Fired federal prosecutors and the upcomming showdown..a few words if you please

[Robace252]

First off, let me say that I am no way saying Bushie and this Mis-Administration is right. This is not an attempt to defend them or even kick them when they're down, meerly a few observations.
First off, this whole nonsense about "not under oath" is basically saying they want permission to lie. Plain and simple. Im sure we would all love to be able to answer questions about an important matter without fear of perjury, so we can lie all want to...and no chance of getting caught in a story.
Im not stupid. I can see through this. It seems corruption knows no bounds.
Cant have it your way.....make up another.

Second off....here is a question I have been asking myself recently.....
We are hearing that one of the "main reasons" for the firings was poor performance, but the side reason or other "main reason" was that these
federal prosecutors were fired was because they were focusing on Republican indictments and not working hard or fast enough on Democratic indictments.
Which leads me to wonder............
why are they hiding which democrats are being investigated, and why are the democrats not talking about it. Also....lets say that the federal prosecutors did work on the democratic cases, for arguments sake at the same pace as the Republician indictments.....now then, would the story today be....
"Federal prosecutors linked to GOP worked on Democratic indictments near election time".
I guess what I mean is...whether the federal prosecutors did their job or not, they were screwed. If you go after the GOP's (rightly so) the GOP will dismiss you and not think twice. If you go after the DNC (rightly so) you will be drug out in the public eye and be painted as a partisan bully.
I think in overview.....if you want a job as a federal prosecutor, you probally better think twice.
ISN'T GOVERNMENT WONDERFUL!!!!!!!
Partisian politics at its best.....while bills to help people sit and wait.....and wait and wait.

Rob

[WorkInProgress]

I say, bring on the showdown. I can see Bush self-destructing when he tries to stand his ground on this one.

[hivoltage]

I am sure that all of those conservatives who were so proud of the Republican Congress in the 90's for the vigilance in the Monica Lewinsky case will now be just as eager to see a thorough investigation of the firings by the Democratic Congress.

Not.

Bush took advantage of his party control to extremes for 6 years. Medicare Part D. A massive surplus converted to a massive deficit overnight. Valerie Plame. 2 wars at one time. Stem cell research denied. Huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Trying to eliminate the estate tax. Backing FEMA on their huge incompetence. Enabling Iranian expansionism by attcking their chief enemies. Fudging the evidence for attacking Iraq. Sending John Bolton to the UN without a confirmation. Trying to eliminate the filibuster. Wasting taxpayer dollars fighting medical marijuana and euthanasia through "activist judges".

On and on and on.

The President is in for a very bumpy ride. Gonna make Monica Lewinsky look like a roll in the hay. Which it was. The Republicans have brought this mess on themselves.

[Redmage]

I have to say, Rob, I agree with more in this post than anything I've seen you write in some little while. I can't find anything to comment on beyond "Ditto, Rob."

[isabeau]

I was wondering...I realize Bush is the President..and in a recent speech, he said he would not allow two of the fired prosecutors to appear under oath in a quote show trial unquote....Is that possible? And forgive me if i got it a bit wrong..i do know he is not allowing them to do something..

[Robace252]

I have to say, Rob, I agree with more in this post than anything I've seen you write in some little while. I can't find anything to comment on beyond "Ditto, Rob."
Thanks Redmage, occasionally Ill have a few of these types of posts. :rotate:

I was wondering...I realize Bush is the President..and in a recent speech, he said he would not allow two of the fired prosecutors to appear under oath in a quote show trial unquote....Is that possible? And forgive me if i got it a bit wrong..i do know he is not allowing them to do something..
It wasn't them, it is members of his staff that Congress feels had something to do with the firings or "helped" them fire the prosecutors. Its these people Bushie does not want to testify under oath or in public, including Karl Rove.
But it seems some Republicians are "jumping off" the Bushie Bandwagon by not backing the President on this play.
Whatever Bushie wants to do he is going to try. And in the end, people who blindly support the president or just dont care are going to continue to, and those that didnt like him or want him to be impeached are going to continue to feel the same way. This is not going change anyone's minds.
The Republicans can only hope they can distance themselves from this Mis-Administration in hopes of keeping some power in Congress, while the DNC revels in yet another blunder by Bushie and use it to gain a few more popularity points in their corner.
And all this grandstanding, weeks of posturing, wasting of time and horse and pony show is going to end up being over and done with with 4 little words when it comes down to it.......
what are those words.......
the words Bushie's staff will be very familiar with...........
"I plead the fifth"

Rob

[areenactor]

when clinon fired all 93 prosecutors in '93, no one batted an eyelash.
he later fired 30 more, and they were his own Appointees.
it is an established fact, federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the sitting president! there is no civil service protection. this is just more b.s. from the left. they can't get their shit straight on iraq, or anything else, so they attack the president again, on bull shit.

[toyou444]

when clinon fired all 93 prosecutors in '93, no one batted an eyelash.
he later fired 30 more, and they were his own Appointees.
it is an established fact, federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the sitting president! there is no civil service protection. this is just more b.s. from the left. they can't get their shit straight on iraq, or anything else, so they attack the president again, on bull shit.

Gee Steve. You agreed with the Republicans! Give me a minute to find where I put my surprised face! :blaugh:

Reagan also fired all of the federal prosecutors WHEN HE FIRST TOOK OFFICE just like Clinton did. I haven't seen where he fired 30 more...I'll go look that up.

The difference this time is it appears they were fired not just for policy reasons, but because they weren't going after Democrats in an election year. (Well at least a couple of them.) Many historians have noted that the firing of eight federal prosecutors in the middle of a term is simply unprecedented.

Please also note that the President keeps saying they "turned in resignations" when they were actually fired. Apparently (from an article in the USA today Wednesday) many are given the option of resigning when it comes time to get rid of them. These eight were not. Thus the stink.

~ toyou

[areenactor]

i heard just yesterday that clinton holds the record for biggest mass firing. that it was at the begining of his term, and i even remember him doing it. but again, no reason has to be given! clinton was within his rights, as is pres. bush now! 2 of them were let go due to failure to take cases involving profanity, another for refusing to prosecute cases dealing with illegals aliens, and another had already given an interview where he stated he intended to resign soon, and enter private practice. i don't know why the other 4 were let go, and i really don't care. it doesn't matter! no reason or excuse need be given.
oh yeah toyou, who else am i going to agree with?

[tickledgirl]

i heard just yesterday that clinton holds the record for biggest mass firing. that it was at the begining of his term, and i even remember him doing it. but again, no reason has to be given! clinton was within his rights, as is pres. bush now! 2 of them were let go due to failure to take cases involving profanity, another for refusing to prosecute cases dealing with illegals aliens, and another had already given an interview where he stated he intended to resign soon, and enter private practice. i don't know why the other 4 were let go, and i really don't care. it doesn't matter! no reason or excuse need be given.
oh yeah toyou, who else am i going to agree with?

It's accurate but deceptive to say that Clinton "holds the record." Kinda typical of an RNC talking point on this.) There are 93 prosecutors. Clinton fired 93 of them. So you could say he holds the record, along with Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 & 43.

It's typical to do that when a new president comes into office. A president gets to set law enforcement priorities, and put in place people he thinks will carry them out.

What's much less typical is firing USAs in mid-stream. But Clinton did to that twice. Why did he do that? Well, one of them was charged with assault, and the other resigned after a stripper on the neck.

So, it's certainly legal to ask for the resignation of US Attorneys. Why did Bush (Gonzales doesn't sneeze without checking in with his padrone) can them? Ummm...because of performance problems. (Pssst...we put in writing that most of these people were doing a great job.) Err...because they weren't doing immigration enforcement! (Pssst...we never even mentioned immigration as a problem, and wrote a letter saying Carol Lam was doing a great job on that too.) Uhhh...it's confidential and we won't talk about it under oath!

The really amazing thing is that the people who got canned were good Republicans. The New Mexico USA who broke this open was ready to do a quiet fade until the DoJ started telling everyone he was fired for performance reasons.


PS Oops, one more thing that seems awfully fishy. Y'know all those emails that have been released to Congress? (That "unprecedented" release?) Oddly enough, they go up to November 15th, just when the calls for resignations were supposed to start. And then there were no emails for 18 days, until a few days before they actually called for the resignations. So no one at all talked about this issue for 18 days? Or they did...and their hiding something.

PPS Sorry, I was wrong. There were two emails during that time. They were about the San Francisco USA. He wasn't on the original list. And he was considered a "loyal Bushie." "You would have to know Kevin," said UC Hastings College of the Law professor Rory Little. "You can't find a stronger supporter of the Bush administration agenda."But he was such a f***up that a federal Judge threatened to go to Congress with a list of poor evaluations of the guy, so he was kicked to the curb. Those are the only emails from the 18-day gap that've been released.

[tickledgirl]

why are they hiding which democrats are being investigated, and why are the democrats not talking about it. Also....lets say that the federal prosecutors did work on the democratic cases, for arguments sake at the same pace as the Republician indictments.....now then, would the story today be....I think mainly because the investigations were closed down. One big one was in the Washington race for governor. It was really close (within 500 votes) for the Dem candidate, and the Rep's claimed fraud. The USA (McKay) investigated and decided there wasn't anything there. The Rs pushed for a full investigation and found that some votes had been missed...but they were mostly Dem votes. Harriet Miers asked McKay why he had "mishandled" that case. And there was a similar case in New Mexico. I don't remember the details. But mostly it wasn't big national news because not much happened. "Investigation shows no significant fraud" is a pretty boring headline.


I guess what I mean is...whether the federal prosecutors did their job or not, they were screwed. If you go after the GOP's (rightly so) the GOP will dismiss you and not think twice. If you go after the DNC (rightly so) you will be drug out in the public eye and be painted as a partisan bully.
I think in overview.....if you want a job as a federal prosecutor, you probally better think twice.

This is too damn true. Just last week in Philadelphia some politician (Dem, I think?) who's being investigated started screaming about how this is just a partisan witch hunt. That's very likely BS, but after this fiasco, it's tougher to dismiss it out of hand.

The really sad thing is that it didn't used to be this way. Even a year ago, when Chicago's mayor Daley tried to claim that investigations were politically motivated he got laughed down. Same thing happened when Illinois governor George Ryan tried it. (Daley's a D and Ryan's an R, for whatever difference it makes. They're both crooks, but Daley's still in office because he covered his tracks better and Chicago voters are idiots. :( ) The default assumption used to be that the US Attorneys were cops, and whining about the big bad USA was pretty useless. Not any more. Thanks Mr. Bush.

[toyou444]

Hey Tickledgirl...

for a chick you sure know a lot of about politics.










:jester:


Kidding!

Great posts though!

~ toyou

[Redmage]

i heard just yesterday that clinton holds the record for biggest mass firing. that it was at the begining of his term, and i even remember him doing it. but again, no reason has to be given! clinton was within his rights, as is pres. bush now!TG has explained all of this to you already but it bears repeating: no one is shocked that a President cleans house at the beginning of his term and installs his own appointees. In fact when a new President is elected people in such positions customarily prepare their resignation letters, because they know that a purge is SOP.

At this point, the White House is trying to spin it to say that, 3/4 of the way through his term, Bush has fired "only 5 more" federal prosecutors than Clinton did in his entire term. But as sad as that is, it still misses the point.

Even Republicans are backing away from Bush on this because when questions were first raised about these most recent firings a DoJ witness from Gonzales' office told Congress that the firings were strictly for performance issues, and the White House had nothing to do with them. Documentary evidence has since shown that neither of those statements was true. In light of the original concerns this raises still more questions, and the White House story keeps changing as new evidence knocks holes in each new explanation.

So
Questionable firings
+ False Statements to Congress
+ Changing Stories
+ Evidence that previous stories were false
adds up to a perfectly reasonable set of concerns that need to be addressed.

2 of them were let go due to failure to take cases involving profanity, another for refusing to prosecute cases dealing with illegals aliens, and another had already given an interview where he stated he intended to resign soon, and enter private practice. i don't know why the other 4 were let go, and i really don't care. it doesn't matter! no reason or excuse need be given.
oh yeah toyou, who else am i going to agree with?Great! Since it's all so simple, a few questions to Rove, Myers, Gonzales and others, on the record and under oath, should clear things up nicely, shouldn't they? I'm sure the President will clear the air on this issue any day now, since obviously there's nothing there that he'd want to hide.

[MrMacphisto]

when clinon fired all 93 prosecutors in '93, no one batted an eyelash.
he later fired 30 more, and they were his own Appointees.
it is an established fact, federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the sitting president! there is no civil service protection. this is just more b.s. from the left. they can't get their shit straight on iraq, or anything else, so they attack the president again, on bull shit.

It sounds to me like the system is faulted. The executive should not have such power over the judicial branch. I'd rather Congress appoint the prosecutors, and then only the Congress would have the power to fire them as well.

Too much power is placed under one man in our system of government. The President is a position with too much power, and I don't trust any one person with that level of power. It's better to let the legislature make such decisions, because then, multiple people have to come to some kind of consensus.

[Redmage]

It sounds to me like the system is faulted. The executive should not have such power over the judicial branch. I'd rather Congress appoint the prosecutors, and then only the Congress would have the power to fire them as well.This makes me long for the days when kids took civics classes.

Federal prosecutors are not part of the Judicial Branch. They work for the Department of Justice, which is part of the Executive Branch. Judges are part of the Judicial Branch. The President appoints Federal Judges, but Congress must confirm them.

Actually, it used to be that Congress had to confirm federal prosecutors as well, but the President could still fire them any time he wanted. Bush's Patriot Act changed that.

So no, it's not the system that's broken. It really is one particular man who needs fixing.

[tickledgirl]

It sounds to me like the system is faulted. The executive should not have such power over the judicial branch. I'd rather Congress appoint the prosecutors, and then only the Congress would have the power to fire them as well.

Too much power is placed under one man in our system of government. The President is a position with too much power, and I don't trust any one person with that level of power. It's better to let the legislature make such decisions, because then, multiple people have to come to some kind of consensus.

That'd require a constitutional amendment. The president gets to nominate all officials of the US. And that makes sense. Law enforcement is a responsibility of the executive. Of course the Senate is supposed to Advise and Consent. The Patriot act BS that let them skip over that is the real problem. Get rid of that (which seems very likely to happen) and we're a lot better off.

Interesting note on that. Congress (especially recently under Repubs, but it's not unique to them) has gotten to the point where they have no idea what's in the laws they're passing. To avoid extra debate, laws are slid in at midnight, and lawmakers have to vote before they get a chance to read them.

That's how this BS got in. And aide who used to work for for Arlen Specter slipped it in. Specter claims he had no idea it was there. And the aide? Did he get canned by Specter? Heck no, he went to work for the DoJ, and was supposed to get nominated for one of the US Attorney positions he scamming opened up!!

[JPie1]

another day another political blunder for this administration, how amazing

[tickledgirl]

Federal prosecutors are not part of the Judicial Branch. They work for the Department of Justice, which is part of the Executive Branch. Judges are part of the Judicial Branch. The President appoints Federal Judges, but Congress must confirm them.

Sorry, missed this response before. Red's absolutely right. And that's the way it should be. Because if the next president thinks that maybe we should be devoting less effort on going after pornographers, then he should be able to put in people who will do that. And if they don't do what he wants, he should be able to kick them to the curb.

Politics isn't necessarily a dirty word. It's when politics are used to subvert democracy that we have a problem. That's not a systemic problem. We've got checks and balances that are well-designed to deal with that.

But when we had an administration completely willing to corrupt the system, and a Congress that rolled over and played dead for them, then things got out of whack. Luckily that's no longer the case.

So let the "loyal Bushies" whine. But don't go tearing up a system that's worked fairly well for a couple of hundred years. Give it a chance to work.