Rove Had Say in Firing Attorneys

Can the WH site Executive Privilege even to the RNC?

 

Who does this sound like?

 

I would think maybe they could be subpoened. If they were using WH resources to access those email accounts, maybe they could? I'm sure there are a lot of accidently broken blackberrys and hard drives right now. Thats definitely got to be skirting the rules on numerous policies/laws.

Less and less integrity by the day. absolutely amazing

 

I have a question that's not motivated by any desire to stick up for Bush because even though getting rid of US Attorney's is his option, doing it for this reason is weak.

Back in the 90's Clinton dismissed 90+ US Attorneys and I didn't hear much of it (although I probably wasn't paying as close attention as I should have). Was as big of a deal made of it back then? If not, is it because of the issues surrounding the firings?

Again, I don't remember so this isn't me saying "Hypocrites!" because I honestly don't know the answer.

 

halfbreed, it's been mentioned here several times that asking for the resignations at the start of a term as President is standard operating procedure. Firing them in the middle of a term is almost unheard of. Firing them for political reasons, because they were in the middle of an investigation that you didn't want to occur, which happened here in the middle of a term, is unethical or worse, as well as being unheard of.



D&D. Weirdness.

 

Gotcha. I didn't read through the entire thread, obviously and figured this was the quickest way to get the answer. I figured this was the case, though. Like I said I just didn't hear about it at that point so I wasn't sure on the logistics of it. Thanks.

 

Groovy!



D&D. Downtown.

 

Things continue to look worse for Bush and Gonzales...


A President All Alone

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, March 26, 2007; A15



Two weeks earlier on Capitol Hill, there was a groundswell of Republican demands -- public and private -- that President Bush pardon Scooter Libby. Last week, as Alberto Gonzales came under withering Democratic fire, there were no public GOP declarations of support amid private predictions of the attorney general's demise.

Republican leaders in Congress, who asked not to be quoted by name, predicted early last week that Gonzales would fall because the Justice Department botched the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. By week's end, they stipulated that the president would not sack his longtime aide and that Gonzales would leave only on his own initiative. But there was still an ominous lack of congressional support for the attorney general.

"Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here," a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.

Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them. That alone is sufficient reason to withhold statements of support for Gonzales, because such a gesture could be quickly followed by his resignation under pressure. Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), the highly regarded young chairman of the House Republican Conference, praised Donald Rumsfeld in November only to see him sacked shortly thereafter.

But not many Republican lawmakers would speak up for Gonzales even if they were sure Bush would stick with him. He is the least popular Cabinet member on Capitol Hill, even more disliked than Rumsfeld was. The word most often used by Republicans to describe the management of the Justice Department under Gonzales is "incompetent."

Attorneys general in recent decades have ranged from skilled political operatives close to the president (most notably Bobby Kennedy under John F. Kennedy) to nonpolitical lawyers detached from the president (such as Ed Levi under Gerald Ford). Gonzales is surely close to Bush, but nobody would accuse him of being skilled at politics. He puzzled and alarmed conservatives with a January speech in which he claimed that he would take over from the White House the selection of future federal judicial nominees.

The saving grace that some Republicans find in the dispute over U.S. attorneys is that, at least temporarily, it draws attention away from debate over an unpopular war. But the overriding feeling in the Republican cloakroom is that the Justice Department and the White House could not have been more inept in dealing with the president's unquestioned right to appoint -- and replace -- federal prosecutors.

The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally. Several of them I talked to cited a trifecta of incompetence: the Walter Reed hospital scandal, the FBI's misuse of the USA Patriot Act and the U.S. attorneys firing fiasco. "We always have claimed that we were the party of better management," one House leader told me. "How can we claim that anymore?"

The reconstruction of the Bush administration after the president's reelection in 2004, though a year late, clearly improved his team. Yet the addition of extraordinary public servants Josh Bolten, Tony Snow and Rob Portman has not changed the image of incompetence.

A few Republicans blame incessant attacks from the new Democratic majority in Congress for that image. Many more say today's problems in the administration derive from the continuing impact of yesterday's mistakes. The answer that is not entertained by the president's most severe GOP critics, even when not speaking for quotation, is that this is just the governing style of George W. Bush and will not change while he is in the Oval Office.

Regarding Libby and Gonzales, unofficial word from the White House is not reassuring. One credible source says the president will never -- not even on the way out of office in January 2009 -- pardon Libby. Another equally good source says the president will never ask Gonzales to resign. That exactly reverses the prevailing Republican opinion in Congress. Bush is alone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032500912.html



This is a column by one of Bush's most ardent supporters. When it comes to Novak proclaiming incompetence, doom, and despair that anything will change for the better, things have really become grim.



D&D. Grim Reaper.

 

Josh has some thoughts about pleading the 5th. --

A couple TPM Readers chime in on DOJ White House liaison Monica Goodling's plan to plead the 5th before the Senate Judiciary Committee ...

First, TPM Reader TB ...

TPM Reader EJ makes the same point ...

I'm obviously not a lawyer. But I think these good folks may be on to something. (TPM Reader TB identifies himself as a lawyer.) Certainly there's no 5th amendment privilege against testifying before meanies. So the alleged partisanship of the committee doesn't fly. And in any case, the committee doesn't prosecute you for perjury. Unless I'm completely forgetting how this works, all they can do is make a referral to the Justice Department. (Maybe they can hand it to Gonzales next time he comes to testify.) And the most sensible defense against a perjury trap, I would have thought, would be to tell the truth. After all, to the best of my knowledge Goodling hasn't testified on this subject before -- so it's not like they can trap her into contradicting previous sworn testimony.

In any case, if you look at the letter Goodling's attorney sent the committee, the essence of his argument is that the committee has relinquished its legitimacy as an investigative forum and that she has thus unilaterally decided that she will refuse to testify. (As part of the argument for not testifying, Goodling's lawyer notes that "it is not uncommon for witnesses who give testimony before the Congress to face criminal investigations and even indictments for perjury, false statements, or obstruction of congressional proceedings.") It amounts to a sort of witness's nullification.

Interestingly, or perhaps revealingly, at the end of the letter, John Dowd, Goodling's attorney asserts that "we have advised Ms. Goodling (and she has decided) to invoke her Constitutional right not to answer any questions."

This is more than a semantic point. The constitution says nothing about a right not to answer questions. The actual words are that no one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" -- or in the more modern parlance, your right against self-incrimination. This is why you lose your 'right not to answer questions' as soon as you're granted immunity.

So again, look at what the Goodling letter claims. The argument throughout almost all of it is that the committee is too hostile to her for her to answer its questions. On this point, let me put this out to the lawyers in our audience, of whom there are quite a few. Take a look at the Goodling letter and let us know whether you think this holds up as grounds for asserting a 5th Amendment privilege against not testifying.

Now, one more point. Above I said 'almost' the whole argument. On page two of the letter, Goodling's lawyer asserts as the fourth reason for her refusal to testify that "it has come to our attention that a senior Department of Justice official has privately told Senator Schumer that he (the official) was not entirely candid in his report to the Committee, and that the official allegedly claimed that others, including our client, did not inform him of certain pertinent facts."

His name isn't stated. But this appears to be a reference to Deputy Attorney General McNulty, the subject of this post from earlier this evening. Here we finally appear to have a bad act that Goodling believes or at least claims may expose her to criminal prosecution -- lying to Congress by proxy by intentionally misinforming an official about to testify before Congress.

Just watching this from the outside, it looks as though that is the bad act she's afraid to testify about or -- and somehow I find this more believeable -- she's afraid of indictment for perjury because she has to go up to Congress and testify under oath before the White House has decided what its story is. And yeah, I'd feel like I was in jeopardy then too.

-- Josh Marshall

 

Thanks MC,

I read that she was going to take the 5th because she might say the wrong thing and just hit the ceiling. Congress seriously need to pursue this to send a clear message: we understand the limits of the self incrimination privilege and we will not let you get away with invoking when you just don't feel like talking to Congress.

 

As a side note (because I didn't want to start a thread).

My thoughts go out to Tony Snow who's cancer has metastized to his liver.

Dam! Now that's a nonpartisan issue for everyone.

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54861

Embattled AG now accused in teen sex scandal 'cover-up'
Attorney General Gonzales among officials who allegedly ignored abuse of minor boys
Posted: March 25, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's teenage boy inmates.

Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.

Ray Brookins, one of the officials named in the report, was a Texas prison guard before being hired at the youth commission school. As a prison guard, Brookins had a history of disciplinary and petty criminal records dating back 21 years. He retained his job despite charges of using p*rnography on the job, including viewing nude photos of men and women on state computers.

The Texas Youth Comission controversy traces back to a criminal investigation conducted in 2005 by Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski. The investigation revealed key employees at the West Texas State School in Pyote, Texas, were systematically abusing youth inmates in their custody.

Burzynski presented his findings to the attorney general in Texas, to the U.S. Attorney Sutton, and to the Department of Justice civil rights division. From all three, Burzynski received no interest in prosecuting the alleged sexual offenses.

"This case demonstrates that a partisan political agenda, with Karl Rove in an orchestrating role, has penetrated the Justice Department and subverted fair-minded administration of the law," Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, told WND.

It's just the latest controversy for Sutton, Gonzales and the Bush administration's direction of the Justice Department. Earlier, Sutton's decisions to prosecute two Border Patrol agents and Deputy Sheriff Gil Hernandez were criticized as having been influenced by the intervention of the Mexican government.

Gonzales is under heavy congressional pressure in the controversy over the recent forced resignations of eight U.S. attorneys. At issue is whether the Bush administration is directing the Justice Department to pursue politically motivated prosecutions at the expense of fair or even-handed law enforcement.

In the Texas Youth Commission scandal, Texas Ranger official Burzynski received a July 28, 2005, letter from Bill Baumann, assistant U.S. attorney in Sutton's office, declining prosecution on the argument that under 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the government would have to demonstrate that the boys subjected to sexual abuse sustained "bodily injury." Baumann wrote that, "As you know, our interviews of the victims revealed that none sustained 'bodily injury.'"

Baumann's letter continued, adding a definition of the phrase "bodily injury," as follows: "Federal courts have interpreted this phrase to include physical pain. None of the victims have claimed to have felt physical pain during the course of the sexual assaults which they described."

Baumann's letter further suggested that insufficient evidence existed to prove the offenders in the Texas Youth Commission case had used force in their alleged acts of pedophilia: "A felony charge under 18 U.S.C. Section 242 can also be predicated on the commission of 'aggravated sexual abuse' or the attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse. The offense of aggravated sexual abuse is proven with evidence that the perpetrator knowingly caused his victim to engage in a sexual act (which can include contact between the mouth and penis) by using force against the victim or by threatening or placing the victim in fear that the victim (or any other person) will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury or kidnapping. I do not believe that sufficient evidence exists to support a charge that either Brookins or Hernandez used force to cause victims to engage in a sexual act."

Baumann's letter went so far as to suggest that the victims may have willingly participated in, or even enjoyed, the acts of pedophilia involved: "As you know, consent is frequently an issue in sexual assault cases. Although none of the victims admit that they consented to the sexual contact, none resisted or voiced any objection to the conduct. Several of the victims suggested that they were simply 'getting off' on the school administrator."

Baumann's letter also rejected Burzynski's charges that the administrators at the Texas Youth Commission facility in West Texas had used their position of authority to force the inmates to participate in the sexual acts or that the administrators had lengthened the sentences of the boys to retain willing participants or punish those reluctant to participate.

Baumann wrote: "In order for the government to be successful in a criminal prosecution, it would be essential for us to show that the victim was in fact victimized. Most of the victims were aware of the power that the school principal and assistant superintendent held over them, but none were able to describe retaliative acts committed by either the principal or assistant superintendent. Although it is apparent that many students were retained at West Texas State School long after their initial release date, it would be difficult to prove that either Mr. Brookins or Mr. Hernandez prevented their release."

On Sept. 27, 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division declined prosecution in a letter written to Lemuel Harrison, the Texas Youth Commission superintendent at the West Texas State School.

In that letter, Justice Department section chief Albert Moskowitz wrote that "evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes."

Angle maintains the decision not to prosecute was purely political.

"The U.S. attorney's office in Texas actually prepared indictments in this case," Angle told WND. "But when the word came from Washington, that's when Baumann wrote his letter declining prosecution. Sutton's office dropped the matter on the desk of the local district attorney, but nobody from Sutton's office said 'if you can’t go on this case, we'll help you out.'"

WND asked Angle to explain how politics drove the decisions not to prosecute.

"If you read the letters from Sutton's office or from DOJ, it's really amazing what abuse they describe and then downplay as not being serious," Angle explained. "They describe systematic and widespread abuse of juveniles who were held in these facilities by the people who were administering these facilities, and they acknowledge this fully, yet they determine that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant federal prosecution."

Angle explained to WND that he found both letters shocking.

"The letters justify not pursuing these cases because, number one, there is no evidence that any of these juveniles felt physical pain while they were being assaulted, and the letters use the word 'assaulted,'" he said. "And then also, they rejected prosecution because none of these juveniles stated in the investigations that they resisted and objected, which of course the facts of the report show to be the case. This case developed right in the middle of Governor Perry's 2006 re-election campaign. While Texas is a Republican state, and the Republicans expected to win, still at that time, Governor Perry was facing an election challenge from Carole Strayhorn, a third party candidate who was also a former Republican comptroller in Texas."

He continued: "I would speculate that the political powers in Texas and Washington in the Republican Party were not interested in this sex scandal coming to light. Sutton and Gonzales let their political responsibilities outstrip their legal responsibilities, and as a result you had children who were in danger of sexual abuse and were left in that danger."

Angle says that while the U.S. Justice Department and Texas attorney general's office were not prosecuting in this case, they were actively pursuing minor voter fraud issues with only a handful of allegations to go on.

On March 2, 2007, Governor Rick Perry appointed Jay Kimbrough, his former staff chief and homeland security director, to serve as "special master" to lead an investigation into the Texas Youth Commission sex abuse scandal. Shortly thereafter, the commission stopped a hiring practice that had allowed convicted felons to work as administrators in the system. The practice had involved a requirement that prior criminal records be destroyed for employees hired by the commission.

On March 17, 2007, the entire Texas Youth Commission governing board resigned.

The Texas Youth Commission is the state's juvenile corrections agency, charged "with the care, custody, rehabilitation, and reestablishment in society of Texas' most chronically delinquent or serious juvenile offenders." Inmates are felony-level offenders between the age of 10 and 17 when they are committed. The commission can maintain jurisdiction over offenders until their 21st birthdays.

The Lone Star Project is organized as a political research and policy analysis project of the Lone Star Fund, a federal political action committee organized in Texas. The Lone Star Project has aggressively investigated alleged political abuses within the Texas Republican Party, including playing a leading role in investigating the activities of former Rep. Tom DeLay in the redistricting controversy in Texas.

Bill Baumann was the lead prosecutor in another controversial case. In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez is imprisoned for a year for an altercation with illegal aliens. Baumann urged he get the maximum seven-year sentence.

 

Its funny that you mention this, I wanted to start a thread a few weeks back about a column I read that linked GWB's governing style and philosophy to the current situation at the tyc. Increasing the tyc was apparently part of bush's campaign platform when running for gov. in texas.

now the problems of the tyc can be linked directly to the expansion which in no way provided quality personnel equipped to handle the problems of troubled youths. gwb's philosophy was to lock them all up and now look what it has caused.

gwb's legacy gets worse by the day.

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54882

Teen sex scandal ignored by AG, others for 2 years
Probe widened, involving hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse in system
Posted: March 27, 2007

The Texas juvenile justice sexual abuse scandal – in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton are accused of failing to take action – is a broader scandal that was covered up for two years, involving hundreds of serious complaints and investigations against dozens of staff members, according to officials.

The Texas Youth Commission scandal went unnoticed, says Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski, despite his numerous attempts, beginning in early 2005, to get local, state and federal prosecutors to investigate allegations teachers, administrators and guards had sex with minor male inmates.

Burzynski exposed the situation March 8 in testimony to the Texas legislature's Joint Committee on Operation and Management of the TYC. He stated he began his investigation Feb. 23, 2005, after a phone call from a teacher at the West Texas state school in Pyote, Texas, alleging another teacher at the school was involved in sexual misconduct with boy inmates.

In his testimony, Burzynski detailed being rebuffed by federal, state and local prosecutors for two years.

Burzynski presented a timeline asserting his investigation was, in turn, stonewalled by Ward County District Attorney Randall Reynolds, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

All refused to prosecute, he claimed, despite being presented evidence of sexual abuse at the Pyote school.

Sutton also is under fire for decisions to prosecute two Border Patrol agents and Deputy Sheriff Gil Hernandez after the alleged intervention of the Mexican government. Gonzales faces heavy congressional pressure in the controversy over the recent forced resignations of eight U.S. attorneys.

Burzynski testified that the first serious discussion of prosecution in the case occurred Feb. 13 in a meeting with Reynolds in the Ward County District Attorney's Office, only after the story of his investigation finally broke in Texas newspapers.

Emerging evidence suggests the scandal was systematic and statewide, perpetrated by a criminal conspiracy of staff employees.

Texas authorities are investigating allegations that pedophiles on the TYC staff conspired to recruit and hire other pedophiles to engage in criminal acts of forced sex with the minor inmates.

Among the charges in a Texas Ranger report was that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.

On March 2, Gov. Rick Perry appointed Jay Kimbrough, his former staff chief and homeland security director, to serve as "special master" to head the TYC investigation. On March 17, the entire TYC governing board resigned.

Ted Royer, spokesman for Perry, told WND Kimbrough's investigation has found "hundreds of new complaints about abuse and neglect and abuse at facilities across the state."

"There is a culture at TYC that has all too often turned a blind eye to sexual abuse and instead of addressing the issue, people have attempted to cover-up the scandal," Royer said.

TYC spokesman Jim Hurley told WND more than 1,200 complaints are now being investigated.

"The staff under investigation includes the whole range of TYC staff, from the top to the bottom," said Hurley, who was asked by Perry's office to take on the spokesman's job as a special assignment.

Three actual arrests have been made, and more are pending, according to Hurley, whose permanent job is communications director for the Texas Department of Insurance.

"There was a failure of leadership in the Texas Youth Commission," Hurley explained. "The board failed and the executive director failed."

The resigned board transferred its power to a new acting executive director, Ed Owens, former deputy director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Hurley said.

Along with the board and the executive director, the TYC also has dismissed its general counsel, the deputy general counsel, the deputy executive director and the inspector general.

Hurley confirmed TYC management and staff personnel were hired despite prior records of felony offenses or previous sexual misconduct.

"Apparently having a prior felony record did not preclude you becoming a TYC employee," Hurley admitted. "A lot of the vetting of prospective employees were simply reviewed at the local unit level."

WND asked Hurley if the evidence suggested a group of criminal pedophiles sexually abusing minor boys were hiring counterparts just like themselves.

"It is conceivable that you could have a situation like that," Hurley responded. "In the past week we have conducted criminal background reports on all TYC employees. We are also looking at the records of every extension of term that has been issued for every inmate to see if the people running TYC were extending sentences of these inmates."

Hurley told WND Kimbrough was determined to expose the full extent of the corruption at TYC.

The TYC has opened up the results of the investigation to the ACLU, NAACP, (League of United Latin American Citizens, Texas District and County Attorneys Association and the Special Prosecution Unit at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

At the conclusion of his testimony to the Texas legislature joint committee, Burzynski spoke personally, saying he wanted to "shed some light on the real reason why I am here."

"When I interviewed the victims in this case, I saw kids with fear in their eyes, kids who knew they were trapped in an institution where the system would not respond to their cries for help," he said.

He emphasized the personal commitment he felt to the victims in the case.

"Perhaps their family failed them, society failed them, TYC definitely failed them," he said. "But I promised each one of those victims that I would try to do everything in my power as a Texas Ranger to insure that justice would be served and that this didn't happen again. The Rangers would not fail them, and I made that perfectly clear to each one of them."

Burzynski said he "can only imagine what the students think about the Ranger who was unable to bring them justice. I feel like I played a very small part in chipping away at an iceberg."

At the conclusion, he received a standing ovation from the joint committee and audience in the room.

The Texas Rangers told WND Burzynski was not available to be interviewed and referred inquiries to the governor's office.

 

^^^

This is the problem Gonzales is going to have if he remains AG.

Every investigation his office does or does not pursue until ha leaves office will have a cloud over it in regards to whether or not it is politically motivated.

 

He's lost all credibility. Whether I like Bush or not, and I certainly don't like the man, Gonzales isn't doing him any favors staying in office. He should be a man and resign, whether Bush wants him to stay, or not. It would be best for Bush, IMO.



D&D. 1980... A Ray Gun behind every Bush.

 

see? --


Dems Allege Interference in Phone-Jamming Case

Questions about political pressure in the Justice Department are spilling over into the New Hampshire phone-jamming case.

Five years ago, New Hampshire Republicans jammed the phones of Democratic offices on Election Day, disrupting the Democrats' get-out-the-vote efforts and blocking phone calls from voters seeking rides to the polls. More than two years later, the New England coordinator for the Republican National Committee — who green-lighted the scheme — was charged with a felony and convicted.

But last week, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction.

Democrats allege that Justice Department officials in Washington interfered in the case, and they want Congress to investigate

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9145439

 

No where to run to baby! No where to hide!

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dashed out of a Chicago news conference this afternoon in just two and a half minutes, ducking questions about how his office gave U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald a subpar rating.

Gonzales, who increasingly faces calls for his resignation, was here to promote a new ad campaign and had planned a 15-minute press availability. He left after taking just three questions over a firing scandal consuming his administration.

Before leaving, Gonzales said he wanted to "reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/314856,gonzales032707b.article

 

To me the question now is, Why has he not resigned? Seems very strange and beyond him and GW just being stubborn and fighting.