Justice Department

Does anyone in the Justice Department of the United States of America actually know anything?

I'm just asking because there would appear to be no one who can recall anything that has ever been done, even in their areas of expertise. It just seems that it would be a good idea if the people in the Justice Department had some idea, and recollection, about what they did. The administration of justice might better be served that way.

The other amazing thing about this Justice Department is what it has resource for and what it does not. For example

Things got testy when Leahy questioned Schlozman on his indictment of four voter registration workers one week before the November 2006 elections, despite a department policy that discourages politically sensitive indictments close to an election.

Schlozman testified that he brought the indictments against the employees of ACORN, a liberal community activist group that registers poor people and minorities to vote, "at the direction of the Public Integrity Section," the Justice Department unit that oversees voter-fraud prosecutions.

So in spite of a department policy against bringing indictments close to an election, they were able to find the time and resources to bring an indictment against the liberal ACORN organization.

On the other hand

Schlozman also testified that his office was too overwhelmed in the fall of 2004 to fully investigate a complaint from a U.S. attorney that Native Americans were facing voter discrimination because of a decision by Minnesota's Republican secretary of state.

Rather than giving the chief of the Voting Rights Section full authority to investigate the complaint, Schlozman limited him to contacting the office of Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer.

"Anytime we're doing anything in a pre-election situation ... we want to make sure we don't go off half-cocked," Schlozman said.

They were just too overwhelmed to fully investigate Native Americans were facing voter discrimination. Amazing how that works out, huh?

Remember Alberto

Remember Alberto Gonzales and his dreadful job explaining why the USAs were fired? Yet he is still cooking along as our Attorney General. I explained my reasons for thinking that no matter what Alberto was not going anywhere (the Bush Administration needs an absolute loyalist, too many things hidden, but they can't get one through Congress). McJoan over on Kos gives a bit broader discussion of why Alberto is not going anywhere soon.

DOJ Email Database

Over on Daily Kos one intrepid Kossack is gathering a team to create a searchable database of the DOJ US Attorney firings emails. I've put in some work and it is pretty easy, very interesting and should be quite useful. Follow the link and help out.

Just to name one interesting thing that has popped out to me in the short time I've been working on this. For all the right wing effort to push the "Clinton did it too" meme, I've had a chance to read specific emails from the Bush Administration principals who arranged the purge and what they had to say about the Clinton firings. For example, Paul McNulty had this to say, on March 04, 2007, about the difference between the Clinton firings and the Bush purge

On the issue of the Clinton USAs, we called each one and had them give us a timeframe. Most were gone by late April. In contrast, Clinton DOJ told all but a dozen in early March to be gone immediately. I would have someone run it by Margolis if were going to use this.

As I wrote here, the only striking thing about the Clinton firings was the manner (or manners) used in executing it. It was otherwise, just like every other new Administration replacing US Attorneys.

Immunity for Goodling

It appears that Monica Goodling will be granted immunity from prosecution so that she can testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Ms. Goodling, you may recall, has distinguished herself for being a) a high ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States who b) could not testify before said committee on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate her. Since then she has left the department and will likely be granted immunity tomorrow. The immunity has not yet been granted, the committee will vote on it tomorrow. So she will finally be in a position to tell us what she knows about the firing of the eight US Attorneys.

Bush's fingerprints

Read the reporting by Josh Marshall on the news coming out of Arizona. It would seem that there is growing evidence that the Attorney purge, at least Iglesias' firing was ordered by George Bush himself.

The Bush Legacy

Daniel Metcalfe, a thirty year veteran of the United States Department of Justice discusses his experience there and the impact of the Bush years, in particular the influence of Alberto Gonzales. The results are not pretty. In short he says that Gonzolas has "shattered" the long standing tradition of isolating the Department from politics. For a very brief summary, the following

Actually, I began earlier, in the first Nixon administration, as a college intern in 1971. But I was there again in the Watergate era, when I worked in part of the Attorney General's Office during my first year of law school in 1973-1974, and then continuously as a trial attorney and office director for nearly 30 years. That adds up to more than a dozen attorneys general, including Ed Meese as well as John Mitchell, and I used to think that they had politicized the department more than anyone could or should. But nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.

or the following

But the process of agency functioning, however, became dramatically different almost immediately after Gonzales arrived. No longer was emphasis placed on accomplishing something with the highest-quality product in a timely fashion; rather, it became a matter of making sure that a "consensus" was achieved, regardless of how long that might take and with little or no concern that quality would suffer in such a "lowest common denominator" environment. And heaven help anyone, career or noncareer employee, if that "consensus" did not include whatever someone in the White House might think about something, be it large, small or medium-sized.

Much more of the same can be seen throughout. This is the legacy that Bush will leave behind. What is even more tragic is the lack of appreciation for how serious this is.

Governments are created by people in order to create security and stability so that the people may, in peace, go about their daily lives. The government exists to avoid that Hobbsian state of nature, the war of all against all. A government is able to do so because the population subject to it grants it enormous power to investigate, seize property, arrest and imprison. These powers are awesome and must be controlled. If these powers are abused then the government can destroy the state of security it is created to produce. The most important control is to insure that these powers are used to enforce agreed upon laws. The worst possible abuse of these powers is if they are used solely to advance the political ambitions of one faction or another. Yet, in spite of a long standing tradition of keeping politics out of the Justice Department, the Bush Administration has with contempt for the honorable traditions of this nation ended that separation. The result is to create the worst kinds of abuses of government power. The case in Wisconsin illustrates where this may go. The American people responded in time last November. Let us hope the damage is not too great.

Goodling Resigns

Well, it is passed time for Monica Goodling to resign from the Justice Department. If a high ranking official in the department of Justice cannot answer questions from Congress in an oversight hearing for fear of admitting to criminal misconduct should be grounds for immediately resigning or being dismissed. The fact that it has taken about two weeks for her to resign is incredible, but nonetheless something of a relief.

This also suggests to me that the Bush White House is starting to crack. Not willingly or from the inside, but the outside pressures are getting to be more than they can manage. Bluster and absolute self confidence can only take you so far, yet that is all they have.

While some might expect that the resignation of Monica Goodling will foreshadow Gonzales's resignation in the near future, I am very skeptical of that. For one thing, I doubt he will leave before his Congressional testimony. I expect that the geniuses in the White House are convinced that Alberto will pull a rabbit out of his hat and overwhelm Congress, and the public, with his brilliant explanation. Airborne pork ice skating in Hell is more likely, but nonetheless that is what the White House is expecting. I also believe that the White House cannot afford to have Alberto Gonzales leave. The scandals we know of are not the whole of what they need to keep hidden. There is worse stuff still being covered up. Part of the reason for this purgegate scandal was to remove Carole Lam and halt her investigations. But while we know who was being investigated (Foggio, Lewis, etc.) we don't know exactly why, that remains confidential as it should. However, if the White House was willing to go to these lengths to cover it up, it was not something trivial like messing with the White House travel office staff. The White House needs a Bush loyalist in the AG spot, and this Congress will not approve a new one. On the other hand, within a few weeks they may not be able to afford to keep Alberto Gonzales. Then things will get interesting, very acrimonious. But the acrimony will mostly be between Republicans. It should be interesting.

A last observation on the state of the scandal and the White House. One thing that is in a sense amazing is the fact that the White House still does not have a coherent explanation for why these Attorney's were fired, no effective cover story. The purge was planned for a year or more and the scandal has been out for months, yet they are still have no real explanation as to why they were fired. Alberto Gonzales is studying and cramming furiously now to try and come up with an explanation. They really have nothing other than bluster and self-confidence. They have no ability to plan or to prepare. And they seem oblivious to the fact that given their inability to come up with an explanation, the best explanation out there is that the firings were aimed at using the Justice department to advance the interests of the Republican party. Yet another piece of news coming out of Wisconsin, and from Minnesota, indicates the kind of thing that this purge was actually intended to accomplish.

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Alberto Cramming

I direct you to Mark Kleiman, who has found a great commentary on Alberto Gonzales's preparations for his upcoming Congressional testimony. Go check it out.

Some Sanity

Well it seems that at least a few folks agree with my earlier comment regarding Monica Goodling. Our champion Democratic Senators, Pat Leahy (D-VT) Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)are asking the right questions of the Justice Department. Is Miss Goodling cooperating with the internal Justice Department investigation, in which case why would she be pleading the fifth, or refusing to cooperate, which is grounds for dismissal. It really will be interesting to see what the White House is hiding over this affair rather than just come clean weeks ago. At this point I am beginning to believe that we will get to the bottom of what has been going on.

Latest on Alberto Gonzales

The latest on the Alberto Gonzales front (from the AP via TPM) is that among the latest documents released by the White House are some that show that the AG was directly involved in the firings of the US Attorneys. Josh Marshall seems to think that this might be a 'Bye Alberto' moment. Now, in a normal administration it would be, but this is not a normal administration and I doubt this will drive him out, but it will increase the pressure on him and the White House.

The thing is, I believe, that there are many, big skeletons in numerous White House, and Justice Department, closets. I don't believe that the current administration can afford to have anyone in the position of AG who is not a solid Bush loyalist. And no one that qualifies in that regard could get Senate approval. I also don't believe that the administration could afford to leave the Justice Department to the Civil Servants. So, I conclude that the White House will try and keep Alberto and ride this out, at least for quite a while longer. What happens as this scandal continues though will be interesting.

Link to Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall March 23, 2007 09:54 PM

What Liberal Media?

This tells us something about the state of the so called "liberal" media. Now Michael Kinsley is well known as a "liberal" pundit, yet it seems that he illustrates all too well how poorly progressive and liberal ideas are being represented in the major media outlets. Too often his views are more like Republican talking points than the views of a thoughtful liberal. Today he wrote this piece in reference to the growing scandal over the firing of the United States Attorneys. Mr. Kinsley's thesis is that the scandal is overblown and much ado about nothing. To make his point he links to an earlier Washington Post editorial here explaining the scandal in order to critique the editorial and show the slender basis for the scandal. The Internet being what it is, however, I went to the trouble of reading both Mr. Kinsley's piece and the Washington Post editorial to see how well Mr. Kinsley's critique held up. The answer was not very well.

To quote Michael Kinsley at length, here is his criticism of the Washington Post editorial:

An editorial in the Washington Post last Thursday, for example, avoids disingenuousness—but only at the price of utter confusion. It dismisses the Clinton administration precedent as “a red herring, not a useful comparison,” but fails to explain why. The editorial scrupulously points out that one of the US attorneys fired by Clinton was weeks away from indicting a powerful Democratic congressman—a closer connection to a more important investigation than anything now at stake. The Post concedes that Clinton’s mass firing was “unprecedented,” and “unprecedented” is the toughest adjective the Post can bring itself to apply to the recent Bush firings, too. Then it says, “But unprecedented doesn’t equal wrong.” It acknowledges that a “president…is entitled to have..prosecutors committed to his law enforcement priorities,” and is honest enough to include concerns over issues like immigration and obscenity cases as falling in this permissible-motive category. Then it runs out of steam, notes accurately that the Bushies have been lying up a storm, says this is another reason that the Clinton episode is a bad comparison, and stops.

But the editorial actually says

The Reno precedent is a red herring, not a useful comparison. The summary way she announced the move was, indeed, unusual if not unprecedented. But a turnover in the top prosecutorial jobs with a new administration taking power -- especially one of a different party -- was not.

Which most certainly consists of an explanation as to why the comparison was a red herring, contrary to Michael Kinsley's claim. Yes, as Kinsley states, the editorial points out that one of the US Attorneys fired by Clinton was weeks from indicting a major Democratic Congressional leader, but the editorial states in full about the Reno removal of this attorney is

...consider that when he was ousted by Reno, the U.S. attorney in the District, Jay Stephens, was just weeks away from deciding whether to indict House Ways and Means Chairman Daniel Rostenkowski (D-Ill.). Inconveniently for these conspiracy theorists, Mr. Rostenkowski was in fact indicted and convicted...

Not quite what Kinsley would have you believe. Kinsley, likewise, makes much of the use of the word "unprecedented" used by the Washington Post for both the Reno and Bush firings. But the Post editorial of this week describes the manner in which Janet Reno fired US attorneys to be unprecedented, not the act (she was, apparently, rather abrupt and curt). On the other hand, the Post editorial describes the Bush firings, not the manner but the act itself, as unprecedented

The question, then, is what to make of the president's move to fire several of the prosecutors. This recent group firing, in the midst of a presidential term, is unprecedented; Mr. Bush was simply incorrect yesterday when he described it as "a customary practice by presidents."

Finally, Mr. Kinsley protests that the Post editorial did not adequately explain the growing obstruction of justice charge related to the recent firings (from Kinsley)

Cohen cuts through all this, and offers several grounds for at least suspecting that the firings were part of an illegal obstruction of justice. Read it for yourself and see if you buy it. And try to be honest: would you buy the argument if it was being applied against a Democratic president? I’m afraid I wouldn’t, absent more evidence than I believe is there.

But the limitations of an editorial format, length primarily, hardly make it possible to outline the differences between the Reno and Bush firings (at which, as I've shown above, the editorial does a fine job) and give a full and detailed account of the reasons to suspect obstruction of justice charges as well. The conclusion of the Post editorial does a decent job though of laying out the basics and giving reason to believe that there are legitimate concerns (for more detail see Talking Points Memo). Specifically

(The potential for misusing the newly bestowed interim appointment authority to evade Senate confirmation is a separate, and troubling, concern.)

Internal administration e-mails released Tuesday offer some indications of those sorts of policy-related issues, from references to "woodshedding" the U.S. attorney in San Diego, Carol C. Lam, over immigration cases to complaints about whether Paul K. Charlton in Arizona and Daniel G. Bogden in Nevada were balking at obscenity prosecutions. But there are also ample grounds for suspicion about improper motives, including the involvement of White House political aides and telephone calls from lawmakers to prosecutors about politically sensitive cases. The dishonest conduct of the Justice Department has only served to deepen suspicions, to underscore the importance of figuring out exactly what transpired here and to distinguish this situation from the Reno precedent.

In short, once again, one of our foremost "liberal" pundits demonstrates himself willing to plainly mislead and distort the writings of someone else, in order to advance Republican talking points. Do folks in the press really wonder at the growth of daily Kos, TPM and the rest.