Integrity Counts

I spent the last several minutes thinking about what to write this morning. There are a lot of topics out there. The Simpsons 400th episode trashes Fox News. (I might save that one for later). Jimmy Carter had a lot to say about George Bush and Tony Blair, none of it good. Voter suppression mastermind Mark "Thor" Hearne, a name known here in Missouri, has been featured in Slate and not in a good way.

All those stories are pretty obvious. I mean that Fox News doesn't do news, isn't news. Anybody who cares to look realizes it is Republican infotainment intended to keep the white masses content in their self-loathing and justified in their racial bigotry. Jimmy Carter has been assailed for his comments about Blair and Bush, but darned if I can see why. He simply told the truth. Mark Hearne, Brad Schlozman, Hans von Spakovsky are simply bit players carrying out Karl Rove's version of Nixon's old Southern strategy. Stop the blacks from voting and white Republicans win.

Then I saw a story of hope. David Iglesias is building a new life. I thought about it for a minute. Do you know who the winners are in the US Attorney scandal? The winners are the fired attorneys. Their lives have all been carefully examined by the media, and they have all been certified to be professional lawyers striving to achieve the highest ethical standards. Long after the many US Attorneys who knuckled under to Karl Rove are forgotten in their suburban practices the Gonzales 8 will be held up as models of how US Attorneys should act. Long after Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling are utterly forgotten, their careers in tatters, people like Carol Lam, Bud Cummins and John McKay will be building their futures and fully living their lives. Hell, who knows, one of those fired US Attorneys might run for senator, maybe in New Mexico.

James Comey has emerged as a hero in the Department of Justice scandal because he stood for what was right. So have all the people who stood with him. Even John Ashcroft, who doesn't even mention the episode in his book, looks better, so much better that Blue Girl had to remind us of just who we are talking about. I know who John Ashcroft is and what he has done, but darn if the image of him saying "NO" Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card hasn't forced me to give him a higher mark.

Today I choose to remember that integrity counts. People who display courage in the face of adversity are often rewarded. Good guys can finish first.

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Is The Long Neo-Conservative Nightmare Really Over?

Glen Greenwald says the Republican noise machine, and their allies in the corporate press are no longer able to gain traction when they try to unfairly tar and feather Democrats. Trex echos Greenwald in a post called the "Incredible Shrinking Right." He points to the long overdue collapse of David Broder from "from Beltway Godhead to Bleating Dickhead in just a few short, easy steps" as an example of the rapid decline of conservatism. Kevin Drum points to an article by Michael Finnegan in the LA Times indicating that Republican regulars are too embarrassed by their party to answer poll questions. A commenter named Dave over at TMP (I can't find the comment right now) points to a significant decline in the number of comments at Redstate.com. It's true. You go to Redstate and they are posting, but nobody is commenting. You would think the site is a start-up like WTWC instead of a site that became valuable enough to be sold by the founders for real money.

What does it all mean? First, Americans are fed up with Iraq. They have been to the mall and have returned to discover the President has tied down our army occupying a country that doesn't want to be occupied. It is a country that only one American really wants to occupy. Sadly his name is George Bush. Second, Americans were appalled by Katrinia, and the lack of response shown by the administration to other Americans during their hour of need. It has dawned on many Americans that this administration puts the success of a small gang of cronies above all. Not many of us are in that small gang, which is really a subset of a subset of a subset. Third, the Alberto Gonzales hearings have demonstrated that for this crowd the department of justice is just another political tool. David Iglesias was on Bill Maher the other night. Maher gave the story perspective. At the end Iglesias was called a hero for putting his country ahead of his party. Maher's house Republicans sat on their hands looking embarrassed.

It sounds like our team is on a roll. We are finally winning. Well, during all of this I have been reading a series of books about the Civil War. You know, during the Civil War there were any number of battles where one side or the other thought it had won. Their soldiers stopped fighting. Sometimes they started looting. The other side rallied and ran the "victors" right off the battlefield.

Yes, Republicans are down right now, but they are down because of their own failures. Primarily they are down because they realize they have supported a maladministration that doesn't really share their core values. They are embarrassed because they have been hosed by the neo-cons. Folks, the Republican base will recover and will gain control of their party, maybe not in time for 2008, but recover they will.

The Democrats have yet to actually achieve anything. The war in Iraq continues unabated. We don't have universal health care. America's industrial base continues to decline. We still face a host of complicated social issues that have yet to be addressed. George Bush's maladministration is still in power. The justice department is still a wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC and is being run by Karl Rove.

Don't become complacent. Don't start bragging. The battle isn't won. If we let up they will rally and we could be run from the field. We need to make sure we remember that right now the Republican rank and file probably feels betrayed. I don't think they have abandoned their basic principles. We need to make sure we are inclusive and thoughtful when arriving at suggested solutions for Americas problems. Some of their basic principles are pretty much basic Democratic principles. Some aren't but there is room for compromise on many issues. This is a time for Democratic compassion.

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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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Drip, Drip, Drip

The other day Senator Schumer suggested that if the White House doesn't come clean soon, there are enough disgruntled people at Justice to make sure it will all drip out bit by bit. It seems that the drips are slowly turning into a shower. David Iglesias has spoken out. The leader of the prosecution team in a tobacco case has accused Bush appointees of micromanaging her case to its detriment. Democrats have accused the Justice department of deliberately mishandling the New Hampshire phone bank case.

In discussing his own case Iglesias puts his finger on something neither the White House nor Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department seem to understand, "the public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds."

Separating legal from political seems to be a real problem for the Justice Department these days.

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Karl Rove,"He's Gone."

Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers report New Mexico Republican party chairman

Allen Weh . . . said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.

According to the article Weh was complaining that Iglesias wasn't prosecuting Democrats fast enough. In Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department that is the ultimate "performance related issue."

UPDATE: Weh's whirling dervish reaction to his previous comments can be found in this morning's LA Times. Weh claims Rove had "little or nothing to do with" the firing. Note the qualifying phrase "little or nothing." According to Weh when Rove said "he's gone," the firing had already occurred. Of course, Weh had given Rove's liaison an ear full back in 2005 and Domenici and Wilson made their calls in October.

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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.

There's more: "Party Loyalty Isn't The Same Thing As Patriotism" >>

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.

There's more: "McClatchy confirms Domenici and Wilson Pressured US Attorney" >>

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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First Subpoenas To Be Issued By 110 th Congress

The following is a press release from the Office of Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez

Washington - Chairwoman Linda Sánchez today announced that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL) will meet tomorrow to vote on issuing subpoenas for certain former U.S. Attorneys who were recently fired by the Bush Administration.

If approved by the subcommittee, the subpoenas - which would be the first issued by the 110th Congress - would require Carol Lam, David Iglesias, H.E. Cummins, III, and John McKay to appear before a CAL Subcommittee hearing next week.

"In order to get the full picture of why these U.S. Attorneys were fired, we need to hear from the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys themselves," said Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. "We look forward to their testimony on this issue."

"I called this meeting because we pledged to do everything we can to get to the truth of what could be brazen abuse of power by the Bush Administration," said CAL Chairwoman Sánchez.

The hearing, which is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, will consider a bill by Congressman Howard Berman that would reverse a new provision in the USA PATRIOT Act allowing the Attorney General to indefinitely appoint federal prosecutors through the end of the Bush Administration without Senate confirmation.

**The vote to issue subpoenas is scheduled for Thursday, March 1, at 4:00 pm in the Judiciary Committee Hearing Room (2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC).

It seems that every day there is a new development in this scandal. Now that Fitzmas is winding down, this might just take it's place. Thank you Karl. Thank you Alberto.

Alberto should never have said he would never fire a prosecutor for political reasons.

If you want to watch today's hearing live you can click this link to pick up a live webcast feed at 4:00 pm Eastern. Depending on what happens today I will probably be popping popcorn and dialing in.

UPDATE: The AP has done some additional reporting on this story. The Senate Judiciary Committee is sending letters to those fired before voting next week to compel their testimony. It is a race to the hearing chamber.

In response to the charge that David Iglesias was fired for not indicting some Democrats before last November's election as requested by two congressmembers to help Republicans in their election efforts Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "The suggestion that David Iglesias was asked to resign because he failed to bring an indictment ... is flatly false. This administration has never removed a United States attorney in an effort to retaliate against them or inappropriately interfere with a public integrity investigation."

The charge isn't that Iglesias didn't bring an indictment, it is he didn't bring an indictment when it could do Republicans the most good. Instead he elected to do his job, and wait for sufficient evidence to win convictions.

There's more: "First Subpoenas To Be Issued By 110 th Congress" >>

Salon Update's Prosecutor Firings.

"I would never, ever make a change in the United States attorney position for political reasons," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Senate testimony in early January. As the AG is learning if the other party wins the election, you might as well be truthful when under oath. Strange thing about the truth, it seems to dribble out.

According to an article in Salon that is exactly what they did.

In a Feb. 6 hearing, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told lawmakers, "When I hear you talk about the politicizing of the Department of Justice, it's like a knife in my heart."

Knife meet heart.

According to Mark Follman at Salon:

at least three of the eight fired attorneys were told by a superior they were being forced to resign to make jobs available for other Bush appointees, according to a former senior Justice Department official knowledgeable about their cases. That stands in contradiction to administration claims that the firings were related either to job performance or policy differences. A fourth U.S. attorney was told by a top Justice Department official that the dismissal in that attorney's case was not necessarily related to job performance. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in New Mexico -- who officially steps down from his post on Wednesday, and who says he was never told by superiors about any problems with his work -- plans to go public with documentation of the achievements of his office.

"I never received any indication at all of a problem" regarding performance or policy differences, Iglesias told Salon on Monday. "That only leaves a third option: politics."

UPDATE: By Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers is reporting that:

The U.S. attorney from New Mexico who was recently fired by the Bush administration said Wednesday that he believes he was forced out because he refused to rush an indictment in an ongoing probe of local Democrats a month before November's Congressional elections.

David Iglesias said two members of Congress separately called in mid October to inquire about the timing of an ongoing probe of a kickback scheme and appeared eager for an indictment to be issued on the eve of the elections in order to benefit the Republicans. He refused to name the members of Congress because he said he feared retaliation.

Two months later, on Dec. 7, Iglesias became one of six U.S. attorneys ordered to step down for what administration officials have termed "performance-related issues." Two other U.S. attorneys also have been asked to resign.

Iglesias, who received a positive performance review before he was fired, said he suspected he was forced out because of his refusal to be pressured to hand down an indictment in the ongoing probe.

"I believe that because I didn't play ball, so to speak, I was asked to resign," said Iglesias, who officially stepped down Wednesday.

If true Mr. Iglesias was fired for putting his duty to the United States ahead of the needs of the Republican Party. That folks is about as political as a US Attorney firing can get.

There's more: "Salon Update's Prosecutor Firings." >>