Wednesday 26 December 2007
It has been nearly a year since the United States attorneys scandal broke, and much has changed. Many people at the center of the scandal have fled Washington, and new laws and rules have been put in place making it harder to use prosecutors' offices to win elections. Much, however, remains to be done, starting with a full investigation into the misconduct that may have occurred - something the American people have been denied.
The primary responsibility for giving the public the final answers about what happened, and assurances that it will not happen again, lies with Attorney General Michael Mukasey, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Over the course of the year, considerable evidence emerged that the Bush administration did what seemed unthinkable: it used federal prosecutors, who are supposed to be scrupulously nonpartisan, to help the Republican Party win elections. As many as nine United States attorneys were fired, apparently because they brought cases against powerful Republicans or refused to bring cases that would hurt Democrats.
When the scandal broke, important players either refused to testify before Congress - like Harriet Miers, a former White House counsel, and Karl Rove, the presidential adviser - or professed ignorance. Then these officials began to slink away. The list of people connected to the scandal who resigned their jobs includes Ms. Miers; Mr. Rove; Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison; and Mr. Gonzales himself.
Reforms were instituted. Congress passed a law taking back the power it had unwisely given the president to appoint United States attorneys without Senate confirmation. That should make it harder for future presidents to put political operatives in these sensitive posts. More recently, Attorney General Mukasey issued new guidelines restricting contacts between the Justice Department and the White House, which appears to have been the conduit for the orders to politicize prosecutions.
These changes are important, but are not enough. Congress must hear from all of the major participants. The House Judiciary Committee has voted to hold Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Ms. Miers in contempt for ignoring Congressional subpoenas. The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to do the same for Mr. Bolten and Mr. Rove. The full House and Senate should affirm those votes and refer the witnesses for prosecution if they still will not cooperate.
The attorney general also must do more. There is evidence of impropriety in several recent prosecutions, including that of Don Siegelman, a former governor of Alabama who is serving a lengthy prison sentence. Mr. Mukasey needs to investigate Mr. Siegelman's case and others that have been called into question to ensure that no one was wrongly put in jail by his department, and that anyone who acted improperly is held accountable.
The integrity of the Justice Department is precious. The fair application of the law is the cornerstone of American justice and American democracy. A halfway resolution of this scandal is not enough. It needs to be investigated vigorously and completely.
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1 comment:
"Siegelman held in isolation" The Bush's new GOP network has got to keep Siegelman held captive until after the 2008 election since Bob Riley is being groomed as a possible GOP vice presidential candidate. The GOP operatives are using the prison system to keep him from talking to the media about Gov. Riley's past and Alabama's dirty history of campaign corruption. (a)When Siegelman was Secretary of State and Attorney General, he worked with all branches of law enforcement which investigated sham organizations, Contra drug trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering. The investigations found that much were linked to high ranking politicians in Alabama as well as Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas. Siegelman is a very smart attorney. He holds two law degrees. He knows more about Alabama's politics than anyone, being the only person in history to have served the top four government offices in Alabama and he has first hand experience of how a White house backed conspiracy works.This is a partial list of the skeletons that they don't want big media to know about:(a)The White House Staff has classified information from Diebold Election Systems, Inc. of Allen, TX.) which was shared with Dan Gans of Riley's staff. This included Diebold software code and registers addresses for each candidate along with passwords and a method of remotely accessing the voting machines. This was used for voter stuffing in several counties in Alabama.(b) Millions of dollars of dirty campaign money was used to defeat Siegelman's Education Lottery and to defeat his gubernatorial campaigns. The money came from big business clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Toby Roth, Rob Riley and William Canary.(c) Several different National GOP associations along with some sham organizations ran by Robin Vanderwall, Preston Gates, Ralph Reed, Glover Norquist and William Canary laundered the money so that it wouldn't be obvious who the donors were.(d) The newspaper presses of big media giant Newhouse/Advance Publications (controlled by Billionaire Donald Newhouse) agreed to print articles hand fed to them by top law enforcement and federal attorneys to create a corrupt public image of Siegelman, and other top Democratic politicians.
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