I am curious about how is WH letting these Emails go public? Doesnt the administration control this?

Yipes! WH leg has "signed off" on page 27? That sounds a little suspicious to me. Also prepping for "when the pressure comes". That doesn't sound like SOP to me. Subpeona these suckers!

It seems to me to be the old "absolute power corrupts" with this Republican Party. If Senator Domenici was demanding the resignation of a US Attorney, you can bet he was not the only one. This was part of the corruption that was permitted to take hold in this Administration and you can also bet that it was controlled from the very top.

With the passage of the Patriot Act, the White House had all the power they needed to control the justice system. No longer were they subject to any Senate approval or disapproval, they could hire and fire whomever they wanted, no matter if there was an ongoing investigation of Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, or the powerful Chairman Jerry Lewis, or the "Pokergate" scandal that is still to break.

Methinks it's what we DON'T KNOW YET that they're keeping under their hats.

What kind of hats are the opposite of tin foil hats?

What's that line about "the real problem we have with Carol Lam"? (Part I page 22, May 11, Sampson to Kelley) Subsequent parts seem to talk about giving an excuse to get rid of her- page 23 part I, Sampson to Mercer- they're asking if anyone ever chided Lam for immigration inforcement, suggesting that's the excuse they'll use to deal with their "real problem", and they're trying to come up with evidence to support it. It sounds like they're even talking about sending prosecutors to support the facade ("remember the premise- AG ordered it").
It's easy to get thing out of context when reading part of an email conversation, but this looks pretty damning.

The only potentially illegal part so far is the lying to congress bit right?
The USA's serve at the president's pleasure so can be fired at any time.
Lying about why they were fired is ugly but doing it in front of congress is illegal.

In the second document dump, notice that White House Deputy Political Director is writing from the @gwb43.com email domain -- yet his official White House title and phone number is in the footer.

The gwb43.com domain WHOIS record shows that it is owned by the RNC.

Why are White House officials using e-mail accounts that are not their official White House domain server (@who.eop.gov)???

ARE THEY CONSCIOUSLY GOING AROUND HAVING IT REGISTER IN THE EOP SYSTEM SO AS NOT TO BE AN OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL RECORD (and hence, hidden from disclosure???)

Certainly a strange practice for a White House official to use an RNC domain for official communication with the Justice Department!!!

Is it legal to buy a contract on Gonzales resigning? Sounds like internet gambling in a "futures market?"
But if he dies before the contract date, all will be refunded, all bets are off.
can such a contract be "fixed" by the ag's office?

Carsick -- there's the lying to Congress, but there is mounting evidence of a conspiracy to obstruct justice in the firing of Lam in San Diego. I think the Cunningham/Wilkes/Foggo stuff was the entry point into a vast Republican criminal enterprise, and Lam needed to be shut down before she got any further.

I'm puzzled. Other than the blatant power grab, how is any of this either illegal or even unethical?

Now, if to stop an investigation that is already going forward you force an AG out, that I understand. But if the law is that the administration has the power to decide who the AG is, why is this making such news?

It seems to me that if the Administation had not gotten so used to lying and just said these folks are being replaced for political reasons rather than saying they were for performance reasons, there's not too much that could be said.

Not a word about any of this at rushlimbaugh.com. The lead story is how Edwards and Obama are "afraid" to appear on Fox News for debates.
I thought Rush might have put his spin on this story but I guess he's too busy pursuing "Excellence in Broadcasting". I'm sure he'll have something about republicans as victims in this story before long.

Rob,
I agree though lying to congress is a crime. As they say, "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up."

Does this mean that the ones chosen not to be fired are in the hip pocket of the Ag and do as told?

Josh and his staff should win a Pulitzer for all of their hard work.

Is there a way to create a petition for news/investigative reporting via blog award?

I heard the bottom line is that USAG Gonzales/White House wanted all say over state death penalties, and that is what started this ball rolling. This is from a reliable source

Now this is what journalism is supposed to look like. Great work.

As I have posted before, corruption of this magnitude is set up by a bloated Whitehouse staff without any real work to perform.

I still remember back in 2001 when it was pointed out the the Bush Whitehouse had a much larger staff than the outgoing Clinton Whitehouse. There was no doubt then that these extra staff would be purely partisan in the "work" that they performed.

It would be informative to see a chart on the average number of people working directly for the Whitehouse during the last 5 administrations.

Notice how the suggested language to give the Administration this added authority to replace U.S. Attorneys was actually PASSED, helping to move this cleaning house from ideation to fruition without any Congressional interference.

Shameful.

"Speedy" Gonzales does not know the difference between the truth and a lie. He should be immediately be questioned under oath about his last statement about there was no politics in the firing of the USA. L I A R! What does it take to hold these people responsible for lying under oath to Congress?

I understand there is no chance of a Special Prosecuter. The most corrupt Congress in our history (the DeLay 109th) did not renew the provision to allow a SP.

IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY

I’ve not seen any comment regarding the fact that David Iglesias was identified as a “Recommend retaining; strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General” given the fact that at document OAG00000007 his name appears in bold letters. That list appears in an attachment to a March 2005 email, but is dated February 2005. The fist time I see Iglesias’ name on any of these lists to be fired is in the November 2006 “Plan” document (OAG 000000041).

This particular USA appears to be fired as a direct consequence of the involvement of Sen. Domenici (already admitted to by the Senator) and NOT because of any job/loyalty reason. The Senator is now identified as “happy as a clam”. I think when the dust settles, it will be the path along which this USA’s firing came that will be the real story. Because he did not play along with a political game by Sen. Domenici, he was added to the list.

I love the last line of the email, "at less political costs to the White House."

Isn't this the definition of "obstruction of justice" on a massive scale?

If the WH was working with Gonzo to remove USA's to delay or stop investigation or ongoing cases into poltical corruption then that could be obstruction of justice.

The USA serve at the pleasure of the President but by no stretch does that give the President the right to break the law of the land.

read the below blogs too! Kinda interesting

"If these US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time, what is the issue? How is this different then what Clinton/Reno did during their administration? Sometimes it appears we look to create issues/problems where there are none!

Posted by: txdad
Date: March 13, 2007 02:38 PM"

It's *WHY* these USAs were put on the list that makes it a scandal. In the case of Carol Lam, it is obvious as she was busy indicting republicans out in San Diego.

You are correct, I don't see an email that specifically says that they are firing for political and/or obstruction reasons, but that will come out in future documents or by the circumstances surrounding them.

It is also a scandal, of course, because Gonzales pretty much lied when he said that none of what we are seeing in these emails even happened.

No one resigns for no reason - especially not in this White House. Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff to Alberto Gonzalez, resigned yesterday, according to the AG in his news conference of a few minutes ago. Why??
The AG said sometimes things happen in a large dept where the CEO doesn't know about it? So, Alberto did not know about what happened with the US Attorneys and, anyway, the person responsible is now gone. He resigned yesterday. So, where's the problem?
Is the AG admitting that there was some "wrongdoing"? Does he believe it was "illegal"? And why is it different now under the new Patriot Act than it was under the Clinton Administration? What role did the Senate play in US Atty's appointments then that they cannot play now since the Patriot Act? Can anyone answer that?

you people are ridiculous!

Jeepers, those are real email addresses. You don't suppose anyone would, you know, get any IDEAS about maybe SUBSCRIBING those addresses to every Viagra spam list on earth. That'd just be mean.

Payback for the CRIMES of these TRAITORS.
Another example:

Joseph Wilson is a SPY BOSS, and has been for 30 years.

I KNEW that Bush would end up being exposed by Wilson

after the Bush TRAITORS exposed Valerie Plame, who SPECIALIZED in WMD’s,

thus IRREPARABLY DAMAGING our NATIONAL SECURITY, demolishing the

LIE that Bush, Cheney, etc.

GIVE A DAMN about protecting Americans & the USA.

I love that they thought this would mean "...less political costs to the White House."

So, how's that working out for ya?

Since we get to read other people's emails... I would like to read Lam's emails to see which liberals were pushing her to pursue republicans. The point is that EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL.

To Ben Swenson:

What leverage would Congressional Democrats have over a federal prosecutor who serves a Republican president? They can't exactly complain to the White House that she won't play ball with the opposition party. So how, exactly, could they try to strong-arm her into going after her boss's political allies?

(The code word is "crush" -- I love it!)

Deano - Bush was firing his OWN appointed people in most if not all cases. John McCay in WA 2004 gov. election followed the bid of the RNC and pursued every possible lead to overturn the Democratic win. When he, with extensive zeal and the help of the FBI, found no fraud, he ended up on the hit list. During this time he was illegally pressured by Doc Hastings, congressman, to come up with something to overturn the election. At the time Rep.Hastings was chairman of the House ethics committee. LOL

What I want to know is will the U.S. Military try to stop the American people from storming the bastille.
Deano, stop hiding fascist tendencies behind technicalities that were drawn up by the crime cartel.

You weenies forget dismissing USAs that don't jive with the Administration's policies has plenty of precedent. Look it up before your heads start exploding about our communo-fascist-satanic government that you're so afraid of. Clinton did it before him. Were you afraid of him? Of course not.

That it's happening midterm like this doesn't have precedent, and THAT is what's being used as an excuse by the political polarity to make a fuss. If the ninnyheaded roaring by wannabe political blog commenters would get the facts, they'd have a bleep of a lot less to say. And it wouldn't be over-stupid-simplified like this:

"Government should be afraid of the people... not the people afraid of the government."

Honor

Thank you, Honor! Thank you. We're all mighty inspired. Now what does this have to do with an executive precedent to move USAs around because your party is in power?

Absofeckinothing. Bunch of whining neophytes. Yeah. Look it up.

Between this thread and the one here: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002759.php There is a lot of great information to be shared and answers each others questions.

Are we SURE we want rid of Gonzalez? Remember how bad we thought Ashcroft was? I wouldn't put it past gerogejunior to haul John Yoo out, as his choice replacement.

US Attorney Firing Scandal

It seems to me that most people are missing the boat on this US Attorney firing ‘scandal’. Most folks seem to be concerned with what the fired 6-8 US Attorneys did or didn’t do to earn the wrath of Rove and Gonzales. The real question is what the other 85 US Attorneys did to be considered ‘good Bushies’ by Rove and Gonzales. Was the abbreviate investigation of US Senator Mendez in NJ just before the election and example of a US Attorney being a ‘good Bushie’? Are there other examples?

Order Zanaflex online: FedEx overnight shipping, free prescription with your order and 24/7 customer service, http://DrugsHome.com

Online pharmacy: 24/7 customer service, Tramadol 50 mg FedEx next day free prescription