More Republicans ask Gonzales to leave

The last time Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judicial Committee, he was looking and acting smug. I don't think, after the fallout of Comey's testimony, he will act that smug any more.

Senators Shumer (D-NY) and Feinstein (D-CA) called on the Senate to hold a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. And there have been more from the Republican side of the aisle who have also called for Gonzales' resignation. TPM Muckraker is keeping score of the Senate and House members who are saying (or hinting) that the Attorney General should go.

The two newest are Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, asking for Gonzales to resign and Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri who is asking Bush to consider ejecting Gonzales.

The investigation into the firings of the US attorneys, which is a big story, has led to an even bigger story. And both seem to lead straight to the White House.

These investigations have uncovered not only the Rovian plan to replace the US attorneys with "loyal bushies" in the swing states who would use their office to try to alter the outcomes of the elections, but also uncovered the White House's illegal use of warrantless wiretapping. What was uncovered is what we did not know. That these warantless wiretappings were happening much earlier.

Since this fact was hidden, was it just the supposed terrorist who were wiretapped? Or could this administration have used the wiretaps to gain knowledge of their political opponents as well.

This is just the start and there will be more discoveries of underhandedness within this admin.

Now there's a timeline of The President's Secret Program

CNN is covering this all day today! James Comey's testimony that Washington Post called Shocking. Was the President's wireless surveillance used illegally? It was being used way before we even knew about it.

TPM Muckraker has the time line which explains a lot and fills in what you don't know.

There is more coverage at the NY Times also.

This could mean an impeachable offense.

Breaking on CNN: Dem. Senators Schumer and Feinstein call for Gonzales No-Confidence vote.

Did Gonzales Lie ? Senators want to know.

Here's the letter from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking Gonzales "do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?"


Senators Durbin, Schumer, Feingold and Kennedy Write to Attorney General Gonzalez

Senators Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, Russell Feingold, and Edward Kennedy sent a letter today to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez today requesting prompt response concerning questions stemming from former Deputy Attorney General James Comey's dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.


Here is the text of the Senators' letter to Mr. Gonzalez:


May 16, 2007

The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

In very dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified that in March 2004, when you served as White House Counsel, you were involved in "an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," referring to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Specifically, Mr. Comey testified that you and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card went to Mr. Ashcroft's bedside at George Washington Hospital, where he was in intensive care, in an effort to get him to agree to certify the legality of a classified program that he and Mr. Comey, who was serving as acting Attorney General at the time, had concluded should not be so certified. Mr. Comey stated that when the Administration decided to go forward with reauthorizing this classified program without that certification, he and several other Justice Department officials, including possibly Attorney General Ashcroft himself, were ready to tender their resignations.

You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee about this incident. On February 6, 2006, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you were asked whether Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department had raised concerns about the NSA wiretapping program. You stated in response that the disagreement that occurred was not related to the wiretapping program confirmed by the President in December 2005, which was the topic of the hearing. The following is a transcript excerpt from that hearing:

Senator Schumer. Let me ask you about some specific reports. It has been reported by multiple news outlets that the former number two man in the Justice Department, the premier terrorism prosecutor, Jim Comey, expressed grave reservations about the NSA program and at least once refused to give it his blessing. Is that true?

Attorney General Gonzales. Senator, here is a response that I feel that I can give with respect to recent speculation or stories about disagreements. There has not been any serious disagreement, including - and I think this is accurate - there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the President has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations, which I cannot get into. I will also say -

Senator Schumer. But there was some - I am sorry to cut you off, but there was some dissent within the administration, and Jim Comey did express at some point - that is all I asked you - some reservations.

Attorney General Gonzales. The point I want to make is that, to my knowledge, none of the reservations dealt with the program that we are talking about today. They dealt with operational capabilities that we are not talking about today.

Senator Schumer. I want to ask you again about them, just we have limited time.

Attorney General Gonzales. Yes, sir.

Senator Schumer. It has also been reported that the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, respected lawyer and professor at Harvard Law School, expressed reservations about the program. Is that true?

Attorney General Gonzales. Senator, rather than going individual by individual—

Senator Schumer. No, I think we are - this is—

Attorney General Gonzales. By individual, let me just say that I think the differing views that have been the subject of some of these stories does not - did not deal with the program that I am here testifying about today.

Senator Schumer. But you are telling us that none of these people expressed any reservations about the ultimate program. Is that right?

Attorney General Gonzales. Senator, I want to be very careful here. Because of course I am here only testifying about what the President has confirmed. And with respect to what the President has confirmed, I believe - I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you are identifying had concerns about this program.

In addition, on April 6, 2006, in answer to a question from then House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner about the hospital visit, which had been reported in the press, you responded: "Mr. Chairman, what I can say - and I'm sure this will not be acceptable, but let me say it anyway - is that I have testified before that the disagreement that existed does not relate to the program the President confirmed in December to the American people."

We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey's testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

Sincerely,


RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD
United States Senator

CHARLES E. SCHUMER
United States Senator

EDWARD M. KENNEDY
United States Senator

RICHARD J. DURBIN
United States Senator

Monica Scheduled to testify May 23

Monica Goodling Testimony Scheduled
May 16th, 2007 by Jesse Lee
From the Judiciary Committee:


JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
NOTICE OF HEARING

TIME: 10:15 a.m.
DATE: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
PLACE: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building

Hearing on: The Continuing Investigation into the U.S. Attorneys Controversy and Related Matters.

Witness: Monica Goodling, former Justice Department White House Liaison
By Direction of the Chairman

The President's Involvement - From Comey's Testimoney

Great post at Daily Kos today that shows the direct involvement of President Bush for Ashcroft to sign off on warrantless wiretapping.

There's a video from Politics TV of Comey's testimony also.

Here's a bit of Daily Kos:

Comey: It was just the three of us at that point. I tried to see if I could help him get oriented. As I said, it wasn't clear that I had succeeded. I went out in the hallway, spoke to Director Mueller by phone. He was on his way. He handed the phone to the director of the security detail, and Director Mueller instructed the FBI agents present not to allow me to be removed from the room under any circumstances. And I went back in the room.

Card and Gonzales arrived shortly thereafter, tried to persuade Ashcroft to authorize their activities, but failed and ultimately left the room. Within minutes after that, Card called Comey and demanded an immediate meeting on his turf, in the White House. Comey told Card that:

After the conduct I had just witnessed, that I would not meet with him without a witness present. He said, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."

I said again, after what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the Solicitor General of the United States.

A must read!

WaPo Calls Comey's Testimony Shocking

Comey's testimony was shocking. His testimony puts out there what his administration has been doing to change the rules and laws of this nation. And not for the better! It shows the secretive, underhanded way they have bent the rules to take our freedoms away. All in the name of terrorism that this admin has done very little to stop. They've gotten us into a war we should never have started in Iraq, and not really for terrorism but a vendetta against Saddam. And by doing that has raised the level and amount of terrorists.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox for now so here's some of the Washington Post's article on Comey:

Mr. Comey's Tale
A standoff at a hospital bedside speaks volumes about Attorney General Gonzales.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A14


JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.

As Mr. Comey testified, "I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis." The crisis was averted only when, the morning after the program was reauthorized without Justice's approval, President Bush agreed to fix whatever problem Justice had with it (the details remain classified). "We had the president's direction to do . . . what the Justice Department believed was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality," Mr. Comey said.

You can read the rest at the link.

It's good to know there are still people in this government with a consience and a belief in our constitution. Mr. Comey should have alerted someone, the House or Senate, someone to what they were trying to do prior to this, but, at least he's come forward now.

Here's a bit more of the article that says it all:

The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers.

Fredo Fredo'd McNulty

Lots of news coming down today re the resignation of McNulty. Alberto, "Fredo", Gonzales finds the opportune time to pass the blame.

From the AP:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he relied on his resigning deputy more than any other aide to decide which U.S. attorneys should be fired last year

His comments came a less than a day after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced he would resign at the end of the summer — a decision that people familiar with the plans said was hastened by the controversy over the purge of eight prosecutors.

"You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales told reporters at a National Press Club forum in Washington. "And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this room, anyone — again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community, and he signed off on the names."

McNulty, reached in San Antonio after Gonzales' remarks, declined to comment.

McNulty has acknowledged approving the list of prosecutors who were ordered to leave last October, a few weeks before the firings were made official. But documents released by the Justice Department show he was not closely involved in picking all the U.S. attorneys who were put on the list — a job mostly driven by two Gonzales staffers with little prosecutorial experience.

Gonzales ultimately signed off on the list in a process that Congress is investigating to see whether the firings were politically motivated.

Oh, Fredo, I don't think this is going to work for you. What a back stabber!

Comey's Bombshell

From the AP:

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004.

Comey, the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, said then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card responded by trying to get Ashcroft to sign the recertification from his bed at George Washington University Hospital.

During that dramatic meeting, also attended by Comey, Ashcroft lifted his head off the pillow and appeared reluctant to sign the document, pointing out that Comey held the powers of the office.

Gonzales and Card then left the hospital room, Comey said.

"I was angry," Comey told the panel. "I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general."

And you were doubting the White House's involvement and lead in all this?

Update from Raw Story:

The former second-in-command at the Justice Department from 2003 through 2005 on Tuesday detailed a March 2004 incident in which top members of the Bush administration, including Alberto Gonzales and members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff, worked to subvert a legal certification process for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. One Republican senator compared the episode to President Richard Nixon's efforts to disrupt the Watergate investigation.

James Comey was the Deputy Attorney General first under Attorney General John Ashcroft, and briefly under Alberto Gonzales. He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday as part of continuing oversight pertaining to the firing of US Attorneys by the Bush administration.

However, most of the hearing focused on a March 2004 incident concerning a deadline for an internal authorization at the Justice Department of the legality of the warrantless domestic spying program of the National Security Agency. The deadline for the legal certification of the domestic spying program, called the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' by the Bush administration, was approaching, and Comey as Acting Attorney General refused to approve it.

Cheney!!!

The Real Reason of the Investigation into the US Attorneys Firing

by Michael Winship, TomPaine.com

The U.S. attorney scandal is not about firings, it's about harassment of minority voters.

FiredogLake is Live Blogging Senate Judicial Hearing

If you want to follow along or read the blog later, firedoglake.com is live blogging the Senate Judicial Hearing of Jim Comey today.

You can also watch it Here.

Mc Nulty Resigns? Horrors!!

By now you have heard that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty is resigning his position at the DOJ. He's the highest-ranking Bush administration casualty in the furor over the firing of U.S. attorneys.

His reason for resigning, in a letter to Gonzales:

“I intend to step down sometime this summer. The financial realities of college-aged children and two decades of public service lead me to a long-overdue transition in my career.”

Isn't it always for family and kids that is the reason these people give for leaving. It's not that they are embroiled in any controversy, no, it's for my family and kids!! And those are the ones that are half way competent. The incompetent ones don't get the hint and don't leave at all, until they become such a drag to the administration that they are asked to leave (Brownie, Rumsfeld).

Here's what Gonzales said about McNulty:

“Paul is an outstanding public servant and a fine attorney who has been valued here at the Department, by me and so many others, as both a colleague and a friend. He will be missed. On behalf of the Department, I wish him well in his future endeavors.”

So what are the Dems saying about this:

Senator Schumer: “It seems ironic that Paul McNulty who at least tried to level with the committee goes while Gonzales who stonewalled the committee is still in charge. This administration owes us a lot better.”

Rep. John Conyers: “Mr. McNulty’s resignation is a sign that top level administration at the Justice Department may be crumbling under the pressure of ongoing revelations, and what is yet to be disclosed. With this news and as we press on with our investigation, we look forward to his cooperation.”

Senator Leahy was a bit more wordy: "The American people deserve a strong and independent Department of Justice with leaders who enforce the law without fear or favor. Regrettably that is not the Justice Department we have today. Instead, we see a Department rife with scandal and another agency this Administration seeks to manipulate as a political arm of the White House. Our justice system should not be a political arm for this White House or any White House, whether occupied by a Republican or a Democrat. This is not the first resignation from the Department of those involved in the United States Attorney scandal.

We need to restore the Department of Justice to a place deserving of its name and the way we do that is get to the truth about the role the White House played in the replacement of United States Attorneys for political purposes. The Committee has made requests for cooperation from the White House and I hope the information and cooperation requested will finally be forthcoming. If the White House has done nothing improper, then they have nothing to hide. The Administration should come clean so that we can begin the process of reconstituting the leadership of the Justice Department. Then all Americans can renew their faith in its role as our leading law enforcement agency. The obligations of the Justice Department are to the Constitution, the rule of law and to the American people, not to the White House.”

Here's what the NY Times has discovered:

McNulty blamed himself for failing to resist the dismissal plan when Mr. Sampson brought it to him in October 2006, according to associates. He took one prosecutor off the removal list but acquiesced to the removal of seven others, according to Congressional aides’ accounts of his private testimony to Congress on April 27. […]

Friends of Mr. McNulty said he had tried to be candid about what he knew of the removals. In his private Congressional testimony, Mr. McNulty said he did not realize until later the extensive White House involvement in Mr. Griffin’s appointment or Mr. Sampson’s nearly year-long effort to compile a list.

White House aides complained privately that Mr. McNulty’s testimony gave Democrats a significant opening to demand more testimony from the Justice Department and presidential aides. Several aides said he should have been combative in defending the dismissals.

But McNulty wasn't the only one to resign Monday.....from Newsweek's Isikoff:

In a blow to the Bush administration, the deputy attorney general and the only Democrat on the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board have resigned.

The White House was hit by two sudden resignations late Monday when Paul McNulty, a top Justice Department official, and Lanny Davis, the only Democratic member of the president’s civil liberties watchdog board, announced they were stepping down. Both resignations are likely to fuel allegations of White House political meddling in law enforcement and national security issues.

Davis, a former Clinton White House official who had been named by President Bush to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, sent a letter to the White House and his fellow board members protesting the panel’s lack of independence. In recent months, Davis has had numerous clashes with fellow board members and White House officials over what he saw as administration attempts to control the panel’s agenda and edit its public statements, according to board members who asked not to be identified talking about internal matters. He also cited in his letters criticisms by the former co-chairs of the September 11 commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, that the board had interpreted its mandate too narrowly and was refusing to investigate issues such as the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world.

Well now, a twofer! Two in one day! What will the admin do? Let's see how this falls out.

Monica Goodling....Wildcard?

Gonzales seemed very cocky the last time he appearedin front of the House Judicial Committee. So did the republican members of this committee. Although the Dems were pressing for answers to their questions, several of the Repubs were asking him about completly different matters.

I think they forgot about Monica! And now that she has immunity she is compelled to testify.

From Law.com:

All Eyes on Monica Goodling
With Gonzales testimony complete, Capitol Hill probe to shift gears
Jason McLure
Legal Times
May 14, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales emerged mostly unscathed from last week's face-off with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee over his role in the U.S. Attorney firings. And with Republicans on the committee offering Gonzales near-universal support, the tone on Capitol Hill shifted from "Gonzales is going" to "Gonzales is staying."

But there's one big wild card that's yet to be thrown into play, and that's Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former White House liaison. Last week, Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a House request to grant limited immunity to Goodling in exchange for her testimony.

Goodling, who resigned her post April 7, previously told the committee that she would assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She now has the opportunity to shed light on her key role in a firing process that has remained shrouded in mystery, despite the release of thousands of Justice Department e-mails and the testimony of a number of top officials. According to congressional staffers, Democrats hope to have her testify publicly before Memorial Day.

"She's worked very hard," says John Dowd, a lawyer for Goodling at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. "She'll do her level best to be candid and forward in her testimony."

That promise isn't likely to reassure Gonzales or other Bush administration officials involved in the dismissal of at least eight U.S. Attorneys. Democrats contend that the prosecutors were fired to shield Republicans targeted in public corruption probes or to punish those U.S. Attorneys who failed to push voter fraud investigations.

And though there may be a feeling that Gonzales has at last stemmed the tide against him, it looks premature to declare victory before Goodling says what she knows about the attorney general's and the White House's involvement in the firings.

"Before people get too cocky about the attorney general surviving, [they] need to sit back and await that event," says a senior administration official close to the investigation.

Will Monica bring down this White House? Something about that name!!

WaPo: Voter Fraud Complaints from GOP reason for US Attorneys Dismissal

Since the year 2000 the Democrats have been complaining about voter fraud and voter irregularities. Many proven cases went unheaded or covered up by the republican run local governments. So the republicans decided that they were going to complain about voter fraud to take the heat off their party.

However, the republicans were using the US attorneys to do their bidding to try to find Democrats that were guilty of voter fraud. This meant that they had to put the heat on the US attorneys to find and prosecute this fraud. In some cases, such as the one in Wisconsin, a person was prosecuted for voter fraud with trumped up charges and the case was overturned.

Heres what the Washington Post has discovered about this issue:

Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals

By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 14, 2007; A04

Nearly half the U.S. attorneys slated for removal by the administration last year were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax on voter fraud, including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election- law violations, according to new documents and interviews.

Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud -- Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; New Mexico; Nevada; and Washington state. Four of the five prosecutors in those districts were dismissed.

It has been clear for months that the administration's eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings, but recent testimony, documents and interviews show the issue was more central than previously known. The new details include the names of additional prosecutors who were targeted and other districts that were of concern, as well as previously unknown information about the White House's role.

The Justice Department demanded that one U.S. attorney, Todd P. Graves of Kansas City, resign in January 2006, several months after he refused to sign off on a Justice lawsuit involving the state's voter rolls, Graves said last week. U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic of Milwaukee also was targeted last fall after complaints from Rove that he was not doing enough about voter fraud. But he was spared because Justice officials feared that removing him might cause political problems on Capitol Hill, according to interviews of Justice aides conducted by congressional staff members.

"There is reason for worry and suspicion at this point as to whether voting fraud played an inappropriate role in personnel decisions by the department," said Daniel P. Tokaji, an election law specialist at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvering to replace U.S. attorneys viewed as weak on voter fraud, from state Republican parties to the White House, is one element of a nationwide partisan brawl over voting rights in recent years. Ever since the contested 2000 presidential election, which ended in a Florida recount and intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court, both political parties have attempted to use election law to tip close contests to their advantage.

And this is where Rove steps in:

Rove, in particular, was preoccupied with pressing Gonzales and his aides about alleged voting problems in a handful of battleground states, according to testimony and documents.

Last October, just weeks before the midterm elections, Rove's office sent a 26-page packet to Gonzales's office containing precinct-level voting data about Milwaukee. A Justice aide told congressional investigators that he quickly put the package aside, concerned that taking action would violate strict rules against investigations shortly before elections, according to statements disclosed this week.

That aide, senior counselor Matthew Friedrich, turned over notes to Congress that detailed a telephone conversation about voter fraud with another Justice official, Benton Campbell, chief of staff for the Criminal Division. Friedrich had asked Campbell for his assessment of Rove's complaints about problems in New Mexico, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, according to a congressional aide familiar with Friedrich's remarks.

The notes show that Campbell also identified Nevada as a problem district. Daniel G. Bogden of Las Vegas was among the nine U.S. attorneys known to have been removed from their jobs last year.

Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School who runs an election law blog, said that "there's no question that Karl Rove and other political operatives" urged Justice officials to apply pressure on U.S. attorneys to pursue voter-fraud allegations in parts of the country that were critical to the GOP.

Hasen said it remains unclear, however, "whether they believed there was a lot of fraud and U.S. attorneys would ferret it out, or whether they believed there wasn't a lot of fraud but the allegations would serve political purposes."

According to Lorraine Minnite, a political scientist at Barnard College who co-wrote a recent study of federal prosecution of election fraud, the states in which U.S. attorneys were dismissed, or put on a tentative firing list, include five of nearly a dozen states that Rove and other Republicans last year identified as election battlegrounds.

It's a good thing that red lights started flashing and buzzers went off when these mostly qualified US attorneys were fired. Again this administration and Rove in particular have tried to stack the deck for the republican agenda.

Schlozman Delaying testimony for vacation

Josh Marshall over at TPM Muckraker says:

Schlozman Testify Delayed till June By Vacation
By Josh Marshall - May 11, 2007, 9:20 PM

Today Richard A. Hertling informed the Senate Judicary Committee that Bradley Schlozman would not be able to testify before the Committee on May 15th because Schlozman will be on a previously scheduled vacation.


I guess without a subpoena he can do that. Is it a vacation or is it a meeting with lawyers for his defense?

Iraq Solution

The solution for Iraq.....does anyone know?

Another one!

And then there were ten!!

From the AP via CBS News:

Former W.Va. Prosecutor Says He Has 'Concerns' About Firing By Bush Administration

A former West Virginia federal prosecutor said Friday the White House fired him in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation but never told him why.

Karl K. "Kasey" Warner said he has "concerns" and sees parallels between himself and eight other ousted U.S. attorneys. Congress and an internal Justice Department agency are investigating whether those firings were politically motivated.

The Justice Department rejected any suggestion of politics in Warner's dismissal.

"The notion that the termination was political is absolutely false," spokesman Dean Boyd said. "We encourage Mr. Warner to provide the department with a written privacy waiver and we will be happy to provide you with the reason for his removal.

"Warner would not elaborate on what concerned him about his August 2005 firing but rejected the idea that he was fired over his performance.

"The facts speak for themselves. Look into how I ran my office. See how I managed the office," Warner said. "If they want to look at the cases I had and the corruption cases we have now, people can come to their own conclusions about why I was let go.

"Warner said he refused to resign when asked by the Justice Department, responding that he took his direction from President Bush."Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I'd been fired, no reason given," Warner recounted in a telephone interview.

A state legislative audit later revealed e-mails in which Warner had offered to secretly contribute to a 2004 county political campaign.

"Let me try to steer some contributions your way (gently) and perhaps use a family member with a different last name to make my contribution," Warner wrote in one July 2003 e-mail, according to the audit.

Warner said he never followed through on the offer and discounted that as a reason behind his departure.

Warner was nominated by Bush in 2001 to serve as the top federal prosecutor in southern West Virginia. The heavily Democratic district is the center of the state's coal industry. Bush carried the state in both 2000 and 2004.

Almost immediately Warner made public corruption and vote-buying cases a priority, sometimes to the ire of Democrats who accused him of targeting them for political purposes. Warner's brother Kris was the Republican state party chairman, and his brother Monty ran for governor.

Further in the story Warner says he didn't want to get involved with the investigation but would cooperate if asked to testify.

This has brought Miers back in the picture. What will tomorrow bring? More on Rove? I hope so!!

To refresh your memory, number nine:

Number nine. Todd Graves, US attorney from Kansas City, Mo., was asked to step down from his job by a senior Justice Department official in January 2006, months before eight other federal prosecutors would be fired by the Bush administration.

"My Left Wing" interviews David Iglesias

From My Left Wing's exclusive interview:

We have the privilege today of speaking with Mr. David Iglesias, who is famously known for a number of things, one of which is [that] during his time as a Navy JAG lawyer, he was the real life model for the Tom Cruise character in the movie A Few Good Men.

A good interview!

Monica Goodling, Supreme Partisan

She is being called overzealous by H. E. Cummins, one of the fired US attorneys. He also said she was inexperienced and way to naive.

More on Monica from the NY Times:

Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

Ms. Ashton’s ouster — she left the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for another Justice Department post two weeks later — was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.

Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.

And she helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

Partisan? Supremely!

In addition to making clear that she wanted Ms. Ashton out, a Justice Department employee still in that office said, Ms. Goodling took actions that encouraged a second experienced prosecutor, Kelly Shackelford, to move on. James B. Comey, who served as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, said Ms. Ashton and Ms. Shackelford were excellent lawyers, whose politics he did not know nor would he ever have asked. Ms. Ashton and Ms. Shackelford declined to comment.

snip

Mr. Comey said that if the accusations about Ms. Goodling’s partisan actions were true, the damage was deep and real.

You must read the whole article to realize what this one woman was able to do in the DOJ. No wonder she invoked the 5th!!

Federal Judge grants immunity to Monica Goodling

From SF GATE:

A federal judge approved an immunity deal Friday allowing former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling to testify before Congress about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Goodling, who served as the department's White House liaison, has refused to discuss the firings without a guarantee that she will not be prosecuted. Congress agreed to the deal, Justice Department investigators reluctantly agreed not to not oppose it and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan gave it final approval Friday.

"Monica Goodling may not refuse to testify," Hogan began his brief order, which said that Goodling could not be prosecuted for anything other than perjury in connection with her testimony.

Lawmakers want to question Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the Justice Department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. What began as an inquiry into whether U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons has grown to include the role of the White House in the firings and whether the Justice Department officials misled Congress about them.

Goodling's lawyer has said that, with an immunity deal, she would cooperate and testify honestly.

Justice spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed earlier this month that the department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility were investigating Goodling's role in hiring career attorneys — an unusual responsibility for her to have had.

I just hope she WILL testify honestly, as her lawyer has said. This may be the tesitmony that blows the top off this investigation of wrong doing by the DOJ and the White House.

And then there were nine!

Number nine. Todd Graves, US attorney from Kansas City, Mo., was asked to step down from his job by a senior Justice Department official in January 2006, months before eight other federal prosecutors would be fired by the Bush administration.

From the Washington Post:

Graves said he was told simply that he should resign to "give another person a chance." He said he did not oppose the department's request, because he had already been planning to return to private practice. He did appeal to Missouri's senior senator to try to persuade the White House to allow him to remain long enough to prosecute a final, important case -- involving the slaying of a pregnant woman and kidnapping of her 8-month fetus. Justice officials rejected the request.

The former prosecutor's disclosure, in an interview on the eve of a second appearance today by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales before lawmakers investigating the firings, means that the administration began moving to replace U.S. attorneys five months earlier than was previously known. It also means that at least nine prosecutors were asked to resign last year, a deviation from repeated suggestions by Gonzales and other senior Justice officials in congressional testimony and other public statements that the firings did not extend beyond the eight Prosecutors already known to have been forced out.

snip

Graves said he received a telephone call shortly after New Year's Day 2006 from Michael A. Battle, then director of the department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Graves said Battle told him that department officials wanted to change leadership in the Kansas City office, emphasizing "there are no performance issues."

The characterization -- that Graves was being moved out simply to give someone else a turn -- is practically identical to the explanation that Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, has said he was given last June, when he, too, was asked to leave. He was replaced by a former aide to President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove. The seven other U.S. attorneys were dismissed on a single day in December.

Graves said his conversation with Battle "made clear to me the fact I was getting a push." "I felt like I was no longer welcome in the department,"
he said. "It wasn't like I was trying to hang on."

I wonder if there are more out there. More from Graves:

The brother of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Todd Graves is a former state prosecutor and was a GOP candidate for state treasurer. The Bush administration installed him as the chief federal prosecutor for western Missouri in 2001.

The same month he was asked to step down, Graves's name was included in a Jan. 9, 2006, list assembled by Gonzales's then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, of seven U.S. attorneys the administration was considering forcing from their jobs. That April, Sampson sent another e-mail noting that two of the prosecutors on that list had already left. Three names, including Graves's, were redacted when Justice officials released the January list.

Graves said yesterday that he never knew he was on the list and was not
given a specific reason he was asked to leave.

During the spring of 2005, an aide to Bond urged the White House to replace Graves, because the prosecutor's wife and brother-in-law recently had been given state patronage contracts to run private offices for driver's licenses and other motor vehicle services. A spokeswoman for Bond confirmed that interaction but said Justice officials later told the senator's staff that the contracts issue was not why the administration wanted him to leave.

Graves acknowledged that he had twice during the past few years clashed with Justice's civil rights division over cases, including a federal lawsuit involving Missouri's voter rolls that Graves said a Washington Justice official signed off on after he refused to do so. That official, Bradley J. Schlozman, was appointed as interim U.S. attorney to succeed Graves, remaining for a year until the Senate this spring confirmed John Wood for the job. Wood was a counselor to the deputy attorney general and is a son of Bond's first cousin, although the senator's spokeswoman, Shana Marchio, said Bond did not recommend him for the job.

UPDATE: Alberto Gonzales, today, said to the committee that they should move on and focus on issues other than the US attonrneys firings and he would investigate the matter. Conyers to Gonzales:
"My hope is that the members will focus their questions today on the US Attorneys and related matters". Conyers also suggested that the White House had tried to create "a bigger Republican farm team" full of "loyal Bushies" within the Justice Department. The Michigan Democrat warned that there was a "cover up" going on.

"One asks whether the administration is trying to cover up two simple truths: who created the list, and why?" he asked, referring to the list of US Attorneys that were fired by the Justice Department.


UPDATE II: Murray Waas:

The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.

In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role.

Brad Berenson, an attorney for Sampson, said in an interview that his client did not intend to mislead Congress. Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate.

The withheld e-mails show that Sampson's draft was forwarded for review to Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel, who approved the language saying that Justice was not aware of Rove having played any role in supporting Griffin. But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the forefront of Griffin's nomination.

Gonzales and the White House are trying to weasle out of this, with the help of the GOP members of the committee and the House, by trying to make it a non-issue but as more is revealed, they don't seem to have a leg to stand on.

McKay and Iglesias Say Charges may result from USAs Firing

From the Seattle Times:

Two former U.S. attorneys said today they believe ongoing investigations into the dismissals last year of eight federal prosecutors could result in criminal charges against senior Justice Department officials.

John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, and David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, also said they believe White House political operative Karl Rove and his aides instigated the dismissals and ultimately decided who among the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys should be fired.

McKay and Iglesias, who were among those fired, made their assertions during a meeting this morning with Seattle Times editors and reporters. The two are scheduled to appear this afternoon along with Paul Charlton, the former U.S. attorney for Arizona, during a public-policy forum on the dismissals at Seattle University's School of Law.

"I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this," McKay said during his meeting with Times journalists. "This is going to get worse, not better."

McKay cited ongoing investigations into the dismissals by the Senate and House Judiciary committees, and inquiries now under way by the Justice Department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility.

McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude that the dismissal of any of the eight prosecutors was motivated by an attempt to influence ongoing public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations.

But is Gonzales worried? His opening statement for tomorrow's hearing starts out with an arrogant statement to the House Judiciary Committee.

From Think Progress:

Gonzales to Congress: Move on. In his opening statement to be read at tomorrow’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales challenges Congress to “move on” past the U.S. Attorney scandal and allow “the Justice Department to focus on its mission: fighting crime.”

Fredo....not a great opening statement to a House that can impeach you!!

Schlozman Scheduled for Senate Hearing.

Schlozman, the newest golden boy of deceit from the US Attorneys firing debacle, is schduled to appear before the Senate Judicial committee on May 15.

Check out TPM Muckracker for all their reporting on Schlozman and check Talking Points Memo to see the letter from Senator Leahy requesting his presence.

Josh Marshall also has his TPMtv video with more on this story.

Now the question is will Schlozman show up? Will he invoke the 5th amendment as did Monica Goodling? Will he need to be subpoenaed?

Gonzales extemely upset with Mc Nulty

Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales was very upset with Mc Nulty for telling Senate Judiciary committee that Bud Cummings of Arkansas was fired to make room for an Aide to Karl Rove. Oooops!

More from Time:

When the Roehrkasse e-mail came to light, he told the press that Gonzales had been upset because he believed that "Bud Cummins' removal involved performance considerations." But on April 15, Congressional sources tell TIME, Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson told a different story. During a private interview with Judiciary Committee staffers Sampson said three times in as many minutes that Gonzales was angry with McNulty because he had exposed the White House's involvement in the firings�had put it's role "in the public sphere," as Sampson phrased it, according to Congressional sources familiar with the interview.

If Gonzales was indeed actively trying to protect the White House from charges they were involved in the firings, that will fuel suspicions that something improper was at work in the firings themselves. Most Democrats and Republicans agree that the President has broad authority to replace U.S. attorneys as he sees fit, so why would the Attorney General try to obscure the White House's role in doing so?

Sampson's private testimony comes to light at an inconvenient moment for the Justice Department and the Attorney General. Gonzales testifies before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday. And a new line of inquiry has opened up this week as investigators puruse allegations that two top aides screened career hires for political allegiances.

Read more here.

The White House is involved and Rove is the one that instigated this mess. He wants to create a one party country. Karl, it won't work!!

Olbermann and Maddow Discuss Schlozman

Here's the video from Countdown with Keith Olbermann via Crooks and Liars:

Where Does the Politicization of Justice End?

Rachel Maddow explains.

McClatchy: Congress considers broadening Justice Department inquiry

Bradley Schlozman, the newest under investigation for trying to politicize the DOJ and the appointments of US Attorneys.

From McClatchy News:

Congressional investigators are beginning to focus on accusations that a top civil rights official at the Justice Department illegally hired lawyers based on their political affiliations, especially for sensitive voting rights jobs.

Two former department lawyers told McClatchy Newspapers that Bradley Schlozman, a senior civil rights official, told them in early 2005, after spotting mention of their Republican affiliations on their job applications, to delete those references and resubmit their resumes. Both attorneys were hired.

One of them, Ty Clevenger, said: "He wanted to make it look like it was apolitical."

Schlozman did not respond to phone calls to his home Sunday.

But he denied the allegations in an earlier phone interview with McClatchy Newspapers and through a department spokesman. In the interview he said he "tried to de-politicize the hiring process" and filled jobs with applicants from "across the political spectrum."

Attention is turning to Schlozman after the announcement last week that the Justice Department opened an internal investigation to determine whether Monica Goodling, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' White House liaison, illegally took party affiliation into account in hiring entry-level prosecutors. The department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility are conducting that inquiry jointly.

Federal law and Justice Department policies bar the consideration of political affiliation in hiring of personnel for non-political, career jobs.

A congressional aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees want to look beyond Goodling to see whether other department officials may have skewed recruiting and hiring to favor Republican applicants. Investigators have heard allegations that Schlozman showed a political bias in hiring and hope the department will permit him to be interviewed voluntarily, the aide said.

Oh, there is much more at the link. When will his subpoena be issues?

Rep. John Conyers - Goodling will get immunity

That's right! In spite of the DOJ investigation of Monica Goodling, Conyers and the House Committee still want to give her immunity.

Today the Department of Justice gave notice that it would not object to the House Judiciary Committee's grant of use immunity for Monica Goodling. I believe obtaining her testimony will be a critical step in our efforts to get to the truth about the circumstances surrounding the US Attorney firings and possible politicization in the Department's prosecutorial function. The Committee will be moving xpeditiously to apply for the court order so that we can schedule a hearing promptly.

The DOJ? Too Little, too late!

From Talking Points Memo: Click here to read the letter from the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility informing Congress that they will not object.

Newsweek: Confirmes DOJ investigating Monica Goodling

Yep! It's true. The Department of Justice is investigating one of their own.

From Newsweek:

Justice confirmed it's investigating whether Goodling improperly assessed the political loyalties of applicants for career assistant U.S. attorney posts. Two government officials (not ID'd when talking about an ongoing probe) told NEWSWEEK the inquiry began after Jeff Taylor, the interim U.S. attorney in D.C.,
complained that Goodling tried to block the hiring of a prosecutor in his office for being a "liberal Democratic type." Justice e-mails show Goodling also played a pivotal role in selecting which U.S. attorneys were fired. When the e-mails surfaced in March, a distraught Goodling went to see veteran DOJ official David Margolis and "bawled her eyes out," saying, "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president," and "everything is unraveling," according to Margolis's confidential testimony to congressional investigators (as described by a congressional aide, anonymous when talking about nonpublic matters). Her lawyer, John Dowd, refused to comment, saying Goodling, who has since resigned, has invoked her right to remain silent. The House Judiciary Committee is seeking to force her testimony by granting her immunity. Investigators believe Goodling, who served as DOJ's liaison to the White House, is key to their big fish: Karl Rove.

Just a thought...is the Justice department's investigation because Monica invoked the 5th amendment? Do they want to get to her first, before the House and Senate have her testify?
Yes, it's true! I do not trust the DOJ.

Rove, White House, Politicizing Fed Agencies

One Party Country? The architect of evil put a plan into action to do just that. He visited all the Federal Agencies along with Ken Mehlman devising this plan that goes directly against the Hatch Act.

It's happening and has been happening since Bush took office. Think Progress has a great post that explains alot. Along with a new book called One Party Country.

Are you ready to believe that Bush wanted to be Emporer? At the least a dictator. He even admited that.

Monica Goodling investigated by the DOJ!

From the AP via the Seattle Times:


DOJ probes politics' role in hiring U.S. attorneys
By Lara Jakes Jordan
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether its former White House liaison used political affiliation in deciding who to hire as entry-level prosecutors in U.S. attorneys' offices around the country, The Associated Press has learned.
Doing so is a violation of federal law.

The inquiry involving Monica Goodling, the former counsel and White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, raises new concerns that politics might have cast a shadow over the independence of trial prosecutors who enforce U.S. laws.

Justice spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed Wednesday that the department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility were investigating Goodling's role in hiring career attorneys — an unusual responsibility for her to take.

Goodling "may have taken prohibited considerations into account during such review," Boyd told the AP. "Whether or not the allegation is true is currently the subject of the OIG/OPR investigation."

Goodling quit the Justice Department last month after refusing to testify to Congress about her role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year, which Democrats say might have been politically motivated.

The House Judiciary Committee has voted to give Goodling immunity for her testimony — an offer that is being reviewed by the Justice Department to make sure it does not interfere with any ongoing criminal investigations.

Her attorney, John Dowd, did not immediately return two requests for comment Wednesday.

Keeps piling on!!

Fired US Attorney asked to keep quiet by the DOJ

Arizona US Attorney, Paul Charlton, said he was called by Michael Elston, the Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and was warned to keep silent. He's the third that has come forward with this information. The first was U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins, and the second was US Attorney John McKay from Seattle.

Read more here, from TPM Muckraker:

USA: DoJ Official Wanted to Keep Me Quiet
By Paul Kiel - May 2, 2007, 1:10 PM

U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton told Congress that Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, called him and warned him to remain silent. "I believe that Elston was offering me a quid pro quo agreement: my silence in exchange for the Attorney General's," Charlton wrote in answer to questions from the House Judiciary Committee.

Charlton did not expound on the conversation in his answer, only saying that the call occurred after the firing on December 7th, but before the attorney general testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18th of this year.

It's not the first time that Elston has been accused by one of the fired U.S. attorneys of trying to intimidate them into silence. Two others have said the same thing.

U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Elston had made a similar call to him in mid-February. Cummins produced an email written the day of the call that clearly laid out the threatening undercurrent to Elston's message.

And U.S. Attorney for Seattle John McKay has said that he got a call from Elston in December. Newsweek reported that McKay says "he also got a phone call from a 'clearly nervous' Elston asking if he intended to go public: 'He was offering me a deal: you stay silent and the attorney general won't say anything bad about you.'"

So it would seem that there's a pattern here. Elston, for his part, has said that he's "shocked and baffled" by Cummins' accusation and that he "can't imagine" how McKay took the call that way. No doubt he'll be similarly flabbergasted by Charlton's accusation.

It continues!

Gonzales supoenaed for Rove Emails

The Senators want all of Rove's email concerning the US Attorneys firings. Gonzales was served a subpoena today requesting these emails.

From the AP:

"It is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the committee's inquiry have not been produced," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter to Gonzales. The subpoena gives Gonzales until May 15 to turn over the information.

Not accepting the White House's explanation that some of the Rove-related e-mails may have been lost, Leahy subpoenaed any in the custody of the Justice Department. Leahy pointed to Rove's lawyer's statement that some of those the White House claims might be lost had been turned over to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

It was unclear whether any of those were related to the prosecutor firings, but congressional investigators believe that if Fitzgerald could retrieve some e-mails for his investigation, the ones related to the firings of U.S. attorneys are recoverable as well.

The White House has said it is trying to recover e-mails that were lost but has not promised to turn any over to congressional investigators.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Gonzales said during his April 17 testimony to Leahy's committee that he did not know the details but would get back to the chairman.

"I have not heard from you since," Leahy wrote, urging compliance with all of his panel's requests for information "to avoid further subpoenas."

It was the committee's first subpoena issued since the firings caused an uproar earlier this year and imperiled Gonzales' job.

The order compels the Justice Department to turn over "complete and unredacted versions of any and all e-mails and attachments to e-mails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove" related to the firings, written on White House, Republican National Committee or any other e-mail accounts.

The committee is probing whether Rove and other top White House officials conducted official business on RNC accounts intended for political work, then deleted them in violation of the law.

The Senate Committee is about to really get tough and demand and subpoena for everything. And Rep. Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee will also want to see those emails. It's about time this admin is beining investigated. They can spy on us, but we want to know what they are doing or not doing for this country.

From Think Progress:

UPDATE: Paul Kiel notes: “Since the subpoena is to the Justice Department and not to the White House, it sidesteps any executive privilege concerns.”

House approves Comey Subpoena

From TPM Muckraker:

By Will Thomas - May 1, 2007, 4:01 PM
The House Judiciary Committee has approved a subpoena for former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. Comey was the number two figure at the Justice Department during the decision-making "process" regarding the firings; his list ranking then-US Attorneys stands in sharp contrast to the one prepared by Kyle Sampson.

Comey is set to testify in an open hearing this Thursday at 9:30 AM.

Thursday, hopefully, we will find out more on this.

Will Monica Goodling testify with her immunity, or will she stand in contempt of Congress.

Gonzales is slated to return, also, to fill in the gaps. His homework from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

GOP is in a bad spot

And who better to determine this? William F. Buckley. He writes in the National Review "The Waning of the GOP".

The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60 percent of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of accompaniment. The vote in Congress is simply another salient in the war against war in Iraq. Republican forces, with a couple of exceptions, held fast against the Democrats’ attempt to force Bush out of Iraq even if it required fiddling with the Constitution. President Bush will of course veto the bill, but its impact is critically important in the consolidation of public opinion. It can now accurately be said that the legislature, which writes the people’s laws, opposes the war.

snip

But beyond affirming executive supremacy in matters of war, what is George Bush going to do? It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.

So Buckley sees that the Iraq war is not going well. Mr. Buckley, please talk to the president!

Gonzales gives Extrodinary Powers to Aides

So here is where the political reasons come into play for the firings of the US Attorneys. He gave powers to Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling. No wonder Monica took the 5th, and no wonderSampson resigned. Sampson never made mention of this at the Senate Judicial Committee hearing.

Murray Waas at the National Journal has the story:

Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys -- extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

A senior executive branch official familiar with the delegation of authority said in an interview that -- as was the case with the firings of the U.S. attorneys and the selection of their replacements -- the two aides intended to work closely with White House political aides and the White House counsel's office in deciding which senior Justice Department officials to dismiss and whom to appoint to their posts. "It was an attempt to make the department more responsive to the political side of the White House and to do it in such a way that people would not know it was going on," the official said.

You have to read this whole article. Just a bit more...

Robert Litt, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general under former President Bill Clinton, said in an interview that during the Clinton presidency "it was routine that senior appointments in the department would be vetted by the White House. Appointees were often placed by the White House." Such a process is typical under most presidents, Litt said, because they "want to ensure that their administration's policies and priorities are carried out."

But Litt also called Gonzales's secret delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling unprecedented. It was distressing, he said, that many of the most sensitive appointments at the highest levels of the Justice Department were to "be made by these two people with no law enforcement experience... that this extraordinary authority was being delegated to these two young puppies," and apparently without much input by more-experienced and less-partisan officials.

And a bit more....

Based on a review of the delegation order, the official said, the Criminal Division chief's principal deputy, his counselor, any of his special assistants, and a score of other aides were also among those who could be fired and replaced by Sampson and Goodling, and then subject to final approval by Gonzales.

"It would be an act of insanity and, frankly, implausible that the attorney general would grant authority to Kyle [Sampson] and Monica Goodling to make these decisions," the official said, "But it would be frightening if they were serving as proxies for the White House. You do not want to allow for the possible politicization of your Criminal Division like that."

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the ousted US Attorneys!!!

UPDATE: From Think Progress...

In a new statement, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said the secret order “would seem to be evidence of an effort to hardwire control over law enforcement by White House political operatives,” and demanded that it be turned over to congressional investigators immediately:

This memorandum should have been turned over to Senate and House committees as part of requests made in ongoing investigations. I expect the Department of Justice to immediately provide Congress with full information about this troubling decision as well as any other related documents they have failed to turn over to date.

Read what Leahy said here.

McClatchy: Administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys last year before paring its list to eight

More would have been fired, two left of their own accord.

From McClatchy News:

Congressional sources who have seen unedited internal documents say the Bush administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys before paring down its list to eight late last year. The four who escaped dismissal came from states considered political battlegrounds in the last presidential election: Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Two of the four said they resigned voluntarily before the mass firings of U.S. attorneys on Dec. 7. Two continue to serve as federal prosecutors.

The latest revelation could provide new evidence to critics who contend that politics, not performance, played the determining role in the firings. The White House and the Justice Department have repeatedly denied that politics played any role.

Congressional sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly, Friday confirmed two additional names to McClatchy Newspapers: U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City, Mo., and U.S. Attorney Thomas Marino of Scranton, Pa.

Graves resigned in March to return to private legal practice. Marino kept his job as the chief federal prosecutor in central and eastern Pennsylvania.

McClatchy had previously identified two other prosecutors who dropped off the final "hit" list - former U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger of Minneapolis and U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic of Milwaukee.

Heffelfinger resigned in February to go into private legal practice. Biskupic remains at his federal post in Wisconsin.

You remember Biskupic:

Before the 2004 election, he went after state employee Georgia Thompson for awarding a contract to a contributor to the campaign of her boss, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Thompson was sent to jail. Republicans cried corruption and made great hay with the Thompson charges in campaign advertising. Doyle won anyway. When Thompson appealed her conviction, judges on the Seventh Circuit last week sprung her from prison, immediately after oral argument and even before issuing a ruling.

Abramoff Investigations Continue

Looks like the Abramoff investigation has fired up again. Let's see who is being investigated or re-investigated recently or indicted:

We know about Bob Ney

In February, 2007, it was Will Heaton, ex Chief of Staff to Bob Ney

March, 2007:

Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles will plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation.

Jack Abramoff's former personal assistant, Ralston became Karl Rove's assistant in 2001, where she was his "implant" at the White House.

But after a report last October by Waxman's committee (then chaired by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)) showed that Ralston had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from Abramoff without compensating him, she abruptly resigned.

Italia Federici, the founder of a conservative environmental group that served as Jack Abramoff's gateway to the Interior. She was also romantically involved with Steven Griles.

April, 2007:

Conrad Burns, the senator from Montana who narrowly lost re-election last November due in large part to his association with Abramoff, continues to spend big money on his lawyer.

Yet another shoe drops in the Jack Abramoff investigation. A former aide to Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Mark Zachares, looks set to plead guilty to corruption charges.

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) says he is not worried that the Justice Department is looking into his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and is voluntarily cooperating with the investigation....
...Feeney denied having any kind of relationship with Abramoff.

Next on the list, apparently, is Tom DeLay's former right-hand man Ed Buckham.

The Jack Abramoff investigation continues to burst with renewed vigor. Now, it's ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) -- who was defeated back in November due in large part to his ties to Abramoff -- who might be in trouble.

And the newest from Think Progress:

“A senior Justice Department official has resigned after coming under scrutiny in the Department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff,” McClatchy reports.
Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.
He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff.

Looks like I will have to update this list in the future. How many more were in the Abramoff web?

Meeting in Seattle for fired US Attorneys

Well three of them anyway. John McKay, the fired US attorney from the State of Washington, is now a visiting professor at the Seattle University School of Law. He is hosting David C. Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, and Paul K. Charlton, the former prosecutor for Arizona. This meeting will take place in Seattle and is a forum on the mass firings last year.

From the Washington Post:

McKay, Iglesias and Charlton are three of the most controversial firings of the eight ousted prosecutors, because they were either conducting sensitive investigations of Republicans or under fire for not prosecuting Democrats around the time of their dismissals on Dec. 7. All three were also contacted by members of Congress or their staff at a sensitive time regarding ongoing criminal corruption investigations.

The four-hour symposium could spark sharp criticism of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the White House for alleged politicization of the Justice Department. One session is titled: "The 2007 Experience -- Myths and Realities: explanation of the current incidents, with comparison of historical similarities and differences."

McKay told the Senate and House Judiciary committees in early March that the chief of staff to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) contacted him in early 2005 to inquire about alleged Democratic voter fraud in the 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay said he cut off the staffer -- Ed Cassidy, who now works for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- before Cassidy ventured into inappropriate talks about an ongoing case.

Iglesias testified that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) called him in the weeks before Wilson's razor-thin reelection last November. Iglesias said he felt pressured him to bring indictments against Albuquerque Democrats.
And Charlton has been in the news this week because of reports that his office was also contacted by a staffer about a probe, this one an ongoing corruption investigation of the aide's boss, Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).

snip

McKay's legal eagle panel also includes two law professors who've been highly critical of the political nature of the Justice Department under President Bush.

James Eisenstein, a law professor at Penn State and author of a book on U.S. attorneys, told The Washington Post's Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein that it was "very unusual" for Gonzales to appoint so many of his own top aides to the federal prosecutor outposts around the country.
And Laurie L. Levenson, professor at Loyola Law School, testified before Senate Judiciary Feb. 6 that "the increasing politicization of federal law enforcement" was having a "devastating impact on the morale" in U.S. attorney's offices around the nation.

Incidentally, former Rep. Rick White (R-Wash.), one of three finalists to replace McKay, may want to attend the legal forum -- and not just to learn of the travails of being a federal prosecutor. White isn't allowed to practice law in Washington because he still needs 20 to 30 "continuing law education" credits. While White can't practice law, he has run a TechNet, a large high-tech lobbying association in Washington. And he's been a GOP donor, including $1,000 checks the past two election cycles to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), the lawmaker who forwarded White's name to the White House for consideration.

It will be interesting to see what this meeting brings about. There is still a legal issue of the contact between congressmen and these ousted US attorneys.

Breaking: Monica Goodling given immubity

From Think Progress:

The House Judiciary Committee voted moments ago to grant immunity to Monica Goodling — former counsel to Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House — and issue a subpoena compelling her to testify.

Maybe we'll get some truth now. Maybe!

Sen. Feinstein investigating another US Attorney whose name was brought up to be fired.

Senator Feinstein has been questioning, through interviews, that Harriet Miers had considered ousting US Attorney Debra Yang. Yang left her government post, voluntarily, last fall. But why did Miers want her out? One reason is Rep. Jerry Lewis.

Here's the story from the Hill:

Miers weighed Yang’s firing according to Sen. Feinstein
By Susan Crabtree
April 24, 2007

Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers discussed firing ex-U.S. Attorney Debra Yang, who was leading an investigation into lucrative ties between Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and a lobbying firm before she left her government post voluntarily last fall, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) charged in a hearing last week.

Feinstein has repeatedly questioned the circumstances surrounding Yang’s departure, but until last week she provided no reasons for her suspicions. Last Thursday, however, during the questioning of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales late in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Feinstein flatly stated that Miers had discussed “whether to remove Debra Yang from Los Angeles.”

A Feinstein spokesman indicated only that the senator had learned that Miers had considered ousting Yang “through interviews” and did not respond to repeated questions to elaborate. Andrew Koneschusky, a spokesman to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is leading the probe, also did not respond to questions about whether Miers had targeted Yang and any evidence Feinstein may have about it.

Yang resigned last October, months before Democrats began reviewing the Justice Department’s decision to fire eight other federal prosecutors. According to a report in the American Lawyer, she was lured away by a $1.5 million-plus offer to become a partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, which is defending Lewis in the probe.

Yang will co-chair the firm’s crisis-management practice group, along with Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general of the Bush administration who is now at the firm’s D.C. office. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Fuchs, Yang’s colleague at the Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office, also has joined her at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. Yang and Fuchs have recused themselves from working on Lewis’s defense.

Fuchs did not respond to The Hill’s queries. Yang responded by e-mail yesterday but gave no details, saying only she had been busy with work and had not followed Feinstein’s comments about Miers.

In an interview with The Hill last month, Yang dismissed questions about the timing of her departure, which occurred about a month before seven other U.S. attorneys were fired late last year. She argued that she left for personal reasons based on financial concerns and the fact that she is a single mother.

She said it had nothing to do with the firings of other U.S. federal
prosecutors. More here.

Another rock turned over and what will we find? Yang left for personal reasons, she said. But why did Miers have her on the firing list?

No Confidence Vote say the Senate Dems

Gonzales says he won't resign. Bush thinks Gonzales did a great job and stands by him. So what's left to do? The Senate Democrats are considering bringing to the floor a No Confidence Vote against Gonzales and will discuss this during the Senate Democratic Lunceon today.

More at Roll Call:

The vote would be nonbinding and have no substantive impact, but it would force all Republican Senators into the politically uncomfortable position of saying publicly whether they continue to support Gonzales in the wake of the scandal surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Democratic leaders have not yet set an exact time frame for when they would bring such a resolution to the floor.

The continuing saga.....contiues!

Gonzales testimony of "I don't recall" leaves questions unanswered.

Hours and hours of testimony from Gonzales and other DOJ officials and the main question has yet to be answered. The question? Who in the Bush White House conceived the plan to fire these attorneys? Gonzales seems to know little of what is happening in his department, so the Senators say all signs seem to point to someone in the WH.

David Iglesias puts forth his advice to congress, from McClatchey Newspapers:

David Iglesias, the former New Mexico U.S. attorney and one of the eight fired last year, said investigating the White House's role is the logical next step - one that would follow existing clues about Rove's involvement.

"If I were Congress, I would say, `If the attorney general doesn't have answers, then who would?' There's enough evidence to indicate that Karl Rove was involved up to his eyeballs."

Iglesias said another clue that the White House may have been the driving force is the relative lack of Justice Department documentation for the firings in the 6,000 pages of documents turned over to Congress.

"If you want to justify getting rid of someone, you should have at least some paper trail," Iglesias said. "There's been a remarkable absence of that. I'm wondering if the paper trail is at the White House."

Even if Gonzales decides to step down - he says he won't despite widespread Republican disappointment with his performance - Democrats say they'll continue their probe into whether politics inappropriately influenced the firings.

"The arrow points more and more to the White House," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The one thing I can assure you of: This is not over, far from it."

That's why some Republicans think Gonzales should stay on the job.

snip

Rove has acknowledged passing along complaints to the Justice Department, and a former Rove aide was chosen to replace one of the fired U.S. attorneys. E-mail traffic between Gonzales' chief of staff, who's since resigned, and a Rove deputy, reveals another connection.

Another e-mail released as part of the investigation shows a Rove deputy kept Rove abreast of turns in the controversy via Rove's Republican Party e-mail account rather than Rove's White House e-mail address.

The White House isn't authorizing Rove to testify publicly or to testify privately but with a transcript.

And when Congress told the Republican National Committee to turn over all pertinent e-mails, the administration instructed the RNC to give the e-mails to the White House, not to Congress. That standoff appears headed to court.

It always seems to come back to Rove!

Waxman Considering Four Subpoenas

From the Committee for Oversight and Government Reform's web sight.....


Friday, April 20, 2007Administration Oversight
Committee to Consider Four Subpoenas to Further Investigations
The Oversight Committee will hold a business meeting on Wednesday, April 25, at which four subpoenas for testimony and documents will be considered. The subpoenas under consideration are for:

The testimony of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the fabricated claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger and other issues;

The testimony of former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card regarding the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity and White House security procedures;

RNC documents related to possible violations of the Presidential Records Act and the Hatch Act by White House officials;


Contacts between the White House and MZM, a federal contractor implicated in bribery charges.

Gonzales: I can't recall, I dont remember!

I like best what Jon Stewart of the Daily Show said:

"After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it. Alberto Gonzales doesn't know what happened but he assures you, what he doesn't remember was handeled
properly."

"Alberto Gonzales used the phrase "I don't recall" 45 times before lunch". "I should point out, at this time, that's alot".

Here's the video, you have to listen to a comercial first.

President Bush said he was please with Gonzales testimony. Did he listen? Really listen?

The White House insiders weren't too happy with Gonzales testimony. Here's what CNN reported from a Think Progress link:

CNN’s Dana Bash:

Loyal Republican after loyal Republican in this hearing room, and more specifically, in private to CNN today have made it clear that they are frankly flabbergasted by how poorly they think the attorney general has done in this hearing. … During the lunch break, in private, several very loyal Republicans made it clear to CNN that they were really dripping with disappointment.

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux:

[White House officials] believe Gonzales is in trouble. … Two senior White House aides here describing the situation, Gonzales’ testimony, as “going down in flames.” That he was “not doing himself any favors.” One prominent Republican describing watching his testimony as “clubbing a baby seal.”

Since yesterday, many have come out asking Gonzales to resign. Republicans and Democrats both!. But will Gonzales resign, it's a good bet that Bush will not ask for the resignation.

Gonzales appearing before the Seante Judiciary Committee today

The committee meeting has just started on C-SPAN. The opening statements by the Senate committee members. And the Gonzales.

He's been practicing for this meeting for quite awhile. Will he evade? Will he tell the truth?

From the NY Times:

Investigators have already determined that Mr. Gonzales spoke directly three times with Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, about his complaints regarding David C. Iglesias, the states former top federal prosecutor.

Administration officials have confirmed that Mr. Gonzales also spoke with President Bush and Karl Rove, the presidents chief political adviser, about the perceived lack of enthusiasm in Mr. Iglesiass office, among others, for prosecuting voting fraud cases, a top Republican Party priority. And investigators know that Mr. Iglesiass name was among the last to be added to the ouster list.

Lets see what shakes out of this committee meeting.