Oh yah, now I remember

RawStory

Attorney General helped cover up Bush drunken driving conviction

Alberto Gonzales’s difficult relationship with the truth has led to calls for a special prosecutor to investigate claims that the attorney general perjured himself during Senate testimony. But as the Washington Post points out Monday, Gonzales and honesty have had a shaky relationship stretching back more than a decade.

“Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years,” report the Post’s Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein. “Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.”

Gonzales’s apparent willingness to dissemble in order to protect himself or President Bush stretches back to at least 1996, when he intervened to prevent then-Gov. Bush from serving jury duty in Texas, the Post notes. Not until its second-to-last paragraph, however, does the Post article remind readers that by not serving jury duty in the drunken driving case Bush was able to keep his own drunken driving conviction a secret for several more years.

“He’s a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally,” University of Texas public affairs professor Richard L. Schott told the Post. “He’s trying to keep the president’s secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things.”

Questions about Gonzales willingness to protect Bush in relation to the drunken driving case were first raised last year by Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. If Bush had served on the jury he would have had to reveal his own past conviction, but Gonzales convinced the defense attorney to ask that Bush be kept from the jury on the grounds that he may be called on to pardon the defendant.

I think that Congress can impeach Alberto, so lets get started.

From USAToday

Documents show that eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

It is nice to know that the top law officer in America, the one that we trust to enforce the law is a compulsive Liar, and knowingly liked to congress.

From Reuters

Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced a new firestorm on Tuesday sparked by a report he may have misled lawmakers in 2005 about civil liberty violations by the FBI.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, responded by promising that Gonzales would face tough questions about this and other matters at a hearing planned by his panel later this month.

And Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee, renewed calls for Gonzales to resign and called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to determine if he had misled Congress, “a serious crime.”

But President George W. Bush brushed off the flap about his longtime friend, who earlier served as White House counsel.

“The president has said repeatedly that he has great faith in the attorney general, and that has not changed,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Gonzales assured Congress in 2005 that the FBI had not abused powers granted under the anti-terror USA Patriot Act despite having received reports of potential violations.

I am almost starting to think that this administration sees Nixon as a play book, not a mistake. The only difference is now we have a congress to spineless to impeach. Well the cover-up over the US attorneys has gone up a noch. In the letter that the team of lawyers in the White House sent to congress telling them to shove their subpoenas up their asses they showed there cards a little. Back in March of this year Bush said, “the Justice Department made recommendations, which the White House accepted.” This was a total lie. Today in the “Screw You Congress” memo attorney Paul Clement wrote confirmed what we have all known, the White House had there grubby little hands all over the attorney purge.

ThinkProgress says it best…

In his letter, Clement reveals what investigators have suspected from the very beginning — that the White House was intimately involved in the attorney scandal. Upon examination of the White House documents, Clement writes:

Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals.

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.

The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales can not stop getting caught in his own web of lies. At this point we have an Attorney General that has such poor credibility that I would not let him testify on my behalf if I got a traffic ticket.

He testified in front of Congress that there was no one else on the list of US Attorneys to be fired other than the ones that were fired, and yet today we find out that the real list had 26 attorneys on them (From here on out known as Exhibit A-Z) . He flat out lied to Congress. Right now the United State’s top law enforcement officer is about as trustworthy as a crackhead with a $100 bill.

Reuters

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, considered firing at least 26 U.S. attorneys during the period, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with documents withheld from the public.

Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June.

This is on top of the newly released details on the clandestine operation in the dead of the night that then White House Conical Alberto Gonzales executed to try to get drugged out of his scull John Ashcroft (He was recovering from surgery) to sign off on the warrant-less wire tapping. Listen folks, uber hack John Ashcroft would not sign off on it, then you know it was bad.

This is the state of our once great nation under George Bush, we have no creditability across the globe, and now within our own boards we can not guarantee that Justice is not being used as a political tool. Man I miss America.

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

As is common place in the Bush administration Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General of the United States showed his leadership skills by throwing his Deputy Attorney General under the bus. Forget the old days where “the buck stops here” nope, not to these people,  Alberto said, “At the end of day, the recommendations reflect the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names.” Sweet, the top cop in the US will not take responsibility for the things that happened under his watch.

Want more proof that the Bush administration refused to lead, and blames others for there failures, look at the quote today from World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said the boards findings were, “unbalanced and flawed”. Boo hoo, you used your position to get your girlfriend a raise, and it is someone else’s fault you got caught.

This administration, at every level is a bunch of 7 year olds, always looking for others to blame, and never taking responsibility for failures on their watch. Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, the economy, the War on Terror, all of them a mess, all of them someone else’s fault. For the love of god don’t elect another Republican, because they were the ones that were tasked with babysitting this adminitration, and choose to look the other way.

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.

Wow, Bush does not give a shit about the rule of law.

From ThinkProgress

In a letter to the RNC, Emmet Flood, a special counsel to President Bush, “today again raised the possibility of an executive-privilege claim on e-mails and other documents from private e-mail accounts used by senior White House officials” but controlled by the RNC. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) called the request “extreme and unnecessary” and said it was “a clear attempt, on the Administration’s part, to delay this process and keep the wheels of Justice turning slowly.”

"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.