Questions for Karl Rove – and President Bush
The stealth dismissal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration carries echoes of the Nixon administration firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. Now, as then, we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government. If left to fester, they will poison our system.
Cox was investigating White House misdeeds when Nixon told Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. Richardson refused and resigned, as did Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Third-in-charge, Robert Bork, complied, and the “Saturday Night Massacre,” as it was called, came to epitomize an imperial administration, acting above the law and using its power to interfere with legitimate processes of justice.
Outrage among the American people triggered the impeachment inquiry against Nixon and his eventual resignation.
In the current U.S. attorney massacre, the public outrage and the line of inquiry invited by these events feel eerily familiar: Why were these eight U.S. attorneys ousted? Why did the Justice Department misrepresent the reasons for the firings? Why were political aide Karl Rove and other top administration advisers involved in the decisions of whom to fire? Why is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ aide who helped coordinate the firings, Monica Goodling, invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress? And what did the president know and when did he know it?
So far the press and Congress have followed evidence of two patterns of firing – for refusing to smear enemies and refusing to protect friends. Fired prosecutors David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Washington would not pursue criminal voter fraud charges against political opponents in the way the administration wanted. Fired U.S. Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego had prosecuted and was investigating Republicans.
Removal of Frederick A. Black in Guam immediately after he began investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Bush friend, may be been a precursor to this.
A third firing pattern may exist: using firings to influence election outcomes.
E-mails suggest political strategist Rove’s involvement. Rove’s job is helping his wing of the GOP win future campaigns. What does that have to do with firing judicial appointees?
Consider the districts they served in: Arkansas, site of Hillary Clinton’s first steps into politics as the state’s first lady; San Francisco, Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district; Nevada, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s state; New Mexico, presidential candidate Bill Richardson’s state. North Carolina, home of former senator and presidential hopeful John Edwards, was considered but passed over by the Bush administration’s ax.
Arizona, where U.S. Attorney Paul Charleton, with a particular reputation for excellence, was fired, is home to presidential candidate and sometime Bush critic John McCain. Michigan, where the prosecutor was inexplicably fired, is home to chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a staunch Iraq war opponent, Carl Levin (up for re-election in 2008). Arizona and Michigan are both important swing states, where vote suppression or trumped up charges could tip the balance in an election.
Let’s get to the bottom of this. Congress has many tough questions for Rove and others that need asking and answering now. How were the ousted prosecutors selected? What do the reported 16 to 18 days of missing e-mails say?
President Nixon’s office managed to erase audiotapes with key evidence, which became one of the grounds for his impeachment. The current missing e-mails may present the same obstruction of justice.
The president must be questioned, too, along the same precise lines as in Watergate: What did he know, and when did he know it?
Federal prosecutors have extensive powers and substantial budgets. We need them to investigate mob racketeering, terrorists (homegrown and international), human trafficking, market manipulations, government fraud, environmental crimes, violations of civil liberties and other criminal activities. Deploying them to conduct witch-hunts of politicians of opposing views or to suppress votes is a blatant misuse of their important power.
If Rove or President Bush tried to do this, it is they who need firing. A president must uphold the law, not to subvert it for political or partisan ends. As we learned in Watergate, our Constitution and our shared values are more important than any single officeholder.
Holtzman, former prosecutor and member of Congress who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment proceedings, and Cooper an attorney, are co-authors of “The Impeachment of George W. Bush” (Nation Books, 2006)
© 2007 The San Diego Union-Tribune
“The stealth dismissal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration carries echoes of the Nixon administration firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. Now, as then, we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government. If left to fester, they will poison our system.”
The system has been poisoned for many years by innumerable individuals whose thinking is just that—poisonous.
Any system depends on the people who work it—and even the people who ignore it and feel far removed from it.
Nothing happens in isolation. When life is not lived in its ever-increasing values of wholeness, the parts of life will wither. We get the government we order up and deserve.
Bingo! The authors have nailed it. EVERYTHING these stinking, filthy, criminal, lying republican do - is POLITICAL. Of course the reasons cited are the reason behind the firings. Go get them Democrats, save us from fascism, save us from ANOTHER republican crime family.
A Justice Dept. staffer taking the Fifth! What next, bodies found dumped with concrete at the bottom of a river?
How about Patrick Fitzgerald for next Attorney General? I’ll bet Bush could get one of those up or down now votes he is so fond of with a candidate like that!
Elizabeth Holtzman, sorry Cynthia, was my hero then and continues to be–along with Barbara Jordan. To add a point to the Saturday Night Massacre it was Robert Bork who ended up doing the firing–as I recall.
Another point that was “touched” on yesterday at the hearing, particularly by Senator Specter who seemed more outraged that the Senate was being snubbed rather than the high-jacking of democracy was the Patriot Act “revisions/additions” that were made secretly to allow the president to put people in office (AGs) until the end of his term.
These are all “real stories” but I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to Karl Rove et. al. these are well thought out strategies and I’d like to know why–simply because that provision has been removed that we are not hearing more about this. The real fear here (among many) is that a staff person made a substantive change to the balance-of-power between branches of gov’t. and got it put into legislation!
I would like to see legislation proposed by both houses of congress that all legislation will be released to the internet and revisions and final drafts et. al. will be placed in the public domain prior to voting. The technology we have today allows for this to occur with little effort. I’m not asking that we (the public) get to “weigh-in” on the legislation point by point, we can contact our represenatives for sure; I am suggesting that the public should be able to read legislation and it should be a requirement that any law, amendment, revision or anything else be submitted to the public record for vetting and review prior to final passage. What’s a couple of days in this process?
If the democrats had not won the house and senate in November of 2006 we would not be hearing about 90% of this stuff right now. We might have found out about it–but too late.
Is the new AG in Arkansas, who was put in office using this “law” in the Patriot Act there for the full 21 months now, or because the law has been changed can they call him up before the Senate?
I honestly believe Mr Bush can plausibly testify to being unaware of anything to do with this.
On the other hand it strikes me as curious for Mr Cheney’s role to be unremarked on, unexamined and unquestioned.
Listen Up! Don’t mean to break up the party here, but we have a major fire to put out NOW!
Go back and read Richard Beham’s “George Bush’s Land Mine” just posted here on Common Dreams. Excerpt:
“The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.
Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.
The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That’s the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.
It is why we went to war.”
We have to contact every member in the Congress that is on the the panel to reconcile the House and Senate version of the Supplemental funding bill that just passed both houses of Congress. This “benchmark” has to be stripped out of this bill before it goes to Shrub’s desk!
Go! Go! Go! Do it now! We can discuss Rove et al later!
bill9851:
“I would like to see legislation proposed by both houses of congress that all legislation will be released to the internet and revisions and final drafts et. al. will be placed in the public domain prior to voting.” That is it. Along with the links to sponsors, lobbyists etcetera.
With requirements that all speeches on the floor, all interviews with ‘talking heads’ all commercials must become subjects to computerized quality control on logic, consistency and TRUE/FALSE check out. Such technology exists and widely used everywhere.
The logical conclusion to this line of legislation will be: do we need legislators after all? May be not.
“. Third-in-charge, Robert Bork, complied, and the “Saturday Night Massacre,” as it was called, came to epitomize an imperial administration, acting above the law and using its power to interfere with legitimate processes of justice.”
This is a timely reminder that the judicial wars that produced the Rehnquist-Roberts court were the product of Reagan’s administration to continue Nixon’s lawless executive practices. The euphemistically-named ‘Federalist Society’ made Bork out to be a martyr, when he was (and remains) a party to criminal conspiracy & a political hack, not a jurist.
Our system remains poisoned by Nixonism because Nixon himself went unpunished. We must not permit Bush and Cheney to escape prison for the crimes against the Republic, the Constitution, and humanity.
Yo, Rebel Farmer:
Good on you, man. Like to see the fire in the belly. Just wrote my two Senators (again), got inspired by your ‘Do it Now!’ insistence.
Keep it up.
As long as these criminals can subvert our laws and rig our elections in the process, contacting any of our “elected representatives” is an exercise in futility. We have to take our country back and that means holding every damned one of their feet to the fire, Democrats and Republicans alike. Frankly, I’ve about had it with the whole damed bunch of them with a very few noteable exceptions. Either we have a real democracy or we don’t but let’s not go around pretending that we do, when there are very adept forces in power who are doing everything IN THEIR POWER to make sure we no longer have a real say in who makes and enforces our laws. The democrats better start calling a spade a spade!!!
I DON’T call MY legislators. McCain…Kyl….and my local rep Trent Franks (another rubber stamping sheep)????????? Yeah, that will get me somewhere alright!!
SUPER idea about public disclosure of pending legislation!! Boy would THAT change things! It might even force the reps to actually read them THEMSELVES before voting!! What a concept!
how to get millions and millions on the doorstep and remove these criminals.how many years talking as the inferno rages….
Iran soon…we need to stop them,we all know that fact.
Outer Beltway,
Thanks for the support! I’ve written everybody I can think of including all my own representatives in Congress. Is anybody else listening?
The idea of proposed legislation being made available on the internet is a good one, but it would also take some dedicated, intelligent monitoring by such institutions which could decipher the language and look into the background, sponsorship and likely consequences of the legislation. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that this sort of thing is already being done..just not in a user-friendly way. In California, there is a very good Voter’s Handbook put out before every election which lists all the pros and cons, etc. with respect to ballot measures. Something like this for every bill at both the state and federal levels would go a long way toward transparency in government.
Last December, I heard Elizabeth Holtzman speak at the Ethical Culture center in NYC in favor of impeachment. I couldn’t have agreed with her more. My own most recent argument for impeachment, “Note to U.S.: Impeach or Die,” is at http://www.ericlarsen.net/foodforthought9.1.0.2007.html
The emergency is greater than I ever thought it might become. And time is running out.
Eric Larsen
http://www.ericlarsen.net
Yes…I wrote them too…
IRAQI HYDROCARBON LAW
In response to ‘Rebel Farmer’ and this article, I did a search on ‘Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law’ and found the following post on the ‘Green Party’ site:
Proposed Iraqi ‘Hydrocarbon Law’ Will Require Prolonged U.S. Occupation, Say Greens.
The Iraqi hydrocarbon law, which was drafted with the help of BearingPoint, a U.S. consultancy firm, provides ‘production-sharing agreements’ (PSAs) allowing major Western energy companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, ChevronTexaco, and BP to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil. The PSAs will allow Iraq to retain legal ownership of its oil, but will ensure major profits for non-Iraqi companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Iraq will be the only major Middle Eastern oil producing nation whose oil production is controlled by foreign rather than state-owned companies. The hydrocarbon law will turn Iraq into an oil spigot for western nations, rather than a resource that benefits Iraqis. The drafting process was secretive; few Iraqi officials were allowed to read the text, until it was leaked over the Internet. The law was approved by the Iraqi cabinet on February 26 and now heads to the Iraqi Parliament, which is under heavy pressure from the U.S. to pass it.
U.S. control over oil from the Persian Gulf region has been a stated goal since the late 1990s of the Project for the New American Century, a think tank whose membership has formed the core of Bush Administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Zalmay M. Khalilzad. The Project recommended waging war on Iraq to assert such control….
Full text here: http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_03_05.shtml
Also from another link at OILCHANGE INTERNATIONAL:
Key Facts:
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves - 10 per cent of the world total. There are 80 discovered oilfields, of which only 17 have been developed. Oil accounts for more than 70 per cent of Iraq’s GDP and 95 per cent of government revenue.
The proposed Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more. The law is a dramatic break from the past. Foreign oil companies will have a stake in Iraq’s vast oil wealth for the first time since 1972, when Iraq nationalized the oil industry.
BearingPoint, a Virginia based contractor is being paid $240m for its work in Iraq, winning an initial contract from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) within weeks of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A BearingPoint employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, was hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up a new hydrocarbon law.
BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor.
Full Text Here: http://priceofoil.org/thepriceofoil/war-terror/iraqi-oil-law/
Apart from demanding an answer to this question from my Virginia representatives, I will scout the impeachment crowd on YouTube to see if anything is stirring there.
Everyone should magnify and focus the spotlight of attention this critical issue deserves!!! Thanks for the heads up Rebel Farmer!!! This bloody rape and plunder of Iraqi people needs to be gutted from the bill!!! And, Mr. Bush’s crusading neocons need to be stopped from using other people’s children to pull the trigger for him!
Best wishes and hope
Impeach the Bush neocon empiricists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
IRAQI HYDROCARBON LAW
Additional info on this subject:
The Bush Administration “has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law towards passage,” writes The New York Times’ Juhaz, and has made the law a performance benchmark for the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
It’s not clear whether Kucinich’s proposal to strike the law will garner much attention on the House floor, as no one in Congress has yet publicly supported him. Robert Naiman writes in the Huffington Post, “It’s quite plausible that with a little public attention and lobbying, this amendment could pass.”
Full Text Here: http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1912/Congressman_Seeks_to_Scrap_Iraqi_Oil_Law
Put the heat on folks! The above article is dated 3/14/2007
Best Wishes and Hope
Zeitgeist
You’re wonderful!!! And brilliant! Could you post the comment you made above to the comment board to Richard Beham’s article please? I’m getting nowhere. Some of my posts calling for action on this issue on other comment boards to other articles are getting responses that I’m not staying on topic or are being ignored.
Update: I have written MoveOn, Act For Change, and Common Cause to get immediate action started on this issue. I have already written all my U.S. representatives to get this stripped out of the Supplemental. I have also sent e-mails to Richard Dreyfuss to find out what is going on on the Iraqi side of things. He’ usually pretty good about writing me back. Also sent an e-mail to David Sirato (sp) to see if the Progressive States Network (he’s on the Board) could get an action going. Got any other ideas for me?
Thanks
Will Do!
Zeitgeist!
You didn’t post the same thing that you did here! Those folks need this specific info to get them moving!
Thanks
I’m still trying…….I had the same problem that I’ve had here. The second one went through but not the first. I’ll keep an eye on it.
Bush arrogated to himself the moniker “decider,” thus he stands as already self-confessed for every crime committed by his administration.
Further, the scale of criminality goes far beyond any previous to date and underscores the gross, criminal negligence of Pelsoi’s “impeachment off the table”–a position that should be used to defeat her and those that sided with her in 2008.
Citizen control over the federal government can be re-established as the volume of scandals/illegality infuriates and radicalizes “the middle.” This is feared greatly by corporatist Democrats like Pelosi, but events are starting to gather momentum on their own; it’s up to us to further that momentum in local and state forums, with the upcoming Easter recess providing a prime opportunity. We are approaching a “Populist Moment”–something not seen here for 120+ years.
I have written to my rep. in Congress and will write to my Senators about the Iraq Accountability Act’s hidden provision re Iraq’s oil. Yesterday, I sent Behan’s article to my list of 104 people to whom I regularly send articles from CommonDreams.
We all need to organize, organize, organize to impeach Bush & Cheney and to end the rampant ballot fraud in every state so that we have a chance of electing a better president and Congress in 2008.
Margalo - Good Work!!! Thanks! Go on over to Behan’s article comments and tell me if you think there is anything else we can do to get this snowball to get a whole lot bigger!
IMPEACH NOW!!! Support electionand campaign finance reform NOW!!!!
To Rebel Farmer and everyone-
There are too many individual issues to fight, except by writing to Congress to keep them aware. The only real solution I see is impeachment. In order to do that and to end ballot fraud and support publicly funded campaigns is to organize locally. We need to both focus on those issues and be sure to complain about other issues, such as the loss of habeas corpus.
All of us who spend hours online reading and commenting should spend part of that time in organizing other people, friends & neighbors, etc. Most of them are not as aware of every detail as we are, but more importantly need help to find a way to make their voices heard. Marches and vigils help to keep the Democrats aware of an active constituency, as do the calls, letters and emails. The more people become aware, the more they will speak out.
It is not too early to oppose Clinton, who is not going to bring us any change.
She is not different from Bill, in that the DLC (of which she is a member) is pro NAFTA, CAFTA & WTO. She will only help health insurance companies not back single payer universal health care. She will not take Iran “off the table” and is a toady to AIPAC. She is fearful of losing the big money support and has no plan whatsoever to improve the lives of Americans or our foreign policy.
Most of the Democrats running are afraid to step out of the pack and back the same issues that Kucinich does so eloquently. We need to pressure them to realize that the public is far ahead of them, as many polls have shown over and over regarding every social issue.
As a person of the 60s, I have learned perspective and patience. Changing the huge ship of political policy takes more time than we gave it in the 60s & 70s, but every small action we do creates ripples that make a difference.
Margalo - You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. The organization that you want is already in place and it’s huge and effective. We are in fact winning the fight. Right now! Today. Go on over and check out Common Cause. Or visit fairvote.org or national popularvote.com. You will be amazed at what is happening. United we stand! Our voices WILL be heard! Make it LOUD! LOUDER!!!
Zeitgeist - Could you wander over to Andrew Greeley’s “Bush Team is Adept Only at Bungling”? Kathy has got a great question that I can’t answer.
Thanks
Imagine… if Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) were alive today. I still wonder if his plane crash (while campaigning for re-election) was an accident or murder. What a difference he would have made with all of this swill.
I read your comments about the political turmoil you have in USA. As an outsider, I would suggest that you get computers out of your voting systems, (too easy to hack),get your weird “hanging chads” I think they are called, also deleted, and use a good old fashioned paper form, have taxpayer funded elections so that you can vote for the person, not the bank balance, AND FOR GODS SAKE, VOTE ON A SATURDAY. If the swamp is infested with piranhas, the first job is to drain the swamp.This of course doesn’t fix your and the world’s present problem, but it might help in the future. We are all affected by what happens in America and we are all afraid.
Dear Topsy, You should be afraid, we are too. If people in other countries would mobilize and start pressing for sanctions against the US (we deserve it!), that would help to get the attention of our legislators. When I demonstrated against the Vietnam war, it wasn’t the draft that turned the tide, it was people feeling it in their wallet. I learned a big lesson there.
Regarding the production sharing agreements, Iraq’s government was handpicked and supported by the US. If we’re out, they’re out. That makes it pretty hard for them to say no.
WendyBusk, I don’t wonder if Wellstone’s death was an accident. He was the 2nd Democrat running for the Senate to die in a plane crash shortly before a critical election. How many coincidences does it take to stop being a coincidence?
ANOTHER SORDID USAG SCANDAL
It doesn’t get any sicker than this. First saw a report on this on DISH TV’s INN World Report. No wonder King George is standing behind his AG, he doesn’t want the whole sticking shebang to become public.
greg bacon
ava, mo usa
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/search.asp
Embattled AG now accused in teen sex scandal ‘cover-up’
Attorney General Gonzales among officials who allegedly ignored abuse of minor boys
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution’s teenage boy inmates.
Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.
Ray Brookins, one of the officials named in the report, was a Texas prison guard before being hired at the youth commission school. As a prison guard, Brookins had a history of disciplinary and petty criminal records dating back 21 years. He retained his job despite charges of using pornography on the job, including viewing nude photos of men and women on state computers.
The Republican thugs have a habit, like other gangsters, of commiting criminal acts then playing dumb and faking amnesia. For example, remember the Florida recount? Remember the Georgia Voter ID law? Remember Cheney shooting Harry Whittingdon in the face? Once their criminal behavior is exposed, the corporate media makes excuses for them and pretends that there is “no proof” that wrong-doing has occurred. This patently politically-inspired removal of US Attorneys is deja vu all over again.
Judicial Selections
Contrary to statements from Bush and his supporters, the president does not have the constitutional right to select whomever he pleases for judicial positions–he is duty bound to select the persons most suitable for sustaining our democracy without political interference.
Given the unprecedented abuses of this administration in this respect, it is now clear that selection of federal justices requires far more scrutiny than now required. This includes, and especially pertains, to Supreme Court justices given their life long tenures and gravity of their decisions.
As a minimum judicial selection should require approval of a 2/3 senate majority. This would not mandate a constitutional amendment. Article II, Section 2 (2) states that “judicial selection shall be with the advice and consent of the senate” with an earlier reference to a required 2/3 majority for treaties.
Robert Settgast
San Rafael, CA
415-492-1747
rhsettgast@hotmail.com
Just read Rebel Farmer’s March 31st, 2007 6:31 pm, post–When I said to organize, organize, organize, I meant to organize your family, friends and neighbors to speak out. Many people need more information or don’t know how to speak out.
I was not talking about reinventing other organizations, many of whom are doing a fine job. But it would help them for us to get more people to join in the struggle.
As to election reform organizations, I would recommend blackboxvoting.org and verifiedvoting.org, who are the most effective regarding computer machine voting. I am VP Legal of the Institute for Fair Elections, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit), which is concentrating on registration fraud (padding the voter rolls) and the failure of counties and states to comply with HAVA, which requires that those lists be purged 90 days prior to each election. California’s has not been purged of old registrations for many years! Some of these phony registrations are being regularly voted, mostly by absentee ballots. Our website will be operational soon at instituteforfairelections.org.