Gonzales Is A Cipher; It’s The White House
By SusanUnPC on May 10, 2007 at 10:24 AM in Current Affairs
Yeah, yeah, AG Alberto Gonzales is going to testify again today, but I won’t tune in. He’s an empty suit. The machinations that have so harmed the Justice Department went on in the White House. Fired U.S. attorneys John McKay and David Iglesius made that clear during a policy forum yesterday in Seattle. From today’s Seattle Times:
John McKay: White House had us fired
“I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this,” the former U.S. attorney for Western Wash. said. “This is going to get worse, not better. [...]
… McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude any of the dismissals were motivated by an attempt to influence public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations.
Ah, voter fraud investigations. Salon reports on “Karl Rove’s big election-fraud hoax“: “Republican manipulation of the polls long predates the U.S. attorneys plot — and the U.S. voting system needs an overhaul.” The Times has an audio of McKay and Iglesius. At 9am PT, Seattle NPR station KUOW interviews McKay (listen live; archived audio). There are juicy bits from the Times and Salon stories below:
John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, and David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, also said they believe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty lied under oath when they testified to Congress about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Gonzales is scheduled to testify today before the House Judiciary Committee.
McKay and Iglesias said they still don’t know who at the White House ultimately put them on the firing list. But McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude any of the dismissals were motivated by an attempt to influence public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations.
“I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this,” McKay said during a meeting Wednesday with Seattle Times editors and reporters. “This is going to get worse, not better.”
[...]
McKay cited ongoing investigations by the Senate and House Judiciary committees and inquiries now under way by the Justice Department’s inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility.
Iglesias said he will be interviewed next week by internal Justice Department investigators, as well as by the White House Office of Special Counsel, which is conducting its own investigation of Iglesias’ firing.
McKay said he and the other fired prosecutors have been asked to meet with Justice Department investigators within the next 30 days.
[...]
McKay and Iglesias also have both concluded that the White House was behind the firings.
They based their conclusions on thousands of pages released by the Justice Department in recent weeks, as well as hours of public testimony by senior Justice Department officials and news reports of private depositions those officials gave to congressional investigators.
“It seems that given that no one takes credit at the Justice Department, that it can only be coming from one place, and that very strongly means the White House,” McKay said.
The White House, so far, has not turned over e-mails related to the firings and has said it may no longer have access to millions of e-mails sent through Republican National Committee (RNC) servers. Consequently, Iglesias said, “it’s hard for us to know who in the White House said what, on what date.”
“The people that would have a voice in this would be Karl Rove, [Rove aide] Scott Jennings, [former White House counsel] Harriet Miers, probably, yes,” he said.
“That would explain why the wagons are so tightly circled,” Iglesias added. …
The first image is from The Seattle Times. The second image is from Salon‘s “Karl Rove’s big election-fraud hoax.” Here’s a snippet of Salon’s major story today:
… We need laws protecting the right to vote from the kind of phony, partisan prosecutors that Gonzales, Rove and Co. were trying to put in place, and from the punitive, restrictive voter-ID laws that are a prominent part of the far-right political agenda.
Republicans do cherish their little practical jokes — the leaflets in African-American neighborhoods warning that voters must pay outstanding traffic tickets before voting; the calls in Virginia in 2006 from the mythical “Virginia Election Commission” warning voters they would be arrested if they showed up at the polls. The best way to steal an election is the old-fashioned way: control who shows up. It’s widely known that Republicans do better when the turnout is lighter, whiter, older and richer; minorities, young people and the poor are easy game for hoaxes and intimidation.
The latest and most elaborate of these jokes is the urban legend that American elections are rife with voter fraud, particularly in the kinds of poor and minority neighborhoods inhabited by Democrats. In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that fraudulent voting would be a major target of the Department of Justice. As the New York Times reported last month, the main result of this massive effort was such coups as the deportation of a legal immigrant who mistakenly filled out a voter-registration card while waiting in line at the department of motor vehicles.
But the administration has remained ferociously committed to suppressing voter fraud — as soon as it can find some. In April of last year, Karl Rove warned a Republican lawyers’ group that “we have, as you know, an enormous and growing problem with elections in certain parts of America today. We are, in some parts of the country, I’m afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it’s a real problem.
“I appreciate that all that you’re doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot — the integrity of the ballot is protected, because it’s important to our democracy.”
One of the aims of the abortive purge of U.S. attorneys was to punish those who refused to toe the line on the new emphasis on alleged voter fraud. A few fired prosecutors would serve as examples to the rest –- either move to criminalize the election process or face dismissal. A few fired prosecutors would serve as examples to the rest –- either move to criminalize the election process or face dismissal.
But the assault on voter fraud was a solution looking for a problem. …
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
