Like This Wasn't Foreseeable When The Senate Confirmed Him

Mukasey Rejects Call for CIA Tape Details and Special Prosecutor

The Washington Post reports:

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today sharply rebuffed congressional demands for details about the Justice Department's inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, saying that providing such information would make it appear that the department was "subject to political influence."

In letters to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee and others, Mukasey also reiterated his opposition to appointing a special prosecutor to the tapes investigation, saying he was "aware of no facts at present" that would require such a step.

"At my confirmation hearing, I testified that I would act independently, resist political pressure and ensure that politics plays no role in cases brought by the Department of Justice," Mukasey wrote. "Consistent with that testimony, the facts will be followed wherever they lead in this inquiry, and the relevant law applied."

Wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on Chuck Schumer's wall when he heard about Mukasey's response to the bipartisan inquiry by U.S. senators? And just when you think you've heard every conceivable weasel word and spinned excuse by the Bush administration's appointees for stalling, stonewalling, and not cooperating with Congress's Constitutionally-required role of oversight and investigation.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, Russ Feingold and Chuck Schumer (the senator who suggested that Bush nominate Mukasey for the job) confer during the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting to vote on sending Michael Mukasey's nomination as Attorney General to the floor of the Senate.

One letter was sent to Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Similar correspondence was sent to Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other House Democrats.

The three letters represent an attempt by Mukasey to push back against growing pressure from lawmakers, primarily Democrats, who have showered the Justice Department with demands for investigations or information on topics ranging from the baseball steroids scandal to allegations of rape by a former military contractor employee.

The letters also are an assertive move by the new attorney general, who was confirmed last month with the lowest level of Senate support in the past half century because of his refusal to say whether a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding amounts to torture under U.S. law.

Mukasey replaced former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, who left office in September after the furor over his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and allegations that he misled Congress in sworn testimony.

The CIA disclosed last week that it destroyed videotapes in 2005 depicting interrogation sessions for alleged al-Qaeda operatives Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, commonly known as Abu Zubaida, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Administration officials have said that lawyers at the Justice Department and the White House, including former counsel Harriet E. Miers, advised the CIA against destroying the tapes but that CIA lawyers ruled their preservation was not required.

The Justice Department announced Saturday it had joined the CIA's inspector general in launching a preliminary inquiry into the tape destruction, and prosecutors asked the CIA to preserve any related evidence.

Leahy and Specter asked Mukasey on Dec. 10 for "a complete account of the Justice Department's own knowledge of and involvement with" the tape destruction. The two senators included a list of 16 separate questions, including whether the Justice Department had offered legal advice to the CIA about the tapes or had communicated with the White House about the issue.

Durbin had sent a letter to Mukasey Dec. 7 asking whether an investigation into the tape destruction would be pursued. Conyers and three other House Democrats authored a similar letter on the same day.

Mukasey wrote to the lawmakers that Justice "has a long-standing policy of declining to provide non-public information about pending matters.

"This policy is based in part on our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence," Mukasey wrote to Conyers and the others. "Accordingly, I will not at this time provide further information in response to your letter, but appreciate the Committee's interests in this matter."

The tape investigation is being led by Kenneth Wainstein, head of the Justice Department's National Security Division. Wainstein held his first substantive meeting on the case Wednesday with staffers at the CIA inspector general's office, according to a law enforcement official.

Several Democrats have raised questions about the propriety of having the inquiry run by the Justice Department, whose lawyers were involved in offering legal advice about the tapes, and the CIA inspector general, whose office reviewed the tapes before they were destroyed.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said last week that the inspector general's office examined the tapes in 2003 "as part of its look at the Agency's detention and interrogation practices."

Also yesterday, the beleaguered head of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section disclosed in a letter to employees that he was being transferred to another job in the agency.

John K. Tanner said he was moving to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices after nearly 32 years in the Civil Rights Division.

Tanner had come under fire for making a series of racially charged statements earlier this year, including a suggestion that black voters are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws because "they die first."

Tanner apologized for the "tone" of his remarks in House testimony, but stuck with his overall argument that demographic differences temper the impact of identification laws on minorities. Tanner also was criticized by Democrats for approving a Georgia voter identification law in 2005 that was struck down by a federal court as discriminatory.

Tanner is the subject of an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility into his travel records and trips he approved for a subordinate, officials have said.

The move to shift Tanner out of civil rights could be seen as a move by Mukasey to tamp down criticism of the department's recent record. But Justice also filed a friend-of-the-court brief earlier this week siding with an Indiana identification law, which has been criticized by liberal groups and many voting experts.

Meanwhile, John Cook at Radar Online reports:

Behold, the Bush Administration in chart form: Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office. This chart, generated by usaspending.gov, the U.S. government's brand spanking new database of federal expenditures, shows spending on "contracts for paper shredding services" going back to 2000. Click here for the full, heartbreaking breakdown. In 2000, the feds spent $452,807 to make unpleasant truths go away; by 2006, the "Cheney Effect" had bumped that number up to $2.9 million. And by halfway through 2007, the feds almost matched that number, with $2.7 million and counting. Pretty much says it all.

HELL BENT ON DESTRUCTION Shredding contracts during Bush/Cheney

Leahy Says, "I Can't Vote For Mukasey"

The Associated Press reports:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, says he won't support President Bush's nominee to be attorney general.

And that could be enough to derail Mukasey's confirmation.

Democrats are concerned that the nominee hasn't taken a full enough stand against torture. He hasn't said whether he believes the practice of waterboarding amounts to torture.

Leahy thinks that's unacceptable. He says, "No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture."

Four other Democrats on Leahy's panel have already said they won't support him. The committee decides Tuesday whether to approve the confirmation.

It's presumed that all of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote to send the Mukasey nomination out of committee and to the floor of the Senate for a full vote. All then that would be needed is one yes vote on the Democrat's side of the committee. It's now all up to Chuck Schumer (who recommended Mukasey as a good bipartisan choice for Attorney General to Bush) and Dianne Feinstein (two Democrats on the committee who consistently have had trouble working on behalf of the people who elected them), Russ Feingold (who said today that he was undecided, that Mukasey "may be the best nominee we can get from this administration," and "a marked improvement over former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales"), Herb Kohl and Ben Cardin.

On the issue of torture, Schumer is, himself, 'tortured':

Schumer, who has remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the furor, said in an interview yesterday that he is now "wrestling" with whether to vote against a nomination that he was instrumental in bringing about. He compared the controversy to the 2005 nomination battle over Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

"From this administration, we will never get somebody who agrees with us on issues like torture and wiretapping," Schumer said at one point, suggesting an argument in favor of Mukasey, who faces a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Tuesday. "The best thing we can hope for is someone who will depoliticize the Justice Department and put rule of law first."

But Schumer said minutes later that his mind is not made up: "He's the best we can get, but that doesn't necessarily ensure a yes vote. I thought John Roberts was the best we could get, but I voted no."

Mukasey may not be the only one who needs to be pressed for his opinion on waterboarding as torture, or if torture has any place at all in U.S. policy and practice. A little over three years ago, Schumer was a defender of its use:

"...I'd like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.

Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, "Do what you have to do."

So it's easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you're in the foxhole, it's a very different deal.

And I respect -- I think we all respect the fact that the president's in the foxhole every day. So he can hardly be blamed for asking you or his White House counsel or the Department of Defense to figure out when it comes to torture, what the law allows and when the law allows it and what there is permission to do..."

~Senator Chuck Schumer to witness Attorney General John Ashcroft at Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the Bush administration's anti-terror policy, June 8, 2004.

Leahy & Specter Balk at Blanket Telecom Immunity

The Seattle Times reports:

The Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat and Republican expressed reluctance Wednesday to granting blanket immunity to telecommunications carriers sued for assisting the government's warrantless-surveillance program.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had said that before even considering such a proposal, they would need to see the legal documents underpinning the program, which began after the Sept. 11 attacks and were put under court oversight in January.

On Tuesday, the committee was given access to some of the documents. But Leahy said Wednesday that he had a "grave concern" about blanket immunity. The activities seem to be "in violation of the privacy rights of Americans" and of federal domestic-surveillance law, he said.

The immunity provision sought by the White House would wipe out about 40 lawsuits that accuse AT&T, Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel of invading Americans' privacy and constitutional rights by assisting the government in domestic surveillance without a warrant.

Specter agreed that the "courts ought not to be closed" to such lawsuits.

I'm almost sorry Leahy and Specter telegraphed their concerns before they were given access to all of the documents. It seems unlikely now that the Bush administration would allow them access now, and will probably move into its standard campaign of rhetoric, charging opponents with "playing politics with Americans' security."

Patrick Leahy: "Intel Committee About to 'Cave' on Surveillance & Telecom Immunity"

The Hill reports:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday condemned Intelligence Committee Democrats for brokering a deal with the White House that would provide retroactive immunity for telephone companies that assisted the Bush administration’s controversial warrantless wiretapping program.

At the second day of confirmation hearings for President Bush’s Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Leahy warned that “the Intelligence Committee is about to cave on this,” citing pressure from the White House and press reports suggesting the administration had gotten its way.

“[Administration officials] know that it was illegal conduct and that there is no saving grace for the president to say, ‘Well, I was acting with authority,’ ” said Leahy. “Otherwise there wouldn't be so much pressure on us to immunize illegal conduct by either people acting within our government or within the private industry.”

Leahy’s remarks signal that a bipartisan accord to overhaul the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), reached Wednesday by the Intelligence panel’s leaders and the White House, could divide Democrats and hit a roadblock on his panel as well. The Intelligence Committee marks up the bill Thursday afternoon, after which it will be referred to Judiciary, where more Democrats have openly opposed retroactive immunity language.

His comments also come as House Democratic efforts to overhaul the law are falling into disarray, after House Republicans used parliamentary maneuvers to force leaders to pull the Democrats’ FISA rewrite from the floor late Wednesday.

Attempting to resolve a central point of contention, Senate Intelligence panel Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) reportedly reached a deal Wednesday with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to give full retroactive immunity to telephone companies if they can demonstrate they were cooperating lawfully with the secret wiretapping program when suits were levied against them.

Not all Democrats on the Judiciary Committee appeared to share Leahy’s concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sits on both the Judiciary and Intelligence panels, signaled she was likely to support the bipartisan approach.

“At this stage, it is a bipartisan bill,” Feinstein said. “I’m absolutely convinced that the only way we can legislate on this is on a bipartisan basis. This bill so far is bipartisan — that’s good news.”

When Dianne Feinstein says, "It's a bipartisan bill," she means that DINOs are in agreement with it, and not that it reflects any Democratic values, which happen to be the values of the majority of people in the state that elected her. Unfortunately, Feinstein isn't up for reelection until 2012 (should she choose to run again at age 79), so constituents only recourse is to flood her offices with mail and phone calls pressuring her to represent the people of California as they wish to be represented.

During the hearing, Democrats launched fresh criticism at Mukasey’s interpretation of FISA. After the nominee indicated that Bush was not acting illegally by going beyond that statute in authorizing eavesdropping without court warrants, Leahy called that argument “a loophole big enough to drive a truck [through].”

Whether the president is acting illegally “would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country,” Mukasey said.

And all we hear is Mukasey is a shoo-in to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

White House to Give Senate Panel Surveillance Program Documents

The Washington Post reports:

The White House agreed yesterday to give Senate intelligence committee members and staff access to internal documents related to its domestic surveillance program in a bid to win Democratic lawmakers' support for the administration's version of an intelligence measure.

The move was meant in part to defuse a months-long clash between Congress and the Bush administration over access to legal memoranda and presidential decisions underpinning the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which allowed the government to eavesdrop without court warrants on communications between people in the United States and abroad when one of the parties is a terrorism-related suspect.

Some of the documents had been demanded by Senate Judiciary Committee members as a condition for considering the administration's nomination of former judge Michael B. Mukasey as the nation's 81st attorney general. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the committee's chairman, dropped that condition weeks ago but said yesterday that he still wants to see the documents.

Leahy told reporters after a meeting with Mukasey yesterday that he nonetheless expects Mukasey "to be confirmed" after a nomination hearing today, at which Mukasey is to be escorted into the room by Leahy and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.). Mukasey is to be formally introduced by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Schumer indicated after meeting separately with Mukasey yesterday that he expects the judge to promise to undertake a review of the department's legal justifications for the administration's counterterrorism policies, which are the subject of some of the documents made available to intelligence committee staff and members for review at the White House.

Mukasey has indicated that he strongly supports the administration's counterterrorism effort.

Committee member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who also sits on the Judiciary panel, said however that when one of her staff members reviewed the documents, "he wasn't impressed." She added that she was unsure whether the documents the staff member saw were exactly what Leahy was seeking.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the intelligence committee's ranking Republican, was more positive. "We're getting the information I think we need."

But House Democrats, who plan to vote today on a bill that would restrict domestic surveillance powers more tightly than the administration wants, complained yesterday that they should have been permitted the same access.

"Although even these materials are far short of the information that Congress has requested for more than a year on this crucial subject, we are extremely disappointed that the available information is being withheld from the House," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said in a letter yesterday to White House counsel Fred F. Fielding.

Besides trying to quiet congressional accusations of a coverup, the administration wants in particular to win support for a legal provision providing immunity for telecommunications companies that have been sued for violating privacy rights when they assisted the government's domestic surveillance effort.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that administration officials "routinely meet with members of Congress and their staffs to provide them with information they need when they are considering and drafting legislation." In this case, he said, members of the Senate intelligence panel "requested access to certain materials to assist their consideration" of relief for the companies.

In addition to seeking documents related to the surveillance program, Leahy has sought internal legal opinions related to torture issues involving terrorism suspects and testimony from White House advisers connected to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

Leahy said his questioning at the hearing today will be aimed at eliciting statements from Mukasey about the legality of torturing terrorism suspects and threats to the independence of federal prosecutors that impinge on their efforts to pursue cases regardless of political sensitivities. "How are you going to clean up this mess?" Leahy said he probably will ask Mukasey.

Mukasey has already sought to assure lawmakers in private that he will not let politics intrude on the department's decisions. "He will be light-years better than his predecessor," Leahy said, referring to former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, who resigned in late August after making a series of statements about the attorney firings and surveillance programs that were disputed by his former colleagues and lawmakers from both parties.

What They Did On Their Summer Vacations

Senator Pat Leahy Lands Role in Batman Movie



On the one hand, voting down Bush's FISA bill and risking Bush's threat to call them back to into session. On the other hand:

Holy Beltway, Batman! Sen. Patrick Leahy has a part in the next Batman movie.

"I don't wear tights," the Vermont Democrat said.

Leahy's scene was filmed this summer for "The Dark Knight" and involves Batman, played by Christian Bale, The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, and Alfred Pennyworth, played by Michael Caine.

The longtime Batman fan would reveal little about his role other than he is called the "distinguished gentleman."

"It's a pretty tense scene," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's going to be a very interesting one."

He's done voice-overs on Batman cartoons, written the preface for a Batman book and had small roles in the last two Batman features.

He said he will donate his earnings from the film to the Kellogg (nyse: K - news - people )-Hubbard children's library in Montpelier, where the senator got his first library card.

"The Dark Knight" is scheduled to be released next summer.

Tough choice: Being a real hero and champion of Americans' rights under the Constitution, or just playing one in a movie about a fictional one?

Vermonters, please retire this fool.

Didn't Anybody Read The Goddamned Thing Before They Voted For It?

Yet More Power Shifted To the Executive and Hidden in the 'Small Print' in the Patriot Act

First it was the clause that allowed Gonzales to fill the fired U.S. attorney jobs with Bush loyalists, without having to go through Senate confirmation. Now it's a clause that places the Attorney General, like Mengele greeting the Jews at Auschwitz, deciding who shall live (go to the right, life in Auschwitz) and who shall die (to the left, death in the ovens).

The Washington Post reports:

Two senators have asked the Justice Department to delay new rules that would give Attorney General Alberto Gonzales authority to limit the time death row inmates spend on appeals before being executed.

The bipartisan request, in a letter from two of Gonzales' most vocal Senate critics, questions how strict the federal government will be in deciding whether states ensure that defendants in capital punishment cases have had competent legal help.

That's a task traditionally carried out by federal courts. But a little-noticed change last year in the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act gives the attorney general the power to decide state requests for speedier appeals that generally run for years.

"States must be required to take meaningful steps to guarantee adequate representation of death row prisoners before certification occurs," said Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in their Aug. 2 letter to Gonzales. "This is especially important in light of the accelerated timing and abridged federal court review."

"It is crucial that the legislative changes to this complex and heavily litigated area of the law be successfully and appropriately implemented, especially given the tremendous stake for individual defendants," the senators wrote in the letter, which was obtained Tuesday.

The senators want Gonzales to shelve the rules _ which lay out requirements for states seeking to cut short inmates' time on death row _ until after Oct. 5 at the earliest to make sure they will include clear and specific guidelines. The Justice Department had planned to enact the rules following a public comment period that ends Sept. 24 _ what spokesman Erik Ablin said was already an extension on its original deadline.

The senators' request strikes at the heart of a complicated change in federal law that could affect the estimated 3,350 death row inmates in prisons around the country.

Gonzales formerly served as a state Supreme Court justice in Texas, a state that has aggressively pursued the death penalty in criminal cases. The attorney general also has been criticized for seeking capital punishment in cases in which his federal prosecutors have not sought it.

Until last year's change, Gonzales did not have authority to determine whether states qualified to speed the way death penalty cases are processed in state courts. The Patriot Act gave him new power to approve requests from states seeking mandatory deadlines for capital defendants who appealed their cases to federal courts.

Ablin said the new rules merely outline procedures that states will have to follow to qualify for the faster federal review.

"This has nothing to do with specific cases, and the attorney general has no authority to change the certification requirements, which are determined by statute," he said. Challenges to the attorney general's decision on whether a state qualifies would be reviewed by a federal appeals court in Washington.

At issue now is how much oversight Gonzales will give to states that claim they have gone beyond their constitutional duty, as is required as part of their request, in making sure death row defendants had adequate lawyers. The debate was first reported in Tuesday's editions of the Los Angeles Times.

The law only requires the U.S. attorney general to decide whether a state has a system in place to provide legal counsel to poor defendants appealing their death penalty sentences, the date it was set up, and whether there are any standards for determining the lawyers' competency. "There are no requirements for certification or for application of this chapter other than those expressly stated in this chapter," the law states.

That's not a good enough guarantee for critics of the death penalty or capital punishment defense attorneys.

"All a state has to do is report it has a system," said Kathryn Kase, co-chair of the death penalty committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "There seems to be no mechanism that's going to hold them to determining if a system is in fact in place, and if it functions so as to ensure that people are not wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. That really should concern Americans."

Kase, a Houston attorney, said it takes an average of 11 years for information to become known about death row convicts who are ultimately found innocent. "We really are ensuring that information about innocents isn't coming to the surface. This is a way of burying our mistakes," she said.

The proposed deadlines also are problematic, as they could tie up federal courts already overburdened with growing caseloads. Under the rules, a U.S. District Court would have 15 months to decide on an inmate's appeal to stay an execution; federal appellate courts would have four months to rule on an appeal.

"That's remarkably fast _ most federal civil cases take longer than that," said Rory K. Little, a death penalty expert at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco who worked at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

Gonzales' recent battles with the Democratic-led Senate, leading to bipartisan calls for his resignation, could ultimately result in a softer stance toward death row inmates. Little said it was too soon to draw conclusions about the rules, especially since "they're not final yet."

"This attorney general in particular, trying to implement changes in what seems like a damaged Department of Justice is unfortunate," Little said. He added: "It's premature to think this is the end of the story. It's not."

This is a bloodthirsty group that should never have been let anywhere near positions of power over others. The question now remains whether Congress will clip the wings of this administration, or will Congress continue to let them run roughshod over civilization?

Sara Taylor, Confused As To Whom/What She Swore An Oath To

The Washington Post's profile of Sara Taylor and her journey to the White House:

On a snowy evening in December 1998, Sara M. Taylor, the daughter of a former pipe fitter at a John Deere plant in Iowa, came to a meeting at the Capital Hilton. Washington had grown dark and quiet, and the hotel restaurant was empty, save two people: Omaha financial guru Warren Buffett, and the man she was there to meet -- Karl Rove. Rove had just helped reelect George W. Bush as governor of Texas, and now Rove and Bush had begun the slow process of building a presidential run.

Over the course of an hour Rove quizzed her on the politics of her home state. Her dad, before she was born, had done a stint in the Iowa legislature, and two years earlier she'd taken a year off from her studies at Drake University to work on the presidential campaign of Texas senator Phil Gramm. They spoke about the coalitions needed to win -- social conservatives and the agriculture constituency -- and about the need to meet people personally. Suddenly, Bush himself walked in, plopped down beside her and Rove and drilled her about what he needed to know to win Iowa. In a matter of months, Taylor moved back to Iowa, helping to set up Bush's 2000 win. She was 24.

That was the beginning of Taylor's relationship with the two men. The end is proving more difficult to resolve.

After eight years working with Bush and Rove through two presidential campaigns and two turbulent administrations, Taylor, now 32, finds herself unable to exit gracefully. After leaving her post as White House political director in May out of what she says was a search for normalcy, she now finds herself part of the unending congressional probe into the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Yesterday, after the White House invoked executive privilege regarding any meetings, conversations and deliberations she had in the matter, Taylor became the latest high-level political appointee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. These constraints led to a torturous session, and both sides expressed frustration over what she could and couldn't say. Under questioning yesterday, she refused to answer several questions and testified that she never spoke or met with President Bush about plans to fire the U.S. attorneys last year.

Said friend and former White House communications director Nicolle Wallace: "I just feel like it's incredibly unfair that she's being caught in what's really a struggle between Congress and the White House."

Taylor's been in tough fights before. Following her service for Bush in Iowa, she moved on to South Carolina, Washington state and Michigan. After the cliffhanger election, she was dispatched to Florida to help with recount efforts. Often pulling volunteers from Texas off the floor for not paying attention to their tasks, she eventually developed a pinpoint tracking system that literally traced each recounted ballot.

"It's methodical," Taylor said one evening last week over dinner on Capitol Hill. "You create a system to check every ballot and then you have a spreadsheet in place to tell you where you are. We always knew if we lost one vote or picked one up."

Described by her former colleagues as a tireless worker, Taylor's stature only grew after Bush took control of the White House in 2001. First charged with overseeing the Midwest in the political office led by Ken Mehlman, she joined the 2004 reelection campaign as a top strategist. Taylor was involved in everything from media planning and travel schedules to polling and research.

Asked about her rapid rise, Taylor, who was a finance major in college, said, "I would argue a lot of it had to do with my analytical ability. I think a lot of political operatives have good people skills and great social skills and work really hard, but everyone's not really good at math."

"I was the media director and her title was deputy strategist," said Mark McKinnon. "But functionally she basically did 80 percent of the work for me and [chief campaign strategist] Matthew Dowd. She knows polling, she knows media, she knows the field. For someone her age she has more knowledge than someone with a lifetime of campaigning."

Taylor's reward? A spot as the White House political director after the departure of Matthew Schlapp. From a mid-level staffer, Taylor came back to the White House to advise the senior staff and the president on domestic political issues and played an important role in anything involved with Bush's domestic agenda. Her new role meant constant contact with Rove, whose relationship with Taylor evolved from first "a teacher and leader to almost more of a partner," said Wallace.

"He makes you a better person because he's so methodical and is so smart and never misses anything and is demanding in a good way," Taylor said of her former boss. "He just doesn't have time for error. You can't put a value on the training process."

Another lesson learned?

"Even when you think an e-mail is private, it never is," she said, in reference to a disparaging e-mail involving the firing of Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

By last December, after the Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, Taylor had had enough. By her own account, she could never separate her personal and professional lives and found herself exhausted, ready to start a new life away from the White House. In May, she left.

A clean break it wasn't. After taking time off for the first time in years, she traveled to Europe and returned home to a subpoena.

She wasn't terribly surprised. Last year Taylor signed up for professional liability insurance after noting comments made by some Democrats on the 2006 campaign trail about wanting to investigate the White House.

But now she's on several hooks. This week she found out the insurance will not cover her legal costs. Moreover, she's restrained from fully telling her side of things, from moving on.

"It's a very difficult position to be in," she said. "The president has exerted executive privilege and I have great respect for the president. The problem for you as an individual is that this comes at a huge personal cost financially.

"But this is a bigger issue than me. I understand the president is doing what he believes is right."

Ms. Taylor is bound by no law which prevents her from testifying in full to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bush's claim of executive privilege is just that, a statement that carries no force of law. If Ms. Taylor decided to talk to the committee, Bush would have to go to court to get a restraining order preventing it.

So now, everybody waits.

For what? Nobody will actually say, but, like children lining up for the latest Harry Potter book or movie, everyone waits wishing for some kind of magical break. Absent Bush and Cheney having a "come to Jesus"-moment and confessing outright to six years of criminal acts, it doesn't look as if any break is on the horizon or anytime beyond that. Bush and Cheney have artfully, if not illegally, covered their tracks, and the Democratic Congress is afraid (or so they say) to challenge those tactics in the courts for fear that the last twenty-five years of conservative-stacking of the courts will settle these issues for all time in Bush's ("Unitary Executive") favor.

If that is the case, the sooner Americans learn that truth the better. We've been like the proverbial frog in the pot of water being brought to a boil on the stove. Democratic inaction has enabled Bush, Cheney and Republicans to rob and murder, both at home and abroad, in all of our names. If the people are ever to get our nation back, Democrats are going to have to be bold and stand up to every one of Bush's moves.

And citing Sara Taylor for contempt of Congress is a good place to start. Either way (her talking or not after being cited for contempt) works for Democrats. Americans would see a second woman (the first was Judith Miller) doing jail time so that these cowardly men can walk free. These are not sympathetic characters, any of them.

A contempt of Congress citation just might be the best thing to happen to Ms. Taylor. If she continues to believe that the oath she took was to Bush and not to the Constitution, perhaps some time in jail might help to clear her mind of neocon programming. Another secret defense fund, such as the one that neocons set up for Scooter Libby, would undoubtedly be established, and Ms. Taylor could wind up a very rich young woman. However this shakes out, I think it's a safe guess that Ms. Taylor's silence guarantees her a highly lucrative future.



Call Senator Leahy's office (202 224-4242) and urge him to ratchet up the heat.

Bush to Congress: "Since You Won't Agree To Let My Aides Lie To Your Oversight Committees, I'm Claiming Executive Privilege"

Bush goes from letting his aides (Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, Sara Taylor, et al) talk with the various oversight committees of Congress, "as long as they are not under oath, there is no transcript, audio- or videotape of the proceedings, and it's behind closed doors where the public can't watch/listen," to refusing to let them testify by claiming executive privilege.

In the parallel universe where the Constitution reigns supreme, Republicans are coalescing with Democrats behind an impeachment inquiry.

But we don't live there anymore.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

President George W. Bush, invoking executive privilege for the second time in his clash with lawmakers over the firing of federal prosecutors, said Monday that he would refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas for testimony from two top former aides.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Bush's counsel, Fred Fielding, declared that the legislative and executive branches of government were at an impasse. Fielding wrote that Bush was directing the two aides - Sara Taylor, former White House political director, and Harriet Miers, former White House counsel - not to testify.

"The assertion of executive privilege here is intended to protect a fundamental interest of the presidency: the necessity that a president receive candid advice from his advisers and that those advisers be able to communicate freely and openly with the president," Fielding wrote.

He added that in the case of the firing of federal prosecutors, "the institutional interest of the executive branch is very strong."

The move was not unexpected.

Bush said last month that he had no intention of letting Miers or Taylor testify.

Bush offered at that time to allow the two women, as well as other top aides - including Karl Rove, his chief political strategist - to be interviewed by lawmakers if the interviews were not under oath and were not transcribed. Though Democratic leaders in Congress rejected that offer as insufficient, Bush renewed it Monday.

The latest refusal to comply with the subpoenas raises tensions in an already tense legislative-executive clash and heightens the likelihood that the two sides will wind up in court. Congressional Democrats are trying to determine who sought the firings of nine federal prosecutors, and why. They want to know whether White House officials, including Rove, interfered with hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department for political reasons, or perhaps to thwart certain investigations.

Bush said in June that he would not comply with subpoenas for documents in the case. At that time, the committee chairmen - Representative John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy - wrote to Fielding to complain that Bush was not acting in good faith.

In his letter, Fielding complained about the tone and language the Democrats used, telling them he wanted to convey "a note of concern over your letter's apparent direction in dealing with a situation of this gravity."

Leahy was dismissive of Fielding's letter, saying in a statement: "This is more stonewalling from a White House that believes it can unilaterally control the other co-equal branches of government. What is the White House trying to hide by refusing to turn over evidence it was willing to provide months ago, as long as that information was shared in secret with no opportunity for Congress to pursue the matter further?"

Sara Taylor has been subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 11, 2007, and Harriet Miers has been subpoenaed for the following day. Sara Taylor has said that she wants to testify, and both are required to appear, no matter what Bush claims. It will be up to Taylor and Miers as to whether they will honor Bush's claim of executive privilege. And it will be up to Bush to go to court and get a restraining order prohibiting them from speaking to the committee.

Stay tuned.

Gonzales Uses U.S. Attorney Appointment Power That Congress Banned . . . .

. . . . . And Democrats are about to blow another opportunity.

Raw Story reports:

In a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting Thursday morning, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again used an interim appointment authority at the heart of the US Attorneys controversy that Congress banned in a bill sent to the President for signature on June 4.

"Senator Feinstein’s U.S. Attorney bill....repeals that portion of the Patriot Act Reauthorization that had allowed the Attorney General to circumvent advice and consent with respect to U.S. Attorneys. That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the President’s desk since June 4. It seems he just cannot bring himself to sign it. Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the Attorney General has used the power that we have voted to repeal, again," said Senator Leahy, the committee's chairman.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Senator Leahy, clarified the situation in an e-mail to RAW STORY.

"It just so happens the committee got notice yesterday, that on June 16, George Cardona's 210 days as Acting U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California will have run out and the Attorney General will appoint him as an interim U.S. Attorney at that time. (i.e. still using the end-run authority because Bush has slow-walked signing the bill)," she wrote.

RAW STORY could not reach the Justice Department for comment at press time.

On June 4, the Congress sent S. 214, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, to President George W. Bush. The bill overturned a measure stealthily passed by the Republican-led Congress in 2006 that allowed the Attorney General to indefinitely appoint US Attorneys on an interim basis. Critics said the provision was intended to do an end-run around the standard Senate confirmation process for US Attorneys.

The bill passed the Senate by a 94-2 margin on March 20, and also cleared the House of Representatives by a 306-114 vote on May 22. The President has yet to sign or veto the bill.

Pocket veto.

Once legislation reaches the president's desk, he (or she) must sign it or veto it within ten days (not including Sundays) while Congress is in session, or it automatically becomes law. The one exception (if Congress adjourns before the ten days are up) does not apply here because Congress has been in session since it passed this legislation.

So if Bush doesn't act, exactly when does this bill become law? Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution:

"...If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law."

It hit Bush’s desk on Monday, June 4, and there has been one Sunday (June 10). The tenth day is tomorrow, Friday, June 15. After 10 days without a signature or veto, it becomes law. That means it becomes law on Saturday, June 16.

According to all news reports at the time this little known provision in the Patriot Act came to light, Bush’s and Gonzales’ statements have been that the administration never intended to use the little known slip-in to the Patriot Act to avoid Senate confirmation, and would, of course, cooperate with Congress in removing the provision.

If Raw Story’s report is accurate, what pisses me off about the Democrats is how low-key they are in exposing the lies and corruption of the Bush administration. If Leahy is right and Gonzales intends to use the provision to get around Senate confirmation (and what other reason could there be for Bush not having signed this legislation by now?), Democrats ought to be taking to microphones all over the Capitol and hold this up as “Just one more example….”

It’s because of Democrats’ failure to play hardball with Republicans, by making use of the many examples of Bush-Cheney corruption that come to light that the Rush Limbaughs and Hannitys can lie to audiences, and why we are forever playing defense, trying to convince that 29% who still love Bush and vote Republican that it’s us who are the good guys.

To Bush-Cheney, Republican-Loyalty Is A One-Way Street . . . .

. . . . All Republicans are to bow, scrape and cave-in to the Neo-Cons.

The Bush administration won't oppose rescinding U.S. attorney hiring changes slipped into the Patriot Act Reauthorization bill passed last year, but first the legislation has to reach his desk, and certain Senate Republicans are blocking the way.

On Wednesday's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Alison Stewart talks with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley about yet another crisis the Bush administration has created in government. Turley had some choice words about the provision that enabled Bush to bypass oversight and our elected officials who let them get away with it:

The AP's report:

The Bush administration, bowing to an uproar over its firing of eight federal prosecutors, won't oppose legislation changing the rules for replacing them, senators said Thursday.

"The administration would not object to the bill," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., referring to legislation to remove the administration's power to fill the vacancies without Senate confirmation. He spoke with reporters after a meeting involving Judiciary Committee senators and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Schumer, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the panel's senior Republican, said Gonzales also agreed to let five of his top aides involved in the firings talk with the committee.

The committee was prepared to authorize subpoenas for the officials.
Six of the eight ousted prosecutors told House and Senate committees on Tuesday they were dismissed without explanation. Some said the dismissals followed calls from members of Congress concerning sensitive political corruption investigations.

Others said they feared the Justice Department would retaliate against them for talking with reporters and giving lawmakers information about their dismissals.

The meeting with Gonzales occurred a few hours after Leahy's committee agreed to postpone a vote on subpoenas that would have compelled five of Gonzales' aides who were involved in the firings to testify about the details, publicly and under oath.

Tuesday's eight hours of hearings by the Senate panel and the House Judiciary Committee turned into a display of mudslinging. The fired prosecutors insisted they had stellar records and didn't deserve the Justice Department saying most of them were replaced for poor performance.

At the House hearing, a Justice Department official recited before TV cameras the shortcomings of each of the ousted U.S. attorneys.

Gonzales came under harsh criticism during Thursday's Senate committee meeting, even from senators of his own party. Specter suggested Gonzales might suffer a similar professional fate as the fired prosecutors.

"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said.

In private, Specter offered Gonzales some stiff advice: Acknowledge that the matter is serious.

"And that he take the next step and realize that there is a significant blemish on the records of these individuals," Specter told reporters, referring to the prosecutors. Further, "That he acknowledge that the problem arose because he failed to state the reasons why these people were asked to resign."

Gonzales refused to comment as he exited the private meeting.

Democrats felt the administration had taken advantage of a change in the Patriot Act that took effect a year ago, which lets the attorney general appoint federal prosecutors indefinitely, without Senate confirmation.

Gonzales has denied that was his intent and said he will submit the names of all appointees to the Senate approval process.

Nonetheless, he told senators at Thursday's meeting that the administration would not try to block legislation designed to reverse the change in the law. Sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the bill would impose a 120-day deadline on attorneys general for the nomination and Senate confirmation of appointees to any of the nation's 94 federal prosecutors' posts. After 120 days, appointment authority would go to federal district courts.

Previously, the administration said 120 was an unreasonably short time.

Apparently, it's not as done a deal as the AP is reporting.

The Washington Post reports:

Under the previous system, the local federal district court would appoint a temporary replacement until a permanent candidate was named and confirmed by the Senate.

Democrats and some Republicans said they were concerned the Justice Department was attempting to use the new provision to appoint political cronies without Senate oversight and that the firings were a means to that end. Gonzales and other Justice officials have argued that the old replacement system was inefficient and unconstitutional.

Democrats have attempted to attach to several pieces of legislation language to remove the provision, but they have been blocked repeatedly by Kyl. Senate aides cautioned that Gonzales's assertion that the administration will stand down did not guarantee passage, as Senate Republicans could still block the measure.

But after their meeting, Leahy said Gonzales assured him Bush will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. "My understanding is the president would," Leahy said.

For the next two years of the Bush administration and the upcoming elections, we can expect all Republicans to fight tooth-and-nail against everything and anything that they think could be perceived as favoring Democrats. Republicans have been successful at getting everything that they've gone after by overreaching and never backing down. By wearing down all opposition, which hasn't been all that much when it's been from the Democrats, who play by Queensbury rules.

Democrats have got to push for the rescission of the entire Patriot Act, and every last anti-populist piece of legislation that Bush and the GOP has gotten passed these last years. Canada has rescinded their version of the Patriot Act, enacted in the days after 9/11/01, but our abominable assault on civil rights and our Constitution remains. Democrats enable Bush and Republicans to remain in power when they allow the fear-mongering that has paralyzed Americans' good sense. Democrats have got to learn 21st century street-fighting, how to stir more than one pot at a time, and start putting in more than 3 days a week working.