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.”