Apparently the very last to learn that politics had destroyed the credibility of the Justice Department, is in fact the Justice Department.

Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broke the law by using politics to guide their hiring decisions for a wide range of important department positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility and independence, an internal report concluded Monday.

The report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general and its internal ethics office, singles out for particular criticism Monica Goodling, a young lawyer from the Republican National Committee who rose quickly through the ranks of the department to become a top aide to Mr. Gonzales.

Ms. Goodling, who testified before Congress in May 2007 at the height of the scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys, introduced politics into the hiring process in a systematic way that constituted illegal misconduct, the report found.

Last month, the inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, released a separate report that found a similar pattern of politicized hiring at the Justice Department in reviewing applications from young lawyers for the honors and intern programs. The new report released Monday goes much further, however, in documenting pervasive evidence of political hiring for some of the department’s most senior career, apolitical positions, including immigration judges and assistant United States attorneys.

The inspector general’s investigation found that Ms. Goodling and a handful of other senior aides to Mr. Gonzales developed a system of using in-person interviews and Internet searches to screen out candidates who might be too liberal and to identify candidates seen as pro-Republican and supportive of President Bush.

I am going to give the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt and assume they knew that they were being undermined by the Bush administration and the Albert Gonzales appointees, and just waited to finish this internal ethics probe before admitting it to the American people to whom this is the very definition of "old news".

Look I don't want much, but could somebody please punish somebody for one of these blatant criminal activities? I mean the only person who has even come close to having to serve time was Scooter Libby, and let's face it he was not the one we wanted to see incarcerated.

We have all of these Democrats in Congress now can't they please just start throwing this garbage into jail? These creeps are wiping their ass with our Constitution and we are letting them get away with it.

Will Alberto Gonzales finally learn the meaning of justice?

The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month, the fired former U.S. attorney for Western Washington told a Spokane audience Friday.

His refusal to open a federal criminal investigation into voter fraud allegations in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s razor-thin victory over Republican challenger Dino Rossi in 2004 may be the reason he was fired, John McKay told the Federal Bar Association.

Appointed by President Bush in October 2001 to the top law enforcement job in western Washington, McKay said he believes he and seven other U.S. attorneys were fired last December by Gonzales for political reasons, perhaps with former White House chief of staff Karl Rove pulling strings.

Career prosecutors in his office and FBI agents agreed there was no reason to go forward with a federal investigation of the Gregoire-Rossi election, and issues associated with it were more properly addressed by state officials, McKay said.

McKay said he was summoned to Washington, D.C., in June and questioned for eight hours about possible reasons for his firing by investigators with the Office of Inspector General, who will forward their final report to Congress.

It was reported last week that Gonzales has now retained a high-profile defense lawyer, and apparently is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, which could signify the investigation is nearly complete, McKay said.

“When it lands … it is going to be an extremely negative report on President Bush’s Justice Department,’’ McKay told the packed conference room, which included federal prosecutors and judges.

“There was a conspiracy to politicize the Justice Department,’’ the former U.S. attorney said, “and they did not get away with it.”

I have a very hard time believing that this will happen while George Bush is still the President of the United States. But if it does happen I think I might throw a little party.

Justice Department caught in lie about torture.

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Mr. Comey makes the classic mistake of believing that any of the loyal Bushies CAN feel "ashamed".

I think you have to have ethics, and morals, and a soul to feel ashamed, and I see no evidence that these people have any of that.

Alberto Gonzales can run, but he cannot hide.

"Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove," said Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), referring to the belief among many Democrats that political strategist Rove engineered the ouster of the U.S. attorneys to make room for appointees more loyal to Bush.
"This resignation is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House."

Harry Reid has got the scent now baby!

He is going to track Gonzales to the end of the earth, or Crawford Texas, which ever one is closer.

By the way Chertoff is not going to be the guy named. The two confirmation hearings, one for Attorney General and the other for Homeland Security head, would use up all of time that is left to this administration.

Harriet Meirs is not a possibility for the same reason.

In my opinion it would have to be somebody that nobody has even heard of, somebody that would just offer too small of a battle for the Senate to worry about. After all they have bigger fish to fry.

"Shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet. The Senate is going Rove hunting! Heh heh heh heh!" (This is more fun if you imagine it in the voice of Elmer Fudd.)

Gonzo go bye bye.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

I have to say I am almost amazed. I thought Gonzales was a goner so many times in the past only to see him hang in there with the Presidents support. But I think the pressure just became too much.

And didn't Bush, in his most recent press conference, just say that Gonzales had done nothing wrong? Hmmm.

So now we have Tony Snow, Karl Rove, and now Alberto Gonzales having left the administration in the last few weeks. I do believe this makes Bush the lamest of lame ducks.

Is Gonzo finally on his way out?

The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.

I am going to file this under "unsubstantiated rumor" at this point.

Perhaps Gonzales has just grown tired of getting his ass handed to him every time he testifies before the Senate. We all know he is going to have to do it again real soon, because he lied last time. I am guessing they would like to talk to him about that.

I find it especially funny that Bush's pool of prospective replacements is so small that the has to take somebody from one job to put into another. It is like "musical cabinet positions".

I wonder who will have to replace Chertoff? Wolfowitz? Rumsfeld? I am damn sure it won't be Colin Powell.

This administration is looking more like the Keystone Kops every day.

More evidence that Gonzales lied to the Senate.

The White House demanded in 2004 that the Justice Department approve a secret national security program without allowing the ailing attorney general, "feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed," to discuss the matter with top advisers, according to the FBI director's personal notes.

The partially censored notes from FBI chief Robert S. Mueller, dated March 12, 2004, describe a distraught and feeble Attorney General John Ashcroft in his hospital room just moments after being visited by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card, the president's chief of staff at the time.

Mueller's account backs up earlier descriptions of the dispute over whether to continue the program despite Justice Department concerns about its legality.
Last month, Mueller told a House committee that the clash was about the government's warrantless wiretapping; Gonzales and the White House denied that and said it was about other intelligence activities.

"Saw AG," Mueller wrote in his timed log of the events on the evening of March 10, 2004. "Janet Ashcroft in the room. AG is feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed." Ashcroft was in the hospital with pancreatitis.

Before seeing Ashcroft, Mueller met with then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey at the hospital about 7:40 p.m., the notes indicate. Comey said Ashcroft told Card and Gonzales that he would not approve the classified terrorist surveillance program, which was set to expire the next day.

So remember what the rule is when hearing ANYTHING from the White House: If they are saying it, then by definition, it is a LIE! If you just keep that rule in your mind you will always know when this administration is lying to you.

I have absolutely no idea how you would be able to tell if they suddenly decided to tell the truth however. That would be a stumper.

Alberto Gonzales decides it is safer for him to visit Baghdad then to stay in America.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire at home with calls for his resignation, is spending some time in Iraq.

The Justice Department said that Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for his third trip to Iraq to meet with department officials who have been there to help fashion the country's legal system.

Okay why did Gonzo go to Iraq? To make sure their justice system was working well? Is this a joke?

You know if the Iraqis are EVER going to have a chance of creating a working government they need to ignore everything that this administration tells them.

Any government that lies to its people, spies on its people, and allows its people to die for no good reason, should not be telling ANYBODY how to run a country.

Time magazine lists the reasons that Bush will NEVER get rid of Alberto Gonzales.

I think that the first reason is the most compelling.

Gonzales is all that stands between the White House and special prosecutors. As dicey as things are for Bush right now, his advisers know that they could get much worse. In private, Democrats say that if Gonzales did step down, his replacement would be required to agree to an independent investigation of Gonzales' tenure in order to be confirmed by the Senate.

Without Gonzales at the helm, the Justice Department would be more likely to approve requests for investigations into White House activities on everything from misuse of prewar Iraq intelligence to allegations of political interference in tobacco litigation. And the DOJ could be less likely to block contempt charges against former White House aides who have refused to testify before Congress. "Bush needs someone at Justice who's going to watch the White House's back," says a Senate Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer. If Gonzales steps down, Bush would lose his most reliable shield.

Bush is essentially using Gonzales to construct a wall of interference to keep the Congress from holding him accountable for his many crimes. He is really just playing a waiting game until he leaves office, and Hillary can protect him.

The Daily Show has something to say about Alberto Gonzales too.

Senate calls for Special Counsel to investigate Gonzales!

A group of Senate Democrats called Wednesday for a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales perjured himself regarding the firings of U.S. attorneys and administration dissent over President Bush's domestic surveillance program.

"We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress," four Democratic senators wrote in a letter Wednesday, according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press.

"It has become apparent that the Attorney General has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements" to the Judiciary Committee, they added.

"We do not make this request lightly." wrote Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.

They said that Gonzales' testimony last year that there had been no internal dissent over the president's warrantless wiretapping program conflicted with testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and with Gonzales' own statements this week before the Judiciary Committee.

Have I mentioned how much I am loving 2008?

Because baby, I am loving it!

P.S. As if this day could get any better, they just subpoenaed Karl Rove! Oh I am not sure my heart can handle this much joy!

Now can we cut the Democrats some slack?

Documents prove that Gonzales lied under oath.

I am watching Countdown right now and this story just broke that there are some documents that show that Gonzales lied to the Senate about what was discussed with the gang of eight on the day that he went to the sick bed of Ashcroft and tried to pressure him to allow the domestic spying to continue.

I will flesh this post out when I get more info.

Here it is:

Gonzales said he got the approval from congressional leaders “of both parties” for a continuation of these “vitally important intelligence activities.” It was only then, Gonzales said, that he and White House chief of staff Andrew Card made an extraordinary visit that same evening to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had just undergone gall-bladder surgery. At the meeting, which was first reported last year by NEWSWEEK and was described in detail earlier this year by former deputy attorney general James Comey, Gonzales made an unsuccessful effort to get the heavily medicated Ashcroft to overrule Justice Department objections to those activities.

Gonzales repeatedly insisted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the “emergency” White House briefing on March 10, and his later visit to Ashcroft’s hospital room that night, did not involve the president’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP)—a program that administration officials have said involves eavesdropping, without court warrants, of persons inside the country suspected of communicating with Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists overseas.

But the little-noticed letter from Negroponte last year to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert appears to undermine Gonzales’s account. Dated May 17, 2006, the letter declassifies “the dates, locations and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.” It then lists a series of briefings for House and Senate leaders—including the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees—starting in the fall of 2001 and continuing through the spring of 2006.

Included in the list is the very same March 10, 2004, meeting that Gonzales testified this week involved disagreements about other intelligence activities.

The day after Negroponte sent the letter, Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation to be CIA director. He, too, described the March 10, 2004, briefing for congressional leaders and another one the next day for House Majority Leader Tom Delay.

Is this a "smoking gun"? Why yes I believe that it is!

I don't think that anybody fully explained to Alberto Gonzales what the Attorney General's job entails.

Angry senators suggested a special prosecutor should investigate misconduct at the Justice Department, accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday of deceit on the prosecutor firings and President Bush's eavesdropping program.

Democrats and Republicans alike hammered Gonzales in four hours of testimony as he denied trying, as White House counsel in 2004, to push a hospitalized attorney general into approving a counterterror program that the Justice Department then viewed as illegal.

Gonzales, alternately appearing wearied and seething, vowed anew to remain in his job even as senators told him outright they believe he is unqualified to stay.

He would not answer numerous questions, including whether the Bush administration would bar its U.S. attorneys from pursuing contempt charges against current and former White House officials who have defied congressional subpoenas for their testimony.

According to Wikipedia the Attorney Generals job is to serve as the "chief law enforcement officer of the United States government".

The "chief law enforcement officer of the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT". Not the private lawyer of the President of the United States, that was your old job Alberto. Now you are supposed to put the needs of the people above the needs of your friend the President.

If you need an example of the integrity expected of the Attorney General let me give you the example of Elliot L. Richardson who was fired by Richard Nixon for refusing to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate investigation. That is what integrity looks like.

Alberto Gonzales I would suggest that you take a moment and step outside of your office and look around. You are standing on American soil. We are the yardstick by which many countries human rights and lawfulness are measured. We have come to be admired for our open government and fair legal procedures.

Let me make a correction, we USED to be admired for our open government and fair legal procedures. Not anymore. Now we are known for waging illegal wars, torture, eavesdropping on our citizens, and making our government so secret that half of it does not have access to information that they are legally entitled to see.

And that was done to our country by you Alberto Gonzales! You and your buddy George Bush, and Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, and Andy Card, and all the rest of your neo-con friends who care for nothing but their own agenda and the seizing of power.

Resign Mr. Gonzales. If you have even a shred of decency, resign. And if you have more then a shred of decency, then honestly testify to the Senate what has really been happening behind closed doors in the White House. Save your soul Mr. Attorney General and give America a chance to regain her reputation.

Just tell the truth Mr. Gonzales, how could we expect less from the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government?

Gonzales fails to rule on Cheney's refusal to allow review of records. There was just no way to see this coming.

Cheney's position so frustrated J. William Leonard, the chief of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the order, that he complained in January to Gonzales. In a letter, Leonard wrote that Cheney's position was inconsistent with the "plain text reading" of the executive order and asked the attorney general for an official ruling. But Gonzales never responded, thereby permitting Cheney to continue blocking Leonard from conducting even a routine inspection of how the veep's office was handling classified documents, according to correspondence released by House Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman.

My guess is that Gonzales is scared shitless of Cheney.

I mean the man lives off of the blood of babies, you just know he would rip Gonzales into little tiny Hispanic pieces if he tried to tell him what to do.

I actually think that it is laughable that this Leonard guy thought he would get any help from anybody in this administration in dealing with Dick Cheney. He must be new or something.

Gonzales scrapes by again.

Senate Republicans blocked a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday, dashing Democratic hopes of embarrassing Gonzales and his boss, President George W. Bush, with a formal demand for his ouster.

Damn this guy has more lives then an alley cat!

I have to wonder how effective any of Bush's posse really is now that they are spending so much time worrying about being subpoenaed, or investigated, or grilled by Congress.

Hmmm maybe that is what the Democrats have in mind. Could they be that smart? Nah!

Senate to vote to pass a "no confidence" resolution aimed at Alberto Gonzales this Monday.

The Senate will hold a politically-charged vote Monday related to a no-confidence resolution in the embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

In a statement issued Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, an author of the no-confidence resolution, said if all senators followed their conscience, ‘this vote would be unanimous.’”

“However, the president will certainly exert pressure to support the attorney general, his longtime friend,” Schumer added. “We will soon see where people’s loyalties lie.”

A lot of Republicans have apparently been talking behind closed doors about having lost faith in Gonzales, lets see if they are willing to go public with those concerns.

I have to imagine that this is the last thing that most of these Republicans want on the front pages on a Monday. Which means it may be time to have another terrorist scare! Everybody get ready to panic!

Attorney General? We don't need no stinking Attorney General!

Two years ago, major Hispanic groups broke with other civil rights organizations and supported Alberto R. Gonzales's nomination for attorney general, primarily because he would become the highest-ranking Latino ever in a presidential Cabinet.

Now, these groups say they are suffering from buyer's remorse.

"I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House."

Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights group, called Gonzales "a follower, not a leader." In the Hispanic community, she said, "people are conflicted. They are excited that a Latino had a chance to serve as the attorney general." But, she added, "I think we've been disappointed with his record so far."

You have to feel sorry for the Hispanic community. I mean they really thought they had arrived when one of their own was appointed to such a high office in this administration. I mean who else do they have to look up to in government, except for Bill Richardson who spends almost as much time patting himself on the back as Joe Biden.

So perhaps the Hispanic community thought that by having one of their own so close to the President they would get some reflected benefit, or at least a positive role model for the kids. But that was not the case.

Instead they saw Alberto Gonzales serving as some poor man's versions of Sancho Panza following his own Don Quixote as he chases imaginary dragons and struggles to create his own version of reality.

I was incorrect, the Goodling testamony did indeed reveal a smoking gun. Hell it may in fact be a smoking cannon!

This Monica revealed something hotter --- much hotter --- than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One....And the Committee members didn't even know it.

Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.

Yeah I was confused about what "caging" is as well, but fortunately smarter people then myself are on the case.

But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one.

Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and --- you got to love this --- American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation --- and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.

So what this is my friends is the evidence that Rove and his cronies stole the 2004 election, and how they did it. Is that a big enough smoking gun for you?

And what is more the reporter who broke this story, Greg Palast from the BBC, claims to have the 500 missing Rove e-mails! Holy shit!

So go and visit our best new friends at The Brad Blog because they have all of the details.

I cannot believe I did not think that this US Attorney story was going to be very interesting! I am an idiot.

It's raining subpoenas!

Senators subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Wednesday, ordering him to provide all e-mails related to presidential adviser Karl Rove and the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

"It is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the committee's inquiry have not been produced," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter to Gonzales. The subpoena gives Gonzales until May 15 to turn over the information.

Not accepting the White House's explanation that some of the Rove-related e-mails may have been lost, Leahy subpoenaed any in the custody of the Justice Department. Leahy pointed to Rove's lawyer's statement that some of those the White House claims might be lost had been turned over to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

I must say that I am very proud of the new Democratic majority. They are certaiknly an little aggressive group of lawmakers.

Another Daily Show clip that demonstrates how well practiced Alberto Gonzales was for his testimony.