Ah, justice in "post-rascist" America.
Justin Gardner has the full story (and links) over at The Moderate Voice.
And Mother's been on this story for a while.
And while we're at it, I've a suggestion for a sequel to What's the Matter with Kansas?: What the heck's with Texas?
You've seen this scene before.
A beefy, olive complexioned man in a shark-skin suit, with a nick name that sounds like Vinny the Weasel, sweats beneath the steely gaze of his intrepid Senatorial interlocutor.
Senator: Mr. the Weasel, these documents (waves thick sheaf of papers) show that you were involved in a conspiracy to see that one Jimmy the Rat, would soon be sleeping with the fishes. Do you deny this charge?
Vinny the Weasel (after leaning over and holding an intense, though inaudible conversation with the attorney at his side): My lawyer tells me I gotta take the fifth.
The hearing room errupts in pandemonium.
(Cut to)
Vinny the Weasal in chains and oddly stripped jumpsuit being led to the hoosegow.
(Fade to black. Roll end credits)
But don't expect film at 11.
Though it strikes me as patently obvious that an administration that would let ideology guide us into the occupation of Iraq wouldn't hesitate to politicize the hypothetically apolitical Department of Justice, it appears the MSM is just catching on.
Triggered by the recent revelations of the politcal nature, perhaps criminally so, of the firings of the Gonzales 8, others are coming forward to a media that is shocked, shocked I tell you, that BushCorp™ has politicized the DoJ.
As the LA Times headline says:
Justice Department tugged to the right: Under Bush, the department has been tainted by politics, many say.
WASHINGTON — Not long after President Bush was first sworn in, White House political guru Karl Rove and his lieutenants met with officials of nearly every Cabinet agency to brief top officials on the latest polling data and issues that could influence voters and key constituencies.
But the departments of Justice, Defense and State were exempt. Given their missions — to administer federal laws, protect national security and conduct foreign policy — it was considered inappropriate to make such partisan presentations to them.
Nonetheless, the critics tied their allegations to those described by two of the fired U.S. attorneys. David C. Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M., and John McKay of Seattle have said they felt pressure from Republican officials to prosecute alleged voter fraud in their states.
Both said their offices reviewed the cases and concluded the evidence did not warrant prosecution.
[snip]
Rich, a 37-year department veteran, said a partisan litmus test in hiring and decision-making has undermined a tradition of nonpartisan professionalism in the division.
"Unfortunately, since this administration took office, that professionalism and nonpartisan commitment to the historic mission of the division has been replaced by unprecedented political decision-making," he told the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties on Thursday.
[Recently retired head of the DoJ's Civil Rights Division, Joseph D.] Rich's views were backed by other department veterans who had left the department in recent years. Many, like Rich, have joined civil rights organizations, such as the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where Rich now works.
"The U.S. attorneys' firing confirmed my view that at the highest levels of DOJ it was decided that politics would play a role in how decisions were made," said Mark Posner, a former civil rights division attorney who contributed to a book-length report released by a civil rights group in Washington last week called "The Erosion of Rights: Declining Civil Rights Enforcement Under the Bush Administration."
The Civil Rights Division veterans focused their criticism on major voting case decisions over the last six years that they say have generally benefited the GOP.
The most recent case concerned a 2005 Georgia law that required voters to provide photo identification. Staff attorneys raised concerns about the law after the Georgia secretary of state supplied data showing that tens of thousands of voters might not have driver's licenses or other prescribed forms of identification. They said the plan could effectively disenfranchise large numbers of black voters.
The staff objections were ignored, department veterans said, and the Georgia ID rule was approved by the Justice Department 24 hours after the staff report was filed.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann has become for many as much "Must See" TV as Heroes or Lost, though the plot twists, given the predictable disingenuousness of the Bush administration, are never quite as shocking (is it me or is Locke REALLY going over the edge?).
Anyway, last night's Countdown featured an interview with Senator Charles Schumer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, discussing Bush's refusal to let his aides testify under oath regarding the Gonzales 8 investigation.
One quote from Senator Schumer struck me as particularly interesting, as a veiled threat, as well as an invitation for DoJ people to step forward:
There are enough disgruntled people in the Justice Department in particular - because they really resented what happened here - that the information is going to come out. It can either come out 'drip, drip, drip' or it'll come out all at once, we'll get to the bottom of it in a complete way and move one (sic). It would be much better for the White House, as well as the Justice Department and the country, if they let it all come out at once. [Emphasis mine-CK]
With the politicization of the Justice Department now an open secret it's no surprise that other government lawyers are coming forward.
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
Dear reader, you may be forgiven for wondering about the brouhaha revolving aroung the firing a a few United States Attorneys. What's the big deal? These people serve (as has oft been repeated in the last few days) at the pleasure of the president. He can fire them whenever he wants. Nothing criminal here.
But if it's truly the non-story that GOPers and their mouthpieces at Fox Noise say it is, what are we to make of the Whitehouse's confused attempts to explain away their behavior?
Just to bring you up to date on the Whitehouse's evolving lies account of the firings of the Gonzales 8 (in chronological order):
Many of the documents released over the past week were sent or received by Sampson, whose resignation, Gonzales and other Justice officials said, was prompted by his failure to tell others in the department about his contacts with the White House, leading to testimony by McNulty and others that may have been misleading.
Sampson disputed that version of events in his statement last night, saying he "felt he had let the attorney general down in failing to . . . organize a more effective political response to the unfounded accusations of impropriety in the replacement process."
Sampson's statement also suggested that his contacts with the White House were well known within Justice. If the contacts were not brought to the attention of McNulty and others, the statement said, it was "because no one focused on it or deemed it important at the time." [Emphasis mine-CK)
Washington is all abuzz about whether US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will have a job a few weeks from now (Google news search here). And while I suppose that office pools on his departure date are as rife as those for the NCAA playoffs, Gonzales' continued employment is a mere distraction from the real point of this situation.
The question is not whether Gonzales is an incompetent who lied to Congress and used his position as the nation's top law officer to further polish Bush's boots.
The question is whether the Whitehouse engaged in a concerted effort, a conspiracy if you will, to punish US Attorneys for not using their offices to further partisan Republican goals.
Pending congressional investigation (thanks be to the deity of your choice for a Democratic Congress) hard evidence is still lacking (though recently released emails from the DoJ are certainly suggestive) but a quick review of the circumstantial is suggestive.
We know that USA David Iglesias disappointed Republican Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Dominici for his failure to file indictments against local New Mexico Democrats before the November, 2006 elections. Please note that indictments have yet to be filed, and may well never be, leading to the suspicion that Mr. Iglesias was only doing his job by not filing charges because there was no chargeable offense.
And failure to file charges just because no crime had been committed appear to account for U.S. Attorney David McKay's spot among the Gonzales 8. "There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."
Obviously in need of the axe.
San Diego USA Carol Lam was merely the prosecuter behind the conviction of corrupt Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. 'Nuff said.
Now we learn that fired USA H.E. "Bud" Cummins was involved in an investigation involving the Missouri GOP:
In January 2006, he had begun looking into allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state's driver's license offices. Cummins [USA-Arkansas - CK] handled the case because U.S. attorneys in Missouri had recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest.
But in June, Cummins said, he was told by the Justice Department that he would be fired at year's end to make room for Timothy Griffin — an operative tied to White House political guru Karl Rove.
Cully Simpson, deputy assistant secretary of defense (aka BushCorp™'s detainee overseer at Gitmo, transcription courtesy Washington Post):
"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking,"
"I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out." [Emphasis mine-CK]
