The Associated Press, via JSOnline, about the continuing saga of the fired US attorneys:
White House mulled firing all attorneys
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of President Bush's second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have generated a political firestorm two years later.
“…(White House spokesperson Dana) Perino said the Justice Department was working internally on a short list of firings, and submitted that list to the White House in late 2006.
"At no time were names added or subtracted by the White House," Perino said. "We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within administration's discretion. We stand by the Department of Justice's assertion that they were removed for performance and managerial reasons."
“Dating back to mid-2004, the White House's legislative affairs, political affairs and chief of staff's office had received complaints from a variety of sources about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases in various locations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and New Mexico, she said” (Emphasis added.)
So, who was complaining? And why? And did any of these complaints have any impact on prosecution decisions at the time?
Or now?
Hey, Craig Gilbert, finish up your latte and start making some calls!
Update: The original AP story I linked to has been updated, and the comments by Perino have been edited out to make room for the Attorney General’s press conference. You can find another link to her comments here.
Update 2: The Brew City Brawler knows who to ask--the two Ricks and he wonders, too, how Biskupic was rated.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
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4 comments:
The general thought seems to be that the US Attorney's who were fired got in trouble either for indicting Republicans or failing to indict democrats in time to influence various elections. Some emphasize that the big republican hobby horse was "vote fraud". And you may recall our US Attorney indicted many people for vote fraud. Didn't convict many, but indicted many.
And our US Attorney has indicted several democrats and donors, and I can't think of a republican he indicted (may be wrong there). So I don't think the question is whether Biskupic was in trouble. He wasn't. The question is how did he stay out of trouble? Ask Georgia Thompson.
Dana Perino could have named dozens of cities in her comments, but she picked Milwaukee along with just a few others. There's some kind of story here.
Also see, re the time frame at the start of the second term, re "voter fraud," and re the failure to find cause for federal prosecution: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=295538
Sorry, the first part of the post above, with the URL to the JS story, disappeared down those darned tubes on the internets. (Also, I'm a different Anonymous than in the first post on this thread.)
In sum, it looks like there could have been cause at the time of the Miers memo to wonder if Biskupic was doing enough on "election irregularities" with no fed charges against the tire-slashers -- a very high-profile story that the GOP loved and watched from around the country, so certainly from the White House.
And yes, the later trumped-up case against Georgia Thompson can be put in better perspective now, knowing that all fed attorneys like Biskupic clearly were under pressure to produce -- and in time for the midterm elections (the travel story blew open in summer 2006) as well as the 2008 elections (with her conviction in the last weeks of the Doyle-Green contest, for all the good it did -- since the case was considered trumped-up even by some right-wing bloggers).
And yes, if Craig Gilbert doesn't get on this, the blogosphere might have to keep up this pressure -- so that maybe the Madison media, in the sacrificial lamb's hometown, will do so?
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