(NOTE: Transcript is under the "You Tube" hit...scroll below...and it's worth the READ...best thing I've heard from DEMOCRATS IN YEARS...YEARS!)pdate: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had a pretty complete rundown of the false statements made by Justice Department officials to Congress and the press. Transcript below...
We've got the full transcript of the conference below...
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002740.phpThe full transcript
SCHUMER: OK, good morning, everybody. And I'm proud to be joined by my colleague on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein.
Make no mistake about it: This has become as serious as it gets. Just when we thought our faith could not be shaken any further, it has been.
At the very beginning, I was clear that something didn't smell right, but I had no idea how high it went. The latest revelations prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there has been unprecedented breach of trust, abuse of power and misuse of the Justice Department. And that is very serious and very important.
The U.S. attorneys are in their own districts the lead enforcer of the rule of law, without fear or favor.
When you see the picture, the symbol of the eagle holding the arrows above every Justice Department office throughout the land, it stands for fair, unbiased, nonpolitical justice being rendered.
And yet that has been called into question by a series of blunders, missteps and abuse of power in the Justice Department.
This weekend I called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down. Today's staff resignation does not take heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature. Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy.
Either attorney General Gonzales knew what his chief of staff was doing -- that's a pretty severe indictment -- or he didn't, which means he doesn't have the foggiest idea of what's going on in the
Justice Department.
We now have direct evidence that Attorney General Gonzales was carrying out the political wishes of the president in at least some of these firings.
A startling amount of information about the White House's role has emerged in the past few days.
Attorney General Gonzales' chief of staff withheld information on the White House's role in the Justice Department, in terms of who was preparing to testify to Congress. Attorney Gonzales' chief of staff may well have obstructed justice.
Political operatives and elected officials in New Mexico complained about one U.S. attorney's failure to indict Democrats quickly enough. Those complaints were passed on to Karl Rove and to the president himself.
The president weighed in with Attorney General Gonzales. And within weeks, that U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, was fired.
Indeed, today's reports make clear that Mr. Iglesias was not on the hit list until October, just when he was staving off inappropriate pressure tactics.
MORE FULL TRANSCRIPT....
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002740.php
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