** Crossposted at Perrspectives **

For an already embattled White House, March 6, 2007 may have officially marked the last throes of the Bush presidency.  In court rooms and Congressional hearings, in Iraq and in the polls, the Bush administration was deluged with a torrent of breaking news, all of it bad.

Alberto Gonzales is at it again, with a short opinion piece in USA Today: They lost my confidence.  In it, he attempts to justify the mass firings of U.S. attorneys, with  much spin, little factual content:

To be clear, it was for reasons related to policy, priorities and management - what have been referred to broadly as "performance-related" reasons - that seven U.S. attorneys were asked to resign last December.

Yes, sure....

Follow me  below the fold for more exciting news from Mr. Gonzales!

I believe the U.S. Attorney scandal could get really, really big.

I will start with where I see this ending: Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson resign.  Co-conspirators are indicted.  Top administration officials resign or are impeached.

Why?  Continue reading to see more.

As a former Justice Department attorney who was forced from my job for political, not performance, reasons, I'm the first to admit that I have a bee in my bonnet about the political purging and professional ruination of dedicated and talented public servants.  Yesterday six of the ousted U.S. Attorneys testified before Congress.  They were all in agreement that they felt pressured and threatened by the Justice Department and/or the White House and experienced politically-driven retaliation for exercising their independent prosecutorial discretion.  The timing could not be more ironic with the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for doing the same to a different public employee.

The House and Senate Committee public investigations on the firing of the US Attorneys by the Justice Department at the end of 2006 have been quite eye-opening.  The House session allowed the Justice Department to lay out the reasons that these particular attorneys were chosen to be fired.  

Some attorneys were assured that they were not fired for poor performance.  They were just asked to leave because the President needed to provide opportunities for other (more) worthy Republicans to make their mark for future positions of power.

Mercer told Charlton that "this was being done so that other individuals could 'touch base' as a United States attorney before the end of the president's term."

It was clear during a lengthy day of testimony today that politics are at play in the investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, but there are also serious allegations being probed.

Those made by David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, are among the most grave.

Politics aside, one thing seems clear: Regardless of which versions of October phone calls are closer to the truth, the two members of Congress who called Iglesias to inquire about a pending public corruption probe could be guilty of ethics violations that might earn them censures.

Click here to read the article.

Pete McCloskey is a lion of a Republican, the kind they don't make anymore.  Last year, he rented an apartment in Lodi, CA, to run against Richard Pombo in the Republican primary.  He cut Pombo off at the knees, and deserves as much credit as anyone in bringing him down.

He authored a "Guest Opinion" in today's San Francisco Chronicle, talking about the parallels between Watergate's Saturday Night Massacre and the current DoJ firings.  And he knows of what he speaks, because he was in Congress in the Watergate days, and was the first Congressman to call for Nixon's impeachment on the floor of the House.

As the prosecutor firing scandal develops over the coming days, weeks and months, let's look at how Time's Washington bureau chief tried to brush it off less than two months ago:

That's how Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo describes a story that his blog and its offshoot, TPMMuckraker.com, have played a laudable role in uncovering: the resignations of more than a dozen United States Attorneys across the country, and their replacement, under an obscure provision in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, by "interim" candidates hand-picked by the attorney general without the consent of the Senate or any constraint on the duration of their service.

It's all very suspicious-sounding. The provision smacks of a power-grab, an attempt to put a leash on federal prosecutors in the name of efficiency. It looks even worse when it turns out one of the "interim" US attorneys appointed by Alberto Gonzales is Tim Griffin, a veteran GOP operative who worked in Karl Rove's shop at the White House and as director of research (i.e., chief dirt digger) at the Republican National Committee. Not only that, but Griffin was appointed to be the USA in his home state of Arkansas, which can only mean he's being sent by Rove, armed with subpoena power, to dig up fresh dirt on the Clintons in time for the 2008 presidential campaign cycle.

Of course! It all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!

Except for one thing: in this case some liberals are seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist.

The difference between myopic CW-meisters in DC like Carney and, say, Josh Marshall is pretty stark, isn't it? I guess it's no surprise that anyone who shares space with Joe Klein becomes lazy and arrogant. I mean, it wasn't enough for Carney to ignore the story -- he had to belittle those of it who knew from the start that it was serious and worthy of close scrutiny. Way to go, Time!

This isn't new. We saw this same thing with Plamegate and the tenacious (and ultimately right) bloggers at Firedoglake, The Next Hurrah, Needlenose, and elsewhere..

It's a nice pattern we're starting to see develop -- 1) a gross abuse of power occurs, 2) the traditional media yawns, while 3) the beltway punditry laughs at those silly bloggers making much ado about nothing. Then 4) it turns out there was reason enough to make "ado", and finally, 5) the traditional media belatedly enters the scene.

While not perfect or ideal, it sure beats what used to happen -- stopping at #3 #2.

The Senate Judiciary hearings on the fired prosecutors are in full swing. TPM and TPMmuckraker are following the proceedings. Revelations thus far:

David Iglesias says Pete Domenici called him at home to specifically ask about the New Mexico public corruption investigation of a Democrat and whether the indictments would be filed before November.

When Iglesias said no, Domenici said he was very sorry to hear that and hung up the phone, according to Iglesias.

Iglesias said he felt pressured by Domenici and "leaned on." The call made him "sick," Iglesias told the committee, noting that it was "unprecedented" for him to get a call from a member of Congress at home.

And the politics extend beyond New Mexico, to Washington State:

Rep. Doc Hastings' (R-WA) then chief of staff called Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay to inquire about whether the feds were investigating allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington governor's race, McKay testified. McKay said he stopped the chief of staff before he went too far with his questions, but was troubled enough by the call to discuss it with his top assistant.

Use this as a hearings open thread (you can watch them on CSPAN3 and by webcast on the Committee's Web site) to supplement MKinTN's liveblogging thread.

(I deleted because of duplication, then the duplicate deleted, leaving nothing up.  So now I'll just keep this one in place)

So I guess that, given the fact that David Iglesias is going to testify and name Sen. Pete Domenici as one of the two members of Congress who called him requesting that he speed up his investigation into Democratic corruption and get an indictment before Election Day, Domenici felt compelled to try and get ahead of the story.  So he sent this out.

I take this opportunity to comment directly on media statements by former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, David Iglesias.

Since my knowledge of his remarks stems only from a variety of media accounts, I have hesitated to respond. Nevertheless, in light of substantial public interest, I have decided to comment.

Poor Heather Wilson.  After surviving a close Congressional race against the New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid (winning by a nose at 861 votes), the re-elected Wilson has had nothing but bad news.  She's been practically fingered by ousted US Attorney David Iglesias as pressuring him to issue indictments over a construction scandal before her election.  Today she got more bad news.

Wilson's defeated opponent Patricia Madrid had something to say, and she thinks that Wilson's ham-handed attempts to pressure Iglesias wasn't the only example of Republican meddling in that race.

Iglesias admits he should have notified superiors when the members of Congress called, as department procedure requires. He calls not doing so a mistake. Madrid said it’s further evidence that "he was playing ball with them" until he was fired.

Join me on the flip as Madrid enchants us with how she knows this.

Let's review: The Justice Department - very unusually - fires seven U.S. attorneys.  First they say it was because of poor performance.  Indeed, Alberto Gonzales personally assures the Senate Judiciary Committee of that:

"I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it."

Then actual performance evaluations surface, and it turns out they're very positive.  So it's not too surprising when reports emerge that it was political.  Now we get confirmation that not only was it political, the White House approved the decision.

The White House approved the firings of seven U.S. attorneys late last year after senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms and other issues, White House and Justice Department officials said yesterday.

Such an admission from this administration is unusual, and the admission that closes the Washington Post article is even more so:

Privately, White House officials acknowledged that the administration mishandled the firings by not explaining more clearly to lawmakers that a large group was being terminated at once -- which is unusual -- and that the reason was the policy performance review.

The Bush White House made a mistake?  And admitted it?  That's shocking.  But I have to believe they're still holding out on us.

At least five of the prosecutors, including Iglesias, were presiding over public corruption investigations when they were fired, but Justice Department officials have said that those probes played no role in the dismissals.

My suspicion is that admitting that the firings were over policy, but insisting that immigration was the policy in question, is the firewall they threw up to prevent the corruption investigations from taking center stage.  But if information keeps emerging at anything like this rate, that firewall may not hold.  Tuesday, when the House Judiciary Committee holds hearings, we should know a lot more.  

Meanwhile, the New York Times has an editorial on the issue.

United States attorneys, the highest federal prosecutors at the state level, must be insulated from politics. Their decisions about whether to indict can ruin lives, and change the outcome of elections. To ensure their independence, United States attorneys are almost never removed during the term of the president who appointed them.

The Bush administration ignored this tradition, and trampled on prosecutorial independence, by firing eight United States attorneys in rapid succession, including one, Carol Lam of San Diego, who had put a powerful Republican congressman in jail. Mr. Iglesias, who was the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, says two members of Congress called him last October and urged him to pursue corruption charges against a prominent Democrat before the November election. He did not. He was dismissed.

In addition to Congressional hearings, the Times calls for Gonzales to appoint an "impartial investigator."  That's all well and good, but I'm not really expecting Gonzales to hold an impartial investigation of something he's already lied to the Senate about.  And that's why public pressure could be important - make him start the investigation or answer serious questions about why not.  

As mcjoan has said, this keeps getting more interesting.

Update: Josh Marshall weighs in on the Washington Post story.  Read the whole post, but I note he's also skeptical of the "it's about immigration" storyline:

If this whole business was about US attorneys not implementing White House policy on immigration and firearms enforcement, why all the secrecy about it?

....

Here's the funny thing.

Of all the reasons an administration might have to fire serving US attorneys, a willful refusal to follow the administration's law enforcement policies would seem to be a pretty good one. Given the fact that so many of the fired prosecutors were also in the midst of major public corruption investigations, you'd think they'd be more forthcoming with this exculpating explanation. Even more so when you consider that one of the fired US Attorneys was the target of two sitting members of Congress trying to pressure him to subvert justice to alter the outcome of a 2006 House race.

• The Carpetbagger reports on the rightosphere: On the one hand, they don't believe global warming is caused by humans.  On the other hand, most of them realize that a border wall between the US and Mexico will never be completed.  So they're partially reality-based.
• The Nation reviews the recent history of progressive film and television in Remembering 'Norma Rae'.
• The Daily Mail shows how the world looks proportioned according to HIV rates, alcohol consumption, military spending, housing prices, and other measures.
• Political Wire: Biden trails in Delaware.
• Chuck Todd's new campaign race rankings for the Democrats.
• TPM Muckraker continues to follow the US attorney "resignations" story.
• Ava's own diary points us to a Mother Jones article titled Are You There, George? It's Me, Ava.

  A decade earlier, a teenage girl out of the local political mainstream might have held her tongue until she could leavelabama. But these days the Internet provides a means out—a community of like-minded people, albeit a virtual one. Ava's website averages 30,000 hits a day and is recommended by Michael Moore's. It remains to be seen, however, whether such virtual, viral efforts can serve as a replacement, or even a stimulus, for face-to-face networks such as church groups or labor unions. Ava's rally/birthday party was a small test of what Internet activism can look like on the ground.

• The wingnuts are meeting in D.C., and they're on a "mission from God" yet again. Josh is actually watching and keeping tabs, in case you are dying to know what they're doing. (mcjoan)
• Is McCain's heart really in it? Reading Craig Crawford who notes three major flubs by the candidate in recent days, you have to wonder. (mcjoan)
• Henry Waxman has issued his first subpoena, to Major General George W. Weightman, former Commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, "regarding the privatization of support services at Walter Reed and its impact on the conditions at Walter Reed." (mcjoan)
• Meanwhile in Iraq, all hell breaking loose continues, with 14 Iraqi abducted police found dead, 18 Interior Ministry employees seized, and two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter killed. (mcjoan)

Just a quick one before bed......

Sources: GOP Lawmakers Tried To Influence Federal Investigation
By Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator, according to two people familiar with the contacts.

The alleged involvement of the two Republican lawmakers raises questions about possible violations of House of Representatives and Senate ethics rules and could taint the criminal investigation into the award of an $82 million courthouse contract.

Melissa Block interviewed David Iglesias extensively on today's All Things Considered.   You can hear the interview at the Listen link here.  He's already been interviewed by Senate Judiciary Committee staff, and is scheduled to testify...

Today, the last two of the Gonzales 7 will step down -- Daniel Bogden in Nevada and David Iglesias in New Mexico.  Attorney Gonzales will be announcing acting/interim replacements in both U.S. Attorney districts as there have been no Presidential nominations for either district.

The five other U.S. Attorneys -- asked to resign on December 7th, 2006 as part of what has become known as the 'Pearl Harbor massacre' of the Gonzales Seven (Lam, Ryan, Charlton, Cummins and McKay) -- have already left their posts.

ePluribus Media has compiled background stories on each of these seven -- The Gonzales Seven: Who They are and Who is Replacing Them -- which are available on the ePluribus Media Journal.

by Duke Falconer for ePluribus Media

Ironically, of the seven US Attorneys purged by Alberto Gonzales last December, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, who has received little attention in the press, is perhaps the most famous of the group...but most people just don't know it.  

While a Navy JAG officer in 1986 he was the defense counsel in a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, court-martial of two men accused of assaulting a fellow Marine. Iglesias, and his defense in that case, later became the inspiration for the movie, "A Few Good Men."

Nominated for the position of US Attorney by George W. Bush in August of 2001 and approved by the US Senate in October, Iglesias became the first Hispanic to serve as U.S. attorney since the Nixon administration.  

He announced his "forced resignation" on December 19, 2006.

by Amy Griel (Biblio) for ePluribus Media
The fourth in ePluribus Media's series of spotlights on the seven U.S.Attorneys who were asked to resign.  Given the New York Times breaking news of White House involvement in one of the Gonzales Seven replacements, Tim Griffin, and that now he will not seek confirmation (thereby having to go before the Senate), it's important to keep the spotlights on.

On January 16^th, 2007 Carol Lam, US Attorney for California's Southern District, announced she would step down from her post, and her last day will be February 15^th, 2007. Her interim replacement was announced yesterday.