I’ve been reading a lot on the 8 US Attorneys being fired, and the mess that Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush have landed in. I know that there are several GD going on, but I wanted to post a very specific question.
Say that Gonzales, Meier, and Rove did plot to remove these 8 people from office, for political gain. What crime did they commit?
Bush has the right to remove them at his whim, even though prior presidents didn’t do it that way.
What law was broken?
Eli
The Tenure of Office Act 
I’m not at all sure that a law was violated. The investigation is more the motive for the firings, particularly the charges that some attorneys were fired for prosecuting too many Republicans or not enough Democrats.
If it were to be found that this is true then Bush/Miers/Gonzales may be in trouble on an ethics violation for using the Judiciary for personal vendetta, though I’m still not sure that’s illegal. It’s a very complicated issue for those of us (like me) who have no background in Federal law.
Har har har.
Seriously, though, I don’t think anyone’s been accused of a crime, just severe impropriety.
There must be a dozen threads elsewhere on this, but from what I understand no law was broken by firing the attorneys.
OTOH, no one has made the claim that any laws were broken by that action.
It is possible that laws were broken after the fact, in the form of untruthful statements under oath but even that is not yet a major issue.
The issue is solely one of politics.
Because of that, any further discussion of this topic belongs in another forum.
Also, Bush’s ridiculous “no oath, no transcript, no cameras” proposal was basically the same as screaming FIRE! COME QUICK! FIRE! that made Congress all the more positive he has something to hide. Had he not done that I seriously doubt a scandal this complex and with no dead bodies would be front page news for more than a week but now it’s going to be there until Anna Nicole’s autopsy is released.
IANAL, but if it could be shown at an attorney was fired to halt an investigation, wouldn’t that be a crime? Nothing like that has been shown, and the strongest evidence is the calls to Iglesias which were about speeding up a prosecution.
The NYT had a recent op-ed concerning which laws may have been broken in the U.S. Attorney firings.
Actually, they did. Both Reagan and Clinton fired all 93 attorneys when they took office. The difference is, they did it at the beginning of the presidency, not many years later. The objection to the Bush firing is that they were fired for supposedly pursuing prosecutions of Republicans.
Reagan and Clinton fired prosecutors also, but it was a totally different situation, and comparing them is just disingenuous.
I’m not comparing anything, just responding to another poster’s possibly erroneous assumption.
I asked a similar question a week or so ago. There have been allegations that the Bush Administration is trying to twart investigations, but frankly I’m still waiting for anyone to make a convincing case that any crime was committed.
The link to the NYT has a good list of crimes that may have been committed. Doesn’t that address the OP?
Those are basically just a theoretical exercise. To date, I don’t think anyone has made any serious allegations of criminal activity. (And remember, they’d have to prove any such claims.) It seems like, to date, they’re only alleging unethical behavior on Gonzales’ part.
No. First, as Diceman wrote, those answers are simply examples of what lawyers can pull out of their ass, er, heads if they want to make a case. Nobody in the real world would charge high-profile white house officials on those tenuous claims.
Second, the OP asked about what the crimes were in firing the attorneys. The op-ed writer’s number two and three are about actions taken by congressional personnel, so they have nothing to do with the White House or the firing. His one concerns false statements made after the fact, but has nothing to do with the firing.
Only his fourth example is pertinent, and nobody has yet made any claim that it fits the facts of the case. It is a mere hypothetical.
As the facts stand today, no crimes were committed in the firing of the attorneys. We may discover facts not yet public that would constitute a crime but until then that op-ed piece would have been better published in GD, where it could have been picked apart properly.
Which is why they’re investigating by attempting to question certain key parties and not prosecuting anyone yet.
The answer to the OP is we don’t know. The NYT link provides some possibilties.
Is it illegal to take your boat deep sea fishing all by yourself? No. But if done the day after your spouse turns up missing , it certainly might raise some suspicions.
The firings and related emails appear to be smoke and Congress is looking for a fire.
they’re investigating suspicious circumstances
While my following quote doesn’t fit the bill as far as “high-profile white house officials” goes, I think it shows that there is precedent for what Adam Cohen wrote in that op-ed piece.
Well, sure, lying to Congress is a crime.
But the only example that op-ed could give was this:
When I said, “Nobody in the real world would charge high-profile white house officials on those tenuous claims.” I meant every word. If that’s all they have on Gonzales, then any action would turn Congress into a national laughingstock.
As I keep saying, if they come up with facts not yet public, then anything could happen. But there’s nothing in that op-ed that says that.
It’s a mistake to get hung up on whether or not a crime was committed, unless we as a nation are lowering our standards to the point that government officials can do anything they want so long as it’s not technically illegal.
Even assuming the worst interpretation of the facts, I doubt any crime was committed. But I do think the whole thing was unethical and that the administration has lied about what happened.
If that is what happened, then Gonzales and Rove should have the decency to step down, or Bush should have the integrity to fire them. I’m not holding my breath.