Impeachment is now a must
Excerpted emails between DOJ and White House officials reveal how far the Bush Administration was willing to go to abuse the power of the Executive Branch in an effort to purge Democrats or perceived to have been too easy on Democrats from the US Attorney’s office. Behold the criteria for choosing which attorneys to purge:
From the official documents released by DOJ:
From Kyle Sampson to Harriet Miers, 3/2/2005, a key to a chart he prepared recommending terminations:
bold=Recommend retaining; strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General
strikeout=Recommend removing; weak U.S. Attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.
[Emphasis added]
In essence, the definition of ineffectual hinged on whether they were in lockstep with the Administration. The attorneys with strikeouts in their names in the document following this email were: H.E. “Bud” Cummins, III (Arkansas), Carol C. Lam (California) and Margaret M. Chiara (Michigan).
The second set of documents released is even more damning. Kyle Sampson sent out an email listing the following:
- Vacancies w/o Candidates
- USAs Who Have Been (Or Will Be) Nominated for Other Things
- USAs Who, Rumor Has it, Will Be Leaving in Coming Months
- USAs in the Process of Being Pushed Out
: Bud Cummins- USAs We Now Should Consider Pushing Out: Paul Charlton (AZ), Carol Lam (CA), Margaret Chiara (MI), Dan Bogden (NV), John McKay (WA)
Sampson then goes on to emphasize that pushing candidates out will only be worth it if they have hand-picked replacements ready to go.
Farther down in the same document, there is this email from Brent Ward to Kyle Sampson regarding obscenity cases:
“We have two U.S. Attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them. They are Paul Charlton in Phoenix (this is urgent) and Dan Bogden in Las Vegas. In light of the AG’s comments at the NAC to “kick butt and take names”, what do you suggest I do?”
The third set of documents released details the plan to replace Bud Cummins with a hand-picked Bush insider and assistant to Karl Rove: Tim Griffin. Pay close attention beginning at about page 60 or so, where a detailed email discussion of handling Cummins’ resignation and Griffin’s appointment begins. Now, the interesting thing here is how they plan to get Griffin into the office by appointing him ‘interim USA’, allowing him to act on behalf of the administration without going through the official confirmation process. That starts on page 65.
And then, with regard to the firing of New Mexico US Attorney Iglesias, this little gem from Kyle Sampson to Monica Goodling on 12/14/2006:
fyi, WH wants this guy for NM USA, but Domenici is not so sure
supposedly, Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias’ body to cool)
After the release of these documents, Chairman Conyers released the following statement:
Until recently, the Justice Department persisted in stonewalling the Congress with claims that these firings were “performance related.” Now, these documents prove that assertion to be categorically false. We now know the original plan was to fire all the United States Attorneys. It is absurd to think that the performance of every United States Attorney in the country was sub-par and that they deserved to be fired. So this is about something else.
Is it about political cronyism? Is it about partisan pressure on public corruption investigations?
Now I think he overstates what these documents say. There is certainly discussion about firing all of the USAs, but it’s knocked back rather quickly as the realization dawns that replacing them isn’t such an easy task and the political fallout would likely be swift and harsh. As the quotes above demonstrate, the Administration opted for targeted firings of key US Attorneys who were opposing efforts by the Bush Administration to use the US Attorney’s office to investigate and open prosecutions of key political enemies.
History and more documents will prove that George W. Bush is more corrupt than Richard M. Nixon, that he is possibly the most megalomaniacal President this country has ever had, and his evil will reverberate throughout this country for many years after he finally leaves office.
Speaking of Bush leaving office, it is now time to call for his impeachment. There is certainly enough evidence that leads straight back to his office (and his little dog Rove) to commence proceedings. I say this reluctantly, because I don’t believe this is good for our country or our soldiers fighting so far away, who deserve 100% backing and attention. However, as more and more surfaces, it’s become apparent to me that his evildoing in secret is far more harmful and should be stopped as soon as possible.
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