Advance copy of speech by Rham Emanuel to Brookings

Rham Emanuel is scheduled to give a speech at the Brookings Institute today. TPM Cafe has posted an advance copy.

It is an indictment of Republican control of the federal government,covering everything from the U.S. Attorney scandal to the Katrina response disaster.

And the [U.S. Attorney] scandal has created a new context for viewing and evaluating scandals in the Bush Administration. Americans have learned just how the Bush Administration works and are discovering that under President Bush, no function of the federal government is free from the influence of politics.

And this is no accident. It’s all by design. The incidents I will list today are not a laundry list of one offs or isolated cases of corruption. There is a common denominator. Instead of promoting solutions to our nation’s broad challenges, the Bush Administration used all the levers of power to promote their party and its narrow interests.

The key to his speech is the indictment of the Republican Party for politicizing the entire federal government apparatus to place the government at the service of the Republican Party. Rham attributes the general incompetence and corruption the Republican Party has displayed to the process of politicizing the government.

I'll let him speak for himself. I really like what he is saying.

It's going to be a really interesting election season - but looooonng.

Here's a Bush scheme I hadn't recognized

The Bush administration has as a primary goal to destroy the effectiveness of government, prior to dismantling most of it and privatizing it. The writer at The Duck Stream" describes it this way:

"Via The Wilderness Society we get an example of another way they operate. The National Wildlife Refuge System is getting stressed to the breaking point, and here's how they do it.

"The Land and Water Conservation Fund is intended to fund acquisitions of areas of value to the refuge system, yet of the $900 million from oil and gas royalties available, Bush and the GOP Congress spent 16 percent of that, and Bush has proposed to spend 6 percent next year. Of course the new Democratic Congress will probably reverse that trend, but the fact remains that the Bush Administration is not a good steward of our lands, our laws, or our people.

"They've done this same dodge with Aids in Africa, and countless other programs, budget a bunch of money but never spend any, the only purpose being to claim they increased the budgets, even though they didn't spend the money. It's just another LIE from the mouths of George W Bush and his soulless coterie of fiends and hacks and incompetents, just to prove that government doesn't work so we need to privatize it."

The Bush administration is really a criminal cabal intent on destroying the American government and on looting it as they tear it down.

There is no "middle ground" in which those of us who believe that some social functions are better performed by government than by private businesses can compromise. For example, Social Security and the funding of health care are clearly government functions, because they are both social functions critical to the optimal operation of the whole society whether or not individuals can afford to pay for them or have the foresight to do so. The Republican destruction hordes cannot be compromised with on these subjects. They must simply be stopped and overridden.

Oh, and removed from government.

Lithwick on how the Patriot Act was changed

A really significant element of the replacing of the U.S attorneys is that the Patriot Act was changed to remove the need to have the Senata approve replacement U.S. Attorneys. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate provides the story of how that change occcurred without the knowledge of the Senate.

The background: When Congress reauthorized the Patriot Act last year, it included little-noticed language that changed the way U.S. attorneys would be appointed if their predecessors were removed in the middle of their term. Under the old regime, interim U.S. attorneys needed to be confirmed by the Senate after 120 days. If they weren't, federal district judges could select their replacement. The new language removed both judicial and congressional oversight of the interim U.S. attorneys, letting DOJ anoint them indefinitely. This served three important goals: consolidating presidential power, diminishing oversight, and ensuring that "interim" prosecutors had permanent jobs.

On Feb. 6, when the Senate held hearings on the issue of prosecutorial independence, former judiciary committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., proudly claimed to have been as clueless as the rest of us. Denying New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer's claim that he or his staff had "slipped the new provision into the Patriot Act in the dead of night," Specter asserted, "The first I found out about the change in the Patriot Act occurred a few weeks ago when Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein approached me on the floor."

Specter added that he only looked into how the provision was altered after Feinstein told him about it. As he explained, "I then contacted my very able chief counsel, Michael O'Neill, to find out exactly what had happened. And Mr. O'Neill advised me that the requested change had come from the Department of Justice, that it had been handled by Brett Tolman, who is now the U.S. attorney for Utah, and that the change had been requested by the Department of Justice because there had been difficulty with the replacement of a U.S. attorney in South Dakota."

Thus, at least according to Specter, O'Neill had merely been following orders from the Department of Justice when he snuck new language into the Patriot Act that would consolidate executive branch authority. Huge relief there.

I see the snark in Dahlia's "Huge relief there." Oh, and one more thing that is especially significant in the story.

"So, Specter concedes that the item is controversial. He denies knowing about it. That implies it was O'Neill who slipped the new language in, and misled Specter and the Senate. And yet, at least as far as I can tell, nobody in power has said a word about O'Neill's conduct, and not one iota of blame has been laid at his doorstep. Joe Conason noted in Salon last month that 1) O'Neill is a former Clarence Thomas clerk, and 2) he joined Specter's staff at the same time Specter was fighting accusations of being wobbly in his fealty to the White House."

This was planned by the Department of Justice. It is part of their overall scheme to collect power with the President so that the President and the Executive Department is superior to both the Congress and the Judiciary. That eliminated the entire concept of "Checks and Balances" as the Constitution originally set things up and moves America from a federated democracy back to an executive authoritarian government in which the Rights of Government block any Rights belonging to the People.

Apparently O'Neill still works for Sen. Specter. Sen. Specter has only two options with regard to O'Neill. Either Specter approves of what O'Neill did and supports his action or Specter does not dare fire him.

More US attorney fallout

Josh Marshall makes the point that the US attorney scandal has severly weakened both Sen. Pete Domenici (six-term Republican Senator from New Mexico) and Rep. Heather Wilson (Two term Republican congressperson from Albuquerque, NM.) have been severely weakened politically by the lack of ethics they demonstratyed when they called US attorney Iglesias and tried to intimidate him into issueing indictments of Democrats just before what was anticipated to be a close election in November.

There is also a discussion of Carol Lam, U.S. attorney of San Diego, CA because she was getting to close to Rep. Jerry Lewis (CA - R) for his corruption.

These are two of the strongest pieces of evidence that the firings of the US attorneys are about trying to hide the unethical conduct of the (Republican) office of the Attorney General rather than any simple "personnel" issues.

Problem with firing US Attys was lack of tact, honesty

Law.com provides what appears to be a pretty straight explanation of why, and as importantly, how, the U.S. Attorney's were fired during the "Purge." Essentially they are documenting the actions of the Department of Justice as it moves heavily into "Face Saving" mode.

My best estimate is that some of the conservative true-believers were looking at the results of the Election of 2006 and trying to clear the decks for the Election of 2008. As close as the most recent Washington state Governor election was, they really want to be prepared to control legal outcomes of the is as close, and preferred to have a conservative true-believer as US Attorney. The same is true of New Mexico, where Rep. Heather Wilson (NM - R) will again face a very close election because of her clear weakness demonstrated in the 2006 election. Similarly, the Senate seat previously held by Paul Wellstone in Minnesota is up for reelection in 2008. (We now know that Al Franken will be running for that seat as a Democrat.) Again, that is expected to be a hard-fought election. Control of the legal ramifications of a very close election could well determine who will become the next Senator from Minnesota.

I don't know about the election situation in Nevada, but the fact that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is from Nevada has to have figured heavily in the calculations of the DoJ conservative true-believers. That they were able to remove the then Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle from South Dakota certainly rang a bell with them. I think that the DoJ guys were being honest when they said they were looking for someone more "active" than Daniel Bogden. Removing him without close coordination with Sen. Ensign was simply tone-deaf politics (read "typical conservative power-mad stupidity") by the DoJ people who made the decision.

Carol Lam from San Diego is an obvious case. She sent San Diego Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison, and still has Rep. Dolittle in her sights. The clear Republican corruption badly damaged the entire national Republican Party in 2006, and more of the same would be nationally damaging to them in 2008. She obviously had to go. She was too honest.

Bud Cummings of Little Rock,Ark was a favor to Karl Rove. Rove's assistant needed the resume-enhancing job of U.S. Attorney. There may have been other reasons for Cummings to go, but there didn't need to be. Rove's power depends to a large extent on his ability to get patronage jobs for his best people, and this was one of them. Rove can reward and Rove can punish. As a result, he remains powerful as long as he holds his job and his office close to that of President Bush.

So there is a lot of politics. But the job of US Attorney is inherently political. That is, you get the job through political connections, and serve at the President's Pleasure. That explains getting the job and is why an incoming President normally replaces all 93 of them. However, the 93 US Attorneys are said to have a tight organization, and part of the culture is that while in the job, they enforce the law in a non-political manner. This culture is extremely good for American justice, but it did not meet the political desires of the aggressive and frightened conservatives who occupy the Attorney General's office.

Frightened Conservatives? Yeah, because the results of the 2006 election strongly suggested that if they didn't do something, they are on the way out. So someone in Justice is working hard to politicize the US Attorneys. It might not be Alberto Gonzales, but if not, it is done with his knowledge. But it is only 7 or 8 out of 93, right?

Keep in mind that only the ones who resisted pressure to "adjust" their legal practicesfor best Republican political outcomes have been removed. We have no idea which ones knuckled under - or even went along happily. We don't know how many these have been.

In addition, the hard-earned and up 'til now well-deserved reputation of US Attorneys for being honest and fair has been severely damaged. Anyone who has ever been a US Attorney and tried his best to uphold the best traditions of that position should be really angry at Alberto Gonzales and his merry band of conservatives.

This is extreme politics, even in the current age of extremist politics. On top ot that, it was handled so slopily that they had to be caught. To believe that they wouldn't be caught, the guys in DoJ had to believe that they were above the law, or perhaps that they were the law. That is not normal thinking.

The thing is, these conservatives are Right-Wing Authoritarians (RWA). They have a strong desire for conformity and obey the hierarchy even when it overrides their own sense of morality. As a result, they have a real tin-ear for the politics of a situation. Their leaders are RWAs with a strong desire for power and authority over others. the desire for power and authority shows that they have a strong Social Dominance orientation (SD). A strong Social Dominance orientation is one that overrides all morality and other considerations. If such peole are presented with two ways to accomplish a goal, one of which involves discussion and negotiation with others and the other of which involves the use of power to force the others to cooperate, these people will always choose the power-oriented solution. This explains the "tin-ear for politics" that they so often display. They don't trust other people and don't think that discussion will get what they want. In fact, discussion might give away their real goals, so they avoid it. Discussion makes the use of power more difficult because it warns their opponents. [See Bob Altemeyer's Book The Authoritarians and John Dean's book, Conservatives without Conscience. (And if enough people hit Bob Altemeyer's site, he may get his publishers to put out a hard copy for our libraries.)]

That's the information that I have so far, and what I suspect. New information may augment or modify this, but I don't expect it to disprove the thesis that this was a post-2006-election bit of planning for the coming 2008 election. And new information can be expected soon.

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[Addendum - 9:52 PM CDT]
Did I say there was more information coming? Well here it is.
McClatchy blows it open. (See links in the title line at TPM) and
The New York Times has more.

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[Addendum 2 - 03/11.2007 01:27 AM
This from McClatchy Washington Bureau (again):

The growing controversy over the Bush administration's abrupt dismissal of eight federal prosecutors raises a disturbing question: Has the Bush administration tried to use the federal government's vast law enforcement powers against its political enemies?

"It would be enormously problematic if, in fact, the Justice Department or the White House were trying to use U.S. attorneys for political purposes," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "The questions are now hanging in the air."

Some Democrats hear echoes of Watergate in the administration's dismissals of the prosecutors and suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign. Others want to know whether Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, played a role in the firings.[Snip]

Lawmakers in both political parties have expressed concern about evidence of political meddling in the weeks prior to last November's elections, when it was becoming clear that Democrats might take control of Congress for the first time in 12 years.[Snip]

"U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys take an oath to exercise their authority without fear or favor. It would be a gross abuse of power to allow partisan political considerations to enter into their decisions," said Bruce Green, a former U.S. attorney and a leading expert on legal ethics.[Snip]

"Most of the U.S. attorneys had pretty good evaluations, and some of them had stunningly good evaluations. Some did not," he said. "It's not that all eight of them were incompetent and should have been fired."

Hofstra Professor Freedman said he's troubled by the thought that Bush appointees might have been pushed beyond their ethical boundaries, despite their ties to the administration.

"These were people who were acceptable to this administration for really important positions. You would expect that, up to a point, they would go along," he said.

Freedman said the controversy raises questions about the independence of every U.S. attorney.

"They certainly have gotten the message, haven't they," he said.

Yeah, I'd say that all the remaining U.S. attorneys have gotten the message - Ethics get you fired, politics protect you from retribution.

Very interesting. What interests the DoJ?

Since I posted my ruminations on The Purge of the US Attorneys I have had three hits from the Department of Justice.

If I get either a subpoena or a visit from the FBI I'll know why. Otherwise, I'll just have to keep wondering.

Perhaps I should study the psychology of paranoia as well as Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarians and Social Dominators. As he writes, "Many scattered impressions about the enemies of freedom and equality become solidified by science and coherently connected here." It is so far only available on-line here in adobe format. I had to print it out. Nearly 300 pages - but easily read in spite of the fact that it carries some really useful ideas.

Oh, and if you haven't read it yet, get:

Conservatives Without Conscience

John Dean discusses Bob Altemeyer's research as well as a lot of other research into Authoritarians. Or modern American Conservatives. Same thing.

The Purge of U.S. Attorneys

Let’s go back and look at what recent reporting on the Purge of U.S. Attorneys has revealed.

First, the Justice Department fired seven U.S. Attorneys on December 7, 2007. There are only a total of 93 U.S. Attorneys. For the most part, the Senator of the Party holding the office of President recommends them in each state, so they have strong connections to the Senate. Removing a U.S. Attorney is not done lightly, and is done with full knowledge of the Attorney General. They are rarely removed. These removals also had the approval of the White House Counsel, Harriet Meirs.

This means that the reasons they were removed was much the same for all those removed December, and probably for all of them. It also means that such an action is overtly political, even if there might be real non-political reasons for taking the action. All of them could not be doing the same non-political things wrong. Also, the fact that none were given performance reasons for their removal rather clearly makes these removals political in nature. So what political reasons are known to exist that would make the White House unhappy with the removed U.S. Attorneys? Of the eight removed, five were supervising public corruption charges when removed. When looking for likely political reasons for the removals, this is a good place to start. Three of those were Lam, Iglesias, and McKay.

U.S. attorney Carol Lam of San Diego, CA. - She had run the investigation into the bribery of Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who is now serving the longest sentence in federal prison of any Congressman ever convicted of bribery. She and the FBI were also investigating two other (Republican) Congressmen as well as the Cunningham Briber-in-Chief, Brent Wilkes.

U.S. attorney David C. Iglesias of Albuquerque, NM. – Congresswoman Heather Wilson was the singly most threatened Republican Congress member fighting for reelection in November 2006. Both she and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici called US Attorney Igliesias prior to November and asked if he intended to file corruption charges against the Democrat who was running against Rep. Wilson prior to the election (the calls were violations of ethics for both the Senator and the Congresswoman.) Igleasias told them both that the investigations had not progressed to that point, so he was not going to file any charges before the election. Wilson won reelection by slightly more than 800 votes.

U.S. attorney John McKay of Seattle, WA appears to have been removed because Republicans in Washington state did not believe that he investigated the extremely narrow (under 100 votes) margin by which the Democrat defeated the Republican for Governor of Washington in 2004 in the closest gubernatorial election in U.S. history.

U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Little Rock, AR was removed to make way for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove. The White House has admitted this, followed by the question “What’s wrong with that?” The White House also claims that the investigations into corruption had nothing to do with the firings.

U.S. attorney Daniel Bogden of Nevada. The statement from Moschella of the Department of Justice said "given the importance of [Bogden's] district," that the department felt they needed "renewed energy, renewed vigor" in that office in order to "take it to the next level." Rather clearly a non-informational statement. I haven’t found any hint to the real reason for removing him yet.

Paul K. Charlton United States Attorney for the District of Arizona – Moschella of DoJ said "taping FBI confessions," a policy that had ramifications throughout the government and that was "completely contrary" to the department's policy. [Of course, since Charlton’s district included several Indian tribes, the taping of confessions were frequently required by State Law for conviction, and the U.S. Attorney was trying cases under state law because of the unusual relationship between a federal prosecutor and the Indian tribes. Clearly this is a specious argument by DoJ.] Again, I haven’t found any hint to the real reason for removing him yet. It clearly was not what Moschella of DoJ alleged (under oath) to the Senate.

So the Department of Justice says that there was no politics involved in the firings. They were all for performance issues. Yeah, Right. And I happen to know that the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge is up for sale to someone who would like to start charging tolls. For a mere $5,000,000 up front and a contract to collect the tolls I will broker the deal. Any takers?

If you think there has not been any politization of the function of the U.S. Attorneys under the Bush/Rove administration, go look at the post by Kevin Drum and explain the discrepancy in the number of cases opened on Democrats and Republicans at the State and Local levels.

This is an on-going story, so I am sure we will see a lot more about it.