Blackwater, USA - a private militia belonging to Republican social conservatives

As we try to get the Iraqi government to disband the secular militias and take back a monopoly of the use of force for the central government. Having a monopoly of of the use of force is a critical characteristic of an effective government. National governments without a monopoly of power are ineffective (as shown in Iraq, Colombia and Afghanistan) and frequently are subject to coups.

So what does it say about the Bush administration that it has been privatizing the military and handing both military and Intelligence functions over to private security firms (of which Blackwater, USA is currently the largest?) Blackwater is a large organization. "Blackwater has drawn contractors from their international pool of professionals, a database containing "21,000 former Special Forces troops, soldiers, and retired law enforcement agents," overall."

The owner of Blackwater, USA is scheduled to testify before congress about the recent Blackwater Baghdad Shootings in which at least eleven Iraqi civilians were killed. There is at present no evidence that the Blackwater shooters were under fire from any enemy source, and allegations that they were simply out of control.

Josh Marshall at Talking Point Memo describes Eric Prince's connection with both the Bush administration and with Prince's actions in creating and funding the social conservative ultra-right-wing organization The Family Research Council.

"Erik Prince is 37 years old. He founded Blackwater in 1997 with money he inherited from his father, Edgar Prince, the head of Prince Automative. The elder Prince and his wife were major Republican and conservative activists and funders. And Prince himself co-founded The Family Research Council with Gary Bauer and apparently provided the key early funding for the group.

According to Bauer, "I can say without hesitation that, without Ed and Elsa and their wonderful children, there simply would not be a Family Research Council."

Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, is married is the former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party and her husband is Dick DeVos, failed candidate for governor of Michigan and scion of the DeVos family, founders of Amway and major funders of Republican and conservative causes.

Amway is privately owned by the DeVos and van Andel families. And to give some sense of the scale of their political giving, according to a 2005 Center for Public Integrity study, Dick & Betsy DeVos were the fifth largest political givers in the country during the 2004 election cycle. Richard DeVos Sr. & his wife were ranked third. And Jay Van Andel was ranked second.

Let's just say they give some real money to the Republican party and its candidates. And of course there are the DeVos Family Foundations which give money to conservative causes.

Back back to Betsy's brother Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater. Back in 1990 Prince interned for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Blackwater's lobbyist in DC is Paul Behrends, a former Rohrabacher aide who he met when the two worked for the congressman. Later he interned in the first Bush White House. But after doing so, he and his father broke with President Bush and supported the insurgent candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan.

The then-22 year old Prince told the Grand Rapids Press, "I interned with the Bush administration for six months. I saw a lot of things I didn't agree with -- homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns."

In addition to running Blackwater Prince also serves on the board of Christian Freedom International."

Wikipedia provides an article on Eric Prince.

There are a lot of problems caused by having the government depend on contractors like Blackwater for what are essentially military and law enforcement functions, as well as the fact that they essentially use the government to train their personnel and then poach them away at a time the government is most in need of them. But the most significant is the lack of government control of their operations.

Eric Prince's testimony before Congress today will be a melange of conservative and social conservative ideology, presented by a multi-millionaire who inherited a fortune and does not want to pay any taxes. He wants to run his own country, and has no room for most of us who consider ourselves to be Americans. His activities are part of the reason for the Republican incompetence in running government. Count on it.

Goodling to testify - immunity approved

Monica Goodling has received the immunity her attorneys were requesting before she would testify before Congress about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.

Congress agreed to the deal, Justice Department investigators reluctantly agreed not to not oppose it and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan gave it final approval Friday.

"Monica Goodling may not refuse to testify," Hogan began his brief order, which said that Goodling could not be prosecuted for anything other than perjury in connection with her testimony.

Lawmakers want to question Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the Justice Department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials.

Goodling, as liaison between the White House and the Department of Justice, is in a unique position to know whether Rove was involved in the firings and if so, to what extent.

This should be interesting.

Firedoglake liveblogs the Gonzales hearings

For more on the Senate hearings with Alberto Gonzales, Firedoglake is liveblogging them. Here are this morning's hearings, presented with the earliest at the bottom of the list and the last at the top:

• Alberto Gonzales testimony, Part VIII
• Alberto Gonzales testimony, Part VII
• Alberto Gonzales testimony, Part VI
  [Lunch break]
• Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part V
• Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part IV
• Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part III
• Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part II
• Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part I
• Just warming up?

Today's Senate Hearings with Attorney General Gonzales

I have been listening closely to the Senate Hearings on NPR in which Attorney General Gonzales is being grilled on the firings of the US attorneys. The questions (with the exception of those by Sen. Cornyn the "box turtle [*]" pretending to be a Senator from Texas) have been sharp and direct.

Gonzales' responses have been imprecise, frequently going off on tangents that appear to have only the twin purposes of making the Attorney General look better and using up the time each Senator has to ask questions, and often contradictory. My impression is that Gonzales was not involved in the process of running the office. He made "decisions" primarily based on the recommendations of his subordinates - and though he dares not say so, probably at the direction of Bush and Rove from the White House. He repeatedly testified that he did not ask his subordinates the basis of their recommended decisions.

Yet he stated repeatedly that he takes responsibility for the decisions he made. Senator Lindsey Graham nailed it when he asked (paraphrased) "Is it fair to say that you depended on your subordinates to have good reasons for the decisions they recommended and never questioned the basis they used for those decisions?" When Gonzales replied "Yes." Sen. Graham went on "And you never considered that some of the US attorneys you were firing might be on the list because they somehow raised the ire of someone on your staff?"

At this point Gonzales stumbled and then agreed that the scenario Sen. Graham presented was possible.

Then towards the end of this mornings' session Attorney General Gonzales was asked if, considering his credibility problems with members of Congress, it might be best if he resigned, Gonzales energetically stated that he did not think he should resign. That he had a great deal more [unspecified] to offer the Department of Justice and he wanted to stay on to accomplish those things.

When the Senate Committee adjourned for lunch, one NPR reporter made a point of stating that while hearings like this often were contentious and highly emotional, this was the first time that many of the Senators involved appeared to pity Gonzales more than simply be angry with him. The pity, the reporter continued, was because of the feeling that had frequently been mentioned on the Hill that Gonzales was a "Dead man walking."

That is my impression so far. For more on the hearings, go to TPM Muckraker. See also Gonzales And The Profound Lie by Rick Perlstein.

---

Addendum 2:17 PM CDT
I rarely ever agree with Byron York at the Corner of NRO, but this time he has it right.

The major problem with his testimony is that Gonzales maintains, in essence, that he doesn’t know why he fired at least some of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys. When, under questioning by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, Gonzales listed the reasons for each firing, it was clear that in a number of cases, he had reconstructed the reason for the dismissal after the fact. He didn’t know why he fired them at the time, other than the action was recommended by senior Justice Department staff.

I will say I don't think this is the major problem with his testimony, it certainly sits close to the top of Gonzales' many, many problems.

---

[*]An old Texas joke.
What do you know if you are driving in the country and see a box turtle sitting on top of a fence post? Several things. You know:

• he has no purpose there,
  
• he didn't get there by himself, and
  
• he can't get down by himself.

"Box turtle" is one of the nicer things that Sen. John Cornyn has been called.

Bushies use RNC email accounts for official business

One of the more recent revelations from the House oversight hearings has been that a lot of top administration officials have been given access to Republican National Committee email accounts and use them rather than use the official government email accounts which are subject to archival rules.

...several White House aides “said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence. … ‘We knew E-mails could be subpoenaed.' said one aide.

The Think Progress article provides some examples of administration staffers using the RNC email system to avoid the possibility that Congress would subpoena the emails.

A strong indicator that decisions to use this non-government email system was mostly based on a combination of fear of the emails being subpoenaed and on pure laziness by rushed individuals is that apparently there was no consideration given to the fact that (as Kevin Drum has pointed out) this may eliminate the possibility of using the legal doctrine of Executive Privilege to keep the information in those RNC emails from being given to the Congressional oversight committees. If this were White House policy, then whoever established the policy would have had to pass it by the White House Counsel who would have considered such potential downsides.

Oh, wait. This is not a White House or an administration that "does policy," is it?

Poll: Public wants aggressive Dem investigation of Republican crimes, corruption

I hope the Comgressional Democrats read this set of polls. The public wants the criminal actions and corruption of the Bush administration investigated.

The story that investigating the Republicans will cause a blowback on the Democrats is frankly B*llsh*t. The real blowback will be on the Democrats if they don't thoroughly investigate the garbage the Republicans have been pulling for the last six years.

Use of GSA official programs to promote Republican candidates

This is a violation of the Hatch Act. Rove's deputy, Scott Jennings, had a powerpoint briefing on government property and during the work day to get GSA employees to determine what projects and procurement opportunities could by used to promote Republican candidates for House and Senate while damaging Democratic candidates for those bodies. From TPM Muckraker we get this UTube of General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan as she testifies about the meeting which she both attended and ended with an exhortation to the participants to get out and determine what GSA could do to promote "Our" [that is, "Republican"] candidates.



Since this meeting was so clearly a violation of the Hatch Act, Lurita Doan has a good reason to be afraid of giving testimony under oath to the House. The Penalties for a violation of the Hatch act is

An employee who violates the Hatch Act shall be removed from their position, and funds appropriated for the position from which removed thereafter may not be used to pay the employee or individual. However, if the Merit Systems Protection Board finds by unanimous vote that the violation does not warrant removal, a penalty of not less than 30 days' suspension without pay shall be imposed by direction of the Board.

I would speculate that Ms Doan also is afraid of what will happen to her if she testifies honestly. Karl Rove is not known to be kind to those who oppose or cross him.

The Gavel has more videos of the hearings.

[h/t to TPM.]

Rove, Cheney, Libby all committed treason by outing Plame

I agree with Juan Cole. The people who provided Valerie Plame's name and CIA affiliation to journalists like Judy Miller (and in Rove's case, confirming that information to bob Novak) meet the Constitutional definition of Treason. That is:

Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The law may not properly deal with this situation, which is why the Constitution includes the impeachment procedure.

Cheney clearly was committing treason. Bush almost certainly knew, but even if he did not, his failure to conduct a thorough investigation of who leaked Plame's name. This came out last Friday in the House Hearings. [See FDL Liveblogs the House Plame Hearings and look down to where Dr. James Knodell, Director, Office of Security, The White House testified and stated that there has been absolutely no investigation into the leaking of Plame's identity by employee Karl Rove."

This might well be what Libby was protecting Cheney from when he took the fall and was convicted.

FDL liveblogs the House Plame hearings

Again we have an FDL liveblog. So let me offer links to the various posts on FDL. Be sure to read the comments, since Cspan is carrying this and many of the commenters provide info that the livebloggers do not.

Witnesses today will be:

Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson, former employee, Central Intelligence Agency

Panel I.
Dr. James Knodell, Director, Office of Security, The White House
Mr. Bill Leonard, Director, Information Security Oversight Office, National Archives and Records Administration

Panel II.
Mr. Mark Zaid, Attorney - See background here.
Ms. Victoria Toensing, diGenova & Toensing, LLP - See background here,.

Links:

• The Non-Grand Jury materials.
  By: EmptyWheel.
  Emptywheel analyzes what we know and what is missing because the grand jury didn't investigate it for the Libby trial. Be sure you read this.
• Well that was interesting.
  
  By: Jane Hamsher.
  Commentary on the days' testimony. The single most important thing to come out according to Jane was "...from Dr. James Knodell, who — as Director of the Office of Security at the The White House — admitted that there has been absolutely no investigation into the leaking of Plame's identity by employee Karl Rove."
  
  Henry Waxman sets the scene for the Hearings by questions of Valerie Plame
• Head of CIA says Valerie Wilson was a covert officer
  By: Christie Hardin Smith
  "Gen Hayden, current head of the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent at the time that her name was published by Robert Novak."
  
  
  Valerie Plame briefly explains how badly outing her secret identity damaged American security. [Details omitted for security reasons.]
• 8. Waxman Hearing, Panel II – Part II
  By: Christie Hardin Smith
  “Zaid talks about the jeopardy involved in the exposure of a CIA agent.”
  Victoria Toensing argues that Valerie Plame was NOT covert under the Act – her expertise is that she helped write the act 25 years ago, but has no definitive information of Plame’s status from the CIA. She also wants to carefully define what a “leak” is before she will discuss whether the White House leaked the name of a covert CIA agent.
  The Congresspersons were not satisfied with Toensing’s dancing around answers to the questions she was asked, one accused her of defining the terms so narrowly that her answers could be interpreted as correct but that they were meaningless. Chairman Waxman stated that he felt some of her answers were wrong, so that he would hold the record open while they were checked against various sourced including the Libby trial record and Patrick Fitzgerald.
  
• 7. Waxman Hearing, Panel II – Part I
  By: Christie Hardin Smith
  “Panel number two is upcoming: Mark Zaid and Victoria Toensing will be giving testimony. Wondering who Mark Zaid is? Well lookee here. And Victoria Toensing? Try reading here for starters.”
  
• 6. Waxman Hearing, Panel I -- Part III
  By: Christie Hardin Smith
  Dr. James Knodell questioning is continued.
  “Rep. Waxman goes into the Woodward discussion of having extensive access to classified information when covering the WH in his books. Points out that when a critic discloses anything critical of the Administration, there is an immediate outcry from the WH. But when they disclose information, it is well within their purview to do so, according to the WH. This approach is inconsistent — and appears to be political in their approach to enforcement."
  
• 5. Waxman Hearing, Panel I -- Part II
  By: Pachacutec
  Dr. James Knodell, Director, Office of Security, The White House, is questioned.
  
• 4. Waxman Hearing, Panel I -- Part I
  By: Pachacutec
  The point is made that the White House security people did not look into the leak of Plame’s name to the press. No one did until, months later, Patrick Fitzgerald began his investigation. The fact that classified information was given to the Press was of no interest to the White House.
  
• 3. Valerie Plame Wilson, Part III
  By: Pachacutec
  “Valerie Plame Wilson: "I cannot begin to speculate on what Karl Rove's intentions were."
  “And FYI, there is a memo written by the CPD officer that contradicts the Senate Committee Report's conclusions on the mission to Niger, and Waxman will be asking for that memo.”
  “Valerie answers that she was working on investigation of Iraq WMD. Holmes Norton [asks] the effects of the outing of a covert operative. [Response] Possible death of an agent and of others connected to the agent.
  
• 2. Valerie Plame Wilson, Part II.
  By: Pachacutec
  More Valerie Plame – “Valerie, under oath: I DID NOT RECOMMEND, DID NOT SEND, DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY.”
  
• 1. Enter “The Wife.”
  By: Pachacutec
  Valerie Plame is up. “Waxman declares Valerie was covert,” which limits what can be asked.
  
• They’re scared.
  By: EmptyWheel
  Short discussion of the preparations for how both Democrats (Majority) and Republicans (Minority) are going to handle these hearings. The Republicans don’t want them to happen.
  
• Waiting For History
  By: Scarecrow.
  This is the introduction to the Hearing coverage. Essentially it is a setup for the rest of the coverage.

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.

---

[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.

---

[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.

Josh Marshall summarizes coverage of hearings on US Atty firings

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 6, 2007) both the Senate and the House held hearings on the US Attorneys who were suddenly dismissedby the Department of Justice. Paul Kiel of Talking points Memo provided a running commentary on (liveblogged) the hearings, and This is Josh Marshall's summary of the statements.

The Department of Justice has one story, and the fired U.S. Attorneys had another. Today, AG Gonzales declared that the scandal is "an overblown personnel matter."

Yeah, Right.


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