Justice aide resigns amid prosecutor firings scandal
US News
Apr 6, 2007, 21:55 GMT
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All of them need to go. The congress must call them to witness stand anyways!
Not sure why I should care about a few lawyers being fired. I think Leahy was looking to disect the girl to try to get something on somebody. That's why she quit. I can't say I blame her.
With all due respect Mr. Leahy, why don't you and the Dems take a break from trying to lynch Rove, and Cheney, for a minute. Why don't you see if you can legislate something positive for your county?
Why don't you go after the guys who corrupted 'oil for food' and funneled enough money to Saddam for him think he had bought off the Security Council. Those are the guys who enabled Saddam to believe he could violate his cease fire agreement from the first gulf war, and thumb his nose at the world about the rest of the UN demands.
Those guys provided cash to Saddam and enabled him to prosper under UN sanctions and at least appear to be a major threat to the world. They are probably more responsible for the Iraq war than anybody. Go disect them!
If nobody did anything wrong or lied, why are so many top people resigning and pleading the fifth and making statements which are shortly afterward proven to be false? Are they that scared of a few Democrats questions? I thought this administration had a spine!
Get real is right. There is much more to go after that is actually important such as Pelosi's shadow gov't, paid by US tax dollars trip to Syria!!!
To Get Real,
Today the Pentagon, via a copy of a memo, revealed that the White House asked for manufactured pre-Iraq war intelligence in order to justify invading Iraq. So, politicos invented reasons, e.g., WMD's, the Iraq-al Qaida connection which Dick Cheney this week said on Rush Limbaugh's variety show, was credible intelligence. The right lies so much that they believe their own propaganda. On Republican watch, the Justice Dept. became a political tool, above the law, the veterans of the Iraq war suffered immeasurably by poor care, the bodies of killed veterans were handled like baggage 'to save money', and on and on and on. The new congress has done more in the past 90 days to right these obvious wrongs than the previous one did in two years. So, like your name suggests, maybe you should. Also, Harriet Miers' resignation was so significant; she is a lawyer; she knew what lying to the public meant, so she got out of Dodge, but not beyond the reach of the law...yet.
Anyone who thinks that honesty in our government, and truth in our legal system isn't important, has absolutely no understanding of what gives makes our justice system credible.
Let the oil for food and other scandals be investigated in their day (yes there are many esp under Bush)... none of those makes the need for honesty in THIS CASE less important.
As I stated, the first Get Real post is a fraud ... some immature falsely used my screen name.
Apologies to all ... most of you know I would never spew the crap the writer posted.
Abdullah, (aren't you a butcher?)
Pelosi was there right after THREE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN. Does that make them part of a 'shadow government.' What an idiot you are.
It would oh so delightful if some people learn how the US government is organized.
The lawyers work for the President. The President hires them and fires them. Not the Congress. If the lawyers flatulate the wrong direction, The President can fire them at a whim. Congress can do absolutely nothing about it.
The Democratic leadership has stated 'we will bleed them slowly to death just like in Viet-Nam'.
What does that mean? It means they will trump if scenarios, then trap officials in technicalities. Why do you think Gonzales does not want to testify? Because he is fully aware they will trap him.
Yes, this sounds very much like what President Clinton was trapped with. He was impeached for lying under oath on ... stupid thing - still he lied under oath.
So, the Democratic leadership trumps up a scenario, has hearings in hope (which happened) that the executive branch will make incorrect public statements, have hearings and say something different, then prosecute them under the lying.
Find it a joke. Congress needs to get back to work and do what they supposed to do. Review legislations and deal with legislative branch work.
Yes, the President can fire AG's at will ...
But if he does it with the intent of hindering, or disrupting investigations ... or to punish those who would not cower to his 'political' purposes and , then Congress has every right to investigate ... and should do so ... that's called checks and balances,
THis issue now is about Gonzalez 'lying' undeer oath ... the message records indicate that that has truly happened.
It's no longer solely about Bush's authority to fire AGs ... it's bigger than that.
This is why we are upset about the firing of the attorneys:
1. It is plainly obvious that it was part of a plan to abuse the Justice system to procecute political opponents on flimsy evidence. This is certainly non-democratic.
2. If they were willing to go that far to abuse the office, what was preventing them from taking even more chilling steps like actually putting political opponents in jail? If this happens, we would no longer have democracy at all.
The whole thing just goes to the core of what makes our country a democracy. We have to have a responsible, independent judiciary that keeps both sides of an argument playing fair.
Bush / Rove attempted to subvert this in a huge way by filling the department of justice with corrupt political appointees. Normally, these appointees have to have sufficient qualifications to get confirmed, but in the previous do nothing rubber stamp congress, this didn't happen.
The good thing is that there is a long tradition of professional service in the justice department, and these honest attorneys, judges, and their assistants are simply incensed that their work has been debased into non-democratic vote suppression efforts rather than working for the common good.
They have found ways to get this information to the investigators in Congress, and we are far from the bottom of this. It is beginning to look like there is a huge coverup, What the Bush administration has willingly released looks bad enough already, and if there is a coverup, we could be looking at much more serious crimes, either in the coverup itself or in whatever we don't know about yet.
This administration has been up to its eyeballs in underhanded, dishonest tactics, has scant respect for the rule of law, so it is really likely high crimes have been committed in this scandal.
It is not going away by making references to the hyped-up oil for food scandal that rather vanished when it became very apparent that the main culprits were large American oil companies. That scandal was bad enough, but this one goes to the core values of this country. Our president and his aides were trying to game the system so that opponents could never win an election again.
It's a shame that we have such vicious un-american terrorists trying to hijack the conversation. Though I guess that's what we get for electing such a polarizing, godawful president. Come on neocons, why are you afraid of a few questions? Why can't you stay on topic about this issue? Certainly if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Or does that only work when trying to take away the whole country's rights?
There's definitely something fishy in this administration. Of course, shedding light is nigh impossible with this group. After all, roaches and other vermin love the darkness.
If nothing is wrong here, why does everyone seem to be working so hard to cover it up? Follow this whole story, it's not a lynching, it's a matter of pulling teeth trying to get to the truth that no one in the Executive and Legislative branch want to give.
It's not just the Dems who are angry about this tightlipped approach to explaining these actions, there are a lof or Reps who are very angry too.
A lot of how Leahy got to where he is today is by not being afraid to question authorities. Nobody puts lies in peoples mouths. The echo 'I am not a crook' is ringing strong. These people should be granted Imunity to testify before they get 'pardoned' by Bush for their conspiricy.
Or, at least partially. Gonzales stepped on toes and this is score settling. So be it. Bush didn't step up becaise he's pissed at Gonzales for not coming to him before acting on William Jefferson.
This is Bush dealing with a subordinate who went off the reservation. He's getting Congress to do it for him.
Alberto?
Si?
This is the President.
Si sir?
How's it going?
O.K. Sir.
Good.
Sir, I'm going to testify today.
Thats good, Alberto. Make sure you don't screw th pooch like Louis did.
Si sir.
Alberto?
Yes sir?
By now, even the dumbest f--kin lawyer on earth would realize that you..work for me, get it?
Yes sir.
And, like most everyone has come to realize, nothing good comes from trying to undermine either their boss, or the most powerful man in the world. Since in your case, I happen to be both, that makes you the unluckist spicadero this side of Ensanada.
Yes sir.
So, the next time you go off the f--king reservation, and raid a congressmans office, I'm going to stick a goddamn bell up your ass, have you dumped in a corn field, give the Vice President a bottle of corn whiskey, a bucket of bird shot, and let you run 20 or so yards in front of him, then tell him its open season on Texas Chicano lawyers. I don't give a good goddamn if the Congressman name was Osami Bin Laden, you come to me first boy!
Yes sir.
Since that's probably illegal, even in Texas, and the vice president is a lousy shot, I'm letting Congress take the shots. You take it for th team there Alberto, make us proud.
Yes sir.
You all have a good day Alberto. Don't forget to duck. Vias Condios there amigo!
Si sir.
click.
To the other Get Real, Fraud???? Come on get real! Evidently the M&C system does not care if two people use the same nickname. I don't mind sharing it with you as long as you play nice!
To the others, I read all of your suppositions based upon assumptions. I get that you hate Bush, Rove, and Cheney so you are cock sure that your suppositions and assumptions are accurate. At least one of you acknowledged that firing the lawyers was the president’s perogative. I am not saying your top Bush/Rove/Cheney hunter shouldn't look into it, I am just saying that until somebody shows us some actual evidence that someone did any of what you suppose, I don't believe I will give it much more thought.
In the mean time, why don't we spend a minute on the fact that if the UN sanctions against Saddam had not been circumvented, Saddam may have been compelled to rejoin the civilized world? If Saddam had rejoined the civilized world as, required by the UN, then Bush, et al, would have been in absolutely no position to do most of the things you really hate them for.
If Saddam had to rejoin the human race, who in Congress would have voted to give Bush authority to go into Iraq no matter how badly he may have wanted it?
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