DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum 8 U.S. Attorneys fired by Atty.Gen. Gonzales...petty politics???

Starting to sound like the Scooter Libby defense.

LOL, keep reaching, Pit. Apparently you don't understand any real business administration. That email proves only that Rove asked how something was going to be handled. Nothing more and nothing less. It's the same as the President of a company asking a subordinate manager how he was going to handle any employee situation. Of course, if you don't have a clue about how things are run or choose to ignore it so you can keep spouting how this is evidence of something when it really isn't, you can reach all the absurd conclusions you want.

Yep,asking them how WE will proceed means how they will proceed.

Fired prosecutor recalls praise from DOJ

N.M. attorney had been invited to train others on election fraud issues

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.


David C. Iglesias, who was dismissed as U.S. attorney for New Mexico in December, was one of two chief federal prosecutors invited to teach at a "voting integrity symposium" in October 2005. The symposium was sponsored by Justice's public integrity and civil rights sections and was attended by more than 100 prosecutors from around the country, according to an account by Iglesias that a department spokesman confirmed.

Iglesias, a Republican, said in an interview that he and the U.S. attorney from Milwaukee, Steven M. Biskupic, were chosen as trainers because they were the only ones identified as having created task forces to examine allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 elections. An agenda lists them as the panelists for a session on such task forces at the two-day seminar, which featured a luncheon speech by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17682212/

There's much more to the article if you wish to read it.

You gotta love your using parts of articles to prove something while leaving out glaring points because they don't suit your agenda. Notice that in the article it says that he was dismissed "IN PART" because of voter fraud investigations, not THE reason. It also refutes the timeline of when he was asked to train others on the subject. Of course, that isn't listed on your post. I wonder why, since you are so objecive.

Oh, and as to your other post about "we", I could have sworn that Rove was part of the administration, just like the AG is. That would make the administration a "we". Nice to see you so desperate you're using the Clinton dictionary trying to find ANYTHING to support your bias. Still waiting for you to uncover something that shows Rove told the AG to fire these people. Of course, you'd rather try to interpret and spin simple things into some vast conspiracy.

No Coach,the AG is part of the Judicial branch of government. The White House is part of the legislative branch of government.

AND,the White House stated they had NO PART in the decision or any influence in letting these guys go. But thanks for understanding they weren't telling the truth and that Rove was also involved!

That's one of the major points I've been attempting to figure out from all of this! AG testified that The Judicial branch acted alone in this! Thanks for helping me clear that up!



BTW- That's why I tell people that there is more in the article if they want to read it Coach,so finger pointers like YOU can't accuse me of trying to "hide" anything.


So what OTHER reasons did they give Coach? Did you know last week they were saying thaty WAS the reason? That NO other reasons were given? That IF you look back at YOUR posts,that's the MAIN point of YOUR arguement as to WHY they were all fired???

Disorder in King George's Court

By Michael Isikoff, Richard Wolffe And Evan Thomas
Newsweek
March 26, 2007 issue - At highly charged moments, attorney General Alberto Gonzales can seem placid, passive—at times, just plain out of it. In the summer of 2002, high-level Bush administration officials met to debate secretly a delicate issue: how aggressively could the CIA interrogate terror suspects? While the lawyers from Justice, Defense and the vice president's office hotly debated definitions of torture (at times discussing specific interrogation techniques), Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel, sat by and said virtually nothing. The attorney general's behavior was typical, say administration officials who have worked with him. His defenders say he likes to keep his counsel. Others wonder if he's ill prepared, insecure or simply has nothing to say.

Last week Gonzales's bland, what-me-worry? smile seemed to fade. He appeared slightly forlorn as he answered hostile questions from reporters at a hastily called press conference. He was asked about the role of the White House in firing a group of U.S. attorneys. "As we can all imagine," he began, "in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice ..." He was aware, he said, that there was "a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the U.S. attorneys. That was immediately rejected by me." The impression was that Gonzales was merely responding to the ill-considered scheme of his successor as White House counsel (Harriet Miers); that he, personally, had not been in the loop for a series of controversial decisions that have set off a congressional brouhaha over the dismissal of one U.S. attorney in the summer of 2006 and seven more in December.

Two days after that presser, however, the White House turned over newly discovered e-mails showing that Gonzales, while he was still on the job at the White House in January 2005, had "briefly" discussed the idea of firing U.S. attorneys. (A Justice Department spokeswoman said Gonzales had "no recollection" of that.) The e-mails showed that Kyle Sampson, then a top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft and later Gonzales's chief of staff, talked about the possible purge of "15-20 percent" of the U.S. attorney corps deemed not to be "loyal Bushies." The e-mails also showed that Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, had "stopped by" to ask a White House lawyer "how we planned to proceed regarding US Attorneys, whether we are going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc." Sampson warned that firing all the U.S. attorneys could cause political problems. "That said," Sampson wrote, "if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

The e-mails inflamed lawmakers who have long felt misled or ignored by the Bush White House. At least two Republicans have publicly demanded Gonzales's firing or resignation. And Democrats who now control Congress want to know more about Rove and other White House officials. At the time Rove was asking questions, he was himself under investigation by a U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak case. (Last week Rove dismissed the controversy over his role in firing the U.S. attorneys as "a lot of politics.")

The controversy was in some ways Beltway political theater. Appointed for four-year terms, U.S. attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the president," but their loyalties have long been mixed. These high-profile prosecutors are sometimes protégés of U.S. senators and routinely have their own political ambitions and law-enforcement agendas. Tension between independent-minded U.S. attorneys and their nominal bosses at the Justice Department is the norm. Presidents are within their rights to remove prosecutors deemed to be poor performers or political mavericks.

But in two or three cases, the Bush administration may have gone over the line. In New Mexico the administration canned David Iglesias, a clean-cut former Navy lawyer who had been the model for the Tom Cruise character in the movie "A Few Good Men." Iglesias has told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was getting political pressure from lawmakers to indict Democrats in a local corruption case before the November elections. In Washington state, the ousted U.S. attorney, John McKay, has said that he took heat from local Republicans for failing to bring voter-fraud charges in a deadlocked gubernatorial race.

As Congress probes deeper, real crimes, like obstruction of justice, may be exposed. But for now, the scandal is perhaps best understood as the late-term agonies of an unpopular president—made more poignant by the possibility that President Bush will have to dump Gonzales, one of his oldest friends in politics. And if nothing else, the flap is one more instance of administration bumbling.

Judging from the e-mails released last week, the White House knew a backlash was coming. In December, as the Justice Department was preparing to sack seven U.S. attorneys, Gonzales's chief of staff Sampson e-mailed Harriet Miers, "Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval." Sampson warned that "U.S. attorneys desiring to save their jobs (aided by their allies in the political arena as well as the Justice Department community) likely will make efforts to preserve themselves in office. We should expect those efforts to be strenuous."

The message to be careful apparently did not sink in. Or perhaps, after six years of a Republican-controlled Congress, the Bush White House thought it could be highhanded with newly elected Democratic congressional leaders. In hindsight, the controversy might have been muted by a more straightforward approach to Congress.

Instead, a pair of senior Justice officials gave accounts to lawmakers that were, at best, incomplete. At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, William Moschella, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, vigorously defended the firings of the U.S. attorneys as a purely managerial move that had originated within the Justice Department. He said nothing about any nudging from the White House. McNulty had earlier given similar testimony, saying the attorneys had been let go for "job performance" reasons, an assertion that infuriated the fired prosecutors. But the two Justice officials have told colleagues that when they saw the e-mail accounts showing the attorney-purge idea had originated in the White House, they were surprised and appalled. "I felt sick," Moschella told NEWSWEEK. "I basically saw my professional life flash before my eyes." Moschella and McNulty blamed Sampson. The attorney general's chief of staff had sat in as they prepped for their testimony and "never said a word," according to a Justice Department official who wished to remain anonymous discussing a private meeting. Sampson resigned last week. His lawyer, Brad Berenson, says Sampson believed he had "let the attorney general down," but that other senior Justice officials knew about White House involvement. "Kyle did not mislead anyone," the lawyer said.

The conflicting accounts have spurred congressional investigators to cry cover-up. Democrats are now pushing to get White House officials, especially Rove, on the witness stand. The White House will probably argue that it would set a bad precedent to allow congressmen to grill the president's personal advisers and rummage through their files. But since the White House has already started releasing confidential e-mails, it will have more difficulty making the familiar case for Executive Privilege.

The man chosen by the president to handle this delicate task—Fred Fielding, who replaced Miers as White House counsel last month—has plenty of experience. He was a young White House lawyer during Watergate in the Nixon administration and counsel to President Reagan during the Iran-contra scandal. Fielding, 67, is regarded as a savvy lawyer who believes in getting out ahead of a scandal. Fielding is also seen as a Washington establishment figure brought in to rescue Bush from the mistakes of his old Texas cronies, Rove, Miers and Gonzales.

One of Fielding's tougher tasks may be to push out Gonzales. It is doubtful that Bush himself will have the stomach for it. (According to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, voters are evenly divided: about a third think Gonzales should resign, a third say he should stay on and a third are undecided.) As governor of Texas, Bush appointed Gonzales to be his counsel and then elevated him to become Texas secretary of State and then justice of the state Supreme Court. Bush sees Gonzales as a classic American success story, the son of Mexican immigrants who overcame childhood poverty. The president is personally close to Gonzales and his family. And he owes Gonzales a debt of gratitude: in 1996, Gonzales pulled off a skillful courtroom maneuver to allow Bush to escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush's lawyer made the clever argument that the governor had a conflict of interest, since he might be called on one day to pardon the defendant (a dancer at a local strip club). Had Bush gone through the normal jury voir dire, he might have had to disclose a 1976 DUI arrest, thereby jeopardizing his presidential ambitions.

There is one more catch to shoving out Gonzales: finding a replacement who can be confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate may be difficult. A former senior White House aide who is knowledgeable about current thinking inside the White House (but did not wish to be quoted discussing it) says that one of the few possible contenders is Bill Barr, who was attorney general in the Bush 41 administration. But any contender would have to want the job—in the last two years of a weakened administration—and President Bush can be touchy about any suggestion that he needs to be rescued by his father's former aides.

Recently, a trio of senators—Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy; Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the committee, and Democrat Charles Schumer—sat down with Gonzales in his wood-paneled conference room to discuss the firings of the U.S. attorneys. Gonzales was initially combative and defensive. "Why do I have to prove anything to you?" he demanded at one point, according to a source who was in the room but does not wish to be identified revealing a private conversation. He insisted that only poor performers had been fired. "Everyone was in the bottom tier," he said. "Everyone?" asked Schumer. What about David Iglesias of New Mexico? (The department's internal evaluations had given Iglesias glowing marks.) Gonzales hesitated. "I believe so," he said, but he seemed uncertain. As the meeting was breaking up, Gonzales suddenly switched tacks and seemed to want to be cooperative. "How can we make this better?" he asked. "What can we do?" According to this source, the attorney general seemed to some in the room to be genuinely befuddled.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17664172/site/newsweek/

Who appointed the AG? It's a rather simple question. Therefore, it is not any stretch (which is why you aren't getting it probably) for Rove to use "we" when discussing what was going on.

The AG could have been acting alone but the administration wanted to be kept abreast of the situation. That's called sound business. How do you not understand that?

It's nice to see you once again claim to be such a bastion of objectivity. You posted what you wanted out of the article, leaving out anything that might actually not fuel the fire of your conspiracy theory.

As for that being a buzz word, it it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it is probably a duck. That fits so well into a description of you and your posts trying so hard to invent scandals and pushing one side of everything.

'Quite Unprecedented'

Former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White explains why the firing of eight federal prosecutors could threaten the historic independence of federal law-enforcement officials.


President Bush’s defenders have been asking why there’s such a fuss when even President Clinton removed all 93 U.S. attorneys in the early days of his administration.

Essentially, all U.S. attorneys, as political appointees, are expected to be replaced when the party changes. Although I think President Clinton made those changes too abruptly for an orderly transition, replacing political appointees is part of the normal political process when the party of the president changes. It is an entirely different matter when replacement of the U.S. attorneys are made during the same administration.

So it’s atypical to be replaced in the middle of a president’s term?

It’s quite atypical, absent some misconduct or other quite significant cause. What’s happened here, in my experience and to my knowledge, is quite unprecedented. And, if it turns out to be the case that some of the U.S. attorneys may have been removed for reasons of not bringing, or not bringing fast enough, politically charged cases, or they weren’t “loyal” to the president, then it becomes very, very disturbing. They should not, in my view, be removed lightly, and never for a political reason. Again I caution, though, that facts are coming out every day.

Recently released documents show a great deal of correspondence between the White House Counsel's office and Kyle Sampson, the Attorney General's chief of staff who resigned on Tuesday. Did you find it surprising the White House was so involved in the firings?

The whole series of events has been, in my judgment, highly unusual and completely unprecedented. Having said that, every U.S. attorney is subject to removal by the president. So at some point you would expect some White House involvement if indeed you were removing a presidentially appointed U.S. attorney.

David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney in New Mexico, says he received pressure from two members of Congress to speed up investigations of Democrats just before last year’s election. In your experience, is this a common occurrence?

I was a U.S. attorney for almost nine years and that never happened. Never happened.

What would you have done if it did?

It would depend on what the call was. To the extent there was inquiry on anything that was not public information, I would have responded that it’s not appropriate to answer those inquiries. And depending on the tenor of call, I would perhaps have reported it to the Department of Justice Office of Legislative Affairs. It would not be appropriate to engage in any discussion about an ongoing investigation with anyone, including a member of Congress.

Is there any official protocol to prevent politicians from trying to influence prosecutors?

Essentially, the protocol is if you get a call from someone in Congress or the White House, you refer them to the Department of Justice, the Office of Legislative Affairs, and they are actually a buffer between the U.S. attorneys and politicians. So, basically, [the] protocol is you’re not to call the U.S. attorney, and that is known to members of Congress and the White House. If you have a question, you call the Office of Legislative Affairs. There can be, obviously, legitimate inquiries about certain things. But you need that filter or buffer so you don’t get that kind of outside pressures on U.S. attorneys. We need to be sure that tradition is maintained.

What's wrong with politicians calling to ask about investigations?

U.S. attorneys are chief law-enforcement officers in their district. Even though they’re political appointees, once they are appointed, they are expected to be totally apolitical in how they carry out their jobs, independent of the political process. They handle their cases, decide what cases to bring without fear or favor. Any attempt to put a political elbow on that scale is contrary to that tradition and contrary to the kind of criminal justice system we want to have.

Do you think this is raising concern among current U.S. attorneys that under the current administration, they are subject to more outside influences?

There’s certainly been a suggestion that some of that may have occurred in at least a few of the cases with a few of these U.S. attorneys. [But since] it’s been subject to the light of day … hopefully that exposure will have a deterrent effect on anybody else thinking about making such calls. The concern I had initially with respect to the decision to force the resignation of these U.S. attorneys, is that other U.S. attorneys would then think, “Well gee, I better please the Department of Justice and not raise my hand when I think some policy doesn’t make sense so I don’t end up on the same chopping block as my colleagues did.” Now, I think the exposure of the facts [in this case] is likely to be more of a deterrent to the Department of Justice than it is on the U.S. attorneys.

What do you think will be the impact of these firings on law enforcement?

There is a price to be paid in every U.S. attorney’s office when you have a change in leadership. That’s going to happen when a new president begins and the more orderly it can be, the better. But to gratuitously or with insufficient cause remove a US Attorney during an administration means a tremendous disruption in that office. You lose traction on cases, you lose a strong leader that you need to have to deal with particularly sensitive cases that may be subject to criticism.

Do you feel like the attorney general’s acknowledgement that “mistakes were made” is an adequate response?

I think the fundamental mistake at least in the vast majority of cases here is that those U.S. attorneys should not have been removed, at all. We need to let all the facts come out here before making the ultimate judgment on what the remedy should be.

On Wednesday, GOP Sen. John Sununu joined calls from Democrats for Gonzales to resign. Should he?

I have no comment. As I mentioned before, facts are still unfolding.

How do you think this will impact the Department of Justice?

Hopefully, at the end of the day it will be exhibit A for never doing this again.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17627519/site/newsweek/

What I don't understand is how you interpret this, Pit. It plainly says that Rove stopped by to ask HOW IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, not to demand it happened....the percentages don't even add up to how many were actually fired. Keep diggin though, Pit, and loosen up that tin foil, you're cutting off the circluation.

Maybe it's the 15-20% that weren't "loyal Bushies" email that may pertain to it?

Had you bothered reading the thread,you'd see that congess was told this "wasn't political" but performance based. But the emails stated they weren't loyal Bushies"

But the blind can't see and the deaf can't hear. No matter how bright the picture or how loud the volume.

15-20% of 93 is what, Pit? C'mon, spinster, tell us that it is 8

You're really not worth the trouble to respond to. This is PLENTY of evidence that Rove had input and discussed removing these attorneys. When the fact is,AG right hand man said that wasn't so. You want to play semantics. Pretty much exactly what you did with the Libby case that yieled FOUR guilty verdicts.

See Coach,with you" Same crap different day. Evidence keeps mounting and you keep denying it. No big deal. Keep doing it. It's not going to change anything.

There's a pattern of corruption that has unfolded upon the part of this White House. Deciept and corruption. And no matter what childhood games and semantics you attempt to play on a message board,you can't change that.

You refuse to recognize anything oposing your view even if it comes up and bites you in the ass. Denial is not going to help you or the White House. But good luck with that. See ya Coach. I'll keep posting articles as this case unfolds.

You? You just jkeep attacking the messenger like it's going to change the facts and help your cause.

LOL, keep spinning, Pit. You have YET to post one SHRED of evidence that Rove was "involved" in the dismissals other than that he asked how the AG was proceeding. Either you are desperate or you have no clue on how to run a business....or both.

Still twisting things, huh, Pit. Please name ONE of the convictions of Libby that proves your allegations. They don't. They prove that he was guilty of the crimes accused of. Once again, you try to twist things to prove your agenda. Sadly, the court records are clear and too many of us can read them to give you any credence.

Finally, you are once again projecting, Pit. You project your tactics on others. It's a pathetic pre-emptive maneuver by someone that can't prove their allegations and only interpret, or misinterpret is a better word, what has actually been brought out.

You twist,I'll keep adding information to the topic.


Justice releases more documents on firings

White House stands behind Attorney General Gonzales

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday as the Justice Department released e-mails with new details about the firings of federal prosecutors. The White House said it hoped Gonzales would survive the tumult.

Asked if the attorney general had contained the political damage from the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, “I don’t know.”

Documents released Monday night by the Justice Department show that Gonzales was unhappy with how Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained the firings to the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February.

“The Attorney General is extremely upset with the stories on the US Attys this morning,” Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, who was traveling with Gonzales in South America at the time, wrote in a Feb. 7 e-mail. “He also thought some of the DAG’s statements were inaccurate.”

In a statement Monday night, Roehrkasse said he was referring to Gonzales’ concerns over the firing of Bud Cummins in Little Rock, whom he believed was dismissed because of performance issues. At the hearing, McNulty indicated Cummins was being replaced by a political ally.

President Bush also was unhappy with the Justice Department’s explanation of events. “The fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like there was not straightforward communications troubles me,” he said last Wednesday.

Snow declined Monday to predict how long Gonzales would stay in his job but reiterated President Bush’s support of him.

“No one’s prophetic enough to know what the next 21 months hold,” Snow said. “We hope he stays.”

The new e-mails spell out some of the reasons behind the ousters and the heavy-handed manner in which they were carried out.

At one point, McNulty questioned the dismissal of U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden in Nevada. “I’m a little skittish about Bogden,” McNulty wrote in a Dec. 7 e-mail to Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, two days before the firings. “He has been with DOJ since 1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside government.”

Still, McNulty concluded: “I’ll admit have not looked at his district’s performance. Sorry to be raising this again/now; it was just on my mind last night and this morning.”

One document shows that U.S. Attorney Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Mich., the last of eight prosecutors to announce their resignations, learned from McNulty’s top aide four days before the Nov. 7 election that the White House would be asking her to leave after the election.

“I ask that you tell me why my resignation may be requested,” Chiara wrote McNulty in an Election Day e-mail. “I need to know the truth to live in peace with the aftermath.”

Some 3,000 pages of e-mails and other documents were delivered late Wednesday night to the House and Senate judiciary committees. The House panel posted many of them on its Web site, in addition to those released publicly by Justice Department.

Earlier Monday, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush had full confidence in Gonzales and the attorney general had not offered to resign.

The good news for Gonzales was that the two most senior Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Orrin Hatch of Utah, both former chairmen, had not called for a new attorney general.

But neither were they endorsing the embattled Justice chief. Specter said he will reserve judgment until he gets all the facts; Hatch has not given interviews on the subject, his spokesman said.

Either way, Gonzales faces a tough week. The Senate was devoting Monday and Tuesday to debating and voting on rescinding his authority to appoint replacement U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.

“We need to close the loophole exploited by the White House and the Department of Justice that facilitated this abuse,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said opening the debate.

With Gonzales under fire, speculation turned to who might succeed him. Possible candidates include White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, federal appeals judge Laurence Silberman and PepsiCo attorney Larry Thompson, who was the government’s highest ranking black law enforcement official when he was deputy attorney general during Bush’s first term.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17688221/

LOL, looking at things LOGICALLY and not trying to spin it to a sinister conspiracy and ignoring any other possibility isn't "twisting" anything, Pit. It's called looking at both sides. You claim to be so objective, yet you never look at both sides of a situation. You only look for any conceivable way to try to make something out of nothing.

An employee wants clarification as to why she is being dismissed. Wow, that means so much, doesn't it? A democrat blasting away with nothing but rhetoric really shows wrong doing was done, huh, Pit? You crack me up. This has become so sad it's beyond the laughable tirades you usually go on. Pretty soon your whole body will be wrapped in tin foil instead of just wearing it on your head.

White House faces big week over firings

Hearings planned on the Hill; Gonzales apologizes to prosecutors in call

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, facing another tough week amid calls for his ouster, has offered a mea culpa to the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys for the way the Justice Department fired eight of their colleagues.

During the conference call, planned as a pep talk to raise morale at a Justice Department tainted by the firings and*** the FBI’s misuse of the Patriot Act,*** Gonzales apologized for how the dismissals were handled and for suggesting there were problems with the prosecutors’ job performances.

One official familiar with the conversation said Gonzales did not apologize for firing the eight U.S. attorneys, a decision he and President Bush have defended.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrhasse said Saturday the call was set up to allow Gonzales to reiterate “how important the U.S. attorneys are to him as his representatives in the communities they serve and as prosecutors charged with protecting their communities from violent criminals, drug dealers and predators.”

The call was made the same day that his former top aide, who resigned last week amid the controversy, denied that he purposefully withheld information from Justice Department officials who misled Congress about the firings.

Paper trail

Kyle Sampson, the attorney general’s former chief of staff, said in a statement released by his lawyer that several senior officials were aware the Justice Department and the White House “had been discussing the subject since the election.”

E-mail exchanges involving Sampson and others, including officials at the White House, support Sampson’s assertion, which contradicts claims by Gonzales that he had been in the dark about the way his former top aide had carried out the dismissals and that there were not political motives behind the firings. The e-mails indicate discussions about the dismissals involved Gonzales while he was still White House counsel in late 2004 or early 2005.

Congressional Democrats allege that some U.S. attorneys were purged for either investigating Republicans or failing to pursue cases against Democrats. Top Justice Department officials told Congress that the dismissals were based on the prosecutors’ performance.

Calls for resignation

As the dispute has escalated, Republicans, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California and Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire have joined Democrats in calling for his resignation.

“The attorney general cannot continue to serve in this capacity,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Saturday in Chicago.

“The attorney general has lost the confidence of the American people as well as members of Congress,” Durbin said. “I don’t believe he can restore it. I think it’s time for the president to acknowledge that fact and ask for his resignation.”

Bush “has full confidence in the attorney general,” White House spokesman Blair Jones said Saturday.

Big week ahead

The week ahead poses several more risks for Gonzales.

On Monday, the Justice Department plans to turn over to Congress more documents that could provide more details of the role agency officials — including Gonzales — and top White House officials played in planning the prosecutors’ dismissals. On Tuesday, the White House is expected to announce whether it will let former White House counsel Harriet Miers, political strategist Karl Rove and other presidential advisers testify before Congress — and whether it will release more documents to lawmakers, including additional e-mails and other items. That decision was to be made on Friday, but the White House asked for more time.

On Thursday, lawmakers are scheduled to quiz Gonzales about his agency’s budget request, but likely will ask questions about the scandal, too.

Also on Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on whether to authorize subpoenas for Miers; her deputy, William K. Kelley; and Rove, who said the controversy is being fueled by “superheated political rhetoric.”

The panel already has approved using subpoenas, if necessary, for Justice Department officials and J. Scott Jennings, deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove.

And if Gonzales doesn’t have enough to on his plate, two congressional panels are holding hearings on the FBI’s misuse of the USA Patriot Act to secretly pry out personal information about Americans.

A Newsweek poll released on Saturday indicated that a majority of the public — 58 percent — believes the firing of the U.S. attorneys was politically motivated. Fewer than one-third of the 1,001 adults surveyed on March 14 and 16, want Gonzales to stay in his job. Slightly more than one-third say he should quit. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17667941/

Stay tuned as this story develops!

White House offers Rove for unsworn testimony

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House offered on Tuesday to make President George W. Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and other officials available to congressional investigators to give unsworn testimony in the firings of U.S. attorneys.

In a letter to relevant members of Congress, White House counsel Fred Fielding made clear he was not offering them to give sworn testimony as they have requested.

"Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding wrote.

Democratic lawmakers described the offer as unsatisfactory, saying they wanted the witnesses under oath. But they also said they and others would consider it before formally responding.

The White House said Bush would address the issue at 5:45 p.m./2145 GMT when he returned from Kansas City.

The fallout over the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys has triggered a Democratic investigation over whether the action was politically motivated and raised doubts about how long Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can remain in his job.

Scrambling to contain the damage, Fielding was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday trying to arrange an agreement with the heads of the judiciary committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In addition to Rove, Fielding offered Bush's former White House counsel Harriet Miers for interviews. Miers initially was blamed for coming up with the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys after the 2004 presidential election. Continued...

Also offered by Fielding were deputy White House counsel William Kelley and political adviser Scott Jennings.

"We believe that such interviews should be a last resort, and should be conducted, if needed, only after Congress has heard from Department of Justice officials about the decision to request the resignations of the U.S. attorneys," Fielding wrote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2038164620070320?pageNumber=1

Now I just want some of you to remember,that when wiretapping without a warrant,huge data bases of phone numbers were audited without just cause,MANY of you said, "why should it bother you if you don't have anything to hide?"

Do you still stand behind that theory? And if so,what does the White House have to hide? Why wouldn't they be OPENLY willing to let Rove and others testify?

Oh,I'm sure there will be excuses. But just remember your words......................"If you haven't done anything wrong,you don't have anything to hide."

oath or not, do you really think we'd get the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth out of Karl Rove & Co.?

The president's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege"

There are several important facts to note about the President's vow at this afternoon's Press Conference to resist attempts to compel Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify to Congress, under oath, with regard to the firing of the U.S. attorneys. The President intends to invoke "executive privilege," the same doctrine used by Presidents Nixon and Clinton in their respective (unsuccessful) attempts to resist subpoenas:

First, the President began his Press Conference by admitting that the administration's explanations as to what happened here have been -- to use his own words -- "confusing" and "incomplete." Why, then, would Congress possibly trust Bush officials to provide more explanations in an off-the-record, no-transcript setting where there are no legal consequences from failing to tell the truth?

Once a party demonstrates a propensity to issue false explanations and refuses to tell the truth voluntarily, no rational person would trust that party to make voluntary disclosures. One could trust (if at all) only on-the-record testimony, under oath, where there are criminal penalties for lying (if they have questions about that motivational dynamic, they can ask Lewis Libby).

Second, it is crystal clear (just as it was when Bill Clinton sought to invoke "executive privilege" to resist Grand Jury subpoenas to his aides -- Sidney Blumenthal, Bruce Lindsay and Hillary -- in the Lewinsky investigation) that the narrowly construed doctrine of executive privilege does not entitle the President to shield the communications here from compelled disclosure. When the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Nixon (1974) rejected Nixon's invocation of that privilege to resist a Grand Jury Subpoena for the Watergate tapes, this is how the Court defined its scope (emphasis added):

The President's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the court. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential communications is significantly diminished by production of such material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a district court will be obliged to provide.

Similar reasoning was invoked by District Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson in her decision denying Clinton's attempt to rely on this privilege to resist Ken Starr's subpoenas.

Finally, Bush followers are gearing up to solemnly lecture us all on how profoundly vital "executive privilege" is and how terrible it is that Democrats are trying to invade it by demanding that political advisor Karl Rove and Harriet Miers testify under oath. But that, of course, is not what they were saying -- at all -- when Clinton attempted to use that doctrine to prevent the compelled testimony of his aides.

As a side note, I previously thought that the worst and most anger-inducing period of time to research was the late 2002/early 2003 "debate" over whether to invade Iraq, but the trashy filth which spewed forward on a virtually nightly basis during the Lewinskly "scandal" is actually far worse. As but one example, here is how David Shuster led off Tony Snow's Fox program on March 15, 1998:

SHUSTER: Once a reluctant witness, former White House aide Kathleen Willey described to Kenneth Starr's grand jury, and earlier to attorneys for Paula Jones, a 1993 meeting with President Clinton. Willey wanted to discuss a personal crisis with the president. But the encounter, she says, soon became sexual.

Jones attorney Donovan Campbell -- "Was there any kissing involved during that hug?"

The hug just continued longer than I expected."

Jones attorney Donovan Campbell -- "Was there any kissing involved during that hug?"

"There was an attempt."

"Please describe that as fully as you can."

"He attempted to kiss me."

"Mr. Clinton did?"

"Yes."

"On the lips?"

"Yes."

"Did Mr. Clinton ever seek to take either of your hands and place it on his body any place?"

"Yes."

"Please describe that."

"He put his hands -- he put my hands on his genitals. I recall him saying he had wanted to do that for a long time."

The total collapse of our political discourse was complete during that period [and, on a related note, I agree entirely with the point Bob Somerby makes here -- even though I don't point it out every single time I mention right-wing deceit -- that the real problem are not the right-wing noise machine and their commentators on Fox per se, but rather, the fact that our national media has been trained to echo their sentiments and follow their lead. Oliver Willis' recording of The Politico's Mike Allen (recently of Time) falling all over himself to please Matt Drudge is an excellent illustration (h/t Atrios)].

In any event, here are some thoughts about "executive privilege" and its heinous truth-suppressing attributes, expressed in 1998 by people who will undoubtedly be defending its grave importance over the next several days:

Tony Snow - Op-Ed - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 29, 1998 :

Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

In our latest Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll, we asked a series of questions about executive privilege. Most believe it's an attempt to stonewall Ken Starr's investigation. There's an even split on whether the White House has something to hide. And a majority thinks conversations with the first lady should not be covered.

Did the president invoke executive privilege to preserve the presidency or hold Ken Starr at bay?

Paul Gigot, Fox News, March 8, 1998:

GIGOT: Senator Torricelli, the president has from the very beginning pledged to cooperate with the investigation, said he wants to get the truth out sooner rather than later.

Would you define claims of executive privilege as cooperation? . . . But aren't claims of executive privilege usually reserved for national security matters -- in particular, matters of state secrets and foreign affairs?

Kate O'Beirne - Capital Gang - May 2, 1998:

O'BEIRNE: Let me say, Mark, I think Newt Gingrich delivered a really good speech. He gave voice to that which millions of people know to be true. I don't think it's good news for the Democrats. The Republicans have had trouble finding their voice on this and they're scared off by being told it just has to do with the president's personal, private behavior. And Newt Gingrich, I think, has given voice to them in a way that's not helpful to Democrats.

He says there are two principles involved, the public's right to know, because secrecy has so benefited Bill Clinton, and second, no one is above the law. Now, if the public increasingly sees this scandal about their right to know, so much for executive privilege and Secret Service privilege, and no one is above the law, Bill Clinton's in a lot of trouble.

Tony Snow's Show - Fox News - May 10, 1998

SNOW: Mr. Burton, back to your committee -- if you cannot immunize those witnesses, that's the kiss of death. You're not going to have any more hearings.

BRIT HUME: And have you been assured, sir, that you will remain as chairman of that committee through the coming months.

GOP COMMITTE CHAIR REP. DAN BURTON: Yes. I have no problem with that, and I don't think the speaker does either.

We're going to continue on it until we get the truth for the American people, or at least do our dead-level best to get the truth for them.

You know, the president could solve a lot of this problem if he wouldn't hide behind executive privilege, if he'd just come out and tell the American people the truth.

In 1998, when Bill Clinton invoked it, "executive privilege" was a cynical and corrupt tool to prevent Americans from learning the truth about scandal and keep the President above the law. In 2007, now that George Bush has invoked it (and it's hardly the first time, but this time it will likely be tested), it will be a doctrine of the gravest importance and steeped in our most cherished democratic traditions and it must be defended at all costs in order to preserve the Power and Honor of the Presidency.

From William Safire, writing in The New York Times, June 4, 1998 (h/t Invictus):

The Supremes will not have to decide President Clinton's claim of executive privilege to shield his P.R. aide Sidney Blumenthal because when Starr went eyeball-to-eyeball with the White House on this, Clinton blinked. I think the President knew this claim on a matter unrelated to national security was a loser all along, but made it in lower court to run down the clock. Smart; it bought him four months.

For better or worse, not only the right-wing noise machine, but also our nation's media elite, decreed long ago that when "executive privilege" is invoked for anything other than safeguarding national security or other state secrets, it is a corrupt tool designed to stifle The Truth. Here, it is being invoked by Bush to prevent his political advisor and White House counsel -- with no relationship to national security matters -- from testifying as to the reasons why the administration fired 8 U.S. attorneys and then lied about what they did repeatedly.

Over at Kos, Kagro X has some informed and likely accurate speculation about what is truly motivating the White House in refusing in advance to comply with Congressional Subpoenas (which ought to be imminently forthcoming). Clearly, the U.S. attorneys probe is not the only investigation the White House fears -- and almost certainly is not the one they fear the most.

For that reason, it is important to them to establish principles which will prevent (or at least substantially delay) any meaningful investigations by Congress into the White House's conduct over the last six years, and creating a privileged buffer around key administration officials and White House documents serves that purpose quite well. For that exact reason, it is absolutely imperative that Congress not acquiesce here, because genuine investigations -- that which the country urgently needs -- will, at some point, require this confrontation.

-- Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?...tive_privilege/

Just reviewing this topic and was struck by the cement hardened positions of Pitdawg and CoachB. I am a bit of a political junkie also but never has so much been written about so little in terms of national importance.

I found this sentence written early on..."No Coach,the AG is part of the Judicial branch of government. The White House is part of the legislative branch of government."

The White House is not part of the Legislative branch of government it is the main component of the Executive branch of government. The Executive branch includes the Cabinet one element of which is the "Attorney General" who oversees the Justice Dept.of the administration, but the Attorney General is not a part of the Judicial branch of government .

In this whole mess with the US Attorneys being fired, it certainly stinks and smells of rotten politics but then again political appointess can and often are fired for no good cause at all! They may have taken a principled and moral stand while others did not....GOOD FOR THEM...but they are still fired.

We worry too much about things we cannot control nor should we be wanting to control political appointees. Just thank God they are not Civil Service lifetime jobs like the Supreme Court players.

Good post. I am not cemented in my views as much as just want those already convicting people of their accusations to show some actual evidence to support their accusations. I have done nothing more than to reply to what has been posted. Pit has claimed that all these articles PROVE the allegations. I simply showed that there are other explanations and that the articles don't prove anything. If more comes out, then fine. As of now, it reeks more of political staturing and a witch hunt to aid elections more than anything. As you said though, political appointees can fall to politics. Others need to have something to fueld their agenda.

I understand Coach and also see Pit's argument. At the end of the day it comes down to this. Is it illegal for a sitting President or his Cabinet Head to remove a U.S. Attorney for political reasons?

Has a crime been committed in the act of the firing the US Att'ys? The answer is NO! The other more important question is...has the Bush Administration fired one or more of these guys because they were working on Republican corruption and therefore needed to be stopped...or did they refuse to go forward on Democrat corruption charges which the Admin. wanted to happen?

Politics as usual...same game different team is all it is........

Get ready for the cries for impeachment soon.....
Get ready for the comparisons to the Nixon mess!
Remember though with Nixon the bill of impeachment listed several counts of corruption and hign crimes attributed to actual crimes while there are no crimes here. No crimes but mishandling of simple political manuvering.

It depends largely on what the testimony is once Rove & Co. get sworn in under oath.


If they'll finaly admit it was political and "man up" or wheather they'll stick to the lies they've been perpitrating so far.

Isn't that pretty much what it boiled down to with Clinton?

House panel OKs subpoenas of Bush aides

Move sets up constitutional showdown over firings of eight U.S. attorneys

WASHINGTON - A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for President Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove, and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

By voice vote, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president’s top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.

The White House has refused to budge in the controversy, standing by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and insisting that the firings were appropriate. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that in offering aides to talk to the committees privately, Bush had sought to avoid the “media spectacle” that would result from public hearings with Rove and others at the witness table.

“The question they’ve got to ask themselves is, are you more interested in a political spectacle than getting the truth?” Snow said of the overture Tuesday that was relayed to Capitol Hill by White House counsel Fred Fielding.

Publicly, the White House held out hope there would be no impasse.

“If they issue subpoenas, yes, the offer is withdrawn,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow. “They will have rejected the offer.”

He added that the offer for interviews on the president’s terms — not under oath, on the record or in public — is final.

‘There must be accountability’
Democrats dismissed the overture, in large part because there would be no transcript.

“There must be accountability,” countered subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.

The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a vote Thursday on its own set of subpoenas, with Democrats complaining that the threat of force is the only way to get a straight answer from the White House.

“The White House is in a bunker mentality — won’t listen, won’t change,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I believe there is even more to come out, and I think it’s our duty to bring it out.”

The House subcommittee Wednesday approved, but has not issued, subpoenas for Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, their deputies and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff, who resigned over the uproar last week.

The panel also voted to compel the production of documents related to the firings from those officials and Gonzales, Fielding and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolton. Fielding a day earlier refused to provide Congress internal White House communications on the subject.

Subpoenas as Democratic ‘leverage’
With the authorization in hand, Chairman John Conyers of Michigan could issue them at any time.

Authorizing the subpoenas “does provide this body the leverage needed to negotiate from a position of strength,” said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass.

Republicans called the authorization premature, though some GOP members said they would consider voting to approve the subpoenas if Conyers promises to issue them only if he has evidence of wrongdoing.

Conyers agreed. “This (authority) will not be used in a way that will make you regret your vote.”

Several Republicans said, “No” during the voice vote, but no roll call was taken.

For his part, Bush remained resolute.

Would he fight Democrats in court to protect his aides against congressional subpoenas?

“Absolutely,” Bush declared.

Bush supports Gonzales
In televised remarks on Tuesday, Bush defended Gonzales against demands from congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans that Gonzales resign.

“He’s got support with me,” Bush said. “I support the attorney general.”

Democrats say the prosecutors’ dismissals were politically motivated. Gonzales initially had asserted the firings were performance-related, not based on political considerations.

But e-mails released earlier this month between the Justice Department and the White House contradicted that assertion and led to a public apology from Gonzales over the handling of the matter.

The e-mails showed that Rove, as early as Jan. 6, 2005, questioned whether the U.S. attorneys should all be replaced at the start of Bush’s second term, and to some degree worked with Miers and Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed.

In his remarks Tuesday, Bush emphasized that he appoints federal prosecutors and it is natural to consider replacing them. While saying he disapproved of how the decisions were explained to Congress, he insisted “there is no indication that anybody did anything improper.”

Nonetheless, the Senate on Tuesday voted 94-2 to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged the eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the USA Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.

NBC News, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17717399/

No Mr. Pit it is not the same as Clinton because Clinton committed a felony when he lied under oath. When Rove and Co. discuss the Executive decisions they may not be sworn in as in a formal deposition where Clinton lied.
Rove and Co. can admit that YES the US Att'ys were fired for political reasons...they can scream it from the Congressional Hearings and put it out on all the networks that they FIRED THE UNLOYAL ATTORNEYS. So what?
There is no law against firing an at will employee when the will is gone. Is there?

Ahhh but the killler is they are POSSIBLEY about to lie under oath. See how it's working? They can either own up to saying "yeah we did it for purely political reasons" or lie. Also there is some question of obstruction of justice which IS a crime. So lots going on here. And Coach Pit isn't a democrat I wish you'd stop saying that. Now me?? I'M a a member of the Democractic Party.

Also I'm happy that congress is finally standing up to the exec branch. (which IMO has totally exceeded it's power time after time.) And talk of impeachment? I dream of the day...but not for this....there are other bigger things to talk about. But this is an important first step. Cheers!

Why lie about a legal act? I'm quite sure that Karl Rove will handle the questions that Leahy and Kennedy toss at them. Just tell the truth unless Executive Privledge precludes the answer.
Can't be convicted of being a politcal hack...just if you are a liar. No crime!

It's exactly the same deal it was with Clinton. He commited NO crime untill they got him under oath. It's exactly the same here and they know it.

Anyone who were to get caught having sex in the work place would be fired.

You know what, you're right pitt. Clinton never did a darn thing wrong in 8 years. He's perfect. It was those evil republicans that tried to bring him down.

If you read carefully you'll see that Pit is saying they HAVEN'T ( at least in this case) done anything illegal yet (that we know of). Now what they did wasn't illegal, it was petty politics as the title says.
Now it appears the american public is tired of "petty politics". I can even see it from reading this thread. Soooo the administration either comes out and admits it was all politics AND we lied when we said it wasn't (which will HURT them politically in a big way) OR lie under oath.
The only legal issue at the moment is obstruction of justice. I for one want the truth. Not really b/c the current admin is rebublic (little joke there) and I"m democratic, but because I believe in truth, justice, and the american way. Government should always have oversight.

The only difference Pit was that Clinton was named by a private citizen in a civil suit [ violation of civil rights/Paula Jones] and the President decided to lie under oath in that matter.
In this matter no charges have been filed so there is no reason for the President to discuss anything. If his seconds testify the must tell the truth or face perjury charges...but why lie if the truth is that Bush and Cheney and Speedy Gonzo wanted these guys canned for not being team players.
Clinton had a reason to lie but Rove and Myers don't have a reason.