Gonzales must resign now. "Mistakes were made."

My favorite line, almost poetic :

US Attorneys first serve the law.

Alberto has never figured out that he is no longer the President's lawyer, he is ours.


Does anyone remember how incensed the right was over the firings by Clinton at the Travel Office???

Joe(where is their common understanding of democracy?)Nation

CBS Says Gonzales Will Exit Soon
CBS Says Gonzales Will Exit Soon -- As McClatchy Reports His Apology to Attorneys
E & P
March 16, 2007

CBS News reported Friday night that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be fired soon, probably after another weekend of taking shots from Democrats and Republicans alike.

The report came on the CBS Evening News.

Republicans close to the White House told CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that President Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But sources also said Gonzales' firing is just a matter of time, Axelrod said.

The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go, CBS related. One source said he's never seen the administration in such deep denial, "and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action," CBS reported.

Meanwhile, one of the eight recently fired U.S. attorneys told Katie Couric he lost his job because he "did not play ball" with powerful Republicans.

"I believe, and I think all my colleagues believe, the real reason is partisan politics," the former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, David Iglesias told Couric. "I believe I was fired because I did not play ball with two members of the Republican delegation here in New Mexico. I did not give them privileged information that could have been used in the October and November time frame."

McClatchy Newspapers report that Gonzales "apologized to the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys in a conference call Friday as he tried to hold on to his job amid the scandal over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

"In another move to repair his credibility, Gonzales named a respected U.S. attorney from Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg, as his interim chief of staff to replace Kyle Sampson, who stepped down because of his involvement in the controversy."

Gonzales apologizes to prosecutors
Posted on Fri, Mar. 16, 2007
U.S. ATTORNEYS
Gonzales apologizes to prosecutors
By Marisa Taylor and Margaret Talev
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apologized to the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys in a conference call Friday as he tried to hold on to his job amid the scandal over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

In another move to repair his credibility, Gonzales named a respected U.S. attorney from Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg, as his interim chief of staff to replace Kyle Sampson, who stepped down because of his involvement in the controversy.

But pressure for Gonzales' resignation continued to build.

In recent days, the Justice Department and the White House have been forced to defend the firings after internal e-mails revealed a coordinated effort to root out U.S. attorneys who'd fallen out of favor with the administration.

Administration critics and allies alike were startled by the degree to which politics appeared to be driving the planned purge of the Republican appointees in the months before the 2006 congressional elections. In one e-mail, one official said the plan was to replace "underperforming" U.S. attorneys and retain the "vast majority" who were "loyal Bushies."

On Friday, Democrats seethed when the Bush administration missed a deadline to turn over new documents in a congressional investigation into whether the firings were part of a larger effort to politicize the department. More Republicans also publicly questioned Gonzales' independence from Bush and his management of his staff.

Across the country, morale within U.S. attorneys' offices deteriorated, leaving many feeling misled by the Bush administration.

"They feel a strong sense of betrayal," said a former Bush administration Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his friends in the administration.

Late Friday, the Justice Department said it would turn over on Monday the remaining documents that Congress requested.

But the White House offered no such assurance, and Democrats prepared for a fight if Bush and his lawyers decided to assert executive privilege.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said he was prepared to issue subpoenas for documents and testimony from Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and others "to ensure that we are not being stonewalled or slow-walked on this matter."

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said the White House was "playing a dangerous game of chicken" that Congress would win.

Gonzales took a less defiant approach during his telephone call to prosecutors.

Gonzales apologized to the prosecutors not for the firings but for their execution, including for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance, according to people familiar with the afternoon conference call.

"It shouldn't have happened," Gonzales said, according to one lawyer familiar with the conversation. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said Gonzales acknowledged that he'd seemed too detached during his news conference earlier this week. He told the prosecutors that he "should have known" about the dismissal planning by his former chief of staff.

"I want you to feel like you can be open with me," Gonzales told the attorneys, and he gave his assurance that their independence was expected and that they wouldn't be punished.

The lawyer described the call as "forward looking," suggesting that Gonzales perhaps didn't plan to step down.

Rosenberg, Gonzales' new interim chief of staff, was praised as "a guy of unimpeachable integrity" by Robert Spencer, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Va. "He is brilliant and hard-working and widely respected by the U.S. attorneys in every other part of the Department of Justice," he said. "You couldn't come up with a better guy to straighten this out than Chuck."

But two more congressional Republicans urged Bush to dismiss Gonzales, and other Bush loyalists cooled their support for him.

Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio, said Gonzales "has become a lightning rod and has distracted from the mission of the Department of Justice. Given the totality of the circumstances, I think it would be better for the president and the department if the attorney general were to step down."

Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., wrote to Bush warning that if Gonzales allowed politicization of the Justice Department, "then our nation's law enforcement officers will lose the trust of the American people."

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a former U.S. attorney and attorney general of his home state, told National Public Radio that while he always considered Gonzales a straight-shooter, if it turned out that he'd deliberately misled Congress, "I think he will be out of there."
---------------------------------------------

McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Greg Gordon contributed to this report.

Read More Here and see the e-mails.

Bedrock principle at the center of US attorneys controversy
Posted on Fri, Mar. 16, 2007
Bedrock principle is at the center of U.S. attorneys controversy
By Ron Hutcheson and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had a standard spiel for new U.S. attorneys: "You have to leave politics at the door to do this job properly."

Maintaining that independence, without fear of repercussions, is the bedrock principle at stake in the controversy over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. As the top law enforcement official in each of their jurisdictions, these federal prosecutors have the power to destroy reputations, careers and even lives.

They're political appointees, but they're supposed to follow the evidence wherever it leads, without fear or favor. While presidents have the power to remove them for any reason, tradition holds that prosecutors should stay on the job unless they're corrupt or incompetent.

When Democrat Bill Clinton became president, he fired nearly all of the U.S. attorneys to remove Republican holdovers. But Clinton kept his prosecution team in place for his second term. So did Ronald Reagan in his second term.

President Bush took a different approach last year, and it set off alarm bells in the legal community and in Congress.

"I think it does smell," said Frank DiMarino, a former federal prosecutor who served under six U.S. attorneys in Florida and Georgia during his 18-year Justice Department career. "There's no problem with putting somebody who has been loyal to the party into the position, but once they're in place, you have to give U.S. attorneys independence."

DiMarino, now dean of the Kaplan University's School of Criminal Justice in Chicago, said Bush's decision to fire his appointees sent the message that the prosecutors need to look over their shoulders as they carry out their duties. Some of the fired prosecutors contend that they were ousted for resisting political interference in their investigations.

"It has a ripple effect. People think, `When will the next shoe drop? Is this a case I should be pursuing?'" DiMarino said. "A U.S. attorney is compelled to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. There should not be political considerations."

The firings also called into question the credibility of prosecutors who kept their jobs.

"If those people (who were fired) were not following policy or were not responding to political suggestions about going after Democrats, what about those who were kept?" said Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration. "If politics gets involved in decision-making about specific cases, that's when it gets bad."

It's gotten bad before. During the Nixon administration, White House and Justice Department officials targeted the president's critics for investigation.

"This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration. Stated a bit more bluntly - how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies," White House counsel John Dean wrote in a 1971 memo.

Dean went on to note that the "available federal machinery" included the power to prosecute.

"The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America," Attorney General Robert Jackson told a gathering of U.S. attorneys in 1940. "While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst."

Former prosecutors say political pressure comes with the job, but the Justice Department is supposed to help fend it off.

"You have to insulate yourself," said David Marston, a former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia. The system broke down for Marston. He was fired by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 at the urging of Rep. Joshua Eilberg, D-Pa., a corrupt congressman who was under investigation by Marston's office.

Eilberg was convicted later anyway.

DiGenova, who was U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said he received calls from members of Congress about specific cases "all the time." He said he usually cut the calls short and reported them to the Justice Department.

Congressional investigators collected Bush administration e-mails that included a barrage of complaints about various U.S. attorneys from elected officials, Republican activists and others.

Some of the complaints were funneled through presidential aide Karl Rove and his deputy, Scott Jennings. In one case, Jennings set up a meeting so that a Republican activist from New Mexico could take his complaints directly to the Justice Department.

"You have some responsibility to act if there are some legitimate complaints. But you've got to be very careful that you don't do something that undermines the credibility of the Justice Department," said Leon Panetta, Clinton's former chief of staff. "The Justice Department is not just another political arm of the White House."

A look at what's behind the U.S. attorney flap
Posted on Fri, Mar. 16, 2007
U.S. ATTORNEYS
A look at what's behind the U.S. attorney flap
By Ron Hutcheson
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Suspicions about political influence in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year focus on a handful of cases. Here's a look at the dismissals that are drawing the most attention:

-Former U.S. Attorney H.E. "Bud" Cummins lost his job in Arkansas to make room for Tim Griffin, a Republican political operative and a protege of presidential aide Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser. E-mails indicate that Rove and then-White House counsel Harriet Miers pushed the Justice Department to give Griffin the Arkansas job.

Cummins resigned without protest, and administration officials haven't explained why they were so intent on putting Griffin in the job.

-Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired in New Mexico, has been outspoken in his belief that politics played a role in his ouster.

Republican officials in his state complained to the White House and to the Justice Department that he wasn't aggressive enough in pursuing voter-fraud allegations against Democrats. Republicans were also upset that Iglesias resisted pressure to indict Democratic officials on corruption charges before the November election.

Iglesias said he felt "leaned on" when two prominent New Mexico Republicans, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, separately called him about the investigation. At the time, Wilson was in danger of losing her congressional seat, and Republicans were struggling to avoid a Democratic takeover in Congress.

A 2005 Justice Department evaluation concluded that Iglesias should keep his job. He didn't appear on a list of targeted prosecutors that circulated in October 2006. But his status seemed to have changed quickly. By Nov. 15, about a week after Republicans lost control of Congress, Justice Department officials had decided that Iglesias should go.

-Former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired from her job in southern California after overseeing the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.

In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Justice Department official Kyle Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam."

Earlier that morning, The Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham investigation had expanded to include another California Republican, congressman Jerry Lewis.

Administration officials insist that the investigation had nothing to do with Lam's dismissal and have criticized her oversight of immigration enforcement.

-Former U.S. Attorney John McKay in western Washington was fired after Republicans complained about his handling of a hotly contested governor's race. The Republican candidate lost by only 129 votes, and complaints about voter fraud poured in from angry Republicans.

McKay says he never found enough evidence to prosecute; Republicans wanted him to be more aggressive. When an aide to Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., called with questions about McKay's investigation, McKay cut off the conversation with a warning against inappropriate political pressure.

The issue continued to dog McKay last summer when he was a candidate for a federal judgeship. McKay said he was asked during an interview with Miers and other officials to explain complaints that he "mishandled" the inquiry into the governor's election.

Concerns about voter fraud reached the highest levels of the Bush administration. White House officials say both Bush and Rove prodded the Justice Department to be more aggressive on voter fraud, without mentioning any specific prosecutor.

Break up the Justice Department(
Break up the Justice Department
by Alan Dershowitz
03.16.2007

The headlines about the Bush administration's decision to fire several United States attorneys, for partisan political reasons, misses the big picture. The politicization of justice is inherent in the structure of the Justice department. In most other democratic and western countries the job performed by our Attorney General--who is the head of the Justice Department--is broken up into two separate and distinctly different jobs.

First there is the Minister of Justice who is a cabinet level politician with no law enforcement powers or responsibilities. His job is to advise the chief executive about policy, politics and partisanship. It is also to keep his boss in office, get him reelected and hurt his political opponents. There is no pretense of non-partisan objectivity in this highly politicized cabinet position.

Second there is the Attorney General, sometimes called the Director of Public Prosecutions whose role is to enforce the law by investigating, charging and prosecuting defendants. That position is an apolitical one, usually held by a professional prosecutor with extensive law enforcement experience and with no accountability to the president or prime minister. In countries with this division of power, there is no need for "Independent Counsel," "special prosecutors" or the like, since the permanent prosecutor is independent.

The current fiasco at the department of Justice is only one of many examples of partisanship in the administration of justice. It should push us to follow the lead of other democracies in creating two separate positions. The cabinet job, which can retain the constitutional title Attorney General, can be a political and policy position. There would be no danger if the President appointed a political crony, since the Attorney General would not decide whom to investigate or prosecute. That responsibility would be exclusively in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who would be selected on a non-partisan basis by a panel of judges or others outside the political process.

The time has come to recognize that the framers of our Constitution made a serious mistake by creating the single office of Attorney General to serve two conflicting functions. We should break these two functions into two discreet offices, the way most of the rest of the democratic world has done. We can begin without tinkering with the constitution, by simply having Congress create an Independent Office of Public Prosecution within the Justice Department. The director of that office would be a civil servant appointed for a fixed term by the President with the consent of the Senate. By tradition, that person would be outside of politics and an eminent lawyer of great renown and acceptability to both parties. He or she would not be answerable to the Attorney General on issues of prosecutorial policy or on specific cases, and would be removable only for good cause. He or she would decide which United States attorney to appoint and sack based exclusively on professional criteria.

It is not certain whether the Constitution would have to be amended to accomplish this change. Article II grants to the President the responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," but that responsibility may be delegated--as it has been--to the Attorney General.
If Congress were to pass, and the President sign, a law creating a permanent, nonpartisan office of Director of Public Prosecution, I believe it would be held constitutional.

If this legislative solution did not pass constitutional muster or did not work for other reasons, it might be necessary to amend the Constitution so as to create an independent prosecutorial office. The Constitution should never be amended except as a last resort, after all other reasonable legislative and administrative solutions have been tried. But the problems of our current Justice Department and its conflicting roles are so serious, and so likely to get even worse, that we must begin to consider new methods for dealing with them.

The very idea that the Bush White House would have seriously considered sacking every single United States attorney and replacing them with political cronies and partisan hacks who could be counted on to go after Democrats and spare Republicans is frightening. We must restructure the system to make it impossible for any President--Republican or Democrat--to abuse the legal system in so partisan a manner.

BB, I think you should commence hearings immediately.

58% think the firings were politically motivated

I think finally Americans have caught on, just a little too late is all.

Good posts, guys.

So when do the criminal proceedings begin?

When do the big budget hollywood type congressional hearings begin?

Lets all remember one thing,the President has the power to fire any US attorney he pleases,ANYTIME he pleases,for whatever reason he pleases.

He does not have to tell anyone why they were fired,nor does he have to explain his actions to congress.

One small problem here MM. The president claims he wasn't involved in the process or the decision.

This isn't happening because the Presdient fired some prosecutors. This is happening because WH and Justice officials haven't been truthful about those firings and hirings. That makes it Congress job on oversight of the Justice Department.

Then let them oversee the Justice Dept.
I thought that Congress did NOT have the power to oversee the WH.
I seem to remember some on the left saying that during the Clinton debacle.

So,does congress have the power to oversee the WH or not?

Of course congress has the right to oversee the WH, ever heard of checks and balances?

The left must be bigger than I thought since a majority of Americans think the firings were politically motivated. The president does have the right to fire attorneys without giving a reason, but I am not sure he has the right to interfere with ongoing investigations for elections reasons. If he does, that needs to change. Hence the neeed for hearings on this matter and others.

the rule of MM
republicans fdo something....good
democrats dot it....bad.

apply that rule across the board andyou.ve got MM's opinion without the hassle of asking...

Of course, the fun part of this scandal is that the White House and Tony Snow have been saying all along that the President wasn't really involved in the process, that he, for example, hadn't been part of making up the list for dismissals, which brings up the question:

WHAT the Hell Is Going ON over there at the Justice Department?

If George didn't fire them, who did? The really odd question being asked in Washington these days is "Who wrote in those regs in the Patriot Act that were so conviently used to get rid of some foot draggers??"

Joe(pass the popcorn)Nation

Tomorrow is going to be a tough day for the Bush administration on the Sunday Talking Heads TV Programs. So many things have gone wrong or gone nowhere in the last week or so.
The big issue will be the firing of the US Attorneys. As has been noted here numerous times, those folks are political appointees and, like all political appointees, serve at the pleasure of the President. But there were some things going on (again discussed at length on this thread) that were unseemly, unethical or perhaps illegal.
I suspect that Mr Gonzales will fall on his sword next week (Tuesday 4 pm I think). How will the conservative Republicans respond? Will they blame the Democrats, or the liberal media, or the few Republicans who cossed the line and called for his ousting? Or the American public?

That is it. I didn't even mention Karl Rove's name once.

MM, so if something is not a crime, then it is perfectly okay. Forget about ethics, whether something was beneficial to the country, slimy, etc.

But, as someone alluded to, there may be election law violations underlying the firings, as well as perjury in testimony before congress.

Seems that more and more in the know are prognosticating that Bush's buttboy AG will be gone this week...


http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Politics/story?id=2960297&page=1

Luckily for Alberto, the President has expressed his utmost confidence in him. Just like he did for Don Rumsfeld three days before he had to scoot, and - everyone's favorite- Brownie, who was doing a heckavu job down there in New Orleans two days before he, like just another Gulf of Mexico shrimp, got canned.

Joe(has anyone called Harriet at home?)Nation