Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

The AP reports House Judiciary chairman subpoenas Karl Rove. "The House Judiciary Committee chairman [John Conyers D-MI] subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove on Monday to testify about the Bush administration's firing of U.S. attorneys and prosecution of a former Democratic governor."

Rove had ignored previous subpoenas but this time he doesn't have a sitting president protecting him. The subpoena is to appear next week, we'll see what happens. Even if he does appear, he won't remember anything.

White House Press Corps Asks No Question On Purgegate Report

Remember Purgegate? The firing of the nine US Attorneys? The White House Press Corp didn't. A damning 18-month report was released yesterday finding the firings were flawed, Gonzales and other officials were completely out of touch and the White House is still stonewalling the investigation, preventing it from reaching definite conclusions. And yet, at the daily press briefing, The White House Press Corps Fails To Ask A Single Question On U.S. Attorney Investigation.

DOJ Releases Goodling Report

So, 16 months after starting an investigation and 14 months after she testified to congress the DOJ Released it's Report into Monica Goodling. From the conclusions of the 146 page report:

"Our investigation found that Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of federal law and Department policy."

"In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions protected by the civil service laws."

"Because Goodling, Sampson, and Williams have resigned from the Department, they are no longer subject to discipline by the Department for their actions described in this report. Nevertheless, we recommend that the Department consider the findings in this report should they apply in the future for another position with the Department. "

I could have told you that 14 months ago. :( So yes they did wrong and we won't do anything about it. I could see if it was just violating policy. After you leave a job they can't discipline you. But in this case federal laws were violate. But of course, congress gave Goodling immunity to testify. You're supposed to do that so you can catch bigger fish, but that's not happening. Well I liked this addition:

"In addition, we concluded that EOUSA Deputy Director John Nowaki committed misconduct by drafting a proposed Department response to a media inquiry which he knew was inaccurate. Although Nowacki knew that Goodling had used political and ideological affiliations to assess career attorney candidates for EOUSA detail positions, he drafted a media statement in which the Department would have denied the allegations. Nowacki is still employed by the Department. Therefore, we recommend that the Department consider appropriate discipline for him based upon the evidence in this report. "

After 16 months, they're literally going after the messenger.

dday has more.

Congressional Inaction in the Face of Corruption

Daily Kos writes in State of the Nation about the current delays by Congress regarding Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten's contempt charges.

"We all remember that the House just recently voted, at long last, to hold Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in contempt of Congress for ignoring their subpoenas to appear before the House Judiciary Committee in the matter of the US Attorneys purge. That was two weeks ago."

But again, they want to investigate Roger Clemens on perury.

GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails

Remember those White House email messages that were lost? White House officials including Karl Rove were using their RNC accounts instead of their White House accounts for official business. I think this violated the Hatch Act and some official records act that we're supposed to retain all government documents. Yesterday, Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had a hearing on Electronic Records Preservation at the White House.

The Washington Post reports GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails "After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday."

Yeah, that important stuff Congress asked us to do because law might have been broken, we're not going to do it. Oh and how does it take months and months to search. You either have them or you don't. You find the backups and look. It should take a couple of of weeks at most.

There were also some statements filed about whether Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald got all the relevant email messages to his subpoena into the Plame investigation. "One problem: Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week's worth of e-mail from Cheney's office was missing. The week was Sept. 30, 2003, to Oct. 6, 2003, the opening days of the Justice Department's probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame." Yup no coincidence there.

This all just seems like obvious stonewalling to cover up laws that were broken. Just not responding to the subpoena and losing these messages and even using RNC accounts in the first place violates laws. But will there be any followup like any charges filed? I doubt it.

But of course Congress does want the DoJ to investigate Roger Clemens for perjury. We can't get that for anyone in the administration but a baseball pitcher that might have lied about steroids, now that's important.

Bolten and Miers in Contempt of Congress

Finally, the House Cites 2 Bush Aides for Contempt.

"The House voted [223-to-32] Thursday to issue contempt citations against the White House chief of staff [Josh Bolten] and a former White House counsel [Harriet Miers] for refusing to cooperate in an investigation into the mass firings of federal prosecutors."

Or Maybe Attorneys Probe Deepens

A week ago the Hill wrote Attorneys Probe Deepens.

"But recent behind-the-scenes activity in several investigations suggests that the issue that roiled Congress in 2007 could re-emerge in the heat of the election year. Two inquiries by the House and Senate ethics committees are examining whether several congressional Republicans, including one running for the Senate this year, improperly interfered with investigations. As potent as the congressional probes might be, they appear to be far narrower than a sprawling inquiry launched by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)."

There's much more in the article. We'll see.

Top Dems Stall Miers, Bolten Contempt Vote

Purgegate is still ongoing, just at a glacial pace. One reason it's held up is that Josh bolten and Harriet Miers refuse to testify. The House could issue contempt of Congress charges but Top Dems stall Miers, Bolten contempt vote.

"Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks."

"The Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against Bolten and Miers on July 25, but Pelosi has yet to bring the measures to the floor." Maybe if they dealt with this at the time they wouldn't have had to look embarrassed now.

McKay Says Gonzales Could Be Prosecuted

The former U.S. attorney for Western Washington John McKay said "The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month."

"Gonzales 'lied about' reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said."

“When [the report] lands … it is going to be an extremely negative report on President Bush’s Justice Department,...There was a conspiracy to politicize the Justice Department, and they did not get away with it."

Schumer Defends Mukasey Vote

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) explains his support for Mukasey in the New York Times today, A Vote for Justice. He says that since the DoJ is so important and in such a shambles we need someone to fix it. "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."

Of course there's also the cave in to a threat: "Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate."

He does say that Congress might soon pass a law banning waterboarding and if so, he believes Mukasey would enforce it, which I agree with. Of course I would guess Bush would veto such a bill and that Congress wouldn't override it.

Carl Tobias presents a pretty balanced set of Questions Senators Should Ask Themselves About Attorney General Nominee Michael Mukasey.

Purgegate Update

The New York Times has an editorial today Tilting the Scales of Justice. "Every time we take a look at the United States attorney scandal, more evidence emerges that Alberto Gonzales politicized the Justice Department to the point where it sometimes seems like a branch of the Republican National Committee."

Gonzales Pedictions

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog ask Who Will Be Our Next Attorney General? with a few possibilities.

Then again who knows if they're right? Here's a post from 3 weeks ago giving four reason why Bush can’t afford to let Gonzales go. We'll see if any of those predictions come true.

I wonder if the internal DOJ purgegate investigation is concluding. Remember, that's the reason Gonzales recused himself from knowing anything. Maybe that's why he resigned.

The only major original bushies left are Cheney and Rice, I don't see either of them going.

Senators Call For Special Counsel To Investigate Gonzales For Perjury

Think Progress reports Senators Call For Appointment Of Special Counsel To Investigate Gonzales For Perjury. They wrote to Solicitor General Paul Clement who's acting Attorney General on matters Gonzales as recused himself from.

"We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress."

Contempt of Congress Charges for White House Staff

"Today, the House Judiciary Committee sent a report and resolution to the House of Representatives finding former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in statutory contempt of Congress for failing to respond to the Committee's subpoenas in the U.S. Attorney investigation. The report passed by a vote of 22-17. " Here are quotes from various committee members on the issue.

"The full House of Representatives is now required to vote on a contempt resolution before the matter is sent to the District of Columbia's U.S. Attorney for action." That's not expected to happen before the August recess.

Tony Snow began his press conference today with: "Hello, everybody. As you probably know, the House Judiciary Committee has just voted along partisan lines to have a criminal contempt of Congress referral against White House legal counsel and the White House Chief of Staff. For our view, this is pathetic. What you have right now is partisanship on Capitol Hill that quite often boils down to insults, insinuations, inquisitions and investigations rather than pursuing the normal business of trying to pass major pieces of legislation, such as appropriations bills, and to try to work in such a way as to demonstrate to the American people that Congress and the White House can work together." He then went on to describe all the things they offered but none of the (reasonable) things they were asked for and didn't provide.

Then he just out right lied: "They have legitimate oversight interest, and we have made available any individuals and any facts that would be necessary for them to conduct their deliberations. Interestingly enough, nobody has cited or recited anything that they think they've been denied" I call bullshit.

"The last time a full chamber of Congress issued a contempt citation was in 1983. The House voted 413-0 to cite former Environmental Protection Agency official Rita Lavelle for contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before a House committee. Lavelle was later acquitted in court of the contempt charge, but she was convicted of perjury in a separate trial."

Bush Commuted Libby's Sentence

I didn't find out about this till I got back, but I can't say I'm surprised.

Dan Filler writes in Concurring Opinions: "Once Judge Walton decided to impose the prison sentence immediately, Bush was left only two options: infuriating his base or nakedly giving cover to a political and professional ally. He did manage to split the baby a bit - by commuting his sentence, rather than pardoning him, Libby will now have to live with at least a few of the nasty collateral sanctions (potential loss of voting rights, loss of the ability to obtain certain professional licenses, etc.) that come along with a felony criminal conviction."

Conservative law Professor Orin Kerr was troubled by the commutation. ACSBlog collects some of his statements: "I find Bush's action very troubling because of the obvious special treatment Libby received. President Bush has set a remarkable record in the last 6+ years for essentially never exercising his powers to commute sentences or pardon those in jail. His handful of pardons have been almost all symbolic gestures involving cases decades old, sometimes for people who are long dead. Come to think of it, I don't know if Bush has ever actually used his powers to get one single person out of jail even one day early. If there are such cases, they are certainly few and far between. So Libby's treatment was very special indeed." Kerr has other comments on it in his blog, the Volokh Conspiracy (which I regularly read), scroll around to find them.

Brad DeLong follows up in Why Did Libby Lie?: "If that theory is wrong -- if there really was no crime -- then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied. People sometimes do have reasons to lie to investigators other than a desire to cover up criminal activity (hiding non-criminal activity that's embarrassing is the obvious one) but if Libby wants mercy he should offer up a plausible score on this account. But Libby hasn't offered any such story. Instead, he's offered a wildly implausible story -- that he's innocent. Under those circumstances, it's very odd to offer clemency. He's shown no remorse and appears to be continually engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Maybe there was no crime here; but if there wasn't, then what was Libby doing? He's not even trying to convince us that he had some other reason to lie."

Jeff Lomonaco called the Libby commutation half a month ago, in an op-ed he submitted to the Los Angeles Times but that it did not take: That would enable Libby to remain free while he seeks legal vindication through the appeals process. But more importantly, it would enable Bush and Cheney to continue the strategy they have successfully pursued in deterring journalists seeking their explanations with claims that they shouldn't comment on an ongoing legal proceeding. If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Cheney would no longer have such a rationale for evading the press' questions - nor would Libby be able to claim the right against self-incrimination to resist testifying before Congress about the role that Cheney and Bush played in directing his conduct.

An Andrew Sullivan reader says the commutation sends a message to those administration officials that might be subpoenaed by Congress that the administration will "protect the loyal".

Adjunct Professor, Nkechi Taifa of the Howard University School of Law points out the double standard of commuting Libby's sentence "because its excessive" but not commuting Willie Mays Aikens sentence of 20 years in prison for selling "user-level" amounts of crack.

The WSJ Law Blog has a A Law Professor's Inside Take on Bush's Commutation Policy. Tim Floyd tried to get a death sentence commuted to a life without parole sentence. He appealed to the White House and was pleasantly surprised that then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales met with him for an hour after looking into the case. "Judge Gonzales told me three things about President Bush’s policy in considering requests for commutation. First, that President Bush would not consider commutation if he believed that the case had already received full and fair consideration by the jury and the courts who heard the case. Second, that the President would not consider the request until he had a recommendation from the Department of Justice. Finally, he said that the President would not act on any request for commutation until all judicial avenues in the case had been exhausted. Just thought you might be interested in what this White House claimed about the commutation process."

Andrew Sullivan wrote about the above "Well, the third condition had been met for Libby. But not the other two. More evidence that this president uses his powers not to advance justice but to perpetrate a double standard of justice for his friends and lackeys. And to protect himself from scrutiny." An Andrew Sullivan reader points out that the 3rd condition wasn't met either.

Here's yet another parallel case where Bush didn't commute a sentence. Sullivan goes further: "The number of people George W. Bush sent to their deaths without a second's thought is higher than any living governor in the United States. And yet it took a perjury conviction of a white, wealthy, connected apparatchik to awaken the president's sensitivity to injustice:"

Fred Thompson (yeah the one probably running for the Republican nomination) has been a staunch supporter of Libby, but it turns out he was also a mole for Nixon in the investigation into Watergate.

McNulty Testifies Again

Paul McNulty, Deputy Attorney General resigning this month, testified again for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law today. This was after Monica Goodling called into question some of his previous testimony.

It opened with Rep John Conyers (D-MI), the chairman of the committee rebuking Rep Chris Cannon (R-UT, ranking subcommittee member) for saying "there is in fact nothing wrong with firing US Attorneys at any time for any reason" and for saying the Democrats are pursuing this for partisan political reasons. First Conyers said there are reasons that US Attorneys can't be fired and Cannon quickly agreed. Rep Linda Sanchez (D-CA), chairwoman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law pointed out that her opening statements were not partizan but brought up the facts that have been brought up in evidence, documents and testimony, "it warrants our time and our attention and investigation and it's not fabricated because it's supported by factual information". Nice.

In his opening statements McNulty said he's always tried to tell the truth to Congress though since his testimony it's been clear his knowledge of some of the events has been "incomplete". He says he has no knowledge of the plan to fire US Attorney's until October 2006 and wasn't consulted until the November 27th meeting. This in spite of the fact that Gonzales has said McNulty knows more than anyone about who was on the list and approved the firings. He says that he did approve the firings and assumed Gonzales thought Kyle Sampson would consult with McNulty but he apparently didn't.

Can't we get all of these guys in the room at the same time and ask them all questions. This process that drags on for months where congressmen get 5 mins to ask a question is maddening. All these players (except Goodling) seem to give very specific answers that sound more general than they are and then when asked about the discrepancies parse them very tightly to say "see I wasn't lying". It's like they all forgot the middle part of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". The other technique, which McNulty used today was since there's an internal investigation going on, they've recused themselves from actions. We still don't know who made the list and no one can investigate because they're all recused.

Purgegate Emails

Think Progress reports on the Extensive Destruction of RNC Emails, Violations of Records Act in the Purgegate investigation. More people than indicated had RNC accounts, the administration isn't cooperating with the investigation, many email messages have been destroyed and the White House counsel was complicit.

Purgegate Update

Was the Federalist Society society involved in Purgegate? Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society sent an email message to Mary Beth Buchanan on March 7 2005. Buchanan is now US Attorney for western Pennsylvania but at the time she served at the White House as director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and Kyle Sampson consulted with her about which US Attorneys should be replaced.

The subject of the email was "USA San Diego" meaning US Attorney and the message was "You guys need a good candidate?" with a recommendation for Mary Walker.

The problem is, Carol Lam was "USA San DIego" at the time, had no plans to step down, but was put on "the list" in late February, just a couple of weeks before this email. At the time, supposedly only top DoJ and White House officials knew of the planned purge; so why would Leo recommend someone for Lam's position?

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

Buchanan will testify privately with the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.

White House Dodges Who Made the Purgegate List

In Friday's Friday's White House Press Gaggle Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel continued to dance around who choose the US Attorney's to be put on the list to be fired. At least one reporter Helen Thomas wasn't taking crap, not that did much good:

Q Since no Justice Department official has been forthcoming, who drew up the list of the attorneys -- the prosecutors to be fired?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I think, Helen, that's a subject that's been covered exhaustively on hearings on the Hill --

Q Okay. Tell me, I'm sorry, I have not read who --

MR. STANZEL: I will allow the Justice Department to help you out with that question because --

Q But I'm telling you they're not saying.

MR. STANZEL: They've testified hours and hours and hours about this very issue.

Q Did they say who drew up the list?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I think it's been testified to the fact that Kyle Sampson was working on the process, and I think they testified to that fact.

Q Did he think of the names, himself?

MR. STANZEL: I think he's spoken at length about the review process that was underway.

Q Don't stall, just tell me. Who drew up --

MR. STANZEL: I will refer you to the Department of Justice, Helen.

Q Well, that's another dodge.

Q They won't tell her.

MR. STANZEL: I got that. Thank you. Any other questions?

Fewer candidates apply for positions as U.S. attorneys

What a surprise, Fewer candidates apply for positions as U.S. attorneys. There are currently 22 openings and for the one in Florida, only 2 applicants.