They are supposed to carry out the law of the land however the president sets the agenda. Clintons big agenda was gun control, get as many gun convictions as possible. Reagans was drug trafficking, go after drug dealers. Surprisingly Bush's appears to be illegal immigration.
They are supposed to carry out the law of the land however the president sets the agenda. Clintons big agenda was gun control, get as many gun convictions as possible. Reagans was drug trafficking, go after drug dealers. Surprisingly Bush's appears to be illegal immigration.
Welcome to PN Jamie :thumbsup:
As you can see your post was greeted by a flury of the resident Bush Aplologist Republicans.
He can do no wrong in their eyes, he hasn't harmed the U.S. or the world in their eyes.
They are doing everything they can to somehow keep a spin on that he is the greatest President the U.S. has ever had.
I'm sure if this was a different place and time they would support Nixon as he waved goodbye in shame too.
It should all be under oath and behind CLOSED doors.
If Congress is truly after the facts and not FACETIME then why not do it behind closed doors.
Have you ever seen one of their open door investigations that was anything more than a circus for the pompous asses of Congress to strut?
If Congress is truly after the facts and not FACETIME then why not do it behind closed doors.
Have you ever seen one of their open door investigations that was anything more than a circus for the pompous asses of Congress to strut?
US Marshals can be fired by the President (or his tools) for arresting Republicans?
FBI agent transferred from San Francisco to Mobile, Alabama for catching Rove at an Asian 'massage' parlor?
Granted, Gonzalez SHOULD have been fired for begging the White House to invoke executive privilege to keep investigations into their illegal surveillance programs AND torture memos.
This is the primary reason they don't want to testify under oath . . . it's harder to get away with lying with impunity.
Will Nancy Pelosi put Alberto Gonzalez behind bars? from the New Republic
Nov 2006 article on a different issue but still interesting
There is no such right to executive privilege for the purpose of getting advice . . . as Bushistas like to claim.
Now.... this is NOT the reason I want the testimony under oath and publically viewable.... but you have to see a sense of irony in my next statement.....
But.......CLINTON did it!
palehorse
Lifer
- Dec 21, 2005
- 11,521
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ok, but, in terms of scale, is this whole issue truly "scandalous"?! Just because it's not "the norm" to get rid of them midterm, that doesnt mean there is anything illegal or scandalous about it.
This entire "scandal" is a joke, and to me, it smells of desperation on the part of dems.
The fact that many of them are letting this non-issue trump the Iraq debate makes me sick.
This best thing for the Bush admin to do at this point is to keep firing DAs until the democrats back down. After all firing DAs is an intimidation technique.
O'rly detractors? You're right nothing to see here, move along.
Here's the dirt, straight from the horses mouth:
*****************************************************
Why I Was Fired
By DAVID C. IGLESIAS
Published: March 21, 2007
Albuquerque
WITH this week?s release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters.
Of course, as one of the eight, I?ve felt this way for some time. But now that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for ?performance related? reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly.
United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.
Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico.
Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges ? the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about ? before November. When I told him that I didn?t think so, he said, ?I am very sorry to hear that,? and the line went dead.
A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign ? even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the documents released this week, I was deemed a ?diverse up and comer? in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)
When some of my fired colleagues ? Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas; Paul Charlton of Phoenix; H. E. Cummins III of Little Rock, Ark.; Carol Lam of San Diego; and John McKay of Seattle ? and I testified before Congress on March 6, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Not only had we not been insulated from politics, we had apparently been singled out for political reasons. (Among the Justice Department?s released documents is one describing the office of Senator Domenici as being ?happy as a clam? that I was fired.)
As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from F.B.I. investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don?t have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible ? namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds.
What?s more, their narrative has largely ignored that I was one of just two United States attorneys in the country to create a voter-fraud task force in 2004. Mine was bipartisan, and it included state and local law enforcement and election officials.
After reviewing more than 100 complaints of voter fraud, I felt there was one possible case that should be prosecuted federally. I worked with the F.B.I. and the Justice Department?s public integrity section. As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.
Good has already come from this scandal. Yesterday, the Senate voted to overturn a 2006 provision in the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint indefinite interim United States attorneys. The attorney general?s chief of staff has resigned and been replaced by a respected career federal prosecutor, Chuck Rosenberg. The president and attorney general have admitted that ?mistakes were made,? and Mr. Domenici and Ms. Wilson have publicly acknowledged calling me.
President Bush addressed this scandal yesterday. I appreciate his gratitude for my service ? this marks the first time I have been thanked. But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me.
David C. Iglesias was United States attorney for the District of New Mexico from October 2001 through last month.
*******************************************************************
NYT
Here's the dirt, straight from the horses mouth:
*****************************************************
Why I Was Fired
By DAVID C. IGLESIAS
Published: March 21, 2007
Albuquerque
WITH this week?s release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters.
Of course, as one of the eight, I?ve felt this way for some time. But now that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for ?performance related? reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly.
United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.
Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico.
Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges ? the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about ? before November. When I told him that I didn?t think so, he said, ?I am very sorry to hear that,? and the line went dead.
A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign ? even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the documents released this week, I was deemed a ?diverse up and comer? in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)
When some of my fired colleagues ? Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas; Paul Charlton of Phoenix; H. E. Cummins III of Little Rock, Ark.; Carol Lam of San Diego; and John McKay of Seattle ? and I testified before Congress on March 6, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Not only had we not been insulated from politics, we had apparently been singled out for political reasons. (Among the Justice Department?s released documents is one describing the office of Senator Domenici as being ?happy as a clam? that I was fired.)
As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from F.B.I. investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don?t have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible ? namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds.
What?s more, their narrative has largely ignored that I was one of just two United States attorneys in the country to create a voter-fraud task force in 2004. Mine was bipartisan, and it included state and local law enforcement and election officials.
After reviewing more than 100 complaints of voter fraud, I felt there was one possible case that should be prosecuted federally. I worked with the F.B.I. and the Justice Department?s public integrity section. As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.
Good has already come from this scandal. Yesterday, the Senate voted to overturn a 2006 provision in the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint indefinite interim United States attorneys. The attorney general?s chief of staff has resigned and been replaced by a respected career federal prosecutor, Chuck Rosenberg. The president and attorney general have admitted that ?mistakes were made,? and Mr. Domenici and Ms. Wilson have publicly acknowledged calling me.
President Bush addressed this scandal yesterday. I appreciate his gratitude for my service ? this marks the first time I have been thanked. But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me.
David C. Iglesias was United States attorney for the District of New Mexico from October 2001 through last month.
*******************************************************************
NYT
Why I Was Fired
By DAVID C. IGLESIAS
What exactly was the politically motivated reason he got fired?
By DAVID C. IGLESIAS
What exactly was the politically motivated reason he got fired?
Nah, it was also the cherry-picking of which ones to fire and what those federal prosecutors were investigation/prosecuting. As I've said previously, he should have just fired the whole slate of prosecutors instead. Meh, I say Congress should issue the subpoenas and take it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. 6 years of GOP wimpery in Congress has allowed Bush to grab power that he's now reluctant to give up.
To repeat the circumstances which are creating grave concern about the firing:
In other words because he didn't indict local Democrats at a politically convenient time for Republicans, he may have gotten fired directly as a result of this decision.
Uh, W also promised to work in a bi-partisan manner:
I guess that only means so long as Congress does his bidding, rolling over like a cheap hooker, yeah? Yup, that's what I thought. Too bad the R's lost Congress, they were ever so good at that.
Upon further review I misphrased that.
Because he was not willing to formally file charges, presumably because he didn't think the evidence was fully available to warrant that yet or there was not enough evidence to pursue any charges given how his investigation was going, at a politically convenient time before the election, he may have been fired as a direct result of this.
Sealed warrants are not the same thing as actually filing charges as far as how it may effect the public's reaction.
That may be the case but why didn't he state that in his "Why I Was Fired" article. The title is clear but the reason isn't stated clearly. If he investigated his cases with that kind of clarity, I'm not surprised he was fired.
another editorial from the New York Times today that seemed worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21wed1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21wed1.html
That along with bowing and kissing King George's feet (cuz, ya know he is the Supreme Ruler aka "The Deciderer")
Bush is playing right into the Congress hands with his desperate, childish rage. Congressional Republicans want absolutely no part of this scandal. By digging in his heels, Bush will force Congressional Republicans to make a choice: either defend the president's position or side with the congressional hearings. The middle ground won't last long. And conservatives sure aren't fired up to defend the president.
While delivering his remarks lost his place at least once, and sounded like an exhausted lame duck lamely reading his unconvincing statement. There are two years left in this administration and the president had better exude some confidence. And be confident about his people. And get rid of them if he's not.
There is NO conservative appetite for defending the president on this one. The more he digs in, the less excuses Republicans will make for him. Eventually, if he persists, they will turn on him. And then the gates of hell will really open up for this Administration...
The White House appears determined to block the testimony of Rove and Miers at all costs. They also, it appears, are preventing the release of any intra-White house emails.
White House officials were using outside domain names for many of their emails, and that this in fact seemed to be a pattern within Rove's office.
The domains in question were owned by the Republican Party.
Or to put it more bluntly, the domains were NOT owned by the White House, the Executive Office of the President, or any part of the federal government. As such, the legal grounds for withholding them based on claims of Executive Privilege would seem to be MUCH more suspect. Given the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, they may even be entirely illegitimate.
This a potentially enormous opening for through which the oversight commitee could drive their investigative truck.
Another good reason for the Administration not to play chicken here is that once an impeachment is voted on by the House it continues in the Senate even if the person who was impeached resigns.
If Gonzalez is impeached he would be only the second Cabinet member to have been impeached and if convicted he would be the first ever person convicted who was not a judge.
A conviction would mean that there were 18 Republican Senators who were willing to oppose Bush on this. Since the only thing that Gonzalez is accused of is carrying out Bush's orders to the letter the conviction of one leads to the logical conclusion that the other should be impeached.
This is why I do not expect the situation to get that far. Gonzalez will resign before the Democrats pull the impeachment trigger, probably as soon as it is clear that the House is going to consider articles of impeachment.
Slow and steady wins here. The point is not to get rid of Gonzalez as soon as possible, that is what the Republican objective should be.
If Gonzalez had resigned yesterday the matter would be over today. After Bush's statement today the matter will not be over until the Bush administration is over.
While delivering his remarks lost his place at least once, and sounded like an exhausted lame duck lamely reading his unconvincing statement. There are two years left in this administration and the president had better exude some confidence. And be confident about his people. And get rid of them if he's not.
There is NO conservative appetite for defending the president on this one. The more he digs in, the less excuses Republicans will make for him. Eventually, if he persists, they will turn on him. And then the gates of hell will really open up for this Administration...
The White House appears determined to block the testimony of Rove and Miers at all costs. They also, it appears, are preventing the release of any intra-White house emails.
White House officials were using outside domain names for many of their emails, and that this in fact seemed to be a pattern within Rove's office.
The domains in question were owned by the Republican Party.
Or to put it more bluntly, the domains were NOT owned by the White House, the Executive Office of the President, or any part of the federal government. As such, the legal grounds for withholding them based on claims of Executive Privilege would seem to be MUCH more suspect. Given the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, they may even be entirely illegitimate.
This a potentially enormous opening for through which the oversight commitee could drive their investigative truck.
Another good reason for the Administration not to play chicken here is that once an impeachment is voted on by the House it continues in the Senate even if the person who was impeached resigns.
If Gonzalez is impeached he would be only the second Cabinet member to have been impeached and if convicted he would be the first ever person convicted who was not a judge.
A conviction would mean that there were 18 Republican Senators who were willing to oppose Bush on this. Since the only thing that Gonzalez is accused of is carrying out Bush's orders to the letter the conviction of one leads to the logical conclusion that the other should be impeached.
This is why I do not expect the situation to get that far. Gonzalez will resign before the Democrats pull the impeachment trigger, probably as soon as it is clear that the House is going to consider articles of impeachment.
Slow and steady wins here. The point is not to get rid of Gonzalez as soon as possible, that is what the Republican objective should be.
If Gonzalez had resigned yesterday the matter would be over today. After Bush's statement today the matter will not be over until the Bush administration is over.
Sorry man, but you are (again) wrong. Bush has no chance of winning this legal battle. None. Not only does Congress have a constitutionally recognized power to oversee the executive branch. How do you expect them to oversee things when they aren't allowed to have information they want? (And no... getting what information Bush wants them to have in the manner he wants them to have it isn't good enough and you know it).
Congress has a legitimate interest in knowing if
A.) A crime was committed, and
B.) If legislation should be drafted in order to prevent this from happening again.
Executive priviledge doesn't apply here, as the courts have decided (both with Nixon and with Clinton) that EP is for national security or sensitive policy documents, things like that. Firing some attorneys doesn't even come close.
Sorry man, it's possible that I've missed something here... but I'm pretty sure your boy is cooked on the legal front.
I think the problem with the sapoenas is that your asking people to go under oath, have their privacy violated when there wasn't even a crime committed. They may have fired people for the wrong reasons but it was not illegal. Whats wrong with attempting to solve this in a civil way before issuing a sapoena? You talk about Slow and Steady wins. There is nothing slow and steady about this.
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