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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

PERFORMANCE... It's the defamatory LIE that he didn't meet the expected PERFORMANCE GOALS, when in fact, he was one of the most highly rated.

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ORIGINAL: puella

Please stick to the topic and stop trying to make this about me, personally.  You need to stop thinking of yourself as the definitive interpreter of is important to me, and what my personal ideals are based upon.  You do not know me well enough to make such broad statements, and thus far you have a pretty poor track record in your pronouncements.

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ORIGINAL: puella

I listed those Republicans, because they are involved in one degree or another in the situation which is currently being discussed in this topic.  If you want to discuss other issues which embroil Democrats, you might want to start a separate thread for that.  Maybe you can tuck it into the 'Clinton got a blowjob' thread, to save yourself the effort.  Unfortunately, the issue of these prosecutors being sacked and replaced has no Democratic culpability.

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ORIGINAL: puella

I never said that firing the prosecutors was illegal, but firing them for not going against their sworn oath to protect the Constitution and to uphold the concept of law being impartial and indiscriminate is unethical. 

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ORIGINAL: puella

Appointing new State's Prosecutors at the onset of a new administration is a common and understandable precident...just as understandable as the President appointing an entirely new cabinet, who also serves at his pleasure, btw.  Firing hand picked individuals who had stellar job performance ratings, is completely unprecidented... add to that that they were also linked to congressional scandal investigations within the President's own party or the lack of proceeding in an investigation of the opposite party because there was no evidence to support it is not only unprecedented, it is an abuse of power, quite possibly criminal...that will have to be determined by the Judicial Committee.

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ORIGINAL: puella

Here is an interesting entry in the Law Bog on the Wall Street Jounral.

[unnecessarily long link deleted]

To compound the issue, Senator Arlen Specter slipped in the provision under the Patriot Act (at the 11th hour when it has already been voted on) which allowed for this to happen, by releasing approval from the Senate of the Presidential appointees.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

Firm,

What do you make of the Republicans who've called for Gonzales's resignation? Presumably they're not acting on the same partisan basis as the Democrats.

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ORIGINAL: puella

Uh huh.

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The discussion we are having here is about whether Bush has a right to fire any political appointee, for any reason, at any time.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

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The discussion we are having here is about whether Bush has a right to fire any political appointee, for any reason, at any time.

No, friend, that's your effort to narrow the subject to fit in your comfort zone. The broader question is whether Bush, in exercising that right, injected partisan politics into law enforcement in a way that many folks seem to find inappropriate. There's also the question of whether the "loyal Bushies" misled Congress -- and the nation -- about why they did what they did.

I checked with the OP, and he said these are all fair game for the thread.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

Oh, Firm, you let me down. One of the things I like about you is that you usually give straight answers, but this one seems disappointingly evasive and heavy on misdirection.

Republicans' call for Gonzales' resignation (which cannot be written off as a partisan tactic) is hugely relevant, becuase it shows that they think he messed up big-time. I'd argue that that messing up had two key facets:

(1) Taking part in, or failing to resist, the partisan cherry-picking of U.S. Attorneys -- officials who, while political appointees, are broadly viewed as nonpartisan.

(2) DOJ's erroneous statements to Congress that the firings were based on performance issues, statements that have (a) eroded trust in whether we can believe what DOJ says and (b) damaged the reputations of those who were fired.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

I checked with the OP, and he said these are all fair game for the thread.

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ORIGINAL: puella

Hello Vendaval,

It is alarming.  So are all of the firings we are currently being exposed to (which is why I pointed out some of their relevant investigations).  Carol Lam is the one that really makes me nervous.  After successfully prosecuting Randy "Duke" Cunningham, she was following the trail and her investigations were pulling her towards CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and the then House Appropriations Committee Chairman, Jerry Lewis, which had huge national implications.  Since her removal, those investigations have fallen away.

So to say the 'who' of their investigations in unimportant is simply willful ignorance.  I totally agree with you that the more you scratch the surface, the uglier things get.

She did not recommend the death penalty in a 2004 murder case involving Michael and Robert Ostrander but was overruled by the Justice Department, said Phelan, who represented one of the two accused killers. They would have been eligible for the death penalty because the charges involved firearm use and drug trafficking.

"I know she was not a team player when it came to the death penalty," said Mitchell.

...

"Now that it has been widely reported that departing USAs have either failed to meet performance expectations or that they acted independently rather than following directives, the situation is so much worse," Chiara said in a Feb. 1 e-mail to McNulty.

"You know that I am in neither category."

 February 9, 2007

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has called for answers from the Department of Justice, border patrol and prison officials regarding the prosecution and imprisonment of Border Patrol Agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos.

    "As Republicans rubbed their hands in glee, the Carter Administration last week found itself trying to explain away a skein of presidential lies. In a letter to Justice Department investigators looking into the firing two weeks ago of Philadelphia's Republican U.S. Attorney, David Marston, Carter last week corrected a misstatement he had made during a nationally televised press conference on Jan. 12. Republican Congressmen saw an opportunity to duplicate last summer's damaging controversy over Bert Lance's financial peccadilloes, and to lay siege again to what was once the President's pride: his credibility."

    It was Carter's own fault. During his campaign he rashly declared,

    "All federal judges and prosecutors should be appointed strictly on the basis of merit without any consideration of political aspects or influence."

    Such appointments are traditionally made on a frankly political basis, and once Carter was ensconced in the Oval Office, that tradition was fully honored. Of the first 65 U.S. Attorneys named by the new Administration, 64 were Democrats. As House Speaker Tip O'Neill put it, "That's the way the System works." And, he might have added, the way Congressmen and Governors want it to work, no matter who is President.

...

Affidavits released last week showed that a veteran Justice Department official, Russell Baker Jr., had been notified by Marston's office as early as last Aug. 17 about an investigation involving Eilberg, a powerful House Judiciary subcommittee chairman. Eilberg's Philadelphia law firm had received a handsome $500,000 in legal fees while helping to obtain federal financing for a new hospital in the city. Also involved in the project and the investigation into it was another prominent Pennsylvania Democrat, Congressman Daniel Flood. It was revealed last week that a former Flood aide, after being granted immunity from further prosecution, accused the Congressman of trading his influence for $100,000 in cash and bank stock.

Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.

As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we'd suggest she call herself as the first witness--and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.

As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.

Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.

Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons.

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The real question concerns the other eighty-five U.S. attorneys who are still there. What kind of political vendettas have they engaged in, in exchange for keeping their jobs?

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ORIGINAL: farglebargle

Today, Robert Reich opined:

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The real question concerns the other eighty-five U.S. attorneys who are still there. What kind of political vendettas have they engaged in, in exchange for keeping their jobs?