Don't want another Enron? Simple, fire all those pesky attorneys...

[CockySOB]

Now Rove is answering questions on CSPAN2

LOL! He just brought up the fact that Feinstein wrote a complaint out against one of the dismissed US Atterneys (Lam, I think) complaining that she had flat out said that she would not make prosecuting illegal immigration a priority. And now Feinstein is complaining thatt the same US Attorney was dismissed.

Oh this is gonna get good!

 

[red states rule]

Now Rove is answering questions on CSPAN2

LOL! He just brought up the fact that Feinstein wrote a complaint out against one of the dismissed US Atterneys (Lam, I think) complaining that she had flat out said that she would not make prosecuting illegal immigration a priority. And now Feinstein is complaining thatt the same US Attorney was dismissed.

Oh this is gonna get good!

CNN's Cafferty Calls Alberto Gonzales 'Waterboy' and 'Weasel'
Posted by Brad Wilmouth on March 15, 2007 - 23:43.
Catching up on an item from Monday's The Situation Room on CNN, which has already been covered by conservative talk radio host Mark Levin, CNN's Jack Cafferty condescendingly labeled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as a "glorified waterboy for the White House" as he called for Gonzales to resign over the controversial firing of U.S. attorneys. After asking viewers to email him with their thoughts, Cafferty further called Gonzales a "weasel." Cafferty: "If you look up the word weasel in the dictionary, Wolf, you'll see Alberto Gonzales' picture there."

Below is a complete transcript of Cafferty's comments on Alberto Gonzales from the March 12 The Situation Room on CNN:

Jack Cafferty, about 4:15 p.m.: "All right, for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step down. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer also said Gonzales putting politics above the law and that he's shown more allegiance to President Bush than to Americans' legal rights. As examples, Schumer points to the FBI's illegal snooping into people's private lives, as well as the controversy surrounding the Justice Department's firing of federal prosecutors. Schumer isn't the only one questioning Gonzales. Democratic Senator Joe Biden says Gonzales has 'lost the confidence of the vast majority of the American people.' A New York Times editorial says the Attorney General, quote, 'has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush's imperial presidency,' unquote. And it's not enough that the Attorney General of the United States is a glorified water boy for the White House. The Bush administration also is admitting now that its number one political hack, Karl Rove, passed along complaints from Republican lawmakers about U.S. attorneys to the Justice Department and to the White House Counsel's Office -- a political advisor playing a role in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys. It's disgraceful. Here's the question: Should U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resign?"

After providing his email address, Cafferty continued:

Cafferty: "If you look up the word weasel in the dictionary, Wolf, you'll see Alberto Gonzales' picture there."

Blitzer: "You don't like him?"

Cafferty: "That's correct. I don't."

Blitzer: "Jack Cafferty will be back with your e-mail shortly. Thank you, Jack, for that."

Shortly before 5:00 p.m., Cafferty was back with viewer emails:

Blitzer: "Check in with Jack Cafferty for 'The Cafferty File.' Jack?"

Cafferty: "Several people in Congress, the United States Senate are suggesting that it's time for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. And we asked this hour if you thought that was a good idea. Don writes from Florida: 'Jack, a better question is: How soon should Alberto Gonzales resign? And what should be the punishment for his crimes?'

"Ralph writes: 'Nah. They'd just replace him with somebody more dangerous, somebody who knows how to run a police state without getting caught.'

"John in Philadelphia: 'Actually, he should have been fired. We all know how long that takes, though. Remember Rumsfeld? This worm is exactly the type of hatchet man that Bush likes. Don't ever do the people's work. Just do my dirty work.'

"Larisa in Seattle: 'Alberto Gonzales should have resigned yesterday or last year or two years ago. Look at the guy's legacy: torture memos, spying on Americans, and now substituting GOP cronies for lawyers who are supposed to be defending the public good and upholding the Constitution.'

"Robert writes from Ohio: 'Resign? He ought to be perp-walked.'

"J. writes: 'Jack, of course he ought to resign, but we both know he won't. His role right now is to cover the backside of the most corrupt administration in history, which is a tall order for such a little man.'

"Jody in Tennessee: 'Yeah, he ought to, but that won't happen. He's a Bush buddy. Every time I see him on TV, he looks like he's laughing at us.'

"And Jenny in New York: 'From this administration? No way. He's doing a heck of a job.'

"We got no letters suggesting that Alberto Gonzales was doing a great job, and that we were out of line by quoting some of the people, like Chuck Schumer in the Senate, who are calling for the man's resignation. Nobody wrote and said, 'This guy is doing a good job.'"

Blitzer: "Out of how many? About hundreds? Did we get thousands?"

Cafferty: "I don't know. Yeah, it was 800, 900 e-mails. I didn't read 800 or 900 of them, but I spun through probably a couple of hundred. There were none, none. Nobody wrote to say Alberto Gonzales is doing a good job as the Attorney General of the United States. I mean, that alone says something, doesn't it?"

Blitzer: "It certainly does. Jack, thank you very much."

http://newsbusters.org/node/11454

 

[CockySOB]

Cafferty is an ass, and always has been AFAIR.

 

[red states rule]

Why No Calls for Janet Reno To Resign In 1993? As If She Were In Charge?
Posted by Tim Graham on March 16, 2007 - 10:39.
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift complained on Friday's Diane Rehm show on NPR that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has drained all the independence out of his office, that he's acting too much like the president's "personal lawyer." In 1993, when Janet Reno announced the mass dismissal of all 93 U.S. Attorneys, no one demanded her resignation for her lack of independence from the White House. In fact, it could be because someone else was coordinating with the White House on how to run the Justice Department, the felonious Webster Hubbell. At that time, the Wall Street Journal editorial page found a "fascinating exchange" in an interview Reno granted to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw just after the Waco debacle on April 19:

BROKAW: Once the fire broke out, what did you tell President Clinton?

RENO: I haven't talked to President Clinton yet, because I have other [sic] with me, have been talking to the White House while I've been talking with the FBI. And as I have said, this is my responsibility, I'm accountable for it, and I've been trying to respond to questions from you and others in the media.

BROKAW: With all due respect, General Reno, you mean that the President has not had a direct conversation with you, has not expressed curiosity?

RENO: The President has expressed extensive curiosity. He has had a direct conversation with Webb Hubbell, who was with me as I was talking to the FBI.

BROKAW: And what did he tell Webb Hubbell?

RENO: You would have, I should say, as I understand, he was talking with Webb Hubbell. But you should check and see.

BROKAW: Webb Hubbell did not share with you what the President was saying?

RENO: Again, I have been trying to respond to the people. Trying to be accountable to the people. Trying to take your request and the request of others for information as to what happened. And as soon as I'm through with this, I'm gonna talk to the President.

A few days before, Journal columnist Paul Gigot editorialized about the U.S. attorney firings, after noting Webb Hubbell caused two U.S. attorneys to resign in protest after he arranged meetings to ease corruption investigations into Rep. Harold Ford:

All of which raises the deeper issue of who is really running Justice. Ms. Reno says dismissing the 93 [U.S.] attorneys was a "joint decision" with the White House, which means the White House decided and she announced it. Her letter asked the U.S. attorneys to send their resignation letters "care of John Podesta, assistant to the president and staff secretary, with a copy to me." Independent justice?

General Reno's spokeswoman adds that Mr. Hubbell was an "adviser" on the dismissals, though he hasn't even subjected himself to Senate confirmation. Perhaps in another era Mr. Hubbell would be Mr. Clinton's attorney general. But in this age of "diversity" and ethical appearances, a presidential crony from Arkansas seems to need a skirt to hide behind.

 

[red states rule]

CBS's Plante Claims No One Thought Clinton's U.S. Attorneys Firings Were Political
Posted by Justin McCarthy on March 15, 2007 - 10:37.
CBS finally picked up the Clinton administration’s record of firing 93 federal prosecutors, but they still rushed to Clinton’s defense with false assertions. On the March 15 edition of "The Early Show," reporter Bill Plante sought to make this distinction between the Bush and Clinton firings.

"Mr. Bush isn't the first president to fire US attorneys and replace them with his own appointments. At the beginning of his first term, President Clinton cleaned house, ousting all 93 US attorneys. Not unusual, they serve at the pleasure of the president. The difference this time, the charge that politics played a role in their dismissal."

Not true. The Washington Post reported on March 26, 1993 that Republicans did charge politics in President Clinton’s mass firing. An excerpt from the article:

President Clinton yesterday attempted to rebut Republican criticism of the administration's decision to seek resignations from all U.S. attorneys, saying what he was asking was routine and less political than piecemeal replacements.

"All those people are routinely replaced and I have not done anything differently," Clinton told reporters during a photo opportunity in the Oval Office. He called the decision more politically appropriate "than picking people out one by one."

But Republicans in Congress pressed their criticism of the decision, announced Tuesday by Attorney General Janet Reno, with Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) describing the decision as "Reno's March Massacre."

Rep. Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) urged the administration to allow Jay B. Stephens, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to stay on the job until he completes his investigation of the House Post Office scandal and the role House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) may have played in it.

Stephens said Tuesday he was about a month away from "a critical decision with regard to resolution" of the probe.

The transcript of the entire story is below.

HANNAH STORM: Thanks, Russ. There are growing calls for the president to get rid of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the wake of the prosecutor firing scandal. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante has more on that. Good morning, Bill."

BILL PLANTE: Good morning, Hannah. That's right, all the Democrats on Capitol Hill and at least one Republican want the resignation of Attorney General Gonzales for the way the handling of the firing of those U.S. attorneys took place. The president is defending Gonzales for now, but he's leaving himself room to change his mind, if necessary.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH: Mistakes were made and I'm frankly not happy about them. Because there is a lot of confusion over what really has been a customary practice by the president.

PLANTE: Democrats in Congress charge at least some of the eight US attorneys were fired for political reasons. The president denied that and said that he told Gonzales he needs to set the record straight.

BUSH: We talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decisions it made.

PLANTE: Congressional Democrats are threatening to subpoena former White House counsel Harriet Miers and political counselor Karl Rove.

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We just want all the facts to come out. If some bad things were done, they should come to light.

PLANTE: Mr. Bush isn't the first president to fire US attorneys and replace them with his own appointments. At the beginning of his first term, President Clinton cleaned house, ousting all 93 US attorneys. Not unusual, they serve at the pleasure of the president. The difference this time, the charge that politics played a role in their dismissal.

FORMER US ATTORNEY JOHN MCKAY: I asked for the reasons that I was being asked to resign and I was given no reasons.

PLANTE: Former US attorney John McKay was fired in December for reasons that he now believes had nothing to do with the way he did his job, but everything to do with how he didn't play politics.

MCKAY: Any individual prosecutor is replaceable. What's not replaceable is our reputation for fairness, our reputation for independence from political influences.

PLANTE: The 93 U.S. Attorneys are the government's prosecutors.

ANDREW COHEN, CBS NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: They are the backbone of the federal legal system because they take the policies and the laws and they implement them and they enforce them.

PLANTE: The question now is whether the White House will allow Miers, the former counsel, and Rove to testify. Fred Fielding, who is now the White House counsel, went to Capitol Hill yesterday. He's a veteran of Watergate and Iran-Contra, to see what could be worked out. So we'll wait and find out soon, Hannah.

http://newsbusters.org/node/11439

 

[CockySOB]

Karl Rove was the next speaker on CSPAN2 and he brought up a couple of points that should show the partisanship exhibited by the Democrats on this issue.

1) Clinton replaced 93 US Attorneys immediately upon assuming office in 1993. GWB actually left a number of Clinton appointees in office until they could finish up their priority cases. Clinton/Reno simply told all the US Attorneys they had 10 days to vacate their offices and make way for their replacements.

2) Feinstein had filed a formal complaint against the US Attorney in San Diego (Lam) for her refusal to prosecute illegal immigration. And now Feinstein has a problem because this US Attorney is dismissed (she's one of the eight at the heart of this brouhaha).

CSPAN2 televised source.

 

[red states rule]

Karl Rove was the next speaker on CSPAN2 and he brought up a couple of points that should show the partisanship exhibited by the Democrats on this issue.

1) Clinton replaced 93 US Attorneys immediately upon assuming office in 1993. GWB actually left a number of Clinton appointees in office until they could finish up their priority cases. Clinton/Reno simply told all the US Attorneys they had 10 days to vacate their offices and make way for their replacements.

2) Feinstein had filed a formal complaint against the US Attorney in San Diego (Lam) for her refusal to prosecute illegal immigration. And now Feinstein has a problem because this US Attorney is dismissed (she's one of the eight at the heart of this brouhaha).

CSPAN2 televised source.

Game Plan For Libs -

Libs are reaching for their antidepressents right now

Then they will reach for the knives to attack the messenger

The liberal media will ignore the message

 

[red states rule]

Actually, Feinstein is claiming that there is no parallel between dismissing US Attorneys upon change of administration and dismissing US Attorneys in-term. Kennedy went on some tirade about civil rights abuses and DoJ.

Personally I thought Kyl laid it out correctly that there is actually less problem with this set of dismissals than there is when administrations change out the entire US Attorney roster upon taking office.

Stephanopoulos's Double Standard: 'Something Smells Fishy' in Bush Firings, But...
Posted by Rich Noyes on March 16, 2007 - 12:31.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys on Wednesday, telling him that “something does seem fishy here,” suggesting that the Bush White House was punishing U.S. Attorneys who were not pursuing a GOP-friendly agenda.

But as a White House spokesman back in 1993, Stephanopoulos faced exactly the same question over President Clinton’s decision to fire U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens along with the other 92 U.S. Attorneys. “There is also a tradition of permitting prosecutors to remain on cases until current cases are completed,” a reporter told Stephanopoulos in a March 25, 1993 briefing. Referring to the investigation into House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski for embezzling money from the House Post Office, a reporter asked, “Is there any intention to keep Jay Stephens until the Rostenkowski case is finished?”

From the podium, spokesman Stephanopoulos coolly replied, “I don't think so, no.”

In his political memoir, “All Too Human,” Stephanopoulos relayed the attitude Clinton insiders had toward Stephens, who said in March 1993 he was within 30 days of finishing the Rostenkowski investigation. (With Stephens off the case, the indictment came 14 months later, in May 1994.) Hearing that Stephens had been named by a government agency to look into the Clinton’s Whitewater land deal, Stephanopoulos recalled his rage: “How could a Clinton hater like Stephens possibly conduct an impartial investigation? This is unbelievable! He has a clear conflict. How could it happen?”

Stephanopoulos voiced his outrage to Treasury Department official Josh Steiner, who told him there was no way to remove Stephens from the case. Stephanopoulos’ seeming attempt to affect the Whitewater investigation actually earned him a trip to the grand jury room, although he was never indicted.

MRC analyst Scott Whitlock took down Stephanopoulos’s accusatory questions to Gonzales from the March 14 Good Morning America:


Stephanopoulos: "But Mr. Attorney General, something does seem fishy here. Five of the eight who were dismissed were involved in high profile political corruption cases. Four were going after Republicans accused of corruption or had gone after Republicans. One was being complained about because he wasn't going after Democrats aggressively enough. So it really does appear here, at least, like you singled out prosecutors that weren't with the program."

Stephanopoulos: "And if it turns out that evidence of political interference does comes up in these e-mails and other communications, will you resign?"

Now back up to March 25, 1993, when the roles were reversed, with Republicans charging that the Clinton White House had fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in part to stall the Rostenkowski investigation. Here’s the relevant portion of Stephanopoulos’s White House briefing (unfortunately, the Federal News Service transcript retrieved via Nexis doesn’t include the names or news organizations of the reporters asking the questions):

Q It has been the custom in the past for holdover US attorneys to stay on until their successors were nominated or even in place. Why was that not done in this case?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, in this case, we thought it was most appropriate to make sure that everybody was clear from the start that the President would be making his own choices. There will be interim appointments in the meantime, largely from the career service.

Q There is also a tradition of permitting prosecutors to remain on cases until current cases are completed. In that case --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I don't know if -- I don't think that's true.

Q People in the field say that that is a tradition. And Jay Stephens --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: And there are many others who say it's not.

Q -- Jay Stephens believes that there should be a presumption that he remain on until the Rostenkowski case is finished. Is there any intention to keep Jay Stephens until the Rostenkowski case is finished?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I don't think so, no.

Q Well, don't you have some concern that this might either damage that case or --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Not at all. We expect -- not at all. We expect it will go forward. We expect that the investigation will continue to go forward. We expect that a good career person will be there in the interim until the President's appointment is in place and the investigations certainly will go forward.

Q Are you contradicting what Dee Dee said yesterday, that Janet Reno did not mean that all the US attorneys should clear out their desks immediately, that --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: No. There's a possibility that some won't have to do it immediately, I believe. I know that there is at least some people who are in the middle of trials right now who will not be replaced, but I think the bulk of them will be replaced over the next several weeks.

Q Well, we got the clear impression that we were being told yesterday that we had misinterpreted Reno's remarks, that while they were asking for letters of resignation, that it wasn't a wholesale clearing out all at once.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we've asked for the letters of resignation. We will be looking at these at a case-by-case basis. I think the presumption should be that the US attorneys in place will go. There might be special circumstances where some will stay.

Q How soon, what kind of timetable are you talking about?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we're working on it right now.

Q Why isn't Stephens a special circumstance?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, there are investigations going on across the country. This is one of many investigations. We expect that it will continue with the career people in place.

Q (Off mike) -- worried at all about a question of appearances here with so prominent a Democrat, and the focus here? I mean, don't you think --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: We are confident -- we have confidence in the career attorneys at the US Attorneys Office to continue this investigation.

And here’s how Stephanopoulos recalled the U.S. Attorneys firings and his attitude toward Stephens on page 247 of “All Too Human.” Stephanopoulos was explaining his phone call to Josh Steiner, a call that was later investigated by Special Counsel Robert Fiske as a possibly improper attempt to influence the Whitewater investigation (emphasis in the original):

“I got something else off my chest to Josh. I had heard that Jay Stephens, a former U.S. attorney, might have been appointed by the RTC [the Resolution Trust Corporation, the agency created to deal with S&L failures] to investigate the finances of Whitewater, and I couldn’t believe it was true. When Clinton took office, he had followed the practice of his predecessors and asked each U.S. attorney, including Stephens, to submit a pro-forma resignation. Instead of quietly submitting his resignation letter like his colleagues, Stephens had called a press conference and gone on Nightline to accuse Clinton of ‘obstructing justice,’ saying that the president was trying to derail his investigation of Democratic congressman Dan Rostenkowski. How could a Clinton hater like Stephens possibly conduct an impartial investigation? This is unbelievable! He has a clear conflict. How could it happen? I blew up at Josh and demanded to know how such an unfair choice came to be made and wether the decision was final....”
So if Stephens should be regarded as “a Clinton hater” for publicly challenging his removal from a sensitive investigation of an important House Democrat, and therefore had “a clear conflict” that meant he was too prejudiced to be trusted with an investigation, what would Stephanopoulos say about fired U.S. Attorneys like Washington state’s John McKay, who are going on TV to complain about their removal? Are they obvious “Bush haters” who are so prejudiced that their complaining should be dismissed out of hand?

Or are we to trust that Stephanopoulos has purged every partisan instinct from his body, and is unencumbered by any kind of "clear conflict" that should worry conservatives today?
http://newsbusters.org/node/11466