Sergeant-at-Arms Pickle about to bring the hammer down on the GOP

[59millionmorons]

Bush's next headache will come on March 5 when Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William H. Pickle is likely to announce the GOP staffers committed a crime. Can you say special counsel?

THIS FROM JOSH MARSHALL-Talking Points

Now here's where this gets interesting. The report from the Sergeant at Arms is coming down the pike really soon. (Let's call it the Pickle pike.) And most of the Republicans on the committee seem to agree now that this is a criminal matter, at least in the sense that there were probable illegalities committed. It's hard to see how that won't lead to a criminal referral when the report comes in.

So say a referral is made to the Justice Department. If that happens, how can they not appoint a special counsel? Not only is the issue at hand inherently political, but the political appointees at the DOJ work with the White House Counsel's office and the Judiciary Committee Republicans to plan and coordinate strategy for judicial nominations. The whole issue here is whether their colleagues on the Senate staff side were purloining Democratic staff memos to aid that planning. It seems like a classic case where the folks at Justice would need to recuse themselves.

Now we come to the White House Counsel's office. Remember, what we're talking about here is planning and strategizing on how to get judicial appointments through the Senate confirmation process. On the Republican side that involves Senate staffers, people at Justice, and the White House Counsel's office. Indeed, the whole process is quarterbacked out of the Counsel's office.

We already know that at least two Senate staffers accessed and archived the Democratic staff memos for more than a year. We know that thousands of documents were involved. And we know that the contents of at least some of those memos were leaked to conservative journalists. Those memos provided invaluable assistance in planning strategy on the Republican side.

How likely is it the existence and/or contents of those memos were discussed in the regular meetings Senate staffers held with members of the White House Counsel's office to plot strategy for getting through their judicial nominees?

And if a special counsel is appointed ... well, you see where this is going.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

[Beetwasher]

1. The WH HAD to Be Aware of the Theft

The hammer is coming...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. I bet they called it an "intelligence operation".

[diamond14]

2. part of the many bush* scandals that could EXPLODE out into

the media at any time....

it's a good one....there's many more...maybe they'll sort of all come out sequentially, so as not to overshadow each other....

seems that way so far...no WMD, AWOL, jobs jobs...oops, we lied....ENRON is back again....Chalabi brags: 'it doesn't matter what bush* said, we are all accidental heros'....

so we wait with suspense for the NEXT hammer to drop...

[yellowcanine]

3. I have a hunch this is going to snare Santorum

He has been one of the severe critics of Hatch and Frist for letting this investigation go forward. If Santorum were involved what would be the legal implications for him? I suspect that if it came to criminal indictments several of those staffers would give up any pubbie senators that were aware this was going on. If is hard to believe that staffers would have done this entirely on their own.

[dae]

4. This could let the light shine in on a lot of dark places. n/t

[tom_paine]

5. One wonders if Pickel will be falling mysteriously to his death from

an unscreened window onto a hard surface 50+ ft. below?

www.frankolsonproject.org/Documents/Assassination%20Manual.html

Probably wouldn;t benefit the Imperials, though. The wheels are already ion motion and probably many people other than Pickles know the facts and have seen the evidence.

So I think it's good news for you, Mr. Pickles! The Imperial Family is going to allow you to keep breathing.