THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
March 2007, Week Three
Page Four
- March 21: At least 1.9 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes, in a flood of refugees that is a result of "ethnic cleansing" as bad as any in recent memory.
Iraq war and occupation
A report by Refugees International predicts another 1 million to be displaced during 2007. The report says that both the Bush administration and the UN have all but ignored the problem: "Washington and the UN do not acknowledge the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis." RI spokesman Ken Bacon says, "These people desperately need help, and they frankly aren't getting it from their own government in Iraq or from the US or from the UN at this stage." Add these 2.9 million to the over 2 million Iraqis who have fled the country entirely, and Iraq is reeling from a diaspora of historic proportions. - Of those 2 million, most have fled to Jordan and Syria, threatening to overwhelm those two small nations. A further 18,000 have sought asylum in Europe, half of those in Sweden. And the number of refugees granted asylum in the US? 202. Bush officials blame the miniscule number on restrictions imposed on Middle Eastern refugees since 9/11, and promise to let more into the country. (MSNBC)
- March 21: Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are warning Congress that a new generation of disabled veterans feels shortchanged by the government because of delays in processing claims and a sense of unfairness in how services and benefits are provided.
US veterans
Brady Van Engelen, a wounded Iraq war veteran and associate director of Veterans for America, says veterans and their families suffer because the VA simply isn't fast enough in processing claims. "We may end up with an entire generation of veterans who have no faith in our VA because those running it -- as well as those overseeing it -- were unable to hold up their end of the bargain," Van Engelen testifies before a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee. "We did not prepare for this, and it is painfully evident. My generation is going to have to pay for this for years and years." - Republican committee member Doug Lamborn says in response, "One thing is certain. If we do not fix this problem now, our legacy will be an intolerable backlog regrettably endured by this generation of veterans, and inexcusably bequeathed to a future generation." The chairman of the committee, Democrat Bob Filner, adds, "We are failing a crucial test here."
- Ronald Aument, the VA deputy undersecretary for benefits, says that processing a disability claim under the best of circumstances takes an average of four months, and that priority is being given to claims for the most severely disabled combat veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The average processing time is 177 days, which the VA wants to cut to about 145 days. Patrick Campbell, an Iraq war veteran and legislative director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says the VA also has problems delivering services: "VA has grossly underestimated the demand for their services, once again. The soldiers are coming home, and they will be asking for care. The question we must be asking ourselves is: Will we be ready for them?" There is no excuse for making combat veterans wait for help, Campbell says, and notes the VA's own standards call for a veteran to be seen within 45 days. "For veterans coming home, especially with mental health issues, a month is like an eternity. The standard should be two weeks, or at least broken down into categories." (Navy Times)
- March 21: House Democrats vote to authorize subpoenas for White House officials to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
US Attorney firings
The Senate is expected to follow suit, though Senate Republicans managed to delay a vote on its own subpoenas last week, and can be expected to continue to obstruct the process. So far Bush and his officials have said they will not comply with any such subpoenas, and are continuing to offer the "conversations" of current and former officials such as Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and their two deputies on an informal basis, with no oaths, no transcripts, and no public access. John Conyers, head of the House Judiciary Commitee, says the offer is ridiculous. "We could meet at the local pub to have that kind of conversation," he says. "But in my judgment it would not advance us toward uncovering the simple truth in this matter." Even that offer of "barroom-style chit-chat" would be yanked if the House issues subpoenas, says White House spokesman Tony Snow. Snow says that it is unreasonable for anyone to expect that oaths or transcripts would be necessary: "The president expects everybody who talks to Congress to tell the truth, and so does the law. And they know that it would be illegal not to tell them the truth," he says. Democrats say that transcripts are necessary so any inconsistencies in testimony can be challenged. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is dismissive of the "deal:" "Anyone who would take that deal isn't playing with a full deck," he says. - Democrat Linda Sanchez says that the subpoenas have become necessary: "After two months of stonewalling, shifting stories and misleading testimony, it is clear that we are still not getting the truth about the decision to fire these prosecutors and its cover-up." Conyers says he is not ready to issue the subpoenas just yet, and is still willing to negotiate with the White House on the details of the officials' testimony. As for Sanchez, she is unwilling to accept much less than full and open testimony under oath, saying, "The White House has offered a proposal that allows limited access to witnesses, no access to key documents and no testimony under oath. We have worked toward voluntary cooperation on this investigation, but we must prepare for the possibility that the Justice Department and the White House will continue to hide the truth."
- Naturally, House Republicans are largely against the idea of subpoenas, but they are no longer in the majority, and can no longer stonewall investigations for their political masters in the White House. GOP representative Tom Feeney says he wants the idea of subpoenas to be postponed until the White House can "review," and edit and redact, Justice Department documents still awaiting release. In the Senate, Republican Arlen Specter has suggested a compromise: Rove and others would answer questions from selected lawmakers without being sworn in but with a transcription made. It is doubtful that Specter's compromise will satisfy either the White House or Congressional Democrats.
- Bush and White House officials say such subpoenas would breach their right to executive privilege, the right of the president to have confidential communications with his staff, and say Congress will face a legal fight if subpoenas are issued. "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants," Bush says. "The initial response by Democrats, unfortunately, shows that some are more interested in scoring political points than in understanding the facts." Bush says he will not allow Rove and the others to testify under oath because it would damage their ability to give the president "candid advice," though he will allow Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and members of his staff to testify before Congress. White House spokesman Tony Snow accuses Democrats of grandstanding -- of wanting, in his words, "a Perry Mason scene where people are hot-dogging and grandstanding and trying to score political points. -- and says that the administration has released everything it has on the matter, a blatant lie. "I know a lot of people want this 'Showdown at the OK Corral' kind of thing," he says. "People might have a beef if we were withholding anything. We're not."
- The 3,000 or so Justice Department documents already released to the Senate Judiciary Committee have provoked anger from chairman Patrick Leahy, who says that the documents were heavily redacted to the point where they are almost useless. "Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day," he says. "What we're told we can get is nothing, nothing, nothing," Leahy adds. "I know he's the decider for the White House -- he's not the decider for the United States Senate."
- At least one legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, says that a prospective court battle over the subpoenas could last longer than the Bush presidency -- which may be exactly what Bush and his officials are counting on. "It goes to the district court and then potentially the Supreme Court and you're talking about an administration with 21 months to go," Toobin says. "You can do the math. Courts don't work that fast." (CNN, AP/Boston Globe, AP/Guardian)
Leahy and Schumer display an enlarged copy of one of the many redacted memos
- March 21: Fired US attorney Paul Charlton of Arizona sent an e-mail to Bill Mercer, the acting third-ranking official at the Justice Department, two weeks after his December 7 firing, asking how he should handle questions that his ouster was connected to his investigation of GOP representative Rick Renzi.
US Attorney firings
Charlton never received a written response. His December e-mail was among more than 3,000 pages of records the Bush administration turned over to Congress late Monday as part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the ousters. Charlton is now the third of eight fired US attorneys whose ouster seems connected to his prosecution of political targets. Carol Lam of San Diego was ousted just after she filed new indictments in her office's investigation of the huge, sprawling corruption scandal centering around convicted GOP congressman Randy Cunningham, and New Mexico's David Iglesias was fired after refusing to bow to pressure from Republican lawmakers to file indictments against local Democrats in time for those indictments to influence the November 2006 midterm elections. "Obviously, there needs to be an investigation," says Democratic House member Harry Mitchell, of Charlton's home state of Arizona. "You need to find out the facts. It shouldn't be partisan at all." - Officials of Arizona's Democratic Party have written to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking that it look into a connection between Charlton's removal and the Renzi investigation. The letter, signed by state party Chairman David Waid, said the investigation appears to have stalled since Charlton was forced out. Renzi has been the subject of a probe into a fraudulent land deal that would potentially make millions for a friend and business associate (see the October 2006 and November 2006 pages for more details into the Renzi investigation). Renzi is a Bush loyalist whose hotly contested seat was considered a necessity for the GOP, and the Bush administration, to retain.
- Charlton's name was not on the original list of US attorneys to be fired; it was added in September 2006, after he began working on the Renzi investigation. It is probable that his DOJ bosses knew of the investigation. "If we had anything of a major investigative nature, I would notify the Justice Department," says Melvin McDonald, who was Arizona's US attorney in the Reagan administration. "Typically, that's what happens." DOJ officials have changed their story several times on their exact reasons for firing Charlton. Originally they tried to include Charlton in the blanket "performance issues" rationales used for all eight firings, then pointed to questions about his willingness to pursue investigations into public obscenity charges. Other reasons have been trotted out later, including questions about Charlton's willingness to pursue the death penalty, and questions over his insistence that FBI investigators tape-record their interrogations. A December 2003 performance evaluation was cited even though it was quite positive, saying in part that Charlton was "well respected by...staff, investigative and civil client agencies, local law enforcement community, Native American nations and judiciary."
- On December 20 and 21, two weeks after his firing, Charlton sent e-mails to Mercer, alerting him to inquiries about a preliminary Renzi investigation. "Call my cell...when you can, please. I need your help in responding to the press," he wrote on December 20. Mercer replied that he would call back later. The next morning, Charlton wrote again. "Media now asking if I was asked to resign over leak in Congressman Renzi investigation," his second e-mail said. If Mercer responded, his e-mail was not turned over to Congress. Charlton's former boss, then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, said he considered Charlton "a star among US attorneys" and knew of no performance issues that would have justified his ouster. (Arizona Republic)
- March 21: Senior Justice Department officials have drafted memos this month listing specific reasons why they had fired eight US attorneys.
US Attorney firings
The list of reasons includes insubordination, leadership failures and, in essence, whatever they can find to convince angry Congressional Democrats that the terminations were justified. The memos, organized as charts with entries for each of the federal prosecutors and labeled "for internal DOJ use only," offer new details about disputes over policy, priorities and management styles between the department and several of its US attorneys. The prosecutors' shortcomings are also listed in a talking-points memo, indicating the willingness of the Justice Department to make public what are normally confidential personnel matters in order to counter its critics. - According to the charts, as well as e-mails and other documents recently made available, the reasons are as follows:
- Carol Lam, San Diego: fired for not prosecuting more firearms and border smuggling cases, and for repeatedly missing deadlines.
- David Iglesias, Albuquerque: traveled so much he was considered an "absentee landlord."
- Margaret Chiara, Grand Rapids: the chart advises that the DOJ say nothing about her dismissal, because she has not made public statements in her defense. However, the chart says that "if pushed," the department should say morale in her office was low and that Chiara had lost the support of her staff.
- Paul Charlton, Phoenix: according to the chart, "[r]epeated instances of insubordination, actions taken contrary to instructions, and actions that were clearly unauthorized."
- John McKay, Seattle: according to the chart, McKay was insubordinate in his requests that more law enforcement information be shared with state and local jurisdictions.
- Daniel Bogden, Las Vegas: according to the chart, Bogden "underserved" his region.
- Kevin Ryan, San Francisco: according to the chart, "the office has become the most fractured office in the nation, morale has fallen to the point that it is harming our prosecutorial efforts and [Ryan] has lost the confidence of many of the career prosecutors who are leaving the office."
- The documents also show that in November 2006, a month before the firings, then-White House counsel Harriet Miers was speculating on whether or not Bush should be informed of the firings. On November 15, Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, e-mailed Miers, along with her deputy, William Kelley, and assistant AG Paul McNulty. Sampson told them that the plan called for notifying the prosecutors on December 7, but that he did not want to put the plan in motion until the Justice Department got approval from the White House. Sampson also thought it prudent that White House political advisor Karl Rove be made aware of the plan. "We'll stand by for a green light from you," Sampson told Miers and Kelley. "Until the green light, we'll circulate the plan...and ask that you circulate it to Karl's shop." The e-mail adds that although he had not "informed anyone in Karl's shop" about the imminent firings, he considered it "another pre-execution necessity I would recommend." It is almost certain that Rove was informed, especially considering Rove is one of the central players in the entire plan; it is less clear whether Bush, who did know about the plan to fire the eight attorneys, knew that the planned firing date was to be December 7.
- As of yet, only Charlton has responded to the news of the DOJ chart. He says, "My record speaks for itself, and I am proud of the positions I took." He also provides an e-mail from James Comey, the former deputy attorney general who was his boss until McNulty took over in March 2006. "I considered you a star among US attorneys," Comey wrote to Charlton on February 9, 2006. "You ran an office with a staggering caseload, in both numbers and variety, and did it beautifully." Comey said he knew of "no performance issues" with Charlton. "In fact, quite the contrary, because you were at the top of your class." The DOJ says it was critical of Charlton's insistence that FBI agents tape their interviews with suspects, informants, and witnesses, and -- unbelievably -- for allowing an employee to go on leave without pay to work on a Republican gubernatorial campaign in Arizona in 2002. DOJ officials were also displeased that Charlton was resistant about arguing for death penalty sentences, and over Charlton's desire to speak with Gonzales to argue against capital punishment. "In the 'you won't believe this category,' Paul Charlton would like a few minutes of the AG's time," Sampson wrote in an e-mail to an aide to McNulty, Michael Elston. "I explained that he had already been given extensive, unusual process and that I did not think that it was a good idea for him to press this, but he insisted on me making the request." Elston responded with a one-word e-mail: "Denied."
- Lam has several performance issues noted in the chart, including the interesting criticism that "she had focused too much attention and time on personally trying cases than managing" her office. Also, the DOJ now says that Lam failed to handle border crime "as aggressively and as vigorously as we expected and needed her to do. At the end of the day, we expected more." Earlier items document just how ebullient earlier DOJ evaluations were of her handling of border crime and immigration cases.
- In July 2006, McNulty's aide William Mercer mocked Lam in one e-mail, telling Elston that Lam "can't meet a deadline" but would not admit her shortcomings. "She won't just say, 'OK. You got me. You're right. I've ignored national priorities and obvious local needs. Shoot, my production is more hideous than I realized.'"
- Ryan, the only US attorney with real performance issues documented in his evaluations, was cited for "significant management problems" that required numerous inspections by Washington officials. He was brought to task for issuing a rather muscular news release, with Elston telling him in an e-mail: "Not sure that this was particularly helpful.... Please don't do anything further in this area without consultation."
- McKay, according to the charts, "demonstrated a pattern of poor judgment" for pushing for policy changes that Washington did not favor, and he was deemed insubordinate for too much "travel outside of district to advocate policy changes." In August, McKay sent a memo to Washington asking that more law enforcement information be shared with state and local jurisdictions. "I believe McKay is way out of line here," said McNulty aide Mark Conner. "I don't know what McKay's motives are, but this is embarrassing and outrageous."
- The chart says that Daniel Bogden's office in Las Vegas was "underserved," adding, "Given the large tourist population that visits each year, it's well known that Las Vegas could present a target for terrorism. It has also struggled with violent crime, drugs and organized crime. ...[T]this is an office where we have the right to expect excellence and aggressive prosecution." (Los Angeles Times)
- March 21: Several of the fired US attorneys have already revealed how Justice Department officials threatened to "take the gloves off" and "retaliate" against them if they continued to speak out publicly about their firings.
US Attorney firings
A new e-mail confirms these threats, and provides information about the strategies to be used in handling the firings in public discussions. The threats came from Mike Elston, a top aide to deputy attorney general Paul McNulty, who wrote to fired attorney H.E. Cummins that, in Cummins's words, if DOJ officials "feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes Congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully. ...[I]t seemed clear that [the Justice Department] would see [testifying in public] as a major escalation of the conflict meriting some kind of unspecified form of retaliation." - According to a DOJ document written on November 7, 2006 -- exactly one month before the firings -- and titled "Plan for Replacing Certain US Attorneys," Battle was designated as the person to contact the attorneys and inform them that they were being replaced. The document reads in part: "'Step 1': Battle informs the US attorneys as follows: 'What are your plans for continued service as US attorney? The administration is grateful for your service as US attorney, but has determined to give someone else the opportunity to serve as US attorney in your district for the final two years of the administration. We will work with you to make sure that there is a smooth transition, but intend to have a new interim or acting US attorney in place by January 1 [2007].'" Step 2 of the plan was to have White House deputy counsel William Kelley phone senators whose states would be affected by the attorney firings, and tell them that Bush wanted to give someone else the chance to serve out the remainder of Bush's term. Inquisitive senators were to be told that each firing "is based on a thorough review of US attorneys' performance."
- But the fired attorneys were not told of the performance concerns. After watching associate attorney general William Moschella testify before Congress on March 6, one of the attorneys, Michigan's Margaret Chiara, sent an e-mail to McNulty, which read on part, "Today's Congressional events make clear that I am, indeed, among the 'USA-8.' Shortly after his opening statement, but before citing the perceived deficiencies of my former colleagues, Will Moschella stated that the two United States attorneys not present [before Congress] were dismissed because of management problems. Apparently, [former US Attorney for Northern District of California] Kevin Ryan (whom I do not know) and I share the same reason for termination. [McNulty aide] Michael Elston told me on more than one occasion that the rationale for dismissal was on a continuum of sorts, and that I am on the de minimus end after [Las Vegas US Attorney] Dan Bogden. It is abundantly clear that this regrettable situation could have been better managed if the reasons for the dismissals were initially communicated to the affected United States attorneys. ...So, I now need to know what is the management problem to which Mr. Moschella referred?" (Truthout)
- March 21: Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee (more formally known as the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight), sends a letter to fellow Democrats John Conyers and Patrick Leahy, the respective chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
US Attorney firings
Waxman informs the two that there is plenty of precedent for White House officials to testify before their committees, regardless of Bush's assertions that the White House is offering "unprecedented" access to his administration's firing of eight US attorneys. Waxman politely calls Bush "misinformed," and writes, "The president said yesterday that he would not allow White House aides including Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, deputy counsel William Kelley, and political aide J. Scott Jennings testify under oath and on the record about the dismissal of the US attorneys. Contrary to the President's contention, there is extensive precedent for officials in these positions to appear before Congress." - During the Clinton administration, Congressional Republicans "routinely insisted that White House officials appear before Congress." Waxman lists some of the relevant appearances:
- In 1994, White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum testified before the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs in regards to Whitewater. In 1996, Nussbaum testified under oath to the House Oversight Committee as part of the "Travelgate" investigation.
- In 1994, White House counsel Lloyd Cutler testified before the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs as part of the Whitewater investigation.
- In 1997, White House counsel Jack Quinn testified under oath to the House Oversight Committee as part of an investigation into campaign finance activities.
- In 1997, White House counsel Charles Ruff testified before the House Oversight Committee as part of an investigation into campaign finance activities. Ruff testified again in 2000 as part of an investigation into the White House e-mail system, and Ruff testified before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs as part of the Committee's 1997-1998 investigation into campaign finance activities.
- In 2000, White House counsel Beth Nolan testified before the House Committee on Government Reform as part of an investigation into the White House email system. She testified again before the committee in 2001 as part of an investigation into Clinton's pardon decisions.
- In 1997, White House chief of staff Thomas McLarty was deposed by the House Oversight Committee as part of an investigation into campaign finance activities.
- In 1998, White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles was deposed by the House Oversight Committee as part of an investigation into the use of the President's holiday card list.
- In 2001, White House chief of staff John Podesta testified before the House Committee on Government Reform as part of an investigation into Clinton's pardon decisions.
- Bush "is also mistaken in his contention that Congress has not received communications between White House aides," Waxman writes. "In fact, there is extensive precedent for providing these communications to Congress when they are pertinent to an investigation. For example:"
- The Clinton White House provided the House Oversight Committee with thousands of pages of White House e-mails, including e-mails between the vice president and his staff, during the Committee's investigation into the White House e-mail system.
- The Clinton White House provided the House Oversight Committee with notes taken by White House counsel reflecting attorney-client communications during the committee's investigation into campaign finance activities. The Clinton White House also provided the Committee a memo containing legal advice from the vice president's counsel to the vice president himself.
- These are just some instances of the many times White House officials from both the current and former administrations have testified before Congress. Waxman concludes, "I hope that this information helps provide perspective on the current position of the White House regarding responding to congressional investigations." (Henry Waxman/Buzzflash)
- March 21: The reason why the recent "document dump" of e-mails from the Justice Department and the White House seemed so thin on real information becomes clearer when examination reveals that there is an "inexplicable" 18-day gap in the documents.
US Attorney firings
The documents fail to include any correspondence about the firings of eight US attorneys from the critical time period between November 15, 2006, and December 2, 2006, just before the attorneys were asked to resign. Instead of explaining the gap, Bush says that his administration has released all the documents it intends to, and says that he is invoking the right of executive privilege to prevent political guru Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers from testifying before Congress. - In an e-mail from November 15, the last day before the gap in documents, Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, e-mailed Miers and her deputy an outline of the plan to fire the prosecutors and wrote, "The plan, by its terms, would commence this week." In the same e-mail, Gonzales said, "I am concerned that to execute this plan properly we must all be on the same page and be steeled to withstand any political upheaval that might result." Miers replied in part: "Not sure whether this will be determined to require the boss's attention" and noted that Bush had left town the night before. Sampson then asked, "Who will determine whether this requires the president's attention?" No follow-ups were provided, and no correspondence concerning the firings was provided for the next 18 days, until a December 2 e-mail from Sampson to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's chief of staff, saying, "The list is expanded; still waiting for green light from White House (though we would not launch until after 12/7 anyway)." On December 4, Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley told Sampson, "We're a go for the US atty plan. WH leg [legislative affairs], political, and communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes." Sampson said he forwarded the message to other Justice Department officials, saying, "We are a go for Thursday."
- The Justice Department is employing a novel strategy to deal with the e-mail gap: it says that the gap simply doesn't exist. E-mails from that time period were released, but they deal with related issues such as setting up an interview for Tim Griffin, who was the replacement for Bud Cummins, the US attorney in Arkansas who was one of the eight asked to resign. They also deal with a request for a copy of an evaluation of an unnamed US attorney and how US attorney Paul Charlton was directed to provide a prosecutor for a high-profile trial. A Justice Department spokesman says "there was no lull" when asked about the gap. The White House has gone one step further, refusing to release any e-mails or internal communications whatsoever that relate to the attorney firings. White House spokesman Tony Snow refuses to discuss the gap, merely saying, "I've been led to believe that there's a good response for it" and saying that Bush "has no recollection of this ever being raised with him." (CNN, ThinkProgress [link to video])
- March 21: Fired US attorney David Iglesias writes a stern editorial for the New York Times entitled simply, "Why I Was Fired."
US Attorney firings
Iglesias writes, "With this week's release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters. Of course, as one of the eight, I've felt this way for some time. But now that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for 'performance related' reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly." - Iglesias writes that US attorneys have traditionally been insulated from politics, and, although they are appointed by politicians and confirmed by the Senate, "we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political."
- Iglesias says that his post became politicized when two Republican lawmakers, Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson, called him just before the November elections to ask about indictments he was pursuing against Democrats. Iglesias was proscribed by law from discussing any such procedures. After being evasive with the first caller, Wilson, Domenici called to ask whether or not he would be filing charges in the cases. When Iglesias said he doubted that charges would be filed, Domenici hung up on him. Weeks later, Iglesias's name was added to the list of attorneys to be fired, even though, as he notes, "I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the documents released this week, I was deemed a 'diverse up and comer' in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)"
- Iglesias writes that after the testimony of six US attorneys before Congress on March 6 -- Daniel Bogden, Paul Charlton, H.E. Cummins, Carol Lam, John McKay, and himself -- "a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Not only had we not been insulated from politics, we had apparently been singled out for political reasons. (Among the Justice Department's released documents is one describing the office of Senator Domenici as being 'happy as a clam' that I was fired.) As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from FBI investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don't have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible -- namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds. What's more, their narrative has largely ignored that I was one of just two United States attorneys in the country to create a voter-fraud task force in 2004. Mine was bipartisan, and it included state and local law enforcement and election officials."
- Iglesias says that he reviewed over 100 complaints of voter fraud, and found only one that he felt should be prosecuted. He, the FBI, and the DOJ investigated the case, and could not assemble enough evidence to bring it to trial, a decision on which all three offices agreed.
- Iglesias writes, "Good has already come from this scandal. Yesterday, the Senate voted to overturn a 2006 provision in the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint indefinite interim United States attorneys. The attorney general's chief of staff has resigned and been replaced by a respected career federal prosecutor, Chuck Rosenberg. The president and attorney general have admitted that 'mistakes were made,' and Mr. Domenici and Ms. Wilson have publicly acknowledged calling me. President Bush addressed this scandal yesterday. I appreciate his gratitude for my service -- this marks the first time I have been thanked. But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me." (New York Times)
- March 21: Six of the eight fired US attorneys ranked in the top third of all US attorneys for prosecutions, filing a combined 106,188 last year, according to data compiled by media investigations.
US Attorney firings
Five ranked in the top third for convictions, achieving 98,939. Three were among the top five in the number of immigration prosecutions, including Carol Lam, whose firing was attributed to immigration by Karl Rove. The editors of Buzzflash wonder, "If these US attorneys were deemed expendable after leading the nation in prosecutorial output, what have the underperformers been doing to keep their jobs? If prosecutions and convictions don't matter, what does? Apparently less is more when it comes to following the law for this anti-Constitution administration. Especially when the investigations are hitting a little too close to home." (Buzzflash [multiple sources]) - March 21: Salon documents an array of instances where US attorneys have been used as front-line troops in systematic Republican attempts to push "voter fraud" as an issue to attack Democrats and ram through draconian voter ID laws that would potentially disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters.
US Attorney firings
On March 13, White House advisor Dan Bartlett said, "Over the course of several years, we have received complaints about US attorneys, particularly when it comes to election fraud cases." On March 20, Bush added, "We did hear complaints and concerns about US attorneys. Some complained about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases." The argument was once nebulous "performance issues," now it seems that, for at least some of the fired attorneys, they failed to pursue charges of voter fraud -- vote buying, double voting, and voting by felons, illegal aliens and the deceased. Undeniably, there are individual, isolated instances of voter fraud that could be pursued against voters and get-out-the-vote organizers of both parties. But it is a myth, however much of a useful myth, that Democrats have systematically used voter fraud to win elections over the last decade. Salon reporters Mark Follman, Alex Koppelman and Jonathan Vanian write, "A belief in rampant voter fraud in Democratic strongholds -- big cities, minority neighborhoods -- is widespread among Republicans, and claims of vote buying and the like have long been a mainstay of GOP rhetoric. The party has used these claims of voter fraud to help build public support for what it considers electoral reforms, like requiring voters to show photo ID -- reforms that also tend to suppress Democratic turnout on Election Day." - Under the Bush administration, isolated complaints have become a rhetorical tool to use against Democrats. Congressional Republicans failed to get a law requiring a photo ID to vote through the Senate, but the Bush Justice Department was able to use its US attorneys to mount a crusade against phantom allegations of Democratic voter fraud. In 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced an initiative that required "all components of the [Justice] Department" to "place a high priority on the investigation and prosecution of election fraud." Five years later, few convictions have been secured, and few cases have even brought: out of 80,424 federal criminal cases brought between the fall of 2002 and the fall of 2005, only 95 defendants were charged with election-fraud crimes.
- One of the most intensely covered incidents involves fired US attorney David Iglesias, who refused to pursue baseless allegations of voter fraud in New Mexico. That swing state has been a target for Republicans for years, ever since Al Gore won the state by a bare 366 votes in 2000, and John Kerry lost it by a mere 7,000 votes in 2004. (See the November 2004 page for information about how Republicans used their own election fraud tactics to swing the state over to Bush in 2004, while simultaneously charging Democrats with voter fraud.) New Mexico is also a state that has long battled over voter ID requirements. Salon reports, "In 2004, state Republicans pressured Iglesias to file charges in the case of a 13-year-old boy who was illegally registered to vote. The boy had been registered without his or his parents' knowledge, and Iglesias declined to indict anyone. In an interview with Salon, Iglesias conceded that some local Republicans may have been especially disappointed to learn he would not be pursuing criminal charges for election fraud because they would have liked the extra political ammunition."
- Republicans well know that just the news of an investigation can be as politically effective as an actual conviction, not only in influencing elections, but in getting ID laws passed. In at least one state, Republicans used repeated, public, and baseless accusations of fraud to ram a photo ID law through the legislature. Salon writes, "During the Bush administration, three different US attorneys have launched investigations into electoral fraud in Missouri, indicting nine people. Last year, prior to the midterm elections, the administration even dispatched a key voting fraud expert from Washington to assume the job of US attorney in Missouri's Eastern District."
- The Missouri case is illuminating. That case centered on the November 2000 senatorial election, when incumbent GOP senator John Ashcroft lost a close election to a dead man, Democrat Mel Carnahan. There were inconsistencies in the election, including the fact that polls in largely Democratic districts in St. Louis remained open past the official closing time. Ashcroft's Republican colleague, Senator Kit Bond, was incensed, pounding the podium and denouncing the rampant "voter fraud" that cost Ashcroft his seat. Bush named Ashcroft as his Attorney General, and the Justice Department named Raymond Gruender as the district's US attorney. By Gruender's third day on the job, he had seated a grand jury to hear testimony in his voter fraud investigation. The grand jury found no basis for the allegations, but instead of disbanding the jury, Gruender refocused the investigation on the mayoral primary of March 2001, won by a Democrat. The Justice Department took over the investigation, but their intensive and quite partisan investigation resulted in no charges being filed, though eight individuals were later convicted on state charges, and, more tellingly, Gruender won a seat on the US Court of Appeals.
- What Missouri Republicans got from the investigations was a push for photo ID laws. After another high-profile investigation, which saw the state's other US attorney, Todd Graves, win four convictions of voters for voting in both Missouri and Kansas, the Missouri Legislature passed a photo ID law in May 2006 -- a law struck down by the state Supreme Court just before the midterm elections. The Bush Justice Department used the now-infamous Patriot Act provision to name Bradley Schlozman, who had supervised the voting section of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ in Washington, as Graves's successor. In March 2006, Alberto Gonzales was able to make Schlozman a US attorney without seeking confirmation from the Senate. "Schlozman was one of Gonzales' guys," says a former senior DOJ official, "but several of us were scratching our heads when we heard about it because he was not a very well-regarded trial attorney." While Schlozman -- who only graduated from law school in 1996 and has no prosecutorial experience to speak of -- isn't much of a prosecutor, he knows a great deal about Republican efforts to pursue voter fraud claims.
- Schlozman announced the indictment of four people charged with vote fraud less than a week before the November 2006 midterm elections, which featured one of the tightest races for Senate in the country, between GOP incumbent Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill. The victor of this race would likely determine whether Republicans or Democrats controlled the US Senate. The four charged with vote fraud were organizers for ACORN, a liberal organization which works to register voters in poor and minority neighborhoods, and a favorite target of Republicans. "This national investigation is very much ongoing," said Schlozman in a statement issued November 1. The indictments were trumpeted by myriad conservative blogs and such national outlets as Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. Despite Schlozman's efforts, McCaskill narrowly defeated Talent, and Schlozman's trumpeted indictments had largely fizzled. One of the four pled guilty to minor charges, and an indictment against a fifth person was dropped. On January 16, two days before Gonzales testified to Congress about the US attorney firings, he announced that Schlozman would be replaced by John Wood. "Schlozman had [only] been there for 10 months," says the former senior Justice Department official. Until the firings became an issue, "they weren't going to replace him."
- One of the fired attorneys, Arkansas's Bud Cummins, says that isolated cases like the ones pursued against ACORN do occur. But Cummins notes that when there is fraud connected to groups like ACORN, it is often perpetrated upon them, not by them. The groups sometimes pay workers by the number of registrations they turn in, which can lead some of the workers to falsify registrations to earn more money. Others, paid by the hour, falsify registrations so they can appear to have logged extra time. The "voters" whose names wind up on the phony registrations are usually oblivious. "Those people that are registered in those ways either don't exist or don't know they're registered," says Cummins. He also notes that most of these fraudulent registrations will never be used to vote. In one case he investigated, a registration worker had simply used a phone book to pick out names at random. "You'd see something like Bud Smith, then Kate Smith," he remembers, "and then there was Smith Auto Body."
- Statistical analysis shows that there is no basis for Republicans' fixation on voter fraud. Its impact on elections has been minimal, measured to be as little as .0004% of all ballots cast. One study by political science professor Loraine Minnite, considered by the US Election Assistance Commission to be "the most systematic look at fraud," concluded that "the incidence of election fraud in the United States is low and that fraud has had a minimal impact on electoral outcomes." Republicans note that Minnite's data only counted the people who were caught perpetuating fraud, and that her latest study was for ProjectVote, which, though a nonpartisan organization, is affiliated with ACORN. Minnite's study, along with others, are ignored by Republicans. In fact, the the USEAC report that includes an endorsement of Minnite's study was initially withheld. The USEAC delayed releasing it, according to the agency's chairman, a Bush appointee, because of "a division of opinion." The report had failed to give much credence to the issue of voter fraud. (Salon)
- March 21: Former vice president Al Gore testifies before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the topic of global warming, and finds himself sparring with one of his most vitriolic critics, former committee chairman Senator James Inhofe.
Global warming and the environment
Inhofe, a Republican, has called Gore "full of crap" and compared people who believe in global warming to "the Third Reich." Today, Inhofe tries to attack Gore's testimony, saying, "It is my perspective that your global warming alarmist pronouncements are now and have always been filled with inaccuracies and misleading statements." But Gore refuses to be rattled: "This is not a normal time. We are facing a planetary emergency," he responds. "I'm fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people's ears. But it is accurate." Gore notes that a recent international scientific group concluded that global warming is a certainty and human activity is a primary cause. "This is going on right now and it's continuing to increase," he says, calling it a "moral issue" and not just a political or economic matter. Gore testified earlier to a joint meeting of two House committees that the level of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States should be held at current levels to lessen the impact of global warming, and those levels should be cut by 90% by the year 2050. Gore is the prime creator of the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award in early 2007. - Committee Republicans, led by Inhofe, lambast Gore both personally and politically, denying the validity of his information, making false allegations of his own energy usage (already debunked), and accusing him of wanting to ruin the American economy. Inhofe, apparently forgetting that he no longer chairs the committee, repeatedly interrupts Gore's testimony, and at one point tries to cut Gore off entirely, saying, "I don't want to be rude, but from now on, I'm going to ask you to respond...in writing." He adds that Gore can only respond verbally if it is a "very brief response." At that point, chairwoman Barbara Boxer's patience runs out. Boxer asks Inhofe, "Would you agree to let the Vice President answer your questions?" Inhofe says Gore can speak once he finishes his own ranting, but Boxer cuts him off, saying, "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this [banging the gavel]. Elections have consequences. So I make the rules." The hearing audience applauds loudly, and Gore continues his testimony with fewer interruptions from an obviously sullen Inhofe. (Tennessean, Washington Post, ThinkProgress [link to video])
- March 21: New Hampshire Democrats want Congress to investigate whether politics delayed prosecution of a Republican phone-jamming plot in their state until after the 2004 presidential election.
Election fraud
The scheme devised by state and national Republicans jammed local Democratic ride-to-the-polls and a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote phone bank for about 90 minutes on Election Day 2002, the year of a hotly contested US Senate race between then-Governor Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and then-US Representative John Sununu, a Republican, who won by a narrow margin. The case resulted in four criminal convictions, including that of strategist James Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, who was New England chairman of Bush's re-election campaign two years later. (Tobin wins his appeal in the following day -- see the March 22 item below.) Allegations of Tobin's involvement led him to resign that post the month before the election and he was indicted the month after it -- timing that has prompted Democratic suspicions before. But members of Congress seeking answers to questions about the prosecutor firings should seek some about phone-jamming at the same time, says Sullivan. "Why did it take so long for the indictment against Mr. Tobin to be brought?" she asks. "His name was apparently out there and known to the Department of Justice for several months and yet nothing was done with him until after the 2004 election." - Tobin was indicted in December 2004 on four counts of conspiracy to commit telephone harassment and aiding and abetting telephone harassment. He was convicted of telephone harassment and sentenced to 10 months in prison, but is appealing. In addition to the criminal cases, Democrats sought damages in a civil lawsuit; state Republicans settled last year for $135,000. In the civil case, Democrats had sought to make connections from the phone jamming to the White House and high-level Republicans like Ken Mehlman, then White House political director and later, chairman of the Republican National Committee, through a pattern of phone calls made around the time of the jamming. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is at the heart of the prosecutor firings scandal, served as White House counsel then.
- Sullivan says speculation over a possible connection between the jamming and the current scandal began when news of the latter broke. "This has been percolating," she says. "'When the US attorney firings started coming out, I think people independently starting saying 'Hey, wait a minute, if they were firing people for political reasons," there might be evidence of political influence in the jamming investigation too. In 2004, Democratic senators Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy wrote a letter to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft asking him to stop interfering in the case. Manchester police contacted the Department of Justice about the incident in early 2003. (AP/Fosters Online)
- March 21: Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, mired in his own corruption scandal and is now, inexplicably, making appearances on political talk shows as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration,
Tom DeLay and DeLay corruption scandal
makes a spectacle of himself on MSNBC's Hardball, pontificating on his own rather Soviet-style views on executive privilege and denying knowledge of material quoted by host Chris Matthews of his own new book. - On the subject of executive privilege, DeLay says simply that if the president is subpoenaed by Congress to testify on any matter whatsoever, he can merely ignore the subpoena. According to DeLay, the courts have no right to intervene in the matter.
- In his book, No Retreat, No Surrender, the virulently moralistic DeLay admits to years of alcoholism and marital infidelity, but claims that he was saved by watching a videotape made by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. He also admits in the book that he frequently drove around while drunk -- as a member of Congress.
- His take on the US attorney scandal is a mangling of GOP talking points, claiming falsely that Bill Clinton fired "20 or 30 US attorneys" in a manner similar to the Justice Department's firing of eight US attorneys for partisan political reasons, but the low point of the interview for DeLay comes when Matthews quotes a section of the book which features DeLay savaging fellow Texas Republican Dick Armey as being "drunk with ambition." DeLay denies writing the phrase, saying, "I wrote that he was 'blinded by his ambition.'" Matthews finds the quote in the book and reads it aloud to DeLay, but DeLay continues to deny the phrase. When Matthews offers to let DeLay see the quote for himself, DeLay refuses to take the book, saying, "I don't have my glasses." (MSNBC/Daily Kos [link to videos])
Tony Snow: "Do you want Karl Rove on TV, or do you want the truth?"
Diane Sawyer: "Why can't you have both?" -- quoted by Dan Froomkin
