Which Gonzalez has explained, and which no one save loony nut-rooters are contending are criminal in any manner.
ADDENDUM: Or let me explain it another way: There is a reason that very liberal Senators like Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, who are all lawyers, are smart enough not to talk about such ridiculous allegations. They don’t want their credibility to be at the same subterranean level as the nut-rooters…
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
This is very funny. Why is this an issue with Bush when it wasn’t an issue when Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno fire 93 US Attorneys, from the previous administration, in 1993?
Because Clinton didn’t single out and fire specific prosectors who weren’t doing his political bidding. That’s the allegation here… [/quote]
No, he fired them ALL because he wanted to get a few of them out.
Seems worse to me.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Yes, much better to wholesale replace the entire lot of US Attorneys to make sure their politics more line up with the President’s…[/quote]
That’s correct. It’s better to NOT specifically target certain prosecutors who didn’t act as an enforcement apparatus for the GOP. That does help avoid the appearance of politicizing the Justice Department. Uh, you ARE against politicizing the Justice Department? Right?
[quote]
…it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do.[/quote]
“apparently he had better things to do”. That’s pretty cheesey. Who wrote that, Michael Savage?
They gave the investigation 10 weeks, they made their findings, and that was that. Apparently that wasn’t good enough though. See, that’s exactly the kind of thing the Justice Department should be avoiding… meddling in cases and trying to steer outcomes from afar, and firing people just because they didn’t reach the conclusions that would have been most politically advantageous.
I shouldn’t have to explain that, that’s just basic common sense. Maybe the Justice Dept should just skip the investigation process altogether, and declare the verdicts they want to see. Man, the GOP could really get some political traction from that around election time, eh? A real time-saver, too.
“The Justice Department said Wednesday that revisions in the USA Patriot Act that gave the administration unprecedented powers to replace ousted U.S. attorneys were designed by a mid-level department lawyer without the knowledge of his superiors or anyone at the White House.”
Oh, I know. Gonzales is certainly doing a heckuva job explaining himself. I know I’m certainly enjoying it.
79 percent of the investigations were against Democrats, 18 percent were against Republicans. It’s statistically impossible that Democrats weren’t specifically targeted and Republicans were not deliberately overlooked. In the era of Jack Abramoff, with dozens of Republicans indicted, this statistic is shocking.
Anybody with common sense will agree that the Justice Deprtment should not be politicized, but it has been politicized under Bush.
Alberto Gonzales is a political hack, who was hired because he’s a Bush crony, and not because he’s qualified to be Attorney General.
I’ll be surprised if Gonzo makes it to the end of the week, let alone April.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
Yes, much better to wholesale replace the entire lot of US Attorneys to make sure their politics more line up with the President’s…
Brad61 wrote:
That’s correct. It’s better to NOT specifically target certain prosecutors who didn’t act as an enforcement apparatus for the GOP. That does help avoid the appearance of politicizing the Justice Department. Uh, you ARE against politicizing the Justice Department? Right?[/quote]
As I said, much more efficient to replace everyone in order to accomplish the same end. When Clinton came in in 1992, he had 12 years worth of Republican appointees to get rid of, after all, so better to politicize it all in one fell swoop.
It certainly wouldn’t appear to anyone that sweeping out all the US attorneys wholesale to get Clinton-friendly people in place would be politicizing the Justice Department, right?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote (quoting the WSJ editorial):
…it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do.
Brad61 wrote:
“apparently he had better things to do”. That’s pretty cheesey. Who wrote that, Michael Savage?[/quote]
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal - couldn’t tell you if it was Gigot or someone else. A nice, understated dig – perfect for an editorial.
BTW, what else was it he had to do?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote (quoting WSJ editorial):
In New Mexico, another state in which recent elections have been decided by razor thin margins, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias did establish a voter fraud task force in 2004. But it lasted all of 10 weeks before closing its doors
Brad61 wrote:
They gave the investigation 10 weeks, they made their findings, and that was that. Apparently that wasn’t good enough though. See, that’s exactly the kind of thing the Justice Department should be avoiding… meddling in cases and trying to steer outcomes from afar, and firing people just because they didn’t reach the conclusions that would have been most politically advantageous.
I shouldn’t have to explain that, that’s just basic common sense. Maybe the Justice Dept should just skip the investigation process altogether, and declare the verdicts they want to see. Man, the GOP could really get some political traction from that around election time, eh? A real time-saver, too.[/quote]
You shouldn’t try to explain things you don’t understand.
And you should check your story:
http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2007/03/gop-attorney-says-iglesias-failed-to.html
Quite interesting, no? At the very least, it looks like there were quite credible complaints about Iglesias.
And, I know I shouldn’t have to explain something so common-sensical, but if the President wants voter-fraud investigations prioritized generally - something that is completely proper - and the attorney does not do so, that’s insubordination - something that would be a firing “for cause” under most executive employment contracts in the private sector. Not a good idea when your place in your position is at the pleasure of your boss.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Firstly, it wasn’t “snuck in,” but was debated at the time.
Brad61 wrote:
“The Justice Department said Wednesday that revisions in the USA Patriot Act that gave the administration unprecedented powers to replace ousted U.S. attorneys were designed by a mid-level department lawyer without the knowledge of his superiors or anyone at the White House.”
Did you even read that? It said that the White House was saying that no one in the White House was pushing for the change. It did not say that the Senators and Congressmen who passed the law did not bother to read it or discuss it…
And if you think Gonzalez’s explanations about his chief of staff are lame (which I do, actually), how much lamer is the claim that something was “snuck into” a bill that was passed by both houses of Congress and then reconciled – how many staffers of how many Democrats read that law prior to its passage?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Which Gonzalez has explained, and which no one save loony nut-rooters are contending are criminal in any manner.
Brad61 wrote:
Oh, I know. Gonzales is certainly doing a heckuva job explaining himself. I know I’m certainly enjoying it.[/quote]
Your enjoyment is certainly amusing me…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BTW, what else was it he had to do?
[/quote]
I dunno, maybe investigate something with more substance?
Did you even read this link?
http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2007/03/gop-attorney-says-iglesias-failed-to.html
In response to complaints about his handling of the 2004 voter fraud case, Iglesias told the Albuquerque Journal he ?wanted to prosecute? but ?most of the complaints were completely without basis. ? We cannot prosecute rumor and innuendo.?
I guess if the White House wants Iglesias to prosecute based on rumor and innuendo, then he’s obligated to do that?
Here’s a nice article:
U.S. attorney’s firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
[i]Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.
Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam’s dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.[/i]
and
[i]Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.
On the same day last year as the Sampson e-mail, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham probe was being expanded to look at the actions of another California Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.[/i]
(Just a crazy coincidence, I’m sure)
It seems odd that some are making a big deal out of Clinton replacing the 93 US attorneys upon assuming office when Bush 43 replaced 91 of 93 upon taking office himself. Replacing political appointees after a change in administrations is the standard.
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
BTW, what else was it he had to do?
I dunno, maybe investigate something with more substance?
Did you even read this link?
http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2007/03/gop-attorney-says-iglesias-failed-to.html
In response to complaints about his handling of the 2004 voter fraud case, Iglesias told the Albuquerque Journal he ?wanted to prosecute? but ?most of the complaints were completely without basis. ? We cannot prosecute rumor and innuendo.?
I guess if the White House wants Iglesias to prosecute based on rumor and innuendo, then he’s obligated to do that?
[/quote]
Of course I read it - and here is the entirety of the section from which you pulled it:
[i]Was Iglesias an ineffective U.S. attorney?
Iglesias alleged recently that he was fired because he refused pressure from Wilson and U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to speed indictments in a public corruption probe ? pressure he said both applied during phone calls they placed a few weeks before the November 2006 election.
Since Iglesias made the allegations, a number of Republicans have publicly said he needed to be fired because he repeatedly botched and didn?t seriously investigate allegations of public corruption and voter fraud.
But the complaints aren’t new, as documents released this week by the Bush Administration show. In fact, Rogers met with Justice Department staffers in Washington in June 2006 to complain about Iglesias.
Republicans handed over to Iglesias what they believed to be credible evidence of more than 100 cases of voter fraud following the 2004 election, but he never issued indictments. That upset many, including Rogers.
In response to complaints about his handling of the 2004 voter fraud case, Iglesias told the Albuquerque Journal he “wanted to prosecute” but “most of the complaints were completely without basis. ? We cannot prosecute rumor and innuendo.”
Iglesias has also been criticized for securing a conviction on only one of 24 felony counts against former state Treasurer Robert Vigil, a Democrat.
The investigation Iglesias alleges Wilson and Domenici sought to speed involves kickbacks related to the construction of government buildings in Bernalillo County. Though former Senate President Manny Aragon, a Democrat, is likely the most visible target of the probe, a bipartisan group of current and former officials have been implicated in the ongoing investigation.
Domenici and Wilson say they did call to inquire about the status of the investigation in response to concerns brought to them about its slow pace, but they say they didn?t pressure Iglesias.
In light of those prior complaints, some will likely view Rogers’ allegation that Iglesias failed to investigate his concerns as further evidence that Iglesias did not adequately investigate a number of corruption allegations involving Republicans and Democrats because he was incompetent or ineffective.[/i]
I’m sure he’d have no problem showing the documentation on the hundreds of complaints he dismissed as “rumors and innuendo” – or explaining why there were NO indictments even if he thought MOST complaints were baseless…
ADDENDUM: Read this piece by former U.S. Attorney Andy McCarthy for a good overview analysis of this entire matter: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGE1NTRmMDUxNzlmYmM5NjU3OGU3NmJjYTYzY2IzNzI=
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
Here’s a nice article:
U.S. attorney’s firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
[i]Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.
Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam’s dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.[/i]
and
[i]Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.
On the same day last year as the Sampson e-mail, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham probe was being expanded to look at the actions of another California Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.[/i]
(Just a crazy coincidence, I’m sure)
Quite probably a coincidence, given the ongoing plans for replacement, which had been discussed and in place, per your prior posts and articles, for quite a while prior to the investigations or any emails.
ADDENDUM: What always tickles me about conspiracy stories such as these is the way proponents ignore the evidence that doesn’t fit their pet theory. See this link, noting that two of the dismissed attorneys were apparently dismissed for not pressing marijuana and obscenity cases as much as the AG (and, one assumes, the White House) wanted them to: Porn, Prosecutors, and Priorities
[quote]etaco wrote:
It seems odd that some are making a big deal out of Clinton replacing the 93 US attorneys upon assuming office when Bush 43 replaced 91 of 93 upon taking office himself. Replacing political appointees after a change in administrations is the standard.[/quote]
Replacing US Attorneys, prior to Clinton, had been accomplished by replacing each individual as his term expired.
So the claim is that Iglesias was fired because he underperformed in prosecuting voter fraud. But Iglesias was twice selected to train other prosecutors in how to prosecute voter fraud cases, in 2005 and 2006.
"Justice Dept. Recognized Prosecutor’s Work on Election Fraud Before His Firing
One of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes.
Looks like the Justice Department will have to cook up another alibi…
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
So the claim is that Iglesias was fired because he underperformed in prosecuting voter fraud. But Iglesias was twice selected to train other prosecutors in how to prosecute voter fraud cases, in 2005 and 2006.
"Justice Dept. Recognized Prosecutor’s Work on Election Fraud Before His Firing
One of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes.
Looks like the Justice Department will have to cook up another alibi…[/quote]
You still type before you think. Your story is not mutually exclusive with the claim that he was not using said expertise as directed: in other words, he could be the world’s leading expert, but if he was not using focusing his investigations/efforts generally toward important priorities as directed by the President, then was not doing his job.
ADDENDUM: Think about this from a worst-case scenario from what can be proved by what is known thus far. This story doesn’t really add anything.
You had complaints to the White House from local activists and Senators and congressmen complaining about lack of action, in terms of even bringing charges, based on “hundreds” of cases, the evidence for which, whatever it was worth, was turned over to the U.S. Attorney.
This story adds that the NM U.S. attorney was asked to give a seminar in 2005 on voter-fraud cases because he was one of two U.S. attorneys who had experience forming a task force on voter-fraud cases.
[quote]etaco wrote:
It seems odd that some are making a big deal out of Clinton replacing the 93 US attorneys upon assuming office when Bush 43 replaced 91 of 93 upon taking office himself. Replacing political appointees after a change in administrations is the standard.[/quote]
Exactly right. Then explain why the main stream Media is all over Bush and didn’t say a damn then when Clinton did it?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
he could be the world’s leading expert, but if he was not using focusing his investigations/efforts generally toward important priorities as directed by the President, then was not doing his job. [/quote]
Riiiiiggghhhhtttt…
So a year after being the GOP’s go-to guy on prosecuting voter fraud, he’s fired… just months after getting another glowing review. That makes a lot of sense.
/sarcasm
And what about the Washington state US Attorney who was also fired?
But after spending millions of dollars, months on investigations and two weeks in trial, the net result for the Republicans today was that Rossi (R) lost four votes from his total, pushing Gregoire’s (D) margin to 133.
Investigations and trials were carried out. But there was no “there” there.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Then explain why the main stream Media is all over Bush and didn’t say a damn then when Clinton did it?[/quote]
Read this, if you sincerely want to know how this purge is different than what Clinton did:
“It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.”
I’m sure that Rove, Gonzales, Miers and Samson will agree to cooperate, and voluntarily appear before the Senate committee to testify under oath, right? No subpeonas required? Like the Wingnutters say, "If you didn’t do anything wrong, then you won’t mind testifying under oath".
(Well actually, they say that about the illegal domestic spying on US citizens, but the sentiment is similar, eh?)
Dude, you are like the community rabble rousers in Bonfire of the Vanities: He was an “honor student” of course…
The article pointed out two facts: 1) He was one of two U.S. Attorneys who had experience creating a panel; and 2) He had created one panel.
Thus he is now the go-to expert on the ground whose decisions are unquestionable. Yeah. /sarcasm
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
And what about the Washington state US Attorney who was also fired?
But after spending millions of dollars, months on investigations and two weeks in trial, the net result for the Republicans today was that Rossi (R) lost four votes from his total, pushing Gregoire’s (D) margin to 133.
Investigations and trials were carried out. But there was no “there” there.
[/quote]
Just out of curiosity, where did you pull your quote, and does it show that the U.S. Attorney investigated anything at all?
Looks like the quote came from this story on that imbroglio:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/227307_judgerules06ww.html
Doesn’t look as if the U.S. Attorney did anything at all regarding investigating – a fact that likely hampered the lawsuit brought by the state GOP quite measurably, given the judge’s citation of lack of hard evidence. And if there was an investigation that showed no hard evidence, perhaps millions of dollars could have been saved, no?
And note these quotes from the judge:
[i]“This court is not in a position to fix the deficiencies in the elections process that we heard about in the courtroom,” he said.
And later, he said the chief principle governing elections court cases is judicial restraint: “Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken, their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts.”[/i]
Again, perhaps with use of the power of the state in investigations and subpoenas they could have found hard evidence – or determined that the lack thereof meant no lawsuit should be filed. But they couldn’t because the U.S. Attorney didn’t investigate.
Some more stuff you forgot to quote, showing the standard of evidence and directly showing how an investigation could have been decisive in either providing evidence or showing the lack thereof:
[i]The GOP legal strategy was two-fold: persuade Bridges the blunders were so egregious that he should apply a standard allowed in fraudulent elections, in which the results can be thrown out simply on the grounds that the number of clouded votes casts doubt on the outcome; or convince him to subtract illegal votes from the candidates’ totals in proportion to the overall percentage of the vote each candidate received in the affected precinct, even without direct evidence for whom the illegal votes were cast.
In the end, Bridges did neither.
His rejection of “the mess is bigger than the margin” argument was consistent with his pretrial rulings, in which he cited laws and legal precedents. Those guidelines required Rossi to show that Gregoire owed her victory to illegal votes. They also call for the litigants to identify specific illegal votes and by whom they were cast. And they say that if there’s no sign of corruption by elections workers in handling an illegal vote that can’t be assigned to one candidate or the other, that vote must be treated as valid.
The laws left him no choice, Bridges said.
“This election may not be set aside because the number of illegal or invalid votes exceeded the margin of victory,” he said in his ruling.[/i]
[quote]
Lorisco wrote:
Then explain why the main stream Media is all over Bush and didn’t say a damn then when Clinton did it?
Brad61 wrote:
Read this, if you sincerely want to know how this purge is different than what Clinton did:
“It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.”
I’m sure that Rove, Gonzales, Miers and Samson will agree to cooperate, and voluntarily appear before the Senate committee to testify under oath, right? No subpeonas required? Like the Wingnutters say, "If you didn’t do anything wrong, then you won’t mind testifying under oath".
(Well actually, they say that about the illegal domestic spying on US citizens, but the sentiment is similar, eh?)[/quote]
EDITED to remove incorrect story reference and snide NYT comment.
Secondly, the speculation is interesting, but let me sum up each piece of speculation: If we were to take an egregiously broad meaning of the cited laws, and then infer the worst possible intent and assume some unknown facts, there may be problems.
This post (by Michael Kinsley, well known Bush supporter (actually, well known liberal journalist)) makes some good points, and provides a useful summary, though I don’t concede the lying accusations:
[i]We’ll see what this next round of documents reveals, but the ball-moving development of today in the US Attorneys story is Adam Cohen’s piece on the Times Editorial Page ( Opinion | It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law. - The New York Times ). It plugs a big hole in the argument that this is a big deal story and not just, in the words of our Attorney General, “an overblown personnel matter.” Unfortunately, I’m not sure that I buy it.
The argument so far goes something like this:
The trouble with this scandal, as a scandal, has been that?if you’re going to be honest (and why not?)?there is not only nothing illegal about the president firing a US attorney. There is nothing even really wrong with it. Even if it’s just to make room for a crony of Karl Rove. And I’m sorry, but I just can?t see how firing eight can be heinous but firing 93 is perfectly OK. Nor can I see?if the issue is neutral justice?how firing someone from your own party is worse than firing someone from the other party. Much of the commentary on this story has seemed disingenuous about this: breathless revelations that the White House was involved in the decision, that it may have been (gasp!) political, and so on.
An editorial in the Washington Post last Thursday ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/14/AR2007031402194.html ), for example, avoids disingenuousness?but only at the price of utter confusion. It dismisses the Clinton administration precedent as “a red herring, not a useful comparison,” but fails to explain why. The editorial scrupulously points out that one of the US attorneys fired by Clinton was weeks away from indicting a powerful Democratic congressman?a closer connection to a more important investigation than anything now at stake. The Post concedes that Clinton’s mass firing was “unprecedented,” and “unprecedented” is the toughest adjective the Post can bring itself to apply to the recent Bush firings, too. Then it says, “But unprecedented doesn?t equal wrong.” It acknowledges that a “president?is entitled to have…prosecutors committed to his law enforcement priorities,” and is honest enough to include concerns over issues like immigration and obscenity cases as falling in this permissible-motive category. Then it runs out of steam, notes accurately that the Bushies have been lying up a storm, says this is another reason that the Clinton episode is a bad comparison, and stops.
Cohen cuts through all this, and offers several grounds for at least suspecting that the firings were part of an illegal obstruction of justice. Read it for yourself and see if you buy it. And try to be honest: would you buy the argument if it was being applied against a Democratic president? I?m afraid I wouldn?t, absent more evidence than I believe is there.
I?ve never met Adam Cohen, formerly (alas) of Time, but I read everything he writes. He is a terrific original thinker. But he has one blind spot: he loves the law, and tends to believe that anything he doesn’t like must be illegal. When he was in law school, he wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review arguing that the Civil Rights Act should be interpreted to forbid discrimination on the basis of physical beauty. “Facial discrimination,” he called it. That one didn’t fly either.
So what’s my bottom line here? What about that belatedly controversial little provision snuck into the Patriot Act? Why do I think the Bushies have been lying so vigorously if they aren’t trying to hide something? Maybe you don?t care what I think, which is fine. If you do, check back this evening. My masters and mistresses at Time told me to spread these things out.[/i]
Oh shit. Looks like we’re in for the Three Little Words That Republican Politicians Hate To Hear:
Testify
Under
Oath.
Oh shit!!! (Remember when Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath, in front of the 9-11 Commission? Yeah, me too!)
Okay so Bush is claiming that “executive privelege” means that nobody has to testify under oath.
But today, White House spokesman Tony Snow said that the scandal never reached the upper levels of the White House. So it looks unlikely that executive privelege can be invoked. Either that, or the White House needs to do a better job agreeing on an alibi. Come on guys, get your story straight.
And over the weekend, the White House turned over internal correspondance leading up to the firings, but there’s a big gap… Three weeks of documents are missing… the exact three weeks that precede the firing. Oh shit! Shades of Richard Nixon and the erased tapes. Haven’t these idiots ever heard the phrase “the cover-up is worse than the crime”?
This is getting interesting!