Purge

In my reading of this post on TPM Muckraker, it appears to me that the plan to fire some US Attorneys for less than justifiable reasons - and even less than "they serve at the president's pleasure", because why go to such lengths to to make it a shady deal if it's perfectly legal and acceptable? - the plan was hatched and then the provision allowing the president the power to appoint attorneys without Congressional hearings or approval (the addendum to the PATRIOT ACT - and what does this have to do with national security?) was signed into law. I say that, because the article notes that Missouri's Todd Graves "resigned" two months after getting his notice from the Firing Squad. The date given for his announced resignation is March 10. The date given for the PATRIOT ACT provision being signed is March 2006. March 10, two months after his firing notice, he announced his resignation. I suppose that was part of the deal? Wait until March. Then we'll have the right to a presidential appointment without Congressional oversight.

Looks to me like they had this baby ready to roll off the assembly line as soon as they got the law hustled through.

Josh Marshall comments:

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is all of a piece. For three months the White House and the clique around Attorney General Gonzales have been involved in a concerted effort to cover up what happened here. And the intensity of the effort points to how bad the real story is. This has been obvious to anyone who has been following this story closely since January. But the fact that the DOJ has been collectively lying about the number of fired US Attorneys for all these months just confirms how true it is. Consider this: with all the document dumps, no emails or documents relating to Graves' firing? How can that be? The truth is that we still know very little about what happened here. Very little.

The Firing Squad

You might be surprised to know - okay, you won't, but evidence has been uncovered that specifically connects the White House to the attorney purge.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys -- extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department.

  National Journal article

Those two aides, Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, both resigned rather quickly when the whole firing issue hit the news stands.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

A senior executive branch official familiar with the delegation of authority said in an interview that -- as was the case with the firings of the U.S. attorneys and the selection of their replacements -- the two aides intended to work closely with White House political aides and the White House counsel's office in deciding which senior Justice Department officials to dismiss and whom to appoint to their posts. "It was an attempt to make the department more responsive to the political side of the White House and to do it in such a way that people would not know it was going on," the official said.

Well, oops.

I think we have Josh Marshall and his alert readers to thank for that not working out.

As was the case with the fired U.S. attorneys, the employees targeted for dismissal would never know that they had been selected by the White House or the Justice Department aides, according to records and interviews.

The department's Office of Legal Counsel feared that such an unconditional delegation of authority was unconstitutional, the documents show. As a result, the original delegation was rewritten so that in its final form the order required "any proposed appointments or removals of personnel" be "presented to the Attorney General... for approval, and each appointment or removal shall be made in the name of the Attorney General."

What on earth was Gonzo getting from Dubya to make him prostitute himself so? And then, as Jon Stewart pointed out in his interview with Bill Moyers, to make himself look like a screaming idiot in front of the investigating committee and all the world. (I suppose the possibility exists that he is a screaming idiot.)

"The job of a chief of staff is to work with the White House liaison to hire qualified people," [Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto] said. "That is fairly standard practice in any large Cabinet department or agency." Fratto added, "The White House has full authority in hiring and firing presidential appointees" and "can choose to delegate that authority. There is no need for written authority to exercise that power."

Asked why, if the process is routine, Gonzales issued the confidential order, Fratto responded, "I don't know why anyone would force the need to write such a memo." He referred further inquiries to the Justice Department.

Yeah. Nice try. (Fratto? What happened to haughty Miss Perino?)

It appears now that the first attorney on the Firing Squad's list was Todd Graves of Missouri, and Josh Marshall has some questions about that case:

By his own account, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) has known Graves was fired since March 2006. Meanwhile the Senate Judiciary Committee has been investigating the firings story for three months.

Graves's ouster is highly relevant to that investigation. Did Bond not share this information with the Committee? If not, why not? Did committee investigators know conclusively, as Bond did, that Graves was fired. And have they spoken to him since the news broke last night?

If not, the "why not" is that Kit Bond is a Bush Republican. Ask any of your Missouri friends.

Gonzo is scheduled to testify again tomorrow. TPM Muckraker indicates that his plan is to blame it all on Kyle Sampson, and claim that he realizes in hindsight he should have been paying closer attention. Still the good little whore to Big Daddy Dubya.

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

photo courtesy houstonvoice.com