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  1. #1
    Senior Member Dixie's Avatar
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    Gonzales to take questions about firings

    Gonzales to take questions about firings

    By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
    2 minutes ago


    WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly canceled travel plans Tuesday amid growing calls for his ouster over the firings of eight federal prosecutors during a White House-directed housecleaning of U.S. attorneys.

    The attorney general, who scheduled a 2 p.m. EDT press conference to answer questions, also accepted the resignation of his top aide, Kyle Sampson.

    Authorities said Sampson failed to brief other senior Justice Department officials of his discussions about the firings with then-White House counsel Harriet Miers. Miers resigned in January and moved to Dallas.

    E-mail correspondence between Sampson and Miers, made available at midday Tuesday in Washington, indicate they began two years ago to consider individual U.S. attorneys for possible dismissal. As the list took shape, their correspondence indicated possible political backlash from the attorneys and their congressional allies.

    In a Sept 13, 2006, e-mail to Miers, Sampson listed one prosecutor, Bud Cummins in Little Rock,Ark., "in the process of being pushed out." Five other prosecutors — in Arizona, Nevada, Grand Rapids, Mich., San Diego and Seattle — were listed as U.S attorneys "we should now consider pushing out."

    Four days later, Miers responded: "Kyle, thanks for this. I have not forgotten I need to follow up on the info but things have been crazy."

    But nearly three months later, the Justice Department was still waiting for White House approval for the firings. "Still waiting for green light from White House," Sampson wrote in a Dec. 2, 2006, e-mail to Michael Elston, the top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

    The White House responded shortly thereafter.

    "We're a go for the US Atty plan," deputy White House counsel William K. Kelley wrote in a Dec. 4, 2006, e-mail to Sampson and Miers. "WH leg, political, communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes."

    The term "WH leg" refers to the White House office of legislative affairs, which deals with Congress. Copies of dozens of Sampson's e-mails to various White House and Justice Department aides were released Tuesday by congressional judiciary oversight panels.

    On Capitol Hill, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who is leading a Senate investigation of the firings, called for the second time in three days for Gonzales to step down. Additionally, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Gonzales "ought to be shown the door — he ought not to be in this administration. We have got to end corruption in our government. It is not OK to be corrupt."

    The government's 93 U.S. attorneys are presidential appointees who can be hired and fired at will. But critics say the fate of the eight who were dismissed last year appeared to have been politically motivated. And Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike said they were outraged that Justice Department officials weren't forthcoming on how the firings unfolded — even when asked, under oath, by Congress.

    A Justice Department official said Tuesday that Miers, in a February 2005 discussion with Sampson, suggested firing all of the U.S. attorneys. White House spokesman Tony Snow described the idea as a move to get fresh faces in the 4-year term jobs, and said that it was not a firm recommendation by Miers.

    The e-mails show that Sampson rejected the idea to fire all of the prosecutors but spent the next year drawing up a list of potential dismissals. On Jan. 9, 2006, Sampson sent Miers a memo listing what the official described as roughly 10 names of prosecutors who were viewed as underperforming in their jobs.

    By September, Sampson began moving forward with the firings, the Justice official said. The White House did not ask for names to be added or removed from that list, the official said. Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty signed off on the list around that time, the official said.

    Gonzales was aware of the discussions with the White House, but McNulty and other senior department officials were not, the official said.

    Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, called the Justice Department's management dysfunctional for sending Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Will Moschella to testify before the panel last week "without knowing all the facts."

    "They're going to have to come up with some answers," Sensenbrenner said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "If they don't, they're going to lose everyone's confidence."

    "What I'd like to hear is the truth," he said, complaining about the Justice Department's different explanations for the dismissals. If that record is not corrected, Sensenbrenner said, "then the Justice Department and the attorney general himself are going to die by a thousand cuts."

    President Bush made "no recommendations on specific individuals," Snow said. "We don't have anything to indicate the president made any calls on specific us attorneys."

    On Monday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino acknowledged that complaints about the job performance of prosecutors occasionally came to the White House and were passed on to the Justice Department, perhaps including some informally from Bush to Gonzales.

    Some of the prosecutors who were fired have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.

    Perino said deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, vaguely recalls telling Miers that he also thought firing all 93 was ill-advised.

    Dating back to mid-2004, the White House's legislative affairs, political affairs and chief of staff's office had received complaints from a variety of sources about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases in various locations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and New Mexico, she said

    Those complaints were passed on to the Justice Department or Mires' office.

    "The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted and believes he may have informally mentioned it to the attorney general during a brief discussion on other Department of Justice matters," Perino said, adding that the conversation would have taken place in October 2006.

    "At no time did any White House officials, including the president, direct the Department of Justice to take specific action against any individual U.S. attorney," Perino said.

    Congressional Democrats have also singled out Rove for questioning about the firings of the eight prosecutors and whether the dismissals were politically motivated.

    Those demands to question Rove signaled anew Democrats' shifting focus beyond the Justice Department and toward the White House in the inquiry.

    Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., said he would seek to interview Miers and deputy counsel William Kelly for insight on their roles, if any, in the firings.

    "As a result, we would want to ensure that Karl Rove was one of the White House staff that we interview in connection with our investigation," said Conyers.

    The White House has said previously that Rove wasn't involved in the firings, but did alert Miers to complaints about Iglesias. It was not immediately clear whether Rove also told Gonzales about the complaints.

    Last week, Rove called the two-month controversy "a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it."

    ___

    Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. Riechmann contributed from Merida, Mexico.


    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_ ... rosecutors
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  2. #2
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    Funny, I don't recall all the calls for resignations when the Clinton administration demanded the resignation of EVERY SINGLE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY back in 1993. Many suspected the Clinton administration of attempting to short-circuit the investigation of Dan Rostenkowski, whose bank was a key link in the money laundering scam associated with Whitewater and other scams from Clinton's reign as emperor of Arkansas. Many of the same hosebags (like little Chuckie Schumer) calling for resignations and investigations over the Bush administration firings were vociferously defending the Clinton firings as a legitimate use of executive discretion. I ABHOR this sort of two-faced double-standard crap, and I think that it's absurd that this administration is chastised over something that is standard procedure for presidential administrations for decades. I have plenty of reasons to take this administration to task, but the dogpile is just getting stupid when every insignificant action is derided as an act of treason or somesuch.

    For those whose memories are dim, here's a snippet of the news from the 1993 firings:

    http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract. ... s%2fPeople%

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    small correction: that huge monstrosity, janet the reno, actually FIRED all but 1 of them. I believe the count was 92 of 93. Anyhoo, she left one for good measure
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis
    CROCKET
    small correction: that huge monstrosity, janet the reno, actually FIRED all but 1 of them. I believe the count was 92 of 93. Anyhoo, she left one for good measure
    Indeed, but my question is why this has not been brought into the context of this discussion. By the tone taken by the media and by some people posting here, you would think that the firing of a few US attorneys by the sitting administration is some grievous miscarriage of hirtorical proportions. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but we have in fact had such an egregious miscarriage in the immediate previous administration that was given a pass by many of the same Congressmen and pundits who are demanding an investigation or resignations in this case.

    I am sometimes SHOCKED at easliy people can be led around by the nose once the mainstream Leftist media sets an agenda.

  5. #5
    Senior Member steelerbabe's Avatar
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    Good point CrocketsGhost. Let's not forget there are two standards, one for Democrats and one for Republicans By the way, I am a registered Independent.

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    Quote Originally Posted by steelerbabe
    Good point CrocketsGhost. Let's not forget there are two standards, one for Democrats and one for Republicans By the way, I am a registered Independent.
    I'm an independent, but I am currently registered as Republican because there is little value in voting in a primary as an independent. At least this way I have a tiny bit of steering power in the selection of candidates for one of the major parties. Had I registered as a Democrat I would have been mining a dry hole.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost
    Quote Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis
    CROCKET
    small correction: that huge monstrosity, janet the reno, actually FIRED all but 1 of them. I believe the count was 92 of 93. Anyhoo, she left one for good measure
    Indeed, but my question is why this has not been brought into the context of this discussion. By the tone taken by the media and by some people posting here, you would think that the firing of a few US attorneys by the sitting administration is some grievous miscarriage of hirtorical proportions. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but we have in fact had such an egregious miscarriage in the immediate previous administration that was given a pass by many of the same Congressmen and pundits who are demanding an investigation or resignations in this case.

    I am sometimes SHOCKED at easliy people can be led around by the nose once the mainstream Leftist media sets an agenda.
    Looking at it with a different set of eyes, I believe it's because so many people can't stand and also know that Gonzales is evil. Therefore, grabbing at any straw to remove him is like water to a thirsty person.

    Being an equal opportunity basher myself, it doesn't make sense to be so unfair. However, at this point, if the dems can get the little bum running like a ninny {he really does sound like a pissant, btw} I'm game.

    I also know that removing him for an unfounded reason is dangerous to all of us. But for the time being, let's enjoy his squealing --- we know it's not going anywhere as Justice is within their rights.

    GET RID OF THE BASTARD WITH A REAL ISSUE...........IGNORING THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE FED RULE OF LAW & aiding and abetting the ILLEGAL CRIMINALS!!!!
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis
    GET RID OF THE BASTARD WITH A REAL ISSUE...........IGNORING THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE FED RULE OF LAW & aiding and abetting the ILLEGAL CRIMINALS!!!!
    I can't disagree with that sentiment.

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