Something we knew all along...

Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson broke the law when they played politics in the hiring of career Justice Department attorneys You remember Tanya Harding Monica Goodling, the wingnut lawschool graduate who only hired staunch republicans, dedicated movement conservatives and wingnut religious freaks for career positions during her term as White House liason at the Justice Department.

Today's report singles out Goodling specifically for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't good republicans and loyal bushies. While it doesn't suggest the two will face criminal charges, investigators did suggest that Goodling will at least lose her license to practice law - so there goes her hopes for a partnership with the whack-job Phelps daughter.


The hapless former AG, Alberto Gonzales, was found to be largely unaware of the illegal political litmus test two of his most trusted aides were applying when it came to hiring was largely unaware of the hiring decisions by two of his most trusted aides. Decisions made by those two aides weeded out Democrats and anyone perceived to be the least bit liberal. Goodling also rejected at least one lesbian job applicant.

Michael Mukasey, the man who replaced Gonzalez when he finally stepped down after a surreally stubborn summer of insisting he wouldn't go, made the obligatory remarks about being appalled, "I have said many times, both to members of the public and to department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees, and I have acted, and will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the department."

Okay. But remember that I'm from Missouri. Don't tell me. Show me. Review every fucking one of the hires that these two placed in jobs by these clowns and determine if they are really suitable to the position. Applying and passing a political litmus test ought to imply a quid pro quo and that ought to reduce or eliminate the job protections enjoyed by most federal employees.

This is serious business. The Department of Justice is the department that can least stand to be politicized. Every person who finds him- or herself before the bar of justice should have confidence that they will receive a fair trial, and that their politics won't enter into it. It is antithetical to Justice that they destroyed that confidence when they turned Justice into "Just Us."

Union Pacific settles claim with DoJ that arose from 2000 Storrie forest fire

Union Pacific Railroad will pay the United States $102 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Attorney's office for Eastern California to recover damages that arose from the devastating Storrie Fire that burned for nearly a month and consumed over 50,000 acres of private timberland and two national forests in Plumas County in August and September 2000. It is the largest forest fire settlement ever reached.

The fire ignited on August 17, 2000 in the Feather River Canyon north of Storrie, CA on the railroad right-of-way through the Plumas National Forest. The cause was determined to be negligence on the part of a track gang that failed to clear the tinder from the area of the repairs, and failed to use spark shields during track repairs.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendall J. Newman, the lead government attorney in the case against UP, the Forest Service mobilized more than 2,600 federal, state and local firefighters, air tankers, helicopter crews and other personnel to fight the Storrie forest fire. The fire burned for more than three weeks, encompassing an area of more than 52,000 acres within the Plumas and Lassen National Forests before it was fully extinguished. Fire crews successfully suppressed the fire, without the loss of any life or buildings, at a cost of approximately $22 million.

The fire caused substantial damage to National Forest System lands, destroying wildlife habitat and killing trees on more than 21,000 acres. The areas ravaged by the fire included pristine, old growth forests that Congress expressly set aside for preservation by protecting them from logging through the Quincy Library Group Act and federal Wilderness Area designation. The Court ruled that the people of the United States are entitled to compensation for the unique aspects of the damaged forests, above and beyond the fair market value of the timber destroyed. The remaining $80 million of the settlement compensates the United States for damages to its natural resources. The settlement monies will go directly to the Plumas and Lassen National Forests to help remedy the resource devastation from the fire.

"We are pleased with this settlement. The money will be quickly applied toward restoring the landscape and the ecological balance on National Forest lands damaged in the fire so that the public can once again enjoy these pristine forest regions," said Under Secretary Rey.

"Protection of our natural resources is of vital concern to the well-being and safety of the people in California," said U.S. Attorney Scott. "Every year we see the devastation to lives and property caused by uncontrolled forest fires. It is incumbent upon businesses operating in the national forests, such as UP, to take active responsibility in reducing the risk of wildfires. This $102 million settlement appropriately compensates the United States for the vast destruction that resulted from the 2000 Storrie Fire in the Plumas and Lassen National Forests."

Union Pacific will satisfy the judgment in three installments paid over the coming weeks. The first payment of $35 million was remitted on July 2. The remaining payments are scheduled for August and October. "This settlement demonstrates the importance of bringing cases to recover for the damage and expenses caused by wildfires. Wildfires in or near National Forests destroy precious natural resources and the government spends millions of dollars fighting wildfires. The Department of Justice will seek compensation from those who are responsible for those losses wherever possible," said Associate Attorney General O'Connor.

The pursuit of satisfaction by the Justice Department in the case of the Storrie Fire is the latest in a series of cases where forest fires are started by human activity. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California has recovered tens of millions of dollars in forest fire cases, including the $14 million settlement in September 2006 from Southern California Edison as a result of the Big Creek Fire.

The Eastern District of California has more federal forest land than nearly any of the jurisdictions, and they have aggressively pursued remedies when fire damages or destroys federally protected lands. The U.S. Attorneys office for the Eastern and Central Districts of California and the District of Utah have set up special Fire Recovery Litigation Teams that do nothing but pursue forest fire judgments.

Ignoring the Home Grown Hate Groups

I was browsing over at Orcinus, and I came across an incident that we missed back in June--the arrest of several members of a home grown terrorist hate group outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

If there is a President Obama come next Jan. 20, normal folks better brace for what the right-wing crazies have in mind. Because it's becoming clear that they are winding themselves up now for a fresh spate of violence if Obama wins.

You can find the signs in the things they're saying now, both on Internet forums and in the things they say when they think no one is listening. For instance, read some of the details emerging from that militia bust in Pennsylvania that the media have been studiously ignoring.

And he's right--what I've seen so far is enough to give me pause:

A fourth person is under arrest in what KDKA has learned was an undercover investigation into a ring of domestic terrorists.

Bradley Kahle, of Troutville, Clearfield County, is charged with firearms violations and possession of illegal explosives.

Kahle joins Marvin Hall of Rimersburg, Perry Landis of the Clarion area, Morgan Jones of Lucinda, who were arrested and charged with federal firearm and explosives violations. Until now, their intent has been a mystery.

But Kahle's indictment papers may have shed some light. In them, Kahle tells federal undercover agents of making so-called bean can grenades - empty cans hollowed out and filled with explosives and nails which he said could be used to kill police if they raided his home.

"Hey, eight or 10 good bean bombs, five or 600 rounds of ammo and some good equipment, I could be a tough take," he said according to documents.

On another occasion, Kahle tells the operatives, "If Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama get elected, hopefully they will get assassinated. If not they will disarm the country and we will have a civil war."

And yet on another occasion, Kahle tells the agents that the shooting of judges, magistrates and chiefs of police will start the doomsday process or "words to that effect."

Whether this was just a boast or part of a real plan is unclear. But a neighbor of one of the suspects say he's harmless.

You know, no one with bombs and an AK47 is harmless, no matter what some idiot neighbor has to say.

A guy with circus balloons, Spiderman jammies, and a collection of Rick Astley records is still pretty fucking weird, but only mildly harmless. But don't worry--the Department of Homeland Security has been on the case for a while now:

Homeland Security focuses on "possible terror threats from radical environmental and animal rights activists" but omits threats posed by right-wing extremists" according to a DHS report "first disclosed" the last week in March 2005 on the website of the Congressional Quarterly.

The report states that between 2005 and 2011 DHS "expects to contend primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups."

The report "does not mention domestic extremist groups" or white supremacist groups like Aryan Nations and Army of God or anti-abortion activists, "which have previously been identified by federal officials as threats."

The report lists "left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats.

Experts on domestic terrorism were "surprised the department did not include right-wing groups on their list of adversaries. ... James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), said ... that whereas left-wing groups, which have been more active recently, have focused mainly on the destruction of property, right-wing groups have a much deadlier and more violent record and should be on the list. 'The nature of the history of terrorism is that you will see acts in the name of [right-wing] causes in the future.'"

And these are the people to whom we're going to hand over the right to conduct warrantless wiretaps?

It looks like "the Michigan militia" craze is making a comeback. Invest wisely in generators, firearms, and flannel shirt manufacturers. Oh, and you'd better pray we get a Justice Department and a DHS that can actually pay attention to the real hate groups in this country who organize themselves, arm themselves, and kill people when they have the chance.

They Won't Cooperate?

You know, one way NOT to honor the sacrifice of Officer Findley is to let someone get away with killing the man accused of killing him. This isn't 1908, or 1808, or even 1008. This is not something that people should just shrug off--this is something out of the Dark Ages.

Several Prince George's County correctional officers who had access to a 19-year-old inmate found strangled in solitary confinement Sunday have initially declined to speak to investigators of the slaying, a source familiar with the interrogations said.

The Maryland State Police and federal agents were investigating the death of Ronnie L. White, who was killed less than 36 hours after he was booked into the county correctional center on first-degree murder charges in the hit-and-run death Friday of county police Cpl. Richard S. Findley.

It wasn't clear why the correctional officers reportedly declined to answer questions. Sgt. Curtis Knowles, president of the county's correctional officers union, said the union's position is that its members can be interviewed only during work hours and with a union representative or attorney present, unless a criminal investigation is underway.

[SNIP]

Sources close to the investigation, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said county police collected most of the forensic evidence from White's cell Sunday, before state police took over the investigation at the request of county officials. An attorney for White's family called on the Justice Department, which has launched a civil rights probe, to be a partner in the criminal investigation.

"This did not happen on some dark, abandoned, lonely road," Bobby G. Henry Jr., the family's attorney, said at a news conference. "This happened in broad daylight, in the custody of county officials. Everyone who has someone or knows someone who is in the county correctional facility should have a problem with that."

The problem is, the US Justice Department already purged the Civil Rights division--thanks to the efforts of Brad Schlozman.

It is not, however, quite over yet.

Justice Department lawyers have filed a grand-jury referral stemming from the 2006 U.S. attorneys scandal, according to people familiar with the probe, a move indicating that the yearlong investigation may be entering a new phase.

The grand-jury referral, the first time the probe has moved beyond the investigative phase, relates to allegations of political meddling in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, these people say. Specifically, it focuses on possible perjury by Bradley Schlozman, who served a year as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Schlozman left the Justice Department last year after he was challenged over his hiring of conservative lawyers at the civil-rights division and his decision later as U.S. attorney to bring voter-fraud charges against members of a left-leaning voter-registration group days before the 2006 election.

Schlozman, an inept character who’s almost amusing in his clumsiness, has a very serious problem on his hands, which will not only lead to the likely criminal prosecution of a former top official in Bush’s Justice Department, but once again bring into focus how the Bush administration operated.

We are ruled by incompetents and thugs.

--WS

Affirmative Action at The Justice Department

Here's the New York Times story on the issue of preferred hiring at the Department of Justice:

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

So it was affirmative action for the idiots who couldn't get into Harvard, Stanford, Yale or Duke, huh? Because, let's face it--the best and the brightest rise to the top no matter what. If you're a smart lawyer, no matter where you went to school, that will show--provided there isn't a biased old-boys network systematically fucking you over and denying you the opportunities you deserve. (Hence, the reason why affirmative action was, and is, and always will be a good idea.)

I thought the Republican Party and conservatives as a whole were against affirmative action. Did I miss the moment where they decided that they had to give the also-rans and the kids who weren't smart enough to get into a top tier law school that extra leg up, that extra little push to enter the legal profession through the programs offered at the Justice Department? Does anyone else smell the hypocrisy on these cheap-suit wearing fools?

As I said earlier today, they'd better get rid of every single one of those Liberty University Law School Jerry's Kids and issue a course correction here. You cannot leave any of those people in the ranks of the Justice Department. It would be like leaving Gomer Pyle in charge of a SEAL team.

--WS

The Agenda of the Next Attorney General

On Day One of the next Attorney General's tenure, provided they're a Democrat, of course, they need to do one thing. Fire everyone the Republicans hired, whether it is legal or not, and base it on the fact that since partisanship was used to evaluate candidates, they are ineligible to continue working for the Federal Government. Issue a signing statement if someone complains. Claim Executive Privilege or the War Powers Act or something like that.

High-ranking political appointees at the Justice Department labored to stock a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives in a five-year-long attempt to reshape the department's ranks, according to an inspector general's report to be released today.

The report will trace the effort to 2002, early in the Bush administration, when key advisers to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft moved to exert more control over the program to hire rookie lawyers and summer interns, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The honors program, which each year places about 150 law school graduates with top credentials in a rotation of Justice jobs, historically had operated under the control of senior career officials. Shifting control of the program to Ashcroft's advisers prompted charges of partisanship from law professors and former government lawyers who had worked under Democratic administrations.

[SNIP]

Critics in the department had argued that hundreds of high-quality applicants had been rejected because of their ties to left-leaning nonprofit groups or clerkships with Democratic judges and lawmakers, according to correspondence at the time. One Harvard Law School graduate said that when he applied for the honors program a few years ago he was warned by professors and fellow students to remove any liberal affiliations from his résumé.

If the newly-removed individuals want to re-apply, then let them re-apply and be considered just like everyone else.

You can't let this practice go unpunished. Fire every single unqualified person who was hired because of their affiliation to conservatives, and if they want to apply for their old jobs back, consider them based on their merits and hire them back if they are qualified.

There is no way--no way--the Republicans are going to allow a Democratic administration to function in this same way, so you might as well take the Liberty University hires and throw them out on day one before they can continue to infect the government like the viral strain of shitheadedness that they carry. Not unless we beat them down into a minority of 150 House members and 20 Senators. Even then, they'll still find a way to disrupt and obstruct in order to get their way.

--WS

GAO Auditors Thrown Out of Agriculture Department Headquarters

Nothing gets me more animated than the subject of agriculture. What used to be the single most important thing in this country--and the sole reason for its expansion and greatness in the early years of our founding--is now the province of agribusiness concerns and massive conglomerates.

The family farm has all but disappeared and has been replaced by urban sprawl, poor land management and rampant subsidies. What used to be an institution that would guarantee minorities successful enfranchisement in this country is an afterthought. The very idea that minorities could own land, borrow money, farm successfully, and reap the benefits helped raise the standard of living for countless minorities. Owning property is the key to establishing a class of people who have a vested interest in good government at the local, state and Federal level. And owning a farm is an act of faith in society.

The incompetence of the Bush Administration has now spread to an area where you would think there would be a minimal amount of insanity. After all, it's the Department of Agriculture. Most Americans don't even realize we still have a Department of Agriculture.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them.

"You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, a top USDA attorney, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing audit on Agriculture's office of civil rights and its handling of discrimination complaints. Specifically, they were investigating allegations that the department had previously provided false information for the audit.

J. Michael Kelly, Agriculture's deputy general counsel, said the GAO investigators called the department Wednesday morning to say they were on their way to its headquarters and wanted to speak with a handful of specific employees.

The auditors refused to allow USDA lawyers to be present for the interviews, and after allowing one employee to talk, department officials stopped the interviews and told the investigators to leave the building, Kelly said.

"We are not interested in having our employees potentially put themselves at risk when they have not yet been advised of their rights and when we were not allowed to provide counsel," Kelly said. "We also pointed out to them that while they hold themselves out to be criminal investigators, GAO is an arm of Congress and has no authority to investigate violations of criminal law."

[snip]

John Boyd, a Virginia farmer who for years has criticized the Agriculture Department on civil rights issues, said the development shows that the department is not open about its handling of civil rights complaints.

"We think it's appalling that the USDA would go this far to obstruct civil rights," he said. "It's obvious that they have something to hide."

Hey--civil rights? Remember those? Now, why would the Bush administration have a problem making sure people aren't having their civil rights violated?

In March 2006, Bradley Schlozman was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo. Two weeks earlier, the administration was granted the authority to make such indefinite appointments without Senate confirmation. That was too bad: A Senate hearing might have uncovered Schlozman's central role in politicizing the civil rights division during his three-year tenure.

Schlozman, for instance, was part of the team of political appointees that approved then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's plan to redraw congressional districts in Texas, which in 2004 increased the number of Republicans elected to the House. Similarly, Schlozman was acting assistant attorney general in charge of the division when the Justice Department OKd a Georgia law requiring voters to show photo IDs at the polls. These decisions went against the recommendations of career staff, who asserted that such rulings discriminated against minority voters. The warnings were prescient: Both proposals were struck down by federal courts.

Schlozman continued to influence elections as an interim U.S. attorney. Missouri had one of the closest Senate races in the country last November, and a week before the election, Schlozman brought four voter fraud indictments against members of an organization representing poor and minority people. This blatantly contradicted the department's long-standing policy to wait until after an election to bring such indictments because a federal criminal investigation might affect the outcome of the vote. The timing of the Missouri indictments could not have made the administration's aims more transparent.

Apparently, we're going to have to turn over a lot of rocks in order to figure out whether or not each Federal agency has been protecting the Civil Rights of every American. Since they can't protect us from standing water, terrorism, religious bigotry, the chickenhawk Republican crime wave, or the mortgage industry, how much do you want to bet those rocks are hiding a whole lot we don't know?

It's finally happened....my irony-meter is broken

The books that tell the dirty little secrets about the Bush administration and the John Stuart Mill/ Utilitarian Machiavellian, win-at-any-cost, depraved and debased nature of the modern incarnation of the GOP.

Funny enough - they are the only books about the GOP that are selling - Karl Rove made the rounds trying to sell a book idea with a high-powered rep and got no takers. Ann-thrax Coulter-geist went to the well one too many times, and her latest book has totally tanked. Total sales have not even risen to the level that they could be called anemic. Even the choir has told the preacher to shut the hell up already.

The one that I already ordered an advance copy of that doesn't even publish until next month is How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, which tells the story of the 2002 New Hampshire Senate Race. The book is a tell-all by the operative who committed the election tampering. He believes that the decision to tamper with the dead-heat election reaches high up in the national party, and that when it unraveled they conspired to hang it all on him.

I don't have a copy yet - but McClatchy got hold of one:

The 2002 New Hampshire Senate race, in which GOP Rep. John Sununu edged Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen by 19,000 votes, was among several targeted by Republicans seeking to win control of the U.S. Senate.

Raymond said those who've tried to make him the fall guy for the New Hampshire scheme failed to recognize that e-mails, phone records and other evidence documented the complicity of a top state GOP official and the Republican National Committee's northeast regional director.

Both men were later convicted of charges related to the phone harassment, along with Raymond and an Idaho phone bank operator. Defense lawyers have since won a retrial for James Tobin, the former regional director for both the RNC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

A lawyer for Tobin didn't respond to phone messages.

Various GOP organizations have paid high-powered Washington lawyers in excess of $6 million to defend Tobin, and to fight a civil law suit brought against the GOP by the Democratic Party as a result of the election tampering. The cash outlay alone gives the impression that it might go higher. "Any tactic that didn't pass the smell test would never see the light of day without, — at the very least, the approval of an RNC attorney," he wrote.

A lawyer representing the Democratic party said that phone records show that Tobin called Rove's political shop in the White House a total of 22 times in the 24 hours before and after the jamming. When asked about the calls under oath, Tobin exercised his fifth amendment right against self incrimination.

Raymond said it was Tobin who first phoned him 2 1/2 weeks before the election and asked if he could jam Democrats' phone lines, connecting him with Charles McGee, the executive director of the New Hampshire GOP.

However, he said, when he phoned Tobin after Sununu's 19,000-vote election victory to tell him that a Manchester, N.H., police officer was looking into the scheme, Tobin responded, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Raymond said he was seething with anger in the ensuing weeks as he read news reports of McGee denying knowledge of the scheme.

In early 2003, Raymond recalled, the state GOP wrote to demand its money back.

"They were going to throw me under the bus," Raymond wrote, "but first they wanted to check my pockets to see if there was any cash there."

Raymond and McGee pleaded guilty to harassment charges. Their cooperation with investigators led to Tobin's conviction.

Raymond predicted that political dirty tricks "will only get tougher, nastier, more brutal" in coming elections.

As for his three months in a Pennsylvania prison, he wrote: "After 10 full years inside the GOP, 90 days among honest criminals wasn't really any great ordeal."

*************************

And this is what broke my irony-meter...

You might recall that a while back I was quite obsessed with the Department of Justice scandal, and specifically Bradley Schlozman, who blew into my town and started tampering with elections that I participated in. Yeah. I kinda took it personal...

Well! File this one under the heading "It all Depends on Whose Ox is Getting Gored"!!!

While in Kansas City the U.S. Attorney promptly got down to business and made with the filing of specious suits on flimsy evidence; in New Hampshire, the DoJ delayed prosecuting Tobin until after the 2004 election, so they could protect top GOP operatives from the scandal until the votes were cast and counted! Federal prosecutor Todd Hinnen was hindered from bringing charges against the New Hampshire Republican Party by officials at main Justice. Not only that, but weeks before the election he was told to ask a judge to halt action temporarily in a Democratic Party civil suit against the GOP so that it wouldn't hurt the investigation, even though Hinnen had expressed no concerns that it would.

Tobin's lawyer, a former Pentagon general counsel named Terry O'Donnell was in contact with senior DoJ officials even prior to Tobin's indictment.

The House Judiciary Committee started investigating the role of partisan politics in the investigation and indictment in October.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

The phone-jamming operation was aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from rounding up voters in the close U.S. Senate race between Republican Rep. John Sununu and Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu's 19,000-vote victory helped the GOP regain control of the Senate.

While there were guilty pleas in the New Hampshire investigation prior to the 2004 presidential election, involvement of the national GOP wasn't confirmed. A Manchester, N.H., policeman quickly traced the jamming to Republican political operatives in 2003 and forwarded the evidence to the Justice Department for what ordinarily would be a straightforward case.

However, the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told McClatchy that senior Justice Department officials slowed the inquiry. The official didn't know whether top department officials ordered the delays or what motivated those decisions.

Is anyone else just simply non-fucking-plussed by this point? Holy chocolate-covered Christ, how god-damned far does it all go? Is there a single aspect of public life that these fiends haven't tainted?

Yeah, I can't think of one either...But our Democratic "leaders" still won't put impeachment back on the table?

What? The? Fuck.?

Meet the New Boss...Same as the Old Boss

Well , it certainly didn't take the new Attorney General long to start throwing up roadblocks to interfere with congressional investigations that might expose the current occupant of the Oval office as a torture-lovin' thug who gave illegal orders and is absolutely guilty of every war crime the left has accused him of since the invasion of Iraq.

The Department of Justice is refusing to provide DoJ documents to congressional committees that might clarify any role the department had in the decision to destroy the video evidence. But the Department of Justice is not just refusing to cooperate with congressional inquiries into the destruction of videotapes by the CIA that show terrorist suspects being tortured - they are requesting that congress shelve their own inquiries into the matter.

The Justice Department request was met with anger from both Republican and Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee, who said the department was trying to interfere with their investigation. The committee had summoned two C.I.A. officials to testify at a hearing next week, a session that will now almost certainly be postponed.

The inquiry by the House committee had been shaping up as the most aggressive investigation into the destruction of the tapes, and in a written statement on Friday, the two senior members of the panel said they were “stunned” by the Justice Department’s request.

The lawmakers, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, and Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, threatened to issue subpoenas to get testimony and other information from the C.I.A. “There is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work,” they said.

The committee had demanded that the C.I.A. produce all cables, memorandums and e-mail messages related to the videotapes, as well as the legal advice given to agency officials before the tapes were destroyed. Friday’s deadline passed without the arrival of any of those C.I.A. records on Capitol Hill.

The DoJ and the CIA are conducting a theatrical exercise joint inquiryto determine how the tapes came to be destroyed, who authorized the destruction of evidence, and the legality of the action.

The Congressional inquiry follows the same path, but are also interested in determining if anyone in the Executive branch was involved in the decision to destroy the tapes in an effort to suppress evidence of torture.

Meanwhile, Hayden now finds himself in a difficult position - having pledged cooperation to all investigative bodies, the DoJ, the IG for the CIA and the Congress.

Mukasey was busy giving the high-hat to requests from Congressional committees that oversee Justice itself, while the committee members (some of whom confirmed his ass over the strenuous objections of left-wing nut jobs like yours truly...) sent along sternly worded letters demanding that, by golly, the time was nigh to come clean.

Mukasey's response? “At my confirmation hearing, I testified that I would act independently, resist political pressure and ensure that politics plays no role in cases brought by the Department of Justice,” Mr. Mukasey wrote in one letter. Accordingly, he went on, “I will not at this time provide further information in response to your letter.”

=========================

And the more things change...the more they stay the same.

Gonzo is still under the gun

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine announced today that his office is investigating outgoing disgraced attorney general Alberto Gonzales to determine if he should face charges of perjury for lying in his testimony before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

In a letter today to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Fine said his office "has ongoing investigations" related to Gonzales's testimony on several key issues, including the prosecutor firings and allegations of improper hiring; the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program; the FBI's use of national security letters; and allegations that Gonzales sought to improperly influence a witness who was under investigation by Congress and the Justice Department.

Gonzales's often contradictory remarks and his repeated assertions that he could not recall key events drew fire from lawmakers of both parties and contributed to his dwindling support on Capitol Hill.

Prior to todays acknowledgment, Fine would only confirm that he was looking into allegations that the Attorney General sought to influence the testimony of Monica Goodling before she appeared before Congress.

Earlier this month Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy had requested Fine expand the scope of his investigation to include Gonzales contradictory testimony. Today, Fine indicated that he was already on it, and so was the Office of Professional Responsibility. The two offices are jointly conducting an investigation into the illegal politicization of Justice.

Leahy issues a statement that he was "pleased" that Gonzales was being investigated, but indicated that the Congress would continue investigating Gonzales as well. "The current Attorney General is leaving, but these questions remain," Leahy said. "It is appropriate that the Inspector General will examine whether the Attorney General was honest with this and other Congressional committees about these crucial issues."

Going...Going....Gone-zales

Well, that's over. Abu G is history. The worst Attorney General in the history of the republic is stepping down effective 17 September. It's about god-damned time.

He is one of the authors of the current torture doctrine, he assisted the overthrow of the Constitution by promoting the fiction of the Unitary Executive.

Then he became Attorney General and he really got down to some serious desecration. His lasting legacy is the politicization of the Department of Justice, and it will take decades to undo the damage done. With Gonzales at the helm, the DoJ became the enforcement arm of the Republican party. Georgia Thompson was imprisoned and lost her home for the crime of working for a Democratic administration in the state of Wisconsin.

It matters that 'some lawyers got fired' because they were fired for not filing phony charges against Democratic candidates to sway elections to the Republican party. It is close to home for me, because I live in a city where a U.S. Attorney was fired and replaced with a hack, and he filed suits on specious claims and managed to sway the mayors race in Kansas City and derail the career of a rising star of the Democratic Party here in Jackson County.

In his farewell statement he thanked the resident for "the opportunity to serve the American people." This made me sputter coffee onto my monitor. He never served the American people. He served the president, and we could go straight to hell.

What happened at the Department of Justice matters every bit as much as the criminal and unjust occupation of Iraq, because it struck from within, at the very heart of the republic, and that , my friends, is a far greater threat to the American way of life than any terrorist ever managed to dream of being. Under Gonzales, the Congress was told that the courts would not enforce contempt charges or enforce subpoenas. Pure hackery, at it's most craven and corrupt.

He leaves a sad legacy as a partisan political hack who was given power he did not deserve and could not handle, and whose bumbling and inept mis-leadership crippled the Department of Justice and undermined the public trust in that system so vital in an open system of representative government like we are supposed to have.

Schlozman out at Department of "Just Us"

Bradley Schlozman has resigned, sneaking out last week, his exit unannounced. An exit like that is truly an embarrassment for such a high-profile Loyal Bushie. That is called leaving not with a bang, but with the proverbial whimper. Schlozman skulks away a pariah in the legal community, an abject failure, having seen his grand voter suppression schemes blow up in his face, revealing to the entire world that he is nothing more than a gormless cheat. (Rather like the much ballyhooed and terribly overestimated Karl Rove.)

I take personal the truncation of the Department of Justice. The feckless Schlozman was the U.S. Attorney in my city, installed without a Senate confirmation after Todd Graves was wrongly fired. From that position, Schlozman abused his power to derail the political career of Katherine Shields, a prominent Kansas City Democrat. He replaced the ninth fired U.S. Attorney, Todd Graves, who was very much John Ashcroft’s man, and had a sense of right and wrong, and refused to tamper with elections. Schlozman had no such qualms of conscience. He came to us from the Voting Rights Division, where his purpose was to suppress the rights of groups that were likely to vote for Democrats. One of the most revolting schemes he cooked up was the caging strategy that was used to deny African American members of the armed services their Constitutional right to vote. He and fellow political operative Hans Von Spakovsky schemed to politicize the hiring process for career Justice Department officials and eviscerate the Voting Rights Division. They were successful in doing so, but at steep cost. Throughout the Justice Department, positions remain unfilled. People simply do not want to work for the Department in this politicized environment, feeling that any connection with the Gonzalez Department of Just Us would be a kiss of death to a career they want to see continue past January 2009.

Schlozman is merely the latest perjuring rat to desert the sinking ship that is the Gonzalez Just Us Department. He is the latest hack to leave, joining Goodling, Sampson, Taylor, McNulty, Elston, and Mercer…just off the top of my head.

Like the others, he will not be missed. This is just more good riddance to bad rubbish.

Abu G Went Up the Hill to Carry Bushie's Water

Alberto went back up the Hill today and once more faced a stern and scowling Senate Judiciary Committee. By the time it was all said and done, Senator Leahy was hinting at perjury charges and Senator Specter raised the specter of a special prosecutor.

Noting aWol’s unprecedented invocation of executive privilege, Specter observed that “the president’s word stands and the constitutional authority and responsibility for congressional oversight is gone.” He went on to voice that one of the alternatives he has been kicking around is the appointment of a special prosecutor. “The attorney general has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor,” said Specter. “You’re recused, but somebody else could do it. You’re recused because you know all of the principals. You have a conflict of interest. But doesn’t the president have an identical conflict of interest?”

The AG did not disappoint those of us who have come to expect the very worst from his pathetic, pathological appearances.

He disputed charges that morale in the Justice Department has plummeted under his leadership, saying that morale can best be measured by "output." The department's output in the last six months has been "outstanding," he asserted.

"I've decided to stay and fix the problems," he said in response to a question.

Senator Leahy was decidedly not buying what Gonzo was selling:

But Gonzales came under withering criticism from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), and from its top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.)

"The attorney general has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people," Leahy said. He said the administration "has squandered our trust" and told Gonzales bluntly, "I don't trust you."

And Senator Specter seemed to blast the hapless Gonzo with both barrels:

Specter said there was "evidence of low morale" at the Justice Department and blasted what he described as Gonzales's lack of "personal credibility." He called the department "dysfunctional." Specter raised the prospect of calling for a special prosecutor to press a potential contempt-of-Congress citation over the White House's refusal to provide certain documents and sworn testimony regarding the firing of nine federal prosecutors last year. He denounced the Bush administration's stand that it would prohibit the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from pursuing a contempt citation.

"Now if that forecloses a determination of whether executive privilege has been properly imposed, then the president in that manner can stymie congressional oversight by simply saying there is executive privilege," Specter said. That would spell the end of congressional oversight and take the controversy "to a really incredible level," he said.

"Now we've been exploring some alternatives," Specter said, noting that "the attorney general has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor." He told Gonzales, "You're recused, but somebody else could do it."

Specter added, "We also have the alternative of convening the Senate and having a contempt citation and trying it in the Senate."

Gonzo’s pledge to stay on and roll up his sleeves and get to work setting the department back right is simply staggering. WTF???

There is no confidence in the Attorney General from the rank-and-file in the Justice Department. They are despondent and have zero confidence in their compromised, beleaguered “leader.”

Senior staff has resigned in unprecedented numbers. Candidates refuse employment with the department. At least half of the top jobs at Main Justice are unfilled and others are staffed with temps.

Legislative priorities are not being addressed, including revisions to the intelligence laws and anti-crime proposals. "It takes away from normal work," one recently departed Justice official said about the persistent controversy over Gonzales's role in the firings and the use of improper political considerations in hiring career employees. "It obviously has a serious impact," said the former official, who would discuss the department's internal workings only if not identified.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called on Gonzales to resign, but he has steadfastly refused, taking the slings and arrows of public and congressional outrage for his boss. He staunchly, stubbornly hangs on, knowing that his boss will never fire the firewall that stands between him and criminal investigations and prosecutions. The Senate has no confidence in him, and the vote indicates. No, it wasn’t sixty – but it wasn’t less than fifty, either. Remember that.

Let’s face it – without Gonzales, a competent attorney general would have to be installed. The Democratic-controlled Congress would not confirm a lackey like Gonzales. (Imagine Jack Danforth as AG…Oh, reverie…Not only would those Main Justice jobs get snapped up by well-qualified candidates, there would be resignations in the West Wing sufficient to stop the administration dead in its tracks.)

So make with the impeachment of this hapless, sad little man who feebly feigns a desire to do his job, now that it’s all come undone and he is exposed for what he is: a not-to-bright, ideologically driven, inept and compromised failure.

Let me finish with an installment of “What My Lawyer Said”

“This is precisely why I have been a raving lunatic for months … about the necessity of initiating an impeachment investigation, even if it is only as to Gonzales to start. Running out the clock in order to protect our majorities, gain some seats and install a Democratic administration does not cut it. That is akin to doing some public service announcements and hoping crime disappears in your community. The facts and extent of harm must be fleshed out in a formal investigation, the public must be allowed to understand the full nature and extent of what has occurred, and those responsible must be held to account. If not, the ugly beast continues to raise it’s ugly head with impunity in the future.”

Well said, Counselor.

Fred Fielding Goes Long

Okay, buckle up and grab the dashboard. The route of Republican logic (snort at that oxymoron) we are about to traverse is as twisted a path as any Missouri two-lane blacktop.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has sent along a letter ‘splainin’ why the White House is refusing to let Sara Taylor and Harriet Meyers testify if there is any record of the exchange.

Writes F²

"Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth in that regard. The position that the president took and conveyed to the committees and the offer of compromise did not include transcripts. The accommodation was designed to provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony. One of the concomitants of testimony, of course, is transcripts.

"As far as the debate goes, often cited is that a transcript is not wanted because otherwise there would be a perjury trap. And, candidly, as everyone has discussed, misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it's under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there's no intention to try to avoid telling the truth." (emphasis added)

Perjury trap? Are they planning to lie?

I guess if you are a part of this freakshow, it’s better to be assumed a liar than to open your mouth to prove it.

Sara Taylor was overheard explaining to a friend at lunch that “orange makes me look sallow.”

Lawyerin' Up

A year ago, Fred Fielding left a high-powered D.C. law firm and signed on as Counsel to the President.

Today, nine of Mr. Fieldings colleagues from Wiley Rein LLP – Formerly known as Wiley, Rein & Fielding - joined the White House Council’s staff.

Looks a lot to me like they are lawyerin’ up in the face of the investigations into the Justice Department. This event transpired just hours after the New York Times ran an editorial calling for subpoenas to be served to compel the testimony of White House personnel and the production of emails that go to the scandal.

Karl Rove, Sara Taylor, Harriet Meyers – none enjoy Executive Privilege and evidence is mounting that they were involved in unethical and unconstitutional criminal behavior when they embarked on a conspiracy to suppress the votes of minorities. (h/t Josh Marshall)

Comey: Cheney kiboshed career of Justice official who opposed domestic spying

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee are as dramatic and revealing as his testimony before the committee. Via his written responses, the Washington Post reports on a meeting that took place the day before at the White House:

"Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while -- that White House hands guided Justice Department business," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?"(emphasis added)

According to Comey, the hospital visit was preceded by a March 9, 2004, meeting at the White House on the Justice Department objections. It was attended by Cheney; Gonzales; Card; Cheney's counsel then, David S. Addington; and others, Comey said.

Comey also named eight Justice Department officials who were prepared to quit if the White House had not backed down, including FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, current U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria and Jack Goldsmith, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel and led an internal legal review of the surveillance program.

Comey said that the review "focused on current operations during late 2003 and early 2004, and the legal basis for the program." He declined to answer detailed questions about the program or the review, citing restrictions on classified information.

Bush confirmed the existence of the surveillance effort after news reports in December 2005, saying it was authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was vital to protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. The program has since been put under the auspices of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees clandestine eavesdropping in the United States.

What exactly were they doing? Ashcroft is no civil libertarian – so what line did they cross and how far over it did they go? I shudder to think.


[Crossposted from WTWC]

We aren't letting go because we think Justice should be just and voters should be franchised

I realize that the right wing wishes we would just shut up about the Department of Justice scandals – "move along" they say, "there is nothing to see here – Hey! Look over there! A puppy!"

But the fact is, there seems to be a whole hell of a lot of there there. My background is clinical – and I can tell you that the deadliest cancers are often myriad little tumors, and that same pathology seems to be at work here. There is simply an overwhelming incidence of abject politicization of the very area of government that can least withstand that egregious offense.

Legal voters were disenfranchised. Black military personnel were targeted for disenfranchisement via a caging scheme. This much has been admitted to. How the defenders can continue to defend this Constitutional offense is beyond me. The actions of the Gonzales DoJ is an affront to decency.

The civil rights division was gutted under Schlozman before he came to Kansas City, where he pursued charges contrary to department policy with the intent to sway elections. In the second case, it might have worked. My candidate won the Mayors race, but I will always wonder – did that thin soup of a charge affected the outcome of the primary?

And now McClatchy tells us that it looks like the Federalist Society might have had a hand in selecting the attorneys who were fired and the candidates to replaced them.

WASHINGTON - A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor's name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.

The recommendation by the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, came before anyone outside of a tight group in the White House and Justice Department knew about a nascent strategy that ultimately led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

It could not be determined whether a short e-mail, sent on March 7, 2005, making the recommendation meant that Leo knew of the plan to fire Carol Lam or whether his message was unsolicited and coincidental.

The subject line of Leo's e-mail to Mary Beth Buchanan, then-director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says, "USA San Diego," indicating the top prosecutor job for the Southern District of California. Lam was on the job at the time and had no plans to step down. (emphasis added)

The text of the note reads, "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo goes on to say he would "strongly recommend" the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker.

Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects. (emphasis added)

Leo, the Justice Department and Walker could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. Lam declined comment.

The Justice Department turned over the e-mail to Congress as part of a probe into last year's firings of U.S. attorneys.

While the Justice Department has given no direct reason for Lam's firing, officials criticized her handling of immigration and gun cases. Nonetheless, Lam drew positive job evaluations and has testified that she was given no notice of any concerns.

Democrats have questioned whether her firing was connected to her office's high-profile corruption prosecutions implicating Republicans.

Lam's name first appeared on what is believed to have been the Justice Department's earliest target list of prosecutors in late February 2005.

I am sorry, but this is just too much. Now it appears that the Federalist Society had a say in replacing the supremely competent and accomplished Carol Lam (of course, Carol Lam was also the one who shot down Duke Cunningham) and hand-picking a Dominatrix with a J.D. to replace her before she could take down any more corrupt republicans.

Nice.

[Crossposted from WTWC]

Godfater 2007: Fredo's Revenge

Just a little something for the regulars while I am occupied with this life that keeps interfering with my blogging....

Calm down everyone...Ashcroft is not a moderate!!!

If anyone had told me five years ago that people on the left would be not merely defending John Ashcroft, but pining for the days when he was the Attorney General, I would quite possibly done myself an injury, so raucous would the laughter have been. And as soon as it subsided, I would have initiated the steps to start your involuntary commitment to a secure mental health facility.

So what did he do that is so rare and unique, that has his former political opponents fawning all over him like he was the second coming? He upheld the rule of law and the Constitution when he was the Attorney General.

That we are all gaga at the very notion is a sad commentary indeed on the tenure of the hapless, inept Gonzo.

Pardon me, but I’m supposed to get all atwitter about this? About the fact that the cabinet level appointment constitutionally charged with overseeing the Constitution actually drew the line somewhere short of total Constitutional abrogation?

Is the bar really that low after two years of the feckless and faithless Alberto Gonzales? I am afraid the answer to that query is a resounding “yes.”

Before we enshrine the portrait of John Ashcroft with a square halo on the stationery of the ACLU, let’s remember that Ashcroft oversaw the widest expansion of government power over the lives of ordinary Americans than this country has ever witnessed.

He was a primary force behind the USA Patriot Act, which was used to snoop into the lives and reading habits of ordinary Americans. In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 he pushed the INS to use their power to deport foreigners, and he cast the die for the “harsh treatment” of detainees – who had no rights to due process, thanks to Ashcroft.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, John Ashcroft was willing to err on the side of public safety at the expense of the Constitution and diminish our Civil Liberties to a footnote.

Begging John Ashcroft’s forgiveness for all the mean things you said about him is not the appropriate reaction here. The appropriate response is outrage at the perfidy of the Gonzales department of injustice. Outrage that the department has been so sullied by his banality and fecklessness that his predecessor – John Ashcroft!!! – looks like a card-carrying member of the ACLU by contrast…

[Cross-posted from the blog you should be reading, Watching Those We Chose]

Another Facet to the Justice Department Unraveling

The Attorney General is testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee today, and it is liable to be ugly for him. You’ll recall that his performance in front of the Senate committee was like watching a baby seal being clubbed. Over 70 times, the AG responded that he was ignorant of the facts (that is what it means when one answers “I don’t know”) or, alternatively, that he “could not remember.” In the three weeks that have passed since that disturbing display, the focus has shifted from the matter of Gonzales incompetence and inability to run his department, to the involvement of the White House in turning the Department of Justice into an arm of the RNC.

From the Kansas City Star:

In the three weeks since Gonzales testified before a Senate committee, the department disclosed that it is investigating whether his former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, weighed the political affiliations of those she considered hiring as entry-level prosecutors. Consideration of such affiliations could be a violation of federal law.

More of the eight fired U.S. attorneys also have told congressional investigators they were warned that if they publicly protested their dismissals, Justice Department officials would publicly criticize their performance. And there have been new allegations that U.S. attorneys were evaluated on their enthusiasm for pursuing voter fraud cases that might benefit Republican candidates.

Gonzales is expected to be asked about those developments Thursday in his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee since Democrats took control of Congress.

"All of that goes to the larger question," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Wednesday in a telephone interview. He said the bigger question is who put together and approved the list that caused the eight U.S. attorneys to lose their jobs.

Conyers is holding a subpoena for White House political adviser Karl Rove but has not issued it. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee last week subpoenaed Gonzales for all e-mails the Justice Department has gathered regarding Rove and the firings.

Gonzales is no-doubt experiencing a memory failure on an epic scale even as I type. He issued a statement earlier in the week, saying it’s time to move on. "Recent events must not deter us from our mission. I ask the committee to join me in that commitment and that rededication," he said, citing what he said were accomplishments in protecting national security and fighting pedophiles.

A fine sentiment. Except it rings hollow given the shelling out of the Department of Justice that has happened under the leadership of Karl Rove, to whom the feckless, simpering and incompetent Alberto Gonzales effectively abdicated all responsibility for the day-to-day operations of his department.

When Justice is not perceived to be just - we have lost America.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that it was not so brutal to be the AG in front of the House committee as it was the Senate.

Republicans echoed Gonzales' call to move on, indicating that the embattled attorney general may have weathered the political storm.

"The list of accusations has mushroomed, but the evidence of wrongdoing has not," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the committee's senior GOP member. "If there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues."

Democrats showed no willingness to quit asking questions about whether White House officials ordered the firings of prosecutors not sufficiently loyal to the Bush administration. Democrats probed whether the Justice Department scuttled more prosecutors than the eight jettisoned over the winter, asking about prosecutor resignations in Los Angeles and Missouri.

"The department's most precious asset _ its reputation for integrity and independence _ has been called into question," said committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. "Until we get to the bottom of how this list was created, and why, those doubts will persist."