From: Rich Gauszka 

You conveniently forgot about the bypassing of Senate approval due to
Bush's perversion of the Patriot Act for political purposes


Gary Britt wrote:
> Prosecutors are part of the executive branch not the judicial branch and
> all serve at the pleasure of the President.  When Bill Clinton came into
> office in 1993 he fired all 84 US Attorneys.  Bush didn't do this kind
> of mass firing.  Clinton also did many mass firings in other areas of
> government as well.  Also not followed by Bush.
>
> Bush should have followed the Clinton model, but he was trying to play
> nice, foolishly thinking that he could achieve with washinton democraps
> what he had achieved with Texas democrats.  Washington democraps ain't
> the same kind of critter.
>
> Gary
>
> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>> Yet another  debasement of the Patroit Act - The Bushies firing
>> Federal prosecutors  to get their cronies in without Senate confirmation.
>>
>>
>> http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4606122.html
>>
>> WASHINGTON - A fired federal prosecutor told a Senate committee
>> Tuesday that he felt "leaned on" and sickened as
Republican Sen. Pete
>> Domenici hung up on him in disgust last fall when told that
>> indictments in a corruption case against Democrats would not be issued
>> before the fall elections.
>>
>> "He said, 'Are these going to be filed before November?'" former
>> federal prosecutor David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys
>> summarily fired in recent months, told the panel. "I said I didn't
>> think so. And to which he replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.' And
>> then the line went dead."
>>
>> The Bush administration also applied a heavy hand after the firings of
>> eight prosecutors became public and some of the dismissed U.S.
>> attorneys had been quoted in media, according to one of those ousted,
>> Bud Cummins of Arkansas.
>>
>> Cummins said in an e-mail released by the Senate Judiciary Committee
>> that Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul
>> McNulty, had called and expressed his displeasure that the fired
>> prosecutors talked to reporters about their dismissals.
>>
>> "If they (DOJ) feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes
>> to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure,
>> then they feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer
>> public criticisms to defend their actions more fully," Cummins said in
>> the e-mail to five other fired prosecutors.
>>
>> Iglesias said he received the call at home on Oct. 26 or 27th and that
>> it lasted two minutes, "tops."
>>
>> "I felt leaned on. I felt pressured to get these matters moving,"
>> Iglesias testified.
>>
>> Asked by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., whether such a call was unusual
>> in Iglesias' experience, the former prosecutor answered,
"Unprecedented."
>>
>> Six of eight prosecutors fired by the Department of Justice in recent
>> months were expected to appear before House and Senate panels - all
>> six under subpoena before the House, four voluntarily in the Senate.
>> Justice officials have said most of the eight were dismissed for
>> performance-related issues, an allegation those testifying staunchly
>> denied.
>>
>> http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/03/06/editorial/editorial/daily938.t
xt
>>
>>
>> The New Mexico controversy suggests a possible attempt to use the
>> courts to sway an election. In San Diego, reasonable people might
>> detect a whiff of payback as well as a possible fear of where an
>> unfinished investigation might lead next. And when a former Karl Rove
>> aide ends up as a federal prosecutor in Arkansas, it's hard to avoid
>> the notion that someone's planning to revive the Whitewater scandal
>> against Sen. Hillary Clinton.
>>
>> Apparently, a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act allows U.S.
>> attorneys to be replaced without Senate confirmation. A lack of
>> confirmation hearings no doubt caused some fine political minds to
>> believe they could put people more sympathetic to their plans in those
>> jobs, as long as they kept things quiet.
>>
>>

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