"I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed. It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately. I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments. [By sidestepping the confirmation process] we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House," - Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales's Chief of Staff.

And so let me publicly sort of preempt perhaps a question you’re going to ask me, and that is: I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.

I think a United States attorney who I view as the leader, law enforcement leader, my representative in the community — I think he has greater imprimatur of authority, if in fact that person’s been confirmed by the Senate.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS RESIGNATIONS FROM PROSECUTORS

March 24, 1993, Wednesday
By DAVID JOHNSTON, (Special to The New York Times); National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 1, 1053 words

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States Attorneys, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton. Jay B. Stephens, the ...

In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision

Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution.

Iglesias, the New Mexico prosecutor, was not on that list. Justice officials said Sampson added him in October, based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete V. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases

In an e-mail dated May 11, 2006, Sampson urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam," who then the U.S. attorney for southern California. Earlier that morning, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam's corruption investigation of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., had expanded to include another California Republican, Rep Jerry Lewis.

The timing is well worth noting. But the Lewis investigation wasn't the only trouble Lam was making. Look what else was happening in the couple weeks before May 11th ...

April 28th, 2006 -- Cunningham-Wilkes-Foggo "Hookergate" scandal <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008324.php">breaks open</a>. Probe grows out of San Diego US Attorney's Office's Cunningham investigation. CIA Director Goss <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000505.php">denies</a> involvement.

April 29th, 2006 -- Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042802345.html">reports</a> that Hookergate's Shirlington Limo Service had $21 million contract with Department of Homeland Security.

May 2nd, 2006 -- Kyle "Dusty" Foggo <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000522.php">confirms attendence</a> at Wilkes/Cunningham Hookergate parties.

May 4th, 2006 -- Watergate Hotel <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000551.php">subpoenaed</a> in San Diego/Cunningham/Hookergate probe.

May 5th, 2006 -- WSJ <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008383.php">reports</a> that Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who Goss installed as #3 at CIA, is under criminal investigation as part of the San Diego/Cunningham investigation.

May 5th, 2006 -- Porter Goss <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008375.php">resigns</a> as Director of Central Intelligence.

May 6th, 2006 -- WaPo <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008385.php">reports</a> on questionable DHS contract awarded to Shirlington Limo, the 'hookergate' Limo service under scrutiny as part of the San Diego/Cunningham investigation. Similar <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008387.php">report</a> in the Times.

May 7th, 2006 -- House Committee to <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000576.php">investigate</a> DHS contract with Hookergate's Shirlington Limo.

May 8th, 2006 -- Lyle "Dusty" Foggo <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008397.php">resigns</a> at CIA.

May 11th, 2006 -- LA Times <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000620.php">reports</a> that Cunningham investigation has <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008420.php">expanded</a> into the dealings of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), House Appropriations Committee Chairman.

May 12th, 2006 -- Federal agents working on the San Diego/Cunningham investigation <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008442.php">execute search warrants</a> on the home and CIA office of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo.

Former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) revealed yesterday that Karl Rove pressured him in 2001 to choose a U.S. Attorney who he believed would be lenient in probing state corruption, the Chicago Tribune reports. Fitzgerald ended up choosing Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation), who was later named Special Prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

Over at DailyKos, regular FDL commenter litigatormom rips into this particular wrinkle of the "But Clinton did it tooooo!" whine with gusto. She points to Kyle Sampson's own words, in the January 9, 2006 e-mail he wrote to Harriet "Fire 'Em All" Miers, in which he says flat-out that Clinton DIDN'T do it:

…once confirmed by the Senate and appointed,U.S. Attorneys serve for four years and then holdover indefinitely (at the pleasure of the President, of course). In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace the U.S. Attorneys they had appointed whose terms had expired, but instead permitted those U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision. (Underscoring in original.)

Why weren't previous Prezzes quick to zap the US Attorneys? Sampson posits these reasons:

There are several likely explanations for this: in some cases Presidents Reagan and Clinton may have been pleased with the work of the U.S. Attorneys, who, after all, they had appointed. In other instances, Presidents Reagan and Clinton may simply have been unwilling to commit the resources necessary to remove the U.S. Attorneys, find suitable replacements (i.e., seek the "advice" of the home-state Senators), complete background investigations, and secure Senate confirmations. (Emphasis added.)

But of course, by the time Sampson wrote his January 9, 2006 e-mail, Senate confirmation was no longer an obstacle. Why?

Better yet, when was the last time we had a president where many within their OWN party considered them corrupt?

It won't be an issue after the new executive powers are exercised, martial law declared and elections postponed (indefinitely?).

It would be legal, and "for our own safety".

Impossible? Unlikely? or inevitable?

Populace. Populous is an adjective.

/+1 Facetious!

I think he meant own party didn't find their president corrupt in some way?

Impossible currently. We the people are an armed populous.

Shades of Rose Mary Woods? An 18 day gap?

I think a commenter in our document dump research thread may have been the first to notice that the emails released by the Justice Department seem to have a gap between November 15th and December 4th of last year.

(Our commenter saw it late on the evening of the dump itself -- see the comment date-stamped March 20, 2007 02:19 AM in the research thread)

The firing calls went out on December 7th. But the original plan was to start placing the calls on November 15th. So those eighteen days are pretty key ones.

Mike Allen spotted it this evening in the Politico.

Yeah, I'm one of them - but my .357 mag, while excellent for personal protection (loaded with glaser safety rounds), falls a little short of being a match for National Guard weaponry. Since they tend to travel in groups, popping one and taking his full-auto weapon would be high risk, and against my personal philosophy. I hate to think of all the whack jobs out there that do have modified semi-auto's, like ATF claimed Koresh had stockpiled. I can see the 2nd American Revolution devolving into a situation similar to Iraq, unless the state guard personnel refused to follow orders because of reluctance to fire on US citizens. Of course, history doesn't support that scenario really.

Times Square?
Tianamen Square?

This morning's WaPo gives us one of the many reasons why the panic may have set in a month ago at the highest reaches of the DoJ and Karl's political shop at the Bush White House. Say hello to political interference on behalf of Big Tobacco.

From the WaPo:

There’s another principle, which is Congress doesn’t have the legislative — I mean oversight authority over the White House. [CNN, 3/22/07]

First, the White House is under no compulsion to do anything. The legislative branch doesn’t have oversight. [MSNBC, 3/22/07]

Congress doesn’t have any legitimate oversight and responsibilities to the White House. [Fox, 3/22/07]

Keep posting, Surcam; it's great! The deafening silence from our more conservative posters (who at one time defended this administration as the coming of the messiah) says about as much about the situation as your posts.

All the incumbents must be removed, by vote or by force, if necessary, and replaced with people who can be trusted. By whom, I'll leave that to you guys.

One night, before passage of the bill, <a href="http://desspec.blogspot.com/2007/03/utah-us-attorney-brett-tolman-escapes.html">Tolman surreptitiously inserted a paragraph</a> into the legislation that basically removed Senate oversight and approval of replacements for U.S. Attorneys. Tolman didn't ask Specter and didn't tell Specter or, as far as we know, any other senators. He just snuck it into the bill and none of them knew they were voting for that provision. Is that embarrassing, or what? I think so. And I think it plays a role in why the senators have been pretty mum on this episode. And what made it worse is that the Senate unanimously approved Bush's nomination of Tolman, soon after… as U.S. Attorney for Utah!

When Specter finally did discover he had been duped by Tolman and tried to get to the bottom of it, all he was told was that Tolman had acted on behalf of the Justice Department! No names. The question remains, did Rove tell Tolman to do it directly or did he use Gonzales as his messenger boy?

From the letter:

According to Mr. Kelner, the RNC had a policy, which the RNC called a "document retention" policy, that purged all e-mails from RNC e-mail accounts and the RNC server that were more than 30 days old. Mr. Kelner said that as a result of unspecified legal inquiries, a "hold" was placed on this e-mail destruction policy for the accounts of White House officials in August 2004. Mr. Kelner was uncertain whether the hold was consistently maintained from August 2004 to the present, but he asserted that for this period, the RNC does have alarge volume of White House e-mails. According to Mr. Kelner, the hold would not have prevented individual White House officials from deleting their e-mail from the RNC server after August 2004.

Mr. Kelner's briefing raised particular concems about Karl Rove, who according to press reports used his RNC accountfor 95%o of his communications. According to Mr. Kelner, although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove. Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner also explained that starting in 2005, the RNC began to treat Mr. Rove's emails in a special fashion. At some point in 2005, the RNC commenced an automatic archive policy for Mr. Rove, but not for any other White House officials. According to Mr. Kelner, this archive policy removed Mr. Rove's ability to personally delete his e-mails from the RNC server. Mr. Kelner did not provide many details about why this special policy was adopted for Mr. Rove. But he did indicate that one factor was the presence of investigative or discovery requests or other legal concerns. It was unclear from Mr. Kelner's briefing whether the special archiving policy for Mr. Rove was consistently in effect after 2005. [my emphasis]

Evidence indicates the firings were actually politically motivated

[Evidence, actually it is mere speculation at this time as no evidence of political motivation has been presented as far as I know.

Hard to find evidence when no one remembers shit and millions of emails are "missing".

What other reason is there to fire them? I'm especially interested in your answer concerning the ones that had stellar performance reviews right up to the time they were let go.

Technically, no reason is necessary as they serve at the will of the President. Ergo at this point there is no evidence of political motivation only the speculation that this was the real reason for the firings. Of course there are so many Bush haters that anything that even looks out of place will draw attention from some of the zealots in Congress today.