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JD Scandal Summary
The Justice Department scandal is difficult to follow as it includes various overlapping power grab and cover up schemes.
a.) "Voter fraud" allegations: Part of the Karl Rove plan for an everlasting GOP majority was and is to suppress votes from minorities who usually vote for the Democratic party. This by alleging non-existant "voter fraud" and measures to suppress such "fraud." McClatchy news services today has a good run down how this was carried out in Missouri. To further the scheme Bob Schlozman was installed as interim U.S. Attorney in Kansas and he delivered. (He is no back at the Justice Department.)
b.) Suppression of investigations into the Republican money machine
running through K-Street lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. The San Diego
U.S. Attorney Carol C. Lam was fired for this purpose.
c.) Filling the ranks of non-political Justice Department career jobs
with "pure" Republicans. This was the task of Monica Goodling and Kyle
Sampson under direct advise from Karl Rove. Attorney General Gonzales
tried to exculpatate himself from this by completely delegating his
responsibility for party-neutral hiring and firing to Sampson and
Goodling. When he was told that this would be unconstitutional and that
he had to formaly agree to those decisions, he changed the rules so he
would be only verbaly informed and would only verbaly agree to the
decisions. Leaving no paper trail allows him to claim "not
recollection" of any specifics.
d.) Primary coverups: The use of the Justice Department to coverup
severe wrongdoing by the administration that occured in other fields of
the government and that would usually lead to some criminal
investigation. But a Justice Department run by Alberto Gonzales will
hardly investigate his role as White House Counsel in justifying
illegal torturing of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. It will
certainly not look into manipulated intelligence on Iraq. The most
important issue to be hidden by him is probably the illegal
eavesdropping and circumventing of the FISA court including committed perjury.
e.) Secondary coverups: Actions taken to hide the Justice Department’s
wrongdoings in the cases covered by a.) to d.). Election manipulation,
hiding of party corruption, partisan hirings and suppression of
investigations are all illegal in one or another way and this needs to
be hidden from the public. When an internal Justice Department unit now
starts
to investigate Monica Goodling for partisan hiring, it makes it
impossible for Congress to offer her an immunity deal and to crack the
scheme she was part of. Thereby everything stays within the family.
It will be difficult for Congress to break into this maze and to
force some cleanup and well deserved jailtime for those involved. The
Justice Department is central in doing or prohibiting that and at the
same time the center of the scandal.
Bush can not fire Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales will not resign. The only way to get some deeper look into all of this is to impeach Alberto Gonzales and replace him with a real Attorney General.
But the Democrats are still happy with running some surface
scratching hearings. So don’t expect any real action before late 2008
when it will be to late to go for the top culprits.
Okay kids, let’s go for a ride, get in, and remember to put your seat belts on…it may get bumpy…
Two things first, 1)B, it’s prolly a little late in saying so, but, imo, the title here would have looked better i.e been more clear as: JOD Scandal Summary, anyway, thank you as always for your hard work and dedication, 2)As I know how confusing and time consuming this thing is, I have culled through (hopefully)relevant comments from this, to zero in for better understanding as I have the time since I’m not working at the moment.
Ok, here goes, (Since this is the weekend, and most newsdumps happen then. some may miss this, so FTR)
Update: DOJ Witness Tampering and USAgate: Murray Waas Must-Read, Bloomberg & Newsweek
“Several days after the meeting” corroborates Margolis story — The meeting mentioned in the Newsweek article takes place on March 5, and McNulty is present for that meeting. A few days later, on March 8th, Kyle Sampson shows up at Margolis’ office, with e-mails detailing the extent of WH involvement, which he then takes to McNulty’s office. A couple of hours later, Goodling shows up, and has her breakdown in Margolis’ office. McNulty is telling Congress that, until March 8 when Sampson showed up at his office, he didn’t know the extent of WH involvement. My point is, it looks as if McNulty and Margolis’ testimony are pointing squarely at Rove, Goodling, et al, as the source for the firings. Which means that they don’t appear to be prepared to protect them at their own expense. Which means the pressure on Elston and McNulty, for the phone calls, is working on them, and getting them to implicate Rove and the White House.
Can we say RICO, disbarment, yet? Serious jail time? Hold on…
witness tampering, obstruction, blackmail, payoff’s worse than watergate, indeed.
A commenter clues us in on this:
10 years for each count is what got the Watergate underlings to talk. Bud Krogh said that when his lawyer explained that he might be in prison the rest of his life, he decided he had to tell the truth.
Also, From the comments: (And I wasn’t aware of this), the McNulty, Franklin connection [and crap] Prosecution, Feith’s OSP etc…
I’ve questioned NcNulty’s integrity and ethics for quite a while. As emptywheel wrote in 2006.
“…on August 27, 2004, Ashcroft put Paul McNulty in charge of the” (Franklin) “case, allegedly to handle the investigation of AIPAC “properly.” McNulty has since been promoted to Deputy Attorney General. And in early September 2004, it was reported that Bush was being pressured to keep the investigation at a low level…”
It’s [more than]oddly coincidental that McNulty was promoted and the Franklin investigation was “kept at a low level.” Now, again McNulty’s name turns up as a central figure in another BushCo scandal/cover-up…
Rememberer, from the op update: “January 18th, Gonzo testifies, essentially keeps his end of the “silent” bargain, denies much knowledge or involvement, doesn’t criticize these USA’s in any significant fashion. Emphasis mine… this is relevant because, many are not aware of the political implications, for example from the comments:
Gonzalez “deal” was that he wouldn’t defame the USA’s as long as they played ball. Think of it this way — in most instances, if the Attorney General of the U.S. swears under oath before Congressional Committee that you, as a USA, were fired for incompetence, you may as well resign your license to practice law and start selling shoes.
further, “So by defaming the USA’s and lying about why they were fired, Gonzales and Co. made it nearly impossible for them to continue their professional careers”?
Scorecard:
Another USA – Wong Yang, from LA – left with a hefty signing bonus 1.5 million from Ted Olsen’s law firm while investigating Jerry Lewis. She went from prosecuting to jioning the same firm as his defense. (see tpm) One excellent point, Wiretapping….
”
….they won’t make the same mistake they made at the Watergate. They don’t physically burglarize anymore. It’s all virtual.
Is there any question in anyone’s mind that Congress is spied on?”
I have been saying this from the start…
“we need a comprehensive collection of all this…
I emailed TPM with the suggestion since they have done a lot of the groundwork on this case but I don’t know if Josh has enough assets to pull it all together and make it all concise and easily understandable by folks who aren’t already following it.
What we need is all the players identified.
Their roles. the overall arch of corruption and influence throughout the entire dept. A complete timeline with supporting documents making the case as if you were a prosecutor presenting it to a jury.
I know there are some talented Kossacks with legal backgrounds and journalistic talents who could pull this together. Make a site that walks a person through the whole thing. make sure to make the point that this was meant not only to target Democrats and protect Republicans but to influence elections.”
Finally, There’s [still] a long way to go:
The Committee will need to pursue Elston some more. Only if they get him to flip on McNulty, and then get McNulty to flip on Gonzalez, would it probably get to the point where there would be serious consideration.
Of course, Impeachment isn’t necessarily even a solution. Have you seen Orin Hatch’s treatment of Gonzo? I’m not sure you could get enough votes for impeachment even if Gonzalez admitted it under oath. The current Republican party is so in thrall to GWB that they just can’t see the cliff he’s driving the whole party off of. I remember a couple of years ago when the Republican party was openly saying that from here on in, they were “Brand W” Republicans in the eyes of the American People, and I think a lot of R’s are still “Brand W” R’s, and will be for at least another decade or two.
“Brand W” Republicans? Wtf??
Murray Waas, tpmmuckraker, and others deserve Pulitzer Prize’s for they’re work in all this, and kudo’s for citizen journalism…
Also see
james risser’s posts as well as drational’s
and
dengre for fleshing out nuances…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 5 2007 12:01 utc | 9
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