I have little to say about this. By all accounts, he tanked yesterday. His story was a concoction of "mea culpa" combined with "I’m not responsible" combined with "I don’t recall". Bottom line is that Gonzales is either lying about his role in the U.S. Attorney firings, or he is incompetent in that he was "out of the loop" about … Read More
Barry Manilow Can’t Make Up His Mind
Celebrity donations to political candidates: Hillary Clinton: Candice Bergen, Christie Brinkley, Chevy Chase, Hugh Hefner, Christine Lahti, Barry Manilow, Marla Maples, Rosie O’Donnell, Jerry Springer, Barbra Streisand Barack Obama: Jennifer Aniston, Jackson Browne, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Dennis Haysbert, Tobey Maguire, Barry Manilow, Branford Marsalis, Eddie Murphy, Ed Norton, Ben Stiller, Gene Wilder Chris Dodd: Edie Brickell, Michael Douglas, Steve … Read More
“Lost” White House E-mail Update
Here’s the story so far. There are two laws at issue here. One is the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all communications and documents from and to the White House be preserved. This includes, among many other things, e-mail. Then there is the Hatch Act. This requires that campaigning and other such matters NOT be done within the White … Read More
Breaking: White House “Lost” 5 Million Emails
In just a two-and-a-half year period – March 2003 to October 2005. That’s astounding. This from a report just issued by CREW. Of course, "lost" doesn’t necessarily mean what people think it means. Just because an email is deleted, and even deleted from the "deleted trash" folder, doesn’t mean it’s gone. From Justin over at ABC: …But “deleted” doesn’t mean … Read More
The Dog Ate My Homework
As an attorney who deals with subpoenas and requests for electronic documents on a regular basis, I can tell you that if a private company — especially one that is required by law or court order to retain documents, emails, and other information — told the government that it had "mishandled" its email retention system such that business-related emails were … Read More
A Really Bad Holocaust Comparison
Tom Delay, on the investigations into his criminality: "It doesn’t matter if it’s 6 million Jews or one man getting investigated, it’s the exact same thing." No, Tom. It’s really really not.
What SilentPatriot Says
at Crooks & Liars: LARRY BIRKHEAD IS THE FATHER* My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Can we please, please move on to more pressing matters now? Like, say, the Attorney General of the United States being subpoenaed in a scandal that very well may result in his resignation? Please? * I told eveybody it wasn’t me. Now … Read More
About The Truth
As his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee approaches, it looks like Alberto is in deep doo-doo and his cramming sessions are not paying off: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has virtually wiped his public schedule clean to bone up for his long-awaited April 17 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—a session widely seen as a crucial test as to whether … Read More
Tangled Web, And All That
One of the humorous side-stories to the U.S. Attorney purge scandal involves the firing of the U.S. Attorney from the state of New Mexico, David Iglesius. As former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson admitted last week, there was no real performance reason to fire Iglesias. In fact, it’s indisputable at this point that Iglesias was actually fired because he … Read More
Dems Have Party Advantage
New survey:
John McCain Is Losing It
He used to be a maverick and a straight-talker. Now he’s completely bonkers. In recent days, he’s been touting how safe Baghdad is, even as news reports have highlighted bombings and attacks in the normally-safe green zone. For his pollyannish comments, McCain was fittingly ridiculed. But rather than let it go, he decided to amp it up. At a press … Read More
More Brownies, Anyone?
It’s really amazing who the Bush people got to fill government positions. Horse show judges as head of FEMA? That was just the tip of the iceburg: The Washington Post reports today on another loyal Bushie: Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. The Interior Department’s inspector general has been looking into her actions for a … Read More
Sampson Is Screwing Gonzales
I can’t watch it live (here’s a nice rundown from US News), but the updates I get are pretty cool: 11:37 Update: Schumer’s up now for questioning. He wants to know about Gonzales’ statements about the process. Sampson says that there were repeated discussions about the firings, starting in January 2005 through the firings. "I spoke with him every day," … Read More
Too Clever By Half
JMM: If the president’s aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can’t have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege. Yeah. I don’t see anyway around that. UPDATE: The Carpetbagger raises two other issues regarding the White House staffs use of RNC emails: There’s still the Presidential Records Act to … Read More
It’s Not A Scandal Unless There’s A ‘Monica’ Involved
And now we have one. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s senior counselor, Monica Goodling, yesterday refused to testify in the Senate about her involvement in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The letter sent by Monica’s attorneys explains the reasons why. But here’s the thing: none of the reasons pertain to self-incrimination. You … Read More