Doctors trying to Bilk Medicare

Dozens arrested in health care fraud scheme

Doctors among those accused in scam to bilk Medicare through false claims

MIAMI - Federal authorities arrested 32 people, including doctors, in a major health care fraud bust Wednesday in New York, Louisiana, Boston and Houston, targeting scams such as "arthritis kits" — expensive braces that many patients never used.

It's the third major sweep since Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced in May they were adding millions of dollars and dozens of agents to combat a problem that costs the U.S. billions each year.

Using about a dozen agents in targeted cities, including Miami, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, has recovered $371 million in false Medicare claims and charged 145 people across the country in just two months. Medicare is the federal health care program for the elderly. More at link.

How long has this been happening and who is the watch dog for this program?

The first task force started in 2007 in Miami, a city authorities say alone is responsible for more than $3 billion a year in Medicare fraud. Clinic owners there would bill Medicare dozens of times for the same wheelchair, while never giving the medical equipment to patients.

Here's an article from 2008. The problem was the same then but nothing was done.

Congress tight with Medicare anti-fraud funds

For years, Medicare has begged Congress to help stop the loss of billions of dollars to healthcare scams from Miami to Los Angeles.

Congress' blunt response: Forgetaboutit.

Since 2006, Medicare administrators have asked Congress for $300 million to fight fraud, but Congress has refused to give them any money.

Why? Distrust of the agency that runs the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. Political indifference to the Medicare fraud crisis itself. Plus, influential lobbyists and campaign donors who dislike government meddling in the huge healthcare industry.

All have undermined any attempts to cure what ails Medicare -- a 43-year-old program threatened by not only runaway costs but also unbridled fraud, as a Miami Herald series documented last week. It exposed rampant corruption in two regional healthcare fields -- medical equipment suppliers and HIV-infusion clinics -- which fuels South Florida's reputation as the nation's capital of Medicare fraud.

The fraud has to be addressed in Health Care Reform. How much of the increases in Medicare are do to fraud? Double and triple billing! And I blame both parties for this. They dropped the ball here!

Another Email Dump and look what turned up...

The leader of the Federalist Society reccommended changes in US Attorneys. Another twist in Attorneygate.

From McClatchy News:

E-mail questions if conservative group was party to plan to fire U.S. attorneys

A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor's name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.


The recommendation by the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, came before anyone outside of a tight group in the White House and Justice Department knew about a nascent strategy that ultimately led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.


It could not be determined whether a short e-mail, sent on March 7, 2005, making the recommendation meant that Leo knew of the plan to fire Carol Lam or whether his message was unsolicited and coincidental.


The subject line of Leo's e-mail to Mary Beth Buchanan, then-director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says, "USA San Diego," indicating the top prosecutor job for the Southern District of California. Lam was on the job at the time and had no plans to step down.


The text of the note reads, "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo goes on to say he would "strongly recommend" the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker.


Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects.


Leo, the Justice Department and Walker could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. Lam declined comment.

With every email another bit of info of the conspiracy of the Republican party and the DOJ and the White House to try to fix another election.

UPDATE from Think Progress:

Buchanan will meet with House investigators next week.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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!!

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.

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!

Americans overwhelmingly back Subpoenas

From USA Today, a USA Today Gallup poll has shown the people of the US want investigations in the White House and DOJ firings of the 8 US Attorneys! Will they listen to us this time? I doubt it. The WH and the DOJ seem to be making a stance against what the people want. Will someone tell them that the US is not a dictatorship!

Here's the poll info:

WASHINGTON — Americans overwhelmingly support a congressional investigation into White House involvement in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, and they say President Bush and his aides should answer questions about it without invoking executive privilege.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday-Sunday, respondents said by nearly 3-to-1 that Congress should issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify.


POLL: Complete results

There is skepticism about the motives of both the administration and congressional Democrats:

•By 53%-26%, respondents say the U.S. attorneys were dismissed primarily for political reasons, not because they weren't doing their jobs well — as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said.

The poll also reports this:

•By 59%-30%, they say Democrats are investigating the dismissals mostly for political advantage, not because of ethical concerns.

Now I don't totally agree here. I think that there is an ulterior motive, and of course it is partially partisan, however the way this admin has responded to this leads me to believe they are hiding something. It is an insight to how they have been able to steer even elections. And it's another way for an investigation of the Senior Aides of the WH. That's my opinion and I could be wrong, but I am sticking with it til proven wrong.

More from the poll:

Even so, the findings underscore the president's risks. The White House last week offered to allow adviser Karl Rove and other aides to answer questions — but only in private, not under oath, and without a transcript being prepared.

The Senate and House judiciary committees have authorized subpoenas.

The poll finds little sympathy for the administration's claim that White House aides shouldn't have to testify to ensure that a president gets candid advice. By 68%-26%, those surveyed say the president should drop the claim of executive privilege in this case.

The rest of the poll asking if Gonzales should resign is a tie and breaks down on party lines.

Kyle Sampson not pleading the Fifth - So Far

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

Breaking off the AP wire: DoJ official Monica Goodling to take the 5th at upcoming congressional hearing.

(ed.note: The original version of this post, which ran for just under ten minutes, incorrectly listed Kyle Sampson rather than Monica Goodling, as the the DOJ aide who plans to take the 5th at the senate hearing. We regret the error.)