Nothing on the MSM sites yet, but the Congress wants more info on the wiretapping Americans illegally thing. Thank god George hired almost a dozen new lawyers in the last 3 weeks.  Guys, it is about to get good in Washington, because Bush thinks he is king, and Congress is nothing…

If the office of the Vice President is not “entirely within the executive branch” and where the hell is it? this is got to be one of the finest examples of “F*ck the Constitution” ever to come from the mouth of such a hateful, sickening, “elected official”.

from Congressman Waxman’s Committee of oversight and Government website

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President’s position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President’s staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President’s executive order.

In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: “I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. … [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials.”

A fact sheet prepared by Chairman Waxman describes other instances in which the Vice President’s office has sought to avoid oversight and accountability.

Salon.com has an interesting story about the failure of the attempts by the neoconservatives to establish a unitary executive. The story is definitely worth a read. One of the most interesting parts of the story is the following…

in its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, “not everything we’ve done has been illegal.” He adds, “not everything has been ultra veres” — a legal term referring to actions beyond the wall.

I do not think that it’s unfair to assume that with a quote, “not everything we’ve done has been illegal” but some of the things you’ve done were clearly illegal.

Waxman is getting to the quick, White House starting to feel the pain. Bush is violating the Presidential Records act.

The findings so far

• The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.
• White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.
• There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.
• There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.

If you think things are getting hot in Washington, you have not seen anything yet. Remember that Bush as hired 9 new lawyers in the last 10 days, and now it is time to them working.

From US NEWS

US lawmakers Wednesday ordered two former top aides to President George W Bush to testify in an inquiry into the firings of eight federal prosecutors, which majority Democrats allege were politically motivated.

The subpoenas against Bush’s former chief legal adviser Harriet Miers and former White House director of political affairs Sara Taylor step up a confrontation between Congress and Bush over the administration’s running of the Justice Department.

Democrats, who won control of Congress in November elections, charge that Republican operatives at the White House, including Bush’s top political strategist Karl Rove, were involved in the process of forcing out the eight US attorneys last year.

Bush has offered to let top White House aides answer lawmakers’ questions behind closed doors, but Democrats have pressed for public hearings in Congress. A subpoena orders a witness to testify or face legal penalties.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is seeking Taylor’s testimony, also demanded additional documents from the White House on the prosecutor firings. Miers was subpoenaed by the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee.

I always tell you that the real news comes of Friday, especially in the afternoon. Today a little peek into the White House hit their site. George Bush has started to lawyer up for something, bring NINE new lawyers into the White House…

Here are the viatals taken right from the White House website (bolds are mine)

” The President has named J. Michael Farren to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President. Mr. Farren recently served as Corporate Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Xerox Corporation… ”

” The President has named William Burck to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Special Counsel to the President. Mr. Burck recently served as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice…”

” The President has named Emmet Flood to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Special Counsel to the President. Mr. Flood recently was a Partner at Williams & Connolly, LLP… ”

” The President has named Scott Coffina to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Coffina recently served as a Partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads in Philadelphia…”

” The President has named Amy F. Dunathan to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Dunathan recently served as an Associate at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP…”

” The President has named Francis Q. Hoang to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Hoang recently served as an Associate at Williams & Connolly LLP…”

” The President has named Al Lambert to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Lambert recently served as an Associate at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP…”

” The President has named Michael Purpura to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Purpura recently served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice…”

” The President has named Kate Todd to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Todd recently served as a Partner at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP…”

From Mirron on America

A new report reveals that Dick Cheney, through his attorney, ordered the Secret Service not to keep logs of who visited his residence, and to purge any logs that they had. This would be a violation of the Presidential Records Act,which requires that records, such as visitor logs, be maintained, for both the President and VP. This comes after his involvement in the Valerie Plame fiasco.

I kid you not, this looks like a plot from “The West Wing” or even “24″ but this is the real White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, and the real Counsel to the “President”, Alberto Gonzales, having a clandestine crusade in the dead of night to get the hospitalized Attorney General, John Ashcroft to signoff on Bush’s plan to Spy on Americans without a warrant. This is how sick they are…

From the NY TIMES

Mr. Comey said that on the evening of March 10, 2004, Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, tried to bypass him by secretly visiting Mr. Ashcroft. Mr. Ashcroft was extremely ill and disoriented, Mr. Comey said, and his wife had forbidden any visitors.

Mr. Comey said that when a top aide to Mr. Ashcroft alerted him about the pending visit, he ordered his driver to rush him to George Washington University Hospital with emergency lights flashing and a siren blaring, to intercept the pair. They were seeking his signature because authority for the program was to expire the next day.

Mr. Comey said he phoned Mr. Mueller, who agreed to meet him at the hospital. Once there, Mr. Comey said he “literally ran up the stairs.” At his request, Mr. Mueller ordered the F.B.I. agents on Mr. Ashcroft’s security detail not to evict Mr. Comey from the room if Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card objected to his presence.

Mr. Comey said he arrived first in the darkened room, in time to brief Mr. Ashcroft, who he said seemed barely conscious. Before Mr. Ashcroft became ill, Mr. Comey said the two men had talked and agreed that the program should not be renewed.

When the White House officials appeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why they were there. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong and unequivocal terms, refused to approve the eavesdropping program.

“I was angry,” Mr. Comey told the committee. “ I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card quickly departed, but Mr. Comey said he soon got an angry phone call from Mr. Card, demanding that he come to the White House. Mr. Comey said he replied: “After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.”

You can see the whole thing as it sat on A13 of the Washington Post

TocqueDeville over at DailyKOS has a great post

Once the press get’s it’s narrative, it’s almost impossible to change it. The narrative on the firing of eight US attorneys? Politics, of course. “And that’s just wrong. Not a crime mind you. But wrong.” Even many on the left are a bit speechless when asked what the crime is here. Bill Maher’s eyes glazed over when promted.

Here’s the freakin crime:

18 U.S.C. § 1512 c. which states:

(c) Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

It is simply incredible to me that months have passed over this scandal and the talking heads, the Democratic leadership, and many in the blogosphere have failed to clearly stake out this relatively simple case.

Kyle Sampson’s email proves intent:

McClatchy:

In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel’s office to call him regarding “the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam,” who then the U.S. attorney for southern California. Earlier that morning, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam’s corruption investigation of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., had expanded to include another California Republican, Rep Jerry Lewis.

Readers, He has a lot more, this is just the start, go over and read, learn, and then get outraged.

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned. That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave."

Well leave it to Bush to make sure that every aspect of our once great nation is taken down to the level of shit he sit at. Bush was involved in the whole mess, he had a phone chat with the Republican Senator Pete Domenici himself…

From the ABQJournal (bolds are mine)

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.

Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.

The senior senator from New Mexico had listened to criticism of Iglesias going back to 2003 from sources ranging from law enforcement officials to Republican Party activists.

Domenici, who submitted Iglesias' name for the job and guided him through the confirmation process in 2001, had tried at various times to get more white-collar crime help for the U.S. Attorney's Office— even if Iglesias didn't want it.
At one point, the six-term Republican senator tried to get Iglesias moved to a Justice Department post in Washington, D.C., but Iglesias told Justice officials he wasn't interested.

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.
Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.

The Journal confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici. The senator's office declined comment.

It is Friday, so that can only mean one thing, it is time for the next Document dump from the Dept of Justice, and we start with a real good one. The White House was not only a part of the AG's getting canned, they also have been all over getting the story out of the news.

From Salon.com by Tim Grieve

New prosecutor purge documents just released by the House Judiciary Committee provide more reason to believe that the White House was involved not just in the decision to fire federal prosecutors last year but in the way it was spun to Congress.

On March 6, 2007, several of the ousted U.S. attorneys testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. One day before that meeting, Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos e-mailed Dan Bartlett and Cathie Martin to provide her advice on how the administration should "muddy the coverage up a bit" by switching the discussion from the reasons for why the prosecutors were fired to the way in which they were informed.

Bartlett holds the title of White House counselor. Martin was a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney before becoming a communications assistant for the president. It's not clear to us yet whether Bartlett or Martin responded to Scolinos' e-mail message, but here's the advice she provided them:

"In preparation for tomorrow's hearing where six of the dismissed U.S. attorneys will be testifying, we have drafted some talking points that we were going to insert into Will Moschella's testimony (the DOJ witness) that get out the message that although we stand by the decision to remove these folks the process by which they were informed was not optimal. Right now the coverage will be dominated by how qualified these folks were and their theories for their dismissals. We are trying to muddy the coverage up a bit by trying to put the focus on the process in which they were told — I suspect we are going to get to the point where DOJ has to say this anyway. First, it is true. Second, we are having morale problems with our other U.S. attorneys who understand the decision but think that these folks were not treated well in the process. I think from an internal management perspective it needs to be said. We are also discussing internally if we can/should release more information about why these folks were let go if we can address the privacy act aspects. I think it cuts both ways — it does prolong the story in a sense because I suspect that the U.S. Attorneys will just go away at some point when they feel they have vindicated their reputations. On the other hand, I don't know if the Senate Dems will let this go until it is all out in the open. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks."

So no real shock here, the most secretive White House since Nixon has told the congress that is not going to cooperate with the investigation into the AG purge. It has also signaling that it is not going to turn over the emails that were sent about the AG purge on non-White House email systems (Systems used by the White House, and owned by the RNC).

From Politico.com

White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter today, told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.

Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings. Roughly 50 White House officials, including 22 current aides, used e-mail accounts controlled by the RNC to send messages, including some related to the prosecutor firings, and Conyers asked RNC Chairman Mike Duncan to turn over those records today.

Fielding also said that "it was and remains our intention to collect e-mails and documents from those [RNC-controlled] accounts as well as the official White House e-mail and document retention systems" as part of a broader deal with the two committees on staffer testimony.

As you may or may not know the White House under the direction of Karl Rove decided to use a secret e-mail account (gwb42.com) in order to get around various laws such as the Presidential Records Act and the Hatch Act. Using an e-mail server owned by the Republican National Committee White House officials said possible illegal e-mails to circumvent the law. Last week or so Congress sent a letter to the RNC telling them to make sure they keep records of the e-mails because there is some curiosity from Congress as to what is so important that it's worth breaking the law.

Well today the White House said it mishandled the use of these accounts and is doing its best to make this clearly illegal act go away. They have rolled out their lackey to start creating the smoke and mirrors, that will hopefully make this issue go away. I was thinking about it, the Bush administration has a lawyer that will vouch for anything, look no further than the current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who was happy to write a memo saying that torture was A-OK. Is the White House really full of such incompetent ambulance chasers? checkout the comments of the current White House legal talking head, Stanzel.

From the AP

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Democrats also have been asking if White House officials are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via nongovernmental accounts to get around a law requiring preservation - and eventual disclosure - of presidential records. The announcement of the lost e-mails - a rare admission of error from the Bush White House at a delicate time for the administration's relations with Democratically controlled Capitol Hill - gave new fodder for inquiry on this front.

"This sounds like the administration's version of the dog ate my homework," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information."

The Republican National Committee set up the accounts for about 20 Bush aides, such as Karl Rove and his deputies, who get involved in politics, spokesman Scott Stanzel said. Having the GOP create non-White House addresses and provide separate BlackBerries, laptops and other communications gear was designed to avoid running afoul of Hatch Act rules barring federal employees from engaging in political activities with government resources or on government time, he said.

Under President Clinton, White House aides used separate equipment for political spadework but did not have separate accounts.