Prosecutor Purge: Faster Than The Speed of Light

There's a lot going on in this story, and I'm slammed as could be, so let me summarize:

• The Senate Judiciary Committee will subpoena five DoJ officials and 6 of the fired USAs for more questioning on who knew what and when. In addition, they postponed a vote for a week on whether to compel Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and William Kelly (deputy White House Counsel) to testify.

• But that postponement on Rove may end with this bombshell:

New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House....

White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters Tuesday that Miers had suggesting firing all 93 and that it was "her idea only." Snow said Miers' idea was quickly rejected by the Department of Justice.

However, Miers was Bush's staff secretary at that time in January 2005. She did not become White House counsel for another month, after Gonzales left to become attorney general.

The latest e-mails show that Gonzales and Rove both were involved in the discussion, and neither rejected it out of hand.

Let me again say that I think it would have been odd, but fine, to replace all 93 USAs at the start of the second term. It's the combination of (1) coming up with an enemies list of USAs who aren't sufficiently carrying out the political agenda of the White House, (2) slipping a provision into the Patriot Act that removes Senate confirmation of the positions, and (3) threatening the USAs to shut up about the firing or they'll be slandered, that is troubling. Also the fact that this White House and this Justice Department has lied about every piece of this scandal from the beginning. First it was a simple personnel reshuffle, and it was just the explanation that was mishandled. Then it was because the attorneys weren't prosecuting enough immigration cases (which wasn't true). Then it was nonsense to suggest that there was political pressure applied to the fired USAs, even though there was. Then it was because the attorneys weren't prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases, even though there's scant evidence of any actual voter fraud along these lines. Then Karl Rove wasn't involved. Then he was, but it was really all Harriet Miers' idea. Then... well, who cares what they say? They lie. and then they lie to cover up the other lie, and then the lies don't match up, so they have to lie again, and the truth comes out anyway.

How many more scandals before everybody figures this out?

• Chuck Schumer has five good questions:

1. In an email to the White House, Mr. Sampson refers to a “problem” with Carol Lam. What was this “problem” and was Lam’s firing motivated by her investigation into former Congressmen Randy Cunningham and Representative Jerry Lewis?

2. What was the involvement of the President and members of the White House staff on the removal of these eight U.S. Attorneys? (White House spokespeople have portrayed the White House as having only limited involvement in the plan to dismiss these U.S. attorneys. Yet the documents released to the Senate Judiciary Committee clearly show that the idea of removing a group of U.S. attorneys originated in early 2005 with Harriet E. Miers, then serving as the President’s Counsel.)

3. Who at the Department of Justice was responsible for inserting a line into the USA PATRIOT Act in March 2006 that allows the appointment of interim U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval? Did the President know of or approve this effort?

4. Was Karl Rove or Ms. Miers involved in lobbying for the appointment of Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas?

5. When and why did U. S. Attorney David Iglesias become a target for removal? Was President Bush involved in that decision?

• Just so you know that I'm not neglecting my main man Abu G, Murray Waas has a piece on the soon-to-be former Attorney General that is devastating.

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales's role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general.

When you have an Attorney General who is a Presidential loyalist and the President's former lawyer, any possibility of independent law enforcement is eliminated. He's the Attorney General for one person instead of 300 million. I don't know if the Attorney General needs to be an elected position, but clearly they must serve the Constitution and the law instead of the needs of their President. This is why Abu G won't be Attorney General anymore.

John Conyers is all over this latest revelation.

You're up to date.