Conyers Notices the Similarities to US Attorney Purge, Too
John Conyers has not missed what we’ve been seeing: a replay of the US Attorney scandal. He talks about the attacks on ACORN, the improper use of prosecutorial resources to intimidate voters, the waste of investigative resources when the FBI is already failing to investigate mortgage-related fraud, and the seeming preferential use of federal investigative resources to target Democrats. But here’s my favorite bit:
Furthermore, it is deeply troubling that, just weeks after the Department’s own watchdogs documented the role that specious agitating on alleged vote fraud matters by New Mexico Republicans played in the firing of United States Attorneys in 2006, in this controversy we see the same figures cropping up again and apparently obtaining a new FBI investigation just in time for the 2008 election. Thus a lawyer named Pat Rogers–described in the local press as "an attorney who advises the state GOP" is apparently playing a key role in pressing these current claims. Mr. Rogers, however, appears repeatedly in the report on the U.S. Attorney firings prepared by the Department’s Offices of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility, which documented his actions making flawed claims of voter fraud and brining unwarranted pressure to bear on law enforcement officials, including Mr. Iglesias, in 2006.
As I glossed the other day,
Republicans are already under criminal investigation for this stuff. Don’t let them get away with the same kind of criminal conduct again.
Of course, as Kagro X has pointed out, Mukasey can blow off Conyers (as he has Conyers’ request for more urgency on voter protection) precisely because we didn’t get the evidence from Miers and Turdblossom to make this case legally before we got back into election fever.
So here we are, with the subpoenas still unenforced in the case that was supposed to crack the "administration’s" engineering of bogus "voter fraud" allegations against Democrats immediately preceding critical elections wide open, and now witnessing… the "administration" engineering bogus "voter fraud" allegations against Democrats immediately preceding a critical election.
Like Alberto Gonzales, Mukasey seems to have lost all shame about allowing the GOP to play these games.