Can anyone tell me why they would just hand over any incriminating documents.

Your basically asking them to hand over stuff. I would think most bad stuff would just get "lost" in the shuffle.

Does anyone know how this works ?

I just can't imagine it,.. unless it is leaked out.

they have to know about the docs to ask for them. i'd say someone is leaking.

I guess we can expect a fleet of document shredding trucks to arrive at the White House any minute now, if they haven't already been parked there since November.

Can anyone tell me why they would just hand over any incriminating documents.

Fear of Federal Prison may have something to do with it.

Scooter Libby did this one too.

I'm with Barbara: What about the USA's that didn't get fired? Weren't there some convienently time indictment anouncements prior to the '06 elections?

Here's something I think would really bear investigating - how did that provision that allowed the administration to appoint US Attorneys to indefinite terms without Senate confirmation get slid into the Patriot Act?

I know Specter said it was a staffer and he hadn't known about it, but that explanation just isn't good enough. WHICH staffer? And WHY? - who put him up to it? Because just as soon as that bill with that secret provision passed, a bunch of US attorneys suddenly got the axe, and one of the was replaced by Karl Rove's oppo research guy. So the provision was put into the bill on purpose, so that these firings and replacements could happen, and could be done without oversight. This was a carefully laid plan - by WHOM?

I'm sorry, but as for the Dem's getting tough...

Why never on the major issues that American's voted them into office on!

No tangible "brining our troops home from Iraq"!
No movement on Health Care!
Etc., etc., etc...

Sure, they always pile on isolated issues they know they can be vocal about without upsetting their big money supporters, but never on the big issues that their big money supporters would kick their butts on; those which Americans overwhelming want to see them working on the most.

Sure, I'm happy to see them doing something -- 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing -- but will our elected officials ever take on the real big issues of our time like Iraq and Health Care.

Nothing in sight yet!

Cufford
Fresno, CA

PS: Kudos to the blogosphere for giving voice to and informing the people, and bringing pressure upon our elected officials to do something about stuff like this. If it wasn't for TPM this wouldn't even be a story anyone knows about.

The White House email system is Lotus Notes -- which I wouldn't wish on a dog, but it has one delightful property for our purposes: it is next to impossible to find all the places that Notes caches copies of a particular document. If a forensics team does go over those servers, there's no telling what they might turn up!

Cufford:

Perhaps you missed the news conferences yesterday in which the Democrats in Congress announced plans to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by September 2008 at the latest and by the end of this year at the earliest.

Democrats have had the majority in Congress for two months and one week. It's really unrealistic to expect them to repair six years of misadministration and malfeasance in that length of time.

Meanwhile, consider all of the hearings Democrats have conducted and are conducting into the Bush administration's attempts to override/ignore the Constitution.

Only 682 days left Bush's Reign of Error.

CT had a hiccup of a USA switch back a few years ago that was rather interesting. John Danaher III, USA for CT supervised the prosecutions of former Bridgeport mayor Joseph Ganim and former Waterbury mayor Phil Giordano. Danaher also served as interim U.S. Attorney in 2001 and 2002. Appointed by George W. Bush, Kevin J. O'Connor was sworn in November 2002 as United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. He wasn't even 40 years old. O'Connor, a Republican, first entered public service with a campaign against Congressman John Larson and lost. As CT's USA, he first recused himself from prosecuting Governor John Rowland, who was well on his way to being impeached when he resigned from office. AG O'Connor's wife worked for the Rowland administration and her family has owned the cottage right next to Rowland's at Bantam Lake for many years. Since then, O'Connor has been on the fast track and is considered one of CT GOP's top prospects. O'Connor has been promoted to Associate Deputy Attorney General. O'Connor, will retain his position of CT US Attorney for six months.This latest appointment raises O'Connor's political stock yet again.
"I have no plans of stepping down as CT U.S. attorney unless circumstances lead me to conclude doing two jobs is having a negative effect on either one," O'Connor said. "I would not have accepted this offer from the deputy attorney general if I was not fully confident my leadership team could manage this district very effectively in my absence."
O'Connor spends less and less of his time in CT, supervising this state from afar.

Can anyone tell me why they would just hand over any incriminating documents.

um , because they are legally required to when subpoenaed.

Of course they can destroy or hide papers but that usually leads to worse trouble.

Democratic advancements so far are really quiet remarkable . I also thought it was taking way to long for them to stop the Bush atrocities and start fixing the corruption problems but when everyday is a new criminal and each committee hearing uncovers another needed investigation into matters reviled in the hearing. The disregard Republicans have for "The rule of law " is really laid bare if you compare it to what they were saying about it when it had to do with President Clinton.

Why turn over documents?

Contempt of Congress. They have a nice jail.

It will be interesting to see what the Whitehouse says regarding Harriet Miers. For non-Cabinet officers they generally use Executive Priviledge as an excuse for blocking such testimony.

Uncle Don writes:

"Cufford: Perhaps you missed the news conferences yesterday in which the Democrats in Congress announced plans to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by September 2008 at the latest and by the end of this year at the earliest."

Oh, I certainly didn't miss that. A plan that not only essentially gives this all another year and a half (Americans want the needless death and destruction to end NOW!), but which leaves it up to Bush to define what's progress and what isn't.

At best it's a typically weak and rhetorical plan. It has no substantive action at all, and what action it does propose it allows Bush to define.

Not to mention that they know Bush will veto it anyway.

It's little more than the same old rhetoric.

I do agree with Crust that "oversight" is indeed a very good, much needed step in the right direction and I shouldn't have trivialized it. My point is simply that the Democrats have thus far shown no significant movement on the biggest threats to our country as defined by their constituents in the last election. Only the same old get tough rhetoric.

Talk is cheap, and actions speak MUCH louder than words.

Cufford
Fresno, CA

Something is not right with the WH or DOJ responses to all of this USA purge. They are just barely putting up their usual response of deny, impede, stall, block and denounce. It makes me paranoid...extremely...as if they somehow know that it will make no difference soon. As if they know that something else will occur that will make all of this seem insignificant. Like it's only there to get us to take our eye off the ball. What do they call it when you are paranoid of your own government. This paranoia has an 8yr. history too.

To Joyce: It was Specters chief of staff who claims he did it at the insistence of the DOJ. Who in the DOJ he did not mention but you can be sure it was from Gonzales who got it from Rove, the architect of the provision who obtained Bush's and Cheney's approval. The provision had to be "prepared" and then it was "secretly" slipped into the Patriot Act. Gonzales couldn't have thought that one up, he was just the 'go along' guy. Because it was directly related to the political arena and done underhandedly it had Rove's brand all over it. It was Cheney who sold it to Bush. To support this idea just consider that Rove is commenting on it...why? He doesn't comment on much of anything. In my mind all fingers point to Rove as the man who orchestrated the provision, and implemented the purge to try to politicize the DOJ.

I'm waiting for Fred Black to come up in this story. He's the US Attorney that Abramoff got fired in the Northern Marianas.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001052.php

Gosh, look how fast the dems move when they're not complicit in the act or agree with the malfeasance. The white house lied us into war, suspended the constitution, tortured, spied on us illegally, kidnapped, spent funds illegally in Iraq, brought down a real CIA front organization collecting genuine intel in order to crush a whistleblower exposing fabricated "intelligence"... an endless list of obvious, outright felonies Bush has in at least two cases explicitly and proudly defended.

And how fast are they moving on any of that?

I don't mean to trivialize firing U.S. attorneys in order to plant more friendly republican stooges. But it sure shows us what motivates democrats. Party first. Party last. Party on, Wayne...

Barbara regarding those attorneys not fired and their actions see Krugmans piece today. THere is an interesting story about charges agaisnt Senator Bob Menedez of NJ. THese cahges came out just before the election. They proved to be bogus.

Did I mention that if the White House is caught Obstructing Justice, that could also be considered Contempt of Congress. I believe both charges would qualify as impeachable offenses. Not to mention Abuse of Power. I love it!

It's interesting how the presumed underlying motive for the purge -- put GOP patronage hires in place so they can get judicial appointments later -- has turned into an investigation of whether the purged US Attorneys weren't indicting enough Dems and laying off GOPpers.

No matter how calculating and partisan you think the White House is, it's probably worse than you think.

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