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
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
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
Snowjob
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, 10/6/06: Members of Congress have their own oversight obligations. They may proceed as they wish. They’re a separate and co-equal branch of government and I’m not going to tell them what they can and can’t do. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, yesterday: There’s another principle, which is Congress doesn’t have the legislative — … Read More
Finally Finally Finally, The U.S. Attorney Firing Scandal Has A Sexual Angle
Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was one of the 8 U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush Administration. The Arizona Republic story raises the question of why he was fired: Two weeks after Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was ordered to give up his post, he sent an e-mail to a top Justice Department official asking how to handle questions that … Read More
Document Diving & Latest On Purgegate
A lot of people following the U.S. Attorney Firing Kerfuffle are doing a lot of document diving — i.e., going through the documents and emails released this week by the DOJ (over 3,000 pages) to look BEHIND what the news will tell you tomorrow. Time doesn’t permit me to review documents myself, but for those interested, the documents are now … Read More
More “Purgegate” Fallout
God, I hate myself for using the -gate suffix. But I don’t know what to call it right now (does anybody?) Anyway, WaPo has a nice op-ed which stops just shy of calling for Gonzales’s head. My favorite bits: "I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in … Read More
Gonzales Uses The Passive Deflective Voice
"Mistakes were made", he says, in reference to the US Attorney firing scandal. Weasel words, if I ever heard them. Of course, in the same press conference, Gonzales says he stands by the firings. But he also fired the guy who did the firings, his chief of staff. So, all in all, it’s a little hard to parse. If I … Read More
Prosecutor Firing Scandal Widens
Background here. [UPDATE: An even better background — in the form of a timeline] And this past week, Attorney General Gonzales denied that there was any political involvement relating to the firings of the U.S. Attorneys. But today we learn differently: The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who … Read More
Pardon Libby? Not Under The Bush Guildelines
Bush was among the many critics of Clinton’s policy regarding pardons. So much so, in fact, that when Bush came into office, he re-established the guidelines under which a convicted person can be entitled to receiving a pardon. Newsweek has an eye-opening report, suggesting that under the Bush guildelines, the possibility of a pardon for Libby is a "non-starter": But … Read More
The Latest Bush Scandal
If you’re not up on the newest scandal involving the Bush Administration, here’s a primer from The New Republic: Senators at a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday tried to get to the bottom of whether the Bush administration inappropriately fired eight federal attorneys for political reasons. If so, the GOP plan has backfired: at least two Republican lawmakers could be mired … Read More