Attorney firings had genesis in White House (serving at the pleasure of the President)

MSNBC ^ | 3/13/2007 | Dan Eggen and John Solomon/WP

[tobyhill]

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The Gonzales aide in charge of the dismissals — his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson — resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

[AD from SpringBay]

So who gets to go to jail for this non-criminal activity? Clinton Travel office anyone?

[Tokra]

That's very funny! (I had to read it several times before I got it though)

[Just A Nobody]

It is all about creating the "appearance" of evil and banking on the public's ignorance of history.

Not to mention the alleged "perps" racing to resign, step down, hang their heads in shame over nothing.....

If the public is ignorant it is not always their fault. The ENEMEDIA goes to great lengths to instill that ignorance and the other side assists them by pretending to have done something wrong.

BTW, anyone heard anything about Tom DeLay???

[Western Phil]

" Wallace said he hadn't mentioned it before because he hadn't known about it."

In general, the media people are not very smart and all of them tend to remember only things that serve their liberal purposes. That is why FR is very important in that to a significant extent, history is recorded as it is happening.

My guest ions for you or anyone are: Are the US attorneys appointed by the president? If not, where do they come from? Are the existing ones those who got the job when Clinton fired the previous bunch?

[mewzilla]

And IIRC, Wallace said that then US Atty. Michael Chertoff wasn't the only attorney Toon didn't fire.

I meant to type that Chertoff was the only attorney held over...

[hschliemann]

The UNITARY executive.The president has the right to hire and fire in the executive branch.(Would that we in the private sector had such latitude!)Congress meddling in this violates the separation of powers.

The democratic strategy since Dec.2000 has been to keep up an incessant chorus of achs and oh-me's.They started with the leadership,Delay, Lott,and Ashcroft,Rumsfeld,Cheney.They continue today with every move the administration makes.Time to put them under the microscope.

[P-40]

No problem. Enjoy the hearing. You'll be one of few Americans to have actually seen it. :)

[RJS1950]

Amen!

They rolled over for each attack on them and did nothing more than wimper.

Now idiot Gonzalez (and the administration behind him) admitted "mistakes" in the firings.

What a moronic thing to do! This is AGAIN rolling over to rat party misrepresentations and lies.

Yeah, roll over and bleed in front of sharks instead of fighting back and fighting dirty -- that has REALLY worked in the past, hasn't it.

[Peach]

Thanks for the ping, Calpernia. I'm just trying to get caught up on this story.

[Non-Sequitur]

Strange... not a word of Clinton firing all 93 US Attorneys in 1993... /sarcasm

Maybe because Gonzales' own chief of staff says that he didn't? Link

It's unheard of for a sitting president at the beginning of his second term to fire all the U.S. Attorney's that he appointed in his first. In the past 25 years only 12 U.S. Attorney's have been fired in mid term, and 8 of those were from Bush. I don't dispute that these people serve at the pleasure of the president but I'm puzzled about why the need to scrap everyone Bush appointed and start fresh?