The Democrat's Witch Hunt

[IBinFarteen]

Another chapter: Your tax dollars at work


Dems: More lawyers needed for Bush probes

House Democrats are set tomorrow to bring in private sector lawyers -- at a cost of up to $225,000 over the next nine months -- to help committee staff investigate the Bush administration.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, has drawn up a contract with Washington law firm Arnold & Porter for help in his investigation of the firing of eight federal prosecutors last year, according to an unsigned copy of the contract obtained by The Washington Times.
The contract specifies that Arnold & Porter will subcontract with another firm, Deloitte & Touche, to "assist Democratic members of the Committee on the Judiciary with issues related to the termination of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration, possible misrepresentations to Congress, interfering with investigations and matter related thereto."
The House Judiciary Committee already has as many as 30 paid staff positions, not including staff of subcommittees, aides said.
The committee's contract is for a sum "not to exceed $25,000 per month, plus authorized traveling expenses," and is set to expire Dec. 31, 2007.
The contract specifies that Irvin B. Nathan, a partner at Arnold & Porter, will be "principally responsible" for the contract.
The contract also specifies that two Deloitte & Touche employees -- Michael Zeldin, a former independent special prosecutor in the early 1990s, and David K. Gilles, a former Treasury Department official -- will become part of the House investigation.
Republicans denounced the move as "scandal-mongering."
"It doesn't take a quarter-million dollars and an army of lawyers to conclude that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, unless you're a Democrat with a political dog-and-pony show to produce," said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
"If the goal is to distract from the fact that Democrats have no long-term agenda, they're going to need an outside PR firm, not lawyers," Mr. Kennedy said.
Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, Illinois Democrat, defended Mr. Conyers' decision.
"He has said to the White House, 'We want the truth. Help us,'" said Mr. Emmanuel, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus. "Our goal here is to get to the truth, and every day is a new day when it comes to the White House and their story."

Read the rest at the source (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070327-084636-1021r.htm).

[IBinFarteen]

House Hearings to Challenge Presidential Pardons, Privilege

Preparing for showdowns with the White House, Democrats are pushing House judiciary hearings on presidential pardons and executive privilege.

The hearings -- by the Commercial and Administrative Law, and Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittees -- were scheduled late last week after President Bush challenged the ability of Congress to subpoena members of his administration.

But Democrats abruptly postponed the hearing on pardons Wednesday. And one committee Republican pointedly suggested the change resulted from Democratic concerns that Republicans, looking to change the focus of the hearing, would direct many of their questions to the impeachment of president Bill Clinton.

During the hearings, Democrats had been expected to challenge the scope of presidential pardons and executive privilege as it relates to testimony of administration officials before Congress.

The White House is an unquestioned premier soapbox. So congressional Democrats are using the tools of their majority to confront the administration over the war in Iraq and the eight fired U.S. attorneys.

"With Scooter Libby's recent conviction and the ongoing U.S. attorney scandal that has revealed a severe lack of accountability in the executive branch, we found these issues were relevant and necessary to investigate," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said in a statement. He was referring to Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, who was found guilty of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity.

"Before there is talk of a presidential pardon for Scooter Libby or further attack on constitutional checks and balances of this nation, we need to be aware of the historical context and future precedence that these issues affect," Conyers said.

The majority party approves the invitations to testify. So the witness lists for both hearings are packed with prominent Democrats, including aides to former president Clinton who are expected to rebut Bush claims that the White House retains the absolute right to refuse testimony before Congress.

Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta, will appear before the second subcommittee hearing, entitled "Ensuring Executive Branch Accountability," to discuss the scope of congressional subpoenas. He'll be joined by Beth Nolan, who was legal counsel in the Clinton White House, and Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was chief counsel on the Church Committee in the 1970s that exposed widespread surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Administration.

Roger C. Adams, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who served as the pardon attorney under Clinton, had been invited to testify Thursday along with Allan Lichtman, an American University history professor who has written on the presidency.

More here (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3334.html).

[Bronkowitz]

Do we get to wear costumes, shout 'trick or treat', and get candy on today's witch hunt? I can't wait for tomorrow's!

[Alli]

I sent all of my federal reps a sharply worded e-mail regarding this. Noting that Iraq is still effed up, Illegal aliens are living in my back yard, and our deficit is still there. Not to mention the Iran/Brit fiasco.

Crap, I forgot to mention Health care and social security

[IBinFarteen]

Do we get to wear costumes, shout 'trick or treat', and get candy on today's witch hunt? I can't wait for tomorrow's!

I'm not making this stuff up, unfortunately.

[Bronkowitz]

Witch hunt, my ass. People get their panties in a wad waaaaaay too easily anymore. This type of shit has been going on since the dawn of man. Hell, a century and a half ago, one US Senator used a cane to beat another US Senator to the point of unconsciousness on the floor of the Senate. Yet we bemoan how uncivilized these lawyery witch hunts are. Witch hunt this and witch hunt that. My, my, we've never been so persecuted before. Woe is us! :rolleyes:

[Mars S]

this is nonsense, but I'm thinking it is such a grandiose political miscalculation that its going to cost the dems in the next election.
Of course, the republicans are also acting like a 'brokedick dog'. The electorate may be disgusted with both sides.
"Hold your nose and vote"...
sheeesh

[IBinFarteen]

THE HEARINGS ABOUT NOTHING CONTINUE

The plot thickens in the U.S. Attorney firing non-scandal. Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff says the Attorney General was involved in the firings, contradicting his boss. Who cares, right? Bored Democrats with no agenda, that's who. And they show no signs of letting up. Once again, the Democrats are looking for somebody's head in the administration...and that somebody is Alberto Gonzales. Get a nice resignation here and victory will be declared. Then it's off to get the leftist pro-Democrat media to bite on another non-scandal.

Yesterday Kyle Sampson, the AG's former chief of staff said he discussed the firings with his boss on two occasions. Gonzales said at a press conference 17 days ago that he was not involved in the firings. Gotcha! The attorney general is obviously a liar that must be fired. New York Senator Chuck Schumer said Gonzales' credibility has been shattered. But remember, Democrats only worry about credibility when they're talking about Republicans. Fellow Democrats don't count. Just ask Bill Clinton or Congressman William "Cold Cash" Jefferson.

But a little further down in the coverage of Sampson's testimony yesterday is this little nugget: "To my knowledge, no US attorney was asked to resign for the purpose of influencing a particular case for a particular reason." In other words, there's nothing to the Democrats' allegations and never was. Is this witch hunt what people voted for in the last election? Somebody down at the DNC thinks so.

Oh..and did you know President Bush was going to fire all 93 U.S. Attorneys, just as his predecessor had done? He only decided to fire eight. An inconsequential fact.

Source (http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html)

[IBinFarteen]

this is nonsense, but I'm thinking it is such a grandiose political miscalculation that its going to cost the dems in the next election.
Of course, the republicans are also acting like a 'brokedick dog'. The electorate may be disgusted with both sides.
"Hold your nose and vote"...
sheeesh

Seems I say that every time I vote.

[Mystery]

I'm constant amazed that people object to those who want to root out the corruption going on in Washington. I don't really care which side is investigating, or what they are investigating. At the very worst, investigations keep politicians from passing worthless (and in some cases immoral) laws. At best these kinds of investigations lead to the resignations of some really corrupt people. Transparency is always good when applied to government.

[Alli]

I'm all for corruption being rooted out. I'm against ridiculous staged political fodder like this though.
There has been evidence on several of the 8 that were doing a poor job. One was investigating DEMOCRAT voter fraud.
It is not against the law to dismiss attorneys for political reasons. If there is concrete PROOF of fraud (which I'm sure would have surfaced by now) then you have a righteous investigation.
That's why they wantd subpoenas. They have no hard evidence, so want to try to get someone to stumble on their words, and have another Libby trial.

[IBinFarteen]

House Dems to Question DoJ Officials in Private

The House Judiciary Committee has worked out an agreement to have transcribed interviews with at least eight current and former employees of the Justice Department behind closed doors. The committee said that the deal followed a series of phone and written negotiations.

The first interview will be today with Michael Elston, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's chief of staff. Following will be interviews with McNulty, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis; the former director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys Michael Battle; Monica Goodling, the DOJ's liaison to the White House (now on leave); acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer; and Assistant Attorney General William Moschella. Goodling, of course, has already said that she'd plead the Fifth. Congressional interviews are typically not under oath, but false statements are prosecutable (just ask David Safavian and Steven Griles).

Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and the other leaders have agreed that "investigators would keep the content of the interviews confidential pending consultation with Department officials." It's not clear when or if such a release might come, or if the interviews will be followed by open hearings.

Source (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/)

[IBinFarteen]

Don't forget the tackle box

WASHINGTON -- If the latest Democratic subpoena threats in the White House firing of eight U.S. attorneys sounds like a fishing expedition in search of wrongdoing, that's because it is.

It isn't clear whether anything in this story is illegal or unethical. But ever since the firings were first reported, amidst complaints by the dismissed U.S. attorneys that they were sacked for political reasons, the tone and tenor of the investigation and the ongoing hearings seems to have concluded that something criminal has happened here.

That remains to be seen, but so far no one has proven that replacing a few attorneys (most of whom had completed their terms) with some fresh blood violated any law.

Traditionally, whenever Congress investigates the executive branch, it calls the agency heads in to testify, as well as other officials and experts, following a committee staff review of the facts. In this case, the House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats began by authorizing subpoenas of President Bush's top advisers, political strategist Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

That the rarely used subpoena powers were invoked at the beginning, before anyone knew anything beyond what they read in the papers, sent a clear signal that the Democrats smelled blood in the water and they were declaring all-out war to uncover a hoped-for scandal to further wound the Bush administration in its final two years.

But what really has occurred here of such magnitude to suggest that it was wrong to dismiss any U.S. attorneys, for whatever reason, who after all, traditionally serve at the pleasure of the president?

The hyperbolic stories that have been written about this in the national news media have reported a number of things that to the uninitiated sound like they were illegal or wrong -- when they were neither. Let's take them one at a time.

-- That this is an extraordinary number of dismissals that rarely occur in the final two years of an administration:

There are a total of 94 U.S. attorneys and getting rid of eight of them is hardly a large number. Traditionally, the incoming administration replaces most or all of the U.S. attorneys with their own selections -- usually from their own party, but not always. Replacements have occurred from time to time in previous administrations throughout their term of office.

-- That the dismissals were secretly hatched in the White House: Well, of course, policy and management decisions are set forth in the White House, including the decisions on who the U.S. attorneys should be. Some of the stories, quoting from e-mails that mention the White House role in the firings, sound conspiratorial when that is the way the chain of command is supposed to work.

The White House isn't denying that it sought these dismissals for what it deems proper and acceptable reasons.

-- That the U.S. attorneys were fired and their replacements picked solely for political reasons:

But the selection of U.S. attorneys is inherently political and the process in choosing them is based in large part on, well, politics, such as will they pursue the administration's law-enforcement agenda. Each incoming president gets rid of the previous administration's attorneys and puts in its own people, as it does throughout the government.

Source (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DonaldLambro/2007/04/02/dont_forget_the_tackle_box)

[IBinFarteen]

Dems Strong On Defense: Just Not For Us

According to the Washington Post, while America is struggling with two difficult wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the war on terror, the Democrats are planning to broaden the front by increasing their attacks ... on Bush. And they intend to do it in ways that will weaken America's ability to fight terrorism anywhere it is found.


Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.

The Blame America First crowd apparently now sees it's mandate as undermining America's ability to fight terrorism. The liberals at the head of the party will fight to give rights they don't have or deserve to non-citizen terrorists at the very same time they connive to cut off funds for our own troops in the field.


"I suppose there's always a risk of going too far," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), "but the risk of not going is far greater."

You think so, Hoyer? Just wait. Too liberal and inside the beltway Democrats have a rude awakening in their future. If they succeed in undermining this country the way they would like, after we get hit again, it is the Democrat Party that will have blood on its hands.

Today's Democrat Party is a complete disgrace. They are un-American, unpatriotic and pro-terrorist. Given this strategy they will freeze themselves out of the White House in 2008 and possibly the Congress, too.


Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a "political price" at the polls: "If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react."

Let the most liberal of their party bring it on. They will end up being exposed for the traitors they are. No majority of Americans voted for these actions in the last election. Come 2008, America will turn out these feckless jerks. They are not prepared to govern America during a time of war.


"It's going to be like the government shutdowns" of 1995 and 1996, predicted Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). "The Democrats' honeymoon is fixing to end. It's going to explode like an IED."

That would slow their momentum as they challenge Bush on the territory he has made his political fortune on: terrorism. But Democrats are undaunted in their demands to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. They also want to reopen last year's law creating military commissions to restore the right of habeas corpus to terrorism suspects and to revise rules that allow convictions to be based in part on evidence yielded by interrogation methods that critics call torture.
Torture my ass. You want to see torture? Just watch these idiots squirm as the returns come in in November 08.

Source (http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/)

[IBinFarteen]

Democrats: The Conflict of Interest Party

Senator Schumer having delusions of grandeur:


“The purpose of today’s hearing is not to find a smoking gun,” said Schumer at the Judiciary Committee hearing. “The purpose is to build a factual base and to continue to figure out what went on. The purpose is not gotcha. The purpose is, as they said in Dragnet, just the facts, ma’am.”

Of course the purpose is gotcha. Too bad there is no there, there. And too bad nobody is fooled:


But Schumer’s emphasis on gathering information while television cameras and reporters for the nation’s largest newspapers were present shows that managing publicity has become as much a part of congressional investigation as gathering facts. Because he is also chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer’s media focus has opened him to criticism that he is seeking political gain from the controversy.

Flogging a dead horse takes a cooperative media:


Schumer and fellow Democrats have worked to keep the U.S. attorneys’ controversy in the news. On Friday, Schumer sent a public letter to Gonzales demanding that the attorney general clear Iglesias’s name. On Sunday, Schumer talked about the larger controversy on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Also on Sunday, Leahy appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to discuss his panel’s investigation. Leahy also recently sent a public letter to Gonzales “asking the Department of Justice to establish appropriate safeguards to avoid potential conflicts of interest as the Judiciary Committee continues its ongoing investigation into the dismissals and replacements of several U.S. attorneys,” according to a press release advertising the letter.

If there was no cooperation by the media, there would be no story. Even a preening Schumer can do the math. Clinton fired the same amount of prosecutors nine times over. There was no investigation then, and no call for one in the press. The Constitution is the ultimate victim here. Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President. Period.

Someone turn off the cameras, and watch, Schumer will just go home.

Does anyone else see a glaring conflict of interest with Schumer’s leadership on this issue? It’s at least as large as the one that forced Feinstein to step down from the committee that enriched her family.

As far as democrats are concerned the only interest they have in justice or national security or defense is a conflict of interest.

By Kathy (http://hangrightpolitics.com/)

[IBinFarteen]

Waxman Requests RNC Emails

The House's chief sleuth, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), continues to press the administration and the Republican National Committee.

Today, in a letter to the RNC's chairman, he asked for emails "that relate to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes."

It's just the latest move in Waxman's investigation into the use of RNC email addresses by White House personnel, a practice that some charge violates the Presidential Records Act. Last week, Waxman asked the RNC not to destroy any such emails and asked White House counsel Fred Fielding what the administration's email policies were.

Today, Waxman's letter seeks any communications by White House personnel concerning political presentations at government agencies. A hearing last week revealed that Karl Rove's deputy Scott Jennings had given a PowerPoint presentation on Republican political prospects at the General Services Administration. He organized the briefing using a gwb43.com address -- the domain belongs to the RNC. Jennings used the same address when corresponding with Justice Department official Kyle Sampson about the U.S. attorney firings.

Waxman wants to know where else Jennings or others' in Rove's office gave such presentations -- a potential violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for political ends -- and wants any emails that might be related.

Source (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/)

[Cypher]

hehehe....these clowns are so fucking busted it's pathetic.

Problem is, I doubt that most of the Democrats would have done anything much differently.

[IBinFarteen]

hehehe....these clowns are so fucking busted it's pathetic.

Problem is, I doubt that most of the Democrats would have done anything much differently.

"would have done?" more like, "are doing."

[IBinFarteen]

Probe Targets GSA Chief

Another federal investigation is targeting a Bush administration official, this time for possibly using government resources for partisan political purposes.

The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy.

Doan's agency spends over $56 billion a year on paper clips, office space, car fleets and other necessities for federal agencies.

In January, Doan attended a meeting at which senior White House political aide W. Scott Jennings briefed Doan, a White House appointee, and other officials at a GSA facility on Republican plans to win seats in Congress.

After the presentation, according to some witnesses contacted by congressional investigators, Doan encouraged other attendees to find ways GSA could help "our candidates" in the 2008 election. Doan has told Congress she doesn't recall making the statement, and other witnesses interviewed by congressional investigators are said to have backed her up.

Doan has also faced scrutiny from Congress and her agency's own internal watchdog on unrelated matters, including concerns over a GSA service order involving a company connected to one of Doan's friends.

But Doan may not have been the only top official to host a White House political official at her agency. The White House political office has been giving presentations similar to the one at GSA since at least 2002, briefing officials throughout the government on Republican campaign information, according to a recent book by two Los Angeles Times reporters.

"[White House political adviser Karl] Rove and [former Bush campaign chief and one-time Republican National Committee head Ken] Mehlman ventured to nearly every cabinet agency to share key polling data" leading up to the 2002 midterm elections, wrote Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten in their book, "One Party Country," "and to deliver a reminder of White House priorities, including the need for the president's allies to win in the next election."

While previous administrations had sent officials to cabinet agencies, the duo wrote, "Such intense regular communication from the political office had never occurred before."

Some believe those meetings are cause for further investigation by Congress and the Office of Special Counsel. "They should be looking at whether this particular meeting is part of a larger pattern and practice of violating the Hatch Act," said Melanie Sloan, director of the left-leaning government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The Hatch Act prohibits government resources – including employees' time or space in a government building – from being used for partisan politics.

Congressional Democrats are on the Doan case. House Oversight and Government Reform Commmittee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., last week grilled the GSA chief and asked the White House for information on whether the January GSA presentation has been given at other government agencies.

On Wednesday, his office asked the Republican National Committee to turn over any e-mails in its possession relating to such briefings.

In a statement e-mailed to ABC News, a GSA spokeswoman said that Doan was "fully complying" with the OSC probe, and that the organization could not comment further on an open investigation. An OSC official confirmed that the probe was begun before Waxman's hearing last week. - Comment: Uh-huh...Suuure it was.

Source (http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/)

[IBinFarteen]

Waxman to Rice: The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

Here's (http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070409102522.pdf) the latest instance of what is becoming a flourishing genre in the new Congress: the spurned chairman letter. It comes when oversight efforts are met with deafening silence from the administration.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice such a letter (pdf) today. Last month, Waxman wrote Rice, inviting her to an April 18 hearing on the Niger forgeries and the infamous sixteen words, and asking a list of questions about what she knew about the documents and how they got into the State of the Union address. What he got in return was a mostly irrelevant letter from one of Rice's subordinates forwarding previous correspondence that answered none of his questions. He's not happy and is pressing again for answers.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) delivered one of the classics of the genre last week, berating Alberto Gonzales for his silence in response to repeated requests for information over the past several months.

The administration's strategy, if indeed it is one, seems short-sighted. It's worked for the past six years. But the Dems are in charge now -- and anger and subpoena-power is a dangerous mix.

Source (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/)

[IBinFarteen]

Waxman Takes Center Stage as Chief Investigator

The diminutive Henry A. Waxman is a towering figure on Capitol Hill these days.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the veteran Democratic congressman from California has broad jurisdiction and sweeping subpoena power over a wide spectrum of the federal government -- and corporate America, too.

He's a reformer, an advocate, a showman. And "he understands the investigative process," said Norm Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Since claiming the committee gavel in the new Democratic-controlled Congress, Waxman has opened investigations into potential Hatch Act violations by political appointees at the General Services Administration, requested all the e-mails on the Republican National Committee servers written by White House staff members and reviewed contracting in Iraq, among other hot spots.

Along the way, he has commanded an A-list of witnesses who not only help him ferret out information but also invariably guarantee a stream of headlines.

It was a full house, for instance, in his committee room when Valerie Plame, the former clandestine CIA operative-turned-public celebrity, made her congressional debut last month.

Backed by subpoena power, though he has yet to use it, Waxman has sought to question Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top White House political adviser Karl Rove, among other administration officials.

Republicans, now in the minority, are necessarily leery of Waxman. And already, GOP aides have begun circulating opposition research on him, trying to paint him as an overzealous liberal whose investigations are little more than a partisan scheme.

Waxman, who has been traveling over the congressional spring break, has been unavailable for an interview.

Over the years, he worked closely with Rep. Tom Davis when the Virginia Republican was the committee's chairman. And Davis, now the committee's ranking member, has refrained from publicly criticizing Waxman since Democrats took power.

"At the end of the day, Chairman Waxman will be judged on whether he has made government better," said Davis spokesman David Marin. "The overriding question will be: Is this about making government more effective, or is this about embarrassing the administration?"

Nonetheless, in the evolving showdown between President Bush and congressional Democrats over a range of pressing issues, from the war in Iraq to the controversial sacking of eight U.S. attorneys, Waxman is a powerful weapon in the majority's arsenal, if only because of his committee's ability to force members of an administration, stoked in secrecy, to answer questions at a nationally televised hearing.

"There was a tremendous need for oversight," said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who goes back with Waxman to their days as members of the Young Democrats at UCLA in the late 1950s and early 1960s. "He is just the guy to do it."

Read the rest here (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3471.html).

[IBinFarteen]

Republican who probed Clinton White House hits at Democrats for House investigations

A Republican congressman who issued a large number of subpoenas for Clinton administration officials in the 1990s has joined fellow Republicans in criticizing Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman for alleged overuse of subpoena authority, according to a story in today's edition of Roll Call.

A former Clinton administration attorney fired back that the congressman, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), was employing a double standard.

Burton chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the 1990s and became famous for issuing a wide variety of subpoenas to Clinton White House staff and other executive branch officials. In a report on the oversight activities conducted to date in the 110th Congress, Burton joined other House Republicans to warn Democrats not to "abuse" their authority.

"The minority is concerned the majority may abuse the deposition authority provided to this committee under the 110th House Rules. The minority also is concerned with the majority's practice of threatening subpoenas to witnesses unless they ‘agree’ to transcribed interviews," warned Burton, along with other Congressmembers.

But Lanny Davis, the White House special counsel who responded to Burton's subpoenas on campaign finances and other matters while serving under Clinton, compared the situation to a late night TV show comedy sketch.

"That is so funny in its obvious double standard that it has got to be Dan Burton’s idea for a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit," Davis told Roll Call's Paul Singer, adding that Burton's chairmanship of the committee had been "the ultimate example of partisan political use of the subpoena power with no obvious legislative intent."

However, Davis did advise caution to the House Democrats.

"We complained about Burton’s use of the subpoena power in the 1990s and need to show restraint and not use the same clearly partisan tactics," he argued.

Source (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Republican_who_probed_Clinton_White_House_0410.htm l)

[IBinFarteen]

Leahy doubts Bush aides on lost e-mails

WASHINGTON --President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy suggested Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said there is no effort to keep the e-mails under wraps, and that the counsel's office is doing everything it can to find any that were lost.

"The purpose of our review is to make every reasonable effort to recover potentially lost e-mails, and that is why we've been in contact with forensic experts," he said.

Leahy scoffed.

"I've got a teenage kid in my neighborhood that can go get 'em for them," he told reporters later.

The exchange was one of several developments on the U.S. attorney issue, five days before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to testify before Leahy's committee as he tries to save his job.

In an effort to stave off charges that Democrats were setting perjury traps for witnesses on the issue, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., released 10 questions the panel would be asking Gonzales.

"'I don't know' will not be an adequate response to any question by the committee," said Schumer, who is leading the investigation. Gonzales, who in the past has issued conflicting accounts of his role in the firings, has disappeared from public view in recent days.

Senate Democrats continued to toughen their stance against the administration, which has cast the firings as legitimate, if botched in their execution.

After his speech, Leahy's committee approved -- but did not issue -- new subpoenas to compel the administration to produce documents and testimony about the firings.

Democrats say the firings might have been improper, but that probe yielded a weightier question: Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are intentionally conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records.

The White House said the Republican National Committee accounts were used to comply with the Hatch Act, which bars political work using official resources or on government time.

But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel acknowledged that 22 White House aides have e-mail accounts sponsored by the RNC and that e-mails they sent may have been lost.

Stanzel said the White House was trying to recover the e-mails and could not rule out that some may have involved the firings.The administration also is drafting new guidelines for aides on how to comply with the law.

Leahy was not buying that.

"E-mails don't get lost," Leahy insisted. "These are just e-mails they don't want to bring forward."

Leahy's panel approved new subpoenas that would require the Bush administration to surrender hundreds of new documents and force two officials -- Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella and White House political aide Scott Jennings -- to reveal their roles in the firings. The panel delayed for a week a vote on whether to authorize a subpoena for Rove's deputy, Sara Taylor.

Leahy has not issued any subpoenas, but permission by his committee Thursday would give him authority to require testimony from all eight of the fired U.S. attorneys and several White House and Justice Department officials named in e-mails made public as having had roles in the firings. The White House has refused to make officials such as Rove available to testify under oath.

Source (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/12/democrats_heating_up_prosecutor_probe/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News+%2F+Nation)

[IBinFarteen]

E-Mail Uproar Gives Dems ammo vs. Rove

WASHINGTON - The fight over documents has gone to red alert.The White House acknowledges it cannot find four years’ worth of e-mails from chief political strategist Karl Rove. The admission has thrust the Democrats’ nemesis back into the center of attention and poses a fresh political challenge for President Bush.

The administration has acknowledged that some e-mails missing from Rove’s Republican party account may relate to the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors last year. The Democratic-run Congress is investigating whether the firings resulted from political pressure by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the White House.

Target: Rove
For Democrats, the missing Rove e-mails is one more chance to pound away at their favorite target, the architect of Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential victories and all-around White House political fixer.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has compared the missing e-mails to the 18-minute gap on President Nixon’s Watergate tapes. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., says the White House message to Congress is: “We are stonewalling.”

The White House chalks it up to just another outbreak of Democratic Rove rage. “My experience has been that any time Karl Rove’s name is mentioned, it adds to the ammunition, regardless of merit,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

Only Dick Cheney raises the same kind of anger - and there is not much they can do about the vice president, short of impeachment.

Miers, Rove testimony in question
The Rove connection is sure to be raised when Gonzales testifies Tuesday before Leahy’s committee. His appearance, Democratic and Republican lawmakers say, may determine whether the longtime Bush friend can hold onto his job.

Democrats plan to focus on the Justice Department’s contradictory statements about the firings and Gonzales’ shifting explanations of his own role.

Democrats now are seeking Rove’s sworn public testimony in their investigation of dismissed U.S. attorneys. So far, the White House has agreed only to off-the-record interviews for Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers with committee members.

Department documents turned over to Congress suggested that Rove and Miers had an early role in planning the firings, despite initial White House statements to the contrary.

Democrats have threatened to issue subpoenas. But, due to the constitutional separation of executive and legislative powers, it is not clear they can force Rove to testify.

“He’s been a pet symbol to Democrats,” said Fred Greenstein, professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University. “It’s clear that he is very important to Bush and that the president takes him very seriously, even if the 2008 election outcome would be totally unaffected by dropping Rove.”

Despite Rove’s reputation as a political grand master, there is not exactly a rush to his door among the current large field of Republican presidential hopefuls.

Previous attempts
Democrats have had Rove in their cross hairs before; he always has slipped away.

He was implicated in the CIA leak case as someone who had passed on the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame to reporters. But he never was charged and never called to testify in the trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff. Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice and is awaiting sentencing.

Rove also managed to emerge unscathed from investigations of administration and congressional ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

If Rove deliberately deleted e-mails relating to the firing of the prosecutors, Democrats suggest, he could run afoul of a 1978 law that requires the White House to keep documents that relate to presidential actions, decisions and deliberations.

Administration fatigue
Republican strategist Rich Galen says Democrats could make the same mistakes that Republicans made under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., in going after President Clinton after winning control of the House.

“That’s what got us in big trouble in 1998 (midterm elections, when Republicans lost seats) and ultimately cost Newt his job as speaker. We so solely focused on going after Bill Clinton that people said, in essence, `We hired you to solve stuff - and not to spend all day, every day, trying to figure out how to make Bill Clinton’s life miserable,’” said Galen, who worked for Gingrich when he was speaker.

Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, denies that his client deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored computer system. “His understanding, starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived,” Luskin said.

Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said the controversy over the missing Rove e-mails is another sign of “the downward spiral of an old, tired administration.”

It comes as public support for the war in Iraq continues to erode, Bush’s approval ratings are in the mid-30s and the administration is embroiled in multiple scandals and ethics investigations.

“They’ve got serious combat fatigue after six years in office,” said Baker. “The forces there are getting very thin.”

Source (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/16/562/)

[IBinFarteen]

Democrats delay major moves in two House investigations of Bush officials

Update: Chairman Conyers has officially confirmed the delay of the immunity meeting, which has been incorporated below.

Democratic leaders of two House committees decided late on Tuesday to postpone major moves in their investigations of top Bush administration officials, which had been expected early this Wednesday.

The House Judiciary Committee decided to delay a decision this morning on immunizing Monica Goodling, a former top Justice Department official implicated in the firing of 8 US Attorneys, from prosecution. And the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chose to push back a meeting on issuing a subpoena to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

RAW STORY learned of the delay in the immunity meeting late yesterday from a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee's staff.

"Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member Smith agreed to delay this week's vote on immunity in order to take a better look at the facts," said Beth McGinn, a spokesperson for Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the Committee. "We want to make sure this is the best way to get the facts to the public."

In a statement released this morning, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the Committee's Chairman, confirmed that the immunity hearing had been postponed.

"At the request of our Ranking Minority Member, Lamar Smith, I have announced a one-week delay in the Committee vote to apply for immunity for Monica Goodling," Conyers said. "It is my hope that a short delay, agreed to in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, will enable the Minority to join us in taking this critical step in our efforts to uncover the truth about why the U.S. Attorneys were terminated and what it means for the integrity of federal law enforcement."

Yesterday, Conyers had released a statement announcing that the committee would meet at 10:15 this morning to discuss immunizing Goodling, former White House liaison at the Justice Department, from prosecution. Goodling had invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and said she would not testify on her role in the firing of 8 US Attorneys by the Justice Department of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Raw Story (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Democrats_delay_major_moves_in_two_0418.html)

[IBinFarteen]

Congress Circling Embattled Bush Official

Comment: Like I said, they smell the blood in the water...

Unhappy that President Bush won't dismiss a senior appointee accused of abusing staff and interfering with investigations, Democrats in Congress are planning to haul the official in for public questioning.

As the inspector general for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Robert W. "Moose" Cobb is supposed to be the top cop at the agency. But a massive investigation by a White House committee into his behavior concluded recently that he had interfered with investigations and deserved disciplinary action "up to and including" removal.

"These are serious findings that raise troubling questions as to whether this [NASA] IG office can function effectively under its current leadership," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

Rep. Gordon and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., have called for Cobb to be dismissed. The two are expected to hold an unusual joint hearing in early May to address their concerns about Cobb, a former White House ethics lawyer. They plan to call Cobb himself to testify.

He may face some tough new questions. Privately, Democratic staffers tell ABC News they have new information about the investigation and now believe the final report may have omitted allegations of misbehavior by Cobb that merited inclusion.

NASA employees have filed dozens of complaints about Cobb, charging that he slowed investigations and berated subordinates trying to stop waste, fraud and abuse at the $16 billion agency.

"[That's] the kind of thing you would expect to see on '20/20,'" Cobb told one investigator, according to a redacted version of the final report by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. The comment was interpreted as a criticism of an investigation showing NASA was wasting millions of dollars storing aircraft and parts it did not need, want or use. The White House panel did not judge each complaint but gave an opinion on Cobb's conduct overall.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin, whose operations and employees Cobb is charged with auditing and investigating, hired an executive coach for the IG, whom he does not manage. Griffin also arranged for him to attend management classes. NASA did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House, which has sole responsibility for managing Cobb and other inspectors general, said it endorsed Griffin's plan.

Cobb's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Source (http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/)

[IBinFarteen]

Committee to Consider Subpoena of Andrew Card

Chairman Waxman informs former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card that the Oversight Committee will meet on April 25 to consider a subpoena for Mr. Card’s testimony regarding the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity and White House security procedures unless Mr. Card agrees to appear before the Committee voluntarily.

Source (http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1261)

[IBinFarteen]

House panel votes to subpoena Rice on Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmakers voted on Wednesday to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify about administration justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

On a party-line vote of 21-10, the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee directed Rice to appear before the panel next month.

Republicans accused Democrats of a "fishing expedition." But Democrats said they want Rice to explain what she knew about administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms.

"There was one person in the White House who had primary responsibility to get the intelligence about Iraq right -- and that was Secretary Rice who was then President George W. Bush's national security adviser," said committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat.

"The American public was misled about the threat posed by Iraq, and this committee is going to do its part to find out why," Waxman said.


Comment: Good old "Bi-Partisanship" in action.

Source (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-04-25T173912Z_01_N25187282_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-CONGRESS-RICE.xml&src=rss&rpc=22)

[IBinFarteen]

Rice Signals Rejection of House Subpoena

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.

Rice said she would respond by mail to questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Bush administration's prewar claims about Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction, but signaled she would not appear in person.

"I am more than happy to answer them again in a letter," she told reporters in Oslo, where she is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

The comments were her first reaction to a subpoena issued on Wednesday by the committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Rice said she respected the oversight function of the legislative branch, but maintained she had already testified in person and under oath about claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa during her confirmation hearing for the job of secretary of state.

"I addressed these questions, almost the same questions, during my confirmation hearing," she said. "This is an issue that has been answered and answered and answered."

Rice noted that she had been serving as President Bush's national security adviser during the period covered by the panel's questions and stressed the administration's position that presidential aides not confirmed by the Senate cannot be forced to testify before Congress under the doctrine of executive privilege.

"This all took place in my role as national security adviser," she said. "There is a constitutional principle. There is a separation of powers and advisers to the president under that constitutional principle are not generally required to go and testify in Congress.

"So, I think we have to observe and uphold the constitutional principle, but I also observe and uphold the obligation of Congress to conduct its oversight role, I respect that. But I think I have more than answered these questions, and answered them directly to Congressman Waxman."

Rice declined to respond when asked if she would absolutely refuse to testify under subpoena.

Her spokesman, Sean McCormack, said later that no final decision had been made about Rice appearing before the committee.

Waxman's committee voted 21-10 on Wednesday to subpoena Rice despite the State Department's insistence that the questions have already been answered and that the doctrine of executive privilege .

The congressman has complained for weeks that Rice and the State Department have failed to respond to questions about the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to by uranium from Niger.

Comment: In other words..."Piss up a rope." The only female in the bunch and she has more balls than any of them.

Source (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESS_SUBPOENAS_RICE?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-04-26-08-48-59)

[IBinFarteen]

White House Faces Sweeping Congressional Oversight


Thursday 26 April 2007

Congress took unprecedented action against the Bush administration Wednesday, using its sweeping powers to vigorously pursue testimony and documents from key White House officials and agencies on issues that have mired the administration in at least a half-dozen scandals.

Covering a broad range of topics including allegations of widespread corruption, two Congressional committees authorized subpoenas - one for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to compel her to testify about how a now-discredited 2003 claim that Iraq sought yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address. Subpoenas were also approved for the Republican National Committee to secure thousands of emails missing from an RNC server used by White House officials, and to require testimony by top officials of the RNC.

Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee granted immunity to former Justice Department official Monica Goodling, and approved a subpoena to force her to testify before Congress about her role and the role of White House officials in the firings of eight US attorneys last year. In an interview Tuesday on the program "Hardball," David Iglesias, the former US attorney from New Mexico, said Goodling "holds the keys to the kingdom" and could very well implicate key officials in the White House in the firings if she testifies. Iglesias was fired last year by the Department of Justice under questionable circumstances.

The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), also approved a subpoena for Sara Taylor, a deputy to White House political adviser Karl Rove. Rove is said to have played a major role in the US attorney firings, and his use of an RNC email account to conduct official White House business has come under fire. The RNC said it lost thousands of emails Rove had sent over the past few years. The emails may shed further light on the nature of Rove's involvement in the firings and a number of other issues Congress is looking into.

Source (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042607J.shtml)

[IBinFarteen]

GOP breaks truce over Rice threat

Republicans largely kept their mouths shut this year as Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) scheduled hearing after hearing and sent letter after letter from his post as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

On Tuesday, they finally made some noise.

Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), the ranking Republican on Waxman's committee, drew the line during an press conference protesting a scheduled vote to issue a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Politico.com is co-host of the Republican presidential debate on May 3rd, and candidates will be answering our readers’ favorite questions.
Click here to submit yours.


"This isn't even a close call," Davis said of the threatened subpoena. "This is way over the line."

Waxman wants Rice to testify under oath about President Bush's now-infamous claims that Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. He has scheduled the vote for Wednesday.

But Davis and others said Tuesday the Rice subpoena would be a gross abuse of the committee's jurisdiction.

"This is not only an overreach; it's disruptive," Davis said. "This is nothing but a partisan witch hunt."

His remarks coincide with a coordinated assault by Republicans in the House, criticizing Waxman on a range of topics because of his determination to question Rice, one leadership aide said.

Davis, who worked closely with Waxman when he himself chaired the committee, argued that Waxman is threatening the subpoena solely in order forcing Rice to raise her right hand and take an oath before a bank of television cameras that would then broadcast the politically damaging image around the world.

Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Lamar Smith of Texas joined the Virginia Republican on Tuesday to protest this latest attempt to call the secretary of state before the committee.

Members of the minority deliberately kept their mouths shut during the first months of this year, so their protests would have more weight when they came, GOP leadership aides have said. This signals the end of that truce.

The secretary of state has a busy schedule, Smith argued, and she should not be compelled to appear before the oversight panel, which potentially includes days of preparation.

"I thought to myself, that's too much," Smith said.

Waxman is investigating President Bush 2003 State of the Union claim that agents for Saddam Hussein tried to buy materials for a nuclear weapon in Niger, a claim that is now widely held to be false.

The Republicans emphasized past investigations of this question by other national and international organizations and said the committee's current inquiry belabors the point.

"This is not about trying to protect the administration," said Shays, who was a consistent critic of the White House and his own leadership during the Republicans' tenure in the majority.

Davis conceded that his staff contacted the State Department after Waxman scheduled the session to vote on subpoenas and that officials at State are concerned about the impact Rice's testimony would have politically and practically on her schedule.

The four Republicans were less defiant of the other three subpoenas the House will vote on Wednesday in a series of separate, although somewhat related, investigations.

These include subpoenas for former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, for emails from the Republican National Committee and for a list of contacts from the White House between administration officials and a defense contractor in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal.

"I think it's a fishing expedition," Davis said of Waxman's possible subpoena of RNC emails, "but I think he has every right to do that."

Republicans are now circulating Waxman quotes from his tenure as the ranking Democrat under a former Government Reform chairman, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), to help frame the debate in their favor.

In 1997, for example, Waxman said, "It makes no sense to direct multiple Congressional committees to investigate the same abuses -- Multiple investigations are duplicative and wasteful." That, Davis argued, is exactly what the oversight chairman is doing.

"The very thing Henry Waxman complained about, he's becoming," Shays said.

The committee did not respond to an email asking for comment.

Waxman has full subpoena authority, and has used the tool a limited number of times so far.

He scheduled Wednesday's vote because the State Department, the RNC and the White House have not provided him and his committee with all the information they asked for, according to a collection of letters he sent top administration officials last week.

Davis said he and Waxman have had a productive working relationship in the past and expects that to continue moving forward, hinting, "I don't know what pressure he's under from his leadership."

But this marks a stark turn in their relationship and a departure for Republicans, who, to this point, have stood by as Waxman peels back layer-upon-layer of potential malfeasance and mismanagement in the current Republican administration.

Source (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3685.html)

[IBinFarteen]

Murtha: Dems could impeach

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) said Sunday that Democrats in Congress could consider impeachment as a way to pressure President Bush on his handling of the war in Iraq.

“What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Murtha has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress on the administration's handling of the war in Iraq; others who have strongly criticized Bush have stopped short of calling for impeachment.

Murtha also expressed doubt that Congress and the Bush administration would be able to work out a compromise soon in negotiations on the $124 billion war spending bill. Congress' emergency funding measure contains a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

“They say we’re willing to compromise, and then we don’t get any compromise,” said Murtha. “We’ve already compromised. And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken.”

Murtha said the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass another war funding bill with similar benchmarks for progress in Iraq after President Bush vetoes the legislation, as he has vowed to do.

“If he vetoes this bill, he’s cut off the money. But obviously, we’re going to pass another bill,” Murtha said. “It’s going to have some stringent requirements. ... I'd like to look at this again in two months.”


Source (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3742.html)

[IBinFarteen]

Leahy issues subpoena for Rove e-mails

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Wednesday for all e-mails from White House adviser Karl Rove that relate to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.


“Attached please find a subpoena compelling the Department by May 15 to produce any and all emails and attachments to emails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and firing and decision-making of United States Attorneys, from any (1) White House account, (2) Republican National Committee account, or (3) other account, in the possession, custody or control of the Department of Justice,” Leahy said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The senator had requested the information from Gonzales when the attorney general testified before the committee and in a follow-up letter. However, Leahy said that Gonzales did not respond.

“I continue to hope that the Department will cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, but it is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry have not been produced,” Leahy said in the letter.

“Indeed, despite multiple requests for the Department to produce documents voluntarily related to the Committee’s investigation into the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys and politicization at the Department, the Department’s production of documents has been selective and incomplete,” Leahy added. “Many documents have been withheld or redacted without any legal basis being set forth."

Leahy said the Department of Justice has until May 15 to comply with the subpoena.

Obstructionism at its best (http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/leahy-issues-subpoena-for-rove-e-mails-2007-05-02.html).

[IBinFarteen]

The Hunt for Karl Rove

WASHINGTON-- Now six plus years into the presidency of George W. Bush, I think we can discern a theme in his administration, one that the historians will pass on to future generations. I write as a historian myself here, in fact as a "presidential historian," if I may appropriate a title used in modern historiography. Some will scoff at my claim, but in recent years I have written about as many books on presidential high jinks as Michael Beschloss, who is frequently called a "presidential historian" though he is not as amused by the presidency as I am.

Perhaps this is because I have mostly written about President Bill Clinton, the modern presidency's closest approximation to the late and laughable President Warren G. Harding. At this point in Clinton's administration several themes were discernible. There was the administration's effort to avoid the prosecutors -- as many as seven different officers of the court were out to get the President, his wife, and various cabinet officials. There was the President's effort to avoid impeachment and, worse, conviction. Less celebrated, but surely a long-standing theme of President Clinton's presidency (and for that matter of his whole adult life), was his effort to avoid various ghastly sexually transmitted diseases. It is increasingly likely that in the years to come the Clinton administration will figure as prominently in high school history classes as in high school sex education classes, and the lessons to be derived from the latter will probably be more beneficial to the commonweal.

Now in the spring of 2007 I think a perceptible theme has emerged in the Bush administration. Dramatists might entitle it "The Hunt for Karl Rove." Since the 2001 inauguration, multitudes of journalists have set out to snare him. Entire congressional staffs have pursued him. Wily fellow that he is, Rove has evaded every trap. Called five times before the grand jury in the Valerie Plame burlesque, he never lapsed into a serious misstatement and certainly not into the perjury that cooked President Clinton's goose. Back he went to the White House every time with a smile on his face and doubtless a head full of stratagems with which to flummox the Democrats further. I would not be surprised to read in Rove's memoir that he actually enjoyed the grand jury appearances. They filled the liberal Democrats with such hope. They left them in such despair.

At this very minute there are at least two congressional investigations hot on his trail. One is investigating whether the Republican National Committee set up separate e-mail accounts for Rove and his henchpersons in the White House to use. Another is investigating whether these desperados arranged political briefings for political appointees in the government. Both investigations will probably find that Rove and his cronies did precisely what they are suspected of doing. Yet once again Rove will go scot-free. The problem the investigators have is that there is nothing wrong with Rove's actions. They are perfectly legal and, at least in the case of the e-mail accounts, required by law.

What we have here is the criminalization of politics. Nothing Rove has done is criminal, but by dragging him before congressional hearings and even better grand juries his political opponents hope that they will catch him in a misstatement that can be prosecuted as perjury.

More here (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11381).

[IBinFarteen]

Time to play the race card now:


Justice Dept. diversity under fire

The House Judiciary Committee will summon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to answer fresh charges stemming from the failure of the Justice Department's civil rights division to hire more minorities.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the committee's chairman, said the panel planned to call Gonzales as it opens a probe into allegations of diversity shortcomings in multiple areas.

Among the charges is that the key criminal section of the civil rights division has failed to hire a single black attorney since 2003 to replace those who have left.

An investigation by the WJLA-TV I-Team uncovered the deep-seated diversity problems within the department. The Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate aired the report on Friday.

Roberta Baskin, a veteran award-winning journalist, led the reporting effort. Baskin recently joined the station's news staff after serving as executive director of the Center for Public Integrity since January 2005.

"One of the top priorities of the Justice Department is to prosecute violations of our civil rights," Baskin told WJLA viewers. "However, the team of prosecutors the Justice Department has put together looks nothing like the America it's supposed to protect."

"They need someone to investigate them," Conyers told Baskin.

"They don't have the diversity that we're saying is required in the country in businesses -- and, of course, in the Department of Justice itself." Conyers termed the lack of diversity in the civil rights division "totally unacceptable."

The Justice Department declined the I-Team's request for an interview. Instead, it issued a statement that listed the actions it has purportedly taken to improve diversity, including mentoring, diversity training and conducting exit interviews to improve retention of minorities.

Through interviews and reviews of dozens of pages of internal documents, the I-Team found that of the 50 lawyers in the division's criminal section, only two are black.

That is the same number the criminal section had in 1978 -- even though the size of the staff has more than doubled.

On a broader basis, the department's records across several divisions show few or no African-Americans or Hispanics being hired. Conyers described the official charts as "incredibly low."

The new charges arose at a time that Gonzales is already under heavy fire on Capitol Hill from the continued fallout of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. The attorney general is likely to have to deal with this issue as well during his appearance before the Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, has already held an oversight hearing over charges that the department has been lax in enforcing civil rights laws and slow to investigate cases, particularly on behalf of African-Americans.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said he is concerned "political appointees have reversed longstanding civil rights policies and impeded civil rights progress," said spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.

More here (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/3848.html).

[IBinFarteen]

Goodling Immunity Moves Forward

Huh. Just out from House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI):


Today the Department of Justice gave notice that it would not object to the House Judiciary Committee's grant of use immunity for Monica Goodling. I believe obtaining her testimony will be a critical step in our efforts to get to the truth about the circumstances surrounding the US Attorney firings and possible politicization in the Department's prosecutorial function. The Committee will be moving expeditiously to apply for the court order so that we can schedule a hearing promptly.

So despite the Justice Department's Inspector General's investigation into whether Goodling may have broken the law by considering the political affiliation of entry-level U.S. attorneys, the immunity will move forward. All that excitement for nothing.

Update: Here is the letter from the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility informing Congress that they will not object. A quote:


"...after balancing the significant congressional and public interest against the impact of the Committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not raise an objection or seek a deferral..."

TP Muckraker (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003164.php)

[IBinFarteen]

Dems Ask Gonzales for Answers about Minnesota USA

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a member of the committee, wrote Alberto Gonzales today to ask about U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Rachel Paulose, the Federalist Society member and former senior aide in the Justice Department who was installed there last year. Paulose attracted attention last month when four members of her senior staff voluntarily stepped down (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013471.php)to protest her apparently dictatorial managerial approach.

One of the mysteries of the U.S. attorney scandal has been whether Paulose's predecessor, Thomas Heffelfinger, who abruptly resigned in February of last year, left voluntarily. He says he did. If so, it's a hell of a coincidence -- just the month before, he'd appeared on a draft of Kyle Sampson's list of U.S. attorneys to be fired.

Conyers and Ellison want answers on whether Heffelfinger was asked to leave and why Paulose was put in his place. They've also asked for any documents relevant to Heffelfinger's removal, Paulose's selection, or the turmoil there. You can read the letter here (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/paulose-letter/).

So it would appear that Gonzales can expect some questions about Paulose when he appears before the committee on Thursday.

Source (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003175.php)

[IBinFarteen]

Dems Pushing For Gonzales Vote This Week

Senate Dems Still Pushing For Gonzales No-Confidence Vote
By Laura McGann - May 22, 2007, 11:53 AM
Senate Democrats will fight to squeeze in a nearly-unprecedented no-confidence vote against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before Congress gets the hell out of Dodge for the one-week Memorial Day recess, Roll Call reports (sub. required)... but they might not make it.

The Senate’s agenda is packed this week with Iraq and immigration bills heading to the floor, but Republican maneuvering could prove to be the bigger setback:


The problem is Democrats are unlikely to get cooperation on the resolution from Republicans, who could throw numerous procedural hurdles in their way as the Senate tries to leave town Friday. So if Democrats want to pursue the nonbinding resolution, they will have to begin the lengthy process of filing cloture resolutions as early as possible for a final vote to occur by the end of this week.

It doesn’t look like Senate Democrats are prepared to take those first steps today, though they insisted they could pursue a vote later in the week.

The resolution has at least some Republican support, including Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and six others. Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConell (R-KY) opposes it.

Though the resolution is “non-binding,” it is still a very unusual move for the Senate meant to send a strong political message to the White House.

Source (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003264.php)

[Alli]

Congress gets the hell out of Dodge for the one-week Memorial Day recessI vote they only get Monday off. Like the rest of us.

[IBinFarteen]

The Oversight Congress: Trouble for Bush

The new Democratic majority's zeal for congressional investigations goes well beyond Alberto Gonzales and the fired federal prosecutors.

Aided by a new investigative team including a former mob prosecutor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Democrats have launched more than three dozen probes of the administration ranging from the White House to obscure agency heads. The House Oversight Committee alone has conducted 20 investigations.

With few legislative accomplishments in hand -- and only a few prospects in the offing -- it seems plain the 110th is shaping up as "The Oversight Congress."

This is troubling news for the Bush White House and Republicans. No fewer than six administration officials have resigned already amid the congressional probes -- and many more are in Democratic sights.

They are targeting a sweep of people and issues. Some are high-profile, such as the leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA identity or the U.S. attorney firings, subjects that make for compelling cable news dramas.

But many more are mundane: inefficiency at the federal crop insurance program or conflicts of interest in FDA contracting. Some are pragmatic, such as an examination of food safety following outbreaks of illness caused by contaminated peanut butter and spinach. Others are tragic: the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and the misleading information the military provided to his family.

"We're seeing results when we peel away some of the layers in every department," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "People felt they could do whatever they wanted for whatever reason."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Democrats had a mountain of issues to investigate.

"We have a huge backlog, and we'll try to use what we can to get to everything," he said.

The outbreak of investigations represents a significant change in Washington. For the first six years of the Bush presidency, Republicans controlled Congress and largely avoided tough oversight hearings and hard-hitting investigations, especially of the Iraq war and environmental issues.

In the 2006 campaign, Democrats promised change on this front and have delivered in ways most Americans would probably not notice.

Everyone knows about the investigation of the attorney general and his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys. Gonzales, of course, has vowed to stay on despite calls by a few Republicans for him to resign.

But Democrats have three other scalps to claim from that probe and three from others rarely mentioned.

An Interior Department official resigned after an investigation by the House Natural Resources Committee suggested she had edited scientific reports to lessen endangered species protections. The head of the Education Department's student loan program stepped down after complaints from Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee.

And the official heading up the Minerals Management Service quit her job shortly after congressional Democrats held a hearing critical of the agency.

Resignations are not the only measure of a successful investigation. Often the result will be a change in policy.

The administration appointed a "food safety czar" after several congressional committees raised questions about the FDA's ability to protect consumers from food contamination. The Army announced it would not pay $19.6 million to Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc. after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee examined its arrangements with private security providers.

More here (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/4137.html).