US Attorney Firings - Justice and Lies 1 / 2

October 01, 2008 -
Justice Dept. Appoints Special Prosecutor After Report Faults Gonzales for US Attorney Firings.


Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to continue the probe into whether political misconduct led to the firing of nine US attorneys. The move came after Justice Department investigation singled out Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for his conduct in the firings, accusing of him of abdicating his responsibility and questioning his faulty and evasive public statements.

The appointment came at the request of a lengthy Justice Department investigation that released its report Monday. Investigators singled out Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for his conduct in the firings, accusing of him of abdicating his responsibility and questioning his faulty and evasive public statements.

The report concludes political pressure was the key factor behind the firing of New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias and says political pressure played a part in the dismissal of at least two others: Todd Graves of Missouri, Bud Cummins of Arkansas.

Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy of Connecticut will head the probe. Her appointment has raised hopes shell have more leeway as a special prosecutor to compel the Bush administration to hand over key documents it refused to give Justice Department investigators. The firing of the US attorneys will likely be remembered as one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration Justice Department.

(Murray Waas, Veteran investigative journalist for the National Journal.)

MURRAY WAAS: Well, the most interesting thing about it, or what I thought was the extraordinary, is the report says that they couldnt get to the bottom of a lot of what happened with the firing of the US attorneys, because there is a wholesale lack of cooperation by senior White House officials. Karl Rove refused to cooperate with the investigation, give them an interview. Harriet Miers, who was the White House counsel at the time and an architect of this, refused to be interviewed. Two of—two deputy White House counsel declined to be interviewed.

The White House refused to give over documents. They refused to give over emails. To show you the absurdity, some of the emails and documents that theyve refused to give to their own Justice Department, I published them in a story. Somebody in the administration leaked them to me. And so, theyre a matter of public record.

And so, essentially, you have one part of the government, the White House, refusing to cooperate and assist the Justice Department in a very important oversight function. And, you know, I would add that the lack of cooperation, the refusal to talk to investigators, the refusal to turn over documents, is virtually unprecedented.

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[34thstreetman]

Doesn't every new Administration fire the US attorneys and replace them with new ones? Since when is this a new phenomenon?