If Obama Doesn't Prosecute Bush's Torture Team, We'll Pay a Big Price Down the Road

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on November 28, 2008, Printed on November 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/108905/

"How did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep and blasted music at them? Were these actions the result of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that's not the case."

-- Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, June 17, 2008

***

It was a short but significant report in Newsweek last week, and it began like this:

Despite the hopes of many human rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. "At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified for talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.

The article, written by Michael Isikoff, came at the heels of another report by the Associated Press, which quoted a pair of anonymous Obama advisors as saying that there was little-to-no chance that an Obama Justice Department would try to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture. The same report quoted Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as saying that members of the Bush administration would not face war crimes charges in the United States. "These things are not going to happen."

( Why the hell not? If we can't bring justice to our own officials, who did very definitely commit war crimes, we will never have any moral authority to say a damn word about the dictators and other snakes around the world. Barack, you are wrong on this. Please reconsider!)

Common consensus is that the Bush administration has been the most lawless in U.S. history. From its illegal invasion of Iraq to the corporate-assisted, warrant-less wiretapping of its own constituents, the Bush White House seems never to have held a view of the law from below. And, since long before the election of Barack Obama, a number of groups and individuals have called for accountability, from a vocal network of people calling for impeachment for Bush's illegal and fraudulent invasion of Iraq, to, this summer, the bluntly labeled campaign, Send Karl Rove to Jail.

But if ever there was a stain on the fabric of American democracy that must be deserving of prosecution, it is the dark legacy of torture left by the Bush administration. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to the CIA's "secret sites," proof abounds that the U.S. government engaged in systematic torture that was approved by top government officials. Ironically, a central laboratory for this corrosion of the country's moral and legal code was the very office charged with defending the rule of law: the Department of Justice.

"It is these attorneys -- Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, James Bybee, David Addington and William Haynes -- who provided the legal basis for much of the torture and abuse that occurred at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other U.S. detention facilities around the globe," Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, writes in the recently published The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book. In Ratner's view, the prosecution of these attorneys, as well as Bush, Cheney and the rest, is a critical part of not just imposing accountability on those who approved and carried out torture in the name of the American people, but in dismantling a legal framework that could lead to more torture in the future.

'This Was an Assault on the Law Itself'

Members of the legal and human rights community are currently grappling with the question of how to hold the Bush administration accountable for its crimes. In a recent cover story of Harper's Magazine, human rights legal scholar Scott Horton lays out the rationale for pursuing the crimes of the Bush administration. The good news is there is plenty of historical precedent for going after government torturers in the United States. The bad news is that they have been uneven, at best. From an Army captain who was court-martialed for imposing the "water cure" on Filipinos during the Spanish-American War ("He was forced to pay a $50 fine") to Japanese military officials tried for war crimes (including waterboarding) after World War II -- some of whom were sentenced to death, the severity of the sanction has depended on who is meting it out.

Prosecuting the torturers of accused "terrorists" in far-away places may not inspire a call to action by Americans now -- especially when a few token prosecutions of soldiers have taken place (most famously, Abu Ghraib Army Reservists Cpl. Charles Graner and Pfc. Lynndie England). But a policy systematically designed to subvert the law should be intolerable to those who place any kind of faith in American democracy. Horton's article -- parts of which should be required reading -- discusses how, during the Nuremberg trials, "the Americans and Soviets … wanted to prosecute the people who had created the legal framework for the Nazi regime, but British and French leaders objected."

"Consequently, the United States, acting on its own, convened a separate Nuremberg tribunal to try lawyers, judges and legal policymakers," thereby establishing "the principal that policymakers who occurred the mandatory prohibitions of international law against harming prisoners in wartime could be prosecuted as war criminals, no matter how many internal memos they had written to the contrary."

This leads to a critical point: "The key issue that Scott pointed out in his article," Ratner says, "is that this was an assault on the law itself." If legal opinions that sanctioned torture are left untouched, it sets a dangerous precedent. As Ratner recently wrote on his blog, "If laws can be broken with impunity today, they can and will be broken with impunity tomorrow. Not just laws against torture and war crimes, but any and all laws; any and all limits on government."

"The only way to prevent this from happening again," he tells me, "is to have prosecutions that will send a deterrence message" to future administrations.

'We Owe the American People a Reckoning'

How to do this is the most pressing -- and difficult -- question. Horton considers the various forms such prosecutions might take, from the International Criminal Court (too dependent on the support of the United States) to foreign courts (viable, but "true justice cannot be compelled from without"), to domestic courts (unlikely, because prosecuting war crimes are rarely done against those at the top of the chain of command). Ultimately, he settles on a model of the truth-and-reconciliation commissions carried out in South America and South Africa. Although they have had imperfect results in the past -- "In some cases, a bargain was struck under which the truth about past misconduct was divulged in exchange for a pardon" -- the value of the commissions largely lies in the educational benefits a commission might bestow on the public. But beyond that, a "commission plus special prosecutor," as Horton calls it, could be carried out in public, in order to "find the facts, weigh them, and if the facts warrant, make a formal recommendation for the appointment of a prosecutor."

For Ratner, the models that have been suggested thus far don't go far enough. In his view, the only way to restore the rule of law is to pursue criminal investigation and prosecution. "People have been pulling their punches when it comes to seeking full prosecutions," he says, "because of the feeling that is not politically feasible." It may be true in the end, "but unless you demand it, you're not going to get it." Failing to try, he says is "the worst defeatism you can have."

Indeed, given the destruction of the past eight years to the fabric of American democracy, to shy away from torture prosecutions would seem profoundly -- and dangerously -- shortsighted. Obama has stated that as a country, the United States does not torture -- most recently in an interview with 60 Minutes -- and much of the support he gained as a candidate from the legal and human rights community was based on his vocal opposition to the Military Commissions Act. Although his opposition to torture has been unequivocal in tone, Obama has been hesitant to state in solid terms what exactly he would do about the torture that already took place. Responding to the question this summer, from a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News, Obama responded:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my attorney general immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my attorney general -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important -- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings, and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

It's hard to imagine the lawlessness of the Bush administration falling short of "exceptional." But regardless, whether Eric Holder, Obama's pick for attorney general, would take this on is questionable. "Everybody has advice for Holder," Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick recently wrote, "starting with shuttering Guantanamo and repairing detention and interrogation policies; recalibrating the legal limits on information-gathering by intelligence agencies; doing away with provisions of the Patriot Act that encroach on civil liberties; and restoring the integrity and independence of the Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president on the lawfulness of a proposed action." But Holder has been known to criticize the violations committed by the Bush administration. "We owe the American people a reckoning," he said in a speech in June.

Still, in Horton's opinion, although torture is a federal crime and a federal prosecutor has the power to prosecute it, it is unlikely any U.S. attorney would possess the independence to do so. "Indeed," says Horton, "so many high-level figures at Justice were involved in creating the legal mechanism for torture that the Justice Department has effectively disqualified itself as an investigative vehicle, even under a new administration." Ratner agrees.

So what is a "reckoning"? And where are the consequences?

For Ratner, now is the time to push Obama, hard, on seeking independent prosecutions, "partisan witch hunt" concerns be damned. After all, Obama brings with him enormous moral credibility. Lifting the stain of torture is a project that could -- and should -- transcend partisan politics. "Obama could change this (discussion) as he changed the dialogue on race in this country," suggests Ratner, "with a speech on torture."

"People say that prosecuting torture is 'looking backward,' " says Ratner, "but in my view, prosecutions are looking forward -- looking forward so that this doesn't happen again."

Liliana Segura is an AlterNet staff writer.

I could not agree more; PROSECUTE!

If we have a choice, I don't see it.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

DOJ, Like RNC, Wants More Voter Roll Purging

Every state should go to election day registration, period. The only warning (read harassment, threat, etc.) that can be given voters in any form is that all information given on the registration form must be accurate, as it is considered a sworn statement. Therefore, not only will election fraud charges be filed if the form is found to be inaccurate, but perjury charges will be filed as well. I want laws about this to be as draconian as the Rockefeller drug laws, with huge mandatory sentences to jail time and major fines. If direct complicity of any political party is found and proven in the course of the investigation and trial, those found responsible will be given heavy jail time, the party will be fined outrageous amounts of money as will party officers.

We the People, must take this electioneering seriously in the extreme. It spits in the face of any hope of democracy, it matters not which party is guilty. Osama bin Laden has no hope of ever doing such damage to our "freedoms and our way of life," as those in our own country who would manipulate elections or attempt to.

Nevertheless, it is telling that the GOP seems to do everything they can, in or outside the law, to discourage voting and the Democrats do just the opposite, or at least they used to. The issue of Voters Rights and very strange happenings the last three election years has created a grassroots movement, not unlike the one in the 60s and as then, it has taken the polls quite awhile to make much noise about it.

Let get serious about democracy in America and stop deluding ourselves that we actually have one.

Voter Purging: A Legal Way for Republicans to Swing Elections?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on September 11, 2007, Printed on September 12, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/62133/

The Department of Justice's Voting Section is pressuring 10 states to purge voter rolls before the 2008 election based on statistics that former Voting Section attorneys and other experts say are flawed and do not confirm that those states have more voter registrations than eligible voters, as the department alleges.

Voting Section Chief John Tanner called for the purges in letters sent this spring under an arcane provision in the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the Motor Voter law, whose purpose is to expand voter registration. The identical letters notify states that 10 percent or more of their election jurisdictions have problematic voter rolls. It tells states to report "the subsequent removal from rolls of persons no longer eligible to vote."

"That data does not say what they purport it says," said David Becker, People for the American Way Foundation's senior voting rights counsel and a former Voting Section senior trial attorney, after reviewing the letters and statistics used to call for the purges. "They are saying the data shows the 10 worst voter rolls. They have a lot of explaining to do."

"You are basically seeing them grasping at whatever straws are possible to make their point," said Kim Brace, a consultant who helped the U.S. Election Assistance Commission prepare its 2004 National Voter Registration Act report, which contains the data tables cited by the Voting Section letter to identify the errant states.

The Justice Department would not comment for this report, despite repeated requests.

The 10 states receiving Voting Section purge letters are Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont. Since 2005, the Section has also sued six other states or cities -- Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Pulaski County, Arkansas -- where purging voter rolls was part of the resulting settlement. Only Missouri fought a Voting Section suit, winning in federal court, although that decision has been appealed.

Democratic Party officials in Washington and state capitals were not fully aware of the latest Voting Section effort to winnow voter rolls, but Democratic National Committee officials said it would be studied in a 50-state review of election practices before 2008.

The voter roll purges are part of an unprecedented effort at the Justice Department to eliminate "voter fraud," which, as defined by Republican activists, is an assumption that Democratic political operatives or sympathetic political organizations have filed fake voter registrations or encouraged supporters to vote more than once to win elections. These claims have been investigated by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and academics and found to be without merit. However, the Bush administration's Justice Department, starting under former Attorney General John Ashcroft, has devoted considerable resources to prosecuting "voter fraud." The effort to pressure states to additionally purge voter rolls is a trickle-down effect of these policies.

Voter roll purges, if incorrectly done, can be a factor in determining election outcomes -- particularly in tight races. Unlike most of the "voter fraud" cases cited by GOP activists, where a handful of registrations -- usually in the single digits -- from big voter registration drives are found to be erroneous, purges can affect thousands of voters. In Florida and Missouri in 2000, a total of 100,000 legal voters were incorrectly removed, according to academics and local election officials. In Cleveland in 2004, voter purges were a factor behind long lines and people leaving without voting as poll workers dealt with people who did not know they had been removed from voter lists, various media reported.

AlterNet obtained and analyzed the EAC data used by the Voting Section to identify states with allegedly swollen voter rolls that need purging. Using the methodology cited in Tanner's letters, it found 18 states where more than 10 percent of the jurisdictions -- a total of 2,000 counties, cities and townships -- allegedly had more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. It shared those findings with several dozen experts -- from consultants like Brace, who compiled the numbers, to former Voting Section lawyers, to state election officials, to political operatives -- to assess if those states' voter rolls needed purging and whether the Voting Sections actions were partisan.

AlterNet found many of the states targeted by the Voting Section have outdated voter rolls, especially in rural counties, where the registrations of people who have moved, died or been convicted of felonies need to be removed. That is the standard practice of local election officials and required under federal election laws. However, AlterNet found that some states facing Justice Department pressure to purge voters have long been targeted by GOP "vote fraud" activists, especially where concentrations of minority voters have historically elected Democrats -- such as St. Louis, Philadelphia and South Dakota's Indian reservations. One of those Republican activists who is now a Federal Election Commission member, Hans Von Spakovsky, started the department's purge effort in January 2005 when he was a political appointee overseeing the Voting Section's legal agenda, according to former Voting Section attorneys who worked with him then.

Looking toward the 2008 election, it appears the purges could be a new and legal way to accomplish a controversial longstanding Republican Party electoral tactic -- thinning the ranks of likely Democratic voters in states where there may be close races. In numerous elections dating back to the 1960s, the Republican Party has tried to challenge new voter registrations to accomplish this goal, although since 1981 federal courts have blocked many of those challenges as illegal electioneering. In 2004, state Republican Parties tried to challenge 100,000 voters in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public-interest Washington law firm. Courts and local officials blocked most of those efforts.

Voting rights attorneys say the purges sought by the Justice Department -- in a total of 16 states since 2005 -- could accomplish the same goal as the illegal voter challenge efforts. That is because it is harder to contact lower-income voters to validate their registrations as these voters move more frequently and the means of contact -- mail that is not forwarded -- is not always successful. Historically, this population tends to vote Democratic. All these trends -- 2000's flawed voter purges, the GOP's stymied 2004 voter challenges, the origins of the department's latest voter purge effort, and the apparently specious statistics cited in its letters to 10 states -- have prompted ex-Justice Department attorneys to view the Voting Section's purge project through a partisan lens.

"To me, it's a very clear view of the Republican agenda," said Joe Rich, who resigned as Voting Section Chief in 2005 after 35 years in the Justice Department, speaking of the voter purge initiative. "The GOP agenda is to make it harder to vote. You purge voters. You don't register voters. This is ripe for partisan decision making. You pick the states where you go after Democrats."

"This stuff disenfranchises voters," said Becker. "There are eligible voters who will be removed. There is no evidence that rolls need to be cleaned up to this degree. This will make things more chaotic on Election Day. People will be given provisional ballots that won't get counted."

Political equations

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) allows the Justice Department to sue states to enforce voter list maintenance laws, or the purging of voter files.

Voter lists, until recently, were maintained mostly at the county level, where election officials periodically remove people who have moved, died or been sent to prison. While the purge process varies from state to state, election offices usually mail letters to voters who haven't cast ballots in the most recent federal election to confirm that their address and voter registration is accurate. The letters are not forwarded. Voters who don't reply are listed as "inactive," but usually can still show up at the next election and vote after showing identification. If that same voter misses two federal elections and does not reply to the mailings, then they can be removed or purged from the voter lists.

Voting rights experts and academics estimate that anywhere from a quarter to one-half of "inactive" voters still have valid voter registrations, but have neither received nor replied to the mailings sent by local election officials. The reasons range from typos and clerical errors in names and addresses, to voters living in nontraditional residences or being away, or mail that may have been improperly delivered. Moreover, low-income people often are transient and hard to reach. A 1991 Yale Law Review article found postal delivery rates for federal tax and census mailings was 15 percent lower in African-American than in white communities.

"It is a misnomer to call them inactive," said Daniel Ivey-Soto, New Mexico's director of elections. "About 18.5 percent of the database is inactive at any time. About half of those people are active voters."

The letters sent this spring to 10 states by Voting Section Chief John Tanner said the Justice Department had examined the most recent federal election statistics -- from the 2004 General Election -- and identified the states with swollen voter rolls.

"We conducted an analysis of each state's total voter registration numbers as a percentage of citizen voting-age population based on reports following the 2004 general election submitted to the Election Assistance Commission," Tanner wrote on April 18, 2007. "According to that report, voter registration actually exceeded the total citizen voting-age population in 10 percent or more of the jurisdictions within your state."

Tanner's letter said the Voting Section was writing to "assess the changes in your voter registration list," progress in creating the statewide voter lists required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and "the subsequent removal from rolls of persons no longer eligible to vote." Internal Department procedures strongly suggest sending notice letters to states and local governments before filing suits.

Ex-Voting Section lawyers questioned the timing of the letters because for several years states have been striving to create statewide voter databases to satisfy HAVA. Cleaning up registration lists is an ongoing part of that task, and the department has sued a half-dozen states for failure to comply with that provision. The Voting Section's 10 purge letters came after that initial litigation, prompting the attorneys to say the letters were veiled threats backed by shoddy analysis.

"This is a real problem," said PFAW's David Becker. "The Department of Justice is the nuclear bomb of voting enforcement. If the DOJ sends a letter, the counties listen, even if they do not have a strong basis to force them to act."

Becker reviewed AlterNet's analysis, which listed all the local jurisdictions that allegedly had more voter registrations than eligible voting-age citizens. The state of Massachusetts was a good example of the Voting Section's "sloppy" analysis, Becker said, because all but two of the localities with voter roll problems were rural, sparsely populated and of little consequence in statewide elections. The other two "problem" jurisdictions -- the neighboring cities of Boston and Brookline -- had more voter registrations than eligible voters only because the inactive voters were included. If half of those inactive registrations are discounted, the cities' rolls look normal and up to date, he said.

"I think it is impossible to claim that this should be a trigger to require a NVRA list maintenance purge," Becker said. "This is a short but sloppy way to figure out and justify something that goes beyond the data. They want more people showing up on Election Day and not finding their names. They want people not voting."

Other experts agreed that the Voting Section was using unreliable statistics.

Kim Brace, a consultant who helped the EAC compile its 2004 NVRA report, said the Section chose a mix of EAC and U.S. Census statistics that was mostly likely to show there were more voter registrations than eligible voting-age adults. The "total voter registration numbers" in Tanner's letter combined active and inactive registrations, Brace said, creating an inflated number for total registrations. In contrast, he said the "citizen voting-age population" was a mid-decade census estimate and a smaller measure.

Brace cautioned against drawing legal conclusions from both these statistical sources, because the voter registration data varied in quality from state to state and because the census figures were estimates, not hard numbers.

"It is the only data available," said Wendy Weiser, deputy director of the Brennan Center at New York University Law School, a public-interest law firm specializing in election litigation, adding it is used by people across the political spectrum. "But if the data is old and bad, then it shouldn't be relied on to challenge people's eligibility."

Preparing for 2008?

An AlterNet analysis of the EAC data used by the department to identify the 10 states that received letters found a total of 18 states with more registered voters than voting-age adults in 10 percent or more of that state's election jurisdictions. That finding raised the question of whether the Voting Section was singling out certain states for voter purges.

A closer examination of the states that didn't get Voting Section letters found some of these states, such as New Hampshire, Idaho and Wisconsin, are exempt from Justice Department oversight because they have Election Day registration. North Dakota also didn't receive a letter, but is exempt from Department oversight because of it has no voter registration system. Alaska, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan also did not receive a letter but had more registered voters than eligible voters in 10 percent or more of their election jurisdictions. That omission did not suggest a pattern benefiting the GOP, as most of these states -- but not Alaska -- lean Democratic.

However, a review of reports and testimony by Republican "vote fraud" activists before and after the 2004 election -- when the department brought most of its suits concerning statewide voter databases and Von Spakovsky started the voter purge initiative -- found many "hot spots" named by Republican activists such as the now-defunct American Center for Voting Rights were targets of Voting Section actions. That would include historic GOP nemeses such as St. Louis and Philadelphia and states with growing Democratic majorities, such as New Jersey.

Other "hot spots" cited by Republican activists, such as Milwaukee, did not fall under Justice Department oversight because Wisconsin has Election Day registration. Another GOP priority was Cleveland, where there have been extensive voter purges since 2000 under the direction of a county elections board that until earlier this year was headed by Ohio's Republican Party chairman. The Justice Department did not act there.

Looking toward 2008, there are a few states that received Voting Section letters where purges could make a difference in a close race, several political consultants said.

South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson, a Democrat, won in 2002 by 524 votes, and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, long a target of Republican voter fraud activists, is among that state's counties with allegedly more registered voters than voting adults, according to the EAC statistics cited in the Voting Section's letter. North Carolina, which also received a letter, is also moving to Election Day registration by 2008, which will increase turnout among lower-income people. A purge could minimize the growth of likely Democratic voters, one consultant speculated. In Maine, another state ordered to purge in a consent decree, Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe faces a tough re-election fight, another consultant noted.

When contacted, Democratic Party officials in Washington and in state capitals generally were surprised to hear about the Department of Justice's letter pressuring states to more aggressively purge their voter files.

Many Democrats were familiar with the GOP's attempts to challenge thousands of voter registrations in battleground states on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Some also recalled a 2006 effort by the Maryland Republican Party where its members were given a manual with false information about voters' rights and were told to challenge voters and threaten poll workers with jail time.

Last month, the Democratic National Committee announced it would conduct a survey of election administration practices in all 50 states as a way to prepare for the 2008 election. DNC officials contacted for this report said they would examine the impact of the voter purges as part of that inventory of election administration. They declined to discuss the potential political impact of the Justice Department's latest purge effort.

The big question left unanswered by most lawyers, scholars and political professionals contacted for this report was how the Voting Section's purge effort might affect 2008's political terrain. In some states like Florida, the number of registered voters is going down -- not up -- despite population growth and an increasingly politicized national landscape brought on by debate over the war in Iraq and presidential campaigns, according to reports by statehouse bureaus in Florida's major daily newspapers.

"What is weird here is the timing," said a well-connected Washington attorney. "Most states are doing their required purges on time. They are consolidating their statewide lists post-2006 under HAVA. That is in different phases in different states. It looks like they are trying to hit the ones they care about before 2008, and use the other states for cover. There is definitely something going on."

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Top Aides At DOJ Received Political Briefings From Rove

But is anything going to be done about any of it?

Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
The Washington Post

Saturday 04 August 2007

Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices.

Internal guidelines forbid partisan meetings at the Justice Department and sharply restrict the ability of employees to participate directly in election campaigns or other political activities, a Justice official said yesterday. But the official, who declined to be identified publicly discussing the issue, said the type of meetings held at the White House did not appear to run afoul of department policy.

A list of briefings for Justice officials was included with a letter sent yesterday from Gonzales to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which sought to clarify and correct parts of his testimony before the panel on July 24. The list was sent to House oversight committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) in June, but it had not been released publicly before yesterday.

At the July 24 hearing, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Gonzales whether any of "the leadership of the Department of Justice" had participated in political briefings, pointing to examples involving employees from the State Department, Peace Corps and U.S. Agency for International Development.

"Not that I'm aware of.... I don't believe so, sir," Gonzales said.

Justice officials attended 12 political briefings at the White House, and another held at the Department of Agriculture, from 2001 to 2006, according to the list sent to Waxman. At least five were led by Rove or included presentations by him.

The list compiled by Justice did not include many details about the kind of information presented at those briefings. One March 2001 meeting included a "political update" from Rove and a discussion on "how we can work together to advance the President's agenda."

Political briefings by White House aides have become a political flashpoint on Capitol Hill in recent months. Waxman is investigating whether the meetings violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity on federal government property.

The White House has denied that the briefings were improper, saying they were merely informational meetings for political appointees. Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director, and J. Scott Jennings, the current deputy political director, have testified that the briefings were designed to thank such appointees for their service to the president.

Other briefings given by Taylor and Jennings have included detailed PowerPoint presentations, including district-by-district analyses of critical House races. Top ambassadors in early January learned from Rove and Taylor the top 36 targets among House Democratic incumbents in the 2008 races, while State Department employees at a White House meeting in 2001 learned what the most critical media markets were for Bush's reelection in 2004.

The Office of Special Counsel, conducting its own investigation, has ruled that a briefing at the General Services Administration in late January violated the Hatch Act.

Meanwhile, Congress has questioned the role that political considerations played inside Gonzales's Justice Department in both the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year and in the hiring of career employees, the latter an apparent violation of civil-service laws.

Most of the Justice briefings were attended by the department's White House liaisons, including Monica M. Goodling, who left that post earlier this year amid the controversy over the firings of U.S. attorneys. Others present included D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff, and several people who held the top or deputy positions in the department's legislative affairs office.

Gonzales's letter was part of a broader set of correspondence with senators in which he clarified some of his remarks of July 24 but stood by the accuracy of his testimony on a number of major issues, including his characterizations of a warrantless surveillance program and of abuses under the USA Patriot Act.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Are Conservatives About to Neuter Congress?

Harriet Miers's Contempt of Congress: Are Conservatives About To Neuter Congress, While Claiming Full Legal Justification for this Separation-of-Powers Violation?
By JOHN W. DEAN
----

President George Bush has issued an instruction to his former White House counsel Harriet Miers to defy the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena. The Committee had sought to ask her about her role - and that of others in the White House - in firing a covey of United States Attorneys who were apparently not toeing the political line. Bush's instruction sent a very clear signal: As I wrote earlier, and as has been clear from the outset, he is looking for a fight.

By not responding to the subpoena, the President and Ms. Miers all but invited the House Judiciary Committee and, in turn, the House of Representatives to vote to deem her in contempt of Congress. It was a defiant, in-your-face insult to Congress. No president would do this unless he was quite confident of the outcome. Clearly, Bush's White House and Justice Department lawyers believe that the solidly conservative federal judiciary will grant them a favorable ruling, and that, in the process, they will greatly weaken congressional oversight powers, to the advantage of the White House.

In short, the Bush White House is not bluffing with this act of defiance.

Rather, the White House truly wants to test, and attempt to expand, presidential power. Bush's White House is ready, willing, and able to play hardball. Indeed, the White House may actually be trying to bait the House Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives into voting to deem Ms. Miers in contempt of congress.

The Initial Consequences of Harriet Miers's "No Show"

It was on Thursday, July 12, that Miers was asked to testify before the subcommittee investigating the removal of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration, and did not show. That same day, the subcommittee's Chair, Linda Sanchez (D.CA), undertook the preliminary steps necessary to declare Miers in contempt. By a party line vote of seven Democrats to five Republicans, the subcommittee ruled that there was no legal justification for Miers's failing to appear pursuant to the subpoena.

Notwithstanding this blatant affront to the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans members played their familiar role -- allowing party affiliation to trump institutional responsibility, just as it had when they controlled Congress. Republicans made lame (if not ridiculous) excuses for the Bush Administration's defiance, and proved themselves more than willing to let the President insult the subcommittee by instructing Miers to not show up. (The transcript of the proceeding is not available as I write but the information available from Firedoglake and Talking Points Memo indicates that Republicans embarrassed themselves as badly as did former White House aide Sara Taylor -- who kept telling the Senate Judiciary Committee, when she did honor a similar subpoena, that she had taken an oath to uphold the President, rather than the Constitution. House Republicans appear to have taken the same oath.)

As a result of Miers's "no show," the full House Judiciary Committee will no doubt support the subcommittee, and vote to deem Miers in contempt. One can only hope - but probably this hope is in vain -- that Republicans may realize this is not a partisan issue, but an institutional matter, and thus will either abstain or vote to support the dignity of the committee on which they serve. Republicans should remember that they will one day be back in control, and may then be confronted by a Democratic president defying their subpoenas - and relying on this very precedent to do so. Realistically, however, there is zero chance that Republicans will place their constitutional interest ahead of their partisan interests.

The House Judiciary Committee itself cannot hold Miers in contempt; rather, the Committee can only report its request that this be done to the full House, which must then vote to deem her in contempt. Before the full House turns to this question, however, its members should not only carefully consider what they are doing, but also consider what they are not doing. At this stage, it is unclear how far this conflict will progress. The White House appears to have given this matter much more thought than Congressional leaders have thus far.

Long ago, Congress should have oiled up its most powerful tool to require Executive cooperation. No one who follows these matters is surprised that Bush is again pushing the envelope of presidential powers. But it continues to mystify me why Congress does not get its act together, and remind the White House that they are constitutional co-equals.

The Emboldened Position of the Bush White House, Backed by Its Attorneys

Keep in mind that, as I have previously written, conservatives now believe that a strong president is one who protects his prerogatives. This point of view counsels, too, that a president need not worry at all about low approval ratings; indeed, high approval ratings would signal a weak president, who had not used his or her powers effectively. In short, to Republicans, the fact that Bush's public support is sub-par means nothing with respect to the White House's fight with Congress.

Moreover, the Bush White House clearly believes the law is on its side. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Justice Department has provided the White House with a "broadly worded legal opinion" advising that "senior White House officials" can "ignore subpoenas from Congress to testify about the U.S. attorneys affair." This "three-page opinion," the L.A. Times says, "raises questions about whether the Justice Department would prosecute senior administration officials if Congress voted to hold them in contempt." The L.A. Times's article also notes that, under the law, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columba decides whether or not to pursue such cases when they are referred by the House or Senate for prosecution.

Needless to say, this is an extraordinary legal opinion, but not a surprising one. It is consistent with Bush's embrace of the "unitary executive theory."

Could this opinion be endorsed by a court if challenged? House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers - who was surprised that Miers was not going to appear - told the L.A. Times that his committee was "aware of absolutely no court decision that supports the notion that a former White House official has the option of refusing to even appear in response to a Congressional subpoena." Chairman Conyers is correct. There is no such law or precedent - yet.

I have not seen the Justice Department's memorandum, but the only basis they can possibly have to assure officials involved is that they enjoy, in the words of White House counsel Fred Fielding, "absolute immunity from compelled Congressional testimony" must be advice from the Department of Justice to this effect. The Justice Department, then, must be assuring the White House that it will make this, in effect, the law, by refusing to prosecute such defiant officials under the criminal contempt statute if Congress refers the matter to them.

This is a very aggressive position. While it does not reflect the current state of the law, given the pro-presidential bias among so many of the conservative jurists who now dominate the federal judiciary, and particularly the Supreme Court, Bush may well succeed in defending this position if this matter goes to court.

Congress Needs To Protect Its Powers: Only One Way It Can Do So

Marty Lederman has prepared a nice overview analysis of what happens when officials defy a congressional subpoena.

Let's suppose that the House votes Miers in contempt, and the matter is sent to the U.S. Attorney. One can expect that no prosecution will be brought. During the Reagan years, the Justice Department ruled that even though the referral statute makes it the "duty" of the U.S. Attorney to take the matter to the grand jury, Congress cannot enforce that duty on the Executive Branch if the Executive Branch refuses to honor it. As noted, it would appear that under the most recent Justice memo on the subject, the White House will not permit the U.S. Attorney to prosecute the matter, and Congress has no power to overrule that by forcing the U.S. Attorney to go forward.

If the U.S. Attorney did go forward could criminal sanctions be imposed on a witness such as Harriet Miers who is (albeit willingly) following the orders of the president by refusing to honor a congressional subpoena? The issue raises serious Constitutional questions that have not been resolved by the Supreme Court. If the issue did reach the Court, how would the Court rule? Given its current conservative majority, the Justice Department and White House may be right if they have concluded that they can win before the Court, convincing at least five Justices to declare such criminal sanctions unconstitutional.

If the House votes Miers in contempt, they can also institute a civil legal action by seeking declaratory judgment from a federal court to compel enforcement of their subpoena. However, there is a growing body of law, coming from conservative jurists, calling for conflicts like this between the executive and legislative branch to be considered "political questions" that are improper for the federal courts to resolve. Thus, it seems likely that the Court might - citing the political-question doctrine - decline to take jurisdiction over this clash, thereby leaving the White House's status quo untouched. For the Bush Administration, the worse case scenario, as Lederman suggests, is simply that the courts will seek to force a political settlement.

Finally, if Miers is found in contempt, the House itself can take action against her at the bar of the House. (The Senate can similarly hold such proceedings.) Congress has the power to prosecute contumacious witnesses to require them to comply, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed this power. For example, in 1987, in Young v. U.S., Justice Antonin Scalia recognized "the narrow principle of necessity" or "self-defense" of the Congress in protecting its institutional prerogatives. Scalia said "the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches must each possess those powers necessary to protect the functioning of its own processes, although those implicit powers may take a form that appears to be nonlegislative, nonexecutive, or nonjudicial, respectively."

When all is said and done the only way Congress can protect its prerogatives is to undertake its own contempt proceedings. The parliamentary precedents of the House provide such procedures, by which Congress can effectively protect itself. There is no shortage of past instances where the Congress has held such trials. Readers may want to consult, for example, Hinds' Precedents and Canon's Precedents. Unfortunately, however, this machinery has become a bit rusty, for these procedures have not been used since 1934.

Congress Must Avail Itself of Traditional Procedures to Compel Testimony and/or Punish Contempt

Given the clear attitude of conservative presidents, who are doing all within their power to make Congress irrelevant, Congress should turn to these underemployed precedents and put them back to work. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees should take the lead in reviving these procedures, and the Democrats' leadership should announce that they are embracing them.

If they do not, Fred Fielding has it right: Officials are absolutely immune from compelled Congressional testimony. Bush can simply tell Congress to stop sending subpoenas to his appointees. However, if Congress does engage in a little self-help at this crucial juncture, it can be sure that not only Harriet Miers, but also George Bush, will be forced to pay attention to congressional subpoenas - for the bottom line is that Congress will not need the cooperation of the other branches to enable it to conduct proper oversight.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is This Freakin' Joke? Lil Alberto Just Doesn't get it.

The man is unfit to serve, let alone decide who else does.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-gonzales_thinkjun17,1,4462628.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

POINTING THE WAY FOR PROSECUTORS

Under fire, not in retreat
Gonzales' plan for attorney reviews would further politicize process
By Andrew Zajac, a national correspondent based in the Tribune's Washington Bureau
June 17, 2007

Atty Gen. Alberto Gonzales so far has survived a political crisis over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, a rare potential vote of no-confidence in the Senate and numerous calls for his resignation.His response? Gonzales recently proposed tightening the leash on the men and women who prosecute federal crimes across the nation.Gonzales described what he delicately calls "a more vigorous and a little bit more formal process" for annually evaluating prosecutors.

What that means, as he explained it, is hauling in every U.S. attorney for a meeting to hear, among other things, politicians' beefs against the prosecutor.

If that should happen, expect the fair-mindedness and independence Americans still count on from their Justice Department to slip.

In testimony to Congress and comments at the National Press Club, Gonzales framed the meetings as a way of improving communications. But it also looks a lot like a way to remind recalcitrant U.S. attorneys what the home team expects.

On Friday, a spokesman for Gonzales insisted in a written statement that the attorney general has no intention of holding one-on-ones with every U.S. attorney."The view of the overwhelming majority of U.S. attorneys is that they do not want a new, formalized review process -- including one that might involve annual one-on-one meetings between each U.S. attorney and the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General. We have listened and agree with these views," the spokesman said.But later Friday a senior Justice Department official said one-on-one meetings are still on the table. "We haven't ruled that out," the official said.

Here's what Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee last month about what he would do to avoid another uproar in the event he wants to fire more prosecutors:"At least once a year every United States attorney is going to sit down with either myself or the deputy attorney general, and we're going to have a very candid conversation about issues and problems in their districts," Gonzales said. "If I've heard of complaints from a member of Congress, it gives me an opportunity or the deputy attorney general an opportunity to tell the U.S. attorney what we're hearing."

For an idea of the effect that "what we're hearing" can have, consider the case of former U.S. Atty. David Iglesias of New Mexico. Iglesias was fired after Republican Sen. Pete Domenici -- his one-time sponsor -- complained repeatedly to Gonzales and the White House that Iglesias was reluctant to prosecute vote fraud cases, a sensitive topic in a state George W. Bush lost by 366 votes in 2000.

Domenici also phoned Iglesias last fall and asked him if a certain high-profile Democrat was going to be indicted before the election, an inquiry Iglesias told lawmakers made him feel "leaned on."Gonzales said he fired Iglesias based on "what I understood to be the consensus recommendation of the senior leadership in the department," but he offered no specifics -- except Domenici's complaints.

What, exactly, would a sit-down with the attorney general have been expected to yield in Iglesias' case?

Whatever Gonzales does to review prosecutors' performances will, by design, be murky, in the interests of maximizing executive power, the attorney general has indicated."If you have a more formal process, and a U.S. attorney gets a great evaluation, politically it may be more difficult for the president to make a change simply because he wants to make a change," Gonzales told the National Press Club on May 15. "A president should be able to do that."

Got that?

There's a "process" to tell prosecutors what they're doing wrong. But nothing that would impede dismissing them for any reason.

Of course, there's already an evaluation process run by the Justice Department's executive office for U.S. attorneys. But that only measures how well a prosecutor runs the office, not how loyal he or she is to the administration's agenda.

In truth, everyone in the game understands that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. But until now, presidents have tended to give prosecutors wide berths and have been exceedingly careful about firing them. They have understood that respect for prosecutors' authority hinges on the public's belief that they are independent actors, not marionettes.

Because of that traditional circumspection, U.S. attorneys have been replaced en masse only at the beginning of a new presidential administration. Once appointed and confirmed, they've rarely been fired and usually only for serious ethical or legal lapses. Such lapses were not alleged among the nine prosecutors sent packing last year.

Gonzales could have maintained the tradition of reserve by repudiating the firings as an overreach. Instead he apologized only for bungling them so badly that they've become a public issue.Gonzales seems intent on making sure they're viewed as a precedent, a handy club for himself and future attorneys general to, depending on your viewpoint, either make sure prosecutors hew to the administration's priorities or make sure they factor political considerations in their deliberations.

But it would be naive to think this newfound flexibility would not also find uses in a Democratic administration. Then how eager would Republicans be to defend it mailto:it-azajac@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Obstruction of Justice?

So, what else is new?

These peopele do nothing but lie and obstruct. That's the only way they can function, since just about everything they have done, while in office has either been unethical or a violation of law.

When, pray tell, is something actually going to be done about it?

Breaking: Fifth Top Justice Official Linked To Attorney Scandal Resigns

Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, has become the fifth Justice Department official to resign after being linked to the firings of several U.S. attorneys:
Elston’s resignation is effective at the end of next week. Reached Friday afternoon, he confirmed his plans to leave but would not say why.

Elston is a key figure in several recent Justice Department scandals:

– Last month, Elston admitted that at the direction of McNulty, he placed calls to four fired U.S. attorneys calls that three of the prosecutors say involved threats not to testify before Congress about their dismissals. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that Elston’s calls were one of many examples in this scandal that have the “whiff of obstruction of justice.”

– Former Missouri U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman recently testified that he had consulted with Elson about filing controversial voter fraud indictments a week before the 2006 election. Former Justice Department officials have said that Schlozman’s call to Elston was “inappropriate” and may have been part of an effort to “pressure” Election Crimes chief Craig Donsanto into approving the indictments. [Link]

– Elston came under fire for allegedly politicizing the DoJ Honors Program, a highly selective program for entry-level DOJ lawyers. A group of anonymous Justice Department employees complained that “Elston rejected hundreds of potential applicants to the program last year seemingly based on their political backgrounds.” [Link]

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The On-going GOP Bushite Coup

Justice Department Inquiry Expanded
Tuesday May 8, 2007 1:01 AM
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress stepped up its inquiry into the politics of Justice Department decision-making Monday as it sought cooperation from one department official and prepared to put its former White House liaison under oath.

The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it wouldn't try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she testifies before a committee.

Lawmakers want to talk to Schlozman and Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. The inquiry began as a question about whether U.S. attorneys - presidential appointees who serve as the top federal law enforcement officials in their state districts - were fired for political reasons.

It has grown, however, into an investigation of whether the agency let politics affect criminal investigations and whether officials made employment decisions for political reasons.

Lawmakers want to question Schlozman, who now works for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, about a voter fraud lawsuit he filed against Missouri in the lead-up to the 2006 election. Committee members said they wanted to know whether Schlozman's predecessor was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed.

"The Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration's decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. attorneys,'' Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Arlen Specter of New York.

The letter asked Schlozman to voluntarily submit to interviews and testimony and provide documents to the committee.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said politics do not influence decisions about whether to bring a case.

"The Justice Department brings its civil actions and criminal prosecutions based on evidence, not on politics,'' Boyd said. ``We expect U.S. Attorneys to bring election and voter fraud cases where evidence of such fraud exists.''

The Justice Department is conducting an internal review of the firings of U.S. attorneys and other decisions. As part of that investigation, the agency is reviewing whether Goodling sought to place Republicans as front-line prosecutors in state U.S. attorney districts.

Lawmakers want to question Goodling but, without a promise of immunity, she has refused. In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the department said it would prefer not to see an immunity deal.

"However, we understand the committee's interest in obtaining Ms. Goodling's testimony,'' the letter said. ``Therefore, after balancing the significant public interest against the impact of the committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not raise an objection or seek a deferral.''

The letter was signed by Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Committee lawyers must now send an immunity request to a federal judge for approval. Once that deal is approved, Goodling would face a contempt order if she refused to testify. Her lawyer, John M. Dowd, said Monday she would testify under such a deal.

"She'll be honest and clear and she'll work very hard to answer all questions,'' Dowd said.
Conyers said he would move quickly to ask a judge to approve the immunity deal and schedule a hearing.

A congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no agreement on testimony had been reached, said lawmakers were planning to hold a hearing as early as next week and hoped to secure testimony from Schlozman.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.