Why Were They Fired? By Dan Froomkin / WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/14/BL2007061400838.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email


Why Were They Fired?

By Dan Froomkin



...Democrats have reason to suspect that at least some of the firings were set in motion by Karl Rove's White House political staff and were intended to affect politically charged cases in ways that would benefit the Republican Party...Those are serious allegations. But the official White House response has been a non-denial. That U.S. attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" is immaterial. And the absence thus far of definitive evidence of wrongdoing at the White House level may be due more to effective stonewalling than to any lack of actual wrongdoing...There's certainly a growing body of evidence to suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has essentially turned over control of the traditionally independent Justice Department to political operatives.

If Bush wants this media drama to go away -- and if there is, in fact, an innocent explanation for the firings -- then it's in his best interest to come clean, in public, and sooner rather than later. Why wait for a congressional hearing?...But that's not what's happening. Instead, the White House's carefully parsed and entirely unforthcoming statements on this matter are reminiscent of the response four years ago to allegations that White House aides had leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Back then, Bush could well have demanded an answer from his staffers and then shared it with the American people. He chose not to. Whether he chose not to because he knew that two of his top aides were involved in the leaking is still, to this day, not entirely clear. By stonewalling, Bush was able to postpone that revelation until after getting reelected.

Had the Democrats been in a position to issue subpoenas, things might have turned out differently.

And today, with the White House simply refusing to respond forthrightly to some very troubling charges, it is entirely reasonable for Congress -- and the press -- to ask, over and over again: Why were they fired?

"If the White House refuses the subpoenas, Leahy and Conyers could move to hold the White House in contempt, then forward those citations to the full House and Senate for approval. The contempt citations would then be sent to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeffrey A. Taylor, who is required to empanel a grand jury to consider indictments. Taylor may have to recuse himself because of his involvement in events as a U.S. attorney."

In a joint press release from the two chairmen, Leahy said: "The White House cannot have it both ways -- it cannot stonewall congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred. The involvement of the White House's political operation in this project, including former Political Director Sara Taylor and her boss Karl Rove, has been confirmed by information gathered by congressional committees. Some at the White House may hope to thwart our constitutional oversight efforts by locking the doors and closing the curtains, but we will keep asking until we get to the truth."

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AND AS A BONUS!
Goodbye, Gonzo Meter

Slate announces the retirement of its Gonzales death watch: "When we first launched this enterprise, we truly believed that the sun rose in the east and gravity worked. We were wrong. As we have increasingly observed, most notably on the days the AG testified before Congress, some mystical alchemy provides that the worse he does, the better his chances become of remaining in office. At this point, just about nothing Gonzales does could cause the president to fire him."