Gonzales White House Testimony Offer:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/2...red-prosecutors
LAURIE KELLMAN

MJ here. Get this, first: 'White House offers to let Congress interview aides on firings'
Then, 5 minutes later White House changes mind and retracts first offer and replaces it with: 'White House offers Offers Interview With Rove'

Either way: Democrats rejected it and vowed to start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

MJ still here. Why is it I feel violated and taken for a chump with what ever comes out of the White House? Here are some tidbits from the link:

"Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding said in his letter.

He said the documents released by the Justice Department "do not reflect that any U.S. attorney was replaced to interfere with a pending or future criminal investigation or for any other improper reason."

MJ again: read between the lines folks, "documents released by the Justice Department" which means they've cherry picked the documents released so far. More from the link:

The Senate, meanwhile, voted (94-2 To Cancel Bush Power To Unilaterally Appoint US Attys…), to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.

"What happened in this case sends a signal really through intimidation by purge: 'Don't quarrel with us any longer,'" said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former U.S. attorney who spent much of Monday evening paging through 3,000 documents released by the Justice Department.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/washingt...amp;_r=1&hp
By DAVID STOUT

President Bush and Senate Democrats clashed angrily this afternoon, as the president said he would not allow his key aides to testify under oath about the dismissal of United States attorneys, while the Democrats insisted they would settle for no less.
“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition, Bush Said.

MJ:????Don't I remember an 8 year fishing expedition not too long ago by the opposition party?

“Initial response by Democrats, unfortunately, shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts,†Mr. Bush said. “It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials...

MJ: HELLOOOOOO

But Democratic leaders immediately turned down the offer, [of an informal talk]demanding that President Bush’s aides testify under oath. That set the stage for a major political fight and perhaps a court showdown over the rightful powers of the executive branch and those of a Congress now controlled by Democrats.

MJ: Are the Dem's finally growing a pair? I say put Bush under oath and find out what questionable role he has been playing.

Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader: “Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness.â€

MJ: Kinda like the 'no innocent person has anything to fear from their phone conversations being randomly monitored' excuse offered by Bushivite apologistas

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260101,00.html

WASHINGTON — A House panel authorized subpoenas for White House aides on Wednesday as congressional Democrats and President Bush brace for battle over the extent to which the assistants should respond to scrutiny over the firing of eight former U.S. attorneys.

The House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law on a voice vote approved the panel chairman's authority to compel the president's top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is now able to issue the subpoenas should he choose. He may also force the White House, the subpoenaed presidential aides and Department of Justice to turn over documents.

"We have worked toward voluntary cooperation on this investigation, but we must prepare for the possibility that the Justice Department and the White House will continue to hide the truth," subcommittee chairwoman Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said before the vote.

"This Congress respects executive privilege as a safeguard for the internal deliberations on the legitimate creation of policy. However, the White House has begun claiming executive privilege as a blanket excuse against any oversight into potential abuse of power or political misconduct," she added.

...But Democrats put out talking points after the president's remarks listing some of the 74 times "in recent history" that they say presidential advisers have testified to Congress, including 47 instances during the Clinton administration when Congress was led by Republicans.

 

18 DAY gap in document dump

MJ: Like I said in the original post: read between the lines folks, "documents released by the Justice Department" which means they've cherry picked the documents released so far.


http://www.lies.com/

In the good old days, dumping 3,000 memos in the laps of your political opponents might have been a good way to buy some time. Your opponents would have had to read through the memos and figure out what they showed, and what was missing, and by the time they’d done all that the immediate crisis would have passed. You would have had a week or more during which you could have been out there in the media, talking to reporters and appearing on the Sunday chat shows, crowing about how you’d been so open and transparent, and the other guys would only have been able to sputter.

But these days, with folks like the good little muckrakers at Talking Points Memo on the case, it works a little differently. The documents were released late in the day on Monday. By 2:19 a.m. Tuesday, a commenter at TPM had pointed out something very interesting about the document dump: Of the 3,000 memos included, there are none from the 18 days between November 15 and December 4. In other words, during the period when we would have expected some of the most-intense discussion of the December 7 firings, there’s an 18-day gap in the memos.

D’oh!

More about this from Joshua Marshall at TPM: Shades of Rose Mary Woods? An 18 day gap?

 

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/ap/art...80&apc=9008
Senate panel OKs subpoenas for key aides

A Senate panel, following the House's lead, has authorized subpoenas for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other top aides involved in the firing of federal prosecutors.
"We're authorizing that ability but we're not issuing them," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the subpoenas. "It'll only strengthen our hand in getting to the bottom of this."
Democrats have rejected Bush's offer – relayed to Capitol Hill on Tuesday by White House counsel Fred Fielding – in large part because there would be no transcript and the testimony would not be public.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the majority leader, said it would be "outrageous," to allow Rove to testify off the record.

"Anyone who would take that deal isn't playing with a full deck," Reid said.

MJ here: Although I have been following this event, I have come to the conclusion it is nothing but political farce. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rove are so dishonest that even compelling them in the courts is useless. They are so slippery there is nothing and no way to compel them legally or otherwise to come clean with their dirty tricks. This goes for firing prosecutors who were hot on the trail of corruption, outing a CIA operative, wasting a huge national surplus, handing non-bid contracts to their war-profiteering friends, or anything else either legally or morally repugnant. These are despicable, powerful and as soon as this term is over, extremely wealthy men who will stop at nothing including murder to line their own pockets. Lots of this wasted money will be funneled from them to purchase water rights for the coming water wars. They are the 21st century robber barons who make the 19th century robber barons look like children at play.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/2...red-prosecutors
Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings
LARA JAKES JORDAN

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.

"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers -- where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew," Gonzales said last week. "But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

MJ: So heis taking the George bush Senior tact when GBS was involved up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra. GBS testified he always went to the bathroom when the matter was discussed, thereby preserving his 'plausable deniability'. Too bad documents show othewise for Gonsales...


WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in an hourlong meeting last fall, according to documents released Friday that indicate he was more involved in the dismissals than he has claimed.
There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.
The five-step plan approved by Gonzales involved notifying Republican home-state senators of the impending dismissals, preparing for potential political upheaval, naming replacements and submitting them to the Senate for confirmation.
Nonetheless Democrats pounced late Friday.

"Clearly the attorney general was not telling the whole truth, but what is he trying to hide?" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as Attorney General," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is heading the Senate's investigation into the firings.

Added House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers:

"This puts the Attorney General front and center in these matters, contrary to information that had previously been provided to the public and Congress."

Earlier Friday, a staunch White House ally, Sen. John Cornyn, summoned White House counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill and told him he wanted "no surprises."

"I told him, 'Everything you can release, please release.


MJ: ...and 'who' decides what 'can' be released???

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FIR...EMPLATE=DEFAULT
GOP Support for Attorney General Erodes
By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness and a Democrat joined the list of lawmakers who want him to resign over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

To Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Gonzales "does have a credibility problem. ... We govern with one currency, and that's trust. And that trust is all important. And when you lose or debase that currency, then you can't govern. And I think he's going to have some difficulties."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Gonzales has been "wounded" by the firings. `He has said some things that just don't add up," said Graham, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee.