Purge

What we're really getting down to in the Attorney Purge case is vote manipulation, election fraud. And that lies squarely in Karl Rove's bailiwick. It's been speculated that eventually Bush will let Gonzo go in an effort to protect Turdblossom. (Yes, I know Bush says he has full confidence in Gonzales, but that's what he said about Rumsfeld, Mike Brown and Tenet before him.) But, Karl could be getting snappy these days, not only because the handcuffs are getting close to him (and he's just had a very close brush in the Valerie Plame outing case), but because, in the case that Bush himself might be implicated, it would then stand to reason that the Turdblossom would get the axe in an effort to protect the turd.

The administration has given as a prime reason for firing the eight US attorneys that they weren't sufficiently prosecuting voter fraud claims. These "voter fraud" issues took on special urgency after the Democrats took over Congress in '06, but were important to the administration as soon as the Bush band of marauders set foot in the White House, having just "won" Florida through a combination of scrubbing voter rolls in heavy Democratic counties and Supreme Court interference.

On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the [Justice Department's] Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.

  Columbia Tribune article

I guess you could argue that that's because the Republicans' side is right. However, that wouldn't be the considered opinion of Joseph Rich, chief of the Voting Rights Section until 2005:

“As more information becomes available about the administration’s priority on combating alleged, but not well-substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens."

As I quoted in an earlier post, out of all the civil rights cases the Bush DoJ prosecuted, only one was in favor of the minority African American cause.

Despite its efforts to make the Republican party the permanent Congressional majority, the GOP realized it was in hot water when the 2006 elections came around.

In Missouri, where Republican Sen. Jim Talent was fighting to hang onto his seat and hold the U.S. Senate for the GOP, a Republican-backed photo ID requirement cleared the state House of Representatives by one vote in May 2006 after an intense lobbying effort in which backers alleged voter fraud in heavily Democratic St. Louis and Kansas City.

“The White House was heavily involved” in the effort to win passage, state Rep. Bryan Stevenson, the Republican floor leader, said in a telephone interview.

At the moment, we are waiting for further information about how far into the White House the attorney purge reaches. We've heard that both Karl Rove and George Bush were personally involved in the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias for refusing to bring charges against a Democratic candidate for a seat in the New Mexico House in 2006. The Scoop lays it out:

Cong. Heather Wilson (R-NM) trailed her Democratic opponent in the first congressional district. She needed help. It appears that she requested a boost from U.S. Attorney Iglesias in the form of a timely pre election scandal involving a prominent Democrat. That’s how Iglesias read her phone call concerning a pre election indictment.

Sen. Pete Domenici, (R-NM) called Iglesias as well. According to Iglesias, there was a clearly implied request for a pre midterm Democratic sacrifice at the altar of election injustice. Iglesias reports that when he refused on the grounds that he lacked evidence (one of those minor details that tends to annoy those in power), Domenici simply stayed on the phone … silent.

Iglesias was gone in a heartbeat for not cooperating with a prosecution that would influence the 2006 midterm elections in his state. But who made the decision? Fingers were pointed but nothing stuck until last week. The Albuquerque Journal reports that during talks with Sen. Domenici, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to fire Iglesias unless the president gave the OK.

Well, Iglesias was fired wasn’t he?

Indeed he was.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.