Attorney firings another Bush adminstration cover-up

[ProSense]

March 03, 2007

White House says purge was a big misunderstanding

Posted 11:20 am | Printer Friendly | Spotlight

For the past several weeks, the Bush administration offered a simple explanation for an unprecedented purge of U.S. Attorneys nationwide: the prosecutors’ on-the-job performance just wasn’t good enough, so the Justice Department fired them. All along it seemed obvious that the White House’s political agenda played a role, but the Bush gang denied any White House involvement at all.

Yesterday, that story changed a bit, but the explanation still doesn’t work.

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First, there’s ample evidence that politics alone drove the firing process.

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The new explanation for the purge is surprisingly weak, but nevertheless telling. The first explanation the Bush gang came up with was debunked as nonsense, so they’re moving on to Option #2 — the White House was involved, but the purge was innocuous and policy-driven.

But as Josh Marshall noted, that doesn’t quite explain what happened.

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Here’s the funny thing. Of all the reasons an administration might have to fire serving US attorneys, a willful refusal to follow the administration’s law enforcement policies would seem to be a pretty good one. Given the fact that so many of the fired prosecutors were also in the midst of major public corruption investigations, you’d think they’d be more forthcoming with this exculpating explanation. Even more so when you consider that one of the fired US Attorneys was the target of two sitting members of Congress trying to pressure him to subvert justice to alter the outcome of a 2006 House race.

Lots of potential for misunderstanding. And yet the White House has been so resistant to revealing this exculpating explanation until now.

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What we’re left with is a good ol’ fashioned cover-up. Administration officials approved a purge of corruption-investigating prosecutors, and undercut ongoing cases in the process. This is troublesome, but legal. They then, however, tried to hide their decisions and misled Congress about it.

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[BOSSHOG]

1. Imagine, the aburdity of someone in the bush administration

judging someone else's performance. And someone in the bush administration not being involved in politics. That wacky bush administration is so misunderstood and all their "christian" supporters are so persecuted. How do they still have the will to live?

[aquart]

2. Wish they didn't.

[Kagemusha]

3. I hear Gonzales is saying, "I'm too BUSY to answer to Congress!"

Well isn't that precious.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. How much more obvious must the corruption get

before the Dems in Congress decide they have to do something?