Glenn Fine Visits HJC
Live hearing on CSPAN2 and HJC’s stream.
Linda Sanchez is hammering the ways in which appointing Nora Dannehy will actually ensure that this story gets covered up.
Jeebus, Chris Cannon is still trying to claim there’s no evidence of White House awareness and involvement–even though the IG complained about non-cooperation with the White House. He’s trying to say that the Dannehy investigation will mean that Rove and Miers should not have to testify. I don’t have the patience for this today.
John Conyers sounds … old.
Glenn Fine up. Most serious allegation: that partisan political considerations did play a part in the removal of several USAs.
"While USAs can be removed, they cannot be removed for an illegal reason."
Fine: Gaps in the investigation: Miers, Rove, and documents the WH refused to turn over.
Chris Cannon, hitting on Iglesias for not reporting contact from Congress.
Cannon is on thin ice here–the reason Iglesias was removed was because he was incomptent.
Fine: We didn’t find that that was the reason the Department remove him.
Shorter Fine: No, you’re wrong, Congressman.
Cannon: Couldn’t it be possible that people within DOJ said he was weak-minded.
Fine: But they didn’t.
Fine: If it were that you had to remain political support, every prosecutorial decision would be suspect. It was unprecedented in the Department’s history to have this group removed.
Fine: I don’t think it was the case [that these prosecutors were not being effective]. It’s not the Department’s job simply to accept complaints without investigating them.
Linda Sanchez: Is it fair to say you couldn’t completely investigate the firing. Those witnesses were Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and Monica Goodling?
Fine: Among others.
Sanchez: I’m concerned that Nora Dannehy hasn’t been appointed special prosecutor. How can a prosecutor attack the claims of privilege at the same time that the Department is defending the White House in its privilege claims?
Fine: Not necessarily. You’d have to ask the department.
Sanchez: Under special counsel regulations, should appoint one not in DOJ, when DOJ pursuing the matter would present a conflict of interest.
Fine: A close question.
Ut oh, Darrel Issa.
Issa notes that Rove would have to answer fully if he were pardoned. Sounds like he’s making a case for giving Rove a pre-emptive pardon.
Issa: If all we’re interested in is seeking the non-partisan truth, then a pardon is not a bad thing.
Issa: You’re saying that Lam was not removed bc of Cunningham and Foggo. And they’ve both been convicted, correct?
Um, kind of.
Issa: Just for the record I think Dusty is right now packing up and preparing to report to prison.
Um, sure, except that he’s bound to get pardoned or something, not least because his plea allows him to continue to contract with the CIA.
Issa is trying, as Cannon did, to claim that Lam was legitimately fired.
Issa: Well, since Lam said to me she wasn’t going to follow the Administration’s policy, she should be fired?
Fine: Only if DOJ is going to use a process.
Again, Cannon and Issa are really panicking, trying to guard the President’s ability to arbitrarily fire people.
Fine: The DOJ has said they should use this management process.
Cannon: I think you’re inappropriate because you’re applying a management process to a political process.
Issa is self-satisfied that he has proven that it’s not illegal to fire people arbitrarily. Nice guy, Issa. But we knew that.
Bobby Scott walking Fine through the potential crimes involved in firing. False statements, obstruction.
Scott: With the potential crimes in question, you were not able to determine whether a crime was committed?
I haven’t had any patience for the Bullsh*t they’ve strewn upon this since day one, but I don’t have the power to effect the changes I’d like to see, so I’ve been forced to watch the debacle unfold.
The smartest thing that could be done at this juncture would be for the SJC to issue subpoenas for everything the HJC is seeking. This would ensure, b/c of the “Contiuing body” status of the Senate, that the investigation would continue into the next administration and there would be no window of opportunity for the destruction of the relevant information.
Of course, since this makes sense, it won’t be done.
That’s because he is.
Careful dude, you’re going to get a stern letter from him for that!
I’m waiting. I’m gonna bring back to mind all you’ve said about being true….
And when I read it I’ll hang my head and cry.
Outstanding selection!
Actually, I think you’re wrong. Conyers sounds old because he’s getting tired. These battles exhaust him now, instead of invigorating him.
Are you sure he’s not sick? He sounded crappy yesterday too(I like 5 minutes of yesterday’s House action on C-Span).
Reporter: Rep Conyers, you have the reputation for being the meanest SOB in congress. How do you feel about that?
Rep. Conyers: It’s quite useful.
Boxturtle (He may be getting old, but I still wouldn’t want to cross him)
Issa just defined a new kind of truth, a non-partisan kind.
EW, this is heroic, given yesterday. Thank you very much.
It’s not hard to see how the phrase “weak minded” springs so readily to Cannon’s lips.
Fine needs to be asked the follow ups to his:
“While USAs can be removed, they cannot be removed for an illegal reason.”
A. The current position of the DOJ, one espoused even by DAG Comey on the eve of his resignation, was that the ultimate arbiter for the DOJ of whether or not actions are illegal is the President – based on that, it seems that no DOJ investigator could ever determine that the removals were illegal if they were done at the direction of the President, since they start from a definitional launchpoint that pre-defines the universe of things that are legal to coincide with the universe of “what the President wants to do” (i) Do you agree with AG Mukasey and his predecessor’s position that, “if the President says it’s legal, then it’s legal? and (ii) even if not, since that is the official position of the DOJ, can you explain how any further investigation in, of, or by the DOJ accomplishes anything?
B. List all the official denials in the first day or two by the President and his spokespersons as to firings – that he was not involved and that they could not be laid at his door, line it up with the statute that makes the President the sole person with authority to fire the USAs, and ask (i)did your investigation reveal whether or not the President lied and actually was inolved in the firings, or told the truth and the firings were done by persons other than the President; (ii) there is an OLC opinion indicating a strict set of procedures to be followed where the AG delegates (as he did to Sampson and Goodling) his authority, and did your investigation discover whether or not anything similar exists vis a vis Presidential delegations or examine whether or not the President could, legally, delegate his authority to fire USA to anyone else and if this was or was not done; and (iii) who fired the USAs and why?
But no one really wants to get to those issues. Just make Rove a football.
I get too exhausted to follow all this much anymore. It’s like an old bible story playing out over and over, but without ever getting to the special effects creating the Pillars of salt.
EW, please forgive my going off topic, but there is Big News in NY Times regarding the collapse of Wall Street and its cause.
One of the commenters here or at FDL last night gave the link to the Big Smoking Gun (it’s pointed right at Paulson!). Please read it and take it from there.
NOW I understand why Paulson in his infamous Plan demanded no oversight, no review, and NOT SUBJECT TO COURT OF LAW!. Link: (I hope)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10…..pagewanted
Article: Agency’s ‘04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk
by Stephen Labaton
Thanks, EW
Link doesn’t work
Here try this
Yeah, I was linking to that issue early last week. As in the post where I argued that Paulson was the wrong guy to lead the bailout not JUST because he was one of the people who caused it.
Then again, he was wrong to let Lehman fail.
I agree about letting Lehmann fail – sounds like a revenge thing to me; Lehmann being the ONLY entity to be allowed to fail (so far). Lehmann was competitor of Goldman-Sachs.
Sound to me like the death of Wall Street was orchestrated by the 3 thugs who presented The Plan. If this was known before the Senate finalized their rescue bill, why has it been kept so quiet?
The Labaton analysis actually aims more accurately at current SEC Chair Chris Cox than at now-Treasury Secretary [then Goldman Sachs supplicant] Henry Paulsen.
Which, hateful as it feels, at least superficially supports the several recent attacks on Cox by Senator McCain.
Of course, the SEC ruling was unanimous, so Cox would share at least some of the responsibility with his fellows.
But I take your point to be that, assuming the Labaton analsys is correct, in the sense that this crisis and the “need” for the bailout tracks back to the April 2004 change in SEC reporting standards, Cox and Paulsen being respectively the lead decider and the lead advocate for that change would appear to make the current plan to put Paulsen in command of the rescue appear as if Bush and Congress are about to put pretty much the biggest fox in the den in charge of rescuing us chickens from the perils of predation by that den.
Many [I’m thinking in particular of Prince Turki al Faisel in response to public musings on whether the Water Boy’s pre-Surge consideration of options [to my mind best summarized by The Daily Show “correspondent” Rob Riggles as: Go Long, Go Deep, or Go Fuck Yourself] might realistically include what McCain for sure would regard as premature withdrawal], would be inclined to file this under: You broke it, you fix it.
But that’s a bastardization of the more appropriate cliche: You break it, you own it.
IANA finance expert, but it seems to me that if you’ve just found out the mechanic you entrusted with your car was at least partly responsible for the decision to replace the V-8 engine that made it such a success both on the highway and on city streets, with a top fuel jet engine with an alcohol booster, based on his being a sucker for being able to accelerate from stop to 90 mph in under 100 feet, going back to that mechanic with a request to “turn it back to what it was” doesn’t seem very likely to be my preferred course of action.
The timeline in the Labaton analysis doesn’t appear to deal with it squarely [unless I missed it, or even raise it obliquely], brought home to me some critical steps in the process by which the Bush administration picked up on the relentless campaign of the likes of Phil Gramm [with Newt and the Bug Man at his back] to dismantle those “unreasonable reporting requirements” imposed by Sarbannes-Oxley, proceeded from removing the requirement to prove solvency to deactivating the SECs DEW machinery.
It’s a while back, but I recall that the university where I attended for my undergraduate degree required all full-time student to take an introductory course in economics. The very next concept after demand and supply was the inevitability of unregulated capitalism to trend to monopoly [I hear there’s even a popular board game based on it.].
Moreover, throughout that course, as well as the 5 others I took there and the two others I took in graduate school, and a goodly number of the professional development seminars I took on aspects bearing on the concept of criminal fraud, and several dozen cases where I either prosecuted or defended, the assumption was that the ability of a person to succeed in gaining money through fraudulent and other corrupt practices critically depends on evading or fooling regulatory oversight for as long as possible.
Over a period of 8 years I was presented with 3 opportunities to attend Yale, and two to attend Harvard, and in each case chose otherwise; but never on the basis of knowing that the teaching of economics at those schools was based on a set of principles set against what I’ve assumed for over 30 years now was orthodoxy.
I’m wondering now whether the Obama administration should ask its DOJ to look into a lawsuit against each of Yale and Harvard, seeking damages for the foreseeable consequences of what it taught the Water Boy, and in the case of Harvard, for criminal fraud in granting him an MBA. Seizing and diverting their income streams into supporting Acorn would seem particularly apt.
Actually, aren’t the Harvard and Yale endowments now just tax free, unregulated hedge funds, which happen to be connected to universities?
Issa and many other Republicans demand for accountability is sure inconsistent, selective and the height of hypocrisy. Is it too much to ask that the same damn rules and laws that would apply to the peasants SHOULD apply to Rove, Meiers, Bolton and the rest of the thugs in the Bush administration? Is that really too much to expect?
How many times are we going to have it confirmed that there are at least three no justice systems in this country? This is infuriating. When are they going to send out the Sergeant of Arms?
Conyers has pretty much figured out that none of it means anything and that the only people watching are the ones who know that none of it means anything, so there’s not really even much need to dress the dog for the show.
It’s not just that things are stymied through the end of this administration, it’s that Obama and McCain are both equally on board with making it all go away, so there’s not much reason to even try to lay foundations. And with it all, they can have the glory of also overseeing the demise of American financial and miliatary strength and security to go along with their direct role in the demise of America’s legal and judicial institutions.
If that wouldn’t make you feel old, it would make you feel like your soul was rotting away.
Thanks, rxbusa, I’m not too good at this linking!
When Cannon asked if other members of congress knew that Rove was on a “planned vacation” instead of showing up on contempt charges. Cannon demonstrated his own contempt for the law. WTHELL when is this complete disregard for the law going to come to a halt?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..-hearings/
I swear if I ever get a subpoena I am going to say “sorry I have a vacation long planned”
Hey lawyer folks how is a precedent set? Is it a precedent that Rove, Meiers, Bolton and others have not shown up? Can the peasants use these examples as a “precedent”?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10…..wanted=all ought to work for the NYT linkee-cut & paste req’d
Senator Whitehouse was sure concerned about whether Dannehy will be able to investigate thoroughly
http://whitehouse.senate.gov/n…..ase/?id=4E
4C85FB-8F56-4F60-B3E9-375A20CE7368
“In a letter to the Attorney General today, Whitehouse raised concerns about the report’s statements that “there are gaps in [the] investigation because of the refusal of certain key witnesses to be interviewed” by OIG and OPR, including former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, and former Justice Department White House Liaison Monica Goodling. The report also indicated that the White House refused to provide relevant internal documents, and that even the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a component of the Justice Department, refused to cooperate fully with the investigation pursuant to instruction by the White House.
Whitehouse also requested “further clarification of the scope of the powers” assigned to Dannehy, including whether her authority would be limited to an investigation of potential criminal conduct, whether she would have the power to subpoena OLC, the White House, and other agencies if necessary, and whether she would be bound by grand jury rules that could prevent her from sharing any information she gains with OIG and OPR.”
Haul Mukasey’a arse before the Judiciary Committe.
Assume Obama and 2 houses go Dem in January.
Isn’t first order of business to clean out the infiltration by Regent Law School/Federalist Society in the DOJ, including at the civil service level?
Republican scorched earth politics turned into scorched earth governance under Bush. It all needs to be removed.
In light of the civil service protections and structure, how do you easily do that?
I do not propose that it be done easily.
I do propose that it be done. I think an investigation, with subpoena power, take place immediately in January on the hiring practices and the specific hires, including with respect to the involvement by Rove and his minions.
Develop the case, develop the facts, then conduct public hearings to expose the abuse, then pass the bill to permit the one-time removal of civil service personnel at DOJ (and possible other agencies as well), in light of the documented abuse.
It creates a precedent that could be a future problem–but it is necessary to destroy the scorched earth politics/governance apparatus of the Republicans now.
If moderate politics prevail in the future–say by abolishing gerrymandering districts and requiring computer generated “best fit” boundaries so that there no more “safe” liberal or conservative seats, to diminish polarizing politics–then the precedent may not be a problem, just like Reconstruction.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I agree with the thought; I have been chewing on this since the second Goodling confirmed on the record what we had been saying about wrongful hiring criteria. And, like you, DOJ worries me the most.
I think that Dems can uproot the abuses, and make it stick, even with the Republican court system (assuming a sweep in house, senate and presidency) so long as what they put in place is a neutral, good governance based replacement.
1. Redistricting that does not favor incumbents
2. Federalize voter registration standards (for federal elections, at least) to prevent states from messing with the polls
3. Uproot demonstrated abuses by the Bushies on a “long national nightmare is over” rationale.
AF – I’m hopeful for the same thing.
I’d like to see huge Wins in the Senate and House, and then a Massive Process to Remove Improper Politicization, as well as Politically-Tainted Hires from the Career Side of the Federal Government.
It’s going to take Better than Good Government – We need Great Government – to Save the Day for America.
These are Dark Times.
You start by reassigning them to things like appeals from denials of social security benefits and similar scut work and, when they screw up even slightly, take revenge on them through the personnel system.
Those who put their DoJ service on their resume, get a bad recommendation.
In so many words, you use the system against them in the same way they used it. It’s slow, but it’s even more painful for them because it’s slow. And it’s totally legal.
Heh, yeah, I think the term I used long ago was “put em in a corner and tell them they are in charge of Bates stamping discovery” or something to that effect.
AF – I would love some kind of employment truth and consequences commission or some mechanism as you seem to contemplate; but in the meantime, Scribe is right, they can tend the bilge and not touch anything of significance.
Well, in every US attorneys’ office there’s one lawyer in charge of the social security appeals. That lawyer is the office f*ckup, the one who got there through some combination of luck (his good, the office’s bad), political pull (he’s someone’s nephew) or administrative screwup. He’s the one the judges all yell at, so they can say they rein in the AUSAs.
It should come as no surprise – every organization has someone analogous.
I wouldn’t let any of these Rethug punks anywhere near discovery production, because they could do some real harm there. And Bates stamping would be taking a clerical job from a deserving clerk. Nope – mindnumbing, brain-breaking, deal with the disabled, distraught and pro se social security appeals.
Most of the Regent grads would likely quit within the year. Pushing them to that is the objective.
Oh, I understand, but what about the poor and afflicted? Don’t even those cases deserve better?
They can express the Lovingkindness and Cardinal Virtues they were taught about at Regent/Messiah/Liberty through their work.
And, as is the normal course in such work, the more they pay out on claims, the lower their rank come evaluation time.
Hank Johnson just caught a wonderful contradiction in Harriet Miers’ position: her attorney told the HJC she couldn’t testify because of WH instruction, but the WH is supposed to have encouraged former and current employees to talk to the IG’s investigators, yet even so, Miers’ attorney instructed her not to because of the implications that that might have re: congressional testimony … In other words, Miers’ attorney does not believe the WH has ever encouraged Miers to do anything but stonewall. Or something. That hurts my head.
Delahunt congratulated Fine for connecting the dots with his three reports… and then filled in the picture with his own testimony, notably McNulty was cutout by Goodling and the other White House moles in DOJ including Gonzalez placed to infect DOJ with partisan litmus test and partisan-oriented agenda in DOJ prosecutions.
OT – Here’s an excellent briefing on the financial crisis. LINK
“Rove would have to answer fully if he were pardoned” rofl.
They are discussing the “message sent”. The message sent is clearly that they know that they can operate outside the law and that they will not be held accountable. That is the “message sent”
How were they operating outside of the law? The problem is that the law was jiggered to permit what was done. By and large, however, the operations were not extra-legal.
Is fixing. changing interpreting the law to suit your needs .. legal?
The House just passed the Bail Out.
Still voting, but a majority has been exceeded.
EW keep hammering and we will get accountability. One victory will turn the tide. Thanks for fighting for the “American Way”.
Is there a worse member of the House than Issa? What a mean, despicable, contemptible creature he is.
(Great, great reporting on the US Attorneys Scandal, Marcy. Thank you.)