Gonzales must resign now. "Mistakes were made."

While he prez can fire them, congress has the right to look into the firings to determine whether the ones not fired were used improperly for political purposes. This is leading to legislation that might prevent such misuse.

Indeed, future presidents should learn from this matter.

Joe (who is often right) Nation is correct in his comments.

So,if the American people ask the President why he used the bathroom in his office instead of going up to the one in the residence,he MUST answer them???
Get serious!!!!

Okay, Mysteryman, now you're grossing me out.

MM:
The easiest way to stumble into authoritarianism is to refuse to question or even entertain the notion that questioning might be beneficial. Your remark about being careful what you wish for is pure obedient behavior.

I don't know how I can make my position any clearer. This issue, for me, is not only about who got fired but also about who didn't get fired and why. You say a president doesn't have explain the reason for firing a person, I say, any president who desires to be something more than a dictator owes the American people a transparent administration which, not to put too fine a point on it, they can be confident is preserving and defending the Constitution.

Mystery, my man, I really like your honesty, but this is about your Department of Justice being put in the hands of incompetents. You should be concerned for this nation. We cannot be a nation of laws, we cannot be the bastion of freedom we purport ourselves to be, if the chief legal officer is no more than an errand boy for Karl Rove and Republican National Committee.

And as for getting what I wish, I would not accept with any lesser degree of dismay similar actions as have been alleged if they had been done by a Democrat.

This is about removing partisan politics from the Department of Justice. The president and his cadre have been trying for eight years or more to pump as much GOP into the judiciary as possible in the belief that Republican judges will rule more in favor of conservatives. If I was a judge appointed by this administration I think I would be insulted to be held in such low regard.

Joe(Justice. You remember her? The blinded one with the scales.)Nation

The American people have the right to ask him anything they wish. You just don't seem to realize how the master-servant relationship works.

In this case, though, we're not talking about scatalogical expressions by the prez, but his official duties. For you to say that the American people have no right to question his decisions is Authoritarian in the extreme.

The fact is that Bush is in trouble, because neither he nor the department had good answers to these perfectly valid questions. They lied. Do you acknowledge that they lied?

Cycloptichorn

The American people have the right to ask,but he also has the right to not answer.

As for acknowledging that they lied,I acknowledge that someone did.
Who it was,I dont know.

So MM, if someone lied then we and the congress should accept that they lied? Or should we find out why they lied? I vote we find out. You seem to vote we should let people lie as long as they are in a GOP administration.

A servant who refuses lawful and correct orders from his master deserves to be put out on the street with his walking papers.

As I do not personally have the authority to either demand an answer from the Prez and DoJ, or give him his papers, I defer to my duly elected representatives to do so - and they are doing exactly that.

If someone lied, don't we have a duty to find out who that person is? You are also ignoring the fact that there have been revealed serious faults within the DoJ and their interaction with the administration - these also bear further investigation. The DoJ does not serve the executive branch but the people of this country!

Cycloptichorn

Can't believe noone has posted this yet:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002992.php



The 'deleted email' aspect of this story is huge. The Bush WH has regularly been violating the Hatch act, knowingly, in order to keep their worst business off of the official books. There really is no telling how deep this will go - it impacts every oversight angle there is.

Cycloptichorn

Leahy calls bullshit.



Leahy is correct. It takes a huge effort to erase emails permanently. It isn't something that was done by accident.

Cycloptichorn

Missing White House E-Mails; Modern Version of Nixon' Tapes?
Will Missing White House E-Mails Be Modern Version of Nixon's Tapes?
E & P
Published: April 12, 2007

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 said 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 purposely keep the e-mails under wraps, and that the counsel's office is doing everything it can to recover 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.

Senate Democrats continued to toughen their stance against the White House over the firings of eight prosecutors over the winter.

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 purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records.

The White House issued an emphatic ''No'' to those questions during a conference call with reporters Wednesday, saying 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.''

[He made another reference: "Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced. "]

The revelation about the e-mails escalates a standoff between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House over the prosecutor firings. The subpoenas come a few days before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to appear before Leahy's committee Tuesday to fight for his job.

Leahy's panel approved new subpoenas that would compel 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.

Missing RNC E-mails are like Nixon's 18-minute gap
Leahy: Missing RNC E-mails are like Nixon's 18-minute gap
04/12/2007 @ 9:35 am
Filed by Michael Roston

The top Senate Democrat leading investigations into the dismissal of 8 U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department is comparing e-mails lost by the Republican National Committee to President Richard Nixon's famous "18-minute" gap in White House tape recordings.

"Now we are learning that the 'off book' communications they were having about these actions, by using Republican political email addresses, have not been preserved," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on the Senate floor.

He added, "Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced. This sounds like the Administration's version of 'the dog ate my homework.'"

The senator was referring to the famous Nixon White House tapes subpoenaed during the Watergate investigation. On one tape, there was an 18 1/2 minute gap. The former president's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed responsibility for "accidentally" erasing 5 minutes of the recording, but not the remainder of the gap. Further investigations raised questions about the veracity of her testimony.

The Associated Press also noted that when actually delivered, Senator Leahy raised further doubts about the Republican Party's explanation for the lost e-mails.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" he proclaimed. "You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers."

Leahy threatened further action in response to the news, too "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

The Vermont Democrat's speech took up the activities in the first 100 days of the Democratic-controlled Senate, particularly in the area of oversight.

"I come to the Senate today to thank the Majority Leader and those senators who have been working so hard to restore balance to our government, protect the liberties and rights of all Americans, and revive America's leadership in the world," Leahy said.

The prepared version of Leahy's speech, sent to RAW STORY this morning, is presented in full below.

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy Chairman, Judiciary Committee United States Senate April 12, 2007:

Today we mark the 100th day of the new Congress. While we have much more to do on behalf of the American people, much has already been accomplished. We have heard the American people's call for accountability and competence in their government and have started making those goals a reality. We have returned the focus to the rights and interests of the American people.

Just as I have commended the Members of the Judiciary Committee for their help and active participation in the work of our Committee, I come to the Senate today to thank the Majority Leader and those Senators who have been working so hard to restore balance to our government, protect the liberties and rights of all Americans and revive America's leadership in the world.

First and foremost, we are making progress restoring the Senate and the Congress to their proper constitutional role. From the FBI's illegal and improper use of National Security Letters to the politically motivated dismissal of so many of the Nation's U.S. Attorneys, there are concerns about the competence and independence of the Department of Justice. This pattern of abuse of authority and mismanagement causes me, and many others on both sides of the aisle, to wonder whether the FBI and Department of Justice have been faithful stewards of the great trust that the Congress and American people have placed in them. We need to keep our Nation safe, while respecting the privacy rights and civil liberties of all Americans. Last year in the former Congress, the Administration sought expanded powers in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation, and to more freely use National Security Letters. The Administration got these powers, and they have badly bungled both.

The Judiciary Committee early oversight efforts included our January 18 hearing with Attorney General Gonzales. There we examined the change in course of this Administration, which had engaged in warrantless wiretapping of Americans contrary to the law for years. Under the watchful eye of the new Congress, the President's program for warrantless wiretaps on Americans has been revised and the government is seeking approval for all such wiretaps from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as the law requires.

We must engage in all surveillance necessary to prevent acts of terrorism, but we can and should do so in ways that protect the basic rights of all Americans, including the right to privacy. The issue has never been whether to monitor suspected terrorists but doing it legally and with proper checks and balances to prevent abuses. The Administration's recent reversal of course and was a good first step.

Last month we held an oversight hearing with FBI Director Mueller in which we called him to task for the longstanding FBI abuses of national security letters. The Inspector General's report we insisted be provided included troubling findings of widespread illegal and improper use of National Security Letters to obtain Americans' phone, financial, credit and other records. Inspector General Glenn Fine testified that there could be thousands of additional violations among the tens of thousands of National Security Letters that the FBI is now using each year. The Inspector General also found widespread use by the FBI of so-called "exigent letters." These letters, which are not authorized by any statute, were issued at least 739 times to obtain Americans' phone records when there was often no emergency and never a follow-up subpoena, as the FBI had promised. Despite these extensive abuses, the top leadership at the FBI sat idly by for years, doing nothing to stop this practice.

We questioned the FBI Director about these matters and reports that the FBI has repeatedly submitted inaccurate information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in its efforts to obtain secret warrants in terrorism and espionage cases -- severely undermining the Government's credibility in the eyes of the Chief Judge of that Court. These abuses are unacceptable. Director Mueller now knows that and knows that these abuses and violations can no longer be continued or repeated.

The Judiciary Committee is now in the midst of an investigation in which we are uncovering an abuse of power that threatens the independence of U.S. Attorneys offices around the country and that undermines the trust and confidence of all Americans in federal law enforcement. We are examining the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys and are trying to get to the truth in order to prevent these kinds of abuses from happening again.

I want the American people to have a Justice Department and United States Attorneys offices that enforce the law without regard to political influence and partisanship. I want the American people to have confidence in federal law enforcement and I want our federal law enforcement officers to have the independence they need to be effective and merit the trust of the American people.

Sadly, what we have heard from the Administration has been a series of shifting explanations and excuses and a lack of accountability or acknowledgement of the seriousness of this matter. The women and men replaced and whose reputations were then stained by those seeking to justify these firings as "performance related" were appointees of President Bush. Several had significant achievements in office and glowing performance reviews.

As we learn more details about the ousters of these U.S. Attorneys the story grows more troubling. Had we accepted the initial testimony of the Attorney General and other Department officials we would not have gotten to the truth. The White House and the Attorney General have dodged Congress's questions and ducked real accountability for years. In the past they counted on a rubberstamping Congress to avoid accountability. The American people have a new Congress, one that looks for answers.

The Attorney General has admitted "mistakes were made" without specifying what they were. He will have another chance to tell the whole truth next Tuesday at our next Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. The days when he could come by once a year and not answer questions are over.

I made no secret during his confirmation hearing of my concern whether Mr. Gonzales could serve as an independent Attorney General of the United States on behalf of the American people and leave behind his role as counselor to President Bush. The Department of Justice should serve the American people by making sure the law is enforced without fear or favor. It should not be turned into a political arm of the White House.

For years preceding this new Congress, accountability has been lacking in this Administration. Loyalty to the President has been rewarded over all else. That lack of accountability, and lack of the checks and balances that fostered it, must end and, I hope, has ended.

We do not need another commendation for the "heckuva job" done by those who have failed in their essential duties to the American people. True accountability means being forthcoming, and it means there are consequences for improper actions.

The White House continues to stand by the firings of the U.S. attorneys and despite assurances by the President that we would receive cooperation, documents and access to witnesses, the White House has yet to produce a single document or make any witnesses available.

Now we are learning that the "off book" communications they were having about these actions, by using Republican political email addresses, have not been preserved. Like the famous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes, it appears likely that key documentation has been erased or misplaced. This sounds like the Administration's version of the dog ate my homework. I am deeply disturbed that just when this Administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information. This Administration has worn out the benefit of the doubt and undermined whatever credibility it had left. The American people are right that they are entitled to full and honest public testimony of the White House staff responsible for this debacle.

We have asked for Administration officials and now former officials to cooperate with the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry and I hope that they will. Through the Committee's oversight work so far, we know some of the answers to some of the questions we have been asking, and the answers are troubling. We have learned that most of the U.S. Attorneys that were asked to resign were doing their jobs well and were fired for not bending to the political will of some in Washington. Apparently, their reward for their efforts at rooting out serious public corruption is a kick out the door.

http://thinkprogress.org/

5 Million emails deleted. Throws a bunch of stuff into a new light.

Cycloptichorn

What can one say? The WH has shown a complete and total disregard for the law and for Oversight. They were allowed to do so by a willing Republican congress who refused to question the prez in any way. They were supported in this by millions of Republicans who had dreams of a 'permanent majority.' Where will the defiance of the law end?

What will we do as a populace to ensure that people are held accountable for their lies? There have been major violations of many different written laws by the Bush WH. I'd love to hear the explanation.

Cycloptichorn

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

'Voter Fraud' is a code word for 'fixing elections.'

This just goes to show how fake the excuses for the fired prosecutors really are.

Cycloptichorn

They spent a lot of time catching a few minnows.

It must be fairly easy to lose stuff in the WH.
This admin seems to have "lost" all of those e-mails,the previous admin "lost" the Rose Law Firm billing records,and amazingly they showed up on a table after they werent needed.

Maybe the e-mails will show up on a table in the WH also,and everyone will admit it was all a simple mistake,like the billing records were.