Someone remind me again how we got Ashcroft out of the picture

[merbex]

on this case

Thanks

[NNadir]

1. Speaking of Asscroft, what became of the covered boob of Justice?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1788845.stm

I think that boob destroyed America.

[Eric J in MN]

4. Under Alberto Gonzales, they uncovered the boobs, but

also scheduled the press conferences in a different room.

[MADem]

9. Cheaper'n spending thousands on drapes, why didn't Asshat think of that?nt

[missouri dem 2]

5. And where is Asscroft hiding?

What is he hiding from?

[Sydnie]

7. I remember an article about the covers coming down shortly after he

left and that they had cost $8,000 for each cover he ordered.

8 GRAND to cover a boob for a boob.

[gardenista]

2. Here. From WAPO in Dec., 2003

Looks like the Eagle flew when he realized that Scooter and "Official A" were guilty as sin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A42104-2003Dec30¬Found=true

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft recused himself yesterday from a politically charged investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, and his deputy announced the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case.




Ashcroft's decision came abruptly after months of complaints from Democrats that the former Missouri senator's close ties to senior White House aides should disqualify him from overseeing the investigation, which has included FBI interviews of presidential adviser Karl Rove and other senior White House aides.



Several outside legal experts said the decision signals that investigators may be narrowing their focus to one or more likely suspects, and that some of those people may have ties to Ashcroft. Officials said the recusal order applies to Ashcroft and his entire personal staff, which includes a number of longtime political aides from his days as a Republican senator.

"It is a reasonable surmise that they may be honing in on someone who is in a position connected with the administration itself, rather than a career civil servant," said Floyd Abrams, a New York media lawyer who has represented journalists in leak cases. "A political appointee, rather than a career civil servant, would be more likely to lead to consideration of a recusal."

[merbex]

6. Thanks!

[Eric J in MN]

3. People in a first term often leave to make money from the

private sector influencing the administration in the second term.

I don't if Ashcroft is doing that, but it's a common practice.

Update:

Wikipedia says he's now a professor.

I don't know if he does any part-time lobbying:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft


On March 18, 2005, Regent University, a primarily graduate university founded by Pat Robertson with its main campus in Virginia Beach, Virginia, announced that Ashcroft would join the school's faculty on July 1. He will serve jointly in Regent's law and government schools.

[NNadir]

8. He's professor of witchcraft at Robertson U?

I think he was better qualified to be the defense against the dark arts professor at Hogwarts.

[cosmicdot]

10. indeed ... google Ashcroft and Rove

he's an accomplice and involved/implicated up to his crisco oil-anointed head


from:

The Ashcroft-Rove Connection: The Ties That Blind
By Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill and the staff of Democracy Now!

~snip~

"Rove is best known as the driving force behind Bush's taking of the presidency, but he also worked for Ashcroft over the course of two decades.

'It goes all the way back to the mid 1980's when John Ashcroft first ran for governor and then when he ran for the United States Senate against Mel Carnahan," says Moore. 'Karl was so intimately involved'.

"Not only did Rove work for Ashcroft in the 80s, but he was one of the main forces behind Ashcroft's controversial appointment to the job he currently holds, attorney general. Rove lobbied intensely for his former employer's nomination after Ashcroft lost his senate seat to a dead man, the late Mel Carnahan.

"While Ashcroft was not Bush's first choice for attorney general, Rove reportedly told Bush that spilling some blood over the nomination of the fiercely right-wing Ashcroft was 'a no-lose proposition'." ~snip~

http://www.democracynow.org/static/roveashcroft.shtml

google Ashcroft and Sibel Edmonds
google Ashcroft and Abramoff
google Ashcroft and enron


re Abramoff

from Josh Marshall September 27, 2005 -- 12:16 AM EDT

"Former Attorney General Ashcroft comes in for some discussion, in part because Abramoff had apparently boasted of his close ties to the former AG and his staff at the Justice Department. Yet 'a spokesman for Mr. Ashcroft', reports the Times, 'said the former attorney general and his aides at the Justice Department had done nothing to assist Mr. Abramoff and his clients and had had no significant contact with him'.

"Now, it seems to me that Abramoff and Ashcroft must have been buddies on at least some level, because there's this heretofore unpublished email exchange (just added to the TPM Document Collection) sitting on my desk, in which their staffers are hashing out which date Ashcroft, his wife and his staff could enjoy the pleasures of the Abramoff skybox at DC's MCI Center in late 2000.

"In the exchange, Abramoff's Kevin Ring hashes out possible dates with Ashcroft's Andy Beach. Ring later forwards the exchange on to Susan Ralston, Abramoff's skybox gatekeeper, for approval. And I can't help but notice the February 2nd, 2001 piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which notes that Ashcroft brought Beach with him to the Justice Department. Presumably, two years later, Beach was still there as Ashcroft's scheduler at Justice Department."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_25.php

from Fired Up Missouri:

"Though still faint, the PD (St. Louis Post Dispatch) appears to have awoken from their slumber to realize that one of the major political stories of our generation is going on right before their eyes.

"Though they only offered a timid little blog entry about the ties between uber lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, at least it's a start.

"Of course they failed to mention why ties between Ashcroft and Abramoff are even news. That's because the NY Times has raised questions about whether the DOJ, during Ashcroft's tenure, replaced a U.S. Attorney in Guam because he had initiated an investigation of Abramoff."

```````
Those who say the Ashcroft-Abramoff connection...

...is just a case of the disgraced lobbyist engaging in a little good ol' fashioned name-dropping for which Ashcroft bears no responsibility ought to check out this email exchange from the TPM document collection. In those messages, Ashcroft staffer Andy Beach corresponds with Abramoff deputy and Preston Gates lobbyist Kevin Ring about finding a time when Ashcroft, his wife and staff can attend an event in Washington DC's MCI Center as a guest of Jack Abramoff in his luxury suite and rink-side seats.

```````

Oh, and there's also this...

Among the staffers who took junkets to Saipan, paid for by Jack Abramoff on behalf of his client, the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands, was Ashcroft loyalist Lori Sharpe.

At the time of the junkets Sharpe was a legislative advisor to then-Senator John Ashcroft. She would later be appointed to a senior post in the Justice Department after Ashcroft's appointment as Attorney General.

For more on how these trips allowed Abramoff to engender such support among Republican heavy-hitters like Ashcroft, check out a story by Franklin Foer from the archives of The New Republic.

~snip~

http://www.firedupmissouri.com/node/2836

and, there's always a google of 'Ashcroft enron' ... another case where he recused himself ...

what a mess when the AG recuses from criminal investigations

[cantstandbush]

11. Actually, he was not qualified for the job and finally realized it. n/t