Hand me the tinfoil, honey...

GOP IT "guru" Mike Connell, has been killed in a plane crash in Ohio. He wasn't just any guru, he was deeply connected to every GOP related scandal from the stealing of the vote in Ohio, to the "lost emails" related to the Attorney Purge, to the fraudulent prosecution of Don Siegelman. In fact he had just been deposed in the Ohio vote fraud case and was ready to testify despite having been threatened by Karl Rove, if he "didn't take the fall."

It's also useful to remember that the court just ordered the White House to take steps to retrieve the "lost emails" that covered the period of Katrina, the attorney purge and the outing of Valerie Plame. Connell is said to have hosted some of the accounts on servers in Chattanoga, TN through another of his related companies Coptix. Which leads me to recall that odd alleged April Fool's joke that had the distinct feel of a distraction tactic at the time.

My co-blogger at Newshoggers, Ken Anderson collects the relevant links to the backstory and the analogy to Forrest Gump is apt. Connell was literally present at the scene of every Bush family related crime for at least a decade. Details of the crash are sketchy but Connell is reported to have been alone in the plane and an experienced pilot. That reminds me of the death of Paul Wellstone who died in a similarly odd crash just as he was winning a race against Norm Coleman.

Add to that the other mysterious plane crash deaths listed at the last link and excuse me while I put on my tinfoil suit. I don't think just a hat is enough for this one. Further, considering that Al Franken is now winning the recount against the same Norm Coleman, let me give Al a bit of unsolicited advice. Stay the hell out of small aircraft.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

Gonzo's troubles are not far away

By Libby

In today's news, we get a clue on why Gonzo lawyered up the minute he walked out of the White House. It appears the ongoing investigations into the attorney purge which has been going on for eons now are finally rumored to be near bearing some fruit and good ole Al just might be indicted for lying to Congress. Of course, the operative word is might and even if he is indicted and convicted, one assumes he'll pull a Scooter Libby and fall on his sword only to be pardoned by Bush as he skulks out of office -- assuming he intends to leave.

Still, it would be good to see Gonzo have to sweat it out through trial. A tiny modicum of justice would be better than none at all.

White House clams up

By Libby

I've been cruising around the intertubes today, leaving the occassional comment, answering my own commenters and trying to make sense of the world. But nothing makes sense.

The White House continues to maintain they did nothing wrong in the attorney purge scandal but refuse to produce documents to prove their innocence. It appears the Congress is ready to call their bluff which will surely lead to a constitutional showdown that will likely end up in front of SCOTUS.

Good luck with that since Bush stacked the court with his loyal cronies, but the main thing is the case will likely be tied up in the courts through the end of our Feckless Leader's term so the White House won't have to talk about it, which I'm sure suits them just fine. In fact they're taking the executive privilege claim one step further and forbidding former employees, Harriet Miers and Sarah Taylor from talking about it either.

Talk about confusing. As Atrios asks, "What possible authority does the White House have to try to prevent a former employee from testifying about something?" Good question. Since when does the unitary executive's privilege extend to dictating the testimony of private citizens?

Meanwhile, Steve Benen encapsulates the ludicrous substance of their position.

This makes the tack on Taylor even more confusing. The White House is effectively claiming that a former aide, who no longer works for the administration and is willing to testify, can’t talk about conversations with the president she didn’t have.

You will of course recall that the original position of the White House was that were not involved in the terminations at all. I guess they're hoping the average Jake won't remember that.

Bush also attempted to deflect attention from his own inconsistentcies, accusing Congress of "being more interested in investigating than legislating, noting that Democrats have held 600 oversight hearings since taking control of Capitol Hill in January." And here we thought they were doing nothing.

Well we know that Bush thinks oversight is quaint and not applicable to "war presidents" but I guess he just forgot that it's impossible to pass legislation when his party obstructs the bills from reaching the floor and he threatens to veto anything that doesn't rubberstamp his edicts. Perhaps he didn't notice that his party was voted out of power for failing to conduct those hearings in the first place.

Dems talk tough on subpoenas

By Libby

Having been disappointed by the Democrats' failure to live up to their tough talking rhetoric one too many times, I'm not keen to take too much encouragement from their latest salvo fired at the White House over the White House refusal to comply with Congressional subpoenas but one lives in hope that this time they'll follow through.

The chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees yesterday ratcheted up their fight with President Bush over documents on the firing of U.S. attorneys, sending the White House a barbed letter demanding that the president back down from a claim of executive privilege -- or give Congress a detailed explanation for withholding each document.

The committee chairmen told the White House to provide a signed letter from Bush asserting executive privilege, as well as a description of each withheld document, a list of who has seen the documents, and the legal basis for arguing that they may be shielded from public view.

That sounds pretty heartening to those of us who have been pleading with the Dems to use the power we gave them in 06 to its utmost advantage but there's always that qualifying disclaimer that plants the seeds of the doubt.

Neither Leahy nor Conyers, whose panels are leading the investigation into the Justice Department and the firings, have said how far they intend to pursue the matter legally. Their letter says they "will appropriately enforce our subpoenas backed by the full force of the law."

Well, the full force of the law allows them to ultimately "find the president in criminal contempt and to refer the matter to a federal prosecutor with a recommendation to issue an indictment." This is exactly what needs to happen but the question remains whether the Dems can find the courage to stand up against the GOP's inevitable bleating about partisan witch-hunting and proclamations of political doom and get the job done.

So far, the answer has never been yes and considering the party's recent rhetoric on impeachment, I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to follow through here either. I'll believe when I see it.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

Life is funny but it's not a joke

By Libby

Crooks and Liars has the video clip of the week. Jon Stewart goes where the White House press corps fears to tread. Maybe it's something they put in the free coffee in the press room that causes amnesia or maybe The Daily Show has the only staff capable of searching the archives but it appears Comedy Central is the only media outlet with the guts to point out the obvious discrepancies between the initial statements on the attorney purge scandal and the unfolding reality revealed by the hearings.

"Oh," Stewart concluded, "you will reconcile that by -- LYING!"

And they wonder why young people who want to become informed watch a comedy station instead of CNN to get the news?

Rove operative to change roles

By Libby

It appears to be official. Rove's star pupil in political sabotage, Tim Griffin, now the U.S. attorney in Arkansas who became the face of the ongoing attorney purge scandal, has resigned effective Friday. Think Progress and Raw Story flesh out Griffin's history of hackery which runs all the back to an illustrious record of political back stabbing during the Clinton administration and minority voter disenfranchisement in 2004.

Meanwhile, via TPMmuckracker, it appears Mr. Griffin won't be unemployed for long. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Griffin is being wooed for a top spot in Fred Thompson's impending presidential campaign. I think that pretty much says it all, as Rummy might have said, about the unknown knowns of the mysterious non-declared candidate who has managed to ride to top of popular opinion by so far appearing presidential while saying exactly nothing of substance through creative use of technology.

Unfortunately for him, I think the public has bought that hat trick one too many times and Mr. Thompson will find that no matter how good a coach Griffin may be, simply acting the part is no longer enough to get a ticket to the Oval office. The real winner in this arrangement will be Griffin, whom I assume will command a hefty salary as a prince among smearmeisters.

More questions than answers in attorney purge

That may be about to change. FDL reports that John Conyers has just issued a sunpoena to DoJ for all records relating to firings, including electronic ones, such as say, emails. Meanwhile, we have Senators complaining they suspect the DoJ has been holding out on documents.

Among the missing documents the senators mentioned was a chart cited in a Feb. 12, 2007, e-mail message from Monica Goodling, a former aide to Mr. Gonzales, to other department officials.

Even day seems to reveal a new mile marker on the DoJ's road to ruin that points to Monica. Small wonder Ms. Goodling is reluctant to testify. And it seems difficult to believe that no emails were exchanged over those dicey indictments of Democrats that were handed down at politically expedient pre-election moments, but were later dropped or dismissed when the elections were over.

Speaking of emails, one wonders if the RNC issued laptops are the smoking gun that will finally blow the cover off not only this matter, but the overarching politicalization under this administration of nearly every federal government agency. Considering the reports that Rove conducted nearly all his White House business on an outside email address, I'm thinking this is not just a smoking gun, it's a virtual A-bomb that could likely to blow the cover off the relentless and ongoing hijacking of our democracy for the sole benefit of the Republican party.

Of course, there are naysayers.

Some Republican activists say the e-mail request will not create great difficulty for the White House because nothing nefarious happened and because the RNC automatically purges some e-mails after 30 days.

That certainly raises the question, why only some emails and who set the parameters for which some emails those would be? I'm no technogenius but recalling other investigations in which purged emails ultimately led to criminal convictions, I believe, short of physically destroying the servers -- which I don't put past Rove -- a good forensic computer expert can retrieve information thought to be long erased.

Remember the address, gwb43.com. I think history will record that this account was the key to the closet in Bush's White House where Republican dirty tricks went to hide.

Critics surge on attorney purge

Libby Spencer
[Updated below]

As the kalidescopic array of justifications continue to issue from White House over the attorney purge, they are only becoming further enmeshed in the vast web of their own deceits. Every new excuse only raises greater scrutiny and more questions and it appears the major media have finally decided to do their job and take this story seriously.

The Iglesias firing has become particularly troublesome for the spin doctors at 1600 Penn Ave. After their weak contentions that Iglesias failed to prosecute voter fraud cases ultimately revealed inappropriate interference with his autonomy and illegal political interference in his case load, the new justification became Iglesias didn't spend enough time in the office.

Oops. Somebody should have researched that charge a little better. Iglesias, as it turned out was absent in order to fulfil his duties to the Naval Reserve - hardly grounds for criticism. However, as The Washington Post reveals today, at least six other US Attorney's have been absent from their offices for far greater periods of time in order to do double duty at Justice and other postings in DC.

Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two years -- prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his removal and call Mercer's office "a mess."

Mercer is currently number three man at Justice while the others all also hold high level positions, including "U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria, who was named last month as the new chief of staff to the attorney general." So who is minding their offices at home?

You know this is not going well when even long time White House cheerleader Fred Hiatt jumps off the bandwagon. As Glenn Greenwald points out, only two weeks ago Fred was still shooing the crowds of inquistors along with a hearty, move along folks - nothing to see here but a silly unncessary coverup of a ordinary personnel matter. But in today's editorial Hiatt has significantly changed his tune.

Mr. Sampson's testimony showed that Mr. Iglesias was added to the list after Mr. Rove also complained to the attorney general about Mr. Iglesias's supposedly poor performance on voter fraud. This revelation not only adds to the evidence undercutting the attorney general's professions of ignorance about the whole episode; it deepens the sense that the judgment about whom to fire was influenced, if not dictated, by political considerations.

What prompted Mr. Rove's complaint? Did he speak with Mr. Domenici or Ms. Wilson? Was there in fact a problem with Mr. Iglesias's record on voter fraud? Was he dismissed for failing to bring voter fraud cases that he did not believe were justified by the evidence? Was voter fraud the real reason for his dismissal, or his alleged absenteeism because of military service? Or was it because he failed to produce in time an indictment that could have been helpful to Ms. Wilson's endangered reelection bid?

Good questions and long overdue in the asking. As Glenn said, "Whatever it is that caused Fred Hiatt to make arguments today that are the exact opposite of what he said only two weeks ago, let's hope there is more of it."

Update: TPM reveals yet another little troublesome provision slipped into the Patriot Act renewal that allows residency requirements for these appointees to be waived. Probably not illegal but it does illustrate the whole scheme of centralizing the AG's operations to make politicalization of the office a little simpler.

Attorney purge surges forward

In the latest wrinkle to the Attorney Purge Scandal, Gonzales' top aide will be taking the Fifth on the advice of her attorney. The good news, for those of you who tire of these posts is that I've posted on it to the Detroit News blog, where it appears I'm about to engage in yet another blog spat with Henry Payne, so I'm not going to talk about it here tonight except to give you what I thought was my best quote.

Furthermore, the culture of deceit that Gonzales planted has spread throughout the entire Justice Department and the rats are racing from the stinking cesspool of deception. His top aide, on the advice of her lawyer, is refusing to testify and will take the Fifth rather than incriminate herself. It appears her superiors are looking for a scapegoat for their own criminally false testimony.

Okay, so it's not the best thing I've ever written. I might have come up with a better analogy if I didn't just come off 8 days of work without a break but I am fond of the stinking cesspool of deception imagery. I may use that one again someday.

The power of planned incompetency

Josh Marshall ponders on the real elephant in the room revealed in light of the Attorney Purge scandal. Josh sees the reality in the President's ongoing and steadfast support of Gonzales.

This isn't a case where Alberto Gonzales has fallen short of the president's standards or bungled some process. This is the standard. The Attorney General has done and is doing precisely what is expected of him.

And the president is fine with all of this. Fine with the fact that the Attorney General has not only repeatedly lied to the public but has also been exposed as repeatedly lying to the public. He's fine with at least two US Attorneys being fired for not giving in to pressure to file bogus charges to help Republican candidates.

Of course he's fine with it. Because it comes from him. None of this is about Alberto Gonzales. This is about the president and the White House, which is where this entire plan was hatched. Gonzales was just following orders, executing the president's plans. This is about this president and this White House, which ... let's be honest, everyone on both sides of the aisle already knows.

Indeed all corruption leads to the White House now that true investigations are being conducted and it becomes increasingly obvious that planned incompetence is the preferred methodology to execute their ongoing plots for obtaining and maintaining power.

[Via Hilzoy]

Purge scandal post of the day

Far be it that we let a day go by without remarking on the attorney purge scandal. Kevin Drum has the must read post. He lists nine reasons the DOJ's conduct stinks like three day old fish. Number nine is a real doozy.

DOJ has now had weeks to come up with a plausible story for the firings and they still haven't. This is truly remarkable. Why not just tell the truth? That doesn't take weeks to concoct.

That's the really ridiculous part of this whole scandal. If the White House had simply admitted they were playing politics with the USAs and taken their usual stand of - yeah we did it and so what -- chances are the story would have died in three cycles or less. The sheer stupidity of the response suggests an administration in such dangerous disarray it can't even remember its own best tactics.

As Kevin notes, it's difficult to see how anyone outside of the most loyal dead-enders could be defending the White House at this point.

Say goodbye Gonzales

The latest document dump, tellingly delivered on a Friday, proves rather unequivocally to me, that Gonzales lied to Congress. He said he wasn't involved in the attoryney purge and yet here's a memo that says he chaired a meeting about it. Are we to believe that something that big escaped his attention? That he was out of the loop on the decision? Over 3,000 emails circulated about the matter that we know about. Who can seriously defend the man's veracity?

Certainly not Capt. Ed who wisely notes the longer the White House allows this scandal to build, the more damage it will cause.

One cannot support an Attorney General who misleads Congress, allows his staffers to mislead Congress, and deceives the American people, regardless of whether an R or a D follows his name or the majority control of Congress.

Don't get me wrong. It wouldn't break my heart to see the neo-cons crash into smithereens on the shoals of this scandal, but the last thing I think we need is for the entire GOP to self-destruct in the process. If there's one thing we've learned in the last six years, single party power is not healthy for the republic, no matter which side of the fence you're standing on.

We still need at least two parties to keep the system in balance. One can only hope that common sense conservatives will be able to reclaim theirs once Bush is done dragging it through the neo-con nightmare.

Lam complaints a little too convenient

I'm unexpectedly having to work today so just a couple of quick hits before I go. Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah uncovers a really interesting coincidence. A report on terminated USA Carol Lam that supposedly proves there were performance issues on her handling of smuggling cases wasn't released for almost half a year. It apparently didn't become an issue until Lam started investigating corrupt GOP politicians.

But even more interesting, is the letter of complaint from GOP congressmen about her inattention to immigration cases, also being used as "proof" of her poor performance, was signed by Duke Cunningham, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter and Bill Thomas, all of whom would either be indicted or subject to the investigation of GOP fraud.

Funny, but not a joke.

The White House belongs to the people, not the President

Former White House insider Beth Nolan, who served under Clinton, pens an opinion piece for the Washington Post that in general supports the premise Rove and Miers should testify under oath, but I call BS on this quote.

Out of respect for the separation of powers, Congress should not ordinarily call on such officials for testimony but should leave such officials to devote their attention to their duties for the president. This rationale no longer has force for those who have left the White House, such as Harriet Miers, but even then, communications with the president or internal White House communications about the president's decision to dismiss his appointees should usually be shielded from disclosure. Presidents need candid advice from their counselors, and respecting the privilege enhances the likelihood of such candor.

I'm getting really tired of hearing how the advisors won't be able to give candid advice about personnel matters if they're called on to justify it later. This idea that executive privilege covers such a wide scope is what's wrong with our government today. The insiders have forgotten they work for us. We pay their salaries, dammit, and they're answerable to us for their decisions on how they're running the nuts and bolts of our government.

The President doesn't own the White House, or our country. He's our tenant and our property manager. The taxpayer foots the bills and as such is the landowner and boss, with every right to know what our employees in the White House are doing in our name -- and that includes the President and his ministers.

We've allowed both parties to take the concept of executive privilege too far and it must be stopped here and now. There are certainly some matters of state where secrecy is necessary and advisable. The attorney purge is not one of them.

Gonzales won't quit

This is so irritating. Gonzales is fighting to keep his job and pulling the Holy War on Vice card.

GONZALES: I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done around the country. The department is responsible for protecting our kids, for making our neighborhoods safe, for protecting our country against attacks of terrorism, to going after gangs, going after drug dealers. I’m staying focussed on that.

When all else fails invoke the war on some drugs and porn. And make no mistake, this is what he's talking about.

Gonzales won't resign so he can continue to "protect" our kids by tying up our judicial resources with nanny prosecutions on "crimes" of personal choice between consenting adults. But the administration's drug war has made our children immeasurably less safe from drugs by creating an unregulated black market and the war on porn is just as much a sham.

They're not focusing on child pornographers, they're going after adults and worse yet, our own government is in the porn business itself, even while it indicts other vendors for providing the same titles. If Gonzales thinks calling for more nanny government is going to win me over, he should think again. I'd say it's one more good reason to get rid of him.

What is the White House afraid of?

Sidney Blumenthal at Salon has an idea and I rather like the way he put it.

In the U.S. attorney scandal, Alberto Gonzales gave orders, but he also took them -- from Karl Rove, who plotted to turn the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition.

Rove is up to his eyeballs in this purge. The White House lied when it initially said they weren't even involved in the terminations, and lied again when they blamed Harriet. I would think that alone would be enough reason to compel immediate testimony under oath from the president's minister.

Update: Steve Benen runs down the reasons for oversight.

Senate joins House in calling Bush bluff

I had to correct last night's post, because an alert reader noticed it was a House committee that approved the subpoenas yesterday, but it turns I was just being a little clairvoyant. The Senate did indeed agree today to also authorize subpoenas." The White House reacted predictably.

Presidential press secretary Tony Snow cast the administration's offer to allow Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their deputies talk to lawmakers in private as the best deal Democrats are going to get.

"We opened with a compromise," Snow told reporters. "By our reaching out, we're doing something that we're not compelled to do by the Constitution." But, he added, "The phone lines are still open."

Compromise, my foot. It's a dodge, but I rather liked Leahy's response.

"I have never heard the Senate take an ultimatum like that," Leahy said. "I know he's the decider for the White House. "But he's not the decider for the United States Senate."

Nor is he the decider for the American people. Contrary to the loyalist's contention, this is not a private personnel matter. This is our government. We pay the bills, we pay the salaries and we have the right to know how these decisions are made. And the president is most certainly constitutionally required to disclose that information to all of us.

There is no reason not to give this testimony under sworn oath before a public committee and there is a multitude of reasons they should do so. If we're to trust that the president's advisors aren't going to lie in unsworn testimony, then what's the big problem with them swearing in anyway? It only takes a few seconds and if they intend to tell the truth, then why are so reluctant to put it on the public record?

White House aided Big Tobacco with US Attorney interference

Let's face it. You don't get appointed as a US Attorney because you oppose the administration that appoints you, and you generally don't work for the prosecution side of the justice system because you disagree with the laws or the politics involved, so on some level it's rather astonishing that so many attorneys who didn't get fired are coming forward to chronicle just how widely the Bush administration has politicized the system.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

Unsurprisingly, a GOP led investigation found no wrongdoing at the time but that clearly doesn't mean there wasn't any and worse yet it's still going on unabated.

Eubanks said Congress should not limit its investigation to the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys.

"Political interference is happening at Justice across the department," she said. "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration. . . . The rule of law goes out the window."

The White House made a crucial error in this purge. They underestimated the loyalty members of the bar have for each other, and apparently didn't figure on the federal prosecutors being willing to speak out now that they finally have a Democratic majority to back up their allegations with meaningful investigations.

Only the porn emails survive...

Josh Marshall continues to drive this story. The collective investigators at TPM have uncovered the latest damning evidence against the White House in the attorney purge scandal.

Nixon had his 18 minute gap. Bush has his 18 day gap in the emails produced by his Justice Department. That about sums up the over the top hubris of this president. He truly believes he is above the law. Interesting the only emails that survived concerned the embarrassing porn case we mentioned last week.

The Salt Lake Tribune picks up on those and spins it to the White House's favor, but only tellhalf the story. It's not that these two weren't willing to prosecute cases. The cases were dogs and appeared to be nearly unwinnable.

Think Progress ponders on why only those emails were released.

In other words, it makes sense that the administration would include this set of emails and apparently virtually nothing else from that 18-day-gap, since the emails from Ward bolster the administration’s case that the firings were based on performance-related concerns.

Except that they don't. Not that the White House won't spin it that way but I really would hate to see them get away with it.

House calls Bush's bluff on purge scandal

I love it. The House approved subpoenas and compelling of documents in the attorney purge scandal. The Republicans unsurprisingly made a lot of noise about not wanting to issue them until actionable wrongdoing had been uncovered. Please. What little that has come out so far suggests gross wrongdoing and Leahy says the documents have been radically redacted. I'd guess Justice didn't give them nearly half of what they were entitled to see.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed to hear Conyers suggesting otherwise. Meanwhile, the NYT has the definitive quote of the day.

Responding defiantly on Tuesday, Mr. Bush said he would resist any effort to put his top aides under “the klieg lights” in “show trials” on Capitol Hill, and he reiterated his support for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose backing among Republicans on Capitol Hill ebbed further.

Hard to believe that the man who is ultimately responsible for holding thousands of prisoners incommunicado, and torturing them for "confessions," can deliver a line about show trials with a straight face. And you would think a guy whose family fortune was built on trading with Nazis would want to avoid the mention of klieg lights.

In any event, you know of course that Gonzales is history. The leading indicator being George has given Al the old "heckva job" support. But this time his intransigence may backfire. He doesn't have his rubberstamp majority on tap to sweep it under the rug. If he forces the Committee's hand, he may find there's no ace left up his sleeve to avoid even more uncomfortable investigations.

Here's hoping the Democrats live up to their mandate and keep those "klieg lights" relentlessly trained on the White House. It's about time this administration's shadow government was illuminated.