Rove Tries To Wiggle Off The Hook

So you have the Washington Post headlining that E-Mails Show Larger White House Role in Prosecutor Firings and the New York Times stating Rove Says His Role in Prosecutor Firings Was Small. Somehow, I assume they're both right, and it all depends on your angle. I mean, I'm sure Rove said he had just a small role in the US Attorney firings. Rove says a lot of things, most of them untrue. I'd prefer to do as WaPo did, and look at the documentary evidence:

The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri's Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove's former clients; and Arkansas's Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protégé [...]

Complaints about Iglesias began at least a year before he was relieved of his job, according to documents reviewed by The Post. Then- Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), his chief of staff, Steve Bell, and GOP lawyers in the state lobbied aggressively to oust the prosecutor. But the activity accelerated in fall 2006.

Responding to questions about another little-understood event, Rove told reporters in the interview this month that he had not seen a letter that Justice Department officials prepared and sent to the Senate on Feb. 23, 2007. The letter stated that "the department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint [protégé] Mr. Griffin" to a top job in Little Rock.

The Justice Department later retracted the statement, which the inspector general concluded was "misleading." [...]

But internal White House correspondence dating to two years earlier suggests that job prospects for Timothy Griffin, who had worked for Rove in the administration, were a hot topic of conversation. In a Feb. 11, 2005, e-mail, Rove wrote to deputy Sara Taylor: "Give him options. Keep pushing for Justice and let him decide. I want him on the team."

Then-White House counsel Miers e-mailed Taylor a month later, writing, "Sara, Karl asked me to forward you a list of locations where we may consider replacing the USAs."

Rove suggested Little Rock, where Cummins was U.S. attorney, as a post for Griffin, reminding Miers in March 2005 that "that's where he's from." The next day, Sara Taylor forwarded communications about Griffin to then-Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who wrote, "let me know his reaction," according to the e-mails.

It's interesting that we're just learning that Rove held an interview with the Times and the Post this month, where he tried to spin them both about his role in the scandal.

In an interview with The Post and the New York Times this month, Rove described himself as a "conduit" of grievances from lawmakers and others about the performance of home-state prosecutors. The e-mails and interview were provided on the condition that they not be released until Rove's House testimony concluded. He said he did not recall several events because of his busy job and asserted that he had done nothing to influence criminal cases, an allegation by Democrats that has dogged him for years. Luskin, Rove's attorney, asserted that "there was never any point where Karl was trying to get a particular prosecution advanced or retarded."

"Yes, I was a recipient of complaints, and I passed them on to the counsel's office to be passed onto Justice," Rove said. The complaints about weak enforcement of voter fraud laws and public corruption "had the sound of authenticity to me. If what I'm told is accurate, it's really troublesome."

The NYT article suggests that Rove selectively leaked emails to put himself in a peripheral role in the firings. I don't know how someone peripheral writes something like “Give me a report on what U.S. attorneys slots are vacant or expected to be open soon,” as Rove did in an email in November 2006.

This is classic Rove - pre-empting whatever leaks come out of the House Judiciary Committee with incriminating but less damaging material that he handpicks to send to the press, who dutifully writes it all up. But Rove appears to be so deep in the US Attorney purges that he cannot credibly spin this away.

Rove Meets The Special Prosecutor - Again

Karl Rove had a three and a half hour visit with Nora Dannehy yesterday.

Former Bush administration official Karl Rove was interviewed Friday at the office of his attorney about why nine U.S. attorneys were fired in 2006.

After the meeting, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, issued a statement: "Mr. Rove was interviewed by prosecutors today and answered all of their questions. He intends to fully cooperate with the investigation."

Rove had no comment for reporters outside Luskin's Georgetown office in northwest Washington, saying only, "Have a nice weekend."

Congress held hearings on the firings amid allegations that the prosecutors were sacked for political reasons. All were political appointees who served at the pleasure of the president, and the Bush Justice Department denied any impropriety.

A Justice Department report last year found that some of the firings were influenced by political considerations. Rove and other Bush officials refused to be interviewed for that investigation, and the Bush administration maintained that it acted properly.

I know that there are so many loose ends from the Bush Administration, but the US Attorneys probe and the perversion of the Justice Department into an adjunct of the Republican National Committee remains important. I expected Dannehy to pretty much have wrapped up by now, so the fact that she's still talking to the principals is reassuring.

Dannehy appeared to have focused in on the firing of David Iglesias, which was the most nakedly political and which includes elements of obstruction of justice. Iglesias was approached by then-Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) about a corruption case in New Mexico, and pressured to hurry up the investigation. When Iglesias refused, Domenici hung up, and later discussed firing Iglesias with White House officials. And after the 2006 elections, that's precisely what happened. Rove, Domenici and even George W. Bush are exposed by this one.

The focus on torture has obscured these additional instances of lawbreaking during the Bush Administration. It was truly a breathtaking time.

Domenici On Notice

I think we all thought that the US Attorney scandal would melt away with the end of the Bush regime. But a federal grand jury is looking into Pete Domenici's role in the firing of David Iglesias in New Mexico.

The federal grand jury is investigating whether Domenici and other political figures attempted to improperly press Iglesias to bring a criminal prosecution against New Mexico Democrats just prior to the 2006 congressional midterm elections, according to legal sources close to the investigation and private attorneys representing officials who prosecutors want to question. Investigators appear to be scrutinizing Iglesias' firing in the context of whether he was fired in retaliation because Domenici and others believed that he would not manipulate the timing of prosecutions to help Republicans [...]

The grand jury investigation is currently being led by Nora Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut. Then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey named Dannehy to "determine whether any prosecutable offense was committed" in the course of the firings following September's report by the Inspector General and OPR on the firings.

The report found that Iglesias was fired largely as a result of complaints made to the White House by Domenici and Bell. But the report also concluded that the probe was severely "hindered" by the refusal by Domenici, Bell, and several senior Bush administration officials to cooperate with the investigation.

If they cannot get cooperation out of the grand jury, I assume this could be an obstruction of justice indictment, but if the grand jury finds that Domenici and others did pressure Iglesias to prosecute Democrats before the midterms, that would also be obstruction of justice in THAT case. So two possible tracks here. No word on whether Heather Wilson, the former Congresswoman who also reportedly called Iglesias during that time, is involved in the case, but Emptywheel wants to know if someone else is involved.

It'll be interesting to see whether Domenici cooperates. That's because--according to an often-ignored story from the Albuquerque Journal--Domenici had to call Bush directly to get Iglesias fired.

"In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.

The Journal confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici. The senator's office declined comment."

Would the former President be criminally liable in this case? I guess it depends on how far the prosecutor is willing to take the case. From the beginning of the US Attorney scandal, it was clear that the conduct with respect to David Iglesias was egregious. We could really see some arrests in this one.

UPDATE: There's also talk of Karl Rove cooperating with the US Attorney investigation, which I'm finding hard to believe. But maybe by "cooperating" Rove means "lying on the stand and then trying to wiggle out of it," the way he "cooperated" in the CIA leak investigation.

Fighting Back On Voter Suppression

This is welcome news from Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Secretary of State.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner told the Huffington Post on Thursday that she is ready not only to fight the state's current election law battle in front of the Supreme Court, but is also willing to wage a new fight, if necessary, to make sure hundreds of thousands of new voters are not "forced" onto provisional ballots on election day.

Spurred by revelations that the community organizing group ACORN has submitted many thousands of ineligible voter registration cards in battleground states, Ohio Republicans have been calling for a wholesale comparison of the state's nearly 666,000 new active voters against data collected by the local DMV.

Brunner charged that Republican demands are meant to create confusion at the polls and keep all the ballots from being counted.

Brunner says that, according to the League of Women Voters, there were only four instances of "illegal voting," or the actual casting of an illegitimate ballot, between 2002 and 2006 -- when just under 8 million ballots were cast. As such, she said, ACORN's registration problems are being improperly lumped in with the casting of bad ballots, something she says is not likely to occur no matter how many fraudulent registrations are turned in. "Unfortunately, despite the messaging of certain political parties ... when they bring ACORN into it, they're talking about false voter registration. Seldom does that lead to illegal voting. Mickey Mouse and Jive Turkey don't vote."

ACORN itself has launched a truth-squad site and has released this statement on the news of the ridiculous FBI investigation:

ACORN has not been contacted by any federal law enforcement agencies. Should any investigation be forthcoming, we are confident that we would be exonerated. We have always, and will continue to, work with any inquiry.

It is well established and documented that in 2004 the Bush Administration was involved in a scandal where Bush Administration political appointees, working in concert with the Department of Justice, pressured some U.S. Attorneys, such as David Iglesias, to pursue partisan investigations of ACORN. Given that in the last forty-eight hours we have seen a coordinated attack by the Republican Party, including a conservative think tank in Ohio connected to the well-know voter suppresser and McCain supporter Ken Blackwell, file a frivolous lawsuit that is virtually identical to the lawsuit filed in 2004 that was dismissed for lack of evidence, followed by Senator Voinovich, a supporter of Senator McCain, calling for a Justice Department investigation, followed by Senator McCain's attack in the debate last night, we believe that dirty politics are at work.

ACORN is extremely proud of our work to register 1.3 million new voters this year. Through ACORN's voter registration drive, Americans of all political persuasions and all walks of life are participating in our democracy. Through the course of ACORN'S voter registration drive we hired over 13,000 canvassers most of who worked to the highest standards of accuracy. ACORN has a zero tolerance policy and works closely with local elections officials to get to the bottom of any problems, as we have in this case. But let us be clear - and this is a critical fact: issues related to voter registration are not voter fraud. These are not cases where people are able to vote multiple times. Let us repeat - these are not situations involving actual votes.

John Conyers is on this as well, as is David Iglesias, who you'll recall was fired for refusing to press bullshit investigations like this.

What ACORN needs, and the progressive movement needs, a coordinated media strategy. It's clear that the traditional media has no institutional memory and will continue to unquestioningly pass along these "voter fraud" charges without any meaningful evidence. The goal here is a legitimacy goal, not a law enforcement one. And the media are being willing dupes for this GOP strategy.

You Don't Get Your Oversight - DC Circuit Puts Off Miers/Bolten Subpoenas Until Bush Leaves Office

Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten won't be testifying to Congress anytime soon. Not until their Dear Leader is on an island somewhere:

Time will run out on this year's congressional session before the battle between two branches of government can be resolved, according to the ruling by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ruling essentially pushes any resolution on the politically charged case until next year.

"The present dispute is of potentially great significance for the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches," wrote the panel of judges, two of whom were appointed by Republicans.

Still, the judges wrote, "Even if expedited, this controversy will not be fully and finally resolved by the judicial branch ... before the 110th Congress ends on January 3, 2009. At that time, the 110th House of Representatives will cease to exist as a legal entity, and the subpoenas it has issued will expire."

There you have it, folks. The White House has basically altered the relationship between the executive and legislative branch permanently. Future Presidents now know that if they push aggressively enough, if they evade oversight and subpoenas and dare the Congress to stop them, nothing will come of their actions, no matter how illegal they are.

It's worth going back and understanding what the White House actually did in this case, a series of events now illuminated by the recent OIG report on Justice Department politicization, the facts of which did nothing to persuade the circuit court that decisive action needed to be taken. We now know that the executive branch, led by Karl Rove, absolutely played a role in the firing of US Attorneys in 2006. There are emails between Rove and officials in New Mexico proving his role in the firing of David Iglesias, for example, because of Iglesias' refusal to swiftly prosecute Democrats and bogus voter fraud cases. They made room for a political friend of Rove's, Tim Griffin, at the US Attorney's office in Arkansas by firing Bud Cummins. And they conspired with Senator Kit Bond to remove the federal prosecutor in Missouri:

In Missouri, evidently, Republican politics are exceptionally bloody, with clans fighting like rival mobs whose carnage spreads to other locales and sweeps in innocent civilians.

This is what former U.S. attorney Todd P. Graves discovered when he was ousted in January 2006 by the Justice Department. He got his first inkling of trouble in 2004 not from the department, but from an aide to Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), whose office was then embroiled in a bitter dispute with Graves's brother, a U.S. congressman.

In a telephone call, the aide angrily warned Graves that if he did not intervene on Bond's behalf -- against his brother's chief of staff -- the senator "could no longer protect [his] job." Graves refused, and a little over a year later, he was bounced from his Kansas City office after Bond's staff made repeated complaints to the White House counsel's office.

More on the Graves firing here.

This is all out in the open despite pervasive, continuous stonewalling on the part of White House officials, refusing to comply with any and all investigations into their conduct, including the OIG report put together by their own Justice Department. But the evidence is nonetheless clear and thorough.

The White House's active involvement in the firings, as depicted in the report, can be divided into two broad categories: First, its role in initiating and promoting the overall plan to remove an unspecified number of U.S. attorneys -- traditionally treated as apolitical prosecutors who operate independently from the political agenda of the administration -- deemed insufficiently committed to the Bush agenda. And second, its apparent work in pushing specifically for several of the most high-profile dismissals.

You can see the wealth of evidence at the handy link from TPM Muckraker. It need not be repeated here.

What must be repeated is how easily the White House has evaded any accountability for these clear crimes of politicization of the Justice Department. They took advantage of the lack of teeth in such federal statutes like the Hatch Act, which offers remedies only to the firing of those responsible, by having the perpetrators resign. They allowed an investigation to be released but only one coming from an internal monitor, not an independent investigation from Congress or a special counsel. The report was so damning that the Attorney General was forced to name a prosecutor to investigate the crimes further, but he refused to make her independent from the DoJ, and he gave her a 60 day mandate so that the investigation could not spread beyond the current Presidential term in office, after the election and before the new President begins his term. And now, as that investigation will be wrapped up before Miers, Bolten or anyone else would ever have to testify, their testimony will not factor into this accelerated timeline.

Indeed, in order to get Miers and Bolten on the record, the House Judiciary Committee would have to file subpoenas all over again, as they will have expired, and go through the exact same stonewalling. Thus far absolutely nobody has paid even the smallest price for the US Attorney purges, other than moving from their cushy jobs to some other cushy wingnut welfare sinecure.

This is the crisis of accountability we are facing due to the expansiveness of executive power over decades and consistent enabling from the Congress as they fail time and again to enact basic oversight in real time. This scandal represents the failure of our system, a loophole in the Constitution that extremists have successfully exploited.

The Post-Bush Investigation Era Begins

Obviously the bailout bill is the order of the day (and I hear enough Congresscritters saying they "have to do something" and "we are all Murcans" that the ship has pretty much sailed) but there's another very interesting report out today, a long-awaited Justice Department Inspector General summary of the US Attorney firings.

In 2007 I was fairly obsessed with these prosecutor purges, and it became clear that the affected US Attorneys were singled out for nakedly political reasons and in most cases for failing to indict Democrats or insert themselves into the electoral process. The actions of the prosecutors who remained made the actions taken to fire those who failed to comply more pronounced. The ugly underbelly of Karl Rove politics was really ripped open for all to see, and no amount of denials would change that.

The report is about as thorough as it can be, given that key Republicans in the Justice Department, as well as elected officials caught up in the probe like New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, simply stonewalled the investigation. This is particularly the case in the firing of New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias.

The report concludes that Iglesias was removed as a result of complaints brought to DOJ by New Mexico GOP members of Congress and party activists, and shows that Karl Rove knew in advance of the decision. It reveals that at a meeting on November 15, 2006, Rep. Heather Wilson told Rove: "Mr. Rove, for what it's worth, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico is a waste of breath." Rove's response: ""That decision has already been made. He's gone."

But it states that IG investigators were unable to determine how Rove knew this (Iglesias wasn't notifed until December 7), and what his possible role in the decision was, because Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Similarly, it notes that Kyle Sampson, who as chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales took the lead in bringing about the firings, gave "misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the list." The report concludes: "[W]e question whether Sampson provided us the full story about Iglesias's placement on the list, as well as the reasons for other U.S. Attorney removals."

And: "Our investigation was also hindered by the refusal of Senator Domenici and his Chief of Staff to agree to an interview by us." (In April, Domenici, who is retiring this year, received a "qualified admonition" from the Senate ethics committee for his role in the firing.)

The report is a monster, but it can be boiled down to "the DoJ broke the law in spirit and probably in letter, but they won't give us enough information to figure out precisely how they broke the law, so... somebody else should figure that out." While it certainly appears that Fredo Gonzales and some of his top deputies perjured themselves before Congress, the report does not recommend criminal charges (it merely says that Fredo et al "failed to provide accurate and truthful statements about the removals and their role in the process,” which is... something different entirely?). However, it does clearly state that Gonzales and his lead deputy Paul McNulty turned a blind eye to the firings, essentially outsourcing personnel decisions to the White House political office, and that Kyle Sampson was largely responsible for the haphazard process both during and after the firings. And it asks for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate this further. And wouldn't you know it, Michael Mukasey went along with it:

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor on Monday to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other officials in connection with the firings of nine of United States attorneys in 2006.

“The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking,” Mr. Mukasey said in a statement. The report called for further investigation to determine whether prosecutable offenses were committed either in the firings or in subsequent testimony about them.

Nora Dannehy, acting United States Attorney in Connecticut, will lead the investigation, Mr. Mukasey said. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she has served as a prosecutor for 17 years and specializes in white-collar and public corruption cases. She led the prosecution of the former governor of Connecticut, John Rowland, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to accepting $107,000 in gifts.Mr. Gonzales, who resigned last year after coming under criticism because of the firings, has been the main focus of interest, in part because several members of Congress charged that he may have perjured himself in his testimony through his memory lapses and misstatements about the firings.

Here's Mukasey's statement. I was a little surprised that he went ahead and did this. Sure, appointing a prosecutor inside the DoJ affords a little more control than an independent counsel, but Mukasey's team will be gone soon enough, and so this investigation certainly will carry over into the next Presidency. Which is as it should be. There is no way that these charlatans should be able to manage oversight over themselves.

The question, obviously, is how far the next President would be willing to go. And not just with the US Attorney purges, but a host of other topics (Murray Waas had additional information late last week about Fredo's trip to the hospital to bully John Ashcroft into signing off on the illegal wiretapping program - looks like Bush personally directed it). The mechanisms are now in place, at least in this case, to continue serious investigations into White House crimes without meddling or stonewalling from Bush and his cronies. That's an opprtunity we can't afford to pass up.

NM-SEN: Replacing One Corrupt Republican With Another

Sen. Domenici retired today, and he claims that it was for medical reasons. Considering that Bush did a major fundraiser for him just a month or so ago, that's fairly credible.

After a medical exam last month revealed progression of an incurable brain disorder known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration, or FLTD, the 75-year-old senator discussed retirement with his family and concluded that he might not physically be able to serve a full seventh term.

"The progress of this disease is apparently erratic and unpredictable. It may well be that seven years from now, it will be stable," Domenici said. "On the other hand, it may also be that the disease will have incapacitated me. That's possible."

I wish him the best.

But here's the thing. Domenici was going to have a difficult re-election campaign, mainly because of the fallout from the US Attorney scandal, and the revelations that he personally called then-federal prosecutor David Iglesias to pressure him to bring indictments against state Democrats, to help discredit former Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who was running in a local House race. So who decides to step in to fill Domenici's shoes? The other public official who called Iglesias, and the woman who was RUNNING against Patricia Madrid!

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M) will run for the New Mexico Senate seat that is expected to open up officially later Thursday when Sen. Pete Domenici (R) declares that he will not seek reelection in 2008, according to a source familiar with Wilson’s decision.

Domenici has taken Wilson under his wing in recent years, and as he has gotten older, Wilson’s name has topped the list of potential heirs.

They really had no choice. There's no other statewide candidate who would even have half a chance in New Mexico, from what I've heard. But Wilson, who also took the lead among Republicans in criticizing the Janet Jackson "Nipplegate," is damaged goods statewide. And that's especially true if Steve Pearce, the certified winger US Congressman and pretty much the only other high-profile Republican there, were to primary her. The other benefit here is that Democrats would be favored to retake Wilson's House seat.

Meanwhile, the Democratic bench is plentiful. Don Wiviott was already running a self-financed campaign. And there's word that Rep. Tom Udall is seriously considering the seat. Obviously everyone's preference is for Bill Richardson to step in and run away with the race, but failing that, Udall's a good bet. If he runs, 3 cousins would be running for Senate on the same day; Mark Udall in CO, Tom Udall in NM, and Gordon Smith in OR.

Let's hear it for 2 out of 3!

This immediately becomes top-tier.

Quick Hits

Yes, today was busy enough that I think it warrants a "best of the rest":

• The Chertoff-to-Attorney General trial balloon has officially popped.

I think, by the time I got to this story, BushCo had already decided Chertoff was an impossible replacement candidate (though if he's not, let's not forget the allegation that Chertoff allegedly okayed Chiquita Banana's funding of right wing terrorists in Colombia). Just on the off-chance that Chertoff really is named as Gonzales' replacement, Pat Leahy had the perfect response when asked if he would support a Chertoff nomination. I can't find the quote (it was NPR), but he basically said nothing more than, "You mean the guy who was in charge of the Katrina reconstruction?"

I agree with Glenn Greenwald, the next AG must come from outside the Administration, and no insider hack can be allowed to be confirmed.

• Yes, it's hysterical that on the same day Abu Gonzales resigns, the President goes and attends a fundraiser for Pete Domenici, who of course helped push out US Attorney David Iglesias after meddling in the middle of a state corruption investigation and pressuring Iglesias to indict Democrats. When Iglesias would not politicize his office, Domenici brought the hammer down. The reward is today's event, which I guess is the price of loyalty. There's a tragic sidenote to that event, as a police officer in Bush's motorcade died after crashing his vehicle.

• Bush is in Washington State tonight at another fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert, and the national netroots community made a huge push to raise $100,000 for his Democratic opponent Darcy Burner. And they've reached their goal. I met Burner at Yearly Kos and found her to be piercingly intelligent and very down-to-Earth. I can't wait to see her torch Reichert next year and make the trip to DC.

• Larry Craig, not content with destroying his own credibility, is taking down the Romney campaign's as well. Romney's team tried to scrub a pro-Mitt message from Craig (a co-Senate liaison until today), but it's hard to hide anything on the Internets. It's been found. Also Hugh Hewitt is calling on Craig to resign, no doubt because he might hurt Golden Boy Mitt, who is to Hewitt as a golden statue is to an idol worshipper.

• Meanwhile, this juxtaposition is just freaky. Apparently the Idaho Values Alliance has a shout-out to Sen. Craig on their site, and just underneath, a paragraph decrying the scourge of homosexuals using airport bathrooms for anonymous sex. Is that where Sen. Craig got the idea?

• This IAFF endorsement of Chris Dodd is news for his campaign, but I think that really falls under the category of "no endorsement," since they clearly didn't want to get into a top-tier fight. The IAFF endorsed John Kerry when it looked like he was about to drop out of the race, though, so maybe this will have some import.

• Here's something I missed from last week: some wingnut actually said "You're going to look super in a burka." Out loud. On television. There is this strain that really thinks we're about to be taken over by an Islamic caliphate. Really. They think that little of the United States.

• This is worrying but unsurprising. Apparently there's a loophole in the President's recent executive order outlawing torture that you can drive a truck through.

The Judge Advocates General of all branches of the military told the senators that a July 20 executive order establishing rules for the treatment of CIA prisoners appeared to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques when the interrogators' objective is to protect national security rather than to satisfy sadistic impulses [...]

The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual." As an example, it lists "sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation."

Among lawyers, "for the purpose" language is often used to mean that a person must specifically intend to do something, such as causing humiliation, in order to violate a statute. The JAGs said Bush's wording appears to make it legal for interrogators to undertake that same abusive action if they had some other motive, such as gaining information.

I try to refuse to be shocked anymore and I always fail.

• Finally, Fred Thompson is trying to set the record for most people fired from a campaign that hasn't even started yet.

The Other Elephant in the Room

Obviously, the Libby commutation is taking up all of the oxygen in the room. But we have other Constitutional crises to follow, like the White House citing executive privilege in withholding documents and obstructing the investigation into the firing of 8 US Attorneys for nakedly political purposes. Patrick Leahy was willing to assert that he would cite contempt of Congress if the White House was not forthcoming with responding to the subpoenas. Of course, that would have to be carried out, paradoxically, by the US Attorney for DC, who I can assure you is a "loyal Bushie."

All of this points to the need for a special prosecutor in this case, because it involves the politicization of the entire Justice Department, and demands independent investigation. But considering what happened the last time a special prosecutor was established, that's not likely to happen.

Meanwhile, McClatchy gets to the heart of what this was all about: winning elections by intimidating and suppressing Democratic voters.

A New Mexico lawyer who pressed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was an officer of a nonprofit group that aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pushing for tougher voter identification laws. Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.

He described Rogers, who declined to discuss the exchanges, as "obsessed ... convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it."

Rogers was involved with the bogus front group American Center for Voting Rights, which over the past couple years has up and disappeared. They spearheaded a distinct strategy to lower Democratic vote totals in an effort to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. It didn't work because the vote spread was so high not even they could cheat. But that doesn't mean they didn't try:

That strategy, which presidential adviser Karl Rove alluded to in an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, sought to scrutinize voter registration records, win passage of tougher ID laws and challenge the legitimacy of voters considered likely to vote Democratic.

McClatchy Newspapers has found that this election strategy was active on at least three fronts:

Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.

The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

It's legitimate to wonder why the GOP conceded so quickly the close elections in November 2006, which is totally and completely out of character for them, given these findings. They didn't want their criminal actions to be uncovered and so they gave up as fast as they could to cover their tracks. These tracks are slowly being exposed, and depsite the outrage over the Libby commutation, it's just as vital that this is seen through as well.

The Voter Fraud All-Stars

Bradley Schlozman is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon. Schlozman shows up everywhere in the US Attorney scandal. He ended up being the US Attorney for Missouri, after key Republican operatives complained about his predecessor, Todd Graves, who wasn't prosecuting bogus voter fraud cases diligently enough. Schlozman more than made up for that. In fact, he may have AUTHORIZED Graves' firing and his own new hiring.

There's an additional fact which makes this case even more suspicious. Graves was replaced by Bradley Schlozman, a former senior political appointee at the Civil Rights Division who oversaw the voting rights section. According to Waas, Hearne brought his complaints about Graves to "senior officials in Justice’s Civil Rights Division." These were complaints about voting cases, which means the complaints most likely went to Schlozman himself -- or his right hand Hans Von Spakovsky. After Schlozman was installed in Graves' place, he brought an indictment against four ACORN workers days before the election in 2006. So it looks a lot like Hearne got his wish.

Schlozman also turns up in the case of the US Attorney for Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, who was apparently fired for objecting to a new voter ID law within the state. He raised these concerns with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Schlozman ran that.

In response, he said, Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee in the department, told Rich "not to do anything without his approval" because of the "special sensitivity of this matter."

Rich responded by suggesting that more information be gathered from voting officials in the Twin Cities area, which includes Minnesota's two most populous counties.

A message came back from another Republican official in the department, Hans von Spakovsky, saying Rich should not contact the county officials but should instead deal only with the secretary of state's office.

Von Spakovsky indicated, Rich said, that working with Kiffmeyer's office reduced the likelihood of a leak to the news media.

The orders from Schlozman and Von Spakovsky, who wielded unusual power in the civil rights division, effectively ended any department inquiry, Rich said.

They shut down any objection to a Republican Secretary of State's voter ID law, designed to suppress the Native American vote in Minnesota, and then later they orchestrated the ouster of Heffelfinger from his post as US Attorney.

Then, of course, there's the pervasive talk about voter fraud in New Mexico, which may have been a factor in David Iglesias' firing. That word "voter fraud" keeps popping up across the country.

One theme keeps reappearing in the DOJ scandal: The Bush Administration wanted U.S. Attorneys who would push frivolous voting fraud claims that would discourage likely Democratic voters in close races. This is the big story behind the DOJ scandal; it's what the media should focus on.

During Watergate we were told to follow the money. In this scandal, you should follow the voter suppression schemes.

Of course, Schlozman and Von Spakowsky and the others in the Civil Rights Division were just implementing a policy that issued out of the White House. I expect Schlozman to evade and cover for the little cherub named Rove today. But there's a lot of smoke here for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take a look at.

UPDATE: McClatchy:

Saying it was out to combat widespread voter fraud, the Justice Department in recent years has stepped up enforcement of election laws to ease the purging of ineligible voters from state registration rolls.

Since 2005, department civil rights lawyers have sued election officials in seven states - Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey and New York - and sent threatening letters to others, in some cases demanding copies of voter registration data.

Former lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, however, said the voter fraud campaign is a partisan effort to disqualify legitimate voters, as occurred in Florida before the 2000 presidential election.

There appears to be an actual method within the Voting Rights Section for doing this:

Joseph Rich, a former chief of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section, said that Hans von Spakovsky, a former division counsel, directed him in early 2005 to start what Rich called "an initiative" to enforce the provision requiring states to maintain accurate registration lists.

Department spokeswoman Magnuson said "there was no initiative" and that the agency was merely enforcing the law.

Rich said the department changed priorities under the motor voter law "from expanding registration opportunities - the primary purpose of the statute - to unnecessarily forcing jurisdictions to remove voters from their voter rolls."

Notice the focus on the Justice Department suing Secretaries of State who didn't follow their processes for purging the rolls. One was the Secretary of State of Alabama, and we've also heard that Karl Rove himself may have been involved in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D). Look how this played out:

In Worley's case, the department took the extraordinary step of persuading a federal judge nominated by President Bush to relieve her of her authority to oversee the 2006 election and to give Republican Gov. Bob Riley that authority as a "special master" of the court.

Worley called the suit "incredibly political," noting that it was filed shortly before she was due to face Democratic primary voters in a re-election bid and blaming it for her defeat.

Wow. This is the story of the day.

"Who Put Him On The List?"

Robert Wexler gave a bravura performance in the House Judiciary Committee just now (and Tennessee's Steve Cohen is doing a great follow-up job). This entire US Attorney scandal comes down to one question that nobody can answer, and Wexler asked it over and over. Who put these US Attorneys on the target list to be fired? The Attorney General claims he didn't do it. No deputy or top official in the Justice Department did it. According to Abu G, the President or Vice President didn't do it - though Cohen made the great point that "Harriet Miers asked about whether to fire all 93, why should we be surprised if the White House decided to fire 8?"

So who did it? Who made this target list? Nobody seems to be owning up to it.

Gonzales has a cute answer for this, claiming that out of respect for the integrity for this investigation, he hasn't asked anybody who might have this information. Like I said, a cute answer, but it's information you would think the Attorney General would know BEFORE he would fire 9 US Attorneys. Essentially he's saying that he accepted the recommendations on federal prosecutors without knowing who made the recommendations or why. And Wexler hammered him.

Ultimately, that's what this entire thing is about. And there's a simple answer to the question, an answer that David Iglesias said just today.

In an interview with the Albuquerque Tribune today, ousted U.S. attorney David Iglesias states, “I think all roads lead to Rove. I think that’s why the president is circling some pretty major wagons around him to keep him from testifying under oath, which subjects him to criminal prosecution.”

Meanwhile, it's come out today that the Administration withheld emails about Rove's role with respect to the US Attorney for Arkansas Bud Cummins, and the installation of Rove oppo research guy Tim Griffin in that position.

The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.

In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role.

The question that they won't answer is about Karl Rove. Scooter Libby was his firewall, and now it's Alberto Gonzales.

UPDATE: It is clear from the statements of Chairman Conyers that there is one central question in this entire scandal that remains unanswered: who generated the list of US Attorneys to be fired, and why? And it's clear that Conyers will not quit probing this scandal until he gets a satisfactory answer to that question. Referring to Republican derision that the scandal is based on mere "bread crumbs" and conjecture, Conyers said in his closing statement, "The bread crumbs seem to be leading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

Gonzales Watch

Abu G remains a marked man. I don't buy the White House's smug and whiny statements that they have even more confidence in him. Like all babies, they refuse to deny reality. Gonzales' failure to explain himself properly before the Senate, and his failure to even know what the hell's going on in the Justice Department, is a firing offense.

But there's more at work here. As long as Gonzales is still on the payroll, the focus remains on him. I think that Gonzales is the firewall so that the Congress doesn't get to the real culprit behind this story. And that road leads inside the White House.

After thousands of pages of documents and hours of testimony from Justice Department officials, it remains unknown who in the Bush administration conceived the plan to fire eight U.S. attorneys and why.

Gonzales' testimony Thursday left senators convinced he wasn't behind the plan or its execution and in fact knew far less than a department head should have about the details. Former and current members of Gonzales' staff who've been interviewed by congressional investigators also have said their roles were limited or nonexistent.

Absent another explanation, the signs point to the White House and, at least in some degree, to the president's political adviser, Karl Rove.

David Iglesias, the former New Mexico U.S. attorney and one of the eight fired last year, said investigating the White House's role is the logical next step - one that would follow existing clues about Rove's involvement.

"If I were Congress, I would say, `If the attorney general doesn't have answers, then who would?' There's enough evidence to indicate that Karl Rove was involved up to his eyeballs." [...]

"The arrow points more and more to the White House," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The one thing I can assure you of: This is not over, far from it."

Iglesias continued that the lack of a paper trail suggests that the real papers on this are in the White House.

I mean, it's hard to even conceive this. Eight US Attorneys were fired and nobody seems to know how their names got on the list. Not the Attorney General. Not his chief of staff. Not any of the top officials at the Justice Department. They've all stated this in testimony. It's amazing that the Justice Department can make personnel decisions without anyone there knowing how they got there.

The truth is that we're finding politicization at all levels of the Justice Department, all the way down to the intern program:

After choosing potential candidates to interview, the division personnel forwarded their lists to the Office of Attorney Recruitment Management for what was traditionally final approval. This is no longer a final step, however, because the list had to go higher - to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. When the list of potential interviewees was returned this year, it had been cut dramatically.

When division personnel staff later compared the remaining interviewees with the candidates struck form the list, one common denominator appeared repeatedly: most of those struck form the list had interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a "liberal" cause, or otherwise appeared to have "liberal" leanings. Summa cum laude graduates of both Yale and Harvard were rejected for interviews.

This is unprecedented, and the same concerns many of us see in firing federal prosecutors with clear ties to investigating Republicans or not pushing bogus voter fraud investigations. It's embarrassingly clear that the Bush White House has pushed these fraud cases for the singular purpose of restricting minority voter turnout, and were installing loyal apparatchiks into several swing states where they could continue this process unrestricted by any conflicting opinion. And in the absence of any DoJ admission that the firing was their idea, one can only conclude that this Prosecutor Purge was part of the plan.

Therefore, keeping Abu G in place, no matter what he's done, is crucial to this effort. Clearly he's lied to individual members of Congress, he's lied to the American people, he's lied in front of the Senate. But he's not the issue, ultimately. And so attention on him is misplaced. Some Senators are even admitting this:

That's why some Republicans think Gonzales should stay on the job.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Gonzales in a telephone call Friday that the worst was probably over for him and that stepping down wouldn't necessarily help the president.

In a statement he released later in the day, Cornyn said, "Democrats see an opportunity to score a lot of political points, so I don't necessarily believe that the attorney general's resignation would quell the Democrats' desire to continue with a partisan fishing expedition."

As long as the media can report about "such-and-such Republican says Gonzales should resign," the White House can ultimately weather the storm. If it digs deeper, that's a road they don't want things to go down.

UPDATE: This Dahlia Lithwick article gets to the nut of things in a different way:

On sober second thought, it occurs to me that when I find myself in enthusiastic agreement with "White House insiders" and the National Review that Alberto Gonzales disgraced himself yesterday, I may have missed something important. Assuming the president watched so much as 10 minutes of his attorney general being poleaxed by even rudimentary questions from the Senate judiciary committee, it strains credulity to believe that Gonzales still has Bush's "full confidence."

Until you stop to consider that the president wasn't watching the same movie as the rest of us and that Gonzales wasn't reading from the same script. Perhaps what we witnessed yesterday was in fact a tour de force, a home run for the president's overarching theory of the unitary executive.

The theory of the unitary executive is a radical vision of executive power in which the president is the big boss of the entire executive branch and has final say over everything that happens within it. At its core, the theory holds that Congress has very limited authority to divest the president of those powers. An expanded version of this theory was the legal predicate for the torture memo: "In light of the president's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority in these areas. … Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

If you watch the Gonzales hearing through this prism (and in this White House, even the bathroom windows look out through that prism), they were a triumph. For six impressive hours, the attorney general embodied the core principles that he is not beholden to Congress, that the Senate has no authority over him, and that he was only there as a favor to them in their funny little fact-finding mission.

And that stonewalling keeps anyone from poking over the fence and inside the office of Karl Rove.

Sen. Domenici, If We Could Have A Word

The Senate Ethics Committee practically doesn't even exist, but what Sen. Domenici did to David Iglesias was so egregious that even this all-but-defunct body is opening an investigation:

The Senate, thanks a resolution it just adopted, has confirmed that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is the subject of "preliminary inquiry" over his involvement in the firing of former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and the subsequent action by the committee with respect to that matter, if any, the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) shall be replaced by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown)."

Salazar is personal friends with Patricia Madrid, who was running for the seat occupied by Rep. Heather Wilson that Domenici attempted to insert himself into by calling Iglesias and pressuring him to bring about Democratic indictments. So that's why he recused himself. Which is a heck of a lot more honorable than what Domenici appears to have done. We'll see what happens here.

Indeed, the Judiciary Committees are moving on a number of fronts with regard to USA-gate. The Justice Department failed to comply with a subpoena from the House for various documents, so now John Conyers is considering legal options. Conyers is also warning the RNC not to let the White House review emails the committee has requested related to the case. And COnyers wants to speak with a variety of sitting USAs, including the infamous Rachel Paulose and Mary Beth Buchanan, USA for Pittsburgh, who may be more deeply involved in the case than anyone suspected:

The Justice Department consulted with U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh when it was drawing up a list of prosecutors to be fired, a former top aide to the attorney general told investigators, and now a House committee wants to interview her.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Senate investigators Sunday that Buchanan was one of the senior officials he consulted about which U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee aide who read a transcript of the interview. The aide requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

At the time she was consulted, Buchanan was also serving as director of an office that provides administrative support to U.S. attorneys -- a job she had from June 2004 until June 2005.

Buchanan is already under suspicion for prosecuting an inordinate amount of Democrats in her jurisdiction.

There are a lot of phones ringing off a lot of hooks in Republican law firms tonight.

Stop The Insanity

The Gonzales testimony has been moved to Thursday. If the Attorney General had any sense, he'd resign between now and then. Because it's not going to go well. Abu G has clearly lied to Congress, it's going to be nearly impossible for him to unshit the bed.

WASHINGTON, April 16 — The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has told Congressional investigators that Mr. Gonzales was “inaccurate,” or “at least not complete” in asserting that he had no role in the deliberations about individual United States attorneys who were later dismissed, a Democratic senator said Monday [...]

In his interview, Mr. Sampson said under oath that Mr. Gonzales took part in discussions last fall about David C. Iglesias, who was removed as the United States attorney in New Mexico, as well as in a June 2006 meeting that addressed concerns about Carol C. Lam, the United States attorney ousted from her job in San Diego, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. Mr. Sampson made similar statements in public testimony to the Judiciary Committee on March 29, but appeared to offer more specifics in the interview.

Gonzales' alibi for this, seriously, is that he doesn't remember the conversation and only recalled it "based on what others had told him, not his own memory."

If this is the kind of crackerjack logic we can expect on Thursday, honestly we should just dispense with the hearing and move right on to the confirmation for the new Attorney General. Top conservatives have abandoned Abu G. Dick Cheney won't even go to bat for him. Paul McNulty, one of his senior deputies, is putting out job feelers. The guy in charge of all the US Attorneys, the one who actually executed the firings, Michael Battle, told Congress that there were no performance problems which motivated the firings.

I mean, if this was a fight, it'd be called.

And the most damning bit of information that's come out recently is today's McClatchy article, because it again implicates the President as being involved in the decision-making process:

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told congressional investigators on Sunday that Gonzales remembered talking to Bush last October about concerns with then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico.

Iglesias was forced out last December. While the White House has said Bush passed along complaints to Gonzales last October about voter fraud in three states, including New Mexico, the White House cast it as a broad conversation, not a discussion about an individual.

Gonzales has maintained that he doesn't recall the conversation with Bush - a position contradicted by Sampson's statement to congressional staff.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday she knew of no conversation between the president and Gonzales about Iglesias. "The president has a vague recollection" of passing on to the attorney general "complaints he'd been hearing about prosecution of voter fraud cases, including in New Mexico," she said.

And with Monica Goodling likely to get immunity in this case, Gonzales' fate is even more sealed. Of course, he's slowly being turned into a fall guy here, when this appeared to be a policy coming out of Karl Rove's office and not the Justice Department. Alberto Gonzales is a cipher. But he's a lying cipher, and you can't have that person be the nation's top law enforcement official.

Iglesiasgate: Bush Pulled The Trigger

Pete Domenici wanted David Iglesias gone for not being a proper brownshirt and helping New Mexico Republicans win elections by perverting the rule of law, so he went right to the top:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned [...]

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.

This now reaches right to the President, who may have taken official action to fire a prosecutor who wasn't sufficiently politicizing his office. Combine that with this shocking article by career DoJ lawyer Daniel Metcalfe, and you have a persistent pattern of abusing the rule of law and the Justice Department. It's just undeniable.

...the DOJ-White House distance hit its all-time high-water mark under Janet Reno, especially during Clinton's second term. And even John Ashcroft made it clear to all department employees that, among other things, he held that traditional distance in proper reverence; he proved that this was no mere lip service when, from his hospital bed, he refused to overrule Deputy AG Comey on what is now called the "terrorist surveillance program." Especially in the wake of 9/11, which strongly spurred the morale and dedication of Justice Department employees, myself included, I saw only a limited morale diminution in general during the first term.

But that strong tradition of independence over the previous 30 years was shattered in 2005 with the arrival of the White House counsel as a second-term AG. All sworn assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, it was as if the White House and Justice Department now were artificially tied at the hip -- through their public affairs, legislative affairs and legal policy offices, for example, as well as where you ordinarily would expect such a connection (i.e., Justice's Office of Legal Counsel). I attended many meetings in which this total lack of distance became quite clear, as if the current crop of political appointees in those offices weren't even aware of the important administration-of-justice principles that they were trampling.

This is beyond the theoretical now. This is an attack on the administration of justice.

By the way, if you want to know what Alberto Gonzales is going to say in the first five minutes of his mea culpa testimony on Tuesday, you can read his WaPo op-ed here. I wonder who wrote it. Monica Goodling? Kyle Sampson? Ted Olson?

Double Duty

Remember when the big reason for firing David Iglesias was that he was an "absentee landlord," because he spent 40 days a year in the Naval Reserve?

Well oh boy, does it go from bad to worse over at Justice.

A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.

Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two years -- prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his removal and call Mercer's office "a mess."

Another U.S. attorney, Michael J. Sullivan of Boston, has been in Washington for the past six months as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is awaiting confirmation to head the agency permanently while still juggling his responsibilities in Massachusetts.

These are the most loyal of the loyal Bushies, who are the only ones to be trusted with these key positions. Of course, if they weren't loyal enough, and spending 10 minutes extra on their lunch hour out of the office, then they were presiding over chaos because of their rampant absenteeism.

The whole that Justice has dug is bigger than the building that houses them, at this point.

We Fired Him Because... I Know, Because He's In The Navy!

I didn't get to this last week, but it is both hysterical and sad:

When he wasn’t doing his day job as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias was a captain in the Navy Reserve, teaching foreign military officers about international terrorism.

But Iglesias’s military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT) apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S attorney late last year was that he was an “absentee landlord” who was spending too much time away from the office.

That explanation may create new legal problems for Gonzales and Justice. Iglesias confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he was recently questioned by lawyers for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, to determine if his dismissal was a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against members of the U.S. military.

Here's the story: Iglesias was an exemplary US Attorney, until Pete Domenici and New Mexico Democrats decided he wasn't helping Heather Wilson's re-election effort enough by prosecuting local Democrats. So they had him fired. But they had to come up with a reason after the fact. So they decided on the one thing - his Naval reserve service which keeps him out of the office 40 days a year - that is not allowed by law, job discrimination on the basis of military service. I think the worst thing about this is that all the Regent University-approved lawyers at the Justice Department DIDN'T KNOW that firing someone because he serves in the Naval reserve would be illegal.

We have 8 year-olds running this government.

By the way, Domenici and Wilson aren't out of the woods on this one by a long shot, and we may see Domenici have to face a public hearing to describe his conduct. New Mexico Democrats must be licking their chops.

Prosecutor Purge Update

I'm a little disappointed that my moniker of "Iglesiasgate" didn't take off - put then, the US Attorney scandal ended up moving past just David Iglesias, so it was not in the cards. But nevertheless, I'll soldier on and report developments in the scandal:

• Three of the fired prosecutors - David Iglesias, Carol Lam, and Paul Charlton - were ranked in the top 10 of all US Attorneys in number of convictions. Not surprisingly, these are arguably the three most controversial firings.

• While the Senate approved subpoenas for Karl Rove and other White House officials, Patrick Leahy has just about nailed down Kyle Sampson to voluntarily testify next week. This would be a very big hearing to follow, because Sampson is none too happy with being made the fall guy by the Justice Department. I would imagine he will lash out if given the opportunity. Chuck Schumer gave a preview of this last Sunday on Meet The Press, so it's not a big surprise.

• The D-Trip has run its first ad of 2008, and it's about Iglesiasgate, slamming Rep. Heather Wilson for her role in calling Iglesias and pressuring him to indict local Democrats before Election Day. There's plenty of time, but my sense is that Wilson is toast next year.

• One interesting thing about this scandal is how it has highlighted the continuing politicization of the Justice Department under Bush. These things were all happening in an obvious fashion anyway, but seeing that the DoJ would fire prosecutors who wouldn't play ball has put this in stark relief. And it's allowed journalists to view the DoJ's activities through this frame. There's the mysterious downgrading of the landmark class action lawsuit against tobacco companies, where the cash award sought suddenly went from $130 billion to $10 billion. And there's federal prosecutors seeking to reduce Jack Abramoff's prison sentence because of his cooperation with ongoing corruption cases, allegedly. The Abramoff story is the perfect example, because normally that wouldn't raise an eyebrow at all. If someone's being that cooperative, you tend to give leniency. But if and when nothing comes from his "assistance," then you know that the DoJ was giving a political favor instead of tracking down further corruption. And frankly, they don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

• Great writing about PurgeGate: Josh Marshall:

Okay, enough. The president fired US Attorneys to stymie investigations of Republicans and punish US Attorneys who didn't harass Democrats with bogus voter fraud prosecutions. In the former instance, the evidence remains circumstantial. But in the latter the evidence is clear, overwhelming and undeniable.

Indeed, it is so undeniable the president hismelf does not deny it [...]

Back up a bit from the sparks flying over executive privilege and congressional testimony and you realize that these are textbook cases of the party in power interfering or obstructing the administration of justice for narrowly partisan purposes. It's a direct attack on the rule of law.

This much is already clear in the record. And we're now having a big public debate about the politics for each side if the president tries to obstruct the investigation and keep the truth from coming out. The contours and scope of executive privilege is one issue, and certainly an important one. But in this case it is being used as no more than a shield to keep the full extent of the president's perversion of the rule of law from becoming known.

• More great writing: Sidney Blumenthal in Salon.

The man Bush has nicknamed "Fredo," the weak and betraying brother of the Corleone family, is, unlike Fredo, a blind loyalist, and will not be dispatched with a shot to the back of the head in a rowboat on the lake while reciting his Ave Maria. (Is Bush aware that Colin Powell refers to him as "Sonny," after the hothead oldest son?) But saving "Fredo" doesn't explain why Bush is willing to risk a constitutional crisis. Why is Bush going to the mattresses against the Congress? What doesn't he want known?

In the U.S. attorneys scandal, Gonzales was an active though second-level perpetrator. While he gave orders, he also took orders. Just as his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, has resigned as a fall guy, so Gonzales would be yet another fall guy if he were to resign. He was assigned responsibility for the purge of U.S. attorneys but did not conceive it. The plot to transform the U.S. attorneys and ipso facto the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition had its origin in Karl Rove's fertile mind.

How little self-respect do you have to have to allow yourself to be nicknamed "Fredo"?

• Tony Snow continued his reign of embarrassment as White House press secretary by claiming, on numerous occasions today, that Congress "doesn't have oversight ability over the White House," which came as news to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This is the kind of argument that's so much bullshit that you almost start clapping at the audacity of it all.

• And finally: this may be the craziest aspect of this entire story. Brett Tolman, then a staffer for Sen. Arlen Specter, was apparently responsible for slipping the provision into the PATRIOT Act that allowed the Justice Department to appoint replacement US Attorneys without Senate confirmation. Funny story... turns out that he's now the US Attorney for Utah.

Another Domino Falls in Purgegate

Via (who else?) TPM Muckraker, we have YET ANOTHER example of a federal prosecutor being fired for attempting to investigate a Republican. From The Arizona Republic:

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 his ouster was connected to his investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.

Charlton, one of eight federal prosecutors forced to resign last year, never received a written response.

It seems like Charlton was beginning his investigation into Renzi, and the Justice Department had some knowledge of it.

And this is curious.

In October, Justice Department officials confirmed that Renzi was the subject of an inquiry into a land swap that would benefit a friend and business associate. Renzi has denied any wrongdoing. He could not be reached Tuesday.

Renzi is a Bush loyalist. When Renzi was locked in a battle for his congressional seat last year, the president came to Arizona to campaign for him.

When the first list of U.S. attorneys targeted for ouster was drafted, Charlton's name was not on it. But his name was on a subsequent list, drafted in September. Although the Renzi inquiry was not yet public, it is likely the Justice Department was aware of the investigation, said a former U.S. attorney who is familiar with the protocol when a sitting lawmaker is involved.

"If we had anything of a major investigative nature, I would notify the Justice Department," said Melvin McDonald, who was Arizona's U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration. "Typically, that's what happens."

So DoJ confirmed an investigation in October. Charlton's name hit the target list in September. And surely, he began the investigation well before DoJ confirmed it.

So let's recap:

• David Iglesias, US Attorney for New Mexico, gets phone calls from Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson pressuring him to indict local Democrats, and we he resists their pressure, he's fired.

• Carol Lam, US Attorney in San Diego, emails the Justice Department about obtaining warrants to search the house of Dusty Foggo, #3 at the CIA, and the next day Kyle Sampson is writing people about "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam.

• John McKay, US Attorney in Washington State, resists calls to investigate non-existent and baseless accusations of voter fraud, and winds up on a target list, eventually getting fired.

• Daniel Bogden, US Attorney in Nevada, was in the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress (Jim Gibbons?) when he was fired.

• And let's not forget Debra Wong Yang, US Attorney for Los Angeles, who, months after opening an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, was hired away for $1.5 million dollars by the same law firm representing Lewis, which Josh Marshall says is part of "an odd pattern of pivotal investigators and prosecutors getting fortuitous promotions or offers of employment in the private sector at key moments."

Yeah, I think I see a pattern here.

Democrats in Arizona are being pretty aggressive about the Charlton case.

"Obviously, there needs to be an investigation," said Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz. "You need to find out the facts. It shouldn't be partisan at all."

On Tuesday, the Arizona Democratic Party wrote to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking that it look into a connection between Charlton's removal and the Renzi investigation. The letter, signed by state party Chairman David Waid, said the investigation appears to have stalled since Charlton was forced out.

The newest e-mails, memos and other records raise fresh questions about whether there were political motivations for Charlton's ouster, as the documents indicate that Justice Department officials were still - after the fact - trying to settle on a complete explanation for why Charlton was called on Dec. 7 and told to resign.

DoJ is so busted.

UPDATE: Carpetbagger points me to this Max Blumenthal article that adds some context to the Charlton firing. He was put on the list for targeting at pretty much the same time that he opened the Renzi investigation. Prior to that, he was winning awards for running a model office. And the DoJ alibi for firing him is a... doozy:

The Justice Department and the White House offered a scattershot of alibis for firing Charlton. The Bush Administration's case against Charlton rested ultimately on the account of a little-known Justice Department official named Brent Ward, who claimed in a September 20, 2006 e-mail that Charlton was "unwilling to take good cases."

What accounts for this bizarre e-mail? And who is Brent Ward?

Ward first came to prominence in Utah, where as US Attorney during the Reagan era he cast himself as a crusader against pornography. His battles made him one of the most fervent and earnest witnesses before Attorney General Edwin Meese's Commission on Pornography; he urged "testing the endurance" of pornographers by relentless prosecutions. Meese was so impressed that he named Ward a leader of a group of US Attorneys engaged in a federal anti-pornography campaign, which soon disappeared into the back rooms of adult bookshops to ferret out evildoers. Ward returned to government last year as the chief of the Justice Department's newly created Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, where his main achievement has been the prosecution of the producer of the Girls Gone Wild film series [...]

According to the source, Ward's accusation against Charlton stems from a case he filed in June 2006. That month, Ward ordered Charlton to prosecute Five Star Video, an adult video store that registered on Ward's radar when it mailed copies of the DVD's Gag Factor 18, Filthy Things 6, Gag Factor 15, and American Bukkake 13 to customers across state lines. Charlton agreed to take the case, but as the source told me, Ward implored him to attach an additional US Attorney to it. Concerned about wasting the already limited resources at his disposal on a case of dubious value, Charlton hesitated. Despite his misgivings, he assigned the additional prosecutor--a key fact missing from the White House e-mails.

So, you have a maniac in the DoJ forcing frivolous porno investigations that Charlton FOLLOWS THROUGH ON because it's his job - and then when he's fired, the same maniac is used to claim that he doesn't take "good cases." Like the "American Bukkake 13" ring that has ripped this country asunder.

I'm at a loss...

Doc Dump

I've been going through some of the Prosecutor Purge documents made available at the House Judiciary Committee website. There are about 3,000 pages so I don't expect to finish tonight. But here are a couple impressions.

The big reported story coming out of this dump is here:

U.S. News's Chitra Ragavan has learned that one day after Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified on Capitol Hill about the reasons eight U.S. attorneys were summarily fired, a Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse--who was traveling abroad with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in Argentina -- sent an E-mail to McNulty saying Gonzales was unhappy with McNulty's testimony regarding why U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Arkansas had been let go. That E-mail is what is causing the most concern at the Justice Department among the 2000 pages of documents about to be released on Capitol Hill in the next hour.

On February 6, McNulty acknowledged during contentious testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Cummins had been fired because the administration wanted to name Timothy Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, who had also worked for the Republican National Committee. But McNulty said the firings of the other prosecutors were related to their poor performance [...]

In the E-mail to McNulty, Roehrkasse said the attorney general disagreed with his characterization of Cummins's firing, because Gonzales believed that it was at least in part performance related.

The E-mail shows an internal rift between top leadership over how to portray the firings, and indeed the reasons for the firings.

Among the 2,000 pages, there were a handful of other documents that are causing concern at the Justice Department, sources said, because they "may not put things in a great light" and could be seen as Justice officials' "potentially misleading" Congress, sources said, which is the key concern among members of Congress.

Gonzales apparently doesn't use email and has to relay things through an intermediary. Is this possible? We have an Attorney General that can't use email? What country am I living in?

Then, in the PDF numbered 1-1 (right at the beginning):

A lot of this dump is about an AP story on May 18, 2006 about the lack of immigration prosecutions in the SD area. One interesting part is that Iglesias is emailed the story by Rebecca Seidel, and she says "see below story. We are going to need to ensure that you David have enough info to respond to questions you may get on this. We need to respond with our good prosecution numbers..."

In other words, DoJ was actively trying to knock down the AP story, and appealed to none other than Iglesias and his "good prosecution numbers" in the border state of New Mexico. I don't know off-hand if immigration cases were given as a rationale for his firing.

More later. This is kinda fun.

P.S. The Politico says that Gonzo's ouster is imminent and that the WH is quietly looking at potential replacements, including Michael Chertoff (exsqueeze me? The guy who bungled Katrina?) and Frances Townsend and Larry Thompson.

UPDATE: The William Moschella letter to Dianne Feinstein is on page 44 of PDF 1-1. A similar one was sent out to Rep. Darrell Issa. Moschella defends DoJ policy on immigration cases and the work of USA Carol Lam in that department. Moschella is either lying to Congress in this letter, or he and his office lied to Congress under oath when he determined that Lam was fired due to her work in failing to properly prosecute border cases. So which is it?

UPDATE: This one seems like kind of a big deal:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kyle.Sampson@usdoj.gov [mailto:Kyle.Sampson@usdoj.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 11:02 AM
To: Kelley, William K.; Miers, Harriet
Cc: Paul.J.McNulty@usdoj.gov
Subject: USA replacement plan
Importance: High

Harriet/Bill, please see the attached. Please note (1) the plan, by its terms, would commence this week; (2) I have consulted with the DAG, but not yet informed others who would need to be brought into the loop, including Acting Associate AG Bill Mercer, EOUSA Director Mike Battle, and AGAC Chair Johnny Sutton (nor have I informed anyone in Karl's shop, another pre-execution necessity I would recommend); and (3) I am concerned that to execute this plan properly we must all be on the same page and be steeled to withstand any political upheaval that might result (see Step 3); if we start caving to complaining U.S. Attorneys or Senators then we shouldn't do it -- it'll be more trouble than it is worth.

We'll stand by for a green light from you. Upon the green light, we'll (1) circulate the below plan to the list of folks in Step 3 (and ask that you circulate it to Karl's shop), (2) confirm that Kelley is making the Senator/Bush political lead calls, and (3) get Battle making the calls to the USAs. Let us know.

Karl's shop. It's not just for auto parts.