Reply #21: White House bows on attorney reforms (better headline)--and some

[rodeodance]

other du links on this issue.


???? what the heck is actually going on???????

Fri Mar-09-07 09:11 AM
Original message
White House bows on attorney reforms
:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:
Forum Name General Discussion
Topic subject White House bows on attorney reforms
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x375934#375934

LINK
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_co/congress_prosecutors

Slapped even by GOP allies, the Bush administration is beating an abrupt retreat on eight federal prosecutors it fired and then publicly pilloried.

Just hours after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dismissed the hubbub as an "overblown personnel matter," a Republican senator Thursday mused into a microphone that Gonzales might soon suffer the same fate as the canned U.S. attorneys. "One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said during a Judiciary Committee meeting.

A short time later, Gonzales and his security detail shuttled to the Capitol for a private meeting on Democratic turf, bearing two offerings: 1. President Bush would not stand in the way of a Democratic-sponsored bill that would cancel the attorney general's power to appoint federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Gonzales' Justice Department had previously dismissed the legislation as unreasonable. 2. There would be no need for subpoenas to compel testimony by five of Gonzales' aides involved in the firings, as the Democrats had threatened. Cloistered in the stately hideaway of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., the attorney general assured those present that he would permit the aides to tell their stories.

The Justice Department is shifting from offense to accommodation.

"In hindsight, we should have provided the U.S. attorneys with specific reasons that led to their dismissal that would have helped to avoid the rampant misinformation and wild speculation that currently exits," Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Friday. "We will continue to work with Congress to reach an accommodation on providing additional information."

It was a striking reversal for an administration noted for standing its ground even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Gone were the department's biting assertions that the prosecutors were a bunch of "disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress." And the department no longer tried to shrug off the uproar as "an overblown personnel matter," as Gonzales had written in an opinion piece published Thursday in USA Today.

............
Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3152849#3152849
3152849, Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales
Posted by alyce douglas on Fri Mar-09-07 09:39 AM

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030807S.shtml

and Specter gave this remark, maybe they are edging on something??


"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said at a committee hearing where a new round of subpoenas to the Justice Department was considered.

Forum Name Latest Breaking News
Topic subject AP: White House bows on attorney reforms
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2760894#2760894
2760894, AP: White House bows on attorney reforms
Posted by rodeodance on Fri Mar-09-07 09:43 AM


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_co/congress_prosecutors

White House bows on attorney reforms

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 52 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Slapped even by GOP allies, the Bush administration is beating an abrupt retreat on eight federal prosecutors it fired and then publicly pilloried.

Just hours after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dismissed the hubbub as an "overblown personnel matter," a Republican senator Thursday mused into a microphone that Gonzales might soon suffer the same fate as the canned U.S. attorneys.

"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said during a Judiciary Committee meeting.

A short time later, Gonzales and his security detail shuttled to the Capitol for a private meeting on Democratic turf, bearing two offerings:

_President Bush would not stand in the way of a Democratic-sponsored bill that would cancel the attorney general's power to appoint federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Gonzales' Justice Department had previously dismissed the legislation as unreasonable.........