Rooting Out Rove
A 390-page report by the Inspector General is only a small step for mankind in bringing Karl Rove to justice for what he did to the Justice Department in the firing of the nine US attorneys, but it’s a start.
The internal investigation finds political pressure drove the 2006 dismissals but that refusal of major players at the White House and the department to cooperate in the year-long inquiry has left significant “gaps” in understanding what happened.
Investigators’ doubts have led Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint Acting United States Attorney in Connecticut Nora Dannehy, who led the conviction of a former governor for corruption, to continue the probe and decide if anyone should be prosecuted.
The “anyone” list starts with Bush’s White House toadies, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, and goes on to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales…
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21 Responses to “Rooting Out Rove”
Waiting for Rove et al. to be frog-marched in front of the press is SO 2007.
And conservative bashing of Clinton for the bailout is so 1996!
Rove slid out of the grasp of the special prosecutor for the Plame scandal— lets see if he can pull it off twice in a row!
I eagerly await Robert Stein's post of outrage when President Obama fires all of the current U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration . . . or perhaps even halfway through a term, as Clinton did.
The WaPo article is a bizarre conflation of different stories and issues.
What Stein . . . and the Democrats who have been howling about this story . . . seek to obscure is the fact that U.S. attorneys can, of course, be fired at any time as they serve at the pleasure of the president.
Any question of illegality involved here is whether a firing was connected to a complaint that the attorney was doing a job (i.e., obstruction of justice).
In regard to the Clinton mid-term firings, it has been shown that complaints to the WH triggered these.
The response from the media: yawn.
Conyers – a central prosecutor in this – has been tossed this bone by Pelosi, when she pulled his calls for impeachment from the table. Conyers was never particularly interested in pursuing any Democratic scandal. . . certainly not the possibility that Clinton fired an attorney after a Democrat complained.
This is a partisan attack on Rove et al. Prosecution is not even an objective. It is doubtful whether any is possible. Conyers and Leahy have considerable resources in pushing this . . . and Rove is forced to hire his own lawyers.
The Democrats are punishing Rove for hammering them in 2000 and 2004. That is really what this is about. If the Democrats cared about Justice . . . well, there are the Clinton firings . . .
What? MoveOn…MoveOn . . . no story there
Um, kritt, are you responding to my post? If so, please let me know where exactly you found me bashing Clinton over the bailout?
At most, I have said the fiasco is full bi-partition, and the roots run all the way back to the Johnson administration.
There is more than enough self-serving political double-dealing for generations underlying this current crisis that no one party or administration or person has to take the fall. It is a collective failure of the highest order.
IMHFO.
Marlowecan said: “I eagerly await Robert Stein's post of outrage when President Obama fires all of the current U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration . . . or perhaps even halfway through a term, as Clinton did.“
Marlowecan,
Your comment shows that you are not at all familiar with:
a) the fact that EVERY TIME a new administration comes into power the old administrations U.S. Attorneys are replaced with new ones just as members of the old Presidents Cabinet are replaced with new.
b) The firing of U.S. Attorneys that the Inspector General probe investigated has absolutely nothing in common with the turnover that takes place when a new administration comes into power.
SteveK . . . I am VERY aware of the fact that when every administration comes into power they replace all the AGs.
I spent many posts arguing this whole issue at TMV back when this was first raised.
Firing at the beginning is no big deal. Firing mid-term – the Democrats said – was unprecedented.
However, Clinton did fire mid-term . . . just as Bush did. Those AGs Clinton fired were fired because of lobbying at the Clinton WH by concerned Democrats.
No one cared about Clinton's firings, because AGs were generally regarded as serving at the pleasure of the president.
People are howling about Bush's firings – similarly mid-term.
Curiously, it is the Democrats doing the howling.
Perhaps not so curiously, the chief howler – Rep Conyers – is widely known for his Ahab-like pursuit of Bush, demanding impeachment, for many years.
Of course this is purely partisan. Thus, it does not rise to serious scandal level. Serious scandals . . . Watergate for example . . . produce bipartisan outrage.
AR
Yes, and no. Yes I was responding to your post, but no I wasn't calling YOU out in particular since I have no idea what you think about Clinton's role. I was just commenting on some of the cons arguments on this site before the bailout vote. BTW- I agree that it is too complex to fix blame on a single person or entity.
Rove's name has come up during every investigation of almost every scandal during the Bush admin- the Plame outing, the US attorney firings, the Justice Dept's pursuit of Ala Gov Siegelman, the missing WH emails, etc etc– but he just seems to skate by.
The problem, Marlowe, however, is that it is Mukasey, the current Republican-appointed AG who has appointed a prosecutor, based upon the Justice Dept.'s own investigations and suspicions. If this were still only the Democratic-controlled Congress working on this, we could get into the debate of how these firing are and are not like previous administration firings. But, here we have the Republican AG calling for the investigation. Can't just blame Dems.
“I am VERY aware of the fact that when every administration comes into power they replace all the AGs.“
Marlowecan – If you are VERY aware, why would you be “… eagerly await Robert Stein's post of outrage when President Obama fires all of the current U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration.” ?
“Of course this is purely partisan. Thus, it does not rise to serious scandal level. Serious scandals . . . Watergate for example . . . produce bipartisan outrage.“
As pacatrue says above “it is Mukasey, the current Republican-appointed AG who has appointed a prosecutor, based upon the Justice Dept.'s own investigations and suspicions.”
IMO – Watergate wasn't as much about a break-in as it was about the Constitutional Crisis created by the Nixon administration. The Watergate Investigation was about lies, cover-ups and Nixon's attempt to expand and abuse the powers of the Executive, exactly what the U.S. Attorneys Investigation is about. … Sound familiar?
The environment in today's Washington is completely different than in Nixon's time. It is much more partisan, and there is so much more of a gotcha mentality. IMHO, if Watergate happened today there would be so much stonewalling that no from the WH would ever go to prison.
The lessons learned from Watergate appear to be learn how to cover your tracks, surround yourself with loyalists, and hire AG's who won't let investigations go all the way to the top.
Marlowecan: Firing at the beginning is no big deal. Firing mid-term – the Democrats said – was unprecedented.
You're kidding, right? The problem here is that the Bush admin fired AGs he himself put in place — IN HIS SECOND TERM, not his first. That is what was unprecedented. You seem like a smart person — do you really fail to see the difference?
Either the AG's serve at the President's discretion, or they do not. The fact of this matter is exceptionally and unusually clear for a legal point of order – they DO serve at the President's discretion.
So, WHY they are fired, unless conclusive proof of termination against protected class employee rights can be demonstrated, and WHEN they are fired, are nothing more than red herrings being lept upon by partisans for partisan reasons.
All you out there complaining about the poisoned atmosphere in Washington, here is a great example of it. The only laws that may have been broken, ironically enough, deal with subpoenas issued for an investigation of a non-crime.
And possible perjury- Not to mention obstruction. Its obvious that its not illegal to remove the USA's — but it is improper to interfere with ongoing investigations. If Miers, Gonzo or Rove lied or covered up politically embarassing relevations- its still illegal.
From scanning the WaPo article, it looks like the only possible crimes will be in the coverup. Here's one paragraph:
“But investigators stopped short of concluding that a crime had been committed. Instead, they called for further inquiry to determine the facts underlying the removal of Iglesias and whether department officials had issued false or misleading statements to Congress and the public.”
That has got to be one of the dumbest statements I've ever seen. To attempt to claim that it's perfectly acceptable to fire an AG because he refuses to accept orders that politicize a case means the end of the Justice Department as a government entity that can be trusted to deliver justice.
JS
Well, that was the whole problem with the DOJ under the Bush administration. Gonzales was more Bush toady than AG; and there was an unprecedented number of contacts between the WH and the DOJ. The AG also interfered in cases that were traditionally left to the judgment of the USA's, which is why the dept was demoralized under Gonzales. There's evidence that Rove directed the Justice Dept to pursue bribery charges against Ala Gov Siegelman (D), after prosecutors had already decided not to charge him.
Its possible that there were no laws broken until the cover-up— but that happens all the time in politics– the cover-up may have been to disguise behavior that was embarassing and improper even if it wasn't outright illegal.
Now the precedent has been set for the party in power to use the DOJ to prosecute their opponents and protect their own. If that's not illegal, its certainly highly unethical and damaging to our system of fairness under the law.
Jim – so sorry you are unable to distinguish between facts you don't care for and stupidity.
That opinion is NOT mine – it is the the law. Go read about Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre for more proof. Believe it or not, firing AG's for pursing cases the Executive Branch does not want pursued is absolutely within the right of the Executive Branch, because the Justice Department is NOT an independent organization – is is part of the Executive Branch (another inconvenient fact you may find stupid, but nonetheless true).
The whole reason for the creation of the Independent Council Act of 1978 was to create a class of Prosecutors outside of Executive review and control, which obviously is not needed if they already are outside such control.
So yes, it is perfectly legal, but not necessarily ethical or moral, to fire an AG for refusing to accept order that politicizes a case.
And if you trust the Justice Department (or ANY government agency), you are a bigger fool than I imagine.
If an AG is fired in order to prevent them from completing a prosecution of an individual it becomes obstruction of justice. If there is a conspiracy to commit a crime such as malicious prosecution and the firing of one AG to put a more compliant one in place is part of that conspiracy then it is most likely illegal. A very strong case for prosecution could certainly be made.Things are not nearly so absolute as AR imagines. And AR, I am not responsible for your deeply pathological hatred of our government and everything associated with it nor am I a fool for not sharing it. If in fact evcerything to do with such a large part of our society is so terrible why do you continue to live here? Seriously.
Jim – your ignorance of the pertinent laws is beyond my ability to resolve. The decision to prosecute, or not, or to continue an ongoing prosecution, or not, is pretty absolute in any prosecuting agency. Unless you can find a trail of bribes, for instance, there is almost no way to overcome either prosecutorial discretion or executive privilege. That is what made the Duke case so very, very rare, as an example. But if it makes you happy to believe otherwise, please, go live in your little fantasy bubble.
p.s. – I never said I hated government, just not to trust it, so I am not sure why you want to pin a 'pathological' hatred tag on me. My guess is it is somehow related to a combination of your own inability to tolerate dissent and a hatred of the world (or at least your place in it). But enough trying to be your analyst.
AR,
Frankly, you apparently have no proof that I'm completely wrong because you are simply making your own assertions with no backup. As far as your hatred of government is concerned I come to that conclusion based on your entire history of posting here. I live in a fantasy bubble? Is there any RNC talking point you haven't bought into lately? I think that qualifies as a fantasy world far more than anything I've ever done. As far as your poor assessment of my beliefs, intelligent dissent is one thing, a knee-jerk love of Republicanism is another. Don't expect me to respect it or you.