from the wsj...
Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.
As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we'd suggest she call herself as the first witness--and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.
As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.
At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.
Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.
The Clinton's are slimmy and dirty. They have no shame and no souls. Reading this stuff and remembering how corrupt they and everyone around them were/are makes me sick...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
More on the Clinton hypocracy
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MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2001
(202) 514-2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
TDD (202) 514-1888
WHITE HOUSE AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
BEGIN U.S. ATTORNEY TRANSITION
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Continuing the practice of new administrations, President Bush and the Department of Justice have begun the transition process for most of the 93 United States Attorneys.
Attorney General Ashcroft said, "We are committed to making this an orderly transition to ensure effective, professional law enforcement that reflects the President 's priorities."
In January of this year, nearly all presidential appointees from the previous administration offered their resignations. Two Justice Department exceptions were the United States Attorneys and United States Marshals.
Prior to the beginning of this transition process, nearly one-third of the United States Attorneys had already submitted their resignations. The White House and the Department of Justice have begun to schedule transition dates for most of the remaining United States Attorneys to occur prior to June of this year. President Bush will make announcements regarding his nominations to the Senate of new United States Attorneys as that information becomes available. Pending confirmation of the President's nominees, the Attorney General will make appointments of Interim United States Attorneys for a period of 120 days (28USC546). Upon the expiration of that appointment, the authority rests with the United States District Court (28USC546(d)).
okay Jay, so tell me how that gives Clinton and all the other fake-outrage liberals the right to bitch about what is going on now?
Nice job, Jay!
The reason Democrats and Republics are bitching is that ordinarily, US Attorneys are nominated by the President and CONFIRMED by the Senate. Their terms are 4 years but may be kept on at the pleasure of the President.
However...the USA Patriot Act reauthorization got this nice little last-minute provision inserted that allows the President to replace a US Attorney without Senate confirmation.
Go figure!
Game, because the grand total of US Attorneys fired by the Clinton administration after they were hired?
Zero. (Same total, by the way, as Reagan, who replaced all the USAs in 1981, but none after that.)
Jay and Jim,
Are just being spoiled brats. They get off on doing to the GOP, but scream bloody murder when they get a hint of their own medicine in return.
Again, Clinton fired everyone to hinder investigations in to the Clintons' own financial shenagans and to delay the indictment of Dan Rostenkowski.
Jim and Jay don't count on people remembering the donkeys' dirty laundry.
Jim, have you ever wondered what investigations Reagan was trying to prevent when he replaced all the US Attorneys with his own appointees? Or what investigations George W. Bush was trying to stall? I never did. Makes me curious, then, why some people are convinced that Clinton was trying to stop investigations. I mean, it must merely be conincidence that Dan Rostenkowski never went to jail! Oops . . .
And, Jim, did you read this Conason article?
There was once another Republican prosecutor who insisted on behaving professionally instead of obeying partisan hints from the White House. His name was Charles A. Banks, and the Washington press corps said nothing when he was punished for his honesty by the administration of the first President Bush.
The cautionary tale of Chuck Banks begins during the summer of 1992, as the Presidential contest entered its final months with Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton leading incumbent President George H.W. Bush.
At the time, Mr. Banks had already served for five years as the United States Attorney in Little Rock. As an active Republican who had run for Congress and still aspired to higher office, he counted Mr. Clinton among his political adversaries. The first President Bush had recently selected him as a potential nominee for the federal bench. Nothing could have better served Mr. Banks’ personal interests than a chance to stop the Clintons and preserve the Bush Presidency. [. . .]
The queries and hints from above created intense pressure on Mr. Banks to act on the [Whitewater] referral despite his opinion, shared by the F.B.I., that her work was sloppy and biased. After Mr. Barr ordered him to act on the referral no later than two weeks before Election Day, he replied with a roar of conscience. [. . .]
“For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario … is inappropriate. I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy.”
The Whitewater case didn’t save the first President Bush [. . .]. Mr. Banks forfeited his promised judgeship and returned to private practice with his political career ended.
That suggests to me that there weren't any investigations into Clinton anyway, since the US Attorney who would have done it refused to get dirty. Funny, eh, Jim?
Are you two liberals flat out brain dead?
Here is the issue...
Hillary Clinton is getting fake "upset" about GWB doing something that has been done over and over again, including her "husband" THAT is atleast MY issue...
Some people think Clinton fired people to hide something, maybe he did, maybe he didn't.
The point here is, liberals cry and scream and yell for politicial gain ONLY. They have no integrity, no soul. They say ANYTHING it takes to get elected...and it is PROVEN here again..
That HAD to be simple enough for even a liberal to understand...but I won't hold my breath
Game, did you even read my links?
Clinton did not fire people in this way during his term. Hillary's discussion of it is categorically not hypocritical, because her husband did not do what she now blames Bush for doing.
It's so incredibly simple, I don't see how you can not get it.
By the way, I was wrong when I said Clinton fired zero US Attorneys after the initial appointments. As it turns out, the number is two. And whereas it's clear, based on their own words, the Bush administration fired the USAs because they didn't pursue vote fraud or investigations against Democrats, this is why Clinton fired the two:
It appears two resigned under pressure -- one because he grabbed a TV reporter by the throat on camera, and the second having been accused of biting a topless dancer.
Once again, you have no grounds at all to call Hillary a hypocrite on this.
As I understand it, the reasons for the dismissal is irrelevant. These guys serve at the pleasure of the president, which means they could be cut 'cuz the prez didn't like their necktie. Some have bitched that there's a problem because of when he fired them, as if he could only do it upon his inauguration and never later. Well, what does "at the pleasure of the president" mean exactly? There's no story here. None.
If these guys are not going after vote fraud, they SHOULD be fired...good for GWB!!!!!
The reason they didn't prosecute for voter fraud is because they could find no specific evidence of it.
Marshall, there is indeed a story here. As we have said (at least I did), it is clear and not debated that the US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. That's why most turn in their resignations when a new President comes into office, same as the cabinet.
But there are two very clear issues here:
1) (And I repeat this here as I've posted above) US Attorneys are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. However, in the 2006 Patriot Act reauthorization, at the last minute, at the request of the DoJ, a provision was inserted that removed Senate confirmation from the process. With Senate confirmation out of the way, the White House felt free to fire US Attorneys without worrying about having to have the new ones confirmed by a Democratic Senate. Get it?
2) Evidence mounts that the firings were done for partisan political reasons. No performance issues have been shown thus far. And so far the AG and the White House have been changing their stories every few days.
2 is not so good, but I could live with that. 1 stinks big time. Both are worthy of bitching.
Game, Clinton replaced the Arkansas US Attorney who refused to pursue the Whitewater matter.
Jim, you admit defeat in your first paragraph, then go on trying to change the rules. Get your head out of your anus.
Oh, Jim, Clinton got rid of a US Attorney who was after him and replaced him with one who looked the other way as much as she could.
Jay,
Joe Connason is as big a Clinton Supporter as you are. He has no gravitas or honesty when it comes to anything Clinton.
This story seems to ge getting as lame as the Plame story...the fact that it is not a story at all. It is good to get rid of people who are not doing a good job...a very large number of govt workers are in that catagory. I have not seen any evidence (I'm sure their are some far left wing liberal sites that have put together a bunch of bullshit) that these were political firings...
"It is good to get rid of people who are not doing a good job" implying that this is the reason the USAs were fired.
The Washington Post refutes that talking point.
Jim,
I don't see why there'd be any fear of Senate confirmation in the first place, so I think that point is without value. As to the partisan politics angle, what a newsflash. What ISN'T done from a partisan perspective in Washington? Anything a politician does is either going to be inline with his politics, or for graft. So firing someone for political reasons is just a goofy thing to say. A real "No DUH!" So you have maybe one point and that's questionable. I've nothing with which to refute it other than logic. To serve at the pleasure of the president if the Senate says it's OK? Seems goofy. Not totally at his pleasure then, is it?
Marshall, DUDE! Does not each and every cabinet officer serve at the pleasure of the President? Does not each and every cabinet officer have to be confirmed by the Senate?
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