That CRAAAAAAAAZY conspiracy theory: the mass firings of US Attorneys

[RTFirefly]

Alberto speaks up for himself:

WaPo op-ed

While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

Shorter Gonzo: “The buck stopped with Kyle Sampson. I just signed whatever he put in front of me.”

Prepared remarks for Tuesday’s Congressional testimony (PDF)

Haven’t had time to go through much of this yet; it’s 25 pages long. And since it’s PDF, I can’t cut-and-paste here at home. But even in the first few pages, there’s some serious bullshit.

[LilShieste]

@RTFirefly

Haven’t had time to go through much of this yet; it’s 25 pages long. And since it’s PDF, I can’t cut-and-paste here at home. But even in the first few pages, there’s some serious bullshit.

Well, it looks like the bulk (if not all) of pages 6 - 22 can essentially be discarded. They don’t have much to do with the case at hand (i.e., the dismissal of the 8 U.S. Attorneys).

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 1
The Department has provided thousands of pages of internal and deliberative documents to the Congress. I consistently and voluntarily have made Justice Department officials available for interviews and hearings on this subject.
I have taken these important steps to provide information for two critical reasons: (1) I have nothing to hide, and (2) I am committed to assuring the Congress and the American public that nothing improper occurred here.

Since he has nothing to hide, perhaps he can explain why “thousands” of pages were made available, instead of… you know, “all”. And also why some of those pages are blacked out.

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 2
I also have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. Attorney for an improper reason.
These facts have been made clear through the testimony of Justice Department officials who have appeared before the Congress, as well as by the thousands of pages of internal documents that the Department of Justice has released.

We have no idea if these facts “have been made clear”, because we haven’t received all of the facts.

And this “thousands of pages” thing is getting really old. They might as well be claiming, “As you can see from Aesop’s Fables, these U.S. Attorneys were not fired for improper reasons.”
LilShieste

[BrainGlutton]

@RTFirefly

And the trail leads to the Oval Office:

This thing is like Watergate on amphetamines.

With a difference. Watergate was (mostly) about CREEP, an Administration-sanctioned but extragovernmental organization, using illegal tactics to spy on, sabotage and harass the opposition in an election Nixon was certain to win anyway – and in the presidential election only. This business is about, not a few government lawyers losing their jobs when they deserved to keep them (I’m sure that’s happened many times before), but the White House drafting the Justice Department into its service for partisan political purposes directed at elections at all levels, in a climate where many elections will be very close ones and a frivolous prosecution for corruption might be just the thing to tip the scale from the Dem to the Pub. Important differences:

1. In terms of undermining the democratic process, what the Bush Admin is doing is far, far worse.

2. What the Bush Admin is doing is probably not, strictly speaking, illegal. Those e-mails on the RNC server are almost certainly a criminal attempt to circumvent the Presidential Records Act, but the main purpose of all this – to use the Justice Department for partisan political purposes – is legal AFAIK. Probably because nobody in Congress ever considered the possibility seriously enough to pass a law against it.

3. This scandal is much more widespread and systemic, and the Republican Party as such, that is, in the person of some of its Congresscritters, is more clearly implicated.

[elucidator]

Republicans would like less people to vote. Especially less poor and/or black people. To that end they have pissed and moaned about the dread scourge of “voter fraud”, they would like to press more restrictions into place, more “security” to keep our voter rolls sacrosanct and unblemished.

In all of our living memory, it has been easier, quicker, and more convenient for a white man from the suburbs to vote than for a black woman in the inner city. Unequal access to voting is an obscenity in a democracy.

Check out your own state, look it up. When someone has suggested ways to make registration and voting easier, who fights against it the hardest? Who benefits?

[LilShieste]

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 4
I also recall Mr. Sampson mentioning Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand as a possible candidate to be U.S. Attorney if a vacancy were to occur. I am not sure he mentioned a specific district, but it may have been Michigan. I do not recall my response, nor when it happened.

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 4
I also recall Mr. Sampson mentioning career prosecutor Deborah Rhodes for San Diego in the event of a vacancy. I do not recall my response or any other discussion. Nor do I recall the timing of when this was raised with me.

(underlining mine)

Does anyone else have a problem with this? I seriously cannot think of a single time where I could remember having a particular discussion with someone, yet not remember what I had actually contributed to the conversation (but still remember what the other party had contributed). Maybe its just my keen sense of memory, though. (Wait 'til my wife hears about this!)

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 5
I do acknowledge however that at times I have been less than precise with my words when discussing the resignations.
For example, I misspoke at a press conference on March 13th when I said that I “was not involved in any discussions about what was going on.” That statement was too broad.

This is like Bill Clinton claiming that “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” was too broad of a statement. The words that Gonzales used have very definitive meanings.

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 6
I wish to extend that sentiment to the Committee as well. During the past two years, we have made great strides in securing our country from terrorism, protecting our neighborhoods from gangs and drugs, shielding our children from predators and pedophiles, and protecting the public trust by prosecuting public corruption.

Thanks for offering, but we’re not interested in the dancing monkey.

From Gonzales’s remarks, page 6
Recent events must not deter us from our mission. I ask the Committee to join me in that commitment and that re-dedication.

Good thing he brings this up. With all this hubbub about the attorneys, we almost forgot about the children.

Starting at this point in the remarks, Gonzales goes into detail about all of the Justice’s accomplishments, over the last few years. IMO, this is equivalent to a man on trial for stealing a car, giving testimony about how he replaced the worn out transmission while he was joyriding.
LilShieste

[MovieMogul]

Some high-profile Conservatives pile on as well:

In what could prove an embarrassing new setback for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the eve of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of influential conservatives and longtime Bush supporters has written a letter to the White House to call for his resignation.

The two-page letter, written on stationery of the American Freedom Agenda, a recently formed body designed to promote conservative legal principles, is blunt. Addressed to both Bush and Gonzales, it goes well beyond the U.S. attorneys controversy and details other alleged failings by Gonzales. “Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution’s time-honored checks and balances,” it declares. “He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm.” Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: “He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice.”

The letter concludes by saying, “Attorney General Gonzales has proven an unsuitable steward of the law and should resign for the good of the country… The President should accept the resignation, and set a standard to which the wise and honest might repair in nominating a successor…” It is the first public demand by a group of conservatives for Gonzales’ firing…

Fein, speaking for the signatories, told TIME that Gonzales’ planned testimony to Congress tomorrow, the text of which has been released by the Justice Department, was a “terrible disappointment” that left unanswered key questions on which his job may now depend. “Gonzales testimony before the Judiciary Committee resorts to a truly Clintonesque defense of his own previous false statements,” says Fein. “In fact,” he says, “Gonzales’ latest declarations really do call into question the forthrightness and honesty indispensable for America’s chief law enforcement officer.”

Ouch.

[Voyager]

@ArchiveGuy

Some high-profile Conservatives pile on as well:Ouch.

A bunch of conservatives who say that conservative legal principles don’t include support for torture and wiretapping. Now that is encouraging.

[Evil_Captor]

I’ll bet Rove is just jumping for joy about the Virginia mass killing. This will soak up at least 2-3 days of news cycle. Might well cover up that Friday night email dumping quite well. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the White House surreptitiously letting a few other embarrassing items slip while the news media are all worked up about the Virginia killings.

[BrainGlutton]

Now Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

Just heard on All Things Considered: Because of the Virginia Tech shootings, the committee has rescheduled Gonzalez’ testimony for Thursday.

[The_Hamster_King]

@BrainGlutton

Just heard on All Things Considered: Because of the Virginia Tech shootings, the committee has rescheduled Gonzalez’ testimony for Thursday.

Hallelujah!

[Squink]

@Pochacco

Hallelujah!

Amen! Gonzales desperately needs the time to get his story straight. It seems that the attorney general’s prepared written testimony for the committee is contradicted by recently released emails: Gonzales Contradicts His Own Testimony

In his prepared testimony, Gonzales said that during the months that his senior staff was evaluating U.S. attorneys, including Lam, “I did not make the decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.”

But the recently released e-mail from Sampson, dated June 1, 2006, indicated that Gonzales was actively involved in discussions about Lam and had decided to fire her if she did not improve. In the e-mail to other top Justice Department officials, Sampson outlined several steps that Gonzales suggested, culminating in Lam’s replacement if she failed to bolster immigration enforcement.

Figuring out how to make testimony and email mutually operative could easily take a couple of days, or longer if the end result is intended to have the ring of truth.

[Merijeek]

Shit, this is sad.

As an experienced liar I have to say I’m disappointed. They have violated some extremely basic rules whose observance at least makes it a little difficult to bust you.

But, no, arrogance prevailed. Permanent majority and all that.

-Joe

[elucidator]

@Squink

… if the end result is intended to have the ring of truth.

Instead of the usual plop.

[BrainGlutton]

This just gets more and more interesting-in-the-Chinese-sense . . .

The only thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor is replacing one with a “criminal.” In this case, Timothy Griffin, who during the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign worked as deputy research director for the Republican National Committee (RNC) conducting “oppo” (opposition) research. On Dec. 15, Bush named Griffin as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, replacing fired prosecutor Bud Cummins.

I don’t use the term “criminal” lightly. In August 2004, while he was research director for the RNC, he sent a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party chieftains. But instead of using the party honchos’ e-mail addresses at GeorgeWBush.com, he sent these notes to GeorgeWBush.org. That domain belongs to a brilliant jokester, John Wooden, who, suspecting he had something important in hand, forwarded them to BBC Television Newsnight, where I worked at the time.

Griffin’s dozens of e-mails contained what he called “caging lists”—simple Excel spreadsheets with the names and addresses of voters.

Sounds innocent enough. But once the addresses were plotted on maps—70,000 names in Florida alone—it became clear that virtually every name was in a minority-majority voting precinct. And most of the lists were made up of itinerant, vulnerable voters: students, the homeless and, notably, soldiers sent overseas.

It was, according to Leon County, Fla., Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho, a “challenge” list—tens of thousands of voters who the Republicans intended to block from casting ballots. This was a variant of the scheme in 2000 when then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris removed thousands of black citizens from voter rolls on the claim they were “felons”—when their only crime was Voting While Black, or, in other words, likely to vote Democratic. In the 2004 campaign, Griffin had a new trick: challenging voters on the grounds that they did not live at their registration address.

To “prove” these voters were committing fraud, the RNC sent first-class or registered letters to these voters, most of them black, to their address of registration, no forwarding allowed. Letters that came back as “undeliverable” were used as evidence to block the voter obtaining a ballot—or block an absentee voter from having their ballot counted.

BBC called the homes of several “fraudulent” voters. The wife of one, Randall Prausa, admitted her husband did not reside at her address in Jacksonville anymore. He was a naval airman serving overseas. Of course, it is not illegal for a serviceman to vote absentee from their home address, even if he’s black.

But it is quite illegal to target voters for challenge where race is a factor in the targeting. “That’s a crime,” Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney expert in election law, told In These Times, “a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” And this crime was directed by the man who is now a U.S. attorney.

The article goes on to say that since the whole firing-scandal story broke, Griffin has offered to resign. FWIW.

[davidm]

And then there’s the question of what some people who didn’t get fired did to keep their jobs.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003016.php

A U.S. attorney in Wisconsin who prosecuted a state Democratic official on corruption charges during last year’s heated governor’s race was once targeted for firing by the Department of Justice, but given a reprieve for reasons that remain unclear. A federal appeals court last week threw out the conviction of Wisconsin state worker Georgia Thompson, saying the evidence was “beyond thin.”

Congressional investigators looking into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys saw Wisconsin prosecutor Steven M. Biskupic’s name on a list of lawyers targeted for removal when they were inspecting a Justice Department document not yet made public, according to an attorney for a lawmaker involved in the investigation.

[RTFirefly]

You’ve heard of the Five-Minute University?

Now we’ve got the 90-second U.S. Attorney Performance Review!

McNulty; his chief of staff, [Michael] Elston; Monica Goodling, a senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and possibly one other official gathered in the office of Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff.

McNulty said he was concerned about Bogden, 50, getting a job outside government after 16 years at Justice and being able to care for his family.

When it was pointed out that Bogden was not married, McNulty withdrew his concern and the conversation ended after about 90 seconds, according to the account gathered by investigators. Bogden was dismissed on Dec. 7.

This thing gets more surreal by the day. And we have Gonzo on deck for tomorrow!

[BrainGlutton]

The committee is thinking of granting limited-use immunity to Goodling; if they do, she can’t take the Fifth.

[BrainGlutton]

Meanwhile, the DOJ has failed to comply with the committee’s deadline for responding to its document subpoena.

[BrainGlutton]

And the WH has told the RNC not to turn over the e-mails to Congress until the WH has a chance to see them first.

[Merijeek]

@BrainGlutton

And the WH has told the RNC not to turn over the e-mails to Congress until the WH has a chance to see them first.

Ah, so both the White House and the RNC are immune to anything and everything.

I don’t see why W does just give a blanket pardon to any offense committed by any Republican at any time during his administration - good till January 2009, of course.

It would save so much time…

-Joe