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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (199884)	3/21/2007 3:17:57 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

>>>>E-mails show feds unhappy with McKay over letter <<<< seattletimes.nwsource.com By David Bowermaster Seattle Times staff reporter An initial review of newly released Justice Department documents concerning the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys last year reveals strong unhappiness with John McKay, the former U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, over an information-sharing system he championed. None of the roughly 1,000 pages of material examined by The Seattle Times on Monday night definitively explains whether that is why McKay was fired, or if there was another motive behind his dismissal. Many of the newly released documents, which are mostly e-mails, show how Justice Department officials scrambled to contain the growing controversy after the firings became known in January, including preparations for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to testify before Congress. Other chunks illuminate controversies involving individual prosecutors, such as a dispute between Carol Lam, the former U.S. Attorney in San Diego, and Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., over immigration enforcement. Also included is a prescient memo sent Oct. 5 from former Justice Department official Michael Battle to all 93 U.S. Attorneys titled, "Resignation guidance for United States Attorneys." The memo included a list of frequently asked questions as well as sample resignation letters to submit to the Attorney General and the President. On Dec. 7, Battle called seven U.S. Attorneys and ordered them to resign. (Another had been told to resign earlier.) McKay clearly angered some senior Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, when he sent a letter to McNulty on Aug. 31 regarding the Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LINX) system. The letter was described as a "Request for Meeting" by the LINX working group, which McKay chaired. Yet the letter, co-signed by 16 other U.S. Attorneys, called for the Justice Department to overcome delays in approving funding for LINX, and in cementing partnerships with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The letter inspired a sharp response from Justice Department official Mark Connor in an e-mail to Michael Elston and Michael Scudder, who worked for McNulty. "I believe McKay is way out of line here," Connor wrote. "I don't know what McKay's motives are, but this is embarrassing and outrageous." McNulty responded Sept. 5 and showed his displeasure, not only with McKay but with the other U.S. Attorneys who had co-signed McKay's letter. "I am quite disappointed that you have chosen to communicate with me in this way," McNulty wrote. "It appears that you are trying to force me to take some specific actions. It reads like a letter from Capitol Hill, not one from friends on the same team... it is best to talk these things through a bit before laying down a challenge in writing which will set the Department up for failure." Eight days later, on Sept. 13, McKay's name appeared for the first time in an e-mail exchange between Kyle Sampson, former Justice Department chief of staff, to Harriet Miers, former White House counsel. Sampson listed McKay in a group titled: "[U.S. Attorneys] We Now Should Consider Pushing Out." Sampson resigned as Gonzales' chief of staff last week. Bradford Berenson, Sampson's lawyer, said through his assistant Monday that Sampson would not comment on any of the dismissals. William Moschella, associate deputy attorney general, has testified before the House Judiciary Committee that differences over LINX was one of the reasons McKay was fired. David Bowermaster: 206-464-2724 or dbowermaster@seattletimes.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (199884)	3/21/2007 3:44:47 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

Looks like Schumer and Leahy are stupid enough to do it: Bush Aides Facing Subpoenas Over Firings Mar 21 09:33 AM US/Eastern By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Flexing their political muscle against the White House, Democrats in the House and Senate are insisting that President Bush's top aides describe their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors on the record and under oath. A House committee was to vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for political director Karl Rove and other administration officials despite Bush's declaration a day earlier that Democrats must accept his offer to allow the officials to talk privately to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but not under oath and not on the record. Would he fight Democrats in court to protect his aides against congressional subpoenas? "Absolutely," Bush declared Tuesday in televised remarks from the White House. Democrats promptly rejected the offer and announced that they would start authorizing subpoenas within 24 hours. "Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bush said he worried that allowing testimony under oath would set a precedent on the separation of powers that would harm the presidency as an institution. If neither side blinks, the dispute could end in court—ultimately the Supreme Court—in a politically messy development that would prolong what Bush called the "public spectacle" of the Justice Department's firings, and public trashings, of the eight U.S. attorneys. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Senate panel's former chairman, appealed for pragmatism. "It is more important to get the information promptly than to have months or years of litigation," Specter said. Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, decried any attempts by Democrats to engage in "a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants." "It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available," the president said. Bush defended Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against demands from congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans that Gonzales resign over his handling of the U.S. attorneys' firings over the past year. "He's got support with me," Bush said. "I support the attorney general." Democrats say the prosecutors' dismissals were politically motivated. Gonzales initially had asserted the firings were performance-related, not based on political considerations. But e-mails released earlier this month between the Justice Department and the White House contradicted that assertion and led to a public apology from Gonzales over the handling of the matter. The e-mails showed that Rove, as early as Jan. 6, 2005, questioned whether the U.S. attorneys should all be replaced at the start of Bush's second term, and to some degree worked with former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed. In his remarks Tuesday, Bush emphasized that he appoints federal prosecutors and it is natural to consider replacing them. While saying he disapproved of how the decisions were explained to Congress, he insisted "there is no indication that anybody did anything improper." Nonetheless, the Senate on Tuesday voted 94-2 to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged the eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the USA Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority. "What happened in this case sends a signal really through intimidation by purge: 'Don't quarrel with us any longer,'" said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former U.S. attorney. The White House had signaled last week that it would not oppose the legislation if it also passed the House and reached Bush's desk. Bush said his White House counsel, Fred Fielding, told lawmakers Tuesday that they could interview Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to political director Sara Taylor—who in turn works for Rove. Any such discussions would occur on the president's terms, Fielding said, in private, "without the need for an oath" and without a transcript. The president cast the offer as virtually unprecedented and a reasonable way for Congress to get all the information it needs about the matter. "If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush said. "If scoring political points is the desire, then the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident for the American people to see." Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate probe into the firings, dismissed the White House offer. "It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them, but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here," Schumer said