This is pretty funny. Kyle Sampson Takes One for the Boss The Nation -- I. Lewis Libby has a new cellmate, so to speak. His name is D. Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's newly sacked former chief of staff. Like Scooter over in the VP's office, Kyle at the Justice Department has been asked to take one for the team. It was Kyle who lined up the eight US District Attorneys and fired them because of their failure to indict enough Democrats fast enough for last fall's election. He apparently did the job without telling his boss who was polishing his thumb screws and working on a new device for pulling out the toenails of terror suspects. Some matters must be left to underlings. Gonzales explained at a press conference today that you just cannot be everywhere all the time "when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions made that I'm not aware of in real time." You have to delegate to free yourself up to work on the big things such as making habeas corpus go away. Hence it fell to Kyle Sampson to get rid of the federal prosecutors without bothering the boss. Kyle was the right person to do it. He's a Mormon, a Brigham Young University graduate. You can depend on them. Howard Hughes had a bunch of bright guys like Kyle working for him. They made sure the late billionaire had fresh Kleenex boxes for his feet so he could walk around in his Las Vegas penthouse and be OK. Kyle is like that. In effect he was seeing to it that his boss, Alberto, had fresh Kleenex boxes to cover his tootsies. When the media and the Democrats (Is there a difference?) learned about the firings Alberto had no choice. He had to sack his guy. There were tears in his glinty eyes when he did it, but he made sure it was not the kind of firing where the security guards escort you out of the building and take away your parking permit in front of the staff. Kyle Sampson gets to stay in his office with pay until he can find another job. Which shows you that Alberto is not just all about torture. There is another side to him. Like Scooter, Kyle is going to find out that he has friends. They are going to take care of him, too, and it is going to work out. It will work out just fine. http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070313/cm_thenation/45174914_1
Excuse my reply as appropriate. I have ready virtually none of the thread., I saw part of Rimrocker's at the beginning and now McMark's,obviously. I don't have the patience for more reading at this time.. So my thoughts. Don't get too excited about possible criminal cases or even resignations . for any of the big fish. Bush II will obviously, ala Bush I, as necessary to protect his imagined legacy or whatever, pardon the big fish as needed/ The big fish are generally not afraid. So before we hope too much for justice or their denouement sp?, we must take into accout other issues. Embarassment sp? , (though they all seem shameless) the need for a skape goat sp? or two, political calculations, the need to protect Big Fish Numero Uno. IMHO it is impossible to know who is the biggest of the Fish--Cheney? or still possibly Bush II All we can hope for is the best. Of course nuttty (again IMHO) guys like TJ, BASSO etc. might have different opinions of what is the "best" than such obvious liberals as say Mc Mark,who may be actually a left wing extremist.
CBS News is leading off a report that it is inevitable that Gonzales is on the way out. They are not naming their source yet but are saying that many prominent Republicans are telling the White House to get rid of Gonzales. Further CBS news is citing glowing Justice Dept. performance reviews from 2006 praising the fired US Attorneys.
Moving the project forward -- White House Seeking Gonzales Replacements Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff could replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, GOP officials say. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3202.html Chertoff? CHERTOFF? Are these guys out of ideas or what?
No kidding. The Administration seems bereft of competence. Maybe it's a rumor that's designed to make some other goofus look better in comparison. D&D. Argh.
Today in the Senate -- With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. Democrats say the Bush administration abused that authority when it fired the eight prosecutors and proposed replacing some with White House loyalists. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/fired_prosecutors
Gotta love how the WH "compromises" The White House offered to arrange interviews with Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove. "Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony, or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding said in a letter to the chairman of the House and Senate judiciary committees. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070320/fired-prosecutors
Let's be honest. Presidential advisors testify all the time. They don't have the same responsibilities vis a vis Congress as members of the executive departments. But they can and do testify. There's only one reason why you agree to 'talk' to Congress unsworn, in private and without a transcript: because you want to be able to lie or dodge questions in a way that's too embarrassing to do in public. -- Josh Marshall
Oh IT"S ON BABY!!!! Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is not happy. Not happy at all: And from House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI): The House committee will vote to authorize issuing subpoenas tomorrow, and the Senate committee will vote on Thursday. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002826.php
Well well well... Looks like there's an 18 minute...er....day gap in the document dump from the just us department on Monday. From November 15 to Decemter 4th. What could possibly have happened in those 18 days? -------------- In DOJ documents that were publicly posted by the House Judiciary Committee, there is a gap from mid-November to early December in e-mails and other memos, which was a critical period as the White House and Justice Department reviewed, then approved, which U.S. attorneys would be fired while also developing a political and communications strategy for countering any fallout from the firings. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3227.html
This morning's NYTs editorial -- What People Really Need Published: March 21, 2007 In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that “people just need to hear the truth” about the firing of eight United States attorneys. That’s right. Unfortunately, the deal Mr. Bush offered Congress to make White House officials available for “interviews” did not come close to meeting that standard. Mr. Bush’s proposal was a formula for hiding the truth, and for protecting the president and his staff from a legitimate inquiry by Congress. Mr. Bush’s idea of openness involved sending White House officials to Congress to answer questions in private, without taking any oath, making a transcript or allowing any follow-up appearances. The people, in other words, would be kept in the dark. The Democratic leaders were right to reject the offer, despite Mr. Bush’s threat to turn this dispute into a full-blown constitutional confrontation. Congress has the right and the duty to fully investigate the firings, which may have been illegal, and Justice Department officials’ statements to Congress, which may have been untrue. It needs to question Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and other top officials. It is hard to imagine what, besides evading responsibility, the White House had in mind. Why would anyone refuse to take an oath on a matter like this, unless he were not fully committed to telling the truth? And why would Congress accept that idea, especially in an investigation that has already been marked by repeated false and misleading statements from administration officials? The White House notes that making misrepresentations to Congress is illegal, even if no oath is taken. But that seems to be where the lack of a transcript comes in. It would be hard to prove what Mr. Rove and others said if no official record existed. The White House also put an unacceptable condition on the documents it would make available, by excluding e-mail messages within the White House. Mr. Bush’s overall strategy seems clear: to stop Congress from learning what went on within the White House, which may well be where the key decisions to fire the attorneys were made. The White House argued that presidential advisers rarely testify before Congress, but that is simply not true. Many of President Clinton’s high-ranking advisers, including his White House counsels and deputy chief of staff, testified about Whitewater, allegations of campaign finance abuses and other matters. The Bush administration is trying to hide behind the doctrine of “executive privilege.” That term does not appear in the Constitution; the best Mr. Bush could do yesterday was a stammering reference to the separate branches of government. When presidents have tried to invoke this privilege, the courts have been skeptical. President Richard Nixon tried to withhold the Watergate tapes, but a unanimous Supreme Court ruled against him. It is no great surprise that top officials of this administration believe they do not need to testify before Congress. This is an administration that has shown over and over that it does not believe that the laws apply to it, and that it does not respect its co-equal branches of government. Congress should subpoena Mr. Rove and the others, and question them under oath, in public. If Congress has more questions, they should be recalled. That would not be “partisanship,” as Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe. It would be Congress doing its job by holding the president and his team accountable — a rare thing in the last six years. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21wed1.html?_r=2&oref=login&oref=slogin
Excellent! -- House panel votes to allow subpoenas in attorney firings http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/21/us.attorneys.firings/index.html
Bush overplayed his hand yesterday, bad move. The administrations arrogance is amazing. This will be interesting
I don't get this, doesn't presidents have the power to fire attorneys? I am pretty sure the Clinton administration has fired a bunch attorneys as well?
Yes they do, but their ultimate responsiblity is not to be the personal slave of the president but to serve the people of the United States. Firing US attorneys for investigating Republican corruption is not right no matter how you look at it.
Democrats may be setting a dangerous precedent with this "investigation." The President may appoint and remove administrative personnel like U.S. attorneys at his pleasure, regardless of the reason or reasons. This has always been so and should continue. As an aside, I find it highly inappropriate that a jackass like John Conyers is leading the charge when he should be in jail for actions far more serious than firing federal appointees. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two former staff members of U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan, say the longtime Detroit congressman made them baby-sit his children, run errands and work on political campaigns while they were on his congressional payroll. However, this Democratic Party action opens the door for spiteful intrusions on executive prerogatives of future presidents, who may well be Democrats. This further slows the progress on issues that are actually important. IMO, this witchhunt isn't right....I mean correct. I sometimes forget that the word "right" is not acceptable to this board.
I think the problem isn't that they were fired. IT was that the whitehouse said they were fired for poor performance, and then evidence came out later showing that they were fired for political reasons.
So if it's found that attorneys were removed because they refused to bring bogus charges against democrats during an election cycle, or they went after republicans a bit to aggressively in corruption probes you'd have no problem with that? It is the responsibility of congress (loved how Jr kept conflating democrats and congress yesterday during his press conference) to administer oversight of the executive branch. I know it’s not something we’re used too in the last six years or so. But it’s their job.
Appoint he can, it doesn't mean they don't have to answer to the congress or that the President's appointments will be given the green light. That's why there are confirmation proceedings. Just ask Robert Gates, although his seemed more pefunctory than anything. It seems you got the memo and have learned the talking points well. Remember this about the AG, the WH, the DOJ and the US attorneys fired. If you want to take shots at Democratic congressman/Senators why don't you start another thread instead. And the "I know I'm in the minority around here" spiel is really lame. Why can't you be more like basso or TJ. At least they're somewhat amusing....well pathetically amusing. Or is your angle to be the more mature, rational sounding of the bunch? Whatever dude, it's still the same BS no matter how you dress it up.
