Fired Attorneys Build Case Against Gonzales

[kpete]

Fired Attorneys Build Case Against Gonzales
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 16 November 2007

John McKay, the former US attorney for the Western District of Washington, pieced together thousands of pages of internal Justice Department (DOJ) emails released earlier this year, reviewed public documents and pored through hundreds of pages of sworn testimony his former boss, Alberto Gonzales, gave to Congress about the firings of at least nine US attorneys last year.

McKay said evidence in the public record demonstrates the former attorney general and his underlings may well have obstructed justice.

McKay was one of the nine US attorneys fired in December 2006 for reasons that appear to be politically motivated. The DOJ's inspector general, Glenn Fine, is conducting an investigation to determine whether Gonzales perjured himself before Congress or sought to influence the testimony of Monica Goodling, the DOJ's former White House liaison who used a political litmus test to hire and fire attorneys, and resigned in disgrace earlier this year. McKay said that a special prosecutor should be appointed to further probe the circumstances behind the US attorney firings if the inspector general's report determines federal laws may have been broken.

In an upcoming issue of the Seattle University Law Review, Mckay said the firing of at least two US attorneys, David Iglesias of New Mexico, and Carol Lam of San Diego, appears to demonstrate Gonzales and top DOJ officials may have obstructed justice by interfering with public corruption cases and ongoing criminal investigations Iglesias and Lam had been involved in at the time of their dismissals.

more at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111607A.shtml

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Now here's a story to believe in! n/t

[spanone]

2. kick

[The Blue Flower]

3. AGAG definitely made the wrong enemies

This could turn out to be a thing of beauty.

[Jade Fox]

18. McKay is relentless....

He's not gonna let this thing die. :)

[hisownpetard]

4. Now, that's beautiful. nt

[babylonsister]

5. No wonder he needs a legal defense fund. Excellent news! nt

[Swamp Rat]

6. Get 'em!

:D

[Vincardog]

7. Now can we focus on jr and Darth? How many thousand illegal things have they done?

Every death in their illegal invasion if Iraq is a separate crime. How long is a MILLION life sentences?

[KoKo]

8. Great NEWS! Maybe the fired USAG's can get some legal results

since so much is being blocked elsewhere.

K&R

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Alberto may find himself in hot water yet

Let's hope Bush doesn't pardon him before the fact. Of course, if he did, THAT could be used as evidence of obstruction of justice on Bush's part....

[damntexdem]

11. Oh, no problem:

Dubya would just get MucasEye to declare that the president could pardon himself. ;-)

[damntexdem]

10. There's something about screwing with a bunch of veteran prosecutors ...

that the Bushistas just don't seem to understand.

LOL!

[King Coal]

13. That is exactly what I thought. Remember when F. Lee Bailey got a DWI?

When that was all over the State of California was wishing they had never heard of him.

[L. Coyote]

12. Moral of the story. DO NOT tick off nine attorneys at once, esp. not USAs

[williesgirl]

14. Go get that fucking traitor. rec'd

[tom_paine]

15. I WANT to believe that this will go somehwere.

But what I really believe is that McKay is no more than two years out from an accident, "suicide", or a mysterious walk-in-the-woods death like British scientist David Kelly.

Perhaps it will only be economic warfare and character assassination the Bushies will wage.

Or perhaps a corrupt Bushie judge will just dismiss the case, without the need for bloodshed or coverup.

Hopefully, I am wrong about this, and we will live to see Gonzales go on trial.

I doubt it, though, and cannot believe in it until I see it happen.

[MasonJar]

16. Also it seems that with the attorneys out there and on top of this, the

IG will have a harder time sweeping this under the table. Go, y'all, go!!!! When one takes on a bunch of attorneys, then one should be smarter than any of them and more cognizant of the law. Gonzales obviously fits neither of these criteria.

[rodeodance]

17. Domenici --wilson mentioned. go after WILSON

In testimony before Congress earlier this year, Iglesias said that a few weeks before the 2006 midterm elections he received telephone calls from New Mexico's Republican Senator, Pete Domenici, and the state's Republican Congresswoman, Heather Wilson, inquiring about the timing of an indictment against a popular Democratic official in the state who was the target of a corruption investigation. Iglesias told Domenici and Wilson he could not discuss the issue of indictments with them. A couple of weeks later, Iglesias's name was added to a list of US attorneys selected for termination.

McKay writes that when Gonzales testified before Congress about the circumstances behind the firings Gonzales admitted "he took multiple phone calls from Domenici concerning , urging that he be replaced, and has admitted that spoke with him about the 'problems' with Iglesias."

"Gonzales has even admitted that one of the reasons that Iglesias was fired was because Senator Domenici had "lost confidence" in Iglesias," McKay writes. "While these allegations are troubling under any analysis, a thorough and independent investigation is necessary to determine whether criminal laws have been violated. Among the considerations facing the inspector general is whether the actions of former Attorney General Gonzales constituted obstruction of justice by removing Iglesias. That had knowledge of the high profile public corruption case being investigated by Iglesias in New Mexico is virtually certain, given that has admitted speaking to Domenici and would almost certainly be expected to have such knowledge as the leader of the Justice Department. Under the broad language of , it would be hard to imagine that 'corruptly influence' would not extend to firing of the United States attorney in the middle of a public corruption case because he 'lost confidence' of a senator who sought to manipulate the indictments for crass political advantage."

McKay said that the firing of Lam, the former US attorney for the Southern District of California, is just as troubling because it took place while Lam was "supervising the highest profile public corruption prosecution in America," Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Republican congressman from San Diego.