As it turns out President Obama also demanded a loyalty pledge from US Attorneys.

The first time President Obama met with his US Attorneys, he told us, “I appointed you but you don’t serve me. You serve the American people. And I expect you to act with independence & integrity.” None of us ever forgot that.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) December 29, 2017

Courtesy of the Daily Kos: 

Trump demanded government employees (appointed or not) give their sole loyalty and service to him. President Obama demanded loyalty and service be given to the American people. There lies the difference between self-serving—and selflessness. There lies the difference between self-importance—and greatness.

Barak Obama is what a real leader looks like, and he is dearly missed. 

Oh did I not mention that the loyalty Obama demanded was to the American people and the Constitution?

Because of course it was.

Now we are hearing that ousted US Attorney Preet Bharara was also investigating new HHS Secretary Tom Price. And the plot thickens.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Ousted U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was overseeing an investigation into current Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s stock trades when he was fired, according to an unnamed source cited by ProPublica Friday. 

According to a source “familiar with the office,” ProPublica reported, Bharara’s employees were looking into stock trades made by Price, seemingly those that came to light during his confirmation process. 

Before and during his confirmation hearing, Democrats accused Price of abusing his office for his own personal benefit, perhaps illegally. 

Price bought stock in Zimmer Biomet the same month, March 2016, that he introduced legislation to delay the implementation of a measure that would have negatively affected that company.

So to be clear Preet Bharara was investigating Fox News for paying hush money to keep employees quiet about sexual harassment,  Donald Trump's ties to Russia, AND accusations of insider trading by the new HHS Secretary?

Oh yeah, he clearly had to go.

White supremacist felon builds arsenal and compiles list of possible targets. US Attorney says he has no idea how he was able to get the weapons. Yeah, what a mystery.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Federal agents were tracking Ohio resident Richard Schmidt’s imports of counterfeit sports jerseys when they stumbled upon his arsenal of 18 guns, more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition, and bulletproof body armor. Besides the arsenal, he had lists of Jewish and black leaders in Detroit, MI. He is also an ex-felon who killed a Hispanic man and wounded two others 24 years ago. 

Yet before December, no one even noticed that Schmidt, 47, was amassing weapons illegally, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead, federal investigators zeroed in on his sports memorabilia shop around September 2011, tracking his shipments of knock-off jerseys from China for over a year before they discovered the cache of firearms. 

Schmidt plead guilty to federal gun charges and the counterfeit racket last month, and will be sentenced in October. But many connected to the crime are still scratching their heads over how an ex-felon with ties to white supremacist groups was able to get his hands on so many guns. 

“I can’t tell you how he got all those guns and ammunition,” U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach told the Plain Dealer. “It’s not that I won’t tell you; it’s that I can’t. This is somebody who should never have had one gun, one bullet. But he had an entire arsenal.” 

Schmidt is technically banned from possessing a gun for the rest of his life. In 1989, he pulled a gun on three men during a traffic argument, killing one man and wounding the other two. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served 12 years in prison.

"I can't tell you how he got all those guns and ammunition."  Seriously?

I'm confused is NOW the right time to bring up the importance of stricter gun control laws, background checks at gun shows, and keeping people from being able to buy guns and ammo off of the internet.

Because, and I'm just spit balling here. that MIGHT be how this idiot got his weapons.

And don't give me that 2nd Amendment bullshit either, because do you know what REALLY stops a bad guy with a gun?  Too many laws, and too muhc paperwork for the bad guy to get the gun in the first place THAT'S what!

And what do we make of this?

In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.

In Alabama, for instance, the home of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was burglarized twice during the period of his first indictment. Nothing of value was taken, however, and according to the Siegelman family, the only items of interest to the burglars were the files in Siegelman's home office.

Siegelman's attorney experienced the same type of break-in at her office.

In neighboring Mississippi, a case brought against a trial lawyer and three judges raises even more disturbing questions. Of the four individuals in the same case, three of the US Attorney’s targets were the victims of crimes during their indictment or trial. This case, like that of Governor Siegelman, has been widely criticized as a politically motivated prosecution by a Bush US Attorney.

The main target of the indictment, attorney Paul Minor, had his office broken into, while Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, Oliver E. Diaz Jr., had his home burglarized. According to police reports and statements from Diaz and from individuals close to Minor, nothing of value was taken and the burglars only rummaged through documents and in Minor’s case, also took a single computer from an office full of expensive office equipment.

The incidents are not limited to burglaries. In Mississippi, former Judge John Whitfield was the victim of arson at his office. In Alabama, the whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case, Dana Jill Simpson, had her home burned down, and shortly thereafter her car was allegedly forced off the road.

While there is no direct evidence linking these crimes to the US Attorneys’ office targeting these individuals, or to the Bush administration, there is a distinct pattern that makes it highly unlikely that these incidents are isolated and unrelated.

You know I am going to have to seriously consider investing in tinfoil.

By the way my money is firmly on the Bush administration as to who is behind this.

I doubt they are doing it themselves but they are definitely having it done.

What do you think they are looking for?

Letter reveals that US Attorney scandal leads right to the White House. Raise your hand if you are surprised. Nobody? Damn you people are smart!

This guy Solicitor General Paul Clement, in response to the subpoenas to get information about the US Attorney firings, reveals that the documents do indeed reveal that the White House was involved at every level.

Clement reviewed the documents that the Congress subpoenaed. In his letter, Clement reveals what investigators have suspected from the very beginning — that the White House was intimately involved in the attorney scandal. Upon examination of the White House documents, Clement writes:

Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals.

The White House had “said that Mr. Bush’s aides approved the list of prosecutors only after it was compiled.” President Bush himself said that “the Justice Department made recommendations, which the White House accepted” regarding the removal of the attorneys.

So I am sure that somewhere there is a loyal Republican who reads this and thinks, "I had no idea, that this government would lie to us about this incident!", and then he will crawl back into his hole and refuse to listen to anymore news until Jesus comes back and releases him from his pain.

But for the brilliant people who visit this site (and watch the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Countdown), we already know that "when the White House says it we know it is bullshit!"

And really if we just keep the above rule in mind we will never again find ourselves fooled.

US Attorney scandal takes out another official.

A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the dismissals of federal prosecutors said Friday he is resigning.

Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

Elston was accused of threatening at least four of the eight fired U.S. attorneys to keep quiet about their ousters. In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said Elston was leaving voluntarily to take a job with an unnamed Washington-area law firm.

I still cannot quite believe how little notice I gave this story when it first arrived on the scene. But it just continues to give, and give, and give to us liberals.

It is like a media version of Santa Claus.

Congress is looking for the weak link in the US Attorney scandal. Is Harriet Miers it?

Two congressional committees are issuing subpoenas for testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor on their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to two officials familiar with the investigation.

Democrats probing whether the White House improperly dictated which prosecutors the Justice Department should fire also are subpoenaing the White House for all relevant documents, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been formally made public.

The Democrats have been almost laughingly impotent at making any progress on this case. Or for that matter any other investigation into White House wrongdoing.

But I am not laughing. These are very serious concerns and we really do need to get to the bottom of the corruption that seems to permeate this Bush administration and everything they touch.

If Harriet Miers can be the straw that snaps this stubborn camels back then I hope they verbally slap that bitch into next week. All we need is one insider to start spilling their guts and this house of cards will start to crumble.

Jon Stewart and the daily Show do an AMAZING job of demonstrating the absurdity of the US Attorneys scandal.

This is exactly what I tried to do in a recent post. But I just do not have the resources, or let's face it, the talent of Jon Stewart and his staff.

This is absolutely brilliant!

Monica Goodling testimony very disappointing.

Testifying under court-approved immunity, 33-year-old Monica Goodling acknowledged that she had given too much consideration to whether candidates for jobs as career prosecutors were Republicans or Democrats.

“You crossed the line on civil service laws, is that right?” asked Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.

“I believe I crossed the line,” Goodling replied. “But I didn’t mean to.”

She said she had limited involvement in the firings and offered the panel’s Democrats nothing new in their probe of whether President Bush’s top political and legal aides chose which prosecutors to dismiss.

Goodling said she never talked to Karl Rove, Bush’s political adviser, nor Harriet Miers, then the president’s White House counsel, about the firings. She said Gonzales’ former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, drew up the list of those to be dismissed but she didn’t know how names got on it.

There was, at least so far, no smoking gun. There was very little new information. She admitted to breaking the law by hiring people based on their political leanings but did not say if anybody asked her to do so.

But my question is this: If Monica Goodling did not make the list of US Attorneys to be fired, and Paul McNulty didn't, and Alberto Gonzales didn't, and apparently neither Karl Rove or Harriet Meir's did it either, then who the fuck did?

I mean how many other people could have decided who was to be fired? I am guessing nobody else.

Which means that somebody, or everybody, is lying. And Congress better get to the bottom of this and not let this administration dodge and lie their way out of yet another scandal. This is a very convoluted and bizarre situation and it needs to have the light of justice shined right in its damn eyes.

Gonzales blames McNulty for the firing of the US Attorneys. You see McNulty had integrity and that must be punished.

The Bush administration will not allow anybody with a conscience to escape untarnished from their grasp. Gonzales and company decided that since McNulty had resigned then why not just blame him for everything. I mean what could be more convenient?

Mr. McNulty do you have anything you would like to say? Please?

Another senior justice official announces his resignation. Gonzales, like Bush, is finding himself isolated.

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty announced his resignation today, saying he is leaving the Justice Department later this summer to enter the private sector, officials said.

McNulty announced his plans to leave in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, citing the financial pressures of having children entering their college years, one official said.

McNulty acknowledged providing inaccurate information to Congress in February about the dismissals, but blamed the errors on inadequate preparation by others more deeply involved in the removals.


"It seems ironic that Paul McNulty who at least tried to level with the committee goes while Gonzales who stonewalled the committee is still in charge," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has asked Gonzales to resign. "This administration owes us a lot better."

It is simple. Anybody with any integrity cannot stomach working for this administration for long, and they resign, leaving only the most immoral bottom feeders left to fawn at George Bush's feet.

Gonzales has played dumb in front of Congress twice and that is what his boss wants him to do. He is a loyal Bushie willing to sacrifice his reputation and perhaps even his soul to appease his master.

It is to Mr. McNulty's credit that he is trying to leave with some sense of decency. Now he should write a book.

If you thought the "Monica problem" was over when Clinton left office, you are wrong. This administration has their own "Monica problem".

Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

Ms. Ashton’s ouster — she left the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for another Justice Department post two weeks later — was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.

Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

Oh I can hardly wait to see this lady tesifying in front of Congress!

You can take the fifth all you want, but when Congress wants to talk to then by God they are going to talk to you!

Congressional investigators checking for political motive in the Justice Department's dismissal of selected U.S. attorneys last year now have a federal court order to hear from a former high-level government attorney, Monica Goodling.

In a request for immunity from prosecution filed and granted within hours Friday at U.S. District Court, the House Judiciary Committee said the protected testimony could shed light on circumstances "surrounding recent terminations of certain United States attorneys, representations to Congress regarding those circumstances, and related matters."

The panel's leadership believes Goodling took part in "crucial discussions" leading to a "termination list" that was then "refined and finalized," according to a letter last month from committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., that was sent to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Oh goody, goody, Goodling!

I can hardly wait to see this testimony.

Alberto Gonzales was able to tell Congress that he did not make the decision to fire the US attorneys because he delegated that job to his aides.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys -- extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

Tricky little bastards aren't they? But they are not nearly as tricky as they think they are.

US Attorney scandal even reaches us here in Alaska.

The state’s chief federal prosecutor, Pittsburgh native Nelson Cohen, owes his job to the U.S. attorney in his hometown, who succeeded in getting him the Anchorage post over Alaskans nominated by Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens.

But now, the U.S. attorney scandal threatening to topple Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may cost Cohen his job here. His “interim” appointment will vanish when that classification is amended out of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which is expected to happen in the next few months.

At the same time, Mary Beth Buchanan, Cohen’s well-connected benefactor and former boss, is in trouble herself, with investigators from the House Judiciary Committee wanting to question her over what role she may have played in deciding which U.S. attorneys got fired, allegedly for partisan reasons.

Oooh I am so excited! We never get to be involved in any national scandals. Usually Alaska is left to make up our own scandals, and that can get very annoying and time consuming.

Were the U.S. Attorneys fired for not supporting the suppression of the Democrat voters?

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Look boys and girls, another impeachable offense.

I swear the only way we may be able to get this moron out of office is if he robs a bank, buck naked, while involved in a homosexual relationship.

E-mails prove that US attorneys were removed for political reasons.

A Justice Department e-mail message released on Friday shows that the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed replacement candidates for United States attorneys nearly a year before they were dismissed in December 2006. The department has repeatedly stated that no successors were selected before the dismissals.

The Jan. 9, 2006, e-mail message, written by D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned last month as the top aide to Mr. Gonzales, identified five Bush administration officials, most of them Justice Department employees, whose names were sent to the White House for consideration as possible replacements for prosecutors slated for dismissal.

Some of the new documents show the department’s acute awareness of individual United States attorneys’ political and ideological views. An undated spreadsheet attached to a Feb. 12, 2007, e-mail message listed the federal prosecutors who had served under President Bush along with their past work experience.

It is getting clearer that the point of these firings was to create a buffer between any litigation that might be filed against this administration and the White House. They were clearly trying to reinforce their ramparts for the siege that is about to come their way.

However doing so is clearly against the law. I have a feeling that this is the way the Democrats will see it as well.