Taking the Fifth and asking for Immunity...

This time it is from a former Rove aide that used to work for Jack Abramoff. Her name is Susan Ralston.

Here from the Committe on Oversight and Reform:

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Administration Oversight
Former Rove Aide Testifies to Committee but Refuses to Answer Questions Related to Abramoff Contacts with the White House

At a deposition earlier this month, Susan Ralston, the former executive assistant to Karl Rove, responded to questions in a number of areas but would not answer questions about White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and her lawyer said Ms. Ralston would assert her Fifth Amendment privilege if compelled to testify. In a memo, Chairman Waxman explains the Committee will seek testimony from Mr. Abramoff’s former lobbying associates and former and current Administration officials before considering Ms. Ralston’s request for immunity.

This will be another interesting hearing.

Monica is being difficult

The subpoenaed documents the House committee wanted were never received. Seems that Monica is refusing to hand over these documents.

From Raw Story:

Former top Justice Department aide Monica Goodling was chided by the House Judiciary Committee for failing to turn over documents that had been subpoenaed as part of the investigation into the firing of 8 US Attorneys. Goodling is set to testify before the Committee on Wednesday.

"I am concerned, however, about your statement that Ms. Goodling is going to refuse to produce documents in her possession that are responsive to the subpoena," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the committee's chairman, wrote to Goodling's attorney John Dowd.

In responding to an argument made by Dowd on why Goodling did not need to turn the documents over, he added, "We are aware of no authority that permits internal Department administrative regulation to allow a former employee of the Department of Justice, or any other person, to avoid the subpoena power of the House of Representatives, as that power is central to the House's ability to carry out its Constitutional oversight mandate and certainly trumps internal agency regulations."

At issue were a set of documents that Dowd, an attorney for the Washington, DC law firm Akin, Gump, Straus, Hauer, and Feld, acknowledged his client possessed.

"Ms. Goodling has copies of other electronic documents and emails that would be responsive to the Committee's subpoena but which are copies of official Department of Justice documents, including un-redacted copies of documents produced to date only in redacted form," wrote Dowd with additional counsel.

So it seems, even with immunity, Ms. Goodling doesn't want to or has been threatened not to comply with the subpoena. Lets see what she has to say tomorrow, if she does say anything. I am sure she has been preped by her attorney on how to skirt questions.

Fired U. S. Attorney John McKay - Coverup?

McClathcy again. This time from the Olympian, reports the John McKay believes the Justice Department is covering up the real reason for his ouster.

Read the rest here.

“I can see why they would want to come up with an explanation other than the governor’s election for why I would be on such a list,” said McKay, the U.S. attorney for Western Washington until his firing in December.

McKay pointed to the revelation that he first appeared on the Bush administration firing list in 2005 during the heat of the furor over Washington state’s election for governor. Some Republicans were appalled that McKay didn’t bring charges of election fraud in the race won by Democrat Chris Gregoire.

“I still don’t know if the 2004 governor’s election was the principal reason I was asked to step down,” McKay said in a speech at the Mainstream Republicans of Washington’s Cascade Conference in Wenatchee.

“If it was, I think it is an entirely improper and perhaps illegal reason for my termination,” said McKay.

McKay said he led a federal investigation that found no evidence of a crime in the election. He made clear he still has huge concerns over the controversial election that resulted in a Gregoire victory on the second recount by just 133 votes out of almost 3 million cast.

“There is no doubt in my mind there were a lot of stinky, nasty things about that election,” McKay said in an interview.

But prosecuting a federal crime requires proof of more than just mistakes and incompetence in the handling of ballots, he said.

What I get from this is that the DOJ and the White House wanted these US attorneys to trump up charges against the Dems. This way the Republicans have a comeback when the Dems call fowl on legitimate problems with elections. I'm not saying this doesn't happen on the Dem's side, but election problems have been prevelent since the Republicans took office.

From Think Progress

Impeach Gonzales. Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation is airing a new online video that calls for the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. You can sign the petition here. Watch the video:

Interesting Week Ahead

Today the Senate readies a no-confidence vote on Alberto Gonzales which is an extremely rare vote in Congress. There are now at least 6 Republicans that have asked Gonzales to resign according to Arlen Specter and Specter thinks that Gonzales will resign before the vote according to the AP.

Monica Goodling is scheduled to testify for the House Judicial Committe this Wednesday, May 23, at 10:15 AM EDT. Goodling is the DOJ aide that invoked the Fifthe amendment right and was given immunity which compells her to testify. But now she has immunity for self incrimination for this matter. I'm definately going to watch this one.

So this will be a very telling week for Alberto. Can't wait til Wednesday!

The Daily Show Video on Gonzales, McNulty and Comey

Gas Prices

You have to be living on Mars to not know that gas prices are way up.

Had to post this, thanks to Crooks and Liars:

By any other name....

Greg Palast says it and Truthdig's Marie Coco is saying it and I've said it! The replacement of US attorneys was a consorted effort to fix the elcetions.

Here's Thruthdig's Marie Coco's article:

Watergate Without the Break-In
Posted on May 16, 2007
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—It is time to stop referring to the “fired U.S attorneys scandal” by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.

This is no botched personnel switch. It is not even a political spat between the fired U.S. attorneys and Bush administration officials who deemed some of them insufficiently zealous in promoting the department’s law enforcement priorities. Connect the dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It’s Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.

The emerging picture is one in which widespread Republican claims of “voter fraud”—unsubstantiated in virtually every case examined closely by law enforcement officials, local journalists, state elections officials and academics—were used to stymie Democratic-leaning voter registration groups and create a taint around Democrats. The Justice Department’s own statistics show that only a handful of people were convicted of voting illegally since it began a “voter integrity” initiative in 2002. Its top election crimes official, a career prosecutor, has told the U.S. Election Assistance Commission that the proportion of “legitimate to illegitimate claims of fraud” hasn’t changed.

The “voter fraud” claims that White House political adviser Karl Rove promoted before last year’s congressional elections were in battleground states such as New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with closely contested races. He also has complained about alleged fraud in hotly competitive states such as Washington, Florida and Missouri. Curiously, states where elections often are decided by wide margins—New York, for instance—don’t turn up on his lists.

According to McClatchy Newspapers, Rove pressed Justice officials about voter fraud probes in October. Complaints from Republican activists wound up in the hands of Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a key figure in the imbroglio. Five of the 12 U.S. attorneys who were canned or targeted for removal were singled out for alleged laxity in pursuing voter-fraud prosecutions, The Washington Post has reported.

The Justice Department’s power to prosecute was expected to be put to use in carrying out a partisan witch hunt. Yet even this picture is incomplete.

The shenanigans involving U.S. attorneys must be seen alongside the parallel campaign to turn the department’s voting-rights section into a rubber stamp for Republican efforts to enhance the voting power of their loyalists while diminishing that of Democrats.

Greg Palast wrote a new chapter for his book "Armed Madhouse" all about this issue. He's called it "The Scheme to Swipe 2008". What does Greg base this statement on? He's got the emails! Karl Rove's emails!!!

Palast: I know because I have Karl Rove’s emails. No kidding. He and his team aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. They sent copies of their plans to GeorgeWBush.ORG instead of GeorgeWBush.COM addresses — and, heh heh, they ended up in my in-box. Who says this job ain’t fun?

Palast goes on to say it is not the voting machines that would lose the election.

A quote from his book:

"Beginning on January 1, 2006, the HAVA (Help America Vote Act) Law gave Secretaries of State the right--in fact, required them--to reject any registering voter whose exact name and "identity numbers" (driver's license, Social Security, Passport numbers) did not match up against a state "verification" list."

He goes on to say that it may sound arcane, but consider this...

"When HAVA gave state politicians this power to reject registration forms nationwide, the official hacks told one in three Americans to 'get lost'".

It was the plan, Rove's plan, to make this a one party system with the Republicans forever running this country.

Firing list grows

A little tidbit from the WaPo:


“Sources yesterday identified four additional prosecutors who were considered for termination, bringing to 30 the number of prosecutors who were placed on Justice Department firing lists between February 2005 and December 2006. That accounts for about a third of the nation’s 93 U.S. attorney positions. Nine were fired last year.”

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.