Gonzales must resign now. "Mistakes were made."

Conyers Requests Palast's "Vote Caging" Evidence
Conyers Requests Palast's "Vote Caging" Evidence
By Brad Friedman
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Monday 04 June 2007
Editor's Note: This story was reported last Thursday. The time references reflect May 31. - jl/TO

House Judiciary chair tells Palast in interview: "We're not through with Griffin by any means."
Indicates caging operation could not have been done without knowledge of Rove, according to Palast team.

As reported previously [1], investigative journalist Greg Palast was scheduled to meet with Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) this evening for an on-camera interview for the BBC. His team, just out from the interview, sends this dispatch to The BRAD BLOG [2]:

Rove Pick for US Attorney Resigns After Conyers Seeks Evidence From BBC

Tim Griffin, formerly right-hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television "Newsnight" reported that Congressman John Conyers [had] requested the network's evidence on Griffin's involvement in "caging voters." Greg Palast, reporting for both BBC "Newsnight" and "Democracy Now," obtained a series of confidential emails dating from the 2004 presidential election, in which the GOP operative transmitted so-called "caging lists" of voters to state party leaders.

Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters' right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters, including African-American homeless men, students and soldiers sent overseas.

Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin's resignation, "We're not through with him by any means."

Conyers indicated that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive caging operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove.

Griffin, who was chosen as US attorney at Rove's request, has not responded to requests by BBC to explain the caging memos.

For more on the caging lists, see Palast's BRAD BLOG Exclusive from last week[3], just after Monica Goodling's stunning admissions concerning vote caging [4] allegations about Griffin in her House Judiciary Committee testimony.

Also, see our coverage of Slate's article[5] late this afternoon as it became the first MSM-ish outlet to give a serious look at Goodling's overlooked-by-the-MSM, yet bombshell, statement.

Palast first reported on the emails from Griffin containing vote caging lists for BBC's "Newsnight," prior to the 2004 presidential election [6].



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URLs in This Post:
[1] reported previously: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4608
[2] The BRAD BLOG: http://www.BradBlog.com
[3] Palast's BRAD BLOG Exclusive from last week: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594
[4] stunning admissions concerning vote caging: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4591
[5] our coverage of Slate's article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4619
[6] for BBC's Newsnight, prior to the 2004 Presidential Election: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkvWkwv7UVo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was originally published on The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4620.

Justice Official Is Said to Have Favored GOP Loyalists
Justice Official Is Said to Have Favored GOP Loyalists
By Richard B. Schmitt
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 04 June 2007

Bradley Schlozman is slated to testify Tuesday in the US attorneys investigation.

Washington - Two years ago, in a speech at the Justice Department marking the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Bradley J. Schlozman, then the acting chief of the department's civil rights division, found much to celebrate.

"The voting enforcement efforts of the civil rights division during this administration have been as strong, if not stronger, than ever," Schlozman declared. "We have a tremendous record, one that is a testament to the division's outstanding attorneys and staff."

Schlozman, a Bush administration political appointee, was also in the process of dismantling the ranks of career attorneys in the division, former employees contend.

Some of the division's most experienced lawyers resigned or were involuntarily transferred, often in favor of Republican loyalists who had a much different view of the laws they were sworn to uphold, the former employees allege.

"He viewed me as the enemy. He viewed most career attorneys as the enemy," said Joseph D. Rich, a former chief of the department's voting-rights section. Rich estimates that more than half of the 38 attorneys in the section eventually left.

Two months before Schlozman's speech, Rich resigned from the department, citing run-ins with Schlozman and other Bush appointees. Rich had served for 36 years.

On Tuesday, Schlozman is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill in connection with the congressional investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

Democrats are investigating whether the prosecutors were fired for improper reasons. One line of inquiry is whether the administration targeted those who were not aggressively pursuing voting-rights cases that could have benefited Republicans in so-called battleground states.

Schlozman was an architect of administration voting-rights policy at the Justice Department as well as an interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., where he filed a number of controversial voting-rights suits.

Schlozman, who now works in the Justice Department office that oversees U.S. attorneys, was not available for comment.

His testimony comes as investigators at Justice have expanded an internal investigation into the U.S. attorney scandal to include allegations of discriminatory hiring, including at the civil rights division.

Last month, Monica M. Goodling, a former top aide to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, admitted in sworn testimony before Congress that she may have violated federal civil-service laws by considering the partisan political activities of applicants for career Justice Department positions.

The Justice Department disputed that it had engaged in discriminatory hiring in the civil rights division, and adamantly defended its recent civil rights enforcement record.

"The civil rights division seeks to hire outstanding attorneys with demonstrated legal skills and abilities regardless of their political or ideological backgrounds," spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said in a statement. "As the civil rights division does not employ a political litmus test in making hiring decisions, the attorneys that the division has hired come from an extremely wide variety of backgrounds."

Magnuson said the administration had brought lawsuits to protect the voting rights of citizens of Filipino, Haitian, Korean and Vietnamese heritage. The division has also been especially active in bringing cases challenging voting procedures that are not translated into the languages of minority voters, she said.

Schlozman, a former antitrust lawyer at a Washington law firm, joined the Justice Department in 2001 as a counsel to the deputy attorney general. He became a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division in May 2003, supervising voting-rights cases, among others, and for five months was the acting head of the division.

Critics say his tenure is emblematic of how the administration turned civil rights enforcement on its head.

The controversy reflects fundamentally different visions of the role of the federal government when it comes to voting. The Bush administration has focused on weeding out perceived fraud. Critics say that little fraud exists and that the crackdown has had the effect of discouraging voter participation.

One of Schlozman's priorities was filing a suit against a black political boss in Mississippi who was allegedly violating the rights of white voters. The complaint was the first time the Justice Department ever claimed that whites suffered discrimination in voting because of race. The case is pending.

The department also began aggressively enforcing a law requiring states to maintain accurate voter registration lists. On Schlozman's watch, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in November 2005 against the state of Missouri, where in some counties the number of registered voters exceeded the voting-age population. The government said the lists were rife with potential for fraud.

Todd Graves, then the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, reportedly had reservations about the suit, and refused to sign the complaint. Graves, who has said he was ordered to resign last year by department headquarters, is also scheduled to testify at Tuesday's congressional hearing.

In March 2006, Schlozman was given an interim appointment as the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, replacing Graves.

Less than a week before the November election, Schlozman obtained indictments of four members of the liberal activist group Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, for allegedly submitting fraudulent voter registrations. The Justice Department election manual says prosecutors should refrain generally from bringing cases just before elections, out of concern that the charges could affect voting.

ACORN itself had brought the case to the attention of authorities after discovering that some of its employees were making up names of registrants as part of a voter-registration drive.

Schlozman's office, apparently in a hurry to file the case, got one of the names on the indictments wrong.

"It seems to me that the only way that could have happened was if the subject of the investigation had not been interviewed. It seems to me they were in such a rush to indict these people that they didn't bother to interview them first," said Robert Kengle, another former Justice voting rights official.

Missouri Republicans seized on the charges in the final days of the campaign. Nevertheless, Missouri voters narrowly elected Democrat Claire McCaskill over Republican incumbent Jim Talent, a victory that sank GOP hopes of maintaining control of Congress.

In April, the suit was dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that the government failed to produce any evidence of fraud or that any Missouri resident had been denied the right to vote because of the alleged registration deficiencies.

Cheney blocked official's promotion



I don't understand why we can't skip impeaching Bush and go directly to Cheney since he seems to behind every bad thing coming out of the White House which is nearly everything.

conservative group was party to plan to fire U.S.
U. S. ATTORNEYS
E-mail questions if conservative group was party to plan to fire U.S. attorneys
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
6/7/07

WASHINGTON - A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor's name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.

The recommendation by the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, came before anyone outside of a tight group in the White House and Justice Department knew about a nascent strategy that ultimately led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

It could not be determined whether a short e-mail, sent on March 7, 2005, making the recommendation meant that Leo knew of the plan to fire Carol Lam or whether his message was unsolicited and coincidental.

The subject line of Leo's e-mail to Mary Beth Buchanan, then-director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says, "USA San Diego," indicating the top prosecutor job for the Southern District of California. Lam was on the job at the time and had no plans to step down.

The text of the note reads, "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo goes on to say he would "strongly recommend" the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker.

Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Leo, the Justice Department and Walker could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. Lam declined comment.

The Justice Department turned over the e-mail to Congress as part of a probe into last year's firings of U.S. attorneys.

While the Justice Department has given no direct reason for Lam's firing, officials criticized her handling of immigration and gun cases. Nonetheless, Lam drew positive job evaluations and has testified that she was given no notice of any concerns.

Democrats have questioned whether her firing was connected to her office's high-profile corruption prosecutions implicating Republicans.

Lam's name first appeared on what is believed to have been the Justice Department's earliest target list of prosecutors in late February 2005.

Though considered civil service positions (subject to the Hatch Act), immigration judges were selected based on Rep connections. Further, they came strictly from prosecution and enforcement backgrounds, as opposed to getting some from immigrant defense attorneys backgrounds.



Immigration Judges Often Picked Based On GOP Ties
Law Forbids Practice; Courts Being Reshaped

By Amy Goldstein and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 11, 2007; Page A01

The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law, Justice Department, immigration court and other records show.



Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

Justice officials also gave immigration judgeships to a New Jersey election law specialist who represented GOP candidates, a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, a White House domestic policy adviser and a conservative crusader against pornography.

These appointments, all made by the attorney general, have begun to reshape a system of courts in which judges, ruling alone, exercise broad powers -- deporting each year nearly a quarter-million immigrants, who have limited rights to appeal and no right to an attorney. The judges do not serve fixed terms.

Department officials say they changed their hiring practices in April but defend their selections. Still, the injection of political considerations into the selection of immigration judges has attracted congressional attention in the wake of controversy over the Bush administration's dismissal last year of nine U.S. attorneys.

The Post analysis is the first systematic examination of the people appointed to immigration courts, the relationships that led to their selection and the experience they brought to their position. The review, based on Justice records and research into the judges' backgrounds, encompassed the 37 current judges approved by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, starting in 2004.

That year is when the Justice Department began to jettison the civil service process that traditionally guided the selections in favor of political considerations, according to sworn congressional testimony by one senior department official and a statement by the lawyer for another official.

Those two officials, D. Kyle Sampson and Monica M. Goodling, have said they were told the practice was legal. But Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said that immigration judges are considered civil service employees who may not be chosen based on political factors, unlike judges in federal criminal courts.

All the judges appointed during this period who arrived with experience in immigration law were prosecutors or held other immigration enforcement jobs. That was a reversal of a trend during the Clinton administration in which the Justice Department sought to balance such appointees with ones who had been attorneys representing immigrants, according to current and former immigration judges.

Boyd said in a written statement that judges appointed during the Bush administration are "well qualified for their current positions" and that "outstanding immigration judges can come from diverse backgrounds." Boyd also said that race and ethnicity are not factors in hiring but cited statistics showing that immigration courts are "considerably more diverse" than other kinds of courts.

The department launched a new hiring program in April that requires public announcements of open positions and detailed evaluations and interviews, with a final decision still in the hands of the attorney general. The action came partly in response to a lawsuit by a veteran immigration counsel who alleged discrimination when she was passed over for two judgeships.


CONTINUED 1 2 3 Next >

Vote of no confidence on Gonzales has Bush ranting.

Link Here



I heard it reported with video clip of Bush saying the above and his emphasis on "MY government" turned my stomach. Someone needs to remind him it isn't HIS government.

Bush: "They can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to determine - make the determination who serves in my government," Bush said, adding, "This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it's political."...

Any simpleton can see that Bush doesn't listen to the experts, the American People, or Congress. Bush thinks he's royalty, and is running his kingdom.

When I heard him say that this morning on the radio in the car I blurted out "YOUR government! It's OUR government... your cabinet, but OUR government!" I think he really does think it's his.

Those slip of the tongue will always reveal their true nature. It's too bad so many neocons fail to see it.

Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing
Posted on Tue, Jun. 12, 2007
U.S. ATTORNEYS
Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. attorney
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The White House's former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday.

Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn't fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn't seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned.

"Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up," Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. "This is not good for his long-term career."

The Taylor e-mail was among 46 pages of documents that the Justice Department turned over to Congress Tuesday as part of the investigation into the firings of at least nine U.S. attorneys.

The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees said the documents showed greater White House involvement in the firings than previously known.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the documents "provide further evidence that White House officials like former political director Sara Taylor were deeply involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors."

The White House disputed those characterizations, saying the e-mails deal only with the aftermath of the firings, not what led up to them, and that there was nothing inappropriate about wanting to promote Griffin, whom the administration considered "exceptionally" qualified.

"I know this is becoming terribly frustrating for Democrats, but once again documents show no wrongdoing in the decision to replace U.S. attorneys," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Fratto said some documents also undercut Democrats' assertions that the White House wanted to abuse a change in federal law to keep interim U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.

In an e-mail exchange from early January, then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers asked Sampson how the department wanted to handle replacement candidates. Sampson replied that "in no case" did he want to use the new law unilaterally to "jam senators" because "that will only result in the Congress taking that authority away from us."

The newly released e-mails also showed that:

-The White House counsel's office thought in January that the ousted prosecutors had "disloyally stirred up the senators" but argued against criticizing them publicly because they hadn't "fired any shots" at the administration.

-Taylor called Cummins "lazy" and said that was "why we got rid of him in the first place." Cummins, reached Tuesday, said, "I don't know how Sara Taylor would have any information about my work ethic."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/13/us.attorneys.subpoenas/index.html



Well, the chips are starting to hit the table.

We all know the WH will fight to keep them from testifying; but how far does Executive Privilege really go?

It will be an interesting summer

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, I don't expect much coming out of these "investigations." We all know who the real culprits are by now, but only the "underlings" are being investigated and maybe prosecuted. This administration has been brazen in its destruction of our democracy, but nobody seems able to do what is right for our country. It really is disheartening.

Well, the whole matter gets pushed even more into the spotlight when the Exec. branch refuses to comply with Subpoenas. There's political pressure as well as legal pressure, and the more fronts the Bushies have to defend, the weaker their overall defense gets. It only takes a breakthrough in one area to bring the whole thing down, or at least stop their ability to cause more damage.

Cycloptichorn

Bush's stubbornness has cost more soldiers lives than necessary, and his support of Gonzales shows his contempt for the law. When Bush claims that the senate's no confidence vote was "political," his support of Gonzales shows he has no idea what he's talking about. The whole issue about Gonzales is "political" by the very fact that they tried to eliminate judges who didn't bend to their "wishes/demands." That's about as "political" as it can get.

The following from another article:




Good, if they do follow up.

This administration intends, as it does with just about everything else, to run the clock out out on this situation. The testimony of Meirs and Taylor is at least a month away, (if ever, because the White House is going to use every tactic every devised to avoid having either of them speak on the record. So far they have offered to have the ladies speak with investigators but without taking an oath and, my favorite, having no transcript. Maybe the Senate's attorneys will just meet them for a cup of coffee some afternoon.), and, if they can just hold on past the first of the year, no one in Washington will want to take on what will most certainly be a short term job.

Joe(OH. they should ask Harriet if she wants to takeover.)Nation

Naw, they're gonna have a martini lunch, and call it a day.

Looks like Gonzo has snuck in another US Attorney using the Patriot Act provision that he claimed under oath would not be used to appoint attorneys without senate approval.

And, he's waited until the last hour to do so while the bill eliminating that part of the Patriot Act sits on Bush's desk unsigned.

Raw Story Link

More at Think Progress

Did anyone see this major Whitehouse Press Release?

Bush signed it right after Gonzales finished the paperwork on Cardona.

Here's a Decent Timeline of what just happened.

The important part of Bush's signing of this law, is that all the interim USAs appointed by Gonzo will be out of a job in less then 120 days.

Cycloptichorn