And that means the article isn't accurate how? Create a second e-mail account and register, that way, your primary account won't get flooded with offers and other junk mail.



No, the accusation was that the attornies were pressured to bring political cases and to ignore others. Prosecutor Iglesias gave two names of people who contacted him. Dominici said he couldn't remember the conversation with Iglesias and then he flip-flopped and admitted it. It isn't simply a matter of arrogance. Dominici leaned on Iglesias and got called on it. He was less than honest about the account and there is nothing that suggests Iglesias is wrong. Not even his shining record.



So you agree that the White House was involved?



You know, there have been a number of times where when my party was in the wrong, I openly stated it and agreed with the republicans and libertarians on the board. I can't provide specific links, but I got a ton of e-mails about Alcee Hastings since I argued that he deserved to be removed as a judge. I find it disturbing that on this board, there are party acolytes who feel that their party is never in the wrong, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For three pages now, hyperlinks and quoted evidence has been given. The only counter-evidence has been snarky references to ignoring posts and generalized "playing it down" comments that run along the lines of "Clinton did it too!" or "....it wasn't that bad."

I don't know whether it's accurate. I HAVEN'T SEEN IT! I asked several times for someone to cut / paste the alleged testimony. No one has done so. All I have seen is "The times said that so and so said that so and so said." How hard is this to figure out? I'm pretty well read, and have not seen any testimony fron the Judiciary committee posted anywhere.


Actually, it's a small thing, but the article you linked says that Ignesias did not give names, but that they were two lawmakers. "Iglesias declined to name the lawmakers who called him" actually. Of course, it's a short list to figure out who they were.

Again, I'm for Iglesias being fired for failing to charge ACORN who, among other things, registered 13-year-olds to vote. This state was close in '04, and that was vote fraud, and he failed to pursue it, despite receiving 3,000 complaints. I'm for his being fired for his lack of prosecution of cases I care about. There are plenty of legit reasons to fire him, despite his protestations.



Dude, US attorneys are appointed by the executive branch. How much more clear can this be. The president can fire any or all of them, without cause, at any time. That the White House is involved is a matter of constitutional law, not a scandal.


Really, I haven't seen the testimony. That's all I'm saying. I have clicked every link in this subject, and have not seen the testimony before the Judiciary committee. I haven't seen it anywhere on the internet. If you have it, please post it.

I'm ignoring Landru's posts because I think he debates like a a jerk, not because I think that Republicans are right all the time. He can't respond to anything without name-calling and tactless commentary. It has absolutely nothing to do with the specific subject; I plan to ignore them in all subjects. Apologies for making the off-subject comment in a thread you care so much about.

carlito, I imagine it takes more than a couple of days to transcribe the testimony. All I can offer is a link to the House Judiciary Committee's website, which has several of the documents in question, and the committee's letters to various individuals of interest.

House Judiciary Committee

From there, I see they are requesting Harriet Myers' testimony (and they are hoping she will do it voluntarily rather than having to subpoena her, but I doubt that'll happen), and many documents from Fred Fielding. Hearings begin again next Wednesday. All this information is available, but actual transcripts are not. If you do not accept the reports from the press, there is little anyone can do here at to convince you one way or the other.

I think it is an unfair burden to place on a debater to insist on word-for-word testimony, which is not available, while deriding valid arguments.


All I can say to this is that I was issued a strike for something far less harsh, and people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Here’s a helpful timeline and a who’s who gallery.


And yet according to Justice Charlton was let go for disagreeing with the department on death-penalty guidelines and tape-recordings, not lax illegal immigration enforcement. Lam is the only attorney cited for lax enforcement in this area but in her last performance review she was described as effective and respectful.

If the White House has an alternative policy to amnesty for illegal immigrants I am not aware of it. Bush pretty much has the same DAs Clinton hired and Clinton was tougher on illegal immigration. I hope you don’t think a Senator’s complaint and Charlton and Lam’s dismissal will change policy from the bottom to the top.


The Civil Rights Division has been criticized for not aggressively investigating/prosecuting allegations of voter intimidation. This DoJ division has slowly been marginalized since Bush took office and yet I always felt the lack of prosecution reflected White House policy. Firing DAs never crossed my mind.

I’m not going to say much except this. Since

• Clinton did worse
• DAs serve at the pleasure of the president
• Senate hearings for appointments are practically for show
• Legislative oversight to make sure appointments are somewhat independent and neutral in their pursuit of justice is unnecessary
• Turning the prosecutorial arm of the federal government into a hackocracy is not an issue (DAs serve at the pleasure of the president, remember?), and
• Clinton did worse

let’s dispense with the circus and modify the Patriot Act again, hell let’s change statutory law so that not only is the president able to make DA recess appointment that will serve until the end of the president’s term, but also allow the president to appoint DAs without a Senate vote. If a DA’s independence does not matter and being lockstep with the White House’s ideology trumps every consideration taxpayers will save money by letting presidents have their way from the getgo.

Is it about the firings anymore then really about why? I mean political allegiances aside to fire the attorneys because they would not carry out orders that may or may have not been all to lawful, or orders that were corrupt seems like the firings themselves could simply lead to more hot water really. Now I don’t know exactly why the firings took place, and I don’t think the buzz of this issue anymore rests on the firings then as to why they took place, I could be wrong though.

So overall maybe the Bushco admin would not be in such hot water if scrutiny was not placed on them for any action they commit, and one can speculate why such a scrutiny exists, probably from more angles then one anymore but back to my point is that I really doubt the firings themselves happen to be the thesis of the buzz around the topic of such anymore, I think its focused more on the why part now.

V


I stand corrected – only the primary operators of the business, with the knowledge of the working of the company were jailed – and to believe that their attorney knew nothing is the height of fantasy – no Hillary got off because the loud mouthed McDougal woman clamed up and went to jail rather than take her buddy Hillary down. - Now if you girl Hillary is so clean on this then just why did the sleaze bag go to jail rather than testify before the Grand Jury – My guess is fear of purgery – which would have gotten her more than 18 months.


Were the firings inappropriate?

Perfectly fine – if Bill can fire 93 then certainly 12 is not an issue and we have yet to hear even one of them say they were pressured to do anything?

Once again, get a second account and set registrations so that your primary e-mail account won't be clogged with useless junk. Do you not concede that Dominici's sudden "memory loss" makes him less credible than the attorneys? And if they had poor performance reviews, why hasn't anything been mentioned? On top of that, why did Heather Wilson contact one of them as well? Amazing how it wasn't the representatives who brought out that fact first.



O.K., and that absolves?



For political reasons, which is exactly what his claim is regarding it being an act of politics, and not for the fraudulent and proven false assertion that it was done due to poor performance reviews.




And how much more clear can it be that other than starting the new term, it is unprecedented to change attorneys in mid-stream?

Awright, mofos, it is ON!!!

Looks like a showdown between Bush and Congress. Though I must admit I'm confused: if Congress subpoenas you, you darned sure better show up, or risk a contempt charge and possible jail time, right? How can the White House "threaten not to produce him"?

In my opinion, they should testify under oath. None of this "we'll talk to you with no oath and in private" stuff. They pulled this crap once already with a complacent, Republican-controlled Congress - no more.

Today was a big day for material on this case.

Why I was fired by David Iglesias

House Committee authorizes subpoenas of White House officials by Michael Roston

I was surprised at the harsh backlash to the president's comments - well not completely.

To keep current with the events, one needs to keep up on the emails released on this case.

One conclusion we can draw from the emails is that consensus was not used in the deliberations. If we are fishing this much material now I can't wait to review this in a weeks time.

Furthermore the Congressional Research Service has issued a study covering attorney appointments from 1981 to 2006. In it, this report illustrates in black and white that the 8 dismissals can only be matched the dismissals over a twenty-five year period. Hopefully the unprecedented nature of these firings has become clear at this point and that part of the debate can be put to rest.

From the link...
So, 54 U.S. attorneys were replaced mid-term over about 3.5 two-term administrations (Reagan, Daddy Bush, Billary 1.0, Shrub), for an average of 15.4-ish mid-term replacements per 2-term administration. Shrub replaced 19, Reagan replaced 21... now, where's the "unprecedented" part again?

Naturally, we can subdivide the 54 replacements any which way we want to in order to claim the recent replacements were unprecedented. "This is the first time a US attorney was replaced mid-term after eating a booger on a Thursday in the rain!! Unprecedented!! Scandal!! Impeachment!!" Some might say that there's a significant difference between firing and "promoting" out of office shortly before "resigning", but in reality, it's just a more "tactful" way to accomplish the same result. Shrub, Gonzales, and everyone else who has been asked recently admit that the firings were mishandled by terminating employment and falsely stating it was for cause. It wasn't very nice, but it's a molehill, not a mountain.

The moral of this story is that all Presidents from now on will fire all US attorneys upon taking office, and replace them from the get-go with party loyalist federal judge candidates. If attorneys stop "playing ball" with the administration, Presidents will "promote" them out of power before letting them "resign". Maybe this is what Hillary "Travelgate" Clinton has been angling for all along: making Clintonian stacking of the Justice Deparment seem normal and customary at her 2008 coronation so they won't reopen the Filegate case and start matching names to her suspicious Body Count.

I personally agree with Iglesias who said in an interview that a more honest approach would be perfectly acceptible under current law:

You misrepresent the report, Seamus. These 52 DAs either resigned or the White House(s) allowed their appointments to expire. They were not fired. Two of the 54 DAs were dismissed by presidents. I believe one of them, Martson, was fired by Carter for investigating a Democratic congressman that was up fore reelection. I can’t remember if the second DA was fired by Reagan or Bush Sr. However, I don’t believe even the CRS report gives the whole story.

According to the Post new presidents replacing all/most U.S. attorneys in the beginning of their first term is not uncommon.


Contrary to what the Wall Street Journal and other outlets report, Clinton did not establish a trend too scandalous to follow. Six years ago the Justice Department issued this statement:


Presently, every single fired attorney was nominated by Bush shortly after he was sworn into office. By my account of firings, Carter had the distinction of firing a DA in mid-term for investigating a member of the president’s party until now. In addition, Bush Jr. also has the distinction of firing DAs for failing to pursue the White House’s agenda (a.k.a. non-“loyal Bushies”).


Think, woman. Which administrative agency is in charge of enforcing subpoenas?

I personally hope Bush follows through on the bluster and delivers a constitutional showdown. It would likely narrow the scope of his claims to unlimited privileges, a bogus excuse to keep his aides from testifying. Tony Snow made an absurd argument:


Of course Bush approved of the firings. Attorney’s serve at the pleasure of the president and Snow is covering his boss’s rear. I also hope Gonzales is scapegoated or forced to step down. He may not be ultimately responsible for the latest idiocy, but I can simply recall his refusal to cooperate with congressional oversight in warrantless spying investigations.

Okay- lets go over the FACTS as we know it now-

1) It is the usual policy of an incoming elected executive branch person to ask for the resignation of all political appointees- Clinton fired 93, as was customary for an incoming goverment- in fact, our republican governer did that as soon as she took office- from another republican. No biggie, in fact, I would even say appropriate at the beginning of a term, as long as, in the case of prosecutors, the incoming guy is properly briefed by the outgoing guy/gal.

2) Gonzales did it NOT at the begining of a term- but to GWs own appointees, not even around an election- and all of them were investigating wrongdoing by other republicans. The most notable one was the one investigating Duke Cunningham and Cheney-ties.

3) The white house has changed stories and e-mails linking them to this at this time.

Ya, the firings are HIGHLY inappropriate- and warrant the creation of a special prosecutor, that has no bounds to it's investigations, none whatsoever.

I think it is also high time for a constitutional amendment limiting executive privilege- too many presidents have mis used this privilege, and it is time to remove it forever.

There should be 0 things the president can hide from a subpoena by congress, nothing, zip nada. He should even have to turn over his shrink's notes from 2nd grade if congress asks for it.

BTW- I think Rove got sloppy in his sociopathic behaviors- very typical in the sociopath- they got away with it for so long, they think they are invunerable to anything that they do- critisizing these lawyers and trashing thier reputations may backfire- these attorneys seem to be ready to fight back. This is only about the 100th time someone has left this administration and character assasination as been immediate from the Rove group. Maybe too quickly, I am hoping anyway.

I can see how one might think I misrepresented the report if I had stopped writing at the end of my rhetorical question. However, in that particular post, I went on to answer my own question by describing how we can add whatever qualifiers to those numbers we want to start making the current replacements look "unprecedented", and that the outright mid-term dismissal was indeed relatively unprecedented in its methodology, but that there's plenty of evidence of removing attorneys from their cases mid-term by more polite means, such as "promotion", resignation, and reassignment elsewhere in government-- relatively common practices.

It is true that only two were dismissed outright without cause. Although I won't accuse you of intentionally misrepresenting the report, it doesn't actually show that all 52 of the others "either resigned or the White House(s) allowed their appointments to expire", as you claim. That number includes none whose appointments were allowed to expire (remember, these are only those replaced before the expiration of their 4-year terms; we've already conceded to exclude Clinton's 93 ousters in order to nudge the statics this far in favor of being "unprecedented"). Most of those remaining 52 were either promoted, reassigned within the administration, ran for public office, left for work in the private sector, or resigned without explanation. A wide variety of reasons for leaving are meticulously documented in the appendices to the report.

Technicalities aside, if the DoJ hand handled the dismissals the more direct way Iglesias suggested rather than claiming poor performance, there would have been no illegal "wrongdoing" for Congress to investigate. If the DoJ had avoided outright dismissal by promoting or reassigning some attorneys and encouraging others to shop around their résumés, we would have almost nothing to distinguish the current replacements from the 54 in the report.

The dishonest statements with regard to the reason for dismissal opens the door just far enough for Congress to investigate the reason for the dishonesty-- were these lies motivated by corruption, influence peddling, a faustian deal with the devil, or mere incompentence? It's a fishing expedition. But if DoJ spokespeople had merely stated "these are political appointees no longer in political favor with the President, but had excellent performance ratings", then all that Congress could have done in response would be to try to pass legislation closing that loophole to preventing future Presidents from doing the same thing-- there would have been no cause for investigation, and no subpoena approvals.

No, this is not how anybody would prefer government to operate. Yes, these firings were handled wrongly. Perhaps Presidents shouldn't have the authority to capriciously replace U.S. Attorneys mid-term without cause-- but they currently do. Easy solution: change the law, fire everyone who lied about the dismissals being for cause, and MoveOn.org to something more substantial already, like the identity of Anna Nicole Smith's babydaddy.

There are a mountain of real issues worth attacking Shrub's administration about, so this particular molehill wouldn't seem to be the wisest investment of political capital. Maybe Senate Democrats have polls indicating the public doesn't care if there's any real substance behind a political dragnet, so long as the words "SCANDAL!!" and "UNPRECEDENTED!!" are screaming from above the fold in large boldface type. Maybe Democrats secretly admire Ken Starr's rampant popularity and want to emulate his stellar reputation come 2008 (irony). Maybe they want to redirect attention away from the six major legislative initiatives they introduced during their "first hundred hours" railroad session, none of which have actually been enacted (my e-mail marching orders from the GOP are hinting Republicans should mention that in mixed company-- not sure why). Nothing like a scandal investigation to make the Senate look like it's accomplishing something.

Republicans made me sick of dragnet politics in the 1990's, and now Senate Democrats are just doing more of the same. Transparent stunts like this on both sides make me proud to be a partisan Libertarian, though I wonder if we would behave any differently if we were in power. I certainly hope so.

Come on now, Seamus. Since when have you heard of making people "fall into line" by promoting the troublemakers? Firing someone is substantively different than promoting them or reassigning them.


I agree with this. Just admitting the reason up front would have greatly deflated the perception of wrongdoing here. However, it would have probably goaded Congress to change the law. I suppose it was worth the risk for the administration to pursue the course of action they did in hopes that it would stay under the radar.


Politics dictates you run with the what's immediately in the public mind. So, while this "scandal" may be overhyped, it is still no less worthy of some investigation.

I will repeat what I said earlier in this thread.

Firing 8 attorneys because they are out of political favor and not because of lack of merit is fundamentally anti-conservative.

I can't see how any self-identified conservatives would defend this practice. Has the world gone upside-down? Will the Republican Party start supporting Affirmative Action?

Just an update:

Link

So here we see the main strategy of the Dem witch hunt and a perfect reason why you would never want to allow anyone to testify on the hill. The dems have all the data and have found squat so what do they do – well lets see if we can catch anyone in a misstatement (honest or not) – then we can crucify them regardless of the legality of their actions.

This shameful display of partisan nonsense is a sickening waste of OUR MONEY. And all we can be sure of is that in the end little if anything will come out of it and the Republicans will be certain to retaliate some day wasting even more of OUR MONEY.

When can we expect the Dems to actually get to work instead of sifting through thousands of documents?

True-- which is precisely the reason why promotion and reassignment are often used to handle a situation more quietly. After it happened to me, I was told it was an old strategy now sometimes called a "window seat retirement", from Michael Crichton's Rising Sun book. From the movie transcript:
Quite frequently, the same traits that are highly desirable in a justice (fair-minded adjudication) can be politically problematic in a U.S. attorney, from the administration's point of view. Promoting attorneys from a prosecutorial role to a bench is a very effective way of taking them off the cases they are prosecuting and preventing them from deciding or discussing prior cases under conflict-of-interest ethics. Devious, yes, but effective.

Anyone who has had the misfortune of working for a less-than-ethical medium-to-large corporation long enough can probably vouch that potential whistle-blowers are more often promoted than fired. The pattern is pretty easy to recognize. After a worker reports a problem to the boss, the boss makes a show of resolving the issue, then rewards the whistleblower with a "promotion" for being so trustworthy. The worker gets slightly higher pay, a more-important-sounding title, better perks, bigger office, and "less stressful" responsibilities slightly beyond qualifications. The thankful worker continues to make significant contributions to the company in his/her field of expertise, but is no longer privy to the nitty-gritty details of how the company is continuing to cut corners, scam clients, trick regulators, etc. If the company wants the worker to leave, the worker is paid a little more than before, but a little less than standard for the new position, prompting the worker to eventually seek higher pay elsewhere. By promoting wistleblowers and tricking them into leaving of their own accord for unrelated reasons, the company will appear to have done the right thing, and thus avoid the kind of suspicion that would be aroused if the workers had been fired.

Think about it. The current suspicion is that Bushco dismissed these attorneys because they were being too fair-minded with certain cases, not that they weren't ideologically conservative enough. In that case, Bushco could have achieved its goals "under the radar" by promoting most of these attorneys to the bench (where being fair-minded is desirable) or moving them to other positions in the administration, if there had been openings. Instead, the DoJ acted directly to dismiss, then mischaracterized the reasons, instigating an investigation which could have been avoided by anyone with an ounce of political acumen/cleverness (Rover?).

In a way, I'm glad someone botched the job so that we could have this discussion about the ethics of removing U.S. attorneys from their cases mid-term, as has happened 54 times in the past 4 administrations. As the law stands, there's nothing illegal about replacing U.S. attorneys mid-term for capricious political reasons; perhaps that law should be modified to require an ethics hearing before replacing any U.S. attorney mid-term, just to be certain the reasons are honest and above-board, and all the potential conflicts-of-interest have been identified and reviewed. That kind of review is already common (required?) whenever a private-sector lawyer changes jobs; perhaps the same should happen for U.S. attorneys, regardless of the reasons for leaving mid-term.

A waste of money? No, a half trillion dollars down the Iraq toilet - now THAT is a waste of money.

As for the rest of it, I thought that lying to Congress is something Republicans frowned upon…or does that only count if it’s a Democrat lying to a Republican Congress about an act of consensual sex?



Alberto is proving not to be the sharpest knife in the drawer (which is really no surprise when loyalty to the administration means far more than competence), and he may be the fall guy in this latest fiasco.

I am not speaking about “lying” I am speaking about memory. Remember they will ask (with documents in hand) about things written or said weeks or months earlier – and interpreting them in the darkest possible light. Can you remember everything you said or wrote a month ago? How about last week? It’s a shameless witch hunt. They HAVE the damn documents – I and the idiots have no doubt combed every word – and if they cannot find wrongdoing in them then there is a good chance there is none.


And of course when it’s the Dems turn to have the Republicans do this same strpid thing, liberals will be screaming at how “unfair” it is. IMO it is a big fat stupid waste of money. And the Dems have shown us how much that can save with the 24 billion in pork bribes in the defense bill. ……. This is "governing"??????

Were the firings inappropriate?

I'm surprised the mods didn't say something about so open-ended a question. Appropriateness is also very subjective. Does Congress have the right to question the President on what is appropriate, or only what is legal or Constitutional? Politics is the reason for everything that happens when things are inappropriate, and that is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. This includes committee hearings as well. These attorneys do not work for Congress. Can the President hold hearings when a Congressional page is fired or wrongly treated?

Was the intent of the mass firings to place more malleable Bush-supporters in the positions?

What is the point here? Is there a problem with the President hiring people that support him?

Should an ethics investigation be brought against the Republicans involved?
How about the Democrats, are they squeaky clean or something?

It looks as if a modicum of accountability may return to our beleaguered system.

This essentially puts things back the way they were before that little provision was snuck into the Patriot Act.

The argument so many have fallen back on of "oh, yeah, but look what so-and-so did or said" is a schoolyard taunt and hardly a legitimate response. The topic isn't about "so-and-so"; it's about Alberto Gonzales and the Bush administration, and the legally questionable actions leading to the firing of 8 US attorneys.

I agree with what you've written here about "silencing" future actions of a whistleblower. However, this wasn't what I was referring to. If the goal is to silence other potential whistleblowers (or in this case "encourage" them to follow the party line instead of the law), then there is no better mechanism than to fire the problematic employees to act as a chilling effect, to prevent others from doing the same thing.

All appointees are "political," of course, I am not sure what this term contributes. U.S. attorneys are indeed appointees, but they have been accorded substantial autonomy throughout recent history on the ground, presumably, that the administration of justice should be above partisan politics. US attorneys, in another age, would have been called proconsuls. Their power is great. They have never, recently anyway, been mere political flunkies.




I think you fail to understand that whenever a new administration is elected, there is a wholesale replacement of U.S. attorneys. That must have been the occasion for the firing of 90 or more of these people under Clinton (I thought there were only 90 US attorneys, by the way). That was routine and fully expected by everyone; I'm sure that much the same thing happened when Reagan came to power. But it is hardly the same thing as firing, with prejudice, one's own appointee (or someone one suffered to remain in office) on account of his failure to perform in a sufficiently partisan manner. And according to a report that I heard on NPR, a politically motivated firing has happened to, at most, one US attorney under any modern administration before this one.


Except for "unethical" (I reserve the right to condemn on ethical grounds some things that are legal), I agree in principle. But I think the U.S. attorneys are a somewhat special case, since here we touch upon the administration of justice. These particular firings seem to have arisen to the failure of these people to have been sufficiently partisan in their adminstration of justice, and I find that troubling. I would not like to live in a country where prosecutions occurred for partisan political reasons and were micro-managed from the Casa Rosada, or White House, or whereever.

Small point: you seem to argue against yourself when you fulminate against the firing of the staff of the White House travel office. By the points you have just made, that should have been an unremarkable event in the history of the republic.


The following is quoted from "The Opinionator," a survey of the blogosphere that is published at www.nytimes.com. It is quite troubling:

What about the 85 U.S. attorneys who weren’t fired? Andrew Sullivan cites “a month-old statistical study that seems to me to be worth wider examination,” indicating that the Justice Department under President Bush may have engaged in “political profiling” by targeting local Democratic politicians for prosecution. Sullivan writes:

The authors of the study notice a fascinating wrinkle: there is not much partisan disparity in prosecutions at the state-wide or federal level, where the national press keeps tabs. But when you look at the local level, below the radar of the national media, you find something much more striking. If you remove Justice Department investigations of State-wide and federal elected officials from the tally, and look solely at investigations of local officials, you’re left with a stunning disparity.

“Data indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops,” write the study’s authors — Donald C. Shields, a professor emeritus of communication at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and John F. Cragan, a professor emeritus of communication at Illinois State — in an op-ed published in February at ePluribus Media, which describes itself as “a cooperative of citizen volunteers.”

Shields and Kagan examined “U.S. Attorneys’ federal investigation and/or indictment of 375 elected officials” between January 2001 and December 2006. In Appendix D, which is quoted by Sullivan, Shields and Kagan write that the rate of investigations of Democratic “office holders and office seekers” to Republican ones was “nearly 85 percent to 12 percent.”

Their conclusion: “The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling. Our paper calls for new federal laws that would create a national registry of federal investigations of elected officials by party affiliation.”

.”


This is easy to say without a study of the same data from previous administrations. So I will be willing to bet if we go back to the BC era we find similar data. They are “political” appointees after all.

So let’s look at the “below the radar” data from the BC era before we jump to conclusions. Certainly Bill got the AK Attorney involved in White Water when he fired them all (and put in a buddy). And just maybe the firing of all attorneys by Bill was the cover for this.

What don't you get about "appears to be the first to have engaged..."? If you are so certain that your nemesis Bill Clinton did something similar, then find it and post it; otherwise, quit tossing out these wild accusations and asides with nothing to back them up!. It's getting (hell, it's gone far beyond) tiresome, and bogs down an otherwise interesting and well thought-out thread.

What part of “appears” did YOU miss. What exactly does that that mean to you? Do you see and indication there is a “comparison” here or just a convenient political statement? Do you see data that shows the Clinton era was different – POST IT please


And PS I actually liked much of what ol Bill did .

What part of FIRST did you miss???

No, I won't "post it"; it was you who brought it up, it's on you to substantiate it, per the rules. I didn't bring Clinton into the debate. tHE DEBATE IS NOT ABOUT CLINTON.

You never supplied a source for your allegation that the attorneys had to fill out some "form", either. Are you going to ask someone else to supply that for you, too? There seems to be a pattern here.

Fine – “appears” means nothing – absolutely nothing.

This statement says it all – “Shields and Kagan examined “U.S. Attorneys’ federal investigation and/or indictment of 375 elected officials” between January 2001 and December 2006."


No comparrison - nothing. worthless

I won’t deny that I derive a certain amount of satisfaction seeing the current administration squirm now that they don’t ”own” all 3 branches of government, but I find it disconcerting that they’ve politically manipulated what is supposed to be one of the most impartial offices one can hold – US Attorney. Not surprising by any means, but disconcerting nonetheless. A US Attorney is supposed to prosecute violations of US laws, regardless of who the violators are, or where the evidence leads. These firings were political, as has been proven, and as such are improper. Alberto Gonzales is complicit in the efforts to politically manipulate the office of US Attorney, and should resign or be fired.

It is not "nothing" when the laws of the land are being bent to suit certain political interests.

I won’t deny that I derive a certain amount of satisfaction seeing the current administration squirm now that

You have to be kidding? The jobs are political by definition and the attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. Bill Clinton fired all the attorneys. ALL. Were they bad attorneys? Was it justified on performance grounds? Of course not. He wanted people who would uphold the law in a “Democrat” political way. With democrat priorities.

So now we have “appearance of such interference” - for which I assume we will have proof that is more substantial than the babbeling of angry fired employees. The Dems have had all the files and emails for some time now. Where is the proof of wrongdoing? Did they drop an investigation after finding wrongdoing at the urging of the President or a Republican Congressman?? When? Did they falsely accuse a Dem of a crime? Who?
Where is the BEEF!!!

It is perfectly legal for political appointees to be fired for political reasons – and I agree this is what should have been said from day one.

Ted. saying it over and over again, with capital letters and exclamation points (and throwing Clinton into e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e one of your posts still doesn't mean you are right. Did you even bother to read what a former US Attorney had to say (don't worry, he was serving a Republican president)?

What is it about that concept that you refuse to accept?

YES and for the 10th time, I read that and asked you to show me proof of any firings that “ is demonstrated that such hiring or firing has been done to shape or prevent legal outcomes” Your Dem buddies have been looking for this for how long? Do we have proof of this – NO. Is there a statement from a fired attorney that he did this? Is there any shred of proof it ever happened that is more than fired attorneys saying they were “pressured”. Are we to believe all this wrongdoing took place and not only was it not reported but there is not even a note of a conversation – or some result to point to. A fairy tale.


I will say it again Where is the BEEF grl.!!!!
So I did not mention you heart throb Bill OK?

I do find it interesting that the Whitehouse suggested all 93 attorneys be fired 2 years ago. What would the reaction have been if this had been done? My bet is that some of the debate may have been deflated. Of course, firing *all* 93 attorneys in the middle of Presidential term would have been unprecedented.

Still, firing 8 out of the 93 is unprecedented too. Firing 8 out of the 93 immediately following the loss of Republican control of Congress is also unprecedented. Firing 8 out of the 93 for "political reasons" and not for cause is unprecedented. A US Attorney General staffer pleading the 5th for something which isn't supposed to be illegal (just ethically questionable) is unprecedented.

There's nothing illegal about this, correct? Thus, there'd be no reason to hide the information; it doesn't involve national security issues (as far as I know).

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HUH???? So the 93 Bill fired were for cause???

Please give me the “cause” for each – beside the fact they were not Democrats.

The idea that these people whom were fired for whatever reason were possibly nothing more then the purpose of being an example of what will happen if you don’t play ball is nothing to take lightly I think. Basically its making a point of the law should word to our definition of it or not at all. TO agree with this is somewhat a preposterous position to take for surely that knife will cut both ways, and overall it will be America bleeding from such.

I think this is another fine example of the culture of corruption, but such does fit nicely with the mode of a permanent neo-con government if you think about it for a little bit, its very hardball politics in which the government itself is open to a cadre or really an assault of partisan attentions that have little more in store for everyone save a permanent ruler or decree really.

This is the reason I would support an investigation, that these people were fired in regards to simply not using the law in a partisan manner, and to think such has crept all the way up the food chain to the AG is nothing more then a horrific thought. The other gross as in nasty or putrid dimensions of this is such probably plays into other issues such as the patriot act, or heck even secret energy meetings. Its hard to say what is real or what is not, but just like with the move to block investigations of have secret off the air meetings this administration for what’s its worth is very shadowy, which in itself feeds the idea of corruption as much if not more then any opponents this admin has made, which is numerous and many and basically contains the popular opinion of the American voting block anymore.

IF what is reported is true, the AG has already lied in relation to a factual understanding of the situation, and why would someone do that if nothing wrong occurred? I mean what role does lying play in the human experience overall, and again why would the AG say I have had nothing to do with the firings or so on if such is plainly not true. There is more then enough for reasonable cause to warrant an investigation.

We have eight people that may or may have not been fired simply because they would not use there positions to further political agendas, chiefly in some episodic fashion spewing from the good old partisan nature of politics anymore against political foes. We also have what appears to be a quagmire or inability to get the reality of such put down on paper and a group of people fighting against the desire to figure out what went on really save for words that are empty, and or words that don’t fit what happened. If nothing was done wrong then an investigation of such would prove that would it not? If not why not?

So you think when Bill fired 93 there was no politics involved. No neo- lib agenda??? No desire to have the attorneys as “his” men. You have to be kidding. As has been said 50 times they are POLITICAL appointees. They are there because of their politics. They are expected to be in line with the political beliefs of the boss. And if they are asked to do illegal acts they are required to report same – no reports have been filed filed.

Does the context of the firings match the current firings in any regards. Also, as you so claim why do some people report of calls pressuring them into activities they would not undertake and then fired promptly for such, namely using their positions in relations to elections to defeat political rivals. Lastly the brunt of this and what the thread is about is simply wanting to find out what you claim already does not exist. This administration wont give up such information and what it has handed out does to quench the situation in any regard. I mean we already have lies about it down on paper now, its more then enough to warrant an investigation. I mean if nothing wrong occurred it will come to light during an investigation, which I would think would only be bonus points for your heroes, but from how it looks already with the need to lie about such for some reason then I feel an investigation is needed, just to make sure our government is not operating in some corrupt fashion. Lastly you can bring up Clinton all you want, but that is the past, and nothing more. We are in the present now dealing with what we are allowed to deal with, the present and or reality. So how about we deal with that, instead of saying well Lincoln did this, so what’s the difference. Though I guess because I somehow don’t support bush that automatically must make me something other then correct, also Clinton was investigated ultimately to his death as a president, so because that went on, following your logic, then nothing should change in this situation.

No what this is about is dragging public servants up on the hill for a witch hunt without proof they ever did a thing – now for the last time – if they DID anything – like force an Attorney to suppress evidence the proof is in their hands. Of course this did not happen so the Dems are left with nothing.

Last time I say this – if anyone did “pressure” the USA then he/she is required to report it. There is no report. You cannot come back later and so “oh I guess I should have reported it then” and have you boss and coworkers dragged into court. – get it!!!

So why are the people making any noise in the first place then ted. Why would these people even report being fired if such is just a common place event that can happen to anyone at anytime, and to only report it if something wrong occurred, maybe just maybe that’s why these people are speaking up and lastly we have a lie now about the situation from the AG, why in the heck would you lie if nothing wrong occurred, and again we cant know what happened like you claim to be able to because the facts are not down on paper yet and currently people responsible for such want to have off the recorded versions of such testimony giving for which I cant understand why being according to you nothing wrong happened.

Maybe gordo that just didn’t like getting fired and with Dems all around begging for any way to get at Gonzala. I don’t read minds but – hey Dems could have offered them jobs for all I know.

What we do know is all – that is ALL of the allegations they are making should have been reported and NONE were – Odd that

What’s odd here ted, that they are reporting it? I guess there should be correct channels to use and that’s why such an issue is void now right? Why is this a us and them issue ted, like with everything. I mean are all of the people who were fired liberals ted, are some of them even conservative? I mean to think a republican might actually be asking questions, its mind bottling!

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The 93 fired when Clinton entered office and the 93 fired when Reagan entered office happened at the beginning of their terms. But, then, I'm repeating information you already know. Everyone knows (particularly the attorneys) that this is what happens when there's an administration change (to a different party). Cases are wrapped up; information is passed on.

What happened here is different altogether. There is no equivalence. I will agree that there appears to be *nothing* technically illegal about what was done (though pleading the 5th is interesting). It is very similar to a cop being sidelined from a case because they happened to be getting too close to a politically important person. In other words, if not illegal, it may be unethical.

But, I suspect that no words I write here will convince you, Ted, of this. You are rooting for your team. If this were a Democratic administration, you would be taking an exact opposite stance you are now. That's fine. Rest assured though that if a different party were in power, I'd be arguing the exact position I am now.

First, by law the attorneys are subject to removal by the President. Second, they came forward because they were told that they were fired for performance reasons and believed that something else might have been the case. Third, none of the attorneys dragged their boss and coworkers into "court" - the attorneys themselves were dragged into "court" to testify. Fourth, Gonzales lied to Congress about his involvement. Finally, the Justice Department misled Congress about Karl Rove's possible involvement.

If there was no impropriety involved in the firings, why would Gonzales distance himself from the firings? Why would someone be forced to resign over the firings? Something is going on. Now, Ted, you want phone logs? I'm sure they have phone logs... Iglesias did not make up the phone calls and the people on the other end have issued their own statements regarding those phone calls. We also know that one of those people who made a phone call wrote a thank you note for the firing of Iglesias.

The US Attorneys serve at the will of the President, but, once appointed, they do not serve the President's will - they serve the US Government and the Bush Administration is but one part of that government. The idea that these attorneys were supposed to follow and get behind Bush Administration policy is ridiculous. What sort of precedent does that set. What if you had an administration that was doing something illegal or improper and not in support of the rest of the US Government... would it be proper for a President to dismiss attorneys who didn't favor breaking the law or behaving improperly?

This is a powerful tool for the President - and it is not one of his Constitutional Powers - it can be removed by Congress. And if there is a possibility that the power is being abused to serve the Bush Administration at the expense of the Justice System, Congress has the right to investigate.

My point is this... there is a enough evidence to warrant an investigation. There may, in the end, not be enough evidence to prove that anything did occur, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be investigated.

Here's what I said about Travelgate:
In context, I was "fulminating" against dragnet politics, not Hillary's firing of the Travel Office: I clearly labeled Travelgate as part of the dragnet problem, not something everyone can be proud of. I merely described what happened, then called Hillary to task for "arguing against herself", to borrow your phraseology, by renouncing dragnets as inherently evil when she's the target, then turning around and colluding in a dragnet when her enemies are the target. All of that is completely in line with the rest of my post, so I fail to see where I was arguing against myself.

Yes, Hillary's firing of the Travel Office should have been somewhat more than unremarkable and somewhat less than a scandal. As with Attorneygate, there were some fishy misstatements and some possible evidence of illegal corruption going on. Eventually, prior corruption was discovered, so it's good that the Travel Office incident was investigated, but partisan politics was the only reason it became a spectacle and the rants against replacing poltical appontees were floated all over the news. Interesting how the press coverage back then was always quick to follow such rants by mentioning that replacing political appointees (as opposed to civil service appointees) is not illegal; whereas today, most of the press coverage ignores that it's not illegal, and instead discusses how "unprecedented" it is and how it undermines justice. Hmm... Democrat does it, it's "not illegal"; Republican does it, it "undermines justice". Bias, anyone? (Granted, there's a big difference between firing a prosecutor and firing a travel agent-- but it seems many articles are reporting the scandal as if firing the appointees is currently illegal).

Back to the issue, after testimony yesterday from Kyle Sampson, Al Gonzales is looking more dishonest all the time. Congress will have to determine if his misstatements rise to the level perjury, and if so, impeach Gonzales if he won't step down. Investigations into the alleged lies to Congress are justified, even if the motivations behind the investigations are purely political.

As for the allegations of political pressure for firing U.S. Attorneys mid-term, we are back to the fact that it's not currently illegal for politicians to express their feelings to U.S. attorneys, but possibly unethical for lawmakers depending on the level of pressure. It's illegal for attorneys to cave to political pressure. It's unethical for them to fail to report the pressure. It's illegal to perjure yourself about it to Congress. I agree with Senate Democrats that protections probably should be in place to review the reasons for mid-term dismissals of U.S. attorneys; but dismissing U.S. attorneys for political reasons mid-term is currently not against the law, so continuing to investigate that aspect of the incident is nothing more than political opportunism-- blood in the water for sharks, vultures, and gadflies to swarm around.

Speaking of lying to Congress, yesterday's testimony puts the Senate in somewhat of a bind; the same official whose testimony establish