Gonzales explanation of firings called 'sorry excuse'

[Nbadan]

White house flip-flops on who originated the idea to go on a lawyer firing spree...

Probe heats up over fired U.S. attorneys
White House backs off earlier assertion that idea originated with Miers

WASHINGTON

- The White House on Friday backed off its earlier contention that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers first raised the idea of firing U.S. attorneys — an act that led to a firestorm of criticism of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“It has been described as her idea but ... I don’t want to try to vouch for origination,” said White House press secretary Tony Snow, who previously had asserted Miers was the person who came up with the idea. “At this juncture, people have hazy memories.”

...

Snow said it was not immediately clear who first floated the idea of firing prosecutors shortly after President Bush was re-elected to a second term.

“This is as far as we can go: we know that Karl recollects Harriet having raised it and his recollection is that he dismissed it as not a good idea,” Snow told reporters. “That’s what we know. We don’t know motivations. ... I don’t think it’s safe to go any further than that.”

...

“I want you to be clear here: don’t be dropping it at the president’s door,” Snow said.

Kinda like he's really talking to Karl Rove...hmmm?

[Nbadan]

Wing-nut media spins the sacking..."Clinton did it!"

The Hubbell Standard
Hillary Clinton knows all about sacking U.S. Attorneys.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.

As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we'd suggest she call herself as the first witness--and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.

As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

ed holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retainas their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.

Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.

Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons.

And it may be this very amateurism that explains how the current Administration has managed to turn this routine issue of replacing Presidential appointees into a political fiasco. There was nothing wrong with replacing the eight Attorneys, all of whom serve at the President's pleasure. Prosecutors deserve supervision like any other executive branch appointees.

The supposed scandal this week is that Mr. Bush had been informed last fall that some U.S. Attorneys had been less than vigorous in pursuing voter-fraud cases and that the President had made the point to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Voter fraud strikes at the heart of democratic ins utions, and it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Bush--or any President--to insist that his appointees act energetically against it.

Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor's race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the "voters" were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons. More than 100 ballots were "discovered" in a Seattle warehouse. None of this cons utes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do.

In New Mexico, another state in which recent elections have been decided by razor thin margins, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias did establish a voter fraud task force in 2004. But it lasted all of 10 weeks before closing its doors, despite evidence of irregularities by the likes of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn. As our John Fund reported at the time, Acorn's director Matt Henderson refused to answer questions in court about whether his group had illegally made copies of voter registration cards in the run-up to the 2004 election.

As for some of the other fired Attorneys, at least one of their dismissals seemed to owe to differences with the Administration about the death penalty, another to questions about the Attorney's managerial skills. Not surprisingly, the dismissed Attorneys are insisting their dismissals were unfair, and perhaps in some cases they were. It would not be the first time in history that a dismissed employee did not take kindly to his firing, nor would it be the first in which an employer sacked the wrong person.

No question, the Justice Department and White House have botched the handling of this issue from start to finish. But what we don't have here is any serious evidence that the Administration has acted improperly or to protect some of its friends. If Democrats want to understand what a real abuse of power looks like, they can always ask the junior Senator from New York.

See, the administration was only looking out after your voting rights...ungrateful biatches!



Almost all new Presidents fire most, if not all of the sitting US attorneys of their predecesser when they enter office. The job is a particularly powerful and juicy political appointment. Why do you guys have to drag Clinton in every Bush argument?

For a bit more info to show that Clinton was not alone in firing the majority of sitting US attorneys we have this from Media Matters:

Several media outlets have compared the Bush administration's controversial dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys to President Clinton's dismissal of almost all U.S. attorneys upon taking office in 1993. Clinton's firing of the prosecutors was highlighted March 13 at Drudgereport.com, the website of Internet gossip Matt Drudge. Over the next 24 hours, several media outlets -- including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and MSNBC -- echoed the unfounded comparison between the Clinton and Bush dismissals.

In fact, while both Clinton and Bush dismissed nearly all U.S. attorneys upon taking office following an administration of the opposite party, The Washington Post reported in a March 14 article that "legal experts and former prosecutors say the firing of a large number of prosecutors in the middle of a term appears to be unprecedented and threatens the independence of prosecutors."

A March 13 McClatchy Newspapers article -- headlined "Current situation is distinct from Clinton firings of U.S. attorneys" -- further noted that "[m]ass firings of U.S. attorneys are fairly common when a new president takes office, but not in a second-term administration." The article added that "Justice Department officials acknowledged it would be unusual for the president to oust his own appointees."

Really, I think all this comparison to Clinton's behavior is a diversion from the real issue.

One - that there was inappopriate pressure and interference from Congress and the White House in attempting to influence ongoing investigations being conducted by the fired attorneys for the purposes of influencing elections. This is just plain wrong.

The other factor that bears looking into is this (again, from media matters):

On the March 13 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, National Public Radio's Mara Liasson falsely claimed that under new rules governing the appointment of interim U.S. attorneys, the Bush administration could appoint people to those positions, "but they couldn't stay there" without Senate confirmation. She added that "Congress could have pulled the plug on every one of them -- every one of the new ones if they didn't like them." In fact, a law enacted in March 2006 as part of the renewal of the USA Patriot Act does allow an administration-appointed "interim" U.S. attorney to serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation -- a change that lies at the heart of the current U.S. attorney scandal. If the president does not nominate a permanent replacement for his "interim" appointee, the appointee could serve at least until the end of the president's term in office, thus denying Congress the opportunity to "pull the plug" on Bush's appointee.

[boutons_]

March 19, 2007

Editorial Observer

It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.

By ADAM COHEN

The Bush administration has done a terrible job of explaining its decision to fire eight United States attorneys. Story after story has proved to be untrue: that the prosecutors who were fired were poor performers; that the White House was not involved in the purge. But the administration has been strangely successful in pushing its message that the scandal is at worst a political misdeed, not a criminal matter.

It is true, as the White House keeps saying, that United States attorneys serve “at the pleasure of the president,” which means he can dismiss them whenever he wants. But if the attorneys were fired to interfere with a valid prosecution, or to punish them for not misusing their offices, that may well have been illegal.

In law schools, it is common to give an exam called the “issue spotter,” in which students are given a set of facts and asked to identify all the legal issues and possible crimes. The facts about the purge are still emerging. But based on what is known — and with some help from Congressional staff members and Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University — it was not hard to spot that White House and Justice Department officials, and members of Congress, may have violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1520, the federal obstruction of justice statute.

Some crimes that a special prosecutor might one day look at:

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

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made his own dubious assertion to Congress: “I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons.”

The administration appears to be trying to place all of the blame on Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who resigned after reportedly failing to inform top Justice Department officials about the White House’s role in the firings. If Mr. Sampson withheld the information from Mr. McNulty, who then misled Congress, Mr. Sampson may have violated § 1505.

But Mr. Sampson’s lawyer now says other top Justice Department officials knew of the White House’s role. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said last week that “Kyle Sampson will not be the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy.” Congress will be looking for evidence that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty knew that what they told Congress was false or misleading.

Convictions of this kind are not common, but they happen. Just ask former White House aide David Safavian, who was convicted last year of making false statements to a Senate committee.

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

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

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

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

Let’s take the case of Carol Lam, United States attorney in San Diego. The day the news broke that Ms. Lam, who had already put one Republican congressman in jail, was investigating a second one, Mr. Sampson wrote an e-mail message referring to the “real problem we have right now with Carol Lam.” He said it made him think that it was time to start looking for a replacement. Congress has also started investigating the removal of Fred Black, the United States attorney in Guam, who was replaced when he began investigating the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Anyone involved in firing a United States attorney to obstruct or influence an official proceeding could have broken the law.

Much more needs to be learned, and Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee, has been admirably firm about insisting that he will get sworn testimony from Karl Rove and other key players. It is far too soon to say that anyone committed a crime, and it may well be that no one has. But if this were a law school issue spotter, any student who could not identify any laws that may have been broken would get an “F.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/op...631edc&ei=5070

[Nbadan]

Kiss of death?

Senate votes to cut Gonzales' power to appoint
Bush calls A.G. offering support; White House denies search for successor
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:57 a.m. PT March 20, 2007

WASHINGTON

- The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end the Bush administration’s ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Amid calls from lawmakers in both parties to resign, Gonzales got a morale boost with an early-morning call from President Bush, their first conversation since a week ago, when the president said he was unhappy with how the Justice Department handled the firings.

With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. Democrats say the Bush administration abused that authority when it fired the eight prosecutors and proposed replacing some with White House loyalists.

“If you politicize the prosecutors, you politicize everybody in the whole chain of law enforcement,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

The bill, which has yet to be considered in the House, would set a 120-day deadline for the administration to appoint an interim prosecutor. If the interim appointment is not confirmed by the Senate in that time, a permanent replacement would be named by a federal district judge.

White House: Replacement rumors ‘untrue’

The vote came as Gonzales and the White House braced for more fallout from the firings. The White House also denied reports that it was looking for possible successors for Gonzales. “Those rumors are untrue,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

Bush called Gonzales from the Oval Office at 7:15 a.m. EDT and they spoke for several minutes about the political uproar over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, an issue that has thrust the attorney general into controversy and raised questions about whether he can survive. The White House disclosed Bush’s call to bolster Gonzales and attempt to rally Republicans to support him.

"The president reaffirmed his strong backing of the attorney general and his support for him," Perino said. "The president called him to reaffirm his support."

Former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay had said earlier Tuesday that the scandal "is just a taste of what's going to be like for the next two years."

"And the Bush administration sort of showed their weakness when they got rid of Don Rumsfeld," the Texan said on NBC's "Today" show. "... This is a made up scandal. There is no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever. ... They ought to be fighting back."

Sifting through material

Bush's call came as congressional investigators sifted through 3,000-pages of e-mails and other material concerning the dismissal of the prosecutors. Some of the do ents spelled out fears in the Bush administration that the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys might not stand up to scrutiny.

The do ents were not the end of the inquiry. House and Senate panels later in the week expected to approve subpoenas to White House aides Karl Rove, former counsel Harriet Miers and others. Miers' successor, Fred Fielding, was to tell the Judiciary Committees later Tuesday whether and under what conditions Bush would allow the officials to testify.

But the do ents told more of the story of the run-up to the firings and the administration's attempt to choreograph them to reduce the bloodletting. It didn't work out that way -- the prosecutors were shocked and angered by the dismissals, the lack of explanation from the Justice Department and news reports that the administration fired the eight for performance reasons.



Discord bothers agency
The bubbling discontent worried Justice Department officials. Of particular concern, according to some references in the 3,000 pages of e-mails and other material released late Monday, was the prospect of former U.S. Attorney Bud mins testifying before Congress.

"I don't think he should," Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, wrote in a Feb. 1 e-mail. "How would he answer: Did you resign voluntarily? Who told you? What did they say?"

mins was relieved as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., and replaced by Tim Griffin, a former assistant to top White House aide Karl Rove.

In his e-mail to colleagues, Sampson listed more questions that mins might have to answer if he were to testify to Congress: "Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming U.S. attorney? What did Griffin say? Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation? Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming? If not, then why?"



New do ents released
The do ents that Congress will focus on in the coming days show that Gonzales was unhappy with how Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained the firings to the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February.

"The Attorney General is extremely upset with the stories on the US Attys this morning," Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, who was traveling with Gonzales in South America at the time, wrote in a Feb. 7 e-mail. "He also thought some of the DAG's statements were inaccurate."

In a statement Monday night, Roehrkasse said he was referring to Gonzales' concerns over the firing of Bud mins in Little Rock, who he believed was dismissed because of performance issues. At the hearing, McNulty indicated mins was being replaced by a political ally.

Neither of the two most senior Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are stepping forward to endorse Gonzales, but likewise are not calling for his ouster. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said he will reserve judgment until he gets all the facts. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has not given interviews on the subject, his spokesman said.

Gonzales successors?

Speculation has abounded over who might succeed Gonzales if he doesn't survive the current political tumult. Possible candidates include White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, federal appeals judge Laurence Silberman and PepsiCo attorney Larry Thompson, who was the government's highest ranking black law enforcement official when he was deputy attorney general during Bush's first term.

MSNbc

[boutons_]

Gonzo is carbonized cabrito.

[boutons_]

March 21, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Why I Was Fired

By DAVID C. IGLESIAS

Albuquerque

WITH this week’s release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters.

Of course, as one of the eight, I’ve felt this way for some time. But now that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for “performance related” reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly.

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico.

Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges — the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about — before November. When I told him that I didn’t think so, he said, “I am very sorry to hear that,” and the line went dead.

A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign — even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the do ents released this week, I was deemed a “diverse up and comer” in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)

When some of my fired colleagues — Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas; Paul Charlton of Phoenix; H. E. mins III of Little Rock, Ark.; Carol Lam of San Diego; and John McKay of Seattle — and I testified before Congress on March 6, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Not only had we not been insulated from politics, we had apparently been singled out for political reasons. (Among the Justice Department’s released do ents is one describing the office of Senator Domenici as being “happy as a clam” that I was fired.)

As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from F.B.I. investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don’t have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible — namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds.

What’s more, their narrative has largely ignored that I was one of just two United States attorneys in the country to create a voter-fraud task force in 2004. Mine was bipartisan, and it included state and local law enforcement and election officials.

After reviewing more than 100 complaints of voter fraud, I felt there was one possible case that should be prosecuted federally. I worked with the F.B.I. and the Justice Department’s public integrity section. As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.

Good has already come from this scandal. Yesterday, the Senate voted to overturn a 2006 provision in the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint indefinite interim United States attorneys. The attorney general’s chief of staff has resigned and been replaced by a respected career federal prosecutor, Chuck Rosenberg. The president and attorney general have admitted that “mistakes were made,” and Mr. Domenici and Ms. Wilson have publicly acknowledged calling me.

President Bush addressed this scandal yesterday. I appreciate his gra ude for my service — this marks the first time I have been thanked. But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me.

David C. Iglesias was United States attorney for the District of New Mexico from October 2001 through last month.

[Nbadan]

Un enbelievable...

Source: AP

MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors took the first steps toward reducing the prison sentence of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, currently scheduled for release in 2011 for a Florida fraud conviction.

Do ents filed in federal court say Abramoff has provided "substantial assistance" in a separate Washington corruption scandal investigation and continues to work with investigators from his prison cell in berland, Md.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Schwartz did not recommend how much Abramoff's sentence should be cut.

In the court papers filed Wednesday, Schwartz said prosecutors would recommend a reduction in his sentence and would file further do ents describing the "nature, extent and value" of his cooperation.

Washington Post

See kids! Lawbreaking is subjective!

"on the firing of Guam US Attorney Frederick A. Black who had just launched a probe into the activities of Jack Abramoff. Black had been Attorney General for more than a decade but was fired the day after he issued subpoenas related to a series of $9,000 checks issued to Abramoff."

Digg

Nothing to see here folks! Move along...










































I said move along.....

[Nbadan]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON -

Democrats, armed with subpoenas for President Bush's political guru Karl Rove and other top aides, are pressing the White House to allow the advisers to answer questions under oath about the firing of federal prosecutors.

The brokering has already begun. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania floated a compromise with Bush's counsel Fred Fielding, even as both sides publicly ratcheted up the standoff. The White House said Fielding would pass the proposal to Bush.

Bush's counsel discussed the dispute Friday in a meeting at the Capitol with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a close White House ally.

The two did delve into specific proposals for Bush's aides to testify, but Cornyn said he urged Fielding to release as much information related to the prosecutor firings as possible, warning that he wanted "no surprises" to emerge.

"I told him, 'Everything you can release, please release. We need to know what the facts are,' " Cornyn said.

MSNBC

Some Republican Senators are caving under the WH pressure and that morphes into 'negotiating' to the M$M. Don't count on Rove not testifying under oath to be part of those 'negotiations. Dems are in majority, it's time they acted like it.

[Nbadan]

WASHINGTON - Under President Bush, the Justice Department has backed tougher state voter identification laws and steered U.S. attorneys toward investigating voter fraud -- policies that critics say have been intended to suppress Democratic votes.

Bush, Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff, and other Republican political advisers have highlighted voting rights issues and what Rove has called the “growing problem” of Democratic election fraud since Bush took power in the tumultuous election of 2000, a race ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division when it was rolling back long-standing voting rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

... Taken together, legal experts and other critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.

Real cities

[Nbadan]

Attorney general had been said not to have been closely involved

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to do ents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.

The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week in the wake of the political firestorm surrounding the firings.

The Justice Department says Gonzales has ordered an internal investigation of the firings

MSNBC

These guys will continue to lie their asses off until Dubya can no longer provide prosecutional protection. This is the biggest reason Congress can not, and will not compromise on letting Miers and Rove testify while not under oath.

[Nbadan]

Even more evidence...

Gonzales Was Briefed on Prosecutors Before Firings (Update2)
By Robert Schmidt and James Rowley

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was briefed on plans for the firings of federal prosecutors 11 days before the dismissals, the U.S. Justice Department disclosed as it began its own investigation into the matter.

Two Justice Department watchdog units will conduct a joint probe to determine why eight U.S. attorneys were removed and if Congress was misled by agency officials' testimony.

``The department needs a thorough and complete investigation into this matter,'' spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told reporters.

Several do ents released by the Justice Department tonight, including Gonzales's appointment calendar, show that the attorney general and his deputy, Paul McNulty, participated in an hour-long meeting about the firings on Nov. 27. Another e-mail provided new evidence the White House was involved in the firings.

Bloomberg

[boutons_]

Gonzo is a lawyer, his lips are moving, he's lying.

[Nbadan]

Instant Karma's gonna get ya...

One of the eight former U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration said today that White House officials had questioned his performance in highly partisan political terms at a key meeting in Washington last September, three months before his dismissal.

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

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

He added that he took umbrage at the idea that he had other responsibilities beyond focusing "on the evidence and not allow(ing) politics into the work that we do in criminal prosecutions." Those involved in the scandal over the firings who acted unprofessionally "or even illegally" have to be held accountable for what they did, he said.

Washington Post

[Man of Steel]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p.../tower1med.jpg

[gtownspur]

Gonzo is a lawyer, his lips are moving, he's lying.

Clinton's lips always move?

I meant Hillary's

[xrayzebra]

Gee you think maybe they were removed for political reasons?
Wonder why they were appointed? Political reasons..........
Just repeating what I heard on the Sunday shows.

[Nbadan]

Senator Edward M. Kennedy gets it....

Kennedy: Justice firings are keyed to '08 vote
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | March 29, 2007

WASHINGTON

-- Senator Edward M. Kennedy yesterday accused President Bush of using the Department of Justice to further his administration's "right-wing ideology," saying that veteran prosecutors were replaced by political operatives in key states to ensure that "reliable partisans" are in place in time for the 2008 presidential election.

Kennedy noted that the recent rash of firings among US attorneys put new top prosecutors in place in several presidential swing states, including Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Arkansas.

At least two of the eight US attorneys fired by the administration refused to investigate spurious claims of voter fraud that were initiated by Republicans, Kennedy said. Two of the new US attorneys, meanwhile, had do ented records of pursuing GOP goals, one as a Justice Department official and the other as a top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove, he said.

"The administration views our system of justice as merely another arena for furthering its right-wing ideology," Kennedy said in a speech at the National Press Club. "The conclusion is inescapable that the administration has methodically placed reliable partisans in positions where they can influence the outcome of the 2008 election."

Boston

Hmmmmmmmm.....I wonder which possible Presidential candidates the Neocons are supporting in 08? (cough)***********hitlary************************* **(cough)*****************hitlary***************** *************************(cough) Giuliani*************************************(coug h)********Giuliani******************************** ******(cough)*********

[boutons_]

Gonzo is a goner

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Ex-Aide Disputes Gonzales's Statements About Firings

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 29, 2007; 4:20 PM

D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, today disputed Gonzales's assertion that he was not involved in discussions about the controversial firing last year of eight U.S. attorneys, telling a Senate panel that those and other statements by his former boss were incorrect.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sampson, who resigned from the Justice Department earlier this month, also said that Gonzales and President Bush's former counsel, Harriet E. Miers, approved the firings after he and other staffers recommended that the federal prosecutors be removed.

"The decision-makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president," Sampson said in response to a question about the role of young, inexperienced Justice Department staffers in the firings. Miers resigned in January. Gonzales and the White House have not denied that they ultimately signed off on the dismissals.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

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dubya's long-time, beloved associates are as incompetent as dubya his own dumb self. What a herd of assholes.

[Nbadan]

tick...tick....tick....

Sampson Refuses To Disclose Whether He Spoke To Rove About Firing Fitzgerald

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

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

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

During today’s hearing, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) repeatedly asked Kyle Sampson whether he ever discussed drawing up this ranking with Karl Rove. On eight different occasions, Sampson refused to rule out that he had discussed firing Fitzgerald with Rove or his office.

TPM

Oh....................this is getting good.....

[Nbadan]

THEN and NOW