In case there were any lingering doubts, the Bush gang implicitly conceded yesterday that they consider the prosecutor purge scandal to be potentially damaging. We can tell, of course, because the Bush gang started backpedaling.
The Bush administration, accused of politicizing the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys, agreed Thursday not to oppose legislation to restore rules ensuring Senate oversight when new prosecutors are named, Senate Democrats said.
The Justice Department also agreed to make five senior officials available to the Senate Judiciary Committee for questioning about the removal of eight U.S. attorneys in recent months, according to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on administrative oversight. Committee members had threatened to subpoena the officials if they did not agree to testify voluntarily.
By any reasonable measure, this is, shall we say, “out of character” for the administration. Officials wanted the power to appoint U.S. Attorneys without congressional oversight, and now they’re telling lawmakers, “If you want to change it back to the old way, we won’t put up a fight.” Officials wanted to keep senators from chatting with senior Justice Department officials about the scandal, and now Gonzales & Co. are telling members, “You can chat with whomever you please.”
To be sure, administration officials may very well start applying some onerous conditions to cooperation, but yesterday’s concessions certainly appeared to be a retreat — not just from previously held positions, but from the very way the Bush gang does business.
If these guys felt like they had the upper hand, and the facts were on their side, we’d see obstinate opposition. Gonzales, as recently as a week ago, suggested he didn’t much care about subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, the Attorney General seems anxious to help. Obviously, it tells us the White House is fighting from a position of weakness, against Senate Dems who see blood in the water.
Indeed, it’s not just Dems. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told Reuters yesterday, after a meeting with Gonzales, “One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later.” Ouch.
For his part, Karl Rove is also weighing in. Gonzales may be ready to make concessions, but Rove is doing what comes naturally to him.
He’s lying.
The Arkansas Times’ blog has video of Karl Rove speaking today on the topic of the prosecutor purge. I’ve typed up a transcript of the remarks, but I’ll leave it to readers in comments to point out the many distortions (and some plain lies) in Rove’s comments:
“Look, by law and by Constitution (sic), these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term. And Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys. When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys – there are some still left from the Clinton era in place. We have appointed a total of I think128 U.S. attorneys — that is to say the original 93, plus replaced some, some have served 4 years, some served less, most have served more. Clinton did 123. I mean, this is normal and ordinary.”
It’s very simple — either Rove doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he’s intentionally deceiving people. It has to be one or the other.
Rove, for example, said Carol Lam was fired for refusing to follow orders about prosecuting immigration cases, but Lam testified under oath that no such orders ever occurred and the Justice Department “communicated their satisfaction with Lam’s performance on immigration prosecutions in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) just three months before she was fired.”
Rove claimed Clinton did the same thing Bush has done, but Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta told ThinkProgress that Rove’s claim is “pure fiction.”
“Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is ‘normal and ordinary’ is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.
“We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.”
Stay tuned.