Republicans Wrongly Fire 8 US Prosecutors: 3,000 Justice Dept emails released today

Then and NOw: A senseless unpopular war.

Then: 18 minutes of audiotape “accidentally” erased. Now: Missing 500,000 emails “accidentally” erased.

Then: Diligent media working tirelessly to expose corruption at the highest level.

Now: The media: "Coming up next: are the Attornye firings utterly insignificant … or completely irrelevant? Our experts DEBATE the issue

[Well, we didn’t say it was a PERFECT analogy…]

Steveyo,

Thanks!!

Billy

PS Looks like the investigation keeps heating up, giving protection ot the witness who took the Fifth so she would not have to testify. Now she will. Subpoenas for Rove, etc, just need to be served.

On the subject of political investigations, what’s going on with the Vince Foster investigation. We never got a final review. I’m still convinced that someone in the Clinton inner circle was somehow involved and that there is a massive coverup going on.

Oddly enough, Bush had the prosecutor who was pursuing that case FIRED.

Hmmmm. Bush and Clinton in bed together??

Maybe that’s why Clinton is known as the best REPUBLICAN president we’ve ever had. Hilary is even MORE Republican!

Sorry to agree with you Billy, but, amen, brother.

I’m not surprised you agree. We see alike on so many things. You’re like my serious parental alter-ego.

Many people think you and me are the same person.

Wait a second, there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats?

http://www.gibsondunn.com/news/firm/detail/id/526/?pubItemId=8231

Unlike the 8 prosecutors who were fired on or about Dec 7 after pursuing prosecution against Republicans, Debra Wong Yang get $1.5 million to stop investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis, and offered her resignation in mid-October. She was hired by the firm that was defending the Republican she was prosecuting. Her investigation threatened to pull in well-connected lobbyists, military contractors and Republican contributors.

See also today’s Editorial Observer by Adam Cohen, NYTimes, p A22. This is NOT by Adam:

Did Debra Wong Yang get $1.5 million to stop investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis?
by james risser
Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 08:30:48 AM PDT
Another Bush scoundrel is Debra Wong Yang, another US Attorney who was not fired, and did not stay…no, she resigned. Did she do so out of a deep sense of outrage over the Bush Administration’s treatment of the Judiciary Branch? Did she resign to go to Peace Corps or to work pro bono at the local Los Angeles legal assistance program? No. She is a Republican. And, her case is rather a hybrid version. She did not get fired as Lam was fired: because Lam was getting to close to the inner-sanctum of the Bush Crime Family; no, Yang took the easier out–a path lined with millions of dollars, and a path that would have gone completely under the radar had Gonzogate not exploded. Poor Ms Yang… May you receive a subpoena as well!

james risser’s diary :: ::
Here is her tangled story, an iceberg-tip view of the Rep. Jerry Lewis scandals which she was investigating as a US Attorney, and the treacherous firm of Bush Crime Family consigliere in Los Angeles who serve as Defense Council for Rep. Lewis, the same firm where Yang currently receives her blood-money.

We will soon enough get to her official bio from the firm that paid her $1.5 million, Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles–the same firm that, coincidentally enough, was defending Rep. Jerry Lewis of California. Let me say that again so there is no confusion: She was in charge of the case against Rep. Jerry Lewis. He is being defended against these charges by Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles. Ms Yang received $1.5 million from the firm defending Rep. Lewis, Gibson Dunn, to leave the Justice Department where she was prosecuting Rep. Lewis. And, remarkably, this is the second time that Jerry Lewis has hired a former US Attorney to handle his defense. Thanks to the fine work of TPMuckracker from June 2006, we find that Lewis did the same thing with Robert Bonner, a member in good-standing of the Bush Crime Family

I think Yang made the smart move, getting out of the Bush administration’s frying pan while the getting was good.

But looks like she landed in the fire anyway…

Yes. Which rights they attack while in power. Beyond that, no.

Roak

Justice Dept. Expands Probe To Include Hiring Practices

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2007; Page A04

Justice Department investigators have widened an internal probe of the firings of U.S. attorneys to include a broader examination of hiring practices at the sprawling department, including the troubled Civil Rights Division and programs for beginning lawyers, officials said yesterday.

“We have expanded the scope of our investigation to include allegations regarding improper political or other considerations in hiring decisions within the Department of Justice,” Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote in joint letters to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

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The widening inquiry is likely to pose an additional challenge for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is already facing lawmakers’ calls for his resignation and a potential no-confidence vote by the Senate. While the U.S. attorney dismissals have prompted wide political criticism, improper hiring practices could be deemed a violation of the law.

Justice officials had previously disclosed that Fine and Jarrett’s investigation would include hiring decisions made by Monica M. Goodling, a former Gonzales aide who confirmed last week in Senate testimony that she “crossed the line” in considering political affiliation when hiring career prosecutors and immigration judges.

Federal law and internal Justice Department rules bar taking such affiliations into account in hiring career personnel, the Justice Department has said. Yesterday’s letter revealed that the internal inquiry will examine the hiring practices of Justice officials besides Goodling and outside the attorney general’s office.

The expansion comes in the wake of claims by former Justice officials that selections by the Attorney General’s Honors Program and the department’s Summer Law Intern Program were rigged in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups. In response, the department this spring agreed to place them back under the control of career officials.

The programs were overseen last year by Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, and both Elston and McNulty approved the recent change.

The inquiry will also look at hiring practices within the Civil Rights Division, from which dozens of career lawyers have departed. The career personnel repeatedly clashed with Bush administration political appointees, who overruled them on pivotal voting-rights cases in Georgia and Texas.

One former senior official in the Civil Rights Division, Bradley Schlozman, replaced one of the fired U.S. attorneys – Todd P. Graves of Kansas City, Mo. – and attracted controversy by indicting four workers involved in a voter registration drive sponsored by a liberal group days before the November elections. Both Schlozman and Graves are scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A Gonzales spokesman declined to comment on the broadening of the probe. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate panel, said in a statement that it reinforces “the need for meaningful congressional oversight of this Justice Department and the Bush administration.” The head of the House panel, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), said he is concerned that “political litmus tests were administered to applicants” inappropriately.

The internal inquiry was initially provoked by last year’s coordinated firings of nine prosecutors, some of whom alleged they were removed after improper contact from GOP lawmakers or staffers. Parallel investigations by the House and Senate judiciary panels have focused attention on the conduct of senior Gonzales aides and on White House involvement in the prosecutor removals.

Gonzales, buoyed by strong support from President Bush, has acknowledged mishandling the prosecutor firings but has rebuffed calls to resign from Democrats and some Republicans. Three of Gonzales’s senior aides have quit, and McNulty has announced he will leave this summer.

Fine and Jarrett, who began their joint probe in March, could recommend internal disciplinary actions and have the power to refer cases for criminal prosecution. A final report will be made public, officials said.

Justice officials said yesterday that a prosecutor at the center of the firings scandal, interim U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin of Little Rock, is leaving office effective tomorrow. Griffin, a former Republican National Committee researcher and aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, replaced fired prosecutor Bud Cummins.

Griffin withdrew his nomination as a permanent replacement amid uproar over his appointment.

Just found this with StumbleUpon:

http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art_ordering%20pizzain2006.html

Yes. Republicans give us things like The PATRIOT Act. Democrats give us things like thought crimes.

I don’t know which is worse. It’s the picking of the lesser of two evils.

Thank you Democrats.
How about doing something useful like tearing away portions of The PATRIOT Act? You campaigned against provisions in The PATRIOT Act, so now act on that instead of creating new laws that are just as absurd.

So congress put Gonzales to a vote of NoConfidence, and it did NOT pass.

does that mean they really have confidence in him???

It means the republicans who blocked the vote are putting politics over the country’s best interest.

And Democrats would never do that. :roll_eyes:

Like the business as usual they’re doing regarding earmarks in the budget. The Democrats pledged to clean up the budget earmarks process but instead continue to do things business as usual. Not only that, but they’re using the earmarks as a club to beat Republicans with if they don’t like it. What hypocrites.

House Democrat warns GOP on earmarks

Touche’.

And what does it mean that Gonzalez resigned today?

Who’s celebrating?!

Rats are fleeing the sinking ship in D.C. Gonzales is just following Rove’s lead. After all, with Rove gone, how is anyone going to know what to do?

I did the happy dance down the hallway into my office yesterday morning. Then I sung “ding, dong, the witch is dead”.