Real question about the fired attorneys

[theesir]

I'm not looking for snotty political feedback merely and answer to a question I can't seem to find an answer to....

 

Why is it a scandal that 9 Federal Prosecutors were fired and that the White House may have encouraged it? I was under the impression that the DAs employment was at the discretion of the Attorney General and since the Attorney General is a political appointee, why wouldn't political decisions come into play in the decision of who to keep.

 

I'm not looking for Its the medias fault or Bush Sucks or its the Libs fault.... I really am trying to understand what is the actual "controversy" here?

[JimBob2232]

Yep thats pretty much it. People are angry they were fired for "political reasons". Never mind that bush can fire them if he thinks their teeth are too yellow.

 

Basically, this is a which hunt to try to (further) bring down the Bush administration. Its piling on, and the American people see it for what it is.

 

You know how when you are really mad at someone, you start nitpicking every little thing they do....thats what this is, democrats throwing a temper tantrum.

 

The ultimate goal here is to get Rove or (preferably) Cheney under oath and then get them to say something under oath that contradicts something they have said some other time. Some little tid-bit that they remembered incorrectly or something minor to bring up purjury charges. Thats the goal here, make no mistakes about it.

 

So, your inclination is correct, this is a non-story.

[IDBillzFan]

JimBob is correct. There is no controversy. This is simply the Democrats flexing their new muscles as they position themselves for the next presidential election.

 

If they keep this stuff up, it is going to bite them in the ass very, very hard.

[Bungee Jumper]

I'm not looking for snotty political feedback merely and answer to a question I can't seem to find an answer to....

 

Why is it a scandal that 9 Federal Prosecutors were fired and that the White House may have encouraged it? I was under the impression that the DAs employment was at the discretion of the Attorney General and since the Attorney General is a political appointee, why wouldn't political decisions come into play in the decision of who to keep.

 

I'm not looking for Its the medias fault or Bush Sucks or its the Libs fault.... I really am trying to understand what is the actual "controversy" here?

 

 

The actual controversy, as far as I can understand it, is that they were investigating Bush's friends/cronies/fellow conspirators/whatever, and apparently there's a hidden clause that says the President can only make decisions when he has no interest in the outcome of said decisions.

 

At least, that's the story I've seen. I don't know if it's true, and I don't particularly care.

[erynthered]

The actual controversy, as far as I can understand it, is that they were investigating Bush's friends/cronies/fellow conspirators/whatever, and apparently there's a hidden clause that says the President can only make decisions when he has no interest in the outcome of said decisions.

 

At least, that's the story I've seen. I don't know if it's true, and I don't particularly care.

 

 

Check with Coli's blogs. They know. And I dont care, if you dont care.

[Johnny Coli]

I am the only one that really knows what is going on, but I'm too fashionably angry to stab it all out on my keyboard. Rest assured though, buddy-boy, it will be friggin' huge!

[Bungee Jumper]

I am the only one that really knows what is going on, but I'm too fashionably angry to stab it all out on my keyboard. Rest assured though, buddy-boy, it will be friggin' huge!

 

 

[Chef Jim]

I am the only one that really knows what is going on, but I'm too fashionably angry to stab it all out on my keyboard. Rest assured though, buddy-boy, it will be friggin' huge!

 

Can I start to head home, or shall I wait?

[erynthered]

Can I start to head home, or shall I wait?

 

 

Don't bother waiting. His Blogs are sent to him intravenously while he sleeps. Its kind of a Howard Dean/Al Gore Dracula thingy.

When he awakes, they go through a Jack Nicholson thingy. HEEEEERE"S JOHNNNNNNY! Scary, really.

 

Go home, get some rest. Molson and Holcomb will keep their father fed. Bloodletting starts in ten minutes.

[VABills]

The actual controversy, as far as I can understand it, is that they were investigating Bush's friends/cronies/fellow conspirators/whatever, and apparently there's a hidden clause that says the President can only make decisions when he has no interest in the outcome of said decisions.

 

At least, that's the story I've seen. I don't know if it's true, and I don't particularly care.

Actually, I believe that the Bush White house was upset with some of them because of the midterm election. Seems several of the democrats were under investigation and the Bush WH wanted the indictments served before the election. Cases like Johnson etc... were moving too slow and it was felt the Attorneys were holding it up, either to spite the WH or just inept at their jobs. Either way it's felt that they caused the election to swing into the favor of the dems and now the dems are sticking up for them knowing how much they cost the repubs the election.

[SilverNRed]

Don't bother waiting. His Blogs are sent to him intravenously while he sleeps. Its kind of a Howard Dean/Al Gore Dracula thingy.

When he awakes, they go through a Jack Nicholson thingy. HEEEEERE"S JOHNNNNNNY! Scary, really.

 

Go home, get some rest. Molson and Holcomb will keep their father fed. Bloodletting starts in ten minutes.

So it's like The Matrix? Johnny plugs this giant metal thing into the back of his head every night and it pumps him full of liberal marching orders and vintage punk rock music?

 

I heard Molson signed up for one too but his brain didn't meet the "system requirements"....

[VABills]

So it's like The Matrix? Johnny plugs this giant metal thing into the back of his head every night and it pumps him full of liberal marching orders and vintage punk rock music?

 

I heard Molson signed up for one too but he didn't have a brain which is a "system requirements"....

 

 

Corrected.

[Bungee Jumper]

Actually, I believe that the Bush White house was upset with some of them because of the midterm election. Seems several of the democrats were under investigation and the Bush WH wanted the indictments served before the election. Cases like Johnson etc... were moving too slow and it was felt the Attorneys were holding it up, either to spite the WH or just inept at their jobs. Either way it's felt that they caused the election to swing into the favor of the dems and now the dems are sticking up for them knowing how much they cost the repubs the election.

 

 

That actually makes the most sense of any tale I've heard so far. It's completely unsupported, of course - but then, so are most of the rest I've heard.

 

And if you think about it, "Bush was pushing for indictments for political gain" is far more worrisome than "Bush was firing attorneys for political reasons".

[PastaJoe]

Actually, I believe that the Bush White house was upset with some of them because of the midterm election. Seems several of the democrats were under investigation and the Bush WH wanted the indictments served before the election. Cases like Johnson etc... were moving too slow and it was felt the Attorneys were holding it up, either to spite the WH or just inept at their jobs. Either way it's felt that they caused the election to swing into the favor of the dems and now the dems are sticking up for them knowing how much they cost the repubs the election.

 

Not quite. This all started because the Justice dept. said they fired the DAs because they were underperforming. The DAs (all Republican appointments by Bush) took exception to this slander on their performance and said there was no notification or documentation to them stating that they underperformed, in fact they did quite well on their performance reviews. It just so happened that these DAs were recently or in process of investigating Republicans and Democrats. In one case in California the DA that prosecuted Duke Cunningham was just about to indict a couple more Republicans, and was fired before she could do so. In another case in New Mexico the DA was called by both Sen Dominici and Rep. Heather Wilson, who inquired about the status of an investigation on a Democrat before the election, and wanted to know if an indictment would occur before the election. Shortly after the conversations the DA was fired. In Washington state the DA who was eventually fired was called and asked by Harriet Myers "why are so many Republicans in the state mad at you?". The bottom line question is not IF the president can fire DAs, but was it done after trying to apply political influence in what and how fast the DAs should be investigating political corruption against the respective parties. It also opens up the question of if these DAs were fired because they didn't follow the political desires of the White House, are there others that kept their jobs because they did. And if that's the case, what confidence can any of us have that in the future a DA will make an indictment based on the facts, not for political advantage. As John Ashcroft said, once a DA takes the oath, they have to be objective and not do the White House's bidding, but serve the nation.

[GG]

I'm not looking for snotty political feedback merely and answer to a question I can't seem to find an answer to....

 

Then why come here?

[Johnny Coli]

There's an excellent interview in GQ with fired US-atty David Iglesias (Purged: A Q&A with Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias (3/28/2007).

 

It's a pretty interesting insider's view (from the point of view of one of the fired USA's, of course) on what went down. It's important to remember here that this was a Bush appointee, and a faithful career Republican. Unfortunately for Iglesias (and several others who were purged), integrity isn't as high on Bush/Rove's list as mindless loyalty.

 

Last December, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, along with seven of his colleagues, was "asked" to resign. The move was a head-scratcher: Only ten US Attorneys had been fired mid-term since 1982—and of those ten, eight were for completely justifiable reasons. (One, for instance, bit a stripper.) But these firings came in a cluster. And most of the USA-8, as the purged attorneys are being called, had strong records: a large number of cases prosecuted, high conviction rates. Iglesias, in particular, was a star—a 49-year-old former JAG lawyer, "a diverse up-and-comer" according to a Department of Justice evaluation, and someone who was being considered for the U.S. Attorney slots in both D.C. and Manhattan. Then, before he knew it, he wasn't.

Iglesias isn't a stupid man. You don't get to be a US-atty for being a naive person. Subsequently, he's very keen on who had him fired him and why.

 

We don't know for sure yet, but how deeply do you think Rove was involved in the plan to fire you guys?

 

 

I'm sure his fingerprints are all over this. His greatest strength is his greatest weakness: He views everything in political terms. But you can't treat U.S. Attorneys in the criminal justice system like just another political problem, because we're not. We have more responsibility and more authority than anyone in federal government with the exception of some generals and admirals that are running wartime operations. We take people's lives away, we take their property away, we take their liberty away. Those are serious things. And you cannot let politics infect that process. Rove never understood that. We were just another political hire.

 

Politicizing the DOJ, and removing prosecutors with integrity in swing states. Just business-as-usual for these people.

[VABills]

There's an excellent interview in GQ with fired US-atty David Iglesias (Purged: A Q&A with Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias (3/28/2007).

 

It's a pretty interesting insider's view (from the point of view of one of the fired USA's, of course) on what went down. It's important to remember here that this was a Bush appointee, and a faithful career Republican. Unfortunately for Iglesias (and several others who were purged), integrity isn't as high on Bush/Rove's list as mindless loyalty.

 

Iglesias isn't a stupid man. You don't get to be a US-atty for being a naive person. Subsequently, he's very keen on who had him fired him and why.

Politicizing the DOJ, and removing prosecutors with integrity in swing states. Just business-as-usual for these people.

No offense there Johnny. But there seems to be some growing dissatisfaction within the repub party with the President. If it was deemed or even felt within the WH that these guys may have slowed down some of these investigations on the dems, then that could and should be cause for alarm. Who's to say it wasn't politics to help the dems, even if these guys were long standing repubs. If the thought process in the WH that this happened I'd toss them also.