Atty General Gonzales Should Resign
- Thread starter QueEx
- Start date
*sigh* I guess the minimum wage bill isn't going to well....
Anyway, I find it kinda funny that the republicans are considered the "racist" party when democrats do some of the racist bullshit. I mean come on, no one said shit when Mr.Clinton fired 93 U.S. attorneys. Guess what, he did it because he basically WANTED TOO. Isn't that some shit? The Democrats are just ramping up the investigations because they have NO power. However, the American people wanted this bullshit, now we going to see it.
Oh yea, someone tell Mr. Hagel that you can't impeach a president if the president haven't broken the law.
Bottomline, the democrats are trying to find something to get Bush with.
Anyway, I find it kinda funny that the republicans are considered the "racist" party when democrats do some of the racist bullshit. I mean come on, no one said shit when Mr.Clinton fired 93 U.S. attorneys. Guess what, he did it because he basically WANTED TOO. Isn't that some shit? The Democrats are just ramping up the investigations because they have NO power. However, the American people wanted this bullshit, now we going to see it.
Oh yea, someone tell Mr. Hagel that you can't impeach a president if the president haven't broken the law.
Bottomline, the democrats are trying to find something to get Bush with.
[1]
[2]
[3]
QueEx
I think its funny when people mix party labels with anything (racism, etc.) to explain general phenomena. Parties are made up of individuals and there are all types of individuals in both major parties.
[2]
Not to defend Bill Clinton, but do you not see the difference in exercising the prerogative to discharge appointees - and - discharging appointees because they refuse to assist the party by <u>abusing</u> their broad power to prosecute a party's political enemies ???
I would think it would have been wrong if Clinton had done the same thing. If Clinton were allowed to abuse the power of the presidency, you have to know, realistically speaking, that the next party will have a license to do the same. Justice ought not depend upon whose in power.
I would think it would have been wrong if Clinton had done the same thing. If Clinton were allowed to abuse the power of the presidency, you have to know, realistically speaking, that the next party will have a license to do the same. Justice ought not depend upon whose in power.
[3]
Are the Democrats looking for something to bust Bush's ass with? you damn right they are -- just as the Republicans did everyting thing under the sun to bust Clinton's ass when he was president. You haven't forgotten that, have you ???
I think its sad that both parties spend an inordinate amount of time trying to bust the other. It simply means time wasted and not focused on the real problems. But, for the foreseable future, what goes around comes around, unfortunately.
I think its sad that both parties spend an inordinate amount of time trying to bust the other. It simply means time wasted and not focused on the real problems. But, for the foreseable future, what goes around comes around, unfortunately.
QueEx
actinanass said:
First - Why bring up racism and then back it up with nothing?
93 attorneys hired by Reagan and Bush were fired. Midterm firings are rare. Youre 0 for 2
3- Democrats have no power? The controll the house and the senate, that's power. If they had no power republican criminals wouldn't be pleading the 5th and worrying about testifying under oath.
0 for 3
Bottomline, your rant sounds ignorant. At least try to back it up with some relevant facts.
More on why Carol Lam was fired - she was investigating the Executive Director of the CIA for corruptionVegasGuy said:
------
Reason for Suspicion
By Paul Kiel - March 27, 2007, 3:44 PM
Having spent some time digging into the administration's stated reason for U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's firing, it's time to cleanse the palate with the reasons why we're so suspicious.
So here we go.
-- Lam was never confronted over her approach to immigration prosecutions, the given reason for her dismissal.
-- In November, shortly before Lam was fired, a Justice Department official brainstormed about how to explain firing several U.S. attorneys: "The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DoJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts."
-- Lam was fired midway into a historic, wide-reaching public corruption investigation that targeted a number of Republican members of Congress and the executive director of the CIA. Even Karl Rove has acknowledged the reasonableness of not dismissing U.S. attorneys who are leading "high profile cases, important investigations" -- though for some reason, this one didn't qualify.
-- Despite the fact that it was one of the highest profile federal investigations being undertaken at the Department, Lam's investigation into Duke Cunningham and others is never mentioned in the Justice Department emails that have been released. Not once. This must have been discussed at the highest levels, but we've seen no record of those communications.
-- The FBI's bureau chief in San Diego has said, "I guarantee politics is involved" in Lam's firing. When asked about the given rationales for her ouster (that she pursued corruption cases to the detriment of gun and border prosecutions), he responded “What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?”
-- May 11, 2006, the day after Lam informed the Justice Department that she planned to execute a search warrant on CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and the same day that it was reported that her investigation had spread to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson wrote to a White House official: "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."
-- On January 5th, 2007, less than a month after Lam had been told she was fired, but before it had been made public, Sampson wrote to his Justice Department colleagues, "... we granted 1-month extensions for [U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden] and [Western Michigan's Margaret Chiara], but not Carol -- right?" Lam was widely known to be leading a grand jury investigation into Foggo and others. Ultimately, she was granted a fifteen day extension, from January 31 until February 15; she ordered her office to bring the indictment against Foggo before she stepped down, and she succeeded.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002888.php
<font size="5">Alberto Gate - Round III </font size>
Written by Rob Kezelis
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
<font size="4">
It's the story that keeps on giving. Have we ever had a top level DOJ official (Goodling) take advantage of the Fifth Amendment, to the constitution? Ever? I think not. It is striking that a document Alberto once described as "quaint" has become so important to his cabal of criminal cohorts and top aides. It will be extremely interesting when another top aide spills the truth, under oath no less, before Congress on Thursday.
In the meantime, even top GOP members are looking at their internal polling data, seeing the bottom fall out of their futures, and seeing precisely where the problem lies. Deep inside 1600. If the president were the slightest bit less petulant, less arrogant, and the slightest bit more intellectually curious, they could relax a bit. But he is not, and they cannot.
Seeing their own political futures heading for the dustbin of history, they also see the solution - get rid of the worst Attorney General since, well, Ashcroft. And when you consider that Ashcroft made the Bush cabal mad because he thought that the constitution still meant something, you begin to see just how badly our country has been damaged by these cretins.
We can count on a few things over the next week. Darth Cheney will attack the Democrats for being unpatriotic and for being "political". Bush will decry the "politics" at the very time that he continues to practice one of the most devious and destructive forms of it, all the while as he supports his Fredo. Various GOP-paid for political talking heads will spew the company line on every MSM outlet that will have them. (Faux, CNN, ABC, WaPo editorial pages, NYT Editorial pages, The Washington Times, the WSJ, and more)
But it will do no good. Fredo will resign, probably at the end of next week. And then the fun begins.
</font size>
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cm/content/view/355/162/
Written by Rob Kezelis
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
<font size="4">
It's the story that keeps on giving. Have we ever had a top level DOJ official (Goodling) take advantage of the Fifth Amendment, to the constitution? Ever? I think not. It is striking that a document Alberto once described as "quaint" has become so important to his cabal of criminal cohorts and top aides. It will be extremely interesting when another top aide spills the truth, under oath no less, before Congress on Thursday.
In the meantime, even top GOP members are looking at their internal polling data, seeing the bottom fall out of their futures, and seeing precisely where the problem lies. Deep inside 1600. If the president were the slightest bit less petulant, less arrogant, and the slightest bit more intellectually curious, they could relax a bit. But he is not, and they cannot.
Seeing their own political futures heading for the dustbin of history, they also see the solution - get rid of the worst Attorney General since, well, Ashcroft. And when you consider that Ashcroft made the Bush cabal mad because he thought that the constitution still meant something, you begin to see just how badly our country has been damaged by these cretins.
We can count on a few things over the next week. Darth Cheney will attack the Democrats for being unpatriotic and for being "political". Bush will decry the "politics" at the very time that he continues to practice one of the most devious and destructive forms of it, all the while as he supports his Fredo. Various GOP-paid for political talking heads will spew the company line on every MSM outlet that will have them. (Faux, CNN, ABC, WaPo editorial pages, NYT Editorial pages, The Washington Times, the WSJ, and more)
But it will do no good. Fredo will resign, probably at the end of next week. And then the fun begins.
</font size>
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cm/content/view/355/162/
White House personnel have been violating the Presidential Records Act and using text messaging via outside services along with hotmail and other email systems to send messages they don't want recorded.
No more executive privilege arguments against subpoenas on that shit and more jail time + secruity clearance revocations on the way.
Rove's dirty tricks machine is in self-destruct countdown
No more executive privilege arguments against subpoenas on that shit and more jail time + secruity clearance revocations on the way.
Rove's dirty tricks machine is in self-destruct countdown
Makkonnen said:
1. if the democrats had any power, don't you think we would be out of IRAQ now?
2. Bush can fire, and hire whoever he pleases. Democrats better worry about their minimum wage bill. Oh YEA! Its not passing in the senate...
3. I'll apologize by using racism, its more like POLITICAL BIGOTRY. If Bush was a democrat, NOONE WOULD BE SAYING SHIT ON THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE.
Bottom line, the democrats are doing this because none of the bills they are trying to pass are passing through the senate.
Makkonnen said:
Lets not forget Mr. Sandy Berger incident.....
QueEx said:... so, all you see in this is republicanvsdemocratvsrepublicanvsdemocrat
vsrepublicanvsdemocratvsrepublicanvsdemocratvsrepublicanvsdemocratvs
republicanvsdemocratvsrepublicanvsdemocrat
QueEx
on this subject....YES
Well, here's more ...
<font size="5"><center>
New Docs Show Sampson
Behind Misleading Statement to Congress</font size></center>
TPMuckraker
By Paul Kiel - March 28, 2007, 5:00 PM
The Justice Department turned over yet more documents to Congress today -- documents which seem to show that Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson was responsible for misleading Congress about Karl Rove's role in replacing a U.S. attorney.
On February 23, acting Assistant Attorney General wrote Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other senators in response to questions about the appointment of Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Rove. In the letter, Hertling stated "The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin."
But emails subsequently released by the Justice Department showed that wasn't the case. Last December, for example, Sampson wrote in an email that Griffin's appointment was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Other emails showed that Rove's deputy had been intimately involved in the effort to get Griffin installed as the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Arkansas.
In a letter accompanying documents sent to Congress today, Hertling admits that the assertion in his letter isn't true, adding, "We sincerely regret any inaccuracy." And to answer questions about who was responsible for that inaccuracy, he accompanied his letter with 202 pages documents "reflecting the preparation and transmittal of the February 23 letter."
Among the documents is a February 8th email from Kyle Sampson providing what ultimately, with a few small revisions, comprised Hertling's letter. And in that email Sampson wrote that Hertling should say, "I am not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the Attorney General's decision to appoint Griffin."
Now, Hertling might not have known of Rove's role in Griffin's selection, but Sampson sure did.
You can bet that Sampson will be questioned about this during the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning.
Update: Those documents are now online.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002898.php
<font size="5"><center>
New Docs Show Sampson
Behind Misleading Statement to Congress</font size></center>
TPMuckraker
By Paul Kiel - March 28, 2007, 5:00 PM
The Justice Department turned over yet more documents to Congress today -- documents which seem to show that Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson was responsible for misleading Congress about Karl Rove's role in replacing a U.S. attorney.
On February 23, acting Assistant Attorney General wrote Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other senators in response to questions about the appointment of Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Rove. In the letter, Hertling stated "The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin."
But emails subsequently released by the Justice Department showed that wasn't the case. Last December, for example, Sampson wrote in an email that Griffin's appointment was "important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Other emails showed that Rove's deputy had been intimately involved in the effort to get Griffin installed as the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Arkansas.
In a letter accompanying documents sent to Congress today, Hertling admits that the assertion in his letter isn't true, adding, "We sincerely regret any inaccuracy." And to answer questions about who was responsible for that inaccuracy, he accompanied his letter with 202 pages documents "reflecting the preparation and transmittal of the February 23 letter."
Among the documents is a February 8th email from Kyle Sampson providing what ultimately, with a few small revisions, comprised Hertling's letter. And in that email Sampson wrote that Hertling should say, "I am not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the Attorney General's decision to appoint Griffin."
Now, Hertling might not have known of Rove's role in Griffin's selection, but Sampson sure did.
You can bet that Sampson will be questioned about this during the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning.
Update: Those documents are now online.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002898.php
<font size="4">
The documents released today:
</font size>
http://judiciary.house.gov/Printshop.aspx?Section=464
`
The documents released today:
</font size>
http://judiciary.house.gov/Printshop.aspx?Section=464
`
actinanass said:
that doesn't mean they dont have any power that means they don't have enough power to override another branch of government, there is a difference
?wtf
? Im missing your point again. Political bigotry? Its politics! The nation has had two partys fighting for a long time. People with one viewpoint tend to disagree with people of opposing viewpoints.
Bush is a republican.
Lieberman is a democrat and most dems hate his bitch ass too. Are you surprised that people from opposing parties are OPPOSED to one another?
Did you miss the past 7 years of Republicans freezing out democrats from the political process????????????
They did it so the president and all his friends would have to fight against their attempt to stop the Iraq war. That way when the next election comes up all the bitches who didn't oppose the stoppage of this fraudulent war can be held accountable. Its called politics. That's not to say that they dont actually want the war to stop too.
Why don't you remind us?
Watch Sampson talk a little then take the 5th at 10am
http://www.c-span.org/
you can watch it online
http://www.c-span.org/
you can watch it online
Some gravy for the stew
The Washington Post
March 22, 2007 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DISTRIBUTION: Virginia
LENGTH: 1081 words
HEADLINE: Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case
BYLINE: Carol D. Leonnig; Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said three political appointees were responsible for the last-minute shifts in the government's tobacco case in June 2005: then-Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, then-Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and Keisler's deputy at the time, Dan Meron.
News reports on the strategy changes at the time caused an uproar in Congress and sparked an inquiry by the Justice Department. Government witnesses said they had been asked to change testimony, and one expert withdrew from the case. Government lawyers also announced that they were scaling back a proposed penalty against the industry from $130 billion to $10 billion.
High-ranking Justice Department officials said there was no political meddling in the case, and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concurred after an investigation.
Yesterday was the first time that any of the government lawyers on the case spoke at length publicly about what they considered high-level interference by Justice officials.
Eubanks, who retired from Justice in December 2005, said she is coming forward now because she is concerned about what she called the "overwhelming politicization" of the department demonstrated by the controversy over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Lawyers from Justice's civil rights division have made similar claims about being overruled by supervisors in the past.
Eubanks said Congress should not limit its investigation to the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys.
"Political interference is happening at Justice across the department," she said. "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration. . . . The rule of law goes out the window."
McCallum, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said in an interview yesterday that congressional claims of political interference were rejected by the OPR investigation, for which Eubanks was questioned. He said that there was a legitimate disagreement between Eubanks and some career lawyers in the racketeering division about key strategy and that his final decision to reduce the proposed penalty to pay for smoking-cessation programs was vindicated by the judge's ruling that she could not order such a penalty.
"Her claims are totally false in terms of [us] trying to weaken the case," McCallum said. "Her claims were looked into by the Office of Professional Responsibility and were found to be groundless."
In June 2006, the OPR cleared McCallum, concluding that his "actions in seeking and directing changes in the remedies sought were not influenced by any political considerations, but rather were based on good faith efforts to obtain remedies from the district court that would be sustainable on appeal."
Keisler and Meron did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled last August that tobacco companies violated civil racketeering laws by conspiring for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of their product. She ordered the companies to make major changes in the way cigarettes are marketed. But she said she could not order the monetary penalty proposed by the government.
The Clinton Justice Department brought the unprecedented civil suit against the country's five largest tobacco companies in 1999. President Bush disparaged the tobacco case while campaigning in 2000. After Bush took office, some officials expressed initial doubts about the government's ability to fund the prosecution, Justice's largest.
Eubanks said McCallum, Keisler and Meron largely ignored the case until it became clear that the government might win. She recalled that "things began to get really tense" after McCallum read news reports in April 2005 that one government expert, professor Max H. Bazerman of Harvard Business School, would argue that tobacco officials who engaged in fraud could be removed from their corporate posts. Eubanks said she received an angry call from McCallum on the day the news broke.
"How could you put that in there?" she recalled him saying. "We're not going to be pursuing that."
Afterward, McCallum, Keisler and Meron told Eubanks to approach other witnesses about softening their testimony, Eubanks said.
Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was one of the witnesses whom Eubanks asked to change his testimony. Yesterday, he said he found her account to be "the only reasonable explanation" for what transpired.
Two weeks before closing arguments in June, McCallum called for a meeting with Eubanks and her deputy, Stephen Brody, to discuss what McCallum described as "getting the number down" for the $130 billion penalty to create smoking-cessation programs. Brody declined to comment yesterday on the legal team's deliberations, saying that they were private.
During several tense late-night meetings, McCallum repeatedly refused to suggest a figure, Eubanks said, or give clear reasons for the reduction. Brody refused to lower the amount. Finally, on the morning the government was to propose the penalty in court, she said, McCallum ordered it cut to $10 billion.
The most stressful moment, Eubanks said, came when the three appointees ordered her to read word for word a closing argument they had rewritten. The statement explained the validity of seeking a $10 billion penalty.
"I couldn't even look at the judge," she said.
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
The Washington Post
March 22, 2007 Thursday
Met 2 Edition
SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A01
DISTRIBUTION: Virginia
LENGTH: 1081 words
HEADLINE: Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case
BYLINE: Carol D. Leonnig; Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said three political appointees were responsible for the last-minute shifts in the government's tobacco case in June 2005: then-Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, then-Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and Keisler's deputy at the time, Dan Meron.
News reports on the strategy changes at the time caused an uproar in Congress and sparked an inquiry by the Justice Department. Government witnesses said they had been asked to change testimony, and one expert withdrew from the case. Government lawyers also announced that they were scaling back a proposed penalty against the industry from $130 billion to $10 billion.
High-ranking Justice Department officials said there was no political meddling in the case, and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concurred after an investigation.
Yesterday was the first time that any of the government lawyers on the case spoke at length publicly about what they considered high-level interference by Justice officials.
Eubanks, who retired from Justice in December 2005, said she is coming forward now because she is concerned about what she called the "overwhelming politicization" of the department demonstrated by the controversy over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Lawyers from Justice's civil rights division have made similar claims about being overruled by supervisors in the past.
Eubanks said Congress should not limit its investigation to the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys.
"Political interference is happening at Justice across the department," she said. "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration. . . . The rule of law goes out the window."
McCallum, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said in an interview yesterday that congressional claims of political interference were rejected by the OPR investigation, for which Eubanks was questioned. He said that there was a legitimate disagreement between Eubanks and some career lawyers in the racketeering division about key strategy and that his final decision to reduce the proposed penalty to pay for smoking-cessation programs was vindicated by the judge's ruling that she could not order such a penalty.
"Her claims are totally false in terms of [us] trying to weaken the case," McCallum said. "Her claims were looked into by the Office of Professional Responsibility and were found to be groundless."
In June 2006, the OPR cleared McCallum, concluding that his "actions in seeking and directing changes in the remedies sought were not influenced by any political considerations, but rather were based on good faith efforts to obtain remedies from the district court that would be sustainable on appeal."
Keisler and Meron did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled last August that tobacco companies violated civil racketeering laws by conspiring for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of their product. She ordered the companies to make major changes in the way cigarettes are marketed. But she said she could not order the monetary penalty proposed by the government.
The Clinton Justice Department brought the unprecedented civil suit against the country's five largest tobacco companies in 1999. President Bush disparaged the tobacco case while campaigning in 2000. After Bush took office, some officials expressed initial doubts about the government's ability to fund the prosecution, Justice's largest.
Eubanks said McCallum, Keisler and Meron largely ignored the case until it became clear that the government might win. She recalled that "things began to get really tense" after McCallum read news reports in April 2005 that one government expert, professor Max H. Bazerman of Harvard Business School, would argue that tobacco officials who engaged in fraud could be removed from their corporate posts. Eubanks said she received an angry call from McCallum on the day the news broke.
"How could you put that in there?" she recalled him saying. "We're not going to be pursuing that."
Afterward, McCallum, Keisler and Meron told Eubanks to approach other witnesses about softening their testimony, Eubanks said.
Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was one of the witnesses whom Eubanks asked to change his testimony. Yesterday, he said he found her account to be "the only reasonable explanation" for what transpired.
Two weeks before closing arguments in June, McCallum called for a meeting with Eubanks and her deputy, Stephen Brody, to discuss what McCallum described as "getting the number down" for the $130 billion penalty to create smoking-cessation programs. Brody declined to comment yesterday on the legal team's deliberations, saying that they were private.
During several tense late-night meetings, McCallum repeatedly refused to suggest a figure, Eubanks said, or give clear reasons for the reduction. Brody refused to lower the amount. Finally, on the morning the government was to propose the penalty in court, she said, McCallum ordered it cut to $10 billion.
The most stressful moment, Eubanks said, came when the three appointees ordered her to read word for word a closing argument they had rewritten. The statement explained the validity of seeking a $10 billion penalty.
"I couldn't even look at the judge," she said.
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
<font face="arial black" size="6" color="#d90000">
When Will Fredo Get Whacked? </font>
<br><font face="trebuchet ms, verdana" size="3" color="#000000">
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/02/opinion/ts-rich-75.jpg"><br>
<b>by FRANK RICH<br>
Published: March 25, 2007</b>
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.h...Q60Q60FMQ60EMQ26(MOb!m!OmMQ26(x!GlQ25lQ2BQ23,
PRESIDENT BUSH wants to keep everything that happens in his White House secret, but when it comes to his own emotions, he's as transparent as a teenager on MySpace.
On Monday morning he observed the Iraq war's fourth anniversary with a sullen stay-the-course peroration so perfunctory he seemed to sleepwalk through its smorgasbord of recycled half-truths (Iraqi leaders are ''beginning to meet the benchmarks'') and boilerplate (''There will be good days, and there will be bad days''). But at a press conference the next day to defend his attorney general, the president was back in the saddle, guns blazing, Mr. Bring 'Em On reborn. He vowed to vanquish his Democratic antagonists much as he once, so very long ago, pledged to make short work of insurgents in Iraq.
The Jekyll-and-Hyde contrast between these two performances couldn't be a more dramatic indicator of Mr. Bush's priorities in his presidency's endgame. His passion for protecting his power and his courtiers far exceeds his passion for protecting the troops he's pouring into Iraq's civil war. But why go to the mat for Alberto Gonzales? Even Bush loyalists have rarely shown respect for this crony whom the president saddled with the nickname Fredo; they revolted when Mr. Bush flirted with appointing him to the Supreme Court and shun him now. The attorney general's alleged infraction -- misrepresenting a Justice Department purge of eight United States attorneys, all political appointees, for political reasons -- seems an easy-to-settle kerfuffle next to his infamous 2002 memo dismissing the Geneva Conventions' strictures on torture as ''quaint'' and ''obsolete.''
That's why the president's wild overreaction is revealing. So far his truculence has been largely attributed to his slavish loyalty to his White House supplicants, his ideological belief in unilateral executive-branch power and, as always, his need to shield the Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove (who installed a protege in place of one of the fired attorneys). But the fierceness of Mr. Bush's response -- to the ludicrous extreme of forbidding transcripts of Congressional questioning of White House personnel -- indicates there is far more fire to go with all the Beltway smoke.
Mr. Gonzales may be a nonentity, but he's a nonentity like Zelig. He's been present at every dubious legal crossroads in Mr. Bush's career. That conjoined history began in 1996, when Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, was summoned for jury duty in Austin. To popular acclaim, he announced he was glad to lend his ''average guy'' perspective to a drunken driving trial. But there was one hitch. On the juror questionnaire, he left blank a required section asking, ''Have you ever been accused, or a complainant, or a witness in a criminal case?''
A likely explanation for that omission, unknown to the public at the time, was that Mr. Bush had been charged with disorderly conduct in 1968 and drunken driving in 1976. Enter Mr. Gonzales. As the story is told in ''The President's Counselor,'' a nonpartisan biography by the Texas journalist Bill Minutaglio, Mr. Gonzales met with the judge presiding over the trial in his chambers (a meeting Mr. Gonzales would years later claim to have ''no recollection'' of requesting) and saved his client from jury duty. Mr. Minutaglio likens the scene to ''The Godfather'' -- casting Mr. Gonzales not as the feckless Fredo, however, but as the ''discreet 'fixer' attorney,'' Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen.
Mr. Gonzales's career has been laced with such narrow escapes for both him and Mr. Bush. As a partner at the Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins, Mr. Gonzales had worked for Enron until 1994. After Enron imploded in 2001, reporters wanted to know whether Ken Lay's pals in the Bush hierarchy had received a heads up about the company's pending demise before its unfortunate shareholders were left holding the bag. The White House said that Mr. Gonzales had been out of the Enron loop ''to the best of his recollection.'' This month Murray Waas of The National Journal uncovered a more recent close shave: Just as Justice Department investigators were about to examine ''documents that might have shed light on Gonzales's role'' in the administration's extralegal domestic wiretapping program last year, Mr. Bush shut down the investigation.
It was Mr. Gonzales as well who threw up roadblocks when the 9/11 Commission sought documents and testimony from the White House about the fateful summer of 2001. Less widely known is Mr. Gonzales's curious behavior in the C.I.A. leak case while he was still White House counsel. When the Justice Department officially notified him on the evening of Sept. 29, 2003, that it was opening an investigation into the outing of Valerie Wilson, he immediately informed Andrew Card, Mr. Bush's chief of staff. But Mr. Gonzales waited another 12 hours to officially notify the president and inform White House employees to preserve all materials relevant to the investigation. As Chuck Schumer said after this maneuver became known, ''Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence.''
Now that 12-hour delay has been matched by the 18-day gap in the Justice Department e-mails turned over to Congress in the dispute over the attorney purge. And we're being told by Tony Snow that Mr. Bush has ''no recollection'' of hearing anything about the firings. But even these literal echoes of Watergate cannot obliterate the contours of the story this White House wants to hide.
Do not be distracted by the apples and oranges among the fired attorneys. Perhaps a couple of their forced resignations were routine. But in other instances, incriminating evidence coalesces around a familiar administration motive: its desperate desire to cover up the corruption that soiled what was supposed to be this White House's greatest asset, its protection of the nation's security. This was the motive that drove the White House to vilify Joseph Wilson when he challenged fraudulent prewar intelligence about Saddam's W.M.D. The e-mails in the attorney flap released so far suggest that this same motive may have driven the Justice Department to try mounting a similar strike at Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States attorney charged with investigating the Wilson leak.
In March 2005, while preparing for the firings, Mr. Gonzales's now-jettisoned chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, produced a chart rating all 93 United States attorneys nationwide. Mr. Fitzgerald, widely admired as one of the nation's best prosecutors (most famously of terrorists), was somehow slapped with the designation ''not distinguished.'' Two others given that same rating were fired. You have to wonder if Mr. Fitzgerald was spared because someone in a high place belatedly calculated the political firestorm that would engulf the White House had this prosecutor been part of a Saturday night massacre in the middle of the Wilson inquiry.
Another canned attorney to track because of her scrutiny of Bush administration national security scandals is Carol Lam. She was fired from her post in San Diego after her successful prosecution of Representative Duke Cunningham, the California Republican who took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. Mr. Rove has publicly suggested that Ms. Lam got the ax because ''she would not commit resources to prosecute immigration offenses.'' That's false. Last August an assistant attorney general praised her for doubling her immigration prosecutions; last week USA Today crunched the statistics and found that she ranked seventh among her 93 peers in successful prosecutions for 2006, with immigration violations accounting for the largest single crime category prosecuted during her tenure.
To see what Mr. Rove might be trying to cover up, look instead at what Ms. Lam was up to in May, just as the Justice Department e-mails indicate she was being earmarked for removal. Building on the Cunningham case, she was closing in on Dusty Foggo, the C.I.A.'s No. 3 official and the director of its daily operations. Mr. Foggo had been installed in this high intelligence position by Mr. Bush's handpicked successor to George Tenet as C.I.A. director, Porter Goss.
Ms. Lam's pursuit sped Mr. Foggo's abrupt resignation; Mr. Goss was out too after serving less than two years. Nine months later -- just as Ms. Lam stepped down from her job in February -- Mr. Foggo and a defense contractor who raised more than $100,000 for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign were indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of conspiracy and money laundering in what The Washington Post called ''one of the first criminal cases to reach into the C.I.A.'s clandestine operations in Europe and the Middle East.'' Because the allegations include the compromising of classified information that remains classified, we don't know the full extent of the damage to an agency and a nation at war.
Not yet anyway. ''I'm not going to resign,'' Mr. Gonzales asserted last week as he played the minority card, rounding up Hispanic supporters to cheer his protestations of innocence. ''I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids.'' Actually, he's going to stay focused on protecting the president. Once he can no longer be useful in that role, it's a sure thing that like Scooter before him, Fredo will be tossed overboard.</FONT>
<BR>
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Makkonnen said:
1. In a democrat eyes, thats not power. That was my whole point. Really, whats the point of having the house and the senate if YOU CANT PASS ANYTHING?
2. To add on number one, since they can't pass anything into law, they do the next "best" thing. Discredit the president, and his administration. Thus, this topic arise...
3. A war cannot be fraudulent if both parties had the evidence BEFORE BUSH WAS IN OFFICE. Kinda funny how people forget politics back during the Clinton administration.
4. I didn't miss the republicans doing their jobs. Democrats were just mad because some of the good things *economy, social security, and education* didn't have their name on it.
its obvious that your a liberal, blinded by hate for g.w.bush, so I think its best to agree to disagree...
oh yea.... http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/08/berger.sentenced/
basically explains the whole Sandy Berger thing...
actinanass said:
??????
The only reason you are complaining is because they do have power. They do not have the numbers to pass everything with and override a veto, that is correct. Again, that does not mean they do not have power.
By the same token they can cut funding to all of the president's activity. Power over the budget is ultimate power.
The president has discredited himself.30% approval rating. MOST Americans do not like what Bush does. Much of what Bush has been doing has been criminal and now that there is real oversight he will be called on his actions.
Bush had his people lie to America and the UN. There was never a nuclear threat from Iraq in this decade.
Clinton has no part in Bush's criminality.
What do parties have to do with the war being bullshit? I am not a member of the democratic party.
No. You misunderstood. The Republicans for the last 7 years had held all committee meetings in secret and did not tell the democrats where the meetings were being held and froze them out of participation. That has NEvER happened before. That is not their job. That is corruption. That is abuse of power.
And as for the economy, social security and education, the Repubs have done nothing to improve any of those issues and have hurt 2 of them.
Its obvious that you do not know what I am and do not know who or what I hate.
I am by no means a liberal. I am by no means a supporter of an illegitimate President who has abused his power and the people of this nation either.
You should consider looking at things beyond a two party, this or that type of thinking.
Posting an article on Sandy Berger does not explain you mentioning his name as if it is a total statement and argument unto itself. I know who he is. If you care to invoke his name as if it is relevant to some argument you would like to make please follow his name with an actual argument. At least that way I can follow what you are saying rather than trying to read your mind.
Makkonnen said:
1. I wonder why they won't DE-FUND the war? Can you say POLITICAL SUICIDE?
2. *sigh* hell how could a man discredit himself when the economy is at record pace, and we are in a war that has the least death rate among ANY OTHER WAR WE HAVE BEEN IN. So how is he discrediting himself?
3. ahh mister mak.....you know clinton had the same evidence? That means MR. Al GORE would have went in just like Bush did. Meaning that argument has been overplayed. Plus, you aren't lying about Clinton doesn't have anything to do with Bush's "scandals". In fact, Clinton had a whole novel full of scandals that has nothing to do with the Bush camp... Funny that you don't point that shit out MAK. Seems kinda partisan to me....
4. Speaking of corruption, I thought that pork was suppose to stop with a democratic congress. Funny how the new funding bill had.........PORK. Funny how democrats forget what they do...
5. look at the stock market, and the unemployment rate. Social security reform was blocked by the democrats in 2002 I think, my bad for that one.
6. The argument was about Atty General Gonzales right? Well I pointed out that in the Clinton camp, you had people doing 12x worst shit that what Gonzales is charged with. Again, you tend to forget everything that happened before Bush.
7. *sigh* mak come on man, not the al gore argument. FOR THE LAST TIME, AL GORE DID NOT WANT TO BE PRESIDENT IN 2000. He had all the power to challenge the count during the 2000 elections, and he DIDN'T DO IT. Ask yourself, would you want a pussy for a president? Because Al Gore was a pussy for not fighting for the office. He wasted YOUR VOTE mak. Therefore, Bush is the legitimate president because HE WANTED IT. Not to mention, BUSH WON HIS OWN STATE. What does that tell you if a person loses his own state like AL GORE did? So please mak, lets be real, these democrats aren't the ones MY GRANDPARENTS grew to love. So please, quit making them out to be the party that I should love. Basically FUCK THE DEMOCRATS UNTIL THEY GROW NUTS!
Last edited:
actinanass said:
They won't defund the war because they really don't give a shit. At best they are cowards and at worst they are complicit.
I hope you worked on his campaign. You should take Tony Snow's spot. Good work.How did Clinton have the same evidence that was doctored by the Bush White House? You dont even make sense.
The FORGED letters that supposedly showed Saddam trying to obtain uranium from Niger were not in Clinton's hands so what the fuck are you talking about?
Fuck Clinton. He's a scumbag IMHO. We are not talking about Clinton, who is irrelevant to this discussion, we are talking about Bush. Clinton can go to prison too for all I care. Is that partisan too?
?
Bush is president right? So its partisan to talk about the president when talking about the president? Pork stop? With Democrats? Why would it? They didn't run on a "no pork" campaign. They ran on an "we are not Bush or republicans" campaign and won easily.
Do you read? Conservatives are supposed to be about no pork and they upset many fiscal conservatives with the past few years of spend spend spend bullshit.
We can have a convo but please try to come correct man.
The stock market just crashed. The housing market which the economy has been riding these past years is ready to crumble. The unemployment rate does not count people who's benefits have stopped.
No brainiac - I dont forget what old presidents did 10 years ago I am just more concerned with what the CURRENT PRESIDENT IS DOING NOW.
Go make a clinton thread since you obviously are living in 1997 instead of 2007.
You are insane. You don't know whether or not I voted and if I did who I voted for so chill out smart guy.
I agree that Gore didn't fight for it and neither did Kerry and I know why. It does not change the fact that Bush obtained and maintained the presidency through a series of dirty tricks and scams.
So wanting to be president makes you the president?
wtf? youre a funny dudeCAN YOU READ??????? I AM NOT A DEMOCRAT.
Is this guy a buddy of yours Que?
<font size="5"><center>Bush's long history of politicizing justice</font size>
<font size="4">It's not only the U.S. attorneys who are threatened
by partisan politics. Since Day One, the Bush administration
has been quietly dismantling the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.</font size></center>
By Alia Malek
Salon
March 30, 2007
The current U.S. attorneys scandal shows that the Bush administration was mistaken in its belief that it could politicize the nation's top federal law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, with impunity. The attorney general's chief of staff and the director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys have both had to leave their jobs, and Congress has begun grilling DOJ leadership. But having decimated another entire sector of the DOJ in plain sight for six years with little consequence, is it any wonder the Bush White House figured nobody would miss a few prosecutors?
Since George Bush took office, his administration has been not so quietly dismantling the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, which is responsible for enforcing the nation's civil rights laws, and doing it for the same reason the eight federal prosecutors were fired: to use the enforcement power of the federal government for Republican gain. Instead of attending to the Civil Rights Division's historic mission, addressing the legacy of slavery by enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the Bush administration has employed the division to advance the political agenda of a key GOP constituency, the Christian right and also, quite literally, to get Republicans elected.
Accomplishing these goals required a drastic change in personnel, which necessitated dismantling the hiring system, forcing out or silencing career (nonpolitical) staff, and replacing them with people without civil rights expertise but with demonstrated ideological and partisan loyalties. It was a project that took years to execute because several checks on such a scenario had long been in place, checks that earlier administrations of both parties had respected.
As it was happening, current and former employees tried to alert the outside world, with little success. But with the spotlight on the department and its attorney general, momentum may finally be building. Last week, a House Judiciary subcommittee held oversight hearings on the Civil Rights Division, and witnesses testified to the changes the Bush administration had effected there.
A principal witness at Thursday's hearings was Joe Rich, a 37-year veteran of the division and former chief of the Voting Rights Section, who left in 2005. In his testimony, Rich charged that under the Bush Administration, "the essential work of the division to protect the civil rights of all Americans is not getting done." He also said that the connection between the current prosecutors scandal and what happened to the division should not be minimized, telling senators, "The political decision-making process that led to the questionable dismissal of eight United States attorneys was standard practice in the Civil Rights Division years before these recent revelations."
The Civil Rights Division was established in 1957 by an act of Congress, with the mandate to enforce the nation's few federal civil rights statutes. With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, the division suddenly had a lot more work to do. Since 1957 and before the election of George W. Bush, there had been four Democratic and four Republican presidential administrations (counting Nixon-Ford as one).
The division is composed of 11 "sections," eight of which do litigation: Housing and Civil Enforcement, Employment, Education, Disability, Special Litigation, Criminal, Appellate and Voting Rights. The division's 700 employees, half of them lawyers, are spread out across several buildings in Washington. Long gone are the days when the whole Department of Justice and the FBI could fit into the art deco building on Pennsylvania Avenue known as Main Justice.
The leadership of the division -- known as the Front Office -- has always been appointed by the president. Most of those appointees have not been experts in civil rights law, says Brian K. Landsberg, a former division section chief and the author of "Enforcing Civil Rights: Race Discrimination and the Department of Justice." That lack of expertise was compensated for by the core of the division, its career attorneys who have the sophisticated understanding of the law that civil rights enforcement requires, says Landsberg, now a law professor at the University of the Pacific. "Even if the political appointees did have that expertise, there aren't enough of them to do the background work." In addition to career attorneys providing the political appointees the expertise they might lack, the dialogue, partnership and mutual respect between the two have been credited with keeping the division above the partisan fray.
The Bush administration's actions over the past six years seem almost prima facie evidence that it does view civil rights enforcement -- which had traditionally been on behalf of African-Americans, women and other racial, ethnic and religious minorities -- as a partisan matter. In perhaps a case of projection, it seems to have also expected career people to abuse their power on behalf of partisan goals.
Thus the administration sought to recast the division in its own image, by minimizing outside input, getting rid of career people and hiring loyal Bushies. Simply choosing John Ashcroft, a religious fundamentalist and political conservative, as the attorney general immediately indicated that Bush's promises to heal and unite the nation after the 2000 election did not translate into Cabinet choices that would reflect the divided political mood of the country.
In an e-mail to his 125,000 employees on his first day on the job, Ashcroft promised to guarantee "rights for the advancement of all Americans." But actions were soon speaking louder than words. Regular meetings of the division's section chiefs and the political leadership were virtually discontinued. In a tradition dating to the 1950s, presidents have asked an American Bar Association committee to provide a confidential rating of the qualifications of judicial candidates before the nominations are sent to the Senate for confirmation. Ashcroft and then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales met with the ABA and then terminated the ABA's advisory role. Once Ashcroft began hiring his own choices, career attorneys noticed that many of the new hires were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. Ashcroft himself was called an active supporter of the Federalist Society, and several of the top legal positions throughout the administration were all held by Federalist Society members.
Then, much the way some companies go green, DOJ under Ashcroft went Pentecostal. In correspondence, use of the word "pride" was forbidden because the Bible calls pride a sin; employees were also asked to never use the phrase "no higher calling than public service." Ashcroft instituted prayer meetings, leading a Bible study at 8 a.m. sharp each day, some days even in his office, on others in a conference room at Main Justice. All department employees, regardless of their religious affiliation, were invited to attend, but in reality few did.
Against this backdrop, in the fall of 2001, the first real showdown between the Front Office and the division as a whole took place, over a little-known lawsuit against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which runs metropolitan Philadelphia's mass transit system. For four years the division's Employment Litigation Section had been pursuing charges that SEPTA's hiring practices discriminated again women applicants by requiring results on a physical performance test that the division argued had little relevance to what was required by the job. Without talking to anyone involved with the case, the Front Office jettisoned it, citing a need to divert resources to the war on terrorism.
Though the Employment Section voiced objections, it carried out orders and withdrew from the case. But in what came to be seen as retaliation for voicing that dissent, the Front Office stripped the section chief, her deputy and the lead counsel of their duties and exiled them to a newly created task force in the Civil Division with no real responsibilities. The retaliation was so unprecedented that the other section chiefs, out of fear, stopped their informal monthly meetings, which they had long used to keep the components of the far-flung division connected.
In the past, disagreement between career attorneys and the Front Office, whether under a Democratic or Republican administration, was not unexpected. Dialogue between the permanent staff and the political appointees served as a check and balance between the political goals of any one administration and a goal that was not regarded as political -- the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. By the end of 2001, it was clear that the old give-and-take between the staffers and their politically appointed bosses was now viewed as unforgivable insubordination.
Career staffers began to leave. As their ranks thinned, and as the survivors were effectively neutralized, the Bush administration, in its effort to minimize any resistance to its agenda for the DOJ, sought to replenish the division with loyal hires.
Hiring decisions had always been subject to political staff's approval, but the judgment of the career core of the division had historically been trusted. The Front Office stopped consulting the careerists. Résumés had once flowed up from the sections to the Front Office; now the flow was reversed. The divisions, starting under Ashcroft and continuing under Alberto Gonzales, were told whom they could hire and whom they could promote.
The numbers show what has happened to the division's staff since 2001. A Freedom of Information Act request in the summer of 2006 by the Boston Globe for the résumés of successful applicants since 2003 also showed that among the new hires were people who had worked for prominent conservatives, belonged to the Republican National Lawyers Association, had volunteered for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, and had limited civil rights experience. The résumés showed that only 42 percent of lawyers hired since 2003 have civil rights experience, compared to 77 percent in the two years prior, when career attorneys were primarily responsible for hiring. Almost half of those new hires with "civil rights experience" had gained it by either defending employers against discrimination suits or by fighting against affirmative action policies.
Career lawyers say the new hires are increasingly white males with Federalist Society or Christian Legal Society credentials, even though many of them are shocked to find themselves in the Civil Rights Division. Richard Ugelow, a former employment deputy chief who now teaches at American University, says his students who ranked other divisions in the Department of Justice as their preferred choices for placement found themselves called to interview in the Civil Rights Division. One thing about those students' résumés stood out: They were members of the Federalist Society.
What was this newly conservative incarnation of the Civil Rights Division being asked to do? From the beginning, part of the Bush administration's purpose was advancing the Christian right's agenda, and one element of that agenda was the erosion of the wall between church and state. At the same time, in a five-year period beginning in 2001, the division brought no voting cases on behalf of African-Americans and only one employment case on behalf of African-Americans.
John Ashcroft, devout son of a Pentecostal minister, became infamous for demanding modesty of a statue in the Main Justice building. The attorney general spent $8,000 in taxpayers' money on a dark velvet curtain to completely hide the naked marble breasts of the "Spirit of Justice." (After 9/11, the DOJ staff also received copies of the lyrics to a jingoistic song that Ashcroft had penned himself, "Let the Eagle Soar." He asked staff to sing it at the beginning of the work day at his prayer meetings.)
But less overtly, the administration was harnessing the power of the division's Appellate Section on behalf of certain religious groups, under a doctrine developed by the Front Office called "Viewpoint Discrimination." One career attorney in the section, speaking anonymously, describes the doctrine as intended to "defend the rights of Christian Evangelicals to proselytize in public forums, like school."
A former deputy section chief, also speaking on condition of anonymity, says that the administration has a very specific litigation strategy, and that is to "try to lower the wall of separation between church and state." The former deputy section chief says, "These aren't discrimination cases. These are free speech cases, at the end of day. They want to be able to wear T-shirts with religious messages and hand out fliers about church meetings at schools." Under the Bush administration, the DOJ was suddenly suggesting a moral equivalence between protecting minorities from discrimination and enabling nonminorities to proselytize in public forums.
In the Voting Rights Section the Bush administration clearly saw a valuable tool for partisan gain
Meanwhile career lawyers in Appellate were blocked from working on civil rights cases. Instead, attorneys were given dockets with deportation orders of illegal immigrants to occupy their time. When they did write a civil rights brief, they were told to weaken their arguments by citing the opinions of conservative judges, even when those opinions were dissenting opinions, and by ignoring authoritative Supreme Court precedents.
"Instead of legal briefs," says one current employee, "they want to file policy papers."
Promoting the Christian agenda was meant to help the GOP at the ballot box. Often, however, the division was used to help Republicans win elections more directly. It was in the Voting Rights Section, which Joe Rich had headed from 1999 to 2005, that the Bush administration clearly saw a valuable tool for partisan gain. In his testimony last week, Rich charged that "the priority, indeed obsession, of this administration was not to protect the rights of American voters but with ... politically charged pursuit."
After each census, voting districts are redrawn to account for population changes. In the case of states with a history of voter discrimination, those states must submit their redistricting plans to the Voting Rights Section of the division, as per Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Given the nation's history of racial discrimination at the ballot box, the question the section must consider in deciding whether to "pre-clear" any plan is, will this harm black voters?
First in Mississippi and then in Texas, the Front Office facilitated or directly approved redistricting plans that created net gains for GOP candidates, patently disregarding the recommendations of the analysts and lawyers of the Voting Rights Section. Though in both instances they counseled the Front Office that the law required the opposite actions, they carried out the Front Office's orders.
Then, after Rich's departure from the division, and under new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the section's power was again used to the advantage of Republicans. A new law in Georgia required voters to present a government-issued picture ID in order to vote at the polls on Election Day. Staff had prepared a detailed and comprehensive memo analyzing the information provided by the state and other interested parties, and had concluded that the change would have a discriminatory effect on minority voters -- they recommended that the law not be pre-cleared. The next day, the Front Office ordered pre-clearance of the Georgia law. After that case, the Front Office barred the Voting Rights Section's staff attorneys from offering any recommendations on any cases.
Later it was exposed that a political hire in the Voting Rights Section, Hans von Spakovsky, who played a central role in approving the controversial Georgia voter identification program and who had been in charge of setting the section's substantive priorities, had anonymously authored a law review article that endorsed the kind of system Georgia sought to enact. His attempts to hide his views may turn out to have violated Justice Department guidelines. Von Spakovsky left the division for the Federal Election Commission as a recess appointment. Similarly, the person who had been named as the senior counsel for voting rights in the section was a defeated Republican candidate for Congress.
In the past two years, as reporters for both Salon and the Washington bureau of McClatchy Newspapers have noted, the DOJ has dispatched ideologues from the Civil Rights Division to become U.S. attorneys. Alex Acosta, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Miami, left the Civil Rights Division after serving as its assistant attorney general. Another former political appointee in the office of the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Matt Dummermuth, was nominated to be U.S. attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December.
Most notably, Gonzales, as attorney general, appointed Brad Schlozman, former principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, as interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri late in 2006. While deputy head of the Civil Rights Division, Schlozman had overseen the redistricting of Texas and Mississippi. He had also personally reversed the career staff's recommendation that the Georgia voter ID law be challenged. In fact, he had penned an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal Constitution supporting the law.
As U.S. attorney in Missouri last fall, Schlozman brought voter fraud indictments a week before the midterm elections against four individuals associated with a group registering poor and minority voters in Kansas City. Such timing contradicted Justice's policy, Joe Rich told Salon in an interview, of waiting till after an election to bring indictments, lest an investigation unnecessarily affect the outcome of the vote. It was perhaps not irrelevant, though, that Nov. 7, 2006, promised to be hard on Republicans, and that the Republican senator, Jim Talent, was in a close race, and that Kansas City was full of Democratic voters.
Talent lost his seat to Democrat Claire McCaskill on Nov. 7, and the Democrats took control of the House and the Senate. Not long thereafter, the Bush administration finally lost its free pass to politicize the U.S. attorneys, the Civil Rights Division and the rest of the Department of Justice. The decision to fire eight federal prosecutors, most of them highly rated for their performance, attracted the attention of the new Congress. Six years into the Bush era, investigations have, at last, ensued.
History books will likely not be kind to the Bush administration. The consequences of the administration's actions, however, extend far beyond the fate of any one elected official.
Optimists believe that once this administration's term comes to an end in 2008, the division may once again be able to enforce the nation's civil rights laws without regard to partisan motives. Others, like Joe Rich, are more pessimistic. "They can try to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again," Rich told Salon, "but you've lost career people with the institutional memory to do that." In his testimony on Capitol Hill, Rich asserted that only "vigilant oversight" would restore the Civil Rights Division and the Department of Justice to their historic role of leading the enforcement of civil rights and protection of equal justice under the law.
Similarly, if the Bush administration is not penalized by the voters or their elected representatives for treating the Department of Justice as a political tool, there is nothing to stop successive administrations -- whether Republican or Democrat -- from doing the same when it's their turn in power.
http://salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/30/civil_rights/
<font size="4">It's not only the U.S. attorneys who are threatened
by partisan politics. Since Day One, the Bush administration
has been quietly dismantling the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.</font size></center>
By Alia Malek
Salon
March 30, 2007
The current U.S. attorneys scandal shows that the Bush administration was mistaken in its belief that it could politicize the nation's top federal law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, with impunity. The attorney general's chief of staff and the director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys have both had to leave their jobs, and Congress has begun grilling DOJ leadership. But having decimated another entire sector of the DOJ in plain sight for six years with little consequence, is it any wonder the Bush White House figured nobody would miss a few prosecutors?
Since George Bush took office, his administration has been not so quietly dismantling the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, which is responsible for enforcing the nation's civil rights laws, and doing it for the same reason the eight federal prosecutors were fired: to use the enforcement power of the federal government for Republican gain. Instead of attending to the Civil Rights Division's historic mission, addressing the legacy of slavery by enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the Bush administration has employed the division to advance the political agenda of a key GOP constituency, the Christian right and also, quite literally, to get Republicans elected.
Accomplishing these goals required a drastic change in personnel, which necessitated dismantling the hiring system, forcing out or silencing career (nonpolitical) staff, and replacing them with people without civil rights expertise but with demonstrated ideological and partisan loyalties. It was a project that took years to execute because several checks on such a scenario had long been in place, checks that earlier administrations of both parties had respected.
As it was happening, current and former employees tried to alert the outside world, with little success. But with the spotlight on the department and its attorney general, momentum may finally be building. Last week, a House Judiciary subcommittee held oversight hearings on the Civil Rights Division, and witnesses testified to the changes the Bush administration had effected there.
A principal witness at Thursday's hearings was Joe Rich, a 37-year veteran of the division and former chief of the Voting Rights Section, who left in 2005. In his testimony, Rich charged that under the Bush Administration, "the essential work of the division to protect the civil rights of all Americans is not getting done." He also said that the connection between the current prosecutors scandal and what happened to the division should not be minimized, telling senators, "The political decision-making process that led to the questionable dismissal of eight United States attorneys was standard practice in the Civil Rights Division years before these recent revelations."
The Civil Rights Division was established in 1957 by an act of Congress, with the mandate to enforce the nation's few federal civil rights statutes. With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, the division suddenly had a lot more work to do. Since 1957 and before the election of George W. Bush, there had been four Democratic and four Republican presidential administrations (counting Nixon-Ford as one).
The division is composed of 11 "sections," eight of which do litigation: Housing and Civil Enforcement, Employment, Education, Disability, Special Litigation, Criminal, Appellate and Voting Rights. The division's 700 employees, half of them lawyers, are spread out across several buildings in Washington. Long gone are the days when the whole Department of Justice and the FBI could fit into the art deco building on Pennsylvania Avenue known as Main Justice.
The leadership of the division -- known as the Front Office -- has always been appointed by the president. Most of those appointees have not been experts in civil rights law, says Brian K. Landsberg, a former division section chief and the author of "Enforcing Civil Rights: Race Discrimination and the Department of Justice." That lack of expertise was compensated for by the core of the division, its career attorneys who have the sophisticated understanding of the law that civil rights enforcement requires, says Landsberg, now a law professor at the University of the Pacific. "Even if the political appointees did have that expertise, there aren't enough of them to do the background work." In addition to career attorneys providing the political appointees the expertise they might lack, the dialogue, partnership and mutual respect between the two have been credited with keeping the division above the partisan fray.
The Bush administration's actions over the past six years seem almost prima facie evidence that it does view civil rights enforcement -- which had traditionally been on behalf of African-Americans, women and other racial, ethnic and religious minorities -- as a partisan matter. In perhaps a case of projection, it seems to have also expected career people to abuse their power on behalf of partisan goals.
Thus the administration sought to recast the division in its own image, by minimizing outside input, getting rid of career people and hiring loyal Bushies. Simply choosing John Ashcroft, a religious fundamentalist and political conservative, as the attorney general immediately indicated that Bush's promises to heal and unite the nation after the 2000 election did not translate into Cabinet choices that would reflect the divided political mood of the country.
In an e-mail to his 125,000 employees on his first day on the job, Ashcroft promised to guarantee "rights for the advancement of all Americans." But actions were soon speaking louder than words. Regular meetings of the division's section chiefs and the political leadership were virtually discontinued. In a tradition dating to the 1950s, presidents have asked an American Bar Association committee to provide a confidential rating of the qualifications of judicial candidates before the nominations are sent to the Senate for confirmation. Ashcroft and then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales met with the ABA and then terminated the ABA's advisory role. Once Ashcroft began hiring his own choices, career attorneys noticed that many of the new hires were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. Ashcroft himself was called an active supporter of the Federalist Society, and several of the top legal positions throughout the administration were all held by Federalist Society members.
Then, much the way some companies go green, DOJ under Ashcroft went Pentecostal. In correspondence, use of the word "pride" was forbidden because the Bible calls pride a sin; employees were also asked to never use the phrase "no higher calling than public service." Ashcroft instituted prayer meetings, leading a Bible study at 8 a.m. sharp each day, some days even in his office, on others in a conference room at Main Justice. All department employees, regardless of their religious affiliation, were invited to attend, but in reality few did.
Against this backdrop, in the fall of 2001, the first real showdown between the Front Office and the division as a whole took place, over a little-known lawsuit against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which runs metropolitan Philadelphia's mass transit system. For four years the division's Employment Litigation Section had been pursuing charges that SEPTA's hiring practices discriminated again women applicants by requiring results on a physical performance test that the division argued had little relevance to what was required by the job. Without talking to anyone involved with the case, the Front Office jettisoned it, citing a need to divert resources to the war on terrorism.
Though the Employment Section voiced objections, it carried out orders and withdrew from the case. But in what came to be seen as retaliation for voicing that dissent, the Front Office stripped the section chief, her deputy and the lead counsel of their duties and exiled them to a newly created task force in the Civil Division with no real responsibilities. The retaliation was so unprecedented that the other section chiefs, out of fear, stopped their informal monthly meetings, which they had long used to keep the components of the far-flung division connected.
In the past, disagreement between career attorneys and the Front Office, whether under a Democratic or Republican administration, was not unexpected. Dialogue between the permanent staff and the political appointees served as a check and balance between the political goals of any one administration and a goal that was not regarded as political -- the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. By the end of 2001, it was clear that the old give-and-take between the staffers and their politically appointed bosses was now viewed as unforgivable insubordination.
Career staffers began to leave. As their ranks thinned, and as the survivors were effectively neutralized, the Bush administration, in its effort to minimize any resistance to its agenda for the DOJ, sought to replenish the division with loyal hires.
Hiring decisions had always been subject to political staff's approval, but the judgment of the career core of the division had historically been trusted. The Front Office stopped consulting the careerists. Résumés had once flowed up from the sections to the Front Office; now the flow was reversed. The divisions, starting under Ashcroft and continuing under Alberto Gonzales, were told whom they could hire and whom they could promote.
The numbers show what has happened to the division's staff since 2001. A Freedom of Information Act request in the summer of 2006 by the Boston Globe for the résumés of successful applicants since 2003 also showed that among the new hires were people who had worked for prominent conservatives, belonged to the Republican National Lawyers Association, had volunteered for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, and had limited civil rights experience. The résumés showed that only 42 percent of lawyers hired since 2003 have civil rights experience, compared to 77 percent in the two years prior, when career attorneys were primarily responsible for hiring. Almost half of those new hires with "civil rights experience" had gained it by either defending employers against discrimination suits or by fighting against affirmative action policies.
Career lawyers say the new hires are increasingly white males with Federalist Society or Christian Legal Society credentials, even though many of them are shocked to find themselves in the Civil Rights Division. Richard Ugelow, a former employment deputy chief who now teaches at American University, says his students who ranked other divisions in the Department of Justice as their preferred choices for placement found themselves called to interview in the Civil Rights Division. One thing about those students' résumés stood out: They were members of the Federalist Society.
What was this newly conservative incarnation of the Civil Rights Division being asked to do? From the beginning, part of the Bush administration's purpose was advancing the Christian right's agenda, and one element of that agenda was the erosion of the wall between church and state. At the same time, in a five-year period beginning in 2001, the division brought no voting cases on behalf of African-Americans and only one employment case on behalf of African-Americans.
John Ashcroft, devout son of a Pentecostal minister, became infamous for demanding modesty of a statue in the Main Justice building. The attorney general spent $8,000 in taxpayers' money on a dark velvet curtain to completely hide the naked marble breasts of the "Spirit of Justice." (After 9/11, the DOJ staff also received copies of the lyrics to a jingoistic song that Ashcroft had penned himself, "Let the Eagle Soar." He asked staff to sing it at the beginning of the work day at his prayer meetings.)
But less overtly, the administration was harnessing the power of the division's Appellate Section on behalf of certain religious groups, under a doctrine developed by the Front Office called "Viewpoint Discrimination." One career attorney in the section, speaking anonymously, describes the doctrine as intended to "defend the rights of Christian Evangelicals to proselytize in public forums, like school."
A former deputy section chief, also speaking on condition of anonymity, says that the administration has a very specific litigation strategy, and that is to "try to lower the wall of separation between church and state." The former deputy section chief says, "These aren't discrimination cases. These are free speech cases, at the end of day. They want to be able to wear T-shirts with religious messages and hand out fliers about church meetings at schools." Under the Bush administration, the DOJ was suddenly suggesting a moral equivalence between protecting minorities from discrimination and enabling nonminorities to proselytize in public forums.
In the Voting Rights Section the Bush administration clearly saw a valuable tool for partisan gain
Meanwhile career lawyers in Appellate were blocked from working on civil rights cases. Instead, attorneys were given dockets with deportation orders of illegal immigrants to occupy their time. When they did write a civil rights brief, they were told to weaken their arguments by citing the opinions of conservative judges, even when those opinions were dissenting opinions, and by ignoring authoritative Supreme Court precedents.
"Instead of legal briefs," says one current employee, "they want to file policy papers."
Promoting the Christian agenda was meant to help the GOP at the ballot box. Often, however, the division was used to help Republicans win elections more directly. It was in the Voting Rights Section, which Joe Rich had headed from 1999 to 2005, that the Bush administration clearly saw a valuable tool for partisan gain. In his testimony last week, Rich charged that "the priority, indeed obsession, of this administration was not to protect the rights of American voters but with ... politically charged pursuit
After each census, voting districts are redrawn to account for population changes. In the case of states with a history of voter discrimination, those states must submit their redistricting plans to the Voting Rights Section of the division, as per Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Given the nation's history of racial discrimination at the ballot box, the question the section must consider in deciding whether to "pre-clear" any plan is, will this harm black voters?
First in Mississippi and then in Texas, the Front Office facilitated or directly approved redistricting plans that created net gains for GOP candidates, patently disregarding the recommendations of the analysts and lawyers of the Voting Rights Section. Though in both instances they counseled the Front Office that the law required the opposite actions, they carried out the Front Office's orders.
Then, after Rich's departure from the division, and under new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the section's power was again used to the advantage of Republicans. A new law in Georgia required voters to present a government-issued picture ID in order to vote at the polls on Election Day. Staff had prepared a detailed and comprehensive memo analyzing the information provided by the state and other interested parties, and had concluded that the change would have a discriminatory effect on minority voters -- they recommended that the law not be pre-cleared. The next day, the Front Office ordered pre-clearance of the Georgia law. After that case, the Front Office barred the Voting Rights Section's staff attorneys from offering any recommendations on any cases.
Later it was exposed that a political hire in the Voting Rights Section, Hans von Spakovsky, who played a central role in approving the controversial Georgia voter identification program and who had been in charge of setting the section's substantive priorities, had anonymously authored a law review article that endorsed the kind of system Georgia sought to enact. His attempts to hide his views may turn out to have violated Justice Department guidelines. Von Spakovsky left the division for the Federal Election Commission as a recess appointment. Similarly, the person who had been named as the senior counsel for voting rights in the section was a defeated Republican candidate for Congress.
In the past two years, as reporters for both Salon and the Washington bureau of McClatchy Newspapers have noted, the DOJ has dispatched ideologues from the Civil Rights Division to become U.S. attorneys. Alex Acosta, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Miami, left the Civil Rights Division after serving as its assistant attorney general. Another former political appointee in the office of the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Matt Dummermuth, was nominated to be U.S. attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December.
Most notably, Gonzales, as attorney general, appointed Brad Schlozman, former principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, as interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri late in 2006. While deputy head of the Civil Rights Division, Schlozman had overseen the redistricting of Texas and Mississippi. He had also personally reversed the career staff's recommendation that the Georgia voter ID law be challenged. In fact, he had penned an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal Constitution supporting the law.
As U.S. attorney in Missouri last fall, Schlozman brought voter fraud indictments a week before the midterm elections against four individuals associated with a group registering poor and minority voters in Kansas City. Such timing contradicted Justice's policy, Joe Rich told Salon in an interview, of waiting till after an election to bring indictments, lest an investigation unnecessarily affect the outcome of the vote. It was perhaps not irrelevant, though, that Nov. 7, 2006, promised to be hard on Republicans, and that the Republican senator, Jim Talent, was in a close race, and that Kansas City was full of Democratic voters.
Talent lost his seat to Democrat Claire McCaskill on Nov. 7, and the Democrats took control of the House and the Senate. Not long thereafter, the Bush administration finally lost its free pass to politicize the U.S. attorneys, the Civil Rights Division and the rest of the Department of Justice. The decision to fire eight federal prosecutors, most of them highly rated for their performance, attracted the attention of the new Congress. Six years into the Bush era, investigations have, at last, ensued.
History books will likely not be kind to the Bush administration. The consequences of the administration's actions, however, extend far beyond the fate of any one elected official.
Optimists believe that once this administration's term comes to an end in 2008, the division may once again be able to enforce the nation's civil rights laws without regard to partisan motives. Others, like Joe Rich, are more pessimistic. "They can try to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again," Rich told Salon, "but you've lost career people with the institutional memory to do that." In his testimony on Capitol Hill, Rich asserted that only "vigilant oversight" would restore the Civil Rights Division and the Department of Justice to their historic role of leading the enforcement of civil rights and protection of equal justice under the law.
Similarly, if the Bush administration is not penalized by the voters or their elected representatives for treating the Department of Justice as a political tool, there is nothing to stop successive administrations -- whether Republican or Democrat -- from doing the same when it's their turn in power.
http://salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/30/civil_rights/
Makkonnen said:They won't defund the war because they really don't give a shit. At best they are cowards and at worst they are complicit.
How did Clinton have the same evidence that was doctored by the Bush White House? You dont even make sense.
The FORGED letters that supposedly showed Saddam trying to obtain uranium from Niger were not in Clinton's hands so what the fuck are you talking about?
Fuck Clinton. He's a scumbag IMHO. We are not talking about Clinton, who is irrelevant to this discussion, we are talking about Bush. Clinton can go to prison too for all I care. Is that partisan too?
?
Pork stop? With Democrats? Why would it? They didn't run on a "no pork" campaign. They ran on an "we are not Bush or republicans" campaign and won easily.
Do you read? Conservatives are supposed to be about no pork and they upset many fiscal conservatives with the past few years of spend spend spend bullshit.
We can have a convo but please try to come correct man.
The stock market just crashed. The housing market which the economy has been riding these past years is ready to crumble. The unemployment rate does not count people who's benefits have stopped.
No brainiac - I dont forget what old presidents did 10 years ago I am just more concerned with what the CURRENT PRESIDENT IS DOING NOW.
Go make a clinton thread since you obviously are living in 1997 instead of 2007.
You are insane. You don't know whether or not I voted and if I did who I voted for so chill out smart guy.
I agree that Gore didn't fight for it and neither did Kerry and I know why. It does not change the fact that Bush obtained and maintained the presidency through a series of dirty tricks and scams.
So wanting to be president makes you the president?
CAN YOU READ??????? I AM NOT A DEMOCRAT.
Is this guy a buddy of yours Que?
1. So...at least we agree on one thing, the democrats are cowards....enough said about that.
2. The only problem with Bush's presidency is the fact that he inherit most of the problems Clinton swept under the rug. Not to mention that we have people who call themselves MEN, who are scared to take on our TRUE enemy.
3. Clinton isn't irrelevant to this subject. In fact, he is part of the reason we are dealing with most of the problems today. Now, have Bush fuck up on some issues YES. He should of sent more soldiers in on day one. However, Clinton is the one who should of dealt with this situation when Saddam kicked out the first inspectors. So, therefore, he has to take up some of the blame.
4. I swore Nancy Pelosi herself made comments about congress in pork during the opening ceremonies. I might be wrong *looking on youtube*
5. POLITICS IS DIRTY. However, he did what any other president has done. I'm sorry that you feel that you must feel that nothing he does is the right thing. I'm really not a super Bush supporter, however, whats fair is fair. That is why I bring up past political moves to justify current ones.
6. In the case of wanting to be the president, Al Gore didn't want it enough. I mean why are people on this subject when Al Gore could of made things happen? The only thing Bush did was RUN. BTW, you miss the fact that AL GORE DIDN'T WIN HIS OWN STATE. In my book, HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE PRESIDENT IF HE DIDN'T WIN HIS OWN STATE. So quit blaming Bush for 2000, it makes you look dumb.
Al Gore is the type of dude who will fold when he has a royal flush. NOT PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL.
Not in defense of Bill Clinton, but what is the past invasion that was engineered by Bill Clinton where it was alleged that there were weapons of mass distruction (which turned out to be grossly untrue) and where it was alleged there was a connection with Al Qaeda (without any supporting evidence) that you are using to justify the current actions of GW and Iraq ???actinanass said:
Please be specific.
QueEx
`
actinanass,
Here is a thread you might want to check out that contains 100's of arguments that contradict your Iraq/Bush arguments. Peruse the thread and jump in there anywhere you feel comfortable and confident.
Liberal Media?, White-Out of bush’s Impeachable Offense!!!
http://198.65.131.81/board/showthread.php?t=36440&highlight=liberal+media+impeach+bush
`
actinanass,
Here is a thread you might want to check out that contains 100's of arguments that contradict your Iraq/Bush arguments. Peruse the thread and jump in there anywhere you feel comfortable and confident.
Liberal Media?, White-Out of bush’s Impeachable Offense!!!
http://198.65.131.81/board/showthread.php?t=36440&highlight=liberal+media+impeach+bush
`
QueEx said:
Ok, have Saddam ever CONDEMN Al Queda for 9-11?
At least Iran did....
`
I asked (not that you had to comply) for "specifics" to back up your argument and you responded with "Ok, have Saddam ever CONDEMN Al Queda for 9-11?" ??? What did Bush say about Saddam Hussein and 9-11 ???:
<center><font size="8"> ......
</center><font size="4">
Bush: Saddam was not responsible for 9/11
<font size>
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday September 12, 2006
George Bush last night admitted that Saddam Hussein had no hand in the 9/11 terror attacks, ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,1870427,00.html
`
I asked (not that you had to comply) for "specifics" to back up your argument and you responded with "Ok, have Saddam ever CONDEMN Al Queda for 9-11?" ??? What did Bush say about Saddam Hussein and 9-11 ???:
<center><font size="8"> ......
</center><font size="4">
Bush: Saddam was not responsible for 9/11
<font size>
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday September 12, 2006
George Bush last night admitted that Saddam Hussein had no hand in the 9/11 terror attacks, ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,1870427,00.html
`
`
Now,
<font size="3">what is the past invasion that was engineered by Bill Clinton where it was alleged that there were weapons of mass distruction (which turned out to be grossly untrue) and where it was alleged there was a connection with Al Qaeda (without any supporting evidence) that you are using to justify the current actions of GW and Iraq ???</font size>
`
Now,
<font size="3">what is the past invasion that was engineered by Bill Clinton where it was alleged that there were weapons of mass distruction (which turned out to be grossly untrue) and where it was alleged there was a connection with Al Qaeda (without any supporting evidence) that you are using to justify the current actions of GW and Iraq ???</font size>
`
QueEx said:
destruction*
You missed the point that I was making, but its ok. Saddam is known for funding suicide bomber's families in Palestine. Perhaps he isn't directly supporting Al Queda, but who to say that some of his followers were. So I guess you want the "smoking gun" right?
How about this, LETS STOP ARGUING ABOUT PAST SHIT? How about us winning this thing so our troops can come home? The Democrats will not defund the war. So how about us actually FIGHTING like we are AMERICANS?
*edits* Bush never said that Saddam had a hand in 9-11. He said that Iraq was a threat due to wmd's *in which they did find some, however the media downplayed it*.
<font face="verdana" size="3" color="#000000">
Some peeps, still don't understand that the "bush crime family" are just crooks & liars
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
<b>After Sept. 11, the administration insisted that a connection existed between Iraq and al-Qaida. President Bush, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, said the United States had “learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas.”
</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><b>
And Vice President Cheney, in a September 2003 appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” alleged there was “a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s.”</b></span>
The Bush junta was told by all the major intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA) <b>TEN DAYS after 9/11 that there was NO LINK</b> between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network. What did they do with this information?? <b>THEY WITHHELD IT FROM THE US SENATE</b> until the summer of 2004.
In the interim between 10 days after September 11th 2001 and the summer of 2004 administration officials including baby bush, Darth Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and others gave speeches and went on television WILLFULLY LYING ABOUT A POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM & 9/11.
Read all about this in the November 22, 2005 story link below-
<font color="red" size="4"<b>Report: 9/11-Iraq link refuted days after attack</font><br><font color="#0000ff">Magazine says administration refused to give key docs to Senate committee</b></font>
<font color="#d90000" size="4" face="arial black">Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War:
Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11</font>
<p>President Bush was in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch it.<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AwbFzCvvSns"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AwbFzCvvSns" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
<p>To justify the war, Bush informed Congress on March 19, 2003 that <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><b>acting against Iraq was consistent with “continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks</b></span> Read the actual White House letter, the link is below.
<font color="red"><b>White House Letter conflating the US Iraq invasion with 9/11</b></font>.
<p>ThinkProgress has <a href="/2005/06/13/cheney-cited-evidence-that-was-known-to-be-false/">repeatedly</a> <a href="/2005/12/01/lynne-cheney-unhinged/">documented</a>, Vice President Cheney cited “evidence” <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0E16FF345E0C7B8EDDAD0894DC404482">cooked up by Douglas Feith</a> and others to claim it was “<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20011209.html">pretty well confirmed</a>” that Iraq had contacts with 9/11 hijackers.
<br>More generally, in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, the administration <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html">encouraged the false impression</a> that Saddam had a role in 9/11. Bush never stated then, as he does now, that Iraq had “nothing” to do with 9/11. Only after the Iraq war began did Bush <a href="/2006/03/20/9-11-and-saddam/">candidly</a> <a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/attack/140133_bushiraq18.html">acknowledge</a> that Iraq was not operationally linked to 9/11.
<b><font size="4" color="#0000ff">MORE LIES BELOW</b></font>
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." <b>--Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002</b>
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." <b>--Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003</b>
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." <b>--Colin Powell, Feb. 5, 2003</b>
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." <b>--Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003</b>
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." <b>--Ari Fleischer March 2003</b>
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." <b>--Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003</b>
<br>
<hr noshade color="#ff0000" size="10"></hr><p>
<font color="#0000ff"><b>
Bush is laughing at the 28% who still believe his pathetic lies, what suckers and asses they are !!! ..bend over numskulls
</b></font>
<img src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/1237/Bush_Finger.gif"><p><hr noshade color="#ff0000" size="10"></hr><p>
Some peeps, still don't understand that the "bush crime family" are just crooks & liars
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
<b>After Sept. 11, the administration insisted that a connection existed between Iraq and al-Qaida. President Bush, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, said the United States had “learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas.”
</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><b>
And Vice President Cheney, in a September 2003 appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” alleged there was “a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s.”</b></span>
The Bush junta was told by all the major intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA) <b>TEN DAYS after 9/11 that there was NO LINK</b> between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network. What did they do with this information?? <b>THEY WITHHELD IT FROM THE US SENATE</b> until the summer of 2004.
In the interim between 10 days after September 11th 2001 and the summer of 2004 administration officials including baby bush, Darth Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and others gave speeches and went on television WILLFULLY LYING ABOUT A POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM & 9/11.
Read all about this in the November 22, 2005 story link below-
<font color="red" size="4"<b>Report: 9/11-Iraq link refuted days after attack</font><br><font color="#0000ff">Magazine says administration refused to give key docs to Senate committee</b></font>
<font color="#d90000" size="4" face="arial black">Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War:
Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11</font>
<p>President Bush was in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch it.<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AwbFzCvvSns"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AwbFzCvvSns" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
<p>To justify the war, Bush informed Congress on March 19, 2003 that <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><b>acting against Iraq was consistent with “continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks</b></span> Read the actual White House letter, the link is below.
<font color="red"><b>White House Letter conflating the US Iraq invasion with 9/11</b></font>.
<p>ThinkProgress has <a href="/2005/06/13/cheney-cited-evidence-that-was-known-to-be-false/">repeatedly</a> <a href="/2005/12/01/lynne-cheney-unhinged/">documented</a>, Vice President Cheney cited “evidence” <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0E16FF345E0C7B8EDDAD0894DC404482">cooked up by Douglas Feith</a> and others to claim it was “<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20011209.html">pretty well confirmed</a>” that Iraq had contacts with 9/11 hijackers.
<br>More generally, in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, the administration <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html">encouraged the false impression</a> that Saddam had a role in 9/11. Bush never stated then, as he does now, that Iraq had “nothing” to do with 9/11. Only after the Iraq war began did Bush <a href="/2006/03/20/9-11-and-saddam/">candidly</a> <a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/attack/140133_bushiraq18.html">acknowledge</a> that Iraq was not operationally linked to 9/11.
<b><font size="4" color="#0000ff">MORE LIES BELOW</b></font>
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." <b>--Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002</b>
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." <b>--Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003</b>
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." <b>--Colin Powell, Feb. 5, 2003</b>
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." <b>--Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003</b>
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." <b>--Ari Fleischer March 2003</b>
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." <b>--Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003</b>
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Bush is laughing at the 28% who still believe his pathetic lies, what suckers and asses they are !!! ..bend over numskulls
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