Rove Had Say in Firing Attorneys

mc mark · Mar 13, 2007

Resignation on the way?

Gonzales to hold 2PM press conference

updawg · Mar 13, 2007

mc mark said:

Resignation on the way?

Gonzales to hold 2PM press conference
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that wouldn't be consistent with this admin. Honesty and accountability are bad

rimrocker · Mar 13, 2007

hotballa said:

I don't really understand the outcry over it because I haven't been following it. I did see this and it seems a little strange to me that they would fire all 93 prosecutors.

White House Considered Firing All 93 Federal Prosecutors at Start of '05 Term

WASHINGTON — The chief White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of President Bush's second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have generated a political firestorm two years later.

The U.S. attorneys, the chief federal law enforcement officials in their various districts, typically are appointed to four-year terms by the president on the recommendation of state political leaders, but serve at the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time — like the attorney general and other Cabinet officers. President Bill Clinton fired all the federal prosecutors and replaced them with new ones at the start of his administration in 1993.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers raised with an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the prospect of asking all chief federal district prosecutors to resign in 2004 as a logical way to start a new term with a new slate of U.S. attorneys.

Perino also acknowledged Monday that complaints about the job performance of prosecutors occasionally came to the White House and were passed on to the Justice Department, perhaps including some informally from President Bush to Gonzales.

Democrats in Congress have charged that the eight dismissals announced last December were politically motivated and some of those fired have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.

Perino said Kyle Samson, the aid Miers contacted, objected that a wholesale change of prosecutors would be disruptive. She also said deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, vaguely recalls telling Miers that he also thought firing all 93 was ill-advised.

The Justice Department, however, was working internally on a shorter list of firings, and submitted that list to the White House in late 2006, she said.

"At no time were names added or subtracted by the White House," Perino said. "We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within administration's discretion. We stand by the Department of Justice's assertion that they were removed for performance and managerial reasons."

Dating back to mid-2004, the White House's legislative affairs, political affairs and chief of staff's office had received complaints from a variety of sources about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases in various locations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and New Mexico, she said

Those complaints were passed on to the Justice Department or Mier's office.

"The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted and believes he may have informally mentioned it to the attorney general during a brief discussion on other Department of Justice matters," Perino said, adding that the conversation would have taken place in October 2006.

"At no time did any White Hose officials, including the president, direct the Department of Justice to take specific action against any individual U.S. attorney," Perino said.

The Washington Post reported initially on the idea of dismissing all the prosecutors, saying it reviewed a number of internal White House e-mails preceding the final dismissals.

Sampson resigned Monday after acknowledging that he did not tell other Justice officials who testified to Congress about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information in their testimony, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Sampson has not announced his departure.

The new revelations Monday evening came after congressional Democrats earlier in the day singled out Rove for questioning about the firings of the eight prosecutors and whether the dismissals were politically motivated.

Those demands to question Rove signaled anew Democrats' shifting focus beyond the Justice Department and toward the White House in the inquiry.

Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said he would seek to interview Miers and deputy counsel William Kelly for insight on their roles, if any, in the firings.

Rove emerged as the Democrats' newest target after weekend news reports said the New Mexico Republican Party's chairman urged Rove to fire David Iglesias, then the state's U.S. attorney.

In a statement Monday, Conyers said stories about Rove's alleged link to Iglesias' dismissal "raise even more alarm bells for us."

"As a result, we would want to ensure that Karl Rove was one of the White House staff that we interview in connection with our investigation," said Conyers.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading his chamber's probe into the firings, said he also wants to question Rove.

In an interview this weekend with The Associated Press, New Mexico GOP chairman Allen Weh said Iglesias' "termination had already occurred" by the time he spoke with Rove at a holiday party last December. But Weh made no secret of his dissatisfaction with Iglesias, in part from the prosecutor's failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation.

The White House has said previously that Rove wasn't involved in the firings, but did alert Miers to complaints about Iglesias. It was not immediately clear whether Rove also told Gonzales about the complaints.

Last week, Rove called the two-month controversy "a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it."

Schumer called it "almost unheard of" for a federal prosecutor with favorable reviews to be fired after a top presidential adviser like Rove received complaints about his performance.

"The more we learn, the more it seems that people at high levels in the White House have been involved in the U.S. attorney purge," Schumer said Monday.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258425,00.html
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Here's the original story in the WaPo. Notice any difference between this and the one hotballa cites from Fox?

Firings Had Genesis in White House
Ex-Counsel Miers First Suggested Dismissing Prosecutors 2 Years Ago, Documents Show
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031201818_pf.html
By Dan Eggen and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; A01

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House spokeswoman.

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

Lawmakers requested the documents as part of an investigation into whether the firings were politically motivated. While it is unclear whether the documents, which were reviewed yesterday by The Washington Post, will answer Congress's questions, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more closely involved in the dismissals, and at a much earlier date, than they have previously acknowledged.

Seven U.S. attorneys were fired on Dec. 7 and another was fired months earlier, with little explanation from the Justice Department. Several former prosecutors have since alleged intimidation, including improper telephone calls from GOP lawmakers or their aides, and have alleged threats of retaliation by a Justice Department official.

Administration officials have portrayed the firings as a routine personnel matter, designed primarily to rid the department of a handful of poor performers.

But the documents and interviews indicate that the idea for the firings originated at least two years ago, when then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers suggested to Sampson in February 2005 that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced.

Gonzales rejected that idea as impractical and disruptive, Justice officials said, but over the next 22 months Sampson orchestrated more limited dismissals.

"I recommend that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys," Sampson wrote to Miers in January 2006. A "limited number of U.S. attorneys could be targeted for removal and replacement, mitigating the shock to the system that would result from an across the board firing."

Administration officials say they are braced for a new round of criticism today from lawmakers who may feel misled by recent testimony from Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general. Several Democrats have called in recent days for Gonzales to resign.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that "it doesn't appear the president was told about a list nor shown a list" of U.S. attorneys at any point in the discussions. She said White House political adviser Karl Rove had an early conversation with Miers about the idea of firing all chief prosecutors and did not think it was wise.

Bush mentioned complaints about voter-fraud investigations to Gonzales in a conversation in October 2006, Perino said. Gonzales does not recall the conversation, Justice Department officials said.

Bush "believes informally he may have mentioned it to the AG during the meeting discussing other matters," Perino said. "White House officials including the president did not direct DOJ to take any specific action with regards to any specific U.S. attorney."

Rove and other White House officials also forwarded complaints that U.S. attorneys were not doing enough to prosecute voter fraud.

Since the 2000 presidential election ended in dispute in Florida, Republicans have repeatedly raised concerns about possible voter fraud, alleging that convicted felons and other ineligible voters have been permitted to cast ballots to the benefit of Democrats.

Congressional committees yesterday requested that Rove testify before them about the firings; the House Judiciary Committee also requested that Miers appear.

The e-mails show that Rove was interested in the appointment of a former aide, Tim Griffin, as an Arkansas prosecutor. Sampson wrote in one that "getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc."

Sampson sent an e-mail to Miers in March 2005 that ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys. Strong performers "exhibited loyalty" to the administration; low performers were "weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc." A third group merited no opinion.

At least a dozen prosecutors were on a "target list" to be fired at one time or another, the e-mails show.

Only three of those eventually fired were given low rankings: Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bud Cummins in Little Rock; and Carol S. Lam in San Diego. Two were given strong evaluations: David C. Iglesias in Albuquerque, who has alleged political interference from GOP lawmakers, and Kevin V. Ryan in San Francisco, whose firing has generated few complaints because of widespread management and morale problems in his office.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said last night that Gonzales will announce new ways of evaluating U.S. attorneys, but said the department still believes the firings were "based on performance-related considerations."

In January 2006, Sampson sent to the White House the first list of seven candidates for dismissal, including four who were fired at year's end: Chiara, Cummins, Lam and Ryan. The list also recommended Griffin and other replacements, most of whom were edited from documents viewed by The Post.

In September, Sampson produced another list of firing candidates, telling the White House that Cummins was "in the process of being pushed out" and providing the names of eight others whom "we should consider pushing out." Five on that list were fired in December; the others were spared.

Iglesias, the New Mexico prosecutor, was not on that list. Justice officials said Sampson added him in October, based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete V. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases.

Sampson also strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.

"I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed," Sampson wrote in a Sept. 17 memo to Miers. "It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately.

"I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments," he wrote.

By avoiding Senate confirmation, Sampson added, "we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House."

"Kyle thanks for this," Miers wrote back. "I have not forgotten I need to follow up on the info. But things have been crazy."

On the day of the Dec. 7 firings, Miers's deputy, William Kelley, wrote that Domenici's chief of staff "is happy as a clam" about Iglesias.

A week later, Sampson wrote: "Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool)."

Miers resigned as White House counsel this January.

The documents also provide new details about the case of Griffin, a former Republican National Committee researcher who was named interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock in December.

E-mails show that Justice officials discussed bypassing the two Democratic senators in Arkansas, who normally would have had input into the appointment, as early as last August. By mid-December, Sampson was suggesting that Gonzales exercise his newfound appointment authority to put Griffin in place until the end of Bush's term.

"f we don't ever exercise it then what's the point of having it?" Sampson wrote to a White House aide.
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mc mark · Mar 13, 2007

Curiously the republican candidates that want to become president have been strangely silent regarding the WH purge of US attorneys. I wonder how former US Attorney Rudy Giuliani feels about all this? I'm sure he is very interested in how the WH is handling the situation. Especially since he is using his tenure as USA in New York and a crime fighter as a basic platform of his campaign.

How bout it Rudy?

Deckard · Mar 13, 2007

mc mark said:

Resignation on the way?

Gonzales to hold 2PM press conference
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He said nothing, and ran away from the press as soon as he could. It was pathetic. I expect him to be testifying before Congress soon, under oath, and that should be an interesting, if somewhat nauseating, experience to watch.

D&D. Use Care if You Hurl. It might get Messy.

rimrocker · Mar 13, 2007

Josh on the voter fraud justifications...

There's going to be a ton of news today. And we're going to be on top of all of it. But before the deluge, let me touch again on a point I referenced last night in this lengthy post. The story emerging is that at least some of these US Attorneys were fired because they weren't aggressive enough in investigating Democratic 'voter fraud'. Like I said last night, I've been reporting on this stuff for years. And this is a horse that shouldn't even be let out of the gate. It's become standard operating procedure for Republican operatives to whip up charges of 'voter fraud'. And some of them even believe it. But the claims are almost universally bogus. And the real intent in most cases is to stymie get out the vote efforts or shut down voter registration drives -- mainly, though not exclusively, in minority voting precincts. Here you can see a list of TPM posts from the 2002 and 2004 cycles on bogus 'voter fraud' stories, mainly from South Dakota. These are made up stories, the main aim of which is to keep real voters from getting to vote. There's no mystery why McKay and Iglesias wouldn't bite: the stories were bogus hash-ups from Republican political operatives and as McKay said this morning, he wasn't going to "drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."
-- Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
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Josh on the "Clinton did it!" defense...

It appears that as all the top staff at the Bush Justice Department retains criminal defense counsel for the impending investigations, the reliable right-wing mouthpieces are dragging out the 'Clinton fired his US Attorneys' canard to deny the obvious. First, a note to readers: if you see reporters on the cable nets repeating this mumbojumbo, let us know. (Kevin Corke from NBC seems to be one good example so far.) But let's address why this is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the criminal conduct at the Justice Department.

First, we now know -- or at least the White House is trying to tell us -- that they considered firing all the US Attorneys at the beginning of Bush's second term. That would have been unprecedented but not an abuse of power in itself. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired and the fact that the White House intended to replace them with US Attorneys not confirmed by the senate. We now have abundant evidence that they were fired for not sufficiently politicizing their offices, for not indicting enough Democrats on bogus charges or for too aggressively going after Republicans. (Remember, Carol Lam is still the big story here.) We also now know that the top leadership of the Justice Department lied both to the public and to Congress about why the firing took place. As an added bonus we know the whole plan was hatched at the White House with the direct involvement of the president.

And Clinton? Every new president appoints new US Attorneys. That always happens. Always. In early 1993, since the Republicans had held the White House for 12 years a few US Attorneys signalled that they might not be tendering their resignations and the new Clinton Justice Department asked for and received the resignations of all 93 US Attorneys. Eager to whip up scandal, Republicans at the time tried to make this into something untoward. Claiming this is a big deal is like grandstanding with the claim that President Bush 'fired' Clinton's cabinet secretaries when he came into office in 2001. At worst, it's the difference between giving them all several weeks to resign and just asking for their resignations on day one.

The whole thing is silly. But a lot of reporters on the news are already falling for it. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired -- a) because they weren't pursuing a GOP agenda of indicting Democrats, that's a miscarriage of justice, and b) because they lied to Congress about why it happened.
-- Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
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No Worries · Mar 13, 2007

Deckard said:

I expect him to be testifying before Congress soon, under oath, and that should be an interesting, if somewhat nauseating, experience to watch.
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I bet sticking a sharp pencil in your eye hurts too. Just another thing (watching Gonzo give his weasel interpretation in front of Congress) I have to add to my NOT TO DO list.

mc mark · Mar 13, 2007

Deckard said:

He said nothing, and ran away from the press as soon as he could. It was pathetic. I expect him to be testifying before Congress soon, under oath, and that should be an interesting, if somewhat nauseating, experience to watch.
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Man! These guys are something else! Gonzales didn't know what his chief of staff was up too; Libby was a rouge element within the VP's office.

These chief of staff guys are bad...

Deckard · Mar 13, 2007

No Worries said:

I bet sticking a sharp pencil in your eye hurts too. Just another thing (watching Gonzo give his weasel interpretation in front of Congress) I have to add to my NOT TO DO list.
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Hey, I've been watching Gonzales for years... long before he came to Washington with Bush. The man is, as I said earlier, a blunt instrument for the living imbodiment of the Peter Principal, Bush, and shares Bush's "promotion" to a position far beyond his capabilities. I hope the Weenie gets raked over the coals under oath, as the resulting meltdown, now that he doesn't have friendly tools questoning him, will be worth watching, despite the self-flagellating aspect of it. (which I agree with you about!)

D&D. In Harm's Way.

mc mark · Mar 13, 2007

via TPM --

Gonzales: I'm going to get to the bottom of what Harriet and I did.

Oski2005 · Mar 13, 2007

Very interesting.

US Attorney Removal Halted Abramoff Investigation
By: Nicole Belle @ 6:30 AM - PDT
I can't believe how inter-related all these Bush administration scandals are becoming. First we got Rove and Gonzales involved in it, and now good old Jack Abramoff rears his corruption-ridden head too.

Boston.com:

A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.[..]

In Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, investigators were looking into Abramoff's secret arrangement with Superior Court officials to lobby against a court reform bill then pending in Congress. The legislation, since approved, gave the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court.

In 2002, Abramoff was retained by the Superior Court in what was an unusual arrangement for a public agency. The Los Angeles Times reported in May that Abramoff was paid with a series of $9,000 checks funneled through a Laguna Beach, Calif., lawyer to disguise the lobbyist's role working for the Guam court. No separate contract was authorized for Abramoff's work.[..]

The transactions were the target of a grand jury subpoena issued Nov. 18, 2002, according to the subpoena. It demanded that Anthony Sanchez, administrative director of the Guam Superior Court, turn over all records involving the lobbying contract, including bills and payments.

A day later, the chief prosecutor, US Attorney Frederick A. Black, who had launched the investigation, was demoted. A White House news release announced that Bush was replacing Black.

The timing caught some by surprise. Despite his officially temporary status as the acting US attorney, Black had held the assignment for more than a decade[..]

His replacement, Leonardo Rapadas, was confirmed in May 2003 without any debate. Rapadas had been recommended for the job by the Guam Republican Party. Fred Radewagen, a lobbyist who had been under contract to the Gutierrez administration, said he carried that recommendation to top Bush aide Karl Rove in early 2003.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/13/us-attorney-removal-halted-abramoff-investigation/
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pirc1 · Mar 13, 2007

This administration is trying hard to reach the top of the poll as the number one corrupt administration in the history.

No Worries · Mar 13, 2007

pirc1 said:

This administration is trying hard to reach the top of the poll as the number one corrupt administration in the history.
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You are incorrect. The W Admin is trying to win the "most incompetent" administration ever" race. They currenlty have a safe lead on the pack .... more likely that they will lap the field rather than lose the race at this point.

mc mark · Mar 13, 2007

It has now been established without any doubt that the Attorney General provided false testimony to Congress under oath.

He has admitted as much himself in today's "press conference."

What are you going to do about it congress?

hotballa · Mar 13, 2007

mc mark said:

It has now been established without any doubt that the Attorney General provided false testimony to Congress under oath.

He has admitted as much himself in today's "press conference."

What are you going to do about it congress?
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raise a stink about it and then forget about it once the press starts focusing on Britney's newest body exposure pic or another starlet checking into rehab.

thegary · Mar 13, 2007

they better boot the tool

hotballa · Mar 13, 2007

thegary said:

they better boot the tool
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can they do that? I thought something like that could only be done through the Senate, and I'm not sure Dems have enough of a majority for that.

rimrocker · Mar 13, 2007

No Worries said:

You are incorrect. The W Admin is trying to win the "most incompetent" administration ever" race. They currenlty have a safe lead on the pack .... more likely that they will lap the field rather than lose the race at this point.
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At some point the excuse of incompetence has to be traced back to its source... the criminal infrastructure built around an ideology that is anathema to what the United States.

rimrocker · Mar 13, 2007

Greenwald remind us of some stuff... worth the read...

Tuesday March 13, 2007 12:59 EST
Lying to Congress has become a Republican principle, literally
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Revelations about White House involvement in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys means that the testimony of top Justice Department officials to Congress was fundamentally false. And everyone knows that now. As The Washington Post reports:

Administration officials say they are braced for a new round of criticism today from lawmakers who may feel misled by recent testimony from Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general. Several Democrats have called in recent days for Gonzales to resign.

Lying to Congress is what this administration generally -- and the DOJ specifically -- has done continuously. They lied to Congress about the FBI's use of NSLs in order to induce re-authorization of the Patriot Act, and -- now that those lies are exposed -- they are now forced to retract those statements and change their false testimony made under oath. Alberto Gonzales made repeated false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the state of the President's eavesdropping activities, some of which he had to retract and some of which he still has not. And, of course, the false statements made over the years to the Congress by the administration regarding Iraq are literally too numerous to chronicle.

None of these acts occur in isolation. They are all part of the broader view of the Bush administration that the President's power cannot be constrained by the law or by the Congress. They believe they have the right to lie to Congress about their behavior, even though lying to Congress is, as Atrios noted today, a felony.

It's so vital to note that this Republican belief in the right to lie to Congress has deep roots back in the Reagan administration and, even before that, in the Nixon administration. I recommended this once before but I really urge you to watch this 1987 PBS documentary by Bill Moyers called The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis. There are multiple clips from the Iran-Contra scandal and the serial, proud lying to Congress and the American people in which top Reagan officials engaged.

Oliver North became a beloved hero among Republicans because of how proudly he admitted to misleading the Congress. The North footage is just striking. It begins at 5:20 of the video, and it is really worth watching because his boastful tone cannot be conveyed by the transcript, but this an exchange North had with House counsel John Nields that made North a superstar among the Republican faithful:

NORTH: I will tell you right now, counsel, and to all the members here gathered, that I misled the Congress.

NIELDS: At that meeting?

NORTH: At that meeting.

NIELDS: Face to face?

NORTH: Face to face.

NIELDS: You made false statements to them about your activites in support of the Contras?

NORTH: I did.

North then goes on to "justify" why lying to Congress was the patriotic thing to do. Days later, North's loyal secretary, Fawn Hall, described the prevailing ethos at the Reagan National Security Council this way: "Sometimes you have to go above the written law."

All of that lying began with President Reagan himself, who, exactly at the time when the U.S was defying its own embargo on Iran by offering weapons to the Ayatollah Kholmeni in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages, was beating his chest with tough-sounding -- and totally false -- proclamations like this: "Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices wherever they may be, that the U.S. will never make concessions to terrorists."

In November, 1986, Reagan went on national television and issued this flat-out and totally false denial:

The charge has been made that the U.S. has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanaon -- that the U.S. undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false.

Reagan officials Eliot Abrams and John Poindexter were both convicted of charges arising out of their lying to Congress, and both were given highly sensitive jobs in the Bush administration, where Abrams remains today. Obviously, not only is lying to Congress not considered a disqualifying flaw by the Bush administration, it is considered a virtue, an exercise of a legitimate right on the part of the President. The heroes of the Republican movement in the 1980s were heroes not despite their lying to Congress, but because of it. It's considered heroic and noble.

Of course, the reason that lying to Congress is a felony is because Congress is composed of the representatives of the American people, and when executive branch officials lie to Congress, they are lying to the country. They subvert the entire constitutional order by preventing the American people from exercising overisight over the executive branch through their representatives in Congress, and it turns the President into an unchecked, unaccountable ruler. That is precisely why lying to Congress is considered to be virtuous and an entitlement by this administration and the movement which spawned it (the truly bizarre demands for Lewis Libby's pardon further reflect not merely an indifference, but this same admiration, for those who lie in pursuit of The Right-Wing Cause).

Illegal behavior -- in the form of, among other things, continuous and deliberate deceit of the Congress -- is pervasive at the highest levels of the Bush Justice Department and it has plainly become a central part of the Republican ethos. It's become a plank in their ideology, literally. Is it really necessary even to make the case as to why we cannot allow that, and must begin -- now -- enforcing the law and imposing consequences for this rampant law-breaking?
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mc mark · Mar 14, 2007

hotballa said:

raise a stink about it and then forget about it once the press starts focusing on Britney's newest body exposure pic or another starlet checking into rehab.
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Well it looks like congress isn't going to forget about it.

It's subpoena time! GO Leahy!

Now the question is will the administration evoke “Executive Privilege" to stymie Gonzales, Miers, Rove and Sampson testifying under oath?

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