Pete Domenici Supports Ken Salazar's Bill To Implement the Recommendations of The Iraq Study Group

Last week Senator Pete Domenici moved away from the President's stay put and die in Iraq strategy. He told the New York Times

“I am unwilling to continue our current strategy,” Domenici, R-N.M., told his constituents during a speech in Albuquerque. The United States needs a strategy “that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home,” he said.

Domenici placed blame on the Iraqi government for “failing to make even modest progress to help Iraq itself or to merit the sacrifices being made by our men and women in uniform.”

Domenici told the Times that he would not support immediate withdrawal. Instead he would support S. 1545 -- A bill to implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which, according to GovTrack.us, is currently working its way through the Senate Foreign Relation's Committee. Referred to by some as the Salazar Distraction, S.1545 is said to set

unmeetable conditions for the withdrawal of US troops, thus guaranteeing we stay in Iraq forever while the “maverick Republicans” get to have it both ways: They can tell their constituents they voted for withdrawal when in fact they voted against it.

You can read the bill by following the links and figure out if it really is a distraction or a viable alternative. PhoenixWoman at FDL and McJoan at the DailyKos call it a distraction. Sen. Salazar(D-CO) says it has merit. I say read the bill and make up your own mind.

The bill is Sponsored by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) and co sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander [R, TN]; Sen. Robert Bennett [R, UT]; Sen. Robert Casey [D, PA]; Sen. Susan Collins [R, ME]; Sen. Judd Gregg [R, NH]; Sen. Blanche Lincoln [D, AR]; Sen. Mark Pryor [D, AR] and Sen. John Sununu [R, NH].

While I agree that Salazar's bill doesn't do the job of pulling troops out of Iraq, it seems to me that Democrats should be courting the above named senators instead of pissing on them as PhoenixWoman and McJoan apparently want us to do, but then I can count to 60. Clean up the Salazar bill, give it some teeth, and then push it. It is the only bill that has the remotest chance of passage. None of the four amendments to the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill proposed by the Senate leadership has a ghost of a chance. I told you Blue Girl, I am tired of the kabuki dance -- both on the right and the left. I don't want any more of our troops to die needlessly. I will accept no substitutes for effective action.

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Nothing To Hide or is it "I know nothing."

Alberto Gonzales declares he has done nothing wrong, and he has nothing to hide. All the while he is virtually silent on the specifics.

On the other hand he argues that the whole mess is Harriet Miers and Kyle Sampson's fault. As Jeffrey Tobbin explained on CNN's Late Edition

He said, basically, when President Bush started his second term, Harriet Miers called and said maybe we should replace all 93 US attorneys. Gonzales said no, but maybe we should review whether all of them should continue serving. She then -- and he delegated the issue to his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. At that point he says he got periodic updates but essentially knew nothing about who was going to be fired or why they were going to be fired, and that's his explanation. I think it's perplexing the Attorney General would seemingly have nothing to do with firing 10% of the US attorneys in the country, but certainly this will add to the Democrats' wanting to ask questions of the White House because they appear to be the people who were running the show.

The more things change the more they stay the sames.

Oh, Gonzales is right about one thing, he didn't fire David Iglesias. When Pete Domenici called him to complain about Iglesias and demanded his replacement, Gonzales told him no. Mike Gallagher of the Albuquerque Journal reports that after the election Domenici took his complaint directly to the President. The President then added Iglesias' name to the list. I wonder if President Bush even bothered to ask Gonzales why he told Domenici "no" in the first place. I wondered if Gonzales' volunteered. We will never know. The President says the firing decisions were made in the Justice Department. In any event the President remembers a general conversation with Senators, but doesn't even remember names being mentioned.

I will pass on arguing the legality of the President firing Iglesias because Domenici was upset, but what kind of President doesn't back up his own people? In this case, initially Gonzales was right. Iglesias had done nothing to merit firing. Bush's apparent cave to a very pissed off Domenici demonstrates a failure of Presidential leadership. That lack of leadership is supported by the President's refusal to admit he was bullied into the decision to fire Iglesias because Domenici is a powerful Senator and he didn't want to make him mad. Or maybe that is what happens when all decisions are made by the political advisor.

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White House Behind Prosecutor Firings.

I said last week that the game was afoot. Well last evening two very important things happened. First, Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson resigned. Allegedly he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress. Second, and the reason for Sampson's admission and resignation, several key documents were made available to congress and the press. The documents indicate that in February of 2005 former White House Counsel Harriet Miers proposed that the administration fire all 93 of the then serving US Attorneys. According to this morning's Washington Post article Gonzales rejected Meirs idea as impractical, but endorsed Sampson's

recommend(ation) that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys. (A) limited number of U.S. attorneys could be targeted for removal and replacement, mitigating the shock to the system that would result from an across the board firing.

Later Sampson

strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.

"I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed," Sampson wrote in a Sept. 17 memo to Miers. "It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately.

"I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments," he wrote.

By avoiding Senate confirmation, Sampson added, "we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House."

"Kyle thanks for this," Miers wrote back. "I have not forgotten I need to follow up on the info. But things have been crazy."

The New York Times also published an article after rummaging through Monday evening's White House document dump. It finds:

Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.

The president did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. She said she had “no indication” that the president had been personally aware that a process was already under way to identify prosecutors who would be fired.

But Ms Perino disclosed that White House officials had consulted with the Justice Department in preparing the list of United States attorneys who would be removed.

Within a few weeks of the president’s comments to the attorney general, the Justice Department forced out seven prosecutors.

Harriet, oh Harriet, the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to talk to you and to your little friend Mr. Sampson. No wonder she resigned in January.

Read both articles. This mess is beginning to sound a little like Watergate on steroids. Every day is a new disclosure. So many questions, so much data.

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Sometimes Hearings Do Matter

A New York Times Editorial dated this morning concludes:

Congress must keep demanding answers. It must find out who decided to fire these prosecutors and why, and who may have authorized putting pressure on Mr. Cummins. And it must look into whether Senator Domenici and Representatives Wilson and Hastings violated ethics rules that forbid this sort of interference. We hope the House committee will not be deterred by the fact that Mr. Hastings is its ranking Republican. The Justice Department also needs to open its own investigation. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s claim that these prosecutors were fired for poor performance was always difficult to believe. Now it’s impossible.

Indeed it is.

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Rep. Heather Wilson Admits Call.

Paul Kane and Dan Eggen of the Washington Post report that Representative Heather Wilson has admitted calling David Iglesias "to complain about the pace of his public corruption investigations." She claims the call was completely professional. She was just complaining about the pace of the investigation. Isn't calling to complain about the pace of the investigation exactly what Iglesias said she did. Representative Wilson says she did made the call to let Iglesias know that Republicans were grumbling that he was dragging his feet. She called to let him know for his own good. Isn't that an admission of inappropriate pressure?

Regardless of how professional or "well meaning" the call, Rep. Wilson has just admitted violating house ethics rules. Of course that isn't fair. Before the election the house didn't enforce ethics rules.

In related news the Senate ethics committee announced today that it has begun a preliminary inquiry into Senator Pete Domenici's actions.

The game is afoot.

There's more: "Rep. Heather Wilson Admits Call." >>

Iglesias Wasn't Working Hard Enough?

The current administration spin on David Iglesias is that he wasn't working hard enough. Cases were stacking up. He was just not up to the job. Domenici knew it. Months ago he had talked to the department about replacing the slacker.

Well the outstanding team of bloggers over at TalkingPointsMemo's TPMmuckraker just torched that claim.

(S)tatistics kept by the Federal Judiciary don't reflect an inability for Iglesias' office to move more quickly on cases -- in fact, quite the opposite. In 2001, when Iglesias took over, the data (pdf) shows a median of 4.6 months for a criminal case in the New Mexico office to move from filing to disposition (dismissal, guilty plea, or trial). In 2005, that time had dwindled to 3.7 months.

And that's a time when Iglesias' office was increasingly snowed under by more cases. His office opened 1,548 criminal cases in 2001; in 2005, the office opened 2,915.

Where is the New York Times or the Washington Post? Hummmmm. Just asking.

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Domenici Regrets Calling Iglesias

Well it's official Pete Domenici admits calling David Iglesias, and apologizes. Senator Dominici says in a written statement published in a TPMmuckraker article

I called Mr. Iglesias late last year. My call had been preceded by months of extensive media reports about acknowledged investigations into courthouse construction, including public comments from the FBI that it had completed its work months earlier, and a growing number of inquiries from constituents. I asked Mr. Iglesias if he could tell me what was going on in that investigation and give me an idea of what timeframe we were looking at. It was a very brief conversation, which concluded when I was told that the courthouse investigation would be continuing for a lengthy period.

Domenici denies asking Iglesias to do anything untoward and admits that he knew Iglesias's office was understaffed given its extensive caseload. New Mexico is a favorite border crossing for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. He claims that Iglesias repeatedly requested and he worked hard to obtain additional funding for the New Mexico office.

My conversations with Mr. Iglesias over the years have been almost exclusively about this resource problem and complaints by constituents. He consistently told me that he needed more help, as have many other New Mexicans within the legal community.

My frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office mounted as we tried to get more resources for it, but public accounts indicated an inability within the office to move more quickly on cases. Indeed, in 2004 and 2005 my staff and I expressed my frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office to the Justice Department and asked the Department to see if the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s office needed more help, including perhaps an infusion of professionals from other districts

According to Domenici based on Domenici's inability to secure additional resources for Iglesias' office he concluded Iglesias needed to be replaced.

If you can explain to me how Domenici's failure to secure additional funding from Congress or additional help from the DOJ justifies firing Iglesias, I'll throw in with you.

Here is a Washhington Post article with some additional insights into the Iglesias firing mostly from the
DOJ point of view.

The article contains some interesting discussion of the ethics rules concerning contacts by congressmembers (both senators and congresscritters) with US Attorneys actively engaged in a prosecution.

The Senate Ethics Manual advises senators that contact with prosecutors and regulatory agency officials is "generally permitted, where the communication is with the agency and not directed at the court, where the agency is not engaged in an ongoing enforcement, investigative or other quasi-judicial proceeding."

Stanley Brand, an ethics lawyer who served as House counsel in the 1980s, said a senator should contact a federal prosecutor about an ongoing investigation only if he or she has evidence or information related to the probe.

"It's going to precipitate a huge problem," Brand said, warning of a potential review by the Justice Department.

Essentially Domenici's published statement admits he violated Senate Ethics Rules.

There's more: "Domenici Regrets Calling Iglesias" >>

Party Loyalty Isn't The Same Thing As Patriotism

Last evening (March 2, 2007)Dahlia Lithwick posted an article at Slate entitled Royal Flush--The purge of U.S. attorneys (partially) explained. It contains an excellent summary of the story as it exists today. She asks a series of important questions.

What sort of colossal error in judgment led the DOJ to can a bunch of perfectly loyal and capable prosecutors, name permanent "interim" replacements under a sleazy legal loophole, then publicly impugn those who'd departed with the claim that they'd been fired for "performance-related" reasons? Did they really think nobody would notice? That nobody would care? Does some incredibly cunning long-term objective justify the short-term fallout? Or was this simply a case of bumbling incompetence?

My guess is the full answer is yes to all of the above.

The real problem starts with the highly politicized Republican party of George Bush. Like the old Communist party of Stalin, party loyalty is the same as loyalty to the United States of America. it isn't but that is what they think. In their heart of hearts members of the Bush Justice Department truly believe they fired the prosecutors for performance reasons. In the eyes of a loyalist like Alberto Gonzales, when David Iglesias told Wilson and Domenici that he wasn't going to rush a prosecution to help Wilson's reelection campaign, he displayed a lack of party loyalty that not only justified but demanded his firing. Several of the other firings follow the same pattern. The fired prosecutors, for whatever reason, allowed their duty to the country to come before their duty to the party. As with many old time Communists who put country ahead of party, they had to be purged, fortunately in this case with a phone call and a damaged reputation, and not in Stalin fashion with a bullet to the brain.

I don't know how we restore the notion that loyalty to America comes before loyalty to the Republican party, but we must. For our country to hold together we all have to believe that the folks at the Department of Justice are straight shooters. We all have to "know" they don't play favorites. Otherwise we risk losing our democracy. That comment is not an exaggeration. The stakes are just that high.

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McClatchy confirms Domenici and Wilson Pressured US Attorney

McClatchy's Washington Bureau has confirmed that Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson pressured US Attorney David Iglesias about the timing of an indictment of a democrat in the run up to the last election.

The two people with knowledge of the incident said Domenici and Wilson intervened in mid-October, when Wilson was in a competitive re-election campaign that she won by 875 votes out of nearly 211,000 cast.

Apparently people have forgotten that there was a serious movement back in the late 1920s and 1930s to clean up Federal law enforcement in general, and the US Attorney offices, in particular, all across the country. Back in the bad old days Federal law enforcement was perceived as being the personal privilege of the party in power at best or for sale to the highest bidder at worst. Remember Al Capone and the Untouchables. Well the Untouchables were part of the movement to professionalize Federal law enforcement. For the last 70 years the professionalism of Federal law enforcement including the very professional US Attorney offices across the country, has been one of our crowning jewels. They have played the role of straight shooters, enforcing the rules for everybody.

Nobody was shocked when Lam followed the evidence and went after Cunningham and Foggo. All of us should be proud, but not surprised, that Iglesias rebuffed Domenici and Wilson. Wilson was new and scared, maybe her call could be excused. Domenici is an old hand. He should have known better.

We Americans used to take it for granted that regardless of which political party was in power the US Attorney was going to prosecute political corruption regardless of who was involved. The US Attorney's office didn't play favorites or time its indictements to impact elections. If a politician did a crime, and the US Attorney could prove it, he could expect to do the time.

Apparently the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzolas is nothing more than an arm of the Republican party. Justice is no longer blind. It is expected to peak and if a Republican is involved, it is expected to wink. That perception has to change right now. This is not a tempest in a tea pot story. This is a story that goes straight to the heart of the American experiment. If we can't trust the United States Justice Department to prosecute any law breaker regardless of power or party, we will find ourselves back in the 1920s of Al Capone wondering how we can possibly stop corrupt political machines.

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Senator Domenici and Representative Wilson Refuse to Deny Presssuring Iglesias

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is reporting that all but two of the Republican Members of the New Mexico delegation have flatly denied pressuring US Attorney David Iglesias to indict some democrats prior to the November election. The two who have refused to deny are Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Domenici. As was previously reported, Iglesias says that two members of the New Mexico delegation pressured him to indict prematurely to help Republican reelection efforts. He refused, insisting on waiting until he had sufficient evidence.

Two plus two equals Domenici and Wilson?

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