Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia Cooper: Questions for Karl Rove - and President Bush

[marmar]

from the SD Union-Trib, via CommonDreams:


Published on Friday, March 30, 2007 by The San Diego Union-Tribune

Questions for Karl Rove – and President Bush
by Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper

The stealth dismissal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration carries echoes of the Nixon administration firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. Now, as then, we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government. If left to fester, they will poison our system.

Cox was investigating White House misdeeds when Nixon told Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. Richardson refused and resigned, as did Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Third-in-charge, Robert Bork, complied, and the “Saturday Night Massacre,” as it was called, came to epitomize an imperial administration, acting above the law and using its power to interfere with legitimate processes of justice.

Outrage among the American people triggered the impeachment inquiry against Nixon and his eventual resignation.

In the current U.S. attorney massacre, the public outrage and the line of inquiry invited by these events feel eerily familiar: Why were these eight U.S. attorneys ousted? Why did the Justice Department misrepresent the reasons for the firings? Why were political aide Karl Rove and other top administration advisers involved in the decisions of whom to fire? Why is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ aide who helped coordinate the firings, Monica Goodling, invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress? And what did the president know and when did he know it?
...(snip)...

Federal prosecutors have extensive powers and substantial budgets. We need them to investigate mob racketeering, terrorists (homegrown and international), human trafficking, market manipulations, government fraud, environmental crimes, violations of civil liberties and other criminal activities. Deploying them to conduct witch-hunts of politicians of opposing views or to suppress votes is a blatant misuse of their important power.

If Rove or President Bush tried to do this, it is they who need firing. A president must uphold the law, not to subvert it for political or partisan ends. As we learned in Watergate, our Constitution and our shared values are more important than any single officeholder. ......

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/30/205/

[MasonJar]

1. I totally agree! Fire the incompetent and subversive Bush White House today.