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List of Bush admin ****ups #842: Report: White House Involved in US Attorney Firings
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| josh4 |
Which SURPRISE! the Bush admin not only had involvement with but in some cases might have directed the firings.
| quote: | Report: White House Involved in U.S. Attorney Firings
Probe Hampered By the Refusal of Karl Rove and Others To Be Interviewed, Says Report
By MURRAY WAAS and JUSTIN ROOD
September 29, 2008—
The Justice Department probe of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys was severely hampered by the refusal of former White House political aide Karl Rove and other White House officials to be interviewed by investigators, according to a report made public by investigators today.
Additionally, the White House refused to turn over to Justice Department investigators emails and other documents that investigators
believed were crucial to uncovering the truth as to why the U.S. attorneys were fired, the report said.
Despite that lack of cooperation, investigators concluded the White House was more deeply involved in the firings of U.S. attorneys than administration officials had admitted.
Investigators found that in at least three removals, "the evidence indicates the White House was more involved than merely approving" the dismissals, as Bush administration officials "initially stated," according to a report by the Justice Department's Inspector General and its Office of Professional Responsibility released Monday.
Because Miers, Rove and others "refused to cooperate with our investigation, and because the White House declined to provide internal documents to us, we were unable to determine the role the White House played in these removals," the report concluded.
Investigators said they found evidence indicating greater-than-known White House involvement in firings of U.S. attorneys in Arkansas, Missouri and New Mexico.
In Arkansas, investigators said, "the evidence shows that the White House sought to give former White House official [J. Timothy] Griffin a chance to serve as U.S. Attorney, and that both Rove and Miers supported Griffin's appointment." Griffin had served as in the White House as an aide to Rov e. Griffin had foreknowledge of Cummin's dismissal, the report said, and in an email cited by investigators, Rove suggested Griffin to fill the potential vacancy.
In Missouri, "we found evidence that the White House may have directed [former U.S. Attorney Todd P.] Graves's removal," the report said, over a conflict with between Graves and a U.S. senator's office. White House lawyers had fielded complaints about Graves, and appear to have been involved in pushing his ouster, the report stated.
Rove and Miers also appear to have played a role in the firing of former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. "Both [Rove and Miers] appear to have significant first-hand knowledge regarding Iglesias' dismissal," the report stated. Investigators found that both were involved in discussions among White House personnel about replacing Iglesias, and fielded complaints about Iglesias from Republican lawmakers and political activists.
But investigators also said that they were stymied in getting to the bottom of Iglesias' firing because both Rove and Miers, according to the report, "refused our request for an interview even though the White House Counsel's office& encouraged them to cooperate with our investigation and submit for an interview."
A White House spokesman did not return a call from a reporter today. But in correspondence with investigators, Deputy White House Counsel Emmett Flood wrote that in some instances "the White House has declined to provide internal documents relating to the U.S. Attorneys resignations" because "those materials by their very nature, implicate White House confidentiality interests of a very high order."
In part because Justice's IG and OPR were unable to complete its work, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a federal prosecutor to continue the probe. The IG and OPR do not have prosecutorial powers and cannot compel witnesses other than Justice Department employees to cooperate with their investigators.
But Nora R. Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who Mukasey appointed to lead the new probe, will have those powers. Mukasey said in a statement that Dannehy would have the authority to "ultimately determine whether any prosecutable offense was committed with regard to the removal of a U.S. Attorney" and whether administration officials might have broken the law by giving misleading Congress about the firings of the federal prosecutors.
It is unclear what might happen if Dannehy, like her predecessors, seeks records from the White House she believes pertinent to her probe, only to be rebuffed once again.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/s...=5912290&page=1 |
The firings which, SURPRISE!, were politically motivated.
| quote: | Justice Department probe finds patter in U.S. attorney firings
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Writers Group
Monday, September 29, 2008
With Wall Street's fate hanging in the balance, and with Sarah Palin's incoherence sparking interest in Thursday's vice presidential debate, it was easy to overlook another major story Monday that got less attention than it deserved. The Justice Department released a nearly 400-page report with this jaw-dropping bottom line: "Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several ... U.S. attorneys."
Remember the controversy over the sudden dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys? Remember the allegation that the Bush administration had sullied the long-held principle that justice should be administered in an impartial, nonpartisan way? Remember the questions about what then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew and when he knew it? Remember Kyle Sampson, the Gonzales aide who played a key role in the firings? Remember Monica Goodling, the White House liaison who went so far as to ask prospective JusticeDepartment appointees to wax eloquent about why they wanted to "serve" President Bush?
The Justice Department conducted as thorough an investigation as it could, and concluded that there was evidence of White House political meddling in "at least three of the removals." The joint probe by the department's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility recommended further investigation to determine "whether the totality of the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed."
The investigators reported being stonewalled by the White House, saying they were unable to look at all the evidence "because of the refusal by certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, as well as by the White House's decision not to provide internal White House documents to us."
In other words, as far as the team of investigators could determine from the limited evidence they were allowed to uncover, what we suspected and feared seems to have been true. The Bush administration seems to have removed at least three federal prosecutors - who are supposed to be evenhanded and apolitical in the way they do their jobs - for partisan political reasons.
The report says "it appears" that Missouri U.S. attorney Todd Graves "was told to resign because of a political dispute among Missouri politicians, not because of an objective assessment of his performance." Specifically the dispute was between Republican Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond and his brother, a Republican congressman.
Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins "was not removed for any performance reasons," the report says. "Rather, the evidence shows that the main reason for Cummins' removal was to provide a position for former White House official Tim Griffin."
The most egregious case, according to the report, was that of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. The evidence showed that Iglesias was removed because of complaints from Republican Sen. Pete Domenici and other GOP officials and party activists who believed he was not being aggressive enough in pursuing certain voter fraud and public corruption cases - by happenstance, cases against Democrats.
Gonzales and his deputies never looked into Iglesias' handling of those cases, and never even asked him about them. They just fired him.
The investigators wanted to ask White House political czar Karl Rove, White House counsel Harriet Miers, Goodling, Domenici and Domenici's chief of staff about any role they played in Iglesias' dismissal. All refused to be interviewed.
In releasing the report, Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that he had ordered a new investigation to "pursue this case wherever the facts and the law require," including possible criminal charges. By most accounts, Mukasey has taken pains to cleanse the Justice Department of the partisan taint that Gonzales left behind. Whatever ultimately comes of this disgraceful episode, however, we already know enough to put it in context.
The people who have been running our government for the past eight years have nothing but contempt for government. They believe only in politics and ideology, in that order. First, win elections by any means necessary. Second, once in a position to act in the public good, govern with the ideological conviction that government is either irrelevant or harmful to the public interest.
You can draw a straight line between firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons and turning a blind eye to the ruinous excesses of Wall Street. What's impartial justice against the possibility of gaining political advantage? Why shackle the hallowed free market with government oversight?
And, if you want to draw the line a little farther, who cares if the prospective vice president appears to know nothing about anything?
To comment, e-mail Eugene Robinson at [email protected].
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c.../ED211387P9.DTL |
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| Krypton |
| Meanwhile, the White House refuses to cooperate with the investigation... |
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