U.S. Attorney Massacre: It Just Gets Uglier

[cal04]

This past week I've written about the December firings of eights U.S. Attorneys, and
revealed some of the ugly politics behind it. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/2/8124/06248 and http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/1/7511/42911
Here's another dirty little secret: The Bush Administration is basically circumventing the requirement that U.S. Attorneys be confirmed by the Senate.

This past week I wrote about the eight U.S. attorneys who have been summarily fired since December: David Iglesias, Kevin Ryan, Bud Cummins, Margaret Chiara, Paul Charlton, Carol Lam, Daniel Bodgen and John McKay, and recommended that Congress subpoena them.

There are so many lies and ugly aspects to this, that it's hard to know where to begin. But let me cut to the bottom line that everybody is missing: Thanks to the inaptly-named "Patriot Act," Attorney General Gonzales has the authority to name replacements who can serve indefinitely without confirmation. Under the previous law, unconfirmed replacements could serve for only 120 days, after which the district couts would name a successor. The innocent explanation from Bush et al. is that the old law was an incursion of judicial authority into Executive Branch appointments. But the real reason for the change is that the Patriot Act lets them do an end-run around Senate confirmation, just as it lets them do an end-run around many significant parts of the Constitution.

The Justice Departments initially claimed that the Administration has never removed a U.S. Attorney in retaliation or for political reasons, and that the firings were based on the prosecutors' "performance-related problems." In January, Attorney General Gonzales said he "would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons." Justice Department spokesperson Brian Roehrkasse said about the recent mass firings, "The administration has never removed a U.S. attorney in an effort to retaliate." But now, in a total about-face, White House and Justice Department officials are acknowledging that they canned the prosecutors primarily because they were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms, the death penalty, and other issues.

Granted, U.S. Attorneys are nominated by the President and serve at his pleasure, and the President is entitled to have prosecutors who reflect his law enforcement priorities. But rarely has one been replaced in the middle of an Administration's term, and it is unheard of for so many to be fired in one fell swoop and in such a highhanded way.

This is just the icing on the cake of the other ugly aspects of this story. At least five of the fired U.S. attorneys were presiding over major public-corruption probes targeting Republican politicians or their supporters. They are predominantly from blue statesin the West and Southwest. And at least one was specifically ousted to make room for J. Timothy Griffin, a former White House aide to Karl Rove, which even Griffen declined when he realized what a scandal this was becoming.

Iglesias, the departing U.S. attorney in New Mexico for the past 5 years, spoke out this week about how two members of Congress tried to pressure him to accelerate a probe--stemming from allegations involving construction contracts and a prominent Democratic former state senator--just before the November elections. This was significant because it was the first time that one of the fired eight has so clearly articulated that political pressure regarding an ongoing criminal investigation played a part in his dismissal.

It turns out that the Congresspeople who pressured Iglesias were none other than Republicans Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson. (Wilson herself was in a close reelection battle with then-state Attroney General Patricia Madrid, which she barely won.)

Representative Wilson and Senator Domenici have violated House and Senate ethics rules that restrict such ex parte communications during ongoing criminal investigations. Interfering in any way with an ongoing federal criminal investigation -- whether to accelerate it or to shut it down -- is obstruction of justice.

On Tuesday, Congress will hear from four of the eight ousted U.S. Attorneys. But Congress should also demand to hear from the Justice Department, which came up with the hit list, and the White House, which approved the firings because it believed the ousted eight were not doing enough to carry out Bush policies--not because of, as the Bushies originally asserted, poor performance.


Jesselyn Radack
more
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/3/7534/22491

[grasswire]

1. wow

Go get 'em. Domenici and Wilson. Take them both down for interfering with a federal criminal investigation for political gain.

[LuckyTheDog]

17. What's the real goal here?

These actions seem eerily like the kind of stuff one might do to consolidate power for the long term. More and more, I wonder whether the Bush Administration is planning to "stick around a while" after January of 2009.

[ProudDad]

18. They are trying to do the same thing

that that SHIT John Adams did to Jefferson.

They want to pack the judiciary including Federal Attorneys' offices with their right-wing idealogue sycophants.

And DAMN those Dems who voted for that piece of shit "patriot" act...

[WiseButAngrySara]

26. Correct. ....n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

2. A good start. Next, Congress has to repeal that provision of the PATRIOT

Act and restore the confirmation process for federal prosecutors.

[tridim]

3. Has it been established how BushCo and Justice figured they'd get away with this?

They can't rely on a standard cover-up any longer, so I assume they have a legal (or pseudo-legal) way out. Then again, maybe they just didn't consider the consequences because they still believe that the public will accept the ends justifying the means.

[maggiegault]

6. Americans Don't Care.

If it interferes with their dinner at the Outback Steakhouse and their viewing of Grey's Anatomy, they simply do not want to hear about it.

Congress rendered irrelevant? Who cares? That Dr. McDreamy IS McDreamy.

[ClintonTyree]

9. Sickening, isn't it?

Americans are woefully ignorant about the machinations and actions of their government. :banghead: I just don't understand how they cannot be interested in their country's future.
I'm only about 60 miles from the Canadian border. Most of the Canadians I come in contact with are extremely in touch with their government's actions. What's the difference? Does 60 miles make that much of an impact on people or is it Americans' attitudes? My money is on the attitudes. They just don't care. Let someone else do it.
They're all proud to be Americans: very nationalistic and all but to them that means putting a magnet on their SUV or listening to some country song about putting a boot up someone's ass. End of story. :banghead:

[maggiegault]

12. I Guess What Really Upsets Me Is...

...there are plenty of intelligent Americans like us, those who care about our country and what it does around the world, those who care about and believe in the Constitution, those who cling to the American Ideal of freedom and justice.

Yet it's the Red Lobster-lovin' morons who create the "Ugly American" stereotype.

I have many many many friends in Australia, Melbourne in particular, and each one of them at separate times marvel at me, an American who actually is aware of the world and cares about her and her country's place in it. It makes me so sad.

[windy252]

13. I kind of agree but have a slight disagreement

Some of us care. It's just after working so hard to prevent things like this from happening, we just don't feel we have any effect anymore, if we ever had one in the first place.

[maggiegault]

20. I Was Being Facetious

Of course some of us care. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. It's just that the vast majority of Americans are morons, and quite content to be so, and to remain so.

After all, it's just so much easier to be uneducated and unaware and gobble up whatever pap The Media Machine feeds them.

I saw them today, when I made the mistake of going to the shopping mall. Slack-jawed gawkers, either * voters or those who didn't even bother to vote at all. Morons, all of them, American Idiots. Quite content...even proud...to be so.

Never stop listening to Green Day's American Idiot CD. The longer * remains in office unchecked, the more apt and brilliant it becomes.

[postulater]

22. Gray's Anatomy isn't on tonight, is it?

Dang, hate it when I miss it.

[maggiegault]

24. I Don't Know, I Was Too Busy...

...eatin' one of them bloomin' onions with a side of baby back ribs. We're gonna stop off at Mickey D's on the way home for milkshakes.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

28. They have it streaming at ABC. So if you miss it, you can view it there. eom

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. No. I'm afraid they are just imbeciles. It is their primary m.o. to plan

and to operate on false assumptions. It is endemic at the highest levels of big business, where any pathological deformation of their world-view would have been comprehensively confirmed. You want it? Go get it!

They are so intoxicated with the power they have arrogated to themselves that they cannot imagine being caught. They assume that their "success" is the product of their own smartness, rather than the incredulous indulgence of their peers, so "accountability" is not in their lexicon.

They are congenital short-term thinkers. Their misdirected fears and fathomless greed constitute the most pernicious and permanent cardiac disease of all. They flesh out for us, in their own persons, the negative aspect of the truth that the heart is the seat of our assumptions, our world-view, our values, our life's work.

"And every man that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his houe upon sand:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

The brain, alas, no matter how sharp, is any match for a blind heart. "God scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts."

[stellanoir]

10. wows

". . .They are so intoxicated with the power they have arrogated to themselves that they cannot imagine being caught. They assume that their "success" is the product of their own smartness, rather than the incredulous indulgence of their peers, so "accountability" is not in their lexicon.

They are congenital short-term thinkers. Their misdirected fears and fathomless greed constitute the most pernicious and permanent cardiac disease of all. They flesh out for us, in their own persons, the negative aspect of the truth that the heart is the seat of our assumptions, our world-view, our values, our life's work. . ."

You nailed it eloquently and completely. Kudos.

Keep it up.

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. Well. It's the truth. But thank you. Great men, when they are found out

in serious crimes and brought to book, come to their senses. I am thinking of John Dean and some other people caught up in the Watergate villainy.

I'd like to believe otherwise, but I think this lot appear to be of a much more chronically pernicious disposition.

[stellanoir]

14. The truly annoying thing is that unlike the primary players in Watergate

a lot of these players, having been pardoned by poppy during Iran/Contra presume to have total impunity and with their apparant stranglehold on the judiciary, and the media it would at least seem as such for a while.

I truly don't think "chronic perniciousness" is sustainable for very long though. Silly me.

Thanks for responding.

[bleever]

4. Jesselyn Radack:

Sitting in her well-appointed living room in a leafy northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Jesselyn Radack seems an unlikely candidate for martyrdom in the war on terror. For three years the Yale Law School graduate and self-described soccer mom made her living telling other government lawyers how to stay out of trouble.

The 32-year-old former U.S. Department of Justice ethics adviser says she thought she'd be a career government lawyer. But that was before she decided to object to the government's tactics in the John Walker Lindh case last year.

Since then she's lost two jobs -- pushed out of her Justice post and then fired from the firm that had taken her in -- and now finds herself unemployed and in limbo. Her personal challenges are daunting: under criminal investigation, ailing from multiple sclerosis, and expecting a third child in January. But far from singing the victim's song, Radack appears composed and stalwart, telling her story with short, chopping hand strokes and near-encyclopedic recall.

And her story grows more ominous as new details emerge about how far the government will go in pursuit of one of its own.

more...

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1056139907383

[dpbrown]

29. She's a hero

Bush and his minions are tearing apart our nation.

[Double T]

5. Abolish the Patriot Act of political and judicial corruption and malfeasance.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Agree - Repeal the so-called "Patriot" act

It transfers too much power to the administrative branch, and it damages the first, fourth, and fifth amendments. It was a lousy law jammed through by Republicans.

Both parties are at fault on this front. The Democrats were falling all over themselves to pass something related to the 9/11 investigative recommendations. That abomination passed, but fortunately is a completely weak law with a bunch of "we will look into", or "we will draft a plan" type language. So maybe no real damage done with that fiasco.

[formercia]

7. Obstruction of Justice

Let's see who signed off on this....

[TheCentepedeShoes]

15. We need a new bumper sticker

Along the lines of "Impeach the Cox Sacker" from the 70's.

[cascadiance]

32. How about "Impeach the wolf that sacrifices the Lams"!

[upi402]

19. Dems better hurry up!

Time's almost up...

[file83]

21. Time to repeal the Patriot Act because it only results in UnPatriotic Fascism.

We've been warning people for 5+ years that the Patriot Act would lead to these kinds of abuses.

How did we know it would lead to these kinds of abuses? Because it ALLOWS for these kinds of abuses. And when something is allowed, it will be used, especially when the law consolidates power.

The Patriot Act is a shitty and unAmerican piece of "law". It disrupts the balance of power and therefore leads to corruption.

[sce56]

23. Time to Impeach the Whole Bush Admin including Gonzales! I hate to say it but he is a Coconut!

[Quantess]

25. Time to kick something relevant.

nobody gives a shit about anne coulter, at least, I don't.

[WiseButAngrySara]

27. Just when you think it can't possibly get any worse, it gets

uglier and uglier. When is this going to end?

:kick: and R!

[Joanne98]

30. The Patriot Act has been nothing but a curse.

[cascadiance]

31. A question I'd like congress to ask Carol Lam...

"Were you pressured to delay or stop investigating any other members of congress or other high ranking officials of our government last year?"

As a resident here in San Diego, I'm getting a lot of hints from various entities that Duncan Hunter has MANY skeletons that are being covered now (the various same ties that Cunningham had to MZM, ADCS, etc. that got him put in prison now), his real estate chicanery with the assessors and his insurance rep on the value of his house, and other stuff. I was told that he had his "pending indictment" delayed until after the election so that instead of him losing by default to John Rinaldi in the general election Tom Delay style, the Republicans would try and win a special election instead (Brian Bilbray style).

Now, putting that together with the timing of the December massacre, I wonder how many prosecutors were told to intentionally DELAY investigations/prosecutions of Republicans like Hunter for the reasons specified above, when in FACT, the real purpose for them to delay these investigations was for Gonzales to play his "December Massacre" card and stop those already delayed investigations permanently! That would all kind of deviously make sense, and would be what I'd espect from someone like Gonzales and his crime family bosses!

We NEED to get those in congress asking questions of these folks under oath next Tuesday whether they were pressured to delay any of the investigations they were working on then, and if so, what was the details of those investigations. My guess is that is why Carol Lam might not be talking where Iglesias could. Iglesias's behavior was purely professional, denying the pressure to accelarate a prosecution before it should happen.

In the case of Carol Lam, and perhaps others, they might not want to admit that they delayed these investigations to avoid them being pointed to before the election, as it would seem less professional than what Iglesias was pressured with. Had Iglesias sucuumbed to such pressure, he'd probably still be there, etc. Perhaps we need to find out if the attorney in the Alexandria, Virginia office was pressured into going after William Jefferson early too. This just smells so much!

The time to ask these questions, and perhaps issue more subpoenas to other prosecutors (like the attorney in the Alexandria office), is this coming Tuesday, when these folks are under oath. Then it will be time to subpoena Gonzales and pursue impeachment of his ass if he doesn't respond to the summons or is found to commit perjury when testifying.