It is known by now that the Justice Department has manipulated various issues for political gains. In most cases we know so far that these manipulations were used in elections and Republican power-politics. But common sense leads us to assume that we have so far only seen the tip of the iceberg.
The shameless political use of Justice’s power started to become obvious as early as December 2005. The Washington Post reported at that time:
Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.
Several manipulated cases related to the fear-strategy – the hyping of terrorism with the aim to further political control – are also known, the Padilla case being the most obvious one. The Justice department moved it from "enemy combatant procedures" to a criminal trial when an unfavorable ruling to them became imminent. Now it has "lost" the video tape of his last interrogation, the one his lawyers may believe, "prepared him" to become uncooperative with them.
On the fired prosecutors, all staunch republicans, the Justice Department first denied any political influence. This was a lie. The orders to fire them came straight from the White House:
Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state’s U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.
In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, 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.
Some prosecutors stayed with their oath when politically pressured and got fired. What did the ones not fired do? Josh Marshall was the first to ask this question:
[F]inally, we now have strong evidence that US Attorneys who resisted pressure to crack down on Dems were canned. What about those who didn’t resist?
In other words, if these folks were canned for not being political enough in their prosecutions, what about those who were? That’s now the shoe that hasn’t dropped. I won’t get into specifics right now. But there are a few cases from last fall when US Attorneys dropped helpfully timed subpoenas investigating Democrats who were then locked in high profile races. There didn’t seem any cause to question the timing then. But given what we know now, they may merit further scrutiny.
A few days later Paul Krugman chimed in with statistical evidence:
The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office.
…
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.
Of course Democrats have their decent share of thugs too, but seven times as many as Republicans?
The round of firing the attorneys is not a pure election manipulating issue. Some were dismissed for not demanding the death penalty. In the case of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego it is an attempt to shut down investigation of fraud and cover up.
Marshall again:
She took her investigation deep into congressional appropriations process — kicking off a continuing probe into the dealings of former Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis. She also followed the trail into the heart of the Bush CIA. Those two stories are like mats of loose threads. That’s where the story lies.
It is obvious from common sense that at least some of the U.S. Attorneys not fired must have acted for Republican gain – why else would they still be in their job? Those who may not have had a chance to fulfill their party duty yet, will understand the signs:
Back in Phoenix, as in the seven other regions where U.S. attorneys have been toppled, many wonder whether other top prosecutors will risk challenging Washington when they meet across the table in future disagreements.
"Think of the chilling effect," said Thomas Gorman, an Arizona defense lawyer who is representing Rios Rico on the capital murder charge. "Those guys who were fired are all Republicans, all team players, all conservative prosecutors. Do you think other prosecutors are going to pound the table?"
If we are sure that the legal process has been manipulated through U.S. Attorneys, what about other ways?
The FBI has been using National Security Letters (NSL) and illegal instruments to get intimate knowledge of private issues of many people:
Of just 77 files reviewed by the inspector general, 17 — 22 percent — revealed one or more instances in which information may have been obtained in violation of the law. Indeed, the FBI’s procedures were so slipshod, the report concludes, that it didn’t even keep proper count of how many such letters were issued. The use of these letters ballooned from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005 — but that "significantly understated" the real numbers, the report found.
Beyond that — and perhaps the most disturbing revelation in a disturbing document — the FBI came up with a category of demands called exigent letters, in which agents got around even the minimal requirements of national security letters. These exigent letters — signed by FBI counterterrorism personnel not authorized to sign national security letters — assured telephone companies on the receiving end that investigators faced an emergency situation and that subpoenas or national security letters would follow. In fact, according to the account of the more than 700 such letters, many times there were no urgent circumstances, and many times the promised follow-up authorization never happened.
Should we believe none of these letters were used for political manipulation? The FBI is certainly not without improper political influence. In the case of attorney David Iglesias there is even a hint:
Mickey D. Barnett, another top Republican lawyer in the state, who once served as an aide to Mr. Domenici in Congress and represented the Bush campaign in New Mexico in the 2000 and 2004 elections, said he had also complained.
“I would say to Pete and Heather: ‘Look, you guys have some influence; I don’t have any influence. Can we get something done?’ ” Mr. Barnett said.
He said Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had complained to him about Mr. Iglesias as well.
Special Agent Bill Elwell, a spokesman for the bureau office in Albuquerque, acknowledged frustrations but said, “We understand that public corruption cases take time, and it’s important to get all your ducks in a row before you prosecute.”
Here the U.S. Attorney’s investigation of possible fraud of a Democratic candidate took time until after the election. Why would the FBI complain about that?
Are we to believe that undocumented issuance of some 10,000 FSLs plus some 700 known illegal exigent letters include no cases where information was sought for political reasons?
In a tight vote in Congress, how much leverage could Karl Rove have gained through the knowledge of financial or other private details of representatives and senators? A mistress here, a stock manipulation there …
Just like Marshall and Krugman think there are more politics behind the U.S. Attorney (not) firing, I believe there are also some politics behind the issuance of such FSBs.
All of this yet leaves out the illegal NSA phone tapping that happens by circumventing the FISA process. There too cases of political influence are more likely than not.
Even republican operatives think the show just started:
several Washington lawyers and GOP strategists with close ties to the White House said last week that lawmakers and conservative lawyers are nervous that Gonzales may not be up to the job.
"This attorney general doesn’t have anybody’s confidence," said one GOP adviser to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could be candid. "It’s the worst of Bush — it’s intense loyalty for all the wrong reasons. There will be other things that come up, and we don’t have a guy in whom we can trust."