Some nice press from the LA Times for TPM and TPMmuckraker's coverage of the US Attorney Purge.
--Josh Marshall
Is the attorney general apologizing for saying the purged U.S. attorneys were canned for "performance-related reasons"?
As I mentioned earlier, that's what McClatchy reported yesterday, and the AP has a similar report today on what transpired during a conference call between Gonzales and all the U.S. attorneys on Friday:
During the conference call, planned as a pep talk to raise morale at a Justice Department tainted by the firings and the FBI's misuse of the Patriot Act, Gonzales apologized for how the dismissals were handled and for suggesting there were problems with the prosecutors' job performances.
Without more information, it's hard to know what that means. Is he abandoning the Administration's defense that the prosecutors were removed for legitimate job performance reasons? Or is he saying that the Justice Department did act based on performance concerns but shouldn't have shredded the prosecutors' reputations in the process of defending the move? Since this was a "pep talk," I suspect it's the latter.
--David Kurtz
Some new news on the Kyle Sampson front. Remember, Sampson is Alberto Gonzales's former Chief of Staff who resigned on Monday. The following is a statement from Mr. Sampson's lawyer, Bradford Berenson ...
"Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. He resigned because, as Chief of Staff, he felt he had let the Attorney General down in failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective response to the unfounded accusations that the replacements were improper.""The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the Department, including others who were involved in preparing the Department's testimony to Congress. If this background was not called to Mr. McNulty or Mr. Moschella's attention, it was not because any of these individuals deliberately withheld it from them but rather because no one focused on it at the time. The focus of preparation efforts was on why the U.S. Attorneys had been replaced, not how."
Update: Compare and contrast with Sampson's very similar, yet significantly different, statement out last night. - PK
--Josh Marshall
The most interesting testimony in yesterday's House committee hearing on the CIA leak case came not from Valerie Plame Wilson but from James Knodell, director of the White House security office, who testified that the White House had neither undertaken an internal investigation into the leak nor taken disciplinary action against the leakers. Here's a copy of the letter committee Chairman Henry Waxman sent to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten following the hearing.
--David Kurtz
Think Progress has a good catch, from NPR:
According to Justice Department sources, after Kyle Sampson resigned as the attorney general’s chief of staff on Monday, he was going to work as a lawyer in the legislative section of the department’s environment division. The Justice Department started to set up a new office for Sampson in that section, and he only resigned from the department on Tuesday, when the scandal surrounding eight fired U.S. Attorneys continued to grow.
Yup. Mistakes were made.
--David Kurtz
Take a look at what the U.S. attorney scandal has wrought by way of media coverage in Pittsburgh--and consider the implications for every federal prosecutor in the country. As Bud Cummins wrote yesterday in an email to TPMmuckraker, "Once the public detects partisanship in one important decision, they will follow the natural inclination to question every decision made, whether there is a connection or not." [Thanks to TPM Reader NW for the tip.]
--David Kurtz
Newsweek poll: "Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed-–including 45 percent of Republicans-–say the ouster of the federal prosecutors was driven by political concerns."
--David Kurtz
Helen Thomas keeps her front row seat in the new White House briefing room.
--David Kurtz
Kyle Sampson may have resigned as Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, but he's showing signs of not being willing to be scapegoated for the entire U.S. Attorney scandal.
As Paul notes, Sampson's lawyer, former Bush Administration official Bradford Berenson, released a statement late Friday that includes this rat-jumping-ship gem:
The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject for several years was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the Department, including others who were involved in preparing the Department's testimony to Congress.
Sen. Schumer said this week that Sampson would not become the next Scooter Libby, a fall guy for a scheme hatched at the highest levels of the Bush Administration. Sampson seems to be saying the same thing.
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader JT shares my reaction to last night's McClatchy account of Alberto Gonzales' conference call with U.S. Attorneys:
The Bushie justification of the firings rests entirely on their adamant insistence that the firings were based on poor job performance, even to the point of finding convoluted ways to explain away the consistently positive performance reviews so many were getting right up to the minute they were fired.So, if Gonzales has now admitted that the public statements about job performance were 'inaccurate', what is left as a rationale for firing the USA's except political reasons? Hasn't he just blown their whole defense here?
As I say, that raised my eyebrows, too. Without calling into question McClatchy's reporting here, because they have had a stellar record on this story, it is hard for me to believe that Gonzales didn't give a very carefully hedged apology that would have stopped short of saying the public statements about job performance were "inaccurate." This will be worth keeping an eye on because JT is right that if accurate this account leaves the Administration's defense in tatters.
--David Kurtz
More well-deserved kudos for TPMmuckraker.
Late Update: Greg Sargent's take on it all, straight from The Horse's Mouth.
--David Kurtz
GOP smear-tactic financier Bob Perry, of swift-boat fame, climbs aboard the Mitt Romney campaign.
--David Kurtz
In an effort to save his job, Alberto Gonzales apologized to all U.S. attorneys in a conference call today and brought in a veteran of the Ashcroft years as his interim chief of staff. The apology was not for the firings, but for how they were handled, according to McClatchy. and apparently included an apology for "inaccurate public statements about poor job performance." The interim chief of staff is Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who previously served as chief of staff to then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
--David Kurtz
Valerie Plame Wilson testifying before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Friday March 16th, 2007 ...
--Josh Marshall
Earlier, we noted that a document dump related to the U.S. attorney firings was on its way... but now we're hearing that it's been postponed until Monday.
--Paul Kiel
White House tells Democrats that they'll just have to wait until next week for an answer as to whether they'll cooperate with the U.S. attorney probe.
--Paul Kiel
We've just unearthed the quote from Barack Obama that Bill Clinton is demanding that The Times pay more attention to.
--Greg Sargent
I've mentioned a few times recently that we've got some big changes coming soon at TPM. So with the good press TPMmuckraker.com has been getting for its reporting on the US Attorney Purge story, let me take a moment to tell you what we've got coming.
It's been about a year and a half now since our reporting here went from being a one man operation to a small team of reporters. That's when I got the idea to start the site that became TPMmuckraker.com. Needless to say, I really couldn't be happier with the results.
For its first year, TPMmuckraker.com was primarily focused on the expanding web of congressional corruption scandals. We still think Congress is the big story this year, but in a different way. With the Democrats now in power, how are they running the place? Differently than the GOP barons, or more of the same with a new party ID label after the names? And how well are they performing oversight of the executive branch? We want to see how good a job they're doing, what they're finding and -- perhaps most important -- what we can find that they should be looking at too. So on both counts, we think Congress is the story this year. That's why we want to put at least one full-time blogger-reporter on Capitol Hill every day to dig into the stuff we think our readers want to know more about, to dig in to stories that aren't getting the attention they should.
This will be part of a relaunch of the entire site -- with a redesigned TPM website with a expanded focusing on reporting and breaking news updated through the day, and daily video segements. We have either already hired or are in the process of hiring new staff to make all this possible. We'll still have the traditional TPM blog. And with the changes we're making I should be able to get back to doing more blogging myself, as I used to, which I'm glad about.
To regular readers, I'm eager to hear your comments and thoughts. I'll be discussing more of the details over the weekend and next week, when we'll be launching a new (voluntary) subscription drive to help make all this possible.
--Josh Marshall
Only the best can serve.
You know that former US Attorney John McKay was canned up in Washington state over the much mentioned 'performance problems'. Now one of the three men the White House is considering as his replacement is former Congressman Rick White (R-WA). The only problem, as TPM Reader JK points out, is that White is currently not authorized to practice law in the state. His law license was suspended in 2003 after he forgot to pay his bar fees.
According to the Seattle Times ...
White's license was suspended by the state Supreme Court in August 2003 for failing to pay his bar dues. He was reinstated to the bar in 2005 after paying a small fee, but currently holds an "inactive" status. That means he can not practice law in Washington until he pays his full bar dues, about $390, and demonstrates that he is current on required Continuing Legal Education classes, said Washington State Bar spokeswoman Judy Berrett.
So it's basically onward and upward with meritocracy.
--Josh Marshall
Former US Attorney Bud Cummins writes in to TPMmuckraker.
Update: Here's our conversation with Cummins, who is, to understate it, very unhappy with the Justice Department.
--Paul Kiel
We hear there's another big document dump coming late this afternoon.
We're also hearing the press briefing today was a doozy.
Late Update: Yep, turned out to be true. It was a doozy.
--Josh Marshall
Here's a transcript of Tony Snow getting all hazy about the details of the idea to fire the U.S. attorneys.
Also, see him try to spin away the mention of 80-85 percent of U.S. attorneys as "loyal Bushies."
--Paul Kiel
Ahhh ... the artful ways things are described. Just out from Dan Eggen at the Post ...
The White House retreated today from its claim that former counsel Harriet E. Miers first came up with the idea of firing U.S. attorneys, another apparent shift in the Bush administration's evolving version of events behind the controversy.White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that it was no longer clear who first initiated the idea of dismissing a large number of the 93 federal prosecutors following the 2004 elections.
"It has been described as her idea but . . . I don't want to try to vouch for origination," Snow said, referring to Miers. "At this juncture, people have hazy memories."
Hazy memories. I'll bet.
At this point in the game, isn't the technical description for the status of this kind of false statement 'no longer operative.' Someone get Tony to brush up on his Watergate lexicon. Gonna be a bumpy ride.
--Josh Marshall
Confirmed: Bill Clinton slams New York Times for unfairly covering wife and going soft on Obama.
Update: Obama responds to Bill's remarks.
Late update: Times declines comment on Bill's criticism.
--Greg Sargent
Some quick updates on a couple of 2008 races that are attracting the attention of national Dems right now.
Dem strategists are certain that Oregon GOP Senator Gordon Smith is more vulnerable than he looks, but they're struggling to find the right Dem to challenge him.
Meanwhile, on the House side, Dems are planning to make the seat of Florida GOPer C.W. Bill Young one of 2008's top targets.
--Greg Sargent
Andrew Sullivan raises a very good question about the White House's likely need to find a new Attorney General. A logical person to replace Gonzales might be Deputy AG McNulty. But he's as implicated as his boss. So he's out. So is Bush loyalist Harriet Miers. So she's out too. In fact, most of the Bush insiders who are legal types are implicated. And even setting aside particular people, the senate would probably look very askance on another Bush pal as AG.
The political logic of the situation (ethical logic too, but we're far past that point, aren't we?) strongly suggests that the White House should tap a broadly respected lawyer public figure who can reestablish trust in the Department.
But can the president afford to have someone like that at the Justice Department right now? With all the investigations and potential investigations in play? A straight-shooter who will have justice's back rather than the White House?
This might be the only factor weighing in favor of Gonzales holding on to his job.
--Josh Marshall
Is that your final answer?
Disgraced Attorney General Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson looks over the shoulder of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6th, 2006.
--Josh Marshall
We're sitting here listening to the Plame testimony in the House. And the exchange has just come to focus on the 2004 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Iraq intel report. If you've been a longtime reader of this site, you know that the Niger story was one I reported on extensively for almost two years. The fallout from the story has now spilled out in many directions, not least of which was the recent Libby conviction. But I do hope we can finally have review and scrutiny of that report. The section of the report dealing with Niger, Wilson and Plame is simply a tissue of lies. It's a shame on the Democrats who served on the committee who got gamed into approving it.
You can read through our archives for detailed discussions of the report's contents. But it is a deliberate construction of half-truths, flat out lies and intentional misdirection -- all quite conscious on the part of the authors -- meant to discredit Wilson and thus protect the president. Then-Chairman Roberts (R-KS) prostituted his office by working in concert with the White House to obstruct and misdirect the investigation he was supposedly in charge of leading. And of course the conclusions of the report have become socially acceptable lies repeated endlessly by virtually every Republican in Washington and every conservative editorialist, most recently David Brooks in the Times, but certainly by many others.
To give the matter some current currency, the US Attorney Purge story gives a reminder, if any were needed, of how routinely senior members of the current administration lie to the public and Congress. And it is an example of how much more we can learn when we have a Congress sitting in Washington willing to do some oversight.
With the Libby verdict, many, even those sympathetic to the truth, view this matter as essentially concluded. But a cloud of official lies still hangs over the city. It centers on the Niger-Wilson story but grows out from there to cover everything that happened in the lead up to the war. To date, there has been no serious effort to investigate what happened. Again, there's been no serious effort to investigate what happened in the lead up to the war. Each investigation has been aimed -- to differing degrees -- at covering up and diverting blame. A strong statement, but a fact that needs to be said.
--Josh Marshall
Good question from TPM Reader TB ...
Does anyone know what Fitz's "rating" was on the loyalty scale sent to Miers by Sampson? Imagine the #$*%storm if they wanted to fire him from his home job to tamp down the Wilson controversy they way they acted on the warrantless wiretaps probe.
Excellent question. I believe the answer is that Fitzgerald's rating is redacted on the US Attorney ratings list released by the White House.
Sure would be interesting to see the actual document without the redactions.
--Josh Marshall
My biggest suspicions about the US Attorney Purge, as you know, center on the firing of former San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam, who led the investigation and prosecution of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA). Well, the guy who broke the Duke story, Copley news service's Marcus Stern and the Copley team that kept on it until long after Duke was in the slammer -- Jerry Kammer, Dean Calbreath, George E. Condon Jr -- have written a book. It's called The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught. It's not out till May, I think. But I can't wait to read it. Certainly going to be worth picking up a copy.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, we've spent the last couple days putting together a US Attorney Purge timeline stretching from 2001 until this very day. Like all our timelines this is a TPM community project. We've got the main information up there. But take a look. If there's a key date or event we don't have up there, send us an email and let us know. If at all possible, send us a specific link and citation for what you're referring to. And, certainly, if you think you've found an error, tell us that too.
So take a look and let us know what you think.
--Josh Marshall
TPMmuckraker gets some nice press from the Columbia Journalism Review for being way ahead of the pack on the US Attorney Purge.
--Josh Marshall
Earlier, ABC reported that an email shows that the whole idea of replacing U.S. attorneys originated with Karl Rove.
We've got the email for you right here.
Update: I guess the fired prosecutors weren't "loyal Bushies?"
Update: We've just updated with a statement from the Justice Department.
--Paul Kiel
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) is number two.
"For the Justice Department to be effective before the U.S. Senate, it would be helpful" if Gonzales resigned.
--Paul Kiel
Your Senate.
Today the Dem-controlled Senate fell well short of passing a resolution calling for withdrawal -- while overwhelming passing a measure renouncing the defunding of the war.
--Greg Sargent
Uh-oh. New from ABC ...
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.The e-mails also show Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel — weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.
The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers and was her idea alone.
Three lies and you're out, Alberto.
--Josh Marshall
More Tony Snow.
MR. SNOW: I'm not -- how would you define "political decision-making"?Q Well, decision-making that involves politics.
Q How would you define it, Tony?
MR. SNOW: Well, it's a loaded term.
--Paul Kiel
Oops. Time to make more room on your U.S. attorney purge scandal scorecard.
Today, CREW sent a letter to the House's chief sleuth, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), requesting an investigation into the White House's use of outside email addresses. If it's a slippery way of avoiding keeping a record, it's potentially a violation of the Presidential Records Act. More here.
--Paul Kiel
One-time maverick McCain relaunching the Straight Talk Express. Literally.
--Greg Sargent
"There are a lot of things going on at the Department of Justice."
Tony Snow fights off questions about the administration's role in the purge during the press gaggle this morning.
--Paul Kiel
Murray Waas lands another blow on Alberto Gonzales.
Gonzales, Waas reports, helped shut down an internal Justice Department investigation of the warrantless wiretapping program that likely would have ended up focusing on him.
--Paul Kiel
Senate committee authorizes subpoenas for Justice officials -- but holds off on the White House.
--Paul Kiel
Greg Anrig and Micah Sifry chime in on the future of the campaign reform movement.
--Andrew Golis
Is the surge working?
Spencer Ackerman reports for TPM from Baghdad -- introducing you to, among other things, the "high-profile car bomb."
--Paul Kiel
David Broder rushes to the GOP's defense, attacks The New York Times for questioning the party's political health.
--Greg Sargent
This article by Dan Eggen in tomorrow's Post lays out in gentle but clear and persuasive terms why Attorney General Gonzales and his Deputy, Mr. McNulty, will soon be ending their tenure at the Department of Justice. Simply put, they lied to Congress. As Eggen correctly notes, prosecutions for lying to Congress are uncommon. And the standards of proof might well be too great to sustain one. But by common sense standards it's clear that neither man testified truthfully when they answered senators' questions earlier this year. Even the emails now public make that clear. That visible deceit in covering up an emerging scandal will be too much for them to stay in office. Sen. Sununu's (R-NH) announcement will be followed by others.
Who wants to guess how many days remain before Gonzales decides his presence at Justice is becoming an obstacle to the fulfillment of President Bush's important law enforcement policy objectives?
--Josh Marshall
It's hard to match this hilarity.
In the evolving story of the US Attorney Purge, you know that a principal part is played by this little known provision of the USA Patriot Act which allows the Attorney General to appoint US attorneys without senate confirmation (TPMmuckraker played the central role uncovering how the provision ended up in the bill). Up until -- what? days ago? -- the White House was promising to veto any attempts to overturn this critical bit of legislation packed with constitutional import and critical to the prosecution of the war on terror. Now, says the Justice Department, in the words of McClatchy News Service, the provision was "designed by a mid-level department lawyer without the knowledge of his superiors or anyone at the White House."
It's like some pulsing gyre of Anglomania -- George Orwell meets Monty Python, with Benny Hill along for the ride.
The separation of powers issue is just down the memory hole. Now it was just some Justice Department lawyer freelancing.
So not withstanding the fact that we now have emails of the Attorney General's Chief of Staff discussing the importance of using the AG's new power to avoid senate confirmation, apparently this is how the whole thing came about ...
The e-mails released Wednesday show Moschella corresponding in 2004 with a Los Angeles attorney named Daniel Collins, who had previously worked for the Justice Department.In telephone interviews, Moschella and Collins both said Collins had floated the idea of taking district judges out of the vacancy-filling process back in 2003, when he was still at Justice. A former assistant U.S. attorney, Collins said the ability of a district court judge to appoint an interim U.S. attorney if the Senate did not confirm a nominee raised constitutional questions about the separation of powers.
In 2004, Collins said Moschella e-mailed him saying he wanted to pursue such a change. Collins said he did not ask Moschella what triggered his interest and Moschella did not volunteer it.
Collins warned Moschella that if district judges lost their appointment power, the Justice Department would have to figure out how to fill the vacancies. Among the options were making rolling appointments; putting the deputy U.S. attorney in the job temporarily, or allowing the interim appointee to remain indefinitely, Collins said Wednesday.
Collins said that the last option "was certainly never my intention." He added that he did not know why Moschella chose to draft the provision that way.
Just sort of thinking out loud. Just the sort of option two pals come up with when brainstorming about how to solve a critical separation of powers issue that had never occured to anyone before.
--Josh Marshall
Hear TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel discussing the US Attorney Purge this evening on Open Source Radio.
--Josh Marshall
If you've got some money to wager, the odds on a Gonzales resignation before the end of the month don't look like they've quite caught up with the late afternoon news.
(ed.note: TPM is a news and commentary site with occasional bonus snark. This is not investment advice. Get a clue. Blah, blah, blah ...)
--Josh Marshall
Great pictures to see.
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), recuperating, March 13th, 2007 ...
More pics on the Johnson senate website.
--Josh Marshall
They're getting it. From the AP ...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday she believes the ouster of San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was connected to Lam's prosecution of former Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, even though the Bush administration has denied it."In my heart of hearts I do, no matter what they say," Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
--Josh Marshall
BREAKING! 9/11 Mastermind who confessed to being mastermind after being captured like five years ago confesses again at Gitmo hearing and now the transcript is released by the Pentagon to get Gonzales off the front pages!
BREAKING!
--Josh Marshall
TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel will be on Open Source with Christopher Lydon at 7 EST tonight discussing the U.S. attorney purge story.
--Josh Marshall
The problem wtih having Kyle Sampson as the fall guy -- he's not the only one who knew.
--Paul Kiel
First Republican senator to call for Alberto Gonzales' resignation: Sen. John Sununu (R-NH).
More soon.
Update: Here's the AP story.
--Paul Kiel
Exclusive: MoveOn privately demanding that House Speaker Pelosi's office toughen up bill to end Iraq War.
--Greg Sargent
To purge or not to purge? Another hole poked in the Justice Department's claim of "performance related" reasons behind the mass firing.
--Paul Kiel
Down in Mexico today the president said the US Attorney firings are in fact a "customary practice." Totally false. We'll have more in a bit.
According to the president, the whole issue is just "confusion" on the part of folks outside the administration.
--Josh Marshall
Lawyer to the Netroots Adam Bonin on the campaign reform movement: "It's not that we don't trust reform; it's that we don't trust the reformers. With good reason."
--Andrew Golis
President Bush: "I do have confidence in AG Al Gonzales. I talked to him this morning, and we talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decision it made."
Once they come up with a story they can stick to, I guess Gonzales can go up to the Hill and tell the senators what it is.
Update: Here's video.
--Josh Marshall
Good eye, or good ear, from TPM Reader JB. Apparently, the White House and Alberto Gonzales are so miffed with Kyle Sampson for doing the whole Attorney Purge on his own that they're letting him stay on the job -- from which he supposedly resigned on Monday -- indefinitely as he "goes job hunting."
--Josh Marshall
Get this: McCain is now beginning to tout his own courage for supporting escalation -- in a political campaign web video.
--Greg Sargent
What does it mean that the Justice Department's purge meister wanted Carol Lam gone before she even got going on the Duke Cunningham case?
As Josh promised, here's our take.
--Paul Kiel
Winger v. Winger ...
From the Journal OpEd page ...
At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.
Bush I Assistant AG, Stuart Gerson, in today's WaPo online chat ...
It is customary for a President to replace U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of a term. Ronald Reagan replaced every sitting U.S. Attorney when he appointed his first Attorney General. President Clinton, acting through me as Acting AG, did the same thing, even with few permanent candidates in mind.
The Journal OpEd also continues their penchant for peddling 'voter fraud' falsehoods.
--Josh Marshall
Senate requests interviews with Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and Miers' deputy, William Kelley.
--Paul Kiel
Big breaking news: Senate votes to allow debate on proposal for withdrawal from Iraq!
Update: Here are the nine GOP Senators who voted against debate today.
--Greg Sargent
Republican justice, in more ways than one. This is from today's Seattle Times ...
Former Washington state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance acknowledged Tuesday that he contacted then-U.S. Attorney John McKay to inquire about the status of federal investigations into the 2004 governor's race while the outcome was still in dispute....
"Republican activists were furious because they felt that you had a Republican secretary of state [Sam Reed], a Republican county prosecutor in Norm Maleng and a Republican U.S. attorney, but still they saw the governorship slipping away, and they were just angry," Vance said.
All those Republicans and they still couldn't get any trumped up voter fraud indictments. No wonder they were angry.
Of course, these Republican officeholders -- McKay, Reed and Maleng -- understand their responsibilities and did the right thing.
--Josh Marshall
Editorial pages from sea to shining sea call for Gonzales to walk the plank.
--Josh Marshall
Many have noticed that Carol Lam's name is noted for firing in the list drawn up at the Justice Department well before the Cunningham investigation even began. We'll have more on that coming soon at TPMmuckraker. But look at the list closely. All the US Attorney names, save for those who were eventually fired, are redacted. So it's impossible to evaluate what the strike through Lam's name really means without knowing how many other US Attorneys were stricken on the same list.
--Josh Marshall
For the next few days at TPMCafe, we'll be discussing Mark Schmitt's new piece in Democracy Journal challenging the campaign reform movement. Mark outlines the argument in his first post here.
--Andrew Golis
From CBS ...
Wednesday, appearing on CBS' The Early Show, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales praised Lam's efforts, but said Lam focused too much on public corruption cases.Controversy surrounding Lam's firing, along with seven other U.S. attorneys, has renewed calls for Gonzales' resignation, which he has thus far rejected.
"We advised Ms. Lam of these other priorities — that she needed to focus on other issues as well. A U.S. attorney can't just focus on one particular problem," Gonzales said. "A U.S. Attorney has to focus on all the needs of the community."
So true.
--Josh Marshall
Creative bios at WaPo?
TPM Reader TS writes in to note that in the Washington Post online chat this morning they have "Stuart M. Gerson, acting attorney general at the start of the Clinton administration and now a D.C. lawyer." Oddly, for someone in the Clinton administration, his answers seemed quite generous to the Bush administration and the Republican line on the Attorney Purge scandal.
No mention that Gerson was a Bush I appointee until this question came in ...
San Francisco: Just to clarify, you were a holdover from the George H.W. Bush Administration during the difficulties Bill Clinton had in finding an Attorney General in early 1993, is that correct?Stuart M. Gerson: That is correct. I had been the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division during Bush I, and was Acting Attorney General at the beginning of the Clinton administration.
Glad he was there to give the Clinton administration perspective.
--Josh Marshall
Apparently Fox News' Chris Wallace is the latest name journalist to get caught spouting the 'Clinton did it too' malarkey on the US Attorney firings. Wallace's bamboozlement came on Imus. We're going to try to get the transcript for you. But I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise since he works for Fox.
In any case, there's a short graf in the Post's piece today that neatly sums up the real story on this nonsense.
Although Bush and President Bill Clinton each dismissed nearly all U.S. attorneys upon taking office, legal experts and former prosecutors say the firing of a large number of prosecutors in the middle of a term appears to be unprecedented and threatens the independence of prosecutors.
Simple. To the point: Clinton and Bush both did the same thing, as has every president of a new party when he came into office.
Wallace is just trying to bamboozle his audience.
--Josh Marshall
So what's the difference between the Attorney Purge and the Clinton firings? Hillary spells it out very simply.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: two Republicans close to the White House whisper that there's a "rift" between the White House and the Attorney General.
--Paul Kiel
Below I noted this paragraph in tonight's article from McClatchy ...
In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam," who then the U.S. attorney for southern California. Earlier that morning, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam's corruption investigation of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., had expanded to include another California Republican, Rep Jerry Lewis.
The timing is well worth noting. But the Lewis investigation wasn't the only trouble Lam was making. Look what else was happening in the couple weeks before May 11th ...
April 28th, 2006 -- Cunningham-Wilkes-Foggo "Hookergate" scandal breaks open. Probe grows out of San Diego US Attorney's Office's Cunningham investigation. CIA Director Goss denies involvement.
April 29th, 2006 -- Washington Post reports that Hookergate's Shirlington Limo Service had $21 million contract with Department of Homeland Security.
May 2nd, 2006 -- Kyle "Dusty" Foggo confirms attendence at Wilkes/Cunningham Hookergate parties.
May 4th, 2006 -- Watergate Hotel subpoenaed in San Diego/Cunningham/Hookergate probe.
May 5th, 2006 -- WSJ reports that Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who Goss installed as #3 at CIA, is under criminal investigation as part of the San Diego/Cunningham investigation.
May 5th, 2006 -- Porter Goss resigns as Director of Central Intelligence.
May 6th, 2006 -- WaPo reports on questionable DHS contract awarded to Shirlington Limo, the 'hookergate' Limo service under scrutiny as part of the San Diego/Cunningham investigation. Similar report in the Times.
May 7th, 2006 -- House Committee to investigate DHS contract with Hookergate's Shirlington Limo.
May 8th, 2006 -- Lyle "Dusty" Foggo resigns at CIA.
May 11th, 2006 -- LA Times reports that Cunningham investigation has expanded into the dealings of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), House Appropriations Committee Chairman.
May 12th, 2006 -- Federal agents working on the San Diego/Cunningham investigation execute search warrants on the home and CIA office of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo.
--Josh Marshall
Am I the only one who missed this? Gerry Cassidy, one of the power lobbyists in all of DC, has his own blog? I found it through an advertisement at Washingtonpost.com.
Only power lobbyists get to advertise their blogs at Washingtonpost.com.
--Josh Marshall
John McKay, the former US Attorney from Washington fired for not pursuing bogus voter fraud indictments, seems to have a knack for cutting to the chase. Says McKay: "My question is, if [Gonzales] fired the guy who fired us, why is he standing by the dismissals?"
--Josh Marshall
2008 presidential tie-in question: Can Rudy Giuliani really get away with refusing to comment on the US Attorney Purge story? Rudy made his name as a mob-busting US Attorney in New York. I'm pretty sure he's the only former US Attorney in the race in either party. And I'm pretty sure he worked at Main Justice early in the Reagan administration before becoming US Attorney. So he's uniquely positioned to have something relevant and knowledgeable to say. But he won't answer. How long can that last?
--Josh Marshall
Getting down to the real nub of the story. Here's a clip from McClatchy's overnight piece ...
In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam," who then the U.S. attorney for southern California. Earlier that morning, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam's corruption investigation of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., had expanded to include another California Republican, Rep Jerry Lewis.Cunningham is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence in Arizona. Lewis has not been charged with any crime. Lam was forced to resign.
In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he wants to know whether Lam was fired for the Cunningham case or because "she was about to investigate other people who were politically powerful." Lam declined to talk publicly about her dismissal.
I'm going from recollection here. But I think the email they're referring to is one Paul Kiel and I were reading over together this afternoon. 
If it's the one I'm thinking of, the email clearly gave the sense that there was an unspoken reason for Lam's dismissal. But it was a bit too vague and meandering to really point to any one thing. The date, though, really speaks volumes.
Lam's firing has always been at the heart of this. I've had a lot of people ask me why we devoted so much virtual ink to this story so early. But the truth is that by rights Lam's dismissal should have sounded alarm bells for everyone on day one.
What people tend to overlook is that for most White Houses, a US attorney involved in such a politically charged and ground-breaking corruption probe would have been untouchable, even if she'd run her office like a madhouse and was offering free twinkies to every illegal who made it across the border. Indeed, when you view the whole context you see that the idea she was fired for immigration enforcement is just laughable on its face. No decision about her tenure could be made without the main issue being that investigation. It's like hearing that Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Plamegate prosecutor for poor deportment or because he was running up too many air miles flying back and forth from Chicago.
Lam's investigation (and allied ones her probe spawned) were uncovering a) serious criminal wrongdoing by major Republican power players on Capitol Hill, b) corruption at the CIA -- which reached back to the Hill, c) and as yet still largely hidden corrupt dealings at the heart of the intelligence operations in the Rumsfeld Pentagon.
Nothing matters unless the investigation gets to the heart of what happened there.
--Josh Marshall
Specter on the key issue (from the Times) ...
Mr. Specter, in a speech on the Senate floor, referred to another of the dismissed attorneys, Carol C. Lam, who prosecuted Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman now serving an eight-year sentence in a corruption case.Mr. Specter raised the question of whether Ms. Lam had been dismissed because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful,” and he questioned the Justice Department’s initial explanation that those who had lost their jobs had received poor performance evaluations.
“Well,” he said, “I think we may need to do more by way of inquiry to examine what her performance ratings were to see if there was a basis for her being asked to resign.”
Everything else pales in comparison.
--Josh Marshall
Washington Post endorses Congressional oversight -- provided it has no real consequences for Bush or Iraq War.
--Greg Sargent
Now it's Pat Buchanan saying nothing's wrong with the purge. The president hears about crimes going on and asks the AG to deal with it, he says. I think the wrongdoing here is pretty clear. But let's not jump over the key point. The alleged 'voter fraud' claims were bogus. It's the president goading the AG to send people to prison on the basis of RNC press releases and talk radio rants.
--Josh Marshall
Not that there was any doubt at this point, but it's nice to get a straightforward confirmation.
Email shows Rove's deputy working with the Justice Department to get Rove's old aide installed as a federal prosecutor.
--Paul Kiel
White House Counselor Dan Bartlett: US Attorney firings "proper" and "appropriate".
--Josh Marshall
I'm not sure if it's more a matter of entertainment or just grim confirmation, but it is worth cataloging all the Republicans who are now willing to come forward and spin out arguments about how federal prosecutors always pursue political investigations and are little more than cat's paws for the party apparatus of the president who appointed them. Rule of law. Rule of law. Rule of law. I've said it a number of times in recent months: the rule of law and creeping authoritarianism has to be at the center of any sensible politics today. The degradation is so great and the bar has fallen so low.
--Josh Marshall
A rundown of the administration's false statements to Congress -- chief among them, the claim that Karl Rove had "no role" in getting his former aide appointed.
--Paul Kiel
The full tape of the Schumer/Feinstein Attorney Purge presser from this morning ...
More soon.
--Josh Marshall
Will former U.S. Attorney and current Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani ever weigh in on Attorney Purge?
Update: Romney declining to comment on Attorney scandal.
Late update: And John Edwards becomes first Dem candidate to demand that Gonzales step down.
--Greg Sargent
Another gem from the document dump. Less than a month before a Justice Department official told Congress that U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired for "performance related" concerns, the Attorney General agreed to be a job reference for the guy.
--Paul Kiel
Online futures market Intrade.com introduces Gonzales resignation contract. Look under 'Current Events/White House.'
--Josh Marshall
Over at TPMmuckraker, we're combing through the documents the Justice Department handed over to Congress today.
Here's a good one: an email from Gonzales' chief of staff to White House counsel Harriet Miers, with a list of the U.S. attorneys to be fired.
--Paul Kiel
Video and transcript of the Schumer press conference: Kyle Sampson "won't be the next Scooter Libby."
--Josh Marshall
It appears that as all the top staff at the Bush Justice Department retains criminal defense counsel for the impending investigations, the reliable right-wing mouthpieces are dragging out the 'Clinton fired his US Attorneys' canard to deny the obvious. First, a note to readers: if you see reporters on the cable nets repeating this mumbojumbo, let us know. (Kevin Corke from NBC seems to be one good example so far.) But let's address why this is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the criminal conduct at the Justice Department.
First, we now know -- or at least the White House is trying to tell us -- that they considered firing all the US Attorneys at the beginning of Bush's second term. That would have been unprecedented but not an abuse of power in itself. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired and the fact that the White House intended to replace them with US Attorneys not confirmed by the senate. We now have abundant evidence that they were fired for not sufficiently politicizing their offices, for not indicting enough Democrats on bogus charges or for too aggressively going after Republicans. (Remember, Carol Lam is still the big story here.) We also now know that the top leadership of the Justice Department lied both to the public and to Congress about why the firing took place. As an added bonus we know the whole plan was hatched at the White House with the direct involvement of the president.
And Clinton? Every new president appoints new US Attorneys. That always happens. Always. In early 1993, since the Republicans had held the White House for 12 years a few US Attorneys signalled that they might not be tendering their resignations and the new Clinton Justice Department asked for and received the resignations of all 93 US Attorneys. Eager to whip up scandal, Republicans at the time tried to make this into something untoward. Claiming this is a big deal is like grandstanding with the claim that President Bush 'fired' Clinton's cabinet secretaries when he came into office in 2001. At worst, it's the difference between giving them all several weeks to resign and just asking for their resignations on day one.
The whole thing is silly. But a lot of reporters on the news are already falling for it. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired -- a) because they weren't pursuing a GOP agenda of indicting Democrats, that's a miscarriage of justice, and b) because they lied to Congress about why it happened.
--Josh Marshall
Washington Post reporter confirms it: Matt Drudge is the mainstream media's assignment editor.
--Greg Sargent
There's going to be a ton of news today. And we're going to be on top of all of it. But before the deluge, let me touch again on a point I referenced last night in this lengthy post. The story emerging is that at least some of these US Attorneys were fired because they weren't aggressive enough in investigating Democratic 'voter fraud'. Like I said last night, I've been reporting on this stuff for years. And this is a horse that shouldn't even be let out of the gate. It's become standard operating procedure for Republican operatives to whip up charges of 'voter fraud'. And some of them even believe it. But the claims are almost universally bogus. And the real intent in most cases is to stymie get out the vote efforts or shut down voter registration drives -- mainly, though not exclusively, in minority voting precincts. Here you can see a list of TPM posts from the 2002 and 2004 cycles on bogus 'voter fraud' stories, mainly from South Dakota. These are made up stories, the main aim of which is to keep real voters from getting to vote. There's no mystery why McKay and Iglesias wouldn't bite: the stories were bogus hash-ups from Republican political operatives and as McKay said this morning, he wasn't going to "drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."
--Josh Marshall
John McKay, fired US Attorney in Washington state, "stunned" over Bush involvement in purge. About bogus voter fraud claims, "There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."
--Josh Marshall
Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT): "“I am outraged that the Attorney General was less than forthcoming with the Senate while under oath before the Judiciary Committee."
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read: a timeline emerges of the administration's scheme to oust federal prosecutors.
--Paul Kiel
Uh-oh ... Bush got Iglesias axed.
From the Times ...
The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.
Perhaps as telling, according to the new Times article, Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales's Chief of Staff and the guy who was actually in charge of drawing up the list ... well, he resigned today.
Believe me, his boss won't long outlast him.
And one other tidbit -- Sampson had a partner in assembling the list: then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Late Update: There's a sub-issue emerging in the canned US Attorneys scandal: the apparently central role of Republican claims of voter fraud and prosecutors unwillingness to bring indictments emerging from such alleged wrongdoing. Very longtime readers of this site will remember that this used to be something of a hobby horse of mine. And it's not surprising that it is now emerging as a key part of this story. The very short version of this story is that Republicans habitually make claims about voter fraud. But the charges are almost invariably bogus. And in most if not every case the claims are little more than stalking horses for voter suppression efforts. That may sound like a blanket charge. But I've reported on and written about this issue at great length. And there's simply no denying the truth of it. So this becomes a critical backdrop to understanding what happened in some of these cases. Why didn't the prosecutors pursue indictments when GOP operatives started yakking about voter fraud? Almost certainly because there just wasn't any evidence for it.
Gonna Be A Long Night Update: The Post also got a piece of the Monday document dump. And their piece is now up too. Many of the key points are the same as what appears in the Times. But key new details are also included. Perhaps the most important of which is this: the Patriot Act provision allowing the Attorney General to appoint US Attorneys by fiat was at the heart of this. The Post quotes an email from the now resigned Sampson in which he tells Miers: "I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed. It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately. I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments. [By sidestepping the confirmation process] we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House."
And here's the piece in the Post story which should lead to Sen. Domenici's departure from the senate ...
One e-mail from Miers's deputy, William Kelley, on the day of the Dec. 7 firings said Domenici's chief of staff "is happy as a clam" about Iglesias. Sampson wrote in an e-mail a week later: "Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool)."
As has happened so many times in the last six years, the maximal version of this story -- which seemed logical six weeks ago but which I couldn't get myself to believe -- turns out to be true. Indeed, it's worse. We now know that Gonzales, McNulty and Moschella each lied to Congress. We know that the purge was a plan that began at the White House -- and it was overseen by two of President Bush's closest lieutenants in Washington -- Miers and Gonzales. Sampson is the second resignation. There will certainly be more.
And remember this key point: The 'document dump' is meant to get bad news out of the way fast. But it's always a hedge. It never includes the really bad stuff. And if you're not in deep crisis mode, ya' never do it on a Monday.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, so we've just obtained parts of the long-awaited House Dem bill to end the Iraq War. The bill was inked this evening.
The House Dem leadership was said to be keeping it under tight wraps tonight -- it was sent out only to a few select members of Congress -- but you can view key excerpts of it right here.
--Greg Sargent
Accused terror financier linked to GOP campaign contributor Alishtari nabbed in Spain.
--Josh Marshall
The State Department just can't seem to find enough room to put up three auditors in Iraq.
--Paul Kiel
TPM Readers are telling us that on Hardball Andrea Mitchell just said that polls show the public supports a pardon of Scooter Libby. Were you watching Hardball? Did you hear her say that?
Late Update: TPM Reader MK says she TIVOed it and the exact quote was "and appeal to the polling which indicates that most people think, in fact, that he should be pardoned, Scooter Libby should be pardoned." We'll work on confirming that and getting you video. But where'd Andrea hear that? My impression is that that's wildly at odds with the actual polling data. More soon.
Later Update: TPM Reader NA and NG heard it too.
Still Later Update: I'm curious where Mitchell heard her numbers. Maybe the EOP poll? CNN came up with 18% of Americans supporting a pardon and 69% opposing.
--Josh Marshall
Fresh from his non-appearance at CPAC, McCain is now snubbing another big gathering of conservatives.
--Greg Sargent
On the Rudy front, what about Bernie Kerik?
I mean, where to start and where to stop? As Mayor Rudy put a cop with numerous alleged mob ties in charge of the NYPD. And Kerik's main credential going in was that he'd been Rudy's driver.
Here's a clip from a post I did on December 12th, 2004, cataloguing everything that had then come out at a relatively early stage in his ill-fated nomination to be Secreatary of DHS ...
They seem to be stipulating to their knowing about and being untroubled by a) Kerik's long-standing ties to an allegedly mobbed-up Jersey construction company (see yesterday's piece in the Daily News and tomorrow's in the Times), sub-a) that Kerik received numerous unreported cash gifts from Lawrence Ray, an executive at said Jersey construction company (Ray was later indicted along with Edward Garafola, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's brother-in-law, and Daniel Persico, nephew of Colombo Family Godfather Carmine "The Snake" Persico and others on unrelated federal charges tied to what the Daily News called a "$40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle." b) that Riker's Island prison became a hotbed of political corruption and cronyism on his watch, c) that he is accused by nine employees of the hospital he worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss, d) that a warrant for his arrest (albeit in a civil case) was issued in New Jersey as recently as six years ago, e) that as recently as last week he was forced to testify in a civil suit in a case covering the period in which he was New York City correction commissioner, in which the plaintiff, "former deputy warden Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman [Kerik was allegedly having an affair with], Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero," or f) his rapid and unexplained departure from Baghdad.
Needless to say, after his tenure as mayor ended he went into business with Kerik and then after that helped get him a nomination to be in charge of domestic security for the entire country.
Pretty much the most generous interpretation of all this is that Giuliani was guilty of amazingly poor judgment in giving Kerik all these plum assignments. And it strongly points to a tendency on Giuliani's part of bad judgment with a strong penchant for surrounding himself with cronies and yes-men.
All of this goes to the heart of the 9/11-Mayor of the Universe hagiography that Rudy has made the centerpiece of his campaign. So it should be at the center of the coverage of his campaign.
Late Update: TPM Reader RR notes that the list above is by no means exhaustive. And he's definitely right. This was just the most convenient catalog of sins and ridiculousness that I found with the TPM search function. For instance it doesn't include the Judith Regan/Luv Shack scandal that broke I think the day after post above ran. This was the case in which an apartment near ground zero -- made available by a New York real estate developer -- for off-duty cops to relax while taking a break from clean up duties ended up being commandered by Kerik so he could use it as his off the books bachelor pad for doing the wild thing with celebrity book editor Judith Regan. Ahhh, those were the days ...
--Josh Marshall
Robert Novak builds a whole theory of Hillary's candidacy on an absurdly transparent falsehood.
--Greg Sargent
Cunningham briber Mitchell Wade continues to cooperate, may appear as a witness at Wilkes and Foggo trials.
This nest of cases growing out of the Cunningham scandal deserves close on-going attention. If former US Attorney Carol Lam was sacked to stymie her continuing probes into the CIA and on to Capitol Hill, we'll see it not so much in these two cases but whether the investigation pursues other defendants in their orbit.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calls for Karl Rove to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
--Paul Kiel
The White House may have given way. But Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) still seems set to block the revision of the USA Patriot act that allowed the president to appoint US Attorneys without senate confirmation.
--Josh Marshall
Newsweek: Former White House official says the Vice President's office was "out of control," but Scooter Libby is likely to be pardoned after 2008 election.
--David Kurtz
McClatchy has updated its latest scoop on the prosecutor purge, adding additional details about Rove's explanation of his role:
[White House spokesperson Dana] Perino offered Rove's account of his dealings with the Justice Department after talking with him by telephone. She said Rove routinely passed along complaints about various U.S. attorneys to the Justice Department and then-White House counsel Miers.Among the complaints that Rove relayed were concerns among Republican Party officials in various jurisdictions that the Justice Department was not being aggressive in pursuing allegations of election fraud by Democrats. Such allegations by Republicans were a particular concern in New Mexico and Washington.
Rove acknowledged that he personally complained to Miers that "voter fraud cases were not being treated as a priority" by the Justice Department, Perino said. He also passed along complaints about Iglesias that he had heard going back as far as 2004.
Emphasis mine.
--David Kurtz
McClatchy, McClatchy, McClatchy: the fuse is burning at a brisk rate ...
The White House acknowledged on Sunday that presidential adviser Karl Rove served as a conduit for complaints about federal prosecutors as House investigators declared their intention to question him about any role he may have played in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White House political operative, specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Maybe I mentioned it? Maybe not. It's all so fuzzy.
--Josh Marshall
I doubt we'll be hearing much more from New Mexico GOP Chairman Allen Weh anytime soon, after he fingered Karl Rove in the sequence of events that led to the dismissal of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. But Weh did have one more comment for New Mexico blogger Heath Haussamen, a bit of advice really: "The story is about an incompetent United States attorney, and that’s where I think your focus needs to be."
Because we all know how determined the Bush Administration is to weed incompetence from its ranks. Take, for example, the attorney general himself:
[S]everal Washington lawyers and GOP strategists with close ties to the White House said last week that lawmakers and conservative lawyers are nervous that Gonzales may not be up to the job."This attorney general doesn't have anybody's confidence," said one GOP adviser to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could be candid. "It's the worst of Bush -- it's intense loyalty for all the wrong reasons. There will be other things that come up, and we don't have a guy in whom we can trust."
Yet we are supposed to believe the claims that "performance-related problems" are behind the purge. Of all the possible cover stories for a political purge, could they have come up with a less plausible one?
--David Kurtz
I posted yesterday about the Pentagon's role in clandestine activities being used by the Bush Administration as a way to work around congressional oversight requirements. National Journal has a piece out suggesting impetus for changes to the Defense Department's intelligence apparatus may be in the works and comes from within the Pentagon itself:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is considering a plan to curtail the Pentagon's clandestine spying activities, which were expanded by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, after the 9/11 attacks. The undercover work allowed military personnel to collect intelligence about terrorists and to recruit spies in foreign countries independently of the CIA and without much congressional oversight.Former military and intelligence officials, including those involved in an ongoing and largely informal debate about the military's forays into espionage, said that Gates, a former CIA director, is likely to "roll back" several of Rumsfeld's controversial initiatives. This could include changing the mission of the Pentagon's Strategic Support Branch, an intelligence-gathering unit comprising Special Forces, military linguists, and interrogators that Rumsfeld set up to report directly to him. The unit's teams work in many of the same countries where CIA case officers are trying to recruit spies, and the military and civilian sides have clashed as a result. CIA officers serving abroad have been roiled by what they see as the Pentagon's encroachment on their dominance in the world of human intelligence-gathering.
Let's be clear here though. Reducing the Pentagon role in human intelligence gathering is not the same thing as closing the purported loophole that the Bush Administration is reportedly using to circumvent the congressional intelligence committees.
Late update: The New York Times has more on some of the intelligence-related changes (many of them merely cosmetic) being undertaken by Bob Gates.
--David Kurtz
With the rapid pace of events, I suspect it's only a matter of time before the pressure starts to build for Alberto Gonzales's resignation. But 
this isn't about Alberto Gonzales. This isn't a guy with his own political strategy, his own list of political chits to arrange or grand strategies to advance. He's George W. Bush's consigliere. He gets done what the president wants done. It is a relationship almost Newtonian in its directness.
This was the main question senators had when Gonzales was nominated to be Attorney General -- whether he understood the difference between being the White House Counsel, the president's legal advocate and advisor, and the Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
Clearly, it's not a distinction he recognizes. But this also tells us that this isn't something Gonzales thought up or did on his own. As two "senior Justice [Department] officials" told Michael Isikoff, the list of eight US Attorneys to be fired was developed "with input from the White House."
That's the story.
And two other issues should concern us. There is a long list of cases stretching back six years now in which Justice Department officials have been reassigned or got new appointments at odd moments, when cases against Republican officials have dragged on endlessly and then disappeared entirely, when other Republican officials just seemed oddly untouchable. Later we'll get into details but the state of New Hampshire is one really good place to start.
Some or many of those cases will turn out to be innocent coincidences. But they are now all under a cloud of suspicion.
Point two. And this one is meant especially for the federal law cognoscenti among our readers: What laws do we suppose may have been violated here? Short-circuiting an investigation is, at least arguably, obstruction. A few other similar statutes might come into play. But what if you’re accelerating an investigation? Are there some general miscarriage of justice statutes?
My question is, how much is a lot of this wrongdoing extra-legal?
Hypothetically, if the AG says to the US Atty in Boise: I want a Democrat indicted by November. What law does that violate? Clearly it would be an impeachable offense. It's almost the definition of what impeachment is truly intended for: wrongdoing that transcends ordinary statute law.
But what would the statute laws be? Are there any?
And, yes, let's not forget the big picture: San Diego.
--Josh Marshall
Schumer: Gonzales should go.
My question: who will be the first Republican to say Gonzales should be fired?
--Josh Marshall
One of the purged prosecutors says he got a call in December from the Justice Department. The message: keep quiet and the attorney general won't say anything bad about you.
--Paul Kiel
Did somebody get to New Mexico GOP Chairman Allen Weh after the McClatchy scoop broke last night?
Here's what Weh told McClatchy:
In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House."Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.
"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.
"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.
Here's what Weh subsequently told the AP:
Weh told The Associated Press later Saturday that "Rove has little or nothing to do with this.""This is a personnel action, firing an incompetent United States attorney who should have been fired" earlier, Weh told the AP. "He absolutely was a disgrace to the Department of Justice."
He said his conversation at the White House with Rove came "after the fact, after the termination had occurred."
"When I talked to Karl it was at a White House briefing for state party chairmen after a reception the day before," Weh told the AP. "The termination had already occurred."
Nothing to see here, folks, now move along.
But when you get right down to it, reading the two pieces side by side, Weh isn't saying much different. He's simply trying to spin the conclusion you should draw from what he's saying.
Did the AP ask Weh whether he had heard from the White House after the McClatchy piece broke, or did Weh figure it out on his own?
--David Kurtz
