The U.S Attorney hiring/firing scandal was a big issue in the latter years of the Bush presidency. I blogged about it often. Basically, it was this: The Department of Justice hired and fired U.S. attorneys based not on their merit, but on political considerations, thus politicizing the DOJ. The Bush White House, and Karl Rove in particular, denied any involvement. … Read More
The Final Word On The DOJ
Remember this scandal? Verdict (of a sort) is in: Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today. Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed … Read More
Greenwald Is Good Today
He’s on a rant about the Justice Department under the Bush Adminsitration — people who seem to think they work for the President and not for the people of the United States: The core attribute of the Justice Department is independence, not allegiance to the President as "client." The President has his own lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office. … Read More
Inspector General’s Report: DOJ Politicized Hiring
This just in: A report from the inspector general — the result of an investigation into DOJ hiring practices over the last six years — alleges that “many qualified candidates” were rejected from an elite recruitment program because of perceived liberal bias. Here’s a story from the NYT’s Eric Lichtblau, and here’s an AP report. Click here for the 115-page … Read More
Attorney Firing Probe Deepens
With Iraq, the economy and the elections, we seem to forget the Bush scandals. And the attorney firing scandal, which has been festering in the background, is about ready to blow (some say), with allegations of perjury, witness tampering and the like: The federal investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys could jolt the political landscape ahead of the … Read More
Recommended Reading
Slate’s Top Ten Bush Administration’s Dumbest Legal Arguments of the Year. It’s a doozy. Number one: 1. The United States does not torture. First there was the 2002 torture memo. That was withdrawn. Then there was the December 2004 statement that declared torture "abhorrent." But then there was the new secret 2005 torture memo. But members of Congress were fully … Read More
DOJ Investigating Gonzalez For Lying To Congress
Good: The Justice Department’s inspector general indicated yesterday that he is investigating whether departing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales gave false or misleading testimony to Congress, including whether he lied under oath about warrantless surveillance and the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. I guess it’ll be easier for the DOJ to investigate the DOJ, now that Gonzalez no longer runs … Read More
More Cracks In The Wall: Rove Subpoenaed
Breaking news from CNN: they have issued a subpoena to Karl Rove to testify about his role in the Department of Justice attorney firings. If he goes the route of Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton — i.e., refusing to comply — he (like them) faces contempt of Congress charges.
Contempt!
MSNBC: WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee voted contempt of Congress citations Wednesday against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and President Bush’s former legal counselor, Harriet Miers. The 22-17 vote, which would sanction the pair for failure to comply with subpoenas on the firings of several federal prosecutors, advanced the citations to the full House. The full House … Read More
Constitutional Showdown
It’s brewing: The House Judiciary Committee announced yesterday that it will press toward a constitutional showdown with the Bush administration over the U.S. attorney firings scandal, even as embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales vowed to stay on and "fix the problems" that have damaged the reputation and morale of the Justice Department. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the … Read More
Is Bush Committing A Felony?
Bush has order his former counsel Harriet Miers to not respond to the Congressional subpoena. You can’t do that. You can show up in response to the subpoena and claim some sort of executive privilege (see Taylor, Sara), or you can show up and lie (see, Gonzales, Alberto). But you just can’t order someone to not show up, because that’s … Read More
House Interim Staff Report on RNC Emails
House investigators have learned that the Bush administration’s use of Republican National Committee email accounts is far greater than previously disclosed — 140,216 emails sent or received by Karl Rove alone — and that the RNC has overseen “extensive destruction” of many of the emails, including all email records for 51 White House officials. The Presidential Records Act requires the … Read More
Replacing Ethnic Women With “Good Americans” (White Christian Men)
Bradley Schlozman, a Bush political appointee to the Department of Justice, reportedly tried to remove many female minority attorneys (who came on board under Democratic presidents) and replace them with — his alleged words — "good Americans". An anonymous phone call in 2005 led to an internal investigation, which resulted in these words from the Inspector General: The full report … Read More
AG AG Under Another Investigation
Not only was a knee-deep in the whole attorney firing issue, but now it looks like he may have obstructed justice in the attorney firing investigation: The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to influence the testimony of a departing senior aide during a March meeting in Gonzales’s office, according to correspondence released today. In … Read More
Another Document Dump
Yesterday saw even more documents from the White House in the attorney purge scandal, and this one, while small, provides far more proof that the White House was heavily involved in the DOJ’s hiring and firing decisions of federal prosecutors. Carpetbagger sums it up. UPDATE: The lastest doc dump has sparked two significant subpoenae — one to Harriet Miers, and … Read More