“Laws and rules have been adopted to prevent the hijacking of the Justice Department to advance a partisan or ideological cause. But that’s exactly what the Bush administration did,†columnist Jay Bookman wrote, noting how “the campaign to turn the Justice Department into an enforcement arm of the Republican Party extended even to its hiring of legal interns.â€
Bookman wrote: “According to a new report by the Justice Department’s inspector general — a Republican, by the way — the Bush approach ‘constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.’
“In other words, those appointed to enforce the law instead knowingly violated it to advance partisan interests.â€
50 Comments
I’m at a loss trying to connect the whole CONservative meme about “activist” judges.
The same people who refused to expand the death penalty to non-homicidal crimes voted to overturn a local government’s attempt to limit the number of handguns in their neighborhoods. I most certainly can find plenty of reasons to agree and disagree with either decision. That’s why it’s a 5-4 decision, I guess.
But just which decision was the work of “activist” judges?
In eliminating applicants for internships at Justice if they even dared use the terms “social justice” says a lot about how ShrubCo tried to politicize the most powerful legal force on the planet.
Whether you’re facing an IRS audit or have been hauled into traffic court for doing 36 in a 35 mph zone, the government has way more dollars and way more people and way more resources against you.
Shrub and Cheney and Ashcroft and “Fredo” did all in their considerable power to drive the Justice Department into a specific political agenda.
And, as with just about everything else they’ve done, they screwed it up. They were so arrogant they thought they could get away with anything!
They still think they can.
well its good to know not all Republicans are crooked, but why didn’t the Inspector General say something before now?
Why didn’t any of the other Republicans who knew what was going on there say something?
Didn’t Liberty University realize that something was amiss when all of their graduates were being hired by the BUSHIT admin?
“Political_mama” asks –
“Didn’t Liberty University realize that something was amiss when all of their graduates were being hired by the BUSHIT admin?”
Yeah, they noticed.
They considered it “Mission Accomplished.”
Another abuse of power in a very long list! Now can someone actually be held accountable??
Doubtful.
Let’s just watch them CAREFULLY for further abuses before they finally leave Dodge.
Linda: Of all possible charges against Bushco, this charge of hiring young attorneys with conservative leanings rather than young attorneys with liberal leanings doesn’t seem to bother me too much. Will Obama/Clinton use a more neutral non-political process when they take control?
JWink,
I’m not Linda, but I’ll answer your question.
I hope to hell not. What goes around should come around. In a nice way, of course. :)
JWink, I think this was done to an extreme under the current administration. In fact they’ve set new lows for most any subject or issue that could be discussed. I will give bushco credit for being more openly abusive, more openly corrupt than any previous administration. They’ve caused me to pay closer attention! It won’t be as easy for political abuses in the future as more of us are paying closer attention. I won’t ever be quiet should an entire Congress ignores their responsibilities for oversight in the future!
I’m waaaay more conservative than bushco in many areas! I still adamantly believe is fiscal responsibility and that government should keep their noses out of business most of the time.
But where bushco have grown government larger than any time previously, where they’ve expanded the executive powers and abused our Constitution in the process while endangering Americans civil liberties I think they are criminals!
So
Did these same people complain when Bill Clinton fired ALL United States Attorneys?
And, what about all those FBI files, on Republicans, that Hillary, somehow, got ahold of?
And what about firing everyone in the White House travel office (maybe OK) by trumping up false charges against them? (Definately not ok)
To a point, to the victor go the spoils.
How can an administration expect uniform enforcement of the law, if many of its employees do not support the immigration, abortion, drug or other law involved?
Paul – and nobody complained when Bush did it, when Bush 1 did it, when Reagan did it. This situation is VERY different and you know it. It is routine for an incoming president to replace holdover staff with his own. Bush did a ’second round’ and purged his own appointees who were nor sufficiently partisan. Bush sought to eliminate those who put country ahead of party.
There is a difference Paul – an you know it.
This abuse of the Justice Department is technically criminal. Men will go to jail over this.
And, no. No administration has violated the Justice Department like this since modern laws were enacted to protect the Department from political manipulation like this.
Th Justice Department.. OUR Justice Department is NOT LOOT to be stolen by a winning political party.
DavidB
Posted June 28, 2008 at 1:23 pm | Permalink
This abuse of the Justice Department is technically criminal. Men will go to jail over this.
———————————–
Name some of those who will go to jail?
Or?
Is it that the Dems ain’t got nothing but whining?
“Franklin” gives us –
“So
Did these same people complain when Bill Clinton fired ALL United States Attorneys?”
And, in the process, “Franklin” reveals just how much of a Bush-sucking fool s/he is.
Every United States Attorney serves “at the pleasure” of the President. And it’s a given in the real world (consider the “Real World,” sometime, “Franklin.” It might help you think better.) that incoming Presidents nominate United States Attorneys.
What’s happened under Shrub’s Reign of Error is a significant departure from the way the Justice Department works.
George WMD Bush most certainly could declare himself Dictator for Life and try to justify it by citing there’s no specific prohibition in the Constitution preventing the President from declaring himself to be Dictator for Life.
You up for that?
I read this with a health sceptecism because I know that the same or worse will happen when the administration changes. Linda unlike you I have been watching for several administration changes. This isn’t new it is politics as usual.
How do we change it? We make both parties accountable and don’t exempt our own by saying ‘they did worse’.
“This isn’t new it is politics as usual.”
Bullshit.
It’s those 28%ers idea of politics. Soon to end. Hope it’s soon enough! Be vigilant, the madman can cause more harm.
There are laws, not just department policies to protect govt. workeres from being hired,fired,promoted, demoted for political affiliation. This isn’t the same as naming your political appointees.
Prosecutions should follow.
Liberals might have forgotten the justice department under Janet Reno but the conservatives haven’t. No prosecution for 900 FBI files found in the basement of the White House. The firing of the travel office staff and their attempted prosecution for nothing. We could go on but your memory isn’t that long I am sure.
We’ll see how it works under a new administration.
Duh dems have already tried to prosecute Justice Department personnel. How’s that working out for them?
The only problem here is that duh Dems are sour they don’t have control of the Justice Department.
And that is the ONLY issue, period.
“The firing of the travel office staff and their attempted prosecution for nothing.”
The WH Travel Office is manned by political appointees – they can be fired without cause at anytime.
“We’ll see how it works under a new administration.”
Yeah, we will, and when the Cons bitch, we’ll just say “well, we are just following the Bush Rules.”
Not that I expect those obsessed with their own ideas to understand that these matters have been fully investigated and no illegal activities found, nor do I expect them to read anything that shows their “memories” are inaccurate. But truth is truth even when some refuse to listen.
—–
Official findings
On November 19, 1998, Independent Counsel Starr testified before the House Judiciary Committee in connection with the Impeachment of Bill Clinton over charges related to the Lewinsky scandal. Here, for the first time, Starr exonerated both President Clinton and the First Lady of complicity in the FBI files matter, saying “while there are outstanding issues that we are attempting to resolve with respect to one individual [we] found no evidence that anyone higher [than Livingstone or Marceca] was in any way involved in ordering the files from the FBI. Second, we have found no evidence that information contained in the files of former officials was used for an improper purpose.”[22] (Starr also chose this occasion to clear President Clinton in the Travelgate matter, and to say that he had not committed impeachable wrongdoing in the Whitewater matter; Democrats on the committee immediately criticized Starr for withholding all these findings until after the 1998 Congressional elections.[23])
In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray, Starr’s successor, issued the office’s final report on the matter. Ray determined that there was no credible evidence of any criminal activity by any individual in the matter.[24] It attributed the improper collection of the files by Marceca due to his having an outdated Secret Service list of White House passes, as Marceca had originally claimed.[24] It stated that even though Marceca’s statements were sometimes “contradictory and misleading”,[8] they were “sufficiently transparent”[8] and there was insufficient evidence to prove that Anthony Marceca had made false statements to Congress during his testimony.[7] The report ascribed the FBI files matter to “a failure of process at many levels,” saying that the Secret Service had provided critically erroneous data,[8] and that this was compounded by the White House’s informal process of requesting sensitive information by “inexperienced, untrained, and unsupervised personnel with backgrounds as political operatives.”[8]
Based on an investigation that included the prior fingerprint analysis,[24] Ray’s report further stated “there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official, or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, was involved in seeking confidential Federal Bureau of Investigation background reports of former White House staff from prior administrations of President Bush and President Reagan.”[7]
Ray’s report also concluded that there was no credible evidence that Bernard Nussbaum testified falsely about not having discussed Livingstone’s hiring with the First Lady, and found as well that there was no personal relationship between the First Lady and Livingstone that had formed the basis for his hiring.[7]
[edit] Judicial Watch lawsuit
Separately from the Independent Counsel investigation, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, engaged in long-running litigation over the White House personnel file controversy.[25] Judicial Watch’s Cara Leslie Alexander et al. vs. Federal Bureau of Investigation et al. class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of several members of the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Administrations,[26] alleged that Livingstone, along with Anthony Marceca and William Kennedy, obtained the files and then rifled through them. As late as January 2000 they were filing affidavits in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia under Judge Royce C. Lamberth related to the case.[27] In their $90 million lawsuit,[28] they claimed that the First Lady did, despite her denials, know Livingstone — indeed, that Livingstone had bragged to associates he was very close to both the president and his wife, and that Clinton had personally hired him for the security job.[28] (White House defenders pointed out that Livingstone had a long history of exaggerating his importance and connections.[3]) Judicial Watch also said they had five sources who claimed Livingstone had been hired by and worked under the First Lady,[28] and also discovered some photographs of Livingstone in the vicinity of the First Lady (but not talking with him).[19] In December 2002 Judicial Watch obtained a ruling from Judge Lamberth that recently uncovered White House e-mails be searched for possible evidence in the lawsuit.[29], and Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman and Clintons antagonist suprême said that, “Hillary Clinton was the mastermind of Filegate. She will not escape justice.”[29] Klayman and Judicial Watch had a severe falling out in 2003,[30] however; as of June 2007, nothing further appears to have happened in the lawsuit other than a court document filed in April 2004.[26]
——
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_FBI_files_controversy
Complete investigations into the bush administration should show us the truth also. If there are some who should be prosecuted for criminal activities, charges should be filed.
WS you can fire political appointees whenever you wish. You can not use the justice department to go after them for embezzlement when there is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. A jury took less that 10 minutes to exhonerate Dale.
Glad to see even if it is a little late that political appointees are appointed at the pleasure of the Prez.
You can say what you wish but I still say politic as usual. Bush just followed the Clinton rules and the libs have whined for eight years.
I honestly hope not, wsc. I know all the “bush rules” could be used by future presidents but I don’t think there is anyone that unethical.
Linda just two questions. Who hired Craig Livingstone? Why was a bar bouncer given the security needed to be able to order FBI files? The buck had to stop somewhere.
As for the Travel office. Hillary had no moral right to attempt to ruin Dales life as she did with the false prosecution of him. Libs might think that there was no offense but I beg to differ.
Please remember has soft you were on the Clintons and then apply that same broad brush to Bush.
“Bush just followed the Clinton rules and the libs have whined for eight years.”
All presidents since Reagan (or before) have replaced the USAG’s when they took office.
What presidents have fired their own appointees without cause after the attorneys took office?
Only Bush.
I don’t know WS because I didn’t research it. Because it doesn’t matter. Do you think if someone is hired for a job that he is hired for a lifetime. Hardly. If you don’t do the job in a manner pleasing to the person who hired you or the CEO you are gone. Out. Fired.
You have so little logic in your arguments. I’ll even take your word for the fact that only Bush as done this and say ’so what’.
If it is proven that he broke the discrimination laws such as sexual, age, or whatever then prosecute him.
If he fired them because of ideological difference ’so what’. You libs see a spook behind every Bush.
“If you don’t do the job in a manner pleasing to the person who hired you or the CEO you are gone. Out. Fired.”
So why were you bitching that Clinton fired the Travel Office staff?
Eh?
Here’s the deal – when President Obama takes office, I don’t want to hear any bitching from the cons because Obama did the exact same things as Bush. I don’t want to hear that he is abusing the office because he is following the Bush Rules.
You didn’t complain when your “man” did it, so don’t complain when ours follows his precedent.
Remember that in about eight months or so.
WSClark
Posted June 28, 2008 at 3:30 pm | Permalink
“If you don’t do the job in a manner pleasing to the person who hired you or the CEO you are gone. Out. Fired.”
So why were you bitching that Clinton fired the Travel Office staff?
Eh?
——————
I Posted above:
“WS you can fire political appointees whenever you wish. You can not use the justice department to go after them for embezzlement when there is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. A jury took less that 10 minutes to exhonerate Dale.”
———
As you see we agree on firing political appointees.
“okobserver” gives us –
“I don’t know … because I didn’t research it.”
Pretty much a summation of of contemporary CONservative thought and policies these days.
Don’t confuse ‘em with the facts. They don’t want to research it.
“The truth has an obvious liberal bias.”
WS first of course he has to be elected which should be a shoo in but will be closer than anyone suspected.
Monkey as I pointed out if you read the post in it’s entireity ‘it made no difference’. I gave him the point. Took his word for it. Didn’t argue with him. All of the above.
Like to argue. I don’t.
“You can not use the justice department to go after them for embezzlement when there is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim”
There was obviously some evidence or the case would have been thrown out on day one. Embezzlement is very hard to prove.
“WS first of course he has to be elected which should be a shoo in but will be closer than anyone suspected.”
And then we can play by the Bush Rules, since you Cons NEVER complain that he is overstepping his authority.
Do ya’ like the Caribbean? I hear that the weather is nice in winter, but the summers are unbearably hot and muggy.
Maybe President Obama will have a few of you declared enemy combatants.
Hey! You folks have no problem with Bush having that power – why not President Obama?
Eh?
I actually do like the Carribbean. Going there is late August just in time to miss the Democrat National Convention.
The justice dept at Hillary’s behest and Renos command went after Dale. He was innocent. He was harrassed to cover Hillary’s behind.
I for one can hardly wait for Obama to make his first tax increase and see which libs are hollering.
“I for one can hardly wait for Obama to make his first tax increase and see which libs are hollering.”
As president, Obama cannot raise taxes.
“The justice dept at Hillary’s behest and Renos command went after Dale. He was innocent. He was harrassed to cover Hillary’s behind.”
To cover her behind over WHAT?
Firing the Travel Office was not illegal.
So, what was the “cover up” about?
Eh?
It was an attempt to make her not look so mercenary in the way she fired an entire staff to bring in her Arkansas cronies.
BTW Ws if Obama can’t raise taxes then why are tax cuts Bush’s. No logic there. Prez can’t raise or lower taxes on their own but they can propose them.
“It was an attempt to make her not look so mercenary in the way she fired an entire staff to bring in her Arkansas cronies.”
Completely legal and done by virtually every administration.
“if Obama can’t raise taxes then why are tax cuts Bush’s.”
Because (one) the Republicans controlled both Houses at the time and (two) Bush proposed them and pushed for them as part of his “Piss On You” economic package.
WS do you ever get tired of BSing yourself. I bet you have a heck of a conversation when you get wound up!
Linda, are you serious?
The Clinton White House was one the most unethical White Houses in history.
Your own Democrat Party KNOWS this fact.
The Clinton ethics baggage is the ONLY reason that your party is nominating an in experiences, Left Wing Arab for President.
For all his faults, Obama is not as ethically challenged as the Clintons, and your own Party realized that fact.
WS
False criminal charges were brought, by the corrupt Clinton White House, against the travel office staff.
Linda
Lack of prosecution is your standard?
No prosecutor ever declares anyone “innocent” — Starr clearly said that he could “find no evidence” in many unethical Clinton White House events.
I do recall some people going to jail for “contempt of court” for refusing to testify, on various Clinton scandals.
Yes, Franklin, I am serious.
When I’m joking you will know it as it will be funny. Or maybe I should say many will know it, you may not.
Linda
You, my dear, are a joke.
You seem to think that Democrats are all saints and that Republicans are all Devils.
If a Republican and a Democrat do the same thing, you will find virtue in the Democrat and you will find nothing but evil in the Republican.
You can not be taken seriously.
Therefore,
You ARE the joke.
Franklin
Posted June 28, 2008 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
…the ONLY reason that your party is nominating an in experiences, Left Wing Arab for President.
—
:lol:
Ah, the trees of Nixon’s southern strategy finally bear the bitter fruit predicted.
And bonus! Fruit borne by one of the most obstreperous of Augustus Stupidus’s willfully ignorant apologists…
Life is sweetened by this knowledge on this fine, fine Saturday evening. :D
Franklin,
You may hold any opinion of me you desire. I do, however, ask you not address me with any form of endearment. From you it doesn’t sound at all endearing. I have a “nic,” and my name is Linda. So I ask you not address me as “dear” in the future. Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Linda–
Thanks for setting the record straight on the Clinton “Travelgate” issue, but you see how the CONs deal with reality–denial.
One need only look as far as Don Seigleman, former Democratic Governor of Alabama. Republic Party officals threw every charge they could think of to “get him” for the real crime of winning elections in Alabama as a Democrat.
He was finally incarcerated on a trumped up charge of “bribery,” but the appeals court saw that the case was so weak, they actually let him out of prison until his appeal court date.
Heads are going to roll over this one. What the Republic Party operatives did to our legal system was a crime. It was something you expect in Nigeria or Nicaragua, not the United States of America.
A question from today will survive and be asked for decades to come. “Why were there no impeachments or firings?”. I am not sure what I will answer when my grandchildren ask that question.
Heh Dawg, good to see ya.
Ya better come up with another answer when they ask why our generation left them such massive national debt as well!
Shredded constitution, crumbling infrastructure, and massive debt.
“Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good ol’ days”.
Yes KFG it will be a tough one to explain on many counts, the debt and the openness of the violations of what this country stands for. The explaining of we were attack will only cover some of the earlier actions.
Tales of the “Good ole days” will bring about the question of why if it was so great we the people willingly allowed such contrary actions in the name of defending what made this country great. That will be harder to justify.
Why did the system that was suppose to stop a imperial Presidency not stop him? In a war where that which was being fought over was the ideology. Did we if our was the better, revert to one more liken to that of those whom wish to defeat ours. More times than can be counted has the claim been to pull out of Iraq is a defeat. But the grandkids will ask why then is not the willingness to abandon the principles of this country a defeat and a win for the enemy? How was it that those claiming to be “Conservatives” were so foolish with the debt and spending that it racked up the deficit. They will not have the grace of ignorance to excuse the invasion. They will have the after facts to see as well as the facts we were faced with.
Good to see you too KFG, my new job has me working some long and hard hours and I can not get here as often. Early morning to late night and when I get home bed sound more interesting then firing up the computer.
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