Bush college pal Pat Shea is being considered as purged attorney Carol Lam's replacement!...

[cascadiance]

According to an op/ed in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning... This is what these lies about them not circumventing the Senate approval process are really all about and another reason why Gonzalez should be impeached for manoeuvering the update to the Patriot Act through Specter!

From today's Union-Tribune:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070119/news_lz1ed19top.html

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Replacing Lam

Bush administration must not circumvent Senate

January 19, 2007

Unsurprisingly, the first name to surface as the Justice Department's potential replacement for purged U.S. Attorney Carol Lam is that of Pat Shea, a La Jolla lawyer and one-time mayoral candidate who was a classmate of George W. Bush at Harvard Business School. Shea says he and the president remain in regular contact with each other and he voices keen interest in the job of U.S. attorney, but says he hasn't had direct talks with anyone at the Justice Department “yet.”

Lam was ousted this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales amid heavy criticism from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other lawmakers who accuse the Justice Department of forcing out U.S. attorneys without cause. Lam's strong record of fighting political corruption and drug kingpins certainly did not provide any grounds for her dismissal.

In a clash yesterday with Feinstein during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales denied that politics had anything to do with the firings of several U.S. attorneys around the country. Shea is widely regarded as a top-notch business lawyer, but speculation that a presidential friend who has no prosecutorial experience is being considered as Lam's successor can only fuel the charges of cronyism being leveled against the Bush administration.

...

[bdamomma]

1. bush is surrounding himself with lawyers, I wonder why???

[Mandate My Ass]

2. "I'm not a prosecutor in real life, but I'll play one for Bushco..."

Holy crap. This has to stop.

[Ian David]

3. Bush is following The Victor Ashe Doctrine...

Only work with people who have felated you.

In this case, during a Skull and Bones Society initiation rite.

Some people say.

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=15636

It's not Cronyism, it's Blowmeism.

[fooj]

4. Enough already.

They aren't even pretending anymore.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. Why is ChimpCo firing the U.S. attorneys?

And replacing them with friends and cronies? Why would he choose to do it now, 6 years into his Presidency, with the Dems just having returned to power in Congress? What's up Cheney's sleeve? Any ideas?

[Marie26]

7. Duke Cunningham scandal

is at least a part of it. Lam prosecuted him, and was investigating connections w/other lawmakers. 19 congressmen signed a petition supporting her removal - providing a nice list of lawmakers who are likely involved in the scandal.

[troubleinwinter]

9. What petition? Which 19?

[fooj]

11. No shit...

where's the list? I wanna see who the f*ckers are who signed.

[cascadiance]

12. I'll bet the following are on that list...

Doolittle
Bilbray
Hunter
Issa

[Marie26]

13. It was in a thread here

I'll try to search & link it - that might not even be right. But I vaguely recall reading that some lawmakers had sent a letter to Gonzales stating that she wasn't "tough enough" on immigration.

The letter was sent by Darrell Issa, Cuinningham's buddy & neighboring Congressman. It seems like he was instrumental in getting her fired & obviously has "high connections" in the Administration. So far, I haven't found a link w/information about any other lawmakers who signed onto that letter, so that might just be Internet rumor.

"In a Tuesday phone interview from his Washington office, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said Lam was asked to step down. Issa declined to name the source of the information, but said "it was a high-ranking administration official involved in the decision process."

Department of Justice officials in Washington, D.C., did not respond to requests for interviews Tuesday.

For years, Issa has been critical of Lam for what he said was her failure to more aggressively prosecute illegal-immigrant smugglers. In an October 2005 letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for example, Issa blasted Lam's office for failing to prosecute two cases of smugglers who were repeat offenders. In the letter, Issa called her failure to do so the result of "lax prosecutorial standard."

Issa said it would be too strong to say that he was instrumental in Lam's resignation."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/01/13/news/top_stories/21_44_311_12_07.txt

Interesting timing of her resignation:

"WASHINGTON – Three House committees are delaying responding to grand jury subpoenas issued in connection with the bribery case against jailed former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
The subpoenas were issued to the Appropriations, Armed Services and Intelligence committees by the federal grand jury in San Diego that has been considering evidence in a defense contracting investigation stemming from the Cunningham case.

The subpoenas set a Jan. 11 deadline for compliance but prosecutors and House lawyers have agreed to extend that until Jan. 31, congressional staffers said Tuesday. "

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/20070109-1655-congressman-bribery.html

[fooj]

14. Issa is a crook. he was the one who met * on his "dress-up" day...

"Mission Accomplished"...he was on the aircraft carrier with the little asshole.

[TahitiNut]

10. "Salting" the mine of potential nominees to the federal bench, among other things.

What the reich-wing has done very well over the past 25-30 years is insinuate loyalists at all levels of the federal (and local) bureaucracy, assuring greater chances that they'll 'rise' (like turds in a septic tank) to positions of greater authority. Rhenquist is a textbook example of a reichbot turd from the Nixon days that 'rose' to SCOTUS.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

6. Arkansas US Attorney replaced with Rove crony

Timothy Griffin, who was a Bush henchman during the theft of the Presidency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/opinion/15mon2.html?ex=1326517200&en=76bcc8743e65648a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

(on edit) See this DU thread, also:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=257063

[cascadiance]

8. I like the idea of calling this "Another Abomination Nomination"!...

Kind of has a nice ring to it that could be a label for a lot of Bush's appointments. Thanks for the idea from this post in that thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=257063&mesg_id=257066

[progressoid]

15. Their blatant gall is stunning.

[mod mom]

16. Join me in passing this on to Keith Olbermann:

(He covered the story the other day):

[e-mail]