Gonzales must resign now. "Mistakes were made."

Well, here is a pic of Bush's Monica, taken from here.



She should be much in the news soon.

"would jesus take the 5th?"

That's pretty funny. Tip of the hat.

BBB
I wonder how many attornies appointed by the Bush Administration passed a state Bar or just graduated from law school? Passing a Bar would actually test how much they really learned in law school.

I don't find any record of Monica Goodling taking and/or passing a Bar.

BBB

Sampson: Says Gonzales Made False Statements
Sampson Grilled by Senators on U.S. Attorney Firings: Says Gonzales Made False Statements
By E&P Staff
Published: March 29, 2007 11:30 AM ET updated

We (Editors & Publishers) will keep an eye all day on the testimony, and grilling, of former Justice Department official Kyle Sampson at a U.S. Senate hearing today.

He offered his written testimony this morning (it was leaked last night) and then the questiong began by Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Arlen Specter, and others.

Specter asked about Attorney General Gonzales' "candor" in saying earlier this month that he was not a part of any discussions on the firings. He asked about the November 27, 2006 meeting "where there were discussions" and Gonzales allegedly attended. Was Gonzales' statement about taking part in no discussions accurate?

"I don't think it's accurate," Sampson said. "He recently clarified it. But he was present at the November 27 meeting."

"So he was involved in discussions in contrast to his statement" this month? Specter asked.

"Yes." Sampson replied.

Sen. Charles Schumer then asked about Gonzales also claiming that he saw no documents on this matter.

Sampson replied: "I don't think it's entirely accurate."

Schumer: "There was repeated discussions??

Sampson: "Yes...at least five."

Schumer then asked if Gonzales was truthful in saying Sampson's information on the firings was not shared within the depaartment.

Sampson: "I shared information with whoever asked."

Schumer: "So the Attorney General's statement is false?"

Sampson: "I don't think it is accurate."

Sampson was later asked if it was a mistake to let "ultimate political operative" Karl Rove to be so involved in the process because of the signal it sent to the public about political influence in the process. He agreed that it was.

The earlier AP dispatch follows. We will add updates at the top.

Eight federal prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support President Bush's priorities, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff maintains, but a powerful Senate chairman called that motivation improper.

"It corrodes the public's trust in our system of justice. It's wrong," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said as he gaveled open a hearing featuring the sworn testimony of Kyle Sampson, who quit the Justice Department over the furor.

But Sampson maintained that it's legitimate to judge federal prosecutors in large part on their fidelity to administration policy. He denied Democratic charges that the firings were a purge by intimidation and a warning to the remaining prosecutors to fall into line.

Nor, he said, were the prosecutors dismissed to interfere with corruption investigations.

"To my knowledge, nothing of the sort occurred here," Sampson said in remarks prepared for delivery Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

DOJ Emails Illustrate Plan to Mislead Congress
DOJ Emails Illustrate Plan to Mislead Congress
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 29 March 2007

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his closest advisers have stated repeatedly over the past two months that the selective firings of eight United States attorneys last year were justified because President Bush has the authority to purge federal prosecutors at will, a fact that is not under dispute.

However, the common thread in the thousands of pages of documents released by the Department of Justice in conjunction with a Congressional probe into the US attorney dismissals is that top officials in the DOJ who worked behind the scenes believed that they were doing something improper in selectively dismissing the attorneys and acted with a clear intent to deceive lawmakers if any questions into reasons for the firings arose.

Instead of pointing to the president's broad discretion to fire the prosecutors, Justice officials conceived a plan that they would execute on a specific date and time, and then cooked up a story that they all agreed upon in the event that their actions were scrutinized. Simply put, some former US attorneys argue, the emails and other documents released last week demonstrate that prior to the day the firings took place, officials in the Justice Department appeared to be acting under a guilty state of mind.

The state of mind of officials involved in the firings is part of the reason the US attorney purge has turned into a full-blown political scandal and has led to Congressional hearings.

There "seems to be an awareness that the various officials involved in the process knew they were putting out misinformation in large measure; that is, this is evidence of an intent to deceive," said Michael E. Clark, a former US attorney for the Southern District of Texas. "It may not be criminally actionable, but arguably there could be a civil remedy available to those who were on the receiving end - such as for defamation of character. This episode has gained traction in my eyes for the same reason that spelled the fate of former President Nixon during Watergate. The deception is inexcusable, and particularly so when it wasn't necessary; instead, had Gonzales and others been more forthright, then this could have been a tempest in a teapot."

Other former federal prosecutors said the fact that Justice Department officials drafted a document titled "Plan for Replacing Certain U.S. Attorneys" and then allegedly fabricated a set of talking points for the media and lawmakers in the form of employment evaluations showing that the eight US attorneys in question were performing poorly is a clear indicator that DOJ officials knew what they were doing was questionable at best.

The emails demonstrated that "some of [the Justice Department officials] were uncomfortable with the "plan" to dismiss the US attorneys because they realized how unprecedented, disruptive and controversial their actions would be," said Laurie Levenson, a former assistant federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. Levenson recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the firings. "As for legal consequences of their actions, intent would be important if it could be shown that any of these dismissals were [...] an effort to disrupt or influence a particular criminal investigation."

Several lawmakers, including Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), have questioned whether the eight US attorney firings constituted an attempt to derail corruption investigations involving Republican officials, which the US attorneys who were fired were still working on.

However, Levenson, who now works as a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, stressed that it is still a bit "premature" to draw that conclusion "because we still don't know if [the Justice Department was] playing politics or playing with particular criminal investigations."

Dan Richman, a former US attorney in New York, doesn't necessarily see deception at play based on the email traffic of the Justice Department officials, but rather awareness that the firings would touch a nerve among some members Congress and a discussion among the DOJ in dealing with the political blowback.

Even if "the staffers had simply been engaged in a plan to make room for new blood or to cull out [US attorneys] not aligned with the administration's enforcement priorities, they might still have worried about the fallout in Congress or within the DOJ community," Richman said. "The allocation of authority between Main Justice and the Districts [US attorneys are assigned to] has always been a sensitive issue."

On Tuesday, during a news conference in Chicago, Gonzales said he wanted to "reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here."

But it's the appearance of impropriety that has angered Congress and members of the legal community.

Indeed, some of the emails into the activities that predated the firings show that White House officials communicated with DOJ staffers about the attorney purge, using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee.

Using alternative email accounts also creates the appearance of impropriety, lawmakers charged Monday, because it allows White House officials to avoid the usual archival process and the automatic paper trail that is established when they use White House email servers to conduct business. Emails sent through the RNC server can be destroyed.

In letters sent Monday to the RNC and the Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, urged the two groups to preserve all emails sent by White House officials from their servers, because of their relevance to the US attorney scandal.

One email the Justice Department released Friday to a Congressional committee shows that J. Scott Jennings, special assistant to President Bush and deputy director for political affairs, used an [email protected] email account to query a DOJ official about the pending US attorney vacancies.

"Does a list of vacant, or about-to-be-vacant, US attorney slots exist anywhere?" Jennings wrote in a December 3, 2006 email to Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Gonzales. Gonzales is said to have approved the firings of eight US attorneys in what appears to be a politically motivated plot. Jennings' immediate boss is Karl Rove, White House political adviser, who, according to a report Friday in the National Journal, conducts 95 percent of White House business using an email account maintained by the RNC.

"My office. Want me to sent [sic] to you tomorrow?" Sampson replied to Jennings' private [email protected] account. Four days after the email was sent, the DOJ fired seven US attorneys. Earlier another US attorney had been fired. The firings have since been revealed as part of a plan that had been in the making for more than two years and was executed with the knowledge of White House officials, including Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Both Rove and Miers have been asked to testify under oath before Congress about the firings, whether the action was politically motivated, and the roles they played in the firings.

Waxman said that in certain cases White House officials were using alternative email accounts to avoid creating an automatic paper trail of their communications about hot-button political issues.

Taken as a whole, Jennings' use of an outside email account to query Sampson on the status of the purge, and the creation of a five-point plan which stated that if pushed by lawmakers to justify the dismissals, DOJ officials should mislead lawmakers and say that each termination "is based on a thorough review of US attorneys' performance," would seem to suggest there were other reasons behind the firings. That is what Congress is trying to determine.
---------------------------------------

Truthout reporter Matt Renner contributed to this report.

Prosecutors Assail Gonzales During Meeting
Prosecutors Assail Gonzales During Meeting
By David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis
The New York Times
Thursday 29 March 2007

Washington - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys, complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion.

About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Mr. Gonzales in Chicago.

Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Mr. Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department.

While Mr. Gonzales's trip was part of a long-scheduled tour, he has been meeting in recent days with prosecutors in an effort to repair the damage caused by the dismissals. President Bush has backed Mr. Gonzales, but his tenure at the Justice Department may still be in peril as lawmakers in both parties have called for his resignation, questioned his credibility and raised doubts that he can lead the department.

His former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, is to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. In his prepared testimony, Mr. Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, said the prosecutors were fired not for political reasons, but because they failed to follow the president's priorities. He is likely to be closely questioned about the extent of Mr. Gonzales's involvement in planning the firings.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department released more than 200 additional pages of e-mail messages and other documents and sent a letter to lawmakers saying that it had given Congress inaccurate information in an earlier letter that asserted that Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, had played no role in the removals.

In Chicago, some prosecutors accused Mr. Gonzales's subordinates of operating as if the prosecutors were an obstacle to be side-stepped instead of a resource to be tapped in developing departmental policy, one person said.

At least one prosecutor complained that United States attorneys had been excluded from deliberations that led to a change in policy on prosecuting corporate crime, a person familiar with the discussions said. He and others would speak only on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.

The policy change at issue happened in December, when Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty rolled back a requirement that corporate defendants waive the confidentiality of their discussions with lawyers to obtain leniency. Justice Department officials said Wednesday that some prosecutors had been involved in those deliberations.

Mr. Gonzales attended the Chicago meeting after abruptly cutting short a news conference in which he was asked about the dismissals and his own status. He reacted unemotionally to the criticism in the private session, responding that he had not previously heard of their specific complaints, including the McNulty memorandum.

Justice Department officials acknowledged that the Chicago meeting was more combative than recent sessions in Cincinnati, Denver, St. Louis and Houston. But they said the exchanges were intended to be candid conversations in which prosecutors could speak freely.

"These were not supposed to be public relations stunts," said Tasia Scolinos, a department spokeswoman. "These were designed to elicit frank exchanges with the attorney general about what happened. To the extent that happened, that's a good thing."

The host of the Chicago meeting was Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney there, who recently successfully prosecuted I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former White House official, on perjury charges. Mr. Fitzgerald's spokesman declined to comment on the meeting.

Several other prosecutors declined to discuss the meeting. Justice Department officials said the participants included Steven M. Biskupic and Erik C. Peterson of Wisconsin; Joseph S. Van Bokkelen of Indiana; Craig S. Morford of Tennessee; and James A. McDevitt of Washington State.

Behind the prosecutors' complaints is what several officials have described as their anger about the seemingly arbitrary manner used to identify the United States attorneys selected for dismissal.

One recently released document that underscored their feelings was a chart prepared by Mr. Sampson in 2005 that ranked people as strong or weak performers and identified Mr. Fitzgerald, widely regarded as a highly able prosecutor, as undistinguished.

Officials said Mr. Gonzales had faced direct criticism in most of the meetings with the prosecutors.

At a meeting in Denver, attended by about a dozen mainly Western prosecutors, Mr. Gonzales was told that the dismissals had cast a cloud over all the United States attorneys' offices, not only over the prosecutors who were removed. But at that meeting, according to one official briefed on the discussion, prosecutors focused on steps to improve communications between the attorney general and United States attorneys.

The criticism from prosecutors in the Justice Department's field offices comes as the uproar over the dismissals appears to also have eroded confidence in Mr. Gonzales at the agency's headquarters, where top officials have been focused for weeks on little else.

Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty, who are expected to testify before Congress in two weeks, are said by officials to have maintained a working relationship, but their staffs have feuded over who is to blame.

Some of Mr. Gonzales' aides have blamed Mr. McNulty for inflaming the issue by testifying on Feb. 6 that one of the ousted prosecutors, H. E. Cummins III, was removed for no reason. Mr. McNulty's aides have blamed Mr. Sampson and Monica Goodling, the liaison to the White House, for failing to disclose their conversations with the White House before the removals.

In Washington, one Republican lawmaker said he was less concerned with Mr. Gonzales's personal situation than how it was affecting the day-to-day performance of the Justice Department.

"I can't imagine a department being more demoralized with what's going on there," said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Specter said in an interview that Mr. Gonzales needed to demonstrate his candor about the dismissals and assure people about his competence to retain his post.

"The Justice Department is too important to the country to have it hanging on the edge of a cliff," he said.

A senior Justice Department official said Wednesday that the uncertainty over Mr. Gonzales's future and the accusations from Congress were having a dispiriting effect.

"It's a very difficult time," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Policy and personnel decisions were being put off because of the uncertainty, the official said, adding, "It's not a time to get into a battle with someone."

Another official said that relatively few officials had been directly affected by the dismissal issue and that the agency's work had continued without interruption.

Beleaguered presidents often seek refuge in foreign travel where they can be seen on a different stage. Mr. Gonzales has been engaged in his own version of that practice in recent days, setting off around the nation to deliver speeches about the department's efforts to curb child pornography, meet with prosecutors and appear before friendly audiences.

On Wednesday, he seemed buoyed by a warm reception in his home state from about 1,000 people at the annual luncheon of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

As his staff kept the news media at a distance, Mr. Gonzales was greeted with cheers and applause.

"Because of all the great needs that exist in our community, I have to remain focused on doing my job," he said. "Doing my job is serving the American public."

He said he had received hundreds of messages from people who said they were praying for him, adding, "I can't tell you how much that has meant to me and my family."

The audience rewarded him with warm laughter when he said: "For many of us, getting where we are today was going down a bumpy road. I'm traveling down a bumpy road these days."
------------------------------------------

Eric Lipton contributed reporting.

Justice Dept. apologizes for inaccuracies in letter to Dems
Posted on Wed, Mar. 28, 2007
U.S. ATTORNEYS
Justice Dept. apologizes for inaccuracies in early letter to Democrats
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department on Wednesday apologized to Congress for inaccuracies in a February letter that suggested that White House political adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys.

"We sincerely regret any inaccuracy," said the letter from acting Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Hertling to Senate Democrats. It topped a 202-page release of new documents that was turned over for a congressional inquiry into the firings of eight top federal prosecutors last year.

The admission came on the eve of congressional testimony by Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sampson is expected to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning that the department mishandled the controversy and turned it into an "ugly, undignified spectacle" through "an unfortunate combination of poor judgments, poor word choices and poor communication and preparation," according to his prepared testimony.

In the letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Hertling said that department documents turned over to Congress in the last several weeks "contradicted" his Feb. 23 letter to several Senate Democrats.

Hertling didn't spell out what statements in that letter were contradictory or inaccurate. Democrats said Wednesday that they assumed that he was referring to Rove's involvement in the hiring of Arkansas interim U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin.

In the February letter, Hertling said the Justice Department was "not aware of Karl Rove playing any role" in the decision to appoint Griffin. He also said that the department was "not aware of anyone lobbying for Mr. Griffin's appointment."

Hertling also wrote that the department didn't fire any prosecutors in order to interfere with public corruption cases or as an act of political retaliation.

Subsequent documents show that both Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers backed Griffin's appointment. In one e-mail last year, Sampson wrote to a colleague, "I know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." To find him a spot, the Justice Department removed U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins, also a Bush administration appointee.

Democrats weren't placated by the apology. Schumer said the acknowledgement only intensified the need for Rove and other White House officials to testify publicly, something the White House has refused to go along with.

An ousted prosecutor accused Republicans Wednesday of hitting a new "level of desperation" after a GOP activist launched a radio ad that attacked the prosecutor's track record and defended his firing.

The one-minute spot criticizing former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was paid for by New Mexicans for Honest Courts, whose Web site lists Linda Chavez Krumland as its chairwoman. Krumland couldn't be reached for comment.

"I've never heard of an attack on an unemployed political appointee who's not running for office," Iglesias said. Iglesias also denied speculation floated by some Republicans in his state that he's speaking out in preparation for a run for office.

The Justice Department initially said that the attorneys' firings were performance-related. Officials have since backed away from that stance, saying there had been policy disagreements with some of them, as well as some performance concerns.

Sampson's prepared testimony says: "The distinction between `political' and `performance-related' reasons for removing a United States Attorney is, in my view, largely artificial."

But most of the ousted prosecutors had received positive reviews, and all said that their forced resignations came without explanation.

While U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, Democrats say they're concerned that the firings may have been motivated by a desire to punish independent prosecutors who investigated Republicans for corruption or declined to charge Democrats.

Two of the Republican-appointed fired prosecutors have themselves alleged that their ousters were payback for decisions that angered Republican political activists.

whiny little bitches aren't they? Perhaps time to let them all go ala Clinton.

I've been listening live via streaming video to Sampsons questioning.

You can go HERE and click on Live Hearings in the upper left corner to do the same.

Amazing so far. Sampson claimed he maintained a running list or something to that affect in his opening statement. Then when asked if he had a file, maintained a file, kept records, maintained notes, etc he said it was kinda a file in his bottom right desk drawer that he would put stuff in and take stuff out of. No one asked for the file. He said he would jot some notes and then later throw them away.

He was asked if he had ever tried a case... one in Florida as an assistant I think he said, in the last few years. He was asked if he had ever tried a civil case. He said he was with a law firm in Utah before and assisted with several... second chair. Asked if Goodling had ever tried a case he said he didn't know. Then the questioner (Whitesides?) said he found it amazing that two people with so little law experience, having graduated in 1999, were making career ending decisions for hard working attorneys, admittedly (by Sampsons opening statement) good people, who are on the ground in their offices around the country making the hard (legal) decisions.

Amazing way to adjourn for lunch.

Should be back up and running in abut 20 minutes. (1:45 EST)

Why does this not surprise me? Bush Jnr bankrupted how many businesses before deciding he was qualified to run a country?

Oh, and Feinstein inserted in the record / read aloud a letter from someone in immigration related department thanking Lam for her prosecution of immigration cases, noting huge increases in cases and 100% convictions, etc.

Completely blew out Sampson / DOJ argument that Lam was fired for not pursuing immigration cases which Sampson had JUST testified again to being the reason (poor performance including not pursuing admin. policies, especially immigration) Lam was let go.

Previous questioners went over the reasons given pretty well, and Sampson stuck with the DOJ stated reason(s), then BAM! Here comes Feinstein.

And, another point I almost forgot:

Right before lunch, when Whitesides was saying he found it hard to believe two people with so little experience were making career ending decisions...

Sampson said he wasn't making the decision. He was making recommendations. Asked if his recommendations were followed, he said he didn't know.

So... Gonzales made decisions based on the inexperienced Goodling and Sampson recommendations without being involved in discussions as Gonzales has claimed, OR without paying attention to their recommendations, without being involved in discussions or knowing anything about the performances of the 8 prosecutors.

Riiiiight!

Kennedy is asking for file. Sampson is saying he doesn't remember keeping a very good file, but DOJ would have it, and to best of Sampsons recollection it wasn't much of a file.

Sampson claiming e-mail reference to Griffins appointment being important to Rove/Meirs was just an assumption he made since the e-mail was to Jennings - Roves assistant. Said he assumed that based on Jennings working for Rove. (But, that doesn't explain reference to Meirs - we'll see if anyone asks about that.)

Was not aware of Rove wanting Griffin in the US attorney position to which he was assigned. (Wow, what an assumption, and gratuitous chance that it just happened to be the person Rove wanted.)

Met with Meirs & Bill Kelly about replacement of attorneys. Did not answer whether or not Rove or who else was present.

Went off DOJ payroll Wed. March 14.

Grassley addressing conflicting info. We shouldn't have conflicting info from DOJ.

(Republicans have just objected to this hearing being held. Standing in recess according to Senate rules that allows hearing to be stopped)

WHAT???

Republicans (minority?) can call off committee hearings? They just shut down the hearing until further notice.

Can't find that rule. Anyone know?

It's because there is an open vote on the Senate floor going on. It's within the rules.

I think Leahy is starting it back up tho

Cycloptichorn

Leahy - The lack of permission for going forward has now been changed. The objection from the republicans has been withdrawn.

Leahy saying something about not allowing hearings to be disrupted...

Hearings back on.

Talking about Fitzgerald. Didn't rate him either way. Why?

Just didn't want to touch it due to ongoing investigation.

Then couldn't you have given him a good rating?

To best of recollection didn't want to say anything about him.

From what I reall, Fitz had received nothing but plaudits prior to the Plame case. I guess he wasn't Bushie enough.

Sampson is trying to stop the bleeding, but it isn't going to work.

He comes off as a complete f*cking tool on the stand. He said 'I don't remember' about 150 times already.... we're talking about events which happened just a few months ago and ones that he's been intimately involved with the whole time. It isn't credible to believe that he would forget as many details as he claims to have.

Cycloptichorn

especially when for two years he didn't keep a file... But, obviously could remember who to put on the list and who was being suggested and what performance each had, etc.