics in the Senate by adding another Democrat to the majority.

“Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool).”

David Iglesias, the fired prosecutor from New Mexico, testified to Congress last week that he believes that two New Mexico Republican members of Congress had him fired because he wouldn’t pursue their political opponent. One of the pols was Rep. Heather Wilson. The other was Sen. Domenici:

On the day of the Dec. 7 firings, Miers’s deputy, William Kelley, wrote that Domenici’s chief of staff “is happy as a clam” about Iglesias.

A week later, Sampson wrote: “Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool).”

If Domenici were to step down, his replacement would be named by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, who is running for president in 2008. Assuming the governor would replace Domenici with a Democrat, the balance of power in the Senate would undergo a subtle shift toward the Dems.

The parties are evenly divided now, with 48 Democrats and 48 Republicans, with two independents who both vote with Democrats. But one of those independents, Joe Lieberman, has been leaning Republican lately, especially on the war. The implicit threat that he might switch sides at any moment gives him power over the Democrats that he did not earn.

Upping the ranks of the Dems even by one vote would tend to neutralize Lieberman on issues related to the war, and it would put the Democrats one vote closer to a supermajority of 60 votes on appointments and clotures.

Bush Team Planned to Use Patriot Act to Replace U.S. Attorneys Without Senate Confirmation

Jon Ponder

If you are wondering why Bush’s mass firing of U.S. Attorneys in December has even Traditional Media types upset, here, in part is why:

Sampson also strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.

“I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed,” Sampson wrote in a Sept. 17 memo to Miers. “It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don’t have replacements ready to roll immediately.

“I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments,” he wrote.

By avoiding Senate confirmation, Sampson added, “we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House.”

Must’ve sounded like a great plan — on paper.

House Subpoenas Two More Fired U.S. Attorneys for Hearings Today

Jon Ponder

The House Judiciary Committee will now hear from two more fired U.S. Attorneys at its hearings today into the mass firing of prosecutors by the Bush administration in December. However, it is unclear how cooperative the fired prosecutors will be since all of them are Republicans.

The new witnesses, Daniel G. Bogden of Nevada and Paul K. Charlton of Arizona join David Iglesias of New Mexico, Carol Lam of San Diego, John McKay of Seattle, and H.E. “Bud” Cummins of Little Rock, Ark.

Iglesias has charged that two senior Republicans from New Mexico, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, tried to influence an ongoing investigation and then had him fired because he would not cooperate with them.

When Will Cable News Report on the U.S. Attorney Scandal?

Jon Ponder

Now that Anna Nicole Smith’s body has been buried (for the time being anyway) maybe the cable news channels can find time to do in-depth reporting on the Bush administration’s mass firing of U.S. attorneys last December.

With no underlings to blame for the firings, the White House will resort to its next best trick — they will launch a coordinated smear campaign against the prosecutors as early as Monday morning.

If nothing else, they could cover a hearing into the matter announced by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee for Tuesday at 2 p.m. Four of the fired prosecutors — Carol Lam of California, David Iglesias of New Mexico, H.E. “Bud” Cummins of Arkansas and John McKay of Seattle — have been subpoenaed to appear.

Bush officials say they are surprised about the uproar over the firings — and shocked, shocked, I tell ya — that the Dems would say the dismissals were motivated by politics. True to form, however, the excuse they offer for the purge — that the prosecutors all had poor performance records — does not square with reality on the ground. In fact, the fired attorneys appear to have been well-respected, competent and independent. Several had just received exemplary performance reviews, and none have been reported to have had bad reviews.

Democrats suspect that it was the prosecutors’ independence that led to their dismissals — that the White House judged them as not toeing the Bush line sufficiently, and now intends to replace them with Republican hacks.

In a dismaying and rather unbelievable turn of events, Democrats also recently learned that a heretofore overlooked provision in the Patriot Act grants Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzalez the power to fill the vacancies without Senate approval. (Didn’t anybody read that bill before they signed it?)

On top of all this, there are the charges of political meddling in investigations. In New Mexico, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney who was fired, has said that two Republicans from the state’s congressional delegation tried imprpoperly to influence an investigation into a Democratic politician. He says he received calls last October from a senator and a House member — and that because he would not accede to the pressure, the senator urged the Justice Dept. to fire him.

Today the Washington Post reported that Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, has admitted he made a call to Iglesias, but says he called simply to inquire about the status of the investigation, but did not threaten or pressure Iglesias, which would have been an ethics violation. However, Domenici also admits he did recommend that Iglesias be terminated.

Iglesias also said he would name the senator and the representative (assumed to be Heather Wilson) if asked during the hearings, so Domenici’s admission — released into the Sunday news void — was done preemptively to soften the blow on the ethics charges.

The knee jerk reaction of the Bush White House is to pin blame for controversies and scandals on their flunkies. But they are on the record as having signed off on the dismissals, although they insist it was all just routine.

With no underlings to blame, the White House will have to rely on its next best trick — a coordinated smear campaign against the fired prosecutors, which could start as early as Monday morning.