"If the facts bear out that the attorney general knew much more than he admitted, he simply cannot continue as the attorney general." --Sen. Charles Schumer (D-Ny.), chair of the dismissal investigation, yesterday. (New York Times, 03.24.2007)
Washington D.C.--And he's ready to talk-and talk-and-talk, and under oath. The claims that he's "biased" and "disgruntled" are being formulated by Karl Rove and the rest of the GOP, even though they appointed and exploited him as their goat. We'll be hearing more of the claims that this is all "partisan", which is to be expected. But as these claims are made, again-and-again, they lose their potency and power. Shortly, they will have a zero-sum gain politically.
It seems on Friday that the Bush administration turned-over more documents (over 280-pages), and they are damaging. One has to wonder what their counsel was told by the Judiciary committees that made them feel compelled to do it. These internal documents illustrate that AG Alberto R. Gonzales has lied publicly--just not under oath, so we know why they're so reluctant to do so at the White House--about his very-direct involvement in the firing of seven US Attorneys. Eventually, Gonzales will be speaking again (grinning-or-not) with Sens., Leahy, Schumer, Feingold and Specter, as well as Reps. Conyers. All of it will be under oath.
As he knows from his days being a crooked appointee-judge (like Harry S. Truman), Gonzales had better have his story straight with the rest who were involved--but the there's D. Kyle Sampson, one of the other human-parachutes utilized by the dying Bush administration to save itself. It appears that Sampson contained an ACME anvil in that pouch, and he's very enthused to rebut Gonzales's lie that he engineered the firings. According to Gonzales, it seems Sampson was really the attorney general, except:
The attorney general told reporters two weeks ago that the dismissals were an "effort that was led by Mr. Sampson" and that they "never had a discussion about where things stood."The unexpected release of the latest documents came after Sampson earlier Friday informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that he will testify under oath about the matter.But while admitting that the meeting between Gonzales and Sampson took place, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse insisted there was still no proof the two discussed the upcoming firings. (AFP, 03.24.2007)
The evidence and corroborations will likely come from Sampson, if they already haven't. Upcoming-declassifications that are pressured out of the Justice Department and the White House should finish-the-job. They will prove what we already suspect. We can also expect that others within the federal bureaucracy will be stepping-forward (many already have), making this a landmark-era of whistle-blowing in American government (not-including the Valerie Plame, which isn't technically whistle-blowing). As it stands, AG Alberto Gonzales is now a confirmed liar, while his former-chief of staff is not.
Nonetheless, Sampson can expect to be hammered-at by Arlen Specter and all the other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. All-the-while, they will be going to great-pains to avoid all the difficult questions that the Bush administration should be answering daily. This is a old-trick that Specter learned as an attorney for the Warren Commission. It all gives the impression of the futility of someone lying into a mirror. Specter and his GOP colleagues should investigate themselves out of their feelings of "disappointment" (in-themselves). The hearings and investigations are proceeding as they should: with caution and a genuine-concern that the law be upheld.Considering the very-public battle this administration and former-majority has had with constitutional and legal-precedent, one could easily argue that the Judiciary committees have been too restrained, and not aggressive enough.
Perhaps Friday's release of documents by the Justice Department are related to comments reported in the New York Times the day-before, where members of Congress stated that what they got was "incomplete" and "has gaps." Also, on March 20th, the Washington Post reported that Sampson was ordered to make a list "ranking" who was loyal to the Bush administration, and who was not. One US Attorney who made the list was one Patrick Fitzgerald, but sounder-minds within the White House prevailed, and he wasn't fired during the investigation and trial of the leaks that blew the cover of CIA-operative, Valerie Plame:
The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents. The House Judiciary Committee on March 19 released 3,000 pages of documents related to the U.S. attorney firings. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday. The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show. (Washington Post, 03.20.2007)
These revelations have certainly forced more disclosures by the Bush administration, so it again begs-the-question: what is the proverbial gun-to-the-head evidence in the possession of the Judiciary committees? Whatever it is, it's making people with no history of of cooperation or a sense of compromise in politics, to do just-that...compromise.
You have to have at least one smoking-gun for that, and I would wager that known and unknown whistle-blowers have approached the committee with that evidence--sometimes, it's going to be who they are exactly within the framework of government. It could include unimpeachable documentation of rampant criminality within the Executive branch. Someone would have to have a view of it all from-within, and Sampson fits-the-bill. Contrary to her few-proponents outside of our mainstream, crime is all you're going to get under the rubric of the "unitary-Executive." What you get is a calculated, ongoing institutionalized culture of crime. But what else is the White House for anyway? That's what pardons are for...
So, yes, the White House will continue to "support" Gonzales as attorney general, but he will eventually be fired ("resign"), to be replaced by another warm-body/parachute/goat. What's so odd is that anyone would want such a job. But then, looking into the eyes of such sundry individuals as Gonzales, one cannot help but feel that they're peering into Nietzsche's abyss. He has been very calculated about not lying under oath, only doing-so in the press where it's OK.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior advisers discussed the plan to remove seven United States attorneys at a meeting last Nov. 27, 10 days before the dismissals were carried out, according to a Justice Department calendar entry disclosed Friday. The previously undisclosed meeting appeared to contradict Mr. Gonzales’s previous statements about his knowledge of the dismissals. He said at a news conference on March 13 that he had not participated in any discussions about the removals, but knew in general that his aides were working on personnel changes involving United States attorneys. (New York Times, 03.24.2007)
None of this bodes well for them. It wouldn't matter who it was--well, actually, it would: if these were the actions of a Democratic administration, we would literally never hear the end of it. Triumphing over the exposure that Bill Clinton lied about oral-sex under oath for nearly ten-years tends to lose its potency. Bear-in-mind that this is from a writer who dislikes the DNC nearly-as-much as the GOP. Surely, Clinton and his administration should have been prosecuted for war-crimes in Iraq and the Balkans, as well as for numerous examples of political-cronyism and corruption. The problem is, it would have implicated Republicans and the whole aforementioned game. So, a blow-job it would be.
Exposing all that meant also exposing the GOP's criminality during the 1990s, as well as a bipartisan-collusion of what was essentially a Republican agenda under a Democratic banner. The death of the neoconservative and neoliberal "movements" (more like cults) has come. The return of American Populism has also come, reemerging like the Phoenix from the ashes of history, as history never ends. Expect conflict, but also expect some victories and reforms for grassroots progressives. The political-classes have created a mess of their own-making, and the power of domestic elites is imperiled, as it must eventually be. This is how history works. The wheel is turning, regardless of how-slowly, but it is turning. The "wealth of nations" has a tendency to shift from one-player, to-another. That's why it's best to behave while it's your turn--you will eventually be last.
AFP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070324/pl_afp/uscongresspolitics_070324165719;_ylt=AoQ1m6Ez8.YjklwkYgqpoEaMwfIEThe
Washington Post, 03.20.2007 (What a difference four-days makes!): www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031902036.html
The New York Times Today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/washington/24attorney.html?em&ex=1174881600&en=b77ce8610857d9e6&ei=5087
No comments:
Post a Comment