1 Boring Old Man

The Department of Justice seems to be placed squarely in the center of most of the scandals during the Bush Administration: The outing of a C.I.A. Agent [prewar intelligence], the N.S.A. Unwaranted Domestic Spying issue, and the partisan firing of the U.S. Attorneys. I’ve tried to summarize the timeline to get it straight for myself.

After 911, Attorney General John Ashcroft, a strong law and order advocate, became involved in the Homeland Security initiative. There were several parts of that program he initiated that were questionable [TIPS and DSEA], and we don’t know about his involvement in the secret N.S.A. Unwarranted Domestic Surveillance Program. After Joseph Wilson published his op-ed piece criticizing the Administration’s handling of the pre-War Intelligence and the Administration had ‘outed’ his wife, Valerie Plame, in retaliation, Ashcroft misbehaved – being briefed on Karl Rove’s testimony. At the suggestion of his Deputy Attorney General James Comey, he recused himself from the case. Comey appointed Special Prosecuter Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the matter – ultimately exposing the Administration’s outing of Valerie Plame, and indicting and convicting I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, for his false testimony to the Grand Jury.

At that time, the N.S.A. Unwarranted Domestic Surveillance Program was a secret, but it required periodic review by the Justice Department. In March 2004, Deputy Attorney General James Comey was supervising that review and concluded that the program was illegal, communicating the findings to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Shortly thereafter, Ashcroft became extremely ill and had to be hospitalized leaving Comey in charge as acting Attorney General. As we learned this week in detail, Comey refused to sign off on the program, and kept White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card from extracting a signature from the delerious Attorney General. The program was approved anyway, and the high level Justice Department officials prepared to resign in protest. In response, the Administration apparently recanted and some alterations were made in the program – though we have yet to learn the details about those changes.

At the end of Bush’s first term, Attorney John Ashcroft resigned, citing health reasons, though he immediately became involved in a lucritive K-Street lobbying enterprise, bringing that reason into question. He was replaced by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Comey stayed on until the Fall of the following year, replaced by Paul McNulty. We know from the DoJ emails that with Gonzales’ arrival, they began to make plans to replace a number of the U.S. Attorneys. These plans were not communicated to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

Meanwhile, in December 2005, the New York Times finally revealed the N.S.A. Unwarranted Domestic Surveillance Program, having known about it for a long time. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the program, but it was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the Republican Congress passed a modified version of the program [to our horror]. Finally, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that there would be no more unwarranted surveillance in January of this year, presumably in response to the Democratic takeover of both Houses of Congress. After Comey left the Department of Justice, the plans for replacing U.S. Attorneys intensified – some left voluntarily to avoid being fired. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales turned over all hiring and firing matters to his junior associates, Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and White House Liason Monica Goodling, presumably to insulate himself from repurcussions. And a clause was ‘slipped into’ the Patiot Act giving the Attorney General the power to appoint Interim U.S. Attorneys indefinitely without Senate Confirmation. In December 2006, eight U.S. Attorneys were fired.

With the coming of a Democratic Congress, we all hoped that they would begin investigation the sheenanigans of the Bush Administration – the ‘cooking of the pre-War Intelligence, the O.S.P., the Iraq Invasion, the N.S.A. Spying, etc. But as things turned out, it was the firing of the U.S. Attorneys that was on the front burner from the start. In the three months of investigation, most of the principles in the DoJ have resigned [except for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales]. The implication thus far is that these firings were directed by the White House and that the motives were to protect Republicans under investigation, to initiate voter harassment prosecutions, and to encourage investigation of Democrats. Each day, there’s new information that make this whole affair smell increasingly like rotten eggs.