Put Aside "The Surge" for the moment... We need to help amplify news of "the Purge'!

[cascadiance]

There is currently an ongoing effort to make a new "Saturday Night Massacre" in this country, and the victims are all U.S. Attorneys that now must serve not only as professional prosecutors, but as yes people to the Bush administration or be fired. There is a *purge* going on of these folks, many of them Republicans as well, who deserve our respect for prosecuting cases in the tradition of Mr. Fitzgerald. Being like colorblind officials at a game and calling them as they see them regardless of anyone's political stripes or allegiances.

Attorneys like Carol Lam are paying for it now, who helped prosecute one of the biggest cases last year against Duke Cunningham, and is now being asked to step down. For more details look at the following links on DU of threads discussing this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2685750

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x256481

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3053867

Also note that the Bush administration appears to be taking advantage of a new loophole created by the just passed Patriot Act, that lets him appoint these attorneys without Senate review and approval, unlike before. For some, despite the administrations protestations otherwise, this appears to be a way to "purge" those there now and replace them with partisan loyalists who won't touch any investigations that the congress wants to pursue in various locales. Here is an example of a judge being appointed in this fashion by Bushco. You know this is what will happen once those with decent work ethics are pushed out. And also the climate of fear amongst those that are left will have to endure if they dare prosecute/investigate a case this administration doesn't want them to.

Dianne Feinstein is quoted as saying that this purge is being done under a veil of secrecy, and that she doesn't know who all is being let go out there. We already have a few others mentioned in these threads that have also been asked to leave. I suggest that we at DU try to all look at our own community news sources and try to find all of the rest of these attorneys that are being asked to step down and create a centralized page where we can compile this info. I've already got Henry Waxman's office to review Carol Lam's case and it is being forwarded to the Oversight Committee. If we can get a full list of affected individuals, perhaps that can help Mr. Waxman and others in congress to build a groundswell of support, and do our part in helping shut this down before it inflicts too much damage on our Attorney's offices around the country:

Known U.S. Attorneys asked to step down (there are 93 total across the country):
Carol Lam - California (San Diego) (links above)
Bud Cummings - Arkansas (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070112-9999-1n12lam.html and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x256481#256490)
David Iglesias - New Mexico (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070112-9999-1n12lam.html)
Debra Smith - Alaska (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002329.php and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/08/31/fbi-raids-offices-of-alas_n_28499.html?p=3 and http://www.adn.com/news/politics/veco/story/8182180p-8075108c.html)

Known U.S. Attorneys recently resigning for unknown reasons:
Debra Wong Yang - California (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002329.php and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Wong_Yang and http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2006/10/us_attorney_debra_ya.php)

Here's a good page to start with which shows a list of the various Attorney's names and the office they work from to start doing research from:
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/wdo112906.html


Please add any other attorneys that have left that you feel belong on this list now. We need to escalate this!

[malaise]

1. Forget the Surge

Purge Bush.

[scarletwoman]

2. It just never stops, does it. We have GOT to get these people out of power NOW!

:banghead:

sw

[mwb970]

12. They are demons.

They never stop attacking our democracy, not even for one day. I would rather have another 9/11 than 8 years of these anti-American attacks from our own government. We will be generations undoing the damage Bush has done to America, if it can be undone at all.

I am convinced that the Bush administration is the worst thing to happen to America since the Civil War. It is so frustrating to have to sit and watch them ruin my country for 8 years with nobody able to do a damn thing about it. Grr!

[annabanana]

3. This is VERY important! The courts are compromised enough

under this administration. They are now tying up the loose ends against the eventuality of massive waves of investigations. We have to sound the alarm that the admin is now attacking the judiciary as assiuously as they attacked the departments directly under their control.

K&R

[illinoisprogressive]

4. I cannot express enough how much I hate Bush

[napi21]

5. I'd love to hear more about this on CNN, MSNBC etc.

I read about it the other day, but I didn't know there were 93! Can Gonao really get away with this? I know Shrub thinks he can, but surely, amoung 93 attorneys, they can do SOMETHING!

[walldude]

6. Have you seen this? Pentagon goes after lawyers defending detainees

On radio on January 11, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, Cully Stimson, said it was “shocking” that prestigious law firms in the United States were helping to represent these detainees. Stimson, who once said that the detainees could be held in Guantanamo for the rest of their lives, read out loud a list of law firms representing them. And he “predicted that those firms would suffer financially once that representation became known to the firms’ corporate clients,” the ACLU notes.

The Wall Street Journal followed up this attack the very next day. Robert L. Pollock, a member of the Journal’s editorial board, took to the editorial pages on January 12 to blackball what he called “a who’s who of America’s most prestigious law firms.” He, too, proceeded to call the roll: “Shearman and Sterling; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan & Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cleary Gottlieb; and Blank Rome are among the marquee names.”

This is classic. It's gone so far that these people are basically saying the Constitution and Laws that govern America are bullshit.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc011207

[cascadiance]

7. Yes I saw that earlier on one of the DU threads I linked above and also googling...

They've been going after the media to lock it up under their control. Now it appears that they are going after the court system as well! Folks we're a frog in a slow boiling pot. We better hop out pretty soon!

[DemReadingDU]

8. Bush and Cheney need to be purged

soon

[cascadiance]

9. Nevada Prosecutor now has been outed

Senator Reid is now PO'd...

Daniel Bogden - http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2007/jan/15/011510869.html

Today: January 15, 2007 at 14:50:9 PST

Federal prosecutor in Nevada being replaced, officials say

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The top federal prosecutor in Nevada is being replaced, aides to Nevada Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid said Monday.

Details of Daniel Bogden's departure after five years as U.S. attorney for Nevada were not immediately made public by the Justice Department on Monday, a federal holiday. Bogden and a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney office in Las Vegas could not be reached for comment.

In a Monday report, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said it was unclear whether Bogden was fired or had been asked to resign.

Ensign released a statement through his spokesman, Tory Mazzola, acknowledging the move and crediting Bogden with leading the federal prosecutor's office in Nevada "with great commitment, efficiency and success for the last five years."

Ensign, a Republican, nominated Bogden for the post in 2001 after Bogden, then 45, won several high-profile drug cases and helped send five neo-Nazis to prison for a Reno hate crime.

A spokesman for Reid said the Senate Democratic majority leader had not learned the details of Bogden's departure, and did not know who would replace him. The spokesman, Jon Summers, said Reid learned of the move from Ensign during a conversation on the Senate floor.

...

Worth noting are the following two paragraphs at the end of the article:

Summers said Democratic members of Congress were raising questions about a provision of the USA Patriot Act that lets the U.S. attorney general make interim appointments that have no time limits and need no Senate confirmation.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., have introduced legislation to change that portion of the Patriot Act.

We'll need to watch this legislation and how the Rethuglicans vote on it!

[conscious evolution]

10. Kicking

Cause this story needs to get out there.

[hootinholler]

11. How did I miss this this weekend!

I just tried to rec it and it had expired. THis needs raised as an issue!

-Hoot

[cascadiance]

13. Three more prosecutors to add to this list...

Kevin V. Ryan - California (San Francisco)
John McKay - Washington (Seattle)
Paul Charlton - Arizona (Phoenix)

I've just put a new thread up on LBN with today's article from the Union Tribune on this. Please rate it up this time. As you said, this is a VERY important issue I think that still is a bit too much under the radar for all of us! Even our Senators are starting to say and do a lot of things more in the lead of this like Dianne Fienstein, which ought to tell all of us that there's some heavy political manouevering going on now.

Today's post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2691060