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Banned
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Whitehouse Will Appoint Yale "Bonesman" to Control "Plamegate" Prosecutor Fitzgerald
Are we "THERE YET ????" Maybe not.....quiite....but we are getting closer to it. It is clear that the Bush Whitehouse is not pleased with the direction that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation appears to have taken. His term expires in October, and the assistant Attorney General at the DOJ who Fitzgerald reported to is leaving his post........
Were you naive enough to think that the Bush/Rove "Ace in the Hole".....a plan....if necessary, to attempt to control CIA operative Valerie Plame leak investigator, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, would not be implemented?
Here is the first "credible" report....from a source so influential that the Bush administration, earlier this year....accused it....and the very same reporter, Michael Isikoff....of singlehandedly touching off a riot in Pakistan by reporting that US military prison authorities had investigated "Koran" abuse at Gitmo.
What do you believe are the implications of this development? Recall that Nixon attempted to fire the special prosecutor who was closing in on his administration.....resorting to conservative "poster child" Robert Bork to do the actual firing.....after Nixon Attorney General Elliott Richardson resigned in protest rather than carry out Nixon's firing order:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...s/102173-2.htm
Nixon Forces Firing of Cox; Richardson, Ruckelshaus Quit
President Abolishes Prosecutor's Office; FBI Seals Records
By Carroll Kilpatrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 21, 1973; Page A01
...........Richardson resigned when Mr. Nixon instructed him to fire Cox and Richardson refused. When the President then asked Ruckelshaus to dismiss Cox, he refused, White House spokesman Ronald L. Ziegler said, and he was fired. Ruckelshaus said he resigned.
Finally, the President turned to Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, who by law becomes acting Attorney General when the Attorney General and deputy attorney general are absent, and he carried out the President's order to fire Cox. The letter from the President to Bork also said Ruckelshaus resigned. .............
..........These dramatic developments were announced at the White House at 8:25 p.m. after Cox had refused to accept or comply with the terms of an agreement worked out by the President and the Senate Watergate committee under which summarized material from the White House Watergate tapes would be turned over to Cox and the Senate committee.
In announcing the plan Friday night, the President ordered Cox to make no further effort to obtain tapes or other presidential documents.
Cox responded that he could not comply with the President's instructions and elaborated on his refusal and vowed to pursue the tape recordings at a televised news conference yesterday.
That set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the departure of Cox and the two top officials of the Justice Department and immediately raised prospects that the President himself might be impeached or forced to resign.
In a statement last night, Cox said: "Whether o
urs shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." ..............
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853002/site/newsweek/
Leak Investigation: An Oversight Issue?
—Michael Isikoff
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
Aug. 15, 2005 issue - The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale. One question: how much authority Comey's successor will have over Fitzgerald. When Comey appointed Fitzgerald in 2003, the deputy granted him extraordinary powers to act however he saw fit—but noted he still had the right to revoke Fitzgerald's authority. The questions are pertinent because law-yers close to the case believe the probe is in its final stages. Fitzgerald recently called White House aide Karl Rove's secretary and his former top aide to testify before the grand jury. They were asked why there was no record of a phone call from Time reporter Matt Cooper, with whom Rove discussed the CIA agent, says a source close to Rove who requested anonymity because the FBI asked participants not to comment. The source says the call went through the White House switchboard, not directly to Rove.
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/po...rssnyt&emc=rss
Lawyers Fought U.S. Move to Curb Tobacco Penalty
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 16, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 15 - Senior Justice Department officials overrode the objections of career lawyers running the government's tobacco racketeering trial and ordered them to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial by $120 billion, internal documents and interviews show.
The trial team argued that the move would be seen as politically motivated and legally groundless.
"We do not want politics to be perceived as the underlying motivation, and that is certainly a risk if we make adjustments in our remedies presentation that are not based on evidence," the two top lawyers for the trial team, Sharon Y. Eubanks and Stephen D. Brody, wrote in a memorandum on May 30 to Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The two lawyers said the lower penalty recommendation ordered by Mr. McCallum would weaken the department's position in any possible settlement with the industry and "create an incentive for defendants to engage in future misconduct by making the misconduct profitable."
At the close of a major trial that dozens of Justice Department lawyers spent more than five years preparing, the department stunned a federal courtroom last week by reducing the penalties sought against the industry, from $130 billion to $10 billion, over accusations of fraud and racketeering......
.............The newly disclosed documents make clear that the decision was made after weeks of tumult in the department and accusations from lawyers on the tobacco team that Mr. McCallum and other political appointees had effectively undermined their case. Mr. McCallum, No. 3 at the department, is a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, and he was also a partner at an Atlanta law firm, Alston & Bird, that has done legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, part of Reynolds American, a defendant in the case............
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Quote:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journal...l/12212606.htm
Posted on Sun, Jul. 24, 2005
Deal reeks like old ashtray
Providence Journal editorial
Onlookers were dumbfounded last month when U.S. Justice Department lawyers abruptly scaled back the money they sought in a suit against the tobacco companies.
In a nine-month trial, a government expert, Dr. Michael Fiore, had testified that an effective nationwide stop-smoking campaign would cost $130 billion over 25 years. But when it came time for closing arguments, the trial team said $10 billion would do.
The change had the earmarks of political interference. An internal memo by two of the government’s litigators reportedly expressed strenuous objections.
The judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, noted that perhaps this sudden, illogical move revealed that “additional influences have been brought to bear on what the government’s case is.” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate.
The trial lawyers were apparently obeying their supervisor, Associate Atty. Gen. Robert McCallum Jr. A Yale classmate of President Bush, McCallum once worked for an Atlanta firm that has represented R.J. Reynolds, a defendant in the case.............
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The question for each of us to ask ourselves is how will you react if it comes to pass, in the next few weeks, that the President appoints a close friend and fellow member of a "Secret Society" whose members have demostrated, for 150 years....a loyalty to each other and to an ethic of secrecy, to be the "Justice" Department official who oversees the activities of the Special Prosecutor who is about to issue a final report on the two year investigation involving possible criminal misconduct of the President, and Vice-President's closest aids ?
Quote:
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/sto...date=7/25/2005
Justice in secret
A federal court takes a restrictive view of open deportation hearings
........ A contrary but less radical view might be that the circumstances of the past 13 months or so require more openness, not more secrecy. Such a view would require the government to sharpen its sights and identify the terrorist networks that operate within the United States. Such a view would curtail the tendency to aim too broadly and direct the crucial war on terrorism on the wrong targets. Indeed the Justice Department can conduct business as it has been, and as it pleases. Assistant Attorney General Robert McCallum calls the appellate court's ruling ``a victory ... for every American relying on the government to take every legal step possible to protect our nation from acts of terror while preserving constitutional liberties.''
Think about that. Upholding civil liberties is now secondary to maintaining national security, in the eyes of the Justice Department and a federal court. From an uneasy balance to, seemingly, no balance at all........
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Take note of the (in comparison....) minor little matters that attract the most posting interest on this forum. Ask yourselves....why? Do you really think that these "thugs" who are in the final stages of their so far successful attempt to diminsh most of your "rights" while they completely insulate themselves from any accountability, will let you know when it is time to confront them and attempt to thwart their efforts? IMO, that "time" is NOW, folks, and...it may already be too late! |