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Senators Expand Inquiry of Political Prosecutions
The question of whether any of the 85 U.S. Attorneys who were not fired by the Bush administration may have engaged in political prosecutions blew open Tuesday, when key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded files pertaining to a botched prosecution in Wisconsin.
Committee chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and five other senators have asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for documents dealing with the case of a Wisconsin state employee who was tried in a case that played out during the course of the 2006 gubernatorial race in that state. Republicans used the prosecution as part of a television attack campaign aimed at defeating Democratic Governor James Doyle.
U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic obtained an election-season conviction of the state employee, Georgia Thompson, on charges that she steered a state contract to a Doyle donor. But a federal appeals court last week overturned that conviction with a stinging decision that complained about a lack of evidence. One of the appeals court judges said Biskupic's case was "beyond thin."
Biskupic, who also investigated Republican-pushed charges of "voter fraud," which proved to be without validity, was not one of the eight U.S. Attorneys fired by Gonzales in what appears to have been an attempt to purge prosecutors who refused to use their positions to advance the agenda of White House political czar Karl Rove and other GOP operative.
Rather, Biskupic was one of the 85 U.S. Attorneys who met the standards applied by Gonzales and the Bush White House.
At issue, of course, is what those standards required of the federal prosecutors who retained their jobs. Were they expected to conduct politicized prosecutions? More importantly, did any of them conduct prosecutions on a schedule designed to benefit Republican electoral prospects?
Leahy and his colleagues have begun the process of seeking answers to those questions, with a request for documents detailing communications between Biskupic and the White House and the Department of Justice, as well as information about communications between the Department of Justice and Republican political operatives concerning cases in Wisconsin.
In their letter, Leahy and New York Senator Chuck Schumer, California Senator Diane Feinstein, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Wisconsin Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, explain that, "We are concerned whether or not politics may have played a role in a case brought by Stephen Biskupic, the United States Attorney based in Milwaukee, against Georgia Thompson, formerly an official in the administration of Wisconsin's Democratic governor. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was reportedly so troubled by the insufficiency of the evidence against Ms. Thompson that it made the unusual decision to issue an order reversing Ms. Thompson's conviction and releasing her from custody immediately after oral arguments in her appeal."
The request is significant for two reasons — one involving the Wisconsin case in particular, the other involving the broader direction of the Senate's inquiry into political prosecutions.
First, the senators know that there are documents in the possession of the Bush administration detailing the desire of Republicans in Wisconsin to have Biskupic pursue cases that matched their political agenda. Thus, this is not a fishing expedition, but rather a targeted request for memos that have already been confirmed to exist.
Second, the senators have clearly signaled their intent to take the committee's inquiry beyond the narrow confines of a discussion about the eight fired U.S. Attorneys. As they say in their letter, "One of the central issues in our investigation is whether the Department of Justice has improperly encouraged U.S. Attorneys to pursue, or to refrain from pursuing, politically sensitive cases."
What ought not be forgotten is that, while the Wisconsin case has blown up in recent days, concerns have also been raised about the politicization of prosecutions by sitting U.S. Attorneys in New Jersey and other states.
Ultimately, the big story of the scandal at the Department of Justice will not be that of the eight fired prosecutors. It will be that of the 85 who were not fired, and of what they did or did not do to keep their jobs.
John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
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Show AllThat poor woman lost her job, her reputation, and her freedom! She was framed so that the Bush gang could say that the Democrats are corrupt, too.
It would probably take lifetimes to piece every illegal indecent thing this adminstration has done and continues to do in its reach for absolute power. Undermining US intelligence to fix a case for war, being part of a Supreme Court that ruled against the popular vote--thereby violating wisdom and ethics--to decide who the president should be (and my God! Look what has followed this folly, this aversion of JUSTICE!) and the economy ransacked, the military in tatters, New Orleans in residual stagnation. What has this administration improved upon? If the US was a corporation, they'd be thrown out! Even stockholders would not consent to the growth of "paper" money when all else has been sold out, decimated or slashed and burned. I hope some from our times are alive when history catches up to give them the condemnation their lack of ethics so richly deserves. And if the spiritual teachers I have studied are correct, (and I hope this presents a consolation to readers as aggrieved as I am) every one of these morally bankrupt power hungry "leaders" is going to have to pay back every life they took, every misery they bequeathed to others, particularly the innocents. And that's the work of lifetimes! "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me," so sayeth a HOLY spirit. There is a system of law much higher than the travesty being danced in our midst as our nation increasingly comes to resemble the Titanic.
Siouxrose, my sentiments exactly. It gets tiring to write the same things over and over about everyone involved with this administration. I've been reading more about Leo Strauss and the amazing fact that how so many people in this administation adhere to this man's philosophy. In the Straussian scheme of things, there are the wise few and the vulgar many. But there is also a third group – the gentlemen.
The wise are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognise neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the "higher" pleasures.
The second type, the gentlemen, are lovers of honour and glory. They are the most ingratiating towards the conventions of their society. They are true believers in God, honour, and moral imperatives. They are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice at a moment's notice.
The third type, the vulgar many, are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe.
Strauss believed in the covert governance of the wise. This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate them.
For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which the vulgar many have triumphed. It is the age in which they have come closest to having exactly what their hearts desire – wealth, pleasure, and endless entertainment. But in getting just what they desire, they have unwittingly been reduced to beasts.
Nowhere is this state of affairs more advanced than in America. And the global reach of American culture threatens to trivialise life and turn it into entertainment.
Strauss is a nihilist in the sense that he believes that there is no rational foundation for morality. He is an atheist, and he believes that in the absence of God, morality has no grounding. It's all about benefiting others and oneself; there is no objective reason for doing so, only rewards and punishments in this life.
But Strauss is not a nihilist if we mean by the term a denial that there is any truth, a belief that everything is interpretation. He does not deny that there is an independent reality. On the contrary, he thinks that independent reality consists in nature and its "order of rank" – the high and the low, the superior and the inferior. Like Nietzsche, he believes that the history of western civilisation has led to the triumph of the inferior, the rabble – something they both lamented profoundly.
We the people of the USA are the "rabble" the neo-cons hate and fear so much. I truly hope the "Great Unwashed" finally triumph over these people who are in reality, the remains of the Nazis.
Our country, as many thinking people have known for some time now, is at great peril and the grand experiment begun by the truly wise who founded this once great country is too close for my comfort, to dying.
God help us, the evidence of this president goes even beyond the fears of those of us to worked to see our nation spared from the evil of this administration. One finally hopes that given enough rope they will hang themselves, but again and again this administration has shown a willingness to break the law, lie, and cover up covert activities. Worse than everything done in secret is the effect of the legislation they have pushed through congress eroding the freedoms our patriotic men and women fought and died to preserve. Many of us believe both elections were stolen, that this presidency is illegitimate and if so, after eight years will it willingly give up an office and power that it was never entitled to in the first place. We fool ourselves when we think it is just one man, or two. The executive branch of government controls key powerful positions all around the world. The military, and its private contractors, federal agencies, and access to the court systems. Lets hope that our state governments are alert, these are critical days. We dare not just attempt to wait them out.
SO why the hell is impeachment STILL off the table?!?!
The last paragraph says it all:
"Ultimately, the big story of the scandal at the Department of Justice will not be that of the eight fired prosecutors. It will be that of the 85 who were not fired, and of what they did or did not do to keep their jobs."
This is the story the rightist corporate media has NOT been pursuing, though Air America Radio's very astute Rachel Maddow HAS been emphasizing. Thank God the Senate Judiciary committee is finally awakening to it. We have to push this too and force the issue into wider debate.
Statofthesea speaks about the belief of stolen elections. It is NOT a question of belief -- there is absolute proof for 2000 and clear reasons to doubt the 2004 outcomes, from the exit polling to election fraud to the rigged Ohio recount for which two employees are serving time. The NY Times printed in November 2001 that anyway the Florida ballots were counted, Kerry won, but they buried this point deep in the article (paragraph 28?) Thom Hartmann suggests because with 911 they did not wish to question the legitimacy of Bush.
John Nichols is terrific and anyone interested in hearing him speak about some of his stuff should check out his various interviews (Oct. 8, 2006 in particular) by Bob McChesney on WILL radio's Media Matters show: http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/ -- great stuff!
I think I will buy a copy of Nichols' THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT and send it to my congressmember. BOTTOM LINE:
Nancy Pelosi should put impeachment BACK on the table.
I hate to say this BUT I will...nothing changes, nothing happens.. Gonzales stays and will get his government pension when he is no longer AG, Rumsfeld leaves with no punishment for what he's done, Cheney lives on and will not be punished, George steps down 1/20/2009 and nothing will happen to him and the Dems won't do anything so NOTHING will be done to them. Wolfiwitz (sp) still at the World Bank....it's overwhelming but reality. WE THE PEOPLE must figure out at way to take our government back and START GOVERNING again instead of looking for the profit in public service. Pelosi is no different and Feingold, who might have been our best chance, is ineffective and no longer running for PRES....all I can say is we should vote for NONE of these people in the future as none of them are worth our trust. I'm done ranting! thanks dlz