Can the Bush Justice Dept be trusted to get to bottom of Abramoff scandal?

[kentuck]

Even as we speak, don't you think there is some arm-twisting and "persuasion" going on? It's too obvious not to investigate at all but will they only skim the surface? How many of the guilty will acutally be tried? Do they have the ability to whitewash this investigation and scandal?

[bush_is_wacko]

1. I was under the impression that it was an "independent" investigation...

Not that that doesn't mean the administration won't try hampering it. They seem to have their grubby little hands everywhere these days!

[KoKo]

14. No....Fitzgerald's investigation is "independent." Sadly...this one is

all the Bush owned Justice Department.

[KoKo]

15. Here's the problem with Alice....according to Hamsher at Firedoglake....

The case of Alice Fisher and her oversight of the Criminal Division is troublesome not so much because she will spike the Abramoff deal, although she shouldn't be anywhere near it. It is problematic because Abramoff potentially leads to so many other targets, and as head of the Criminal Division Fisher will have a great deal of discretion about who they decide to purse. Do they chase Tom DeLay, K Street and the elaborate GOP money laundering scheme, or do they go after Harry Reid for taking $5,00http://haloscan.com/tb/firedoglake/1136404700633623640 in money with no obvious quid-pro-quo ties from Abramoff's victims, the Indian tribes?

http://haloscan.com/tb/firedoglake/113640470063362364

[Benhurst]

2. If you can't trust the Bush Justice Department,

who can you trust?

Jeez! Some people around here are soooooooo cynical. :spank:

[yellowcanine]

3. Does a chicken have lips?

[Lone_Wolf]

4. No... if anything it will be used to get

Bush's political enemies and competitiors to Baker-Botts. Fascists tend to run a very tight ship and don't like competition.

[Doctor_J]

5. They'll get to the bottom of any DEM involvement

The GOP will get off scot free, or with maybe one or two troublesome people indicted (Delay)

[zann725]

9. That's my impression too. Another lengthy, misdirected "investigation"...

like 9/11 Report, or Warren Report.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Not even hardly!

A waste of the taxpayer's money. * We need the Anti-Starr to take care of this.

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Not with an interim appointee like Alice Fisher in charge.

http://mcjoan.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/3/232246/3149
The Abramoff fix is in!!! Alice Fisher is full of conflicts
by AHiddenSaint
Tue Jan 03, 2006 at 09:22:45 PM PDT

Mike Malloy just spilled the beans and then their is this information. I'm seriously scared here because the FIX could be in. Please tell me I'm just being tin foil here and they didn't fix the Abramoff scandel already!!!!! Crossposted from firedoglake

Last year BushCo. was trying to get Timothy "Tyco" Flanigan through Senate confirmation to replace Comey as the number two in the Justice Department, but Flanigan got cute at his hearings and Specter hated him. There was much speculation that Flanigan would get a recess appointment last summer and as Bush's old Skull-and-bones crony be in the perfect spot to oversee Patrick Fitzgerald, but that didn't happen.

It gets worst.

Bush must've really wanted Alice Fisher in there.

Fisher had been having trouble with her confirmation too, and Carl Levin had blocked her nomination due to concerns over her position on torture. There was also worry about her connection to DeLay.

* AHiddenSaint's diary :: ::
*

Here is the real slap in the face.
Bush did give a recess appointment to Alice Fisher as Chief of the Criminal Division. On Wednesday, right smack in the middle of the Hurricane Katrina disaster when the country wasn't looking. (Comey eventually shot them all the finger on his way out the door and appointed the ethical David Margolis to oversee Fitzgerald.)
There was concern even with the Patriot Act as well by Leahy

Leahy also expressed concerns about Fisher's "views on checks of controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and her opposition to the Act's sunset provision; her participation in meetings in which the FBI expressed its disagreement with harsh interrogation methods practiced by the military toward detainees held at Guantanamo, and her ideas about appropriate safeguards for the treatment of enemy combatants." Leahy was also concerned about "reports that she has had ties to Congressman Tom DeLay'’s defense team" and "also to know what steps she to take to avoid a conflict of interest in the Department's investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and possibly Mr. DeLay."
Look at what Fishers past Job was

Fisher is a career Republican who in her former job was registerd as a lobbyist for HCA, the healthcare company founded by Bill Frist's father. Her appointment was also controversial due to the fact that like her boss Abu Gonzales, Fisher has no trial experience and with Comey gone there would be no senior member of the Justice Department who was an experienced criminal prosecutor. But Senatorial oversight was dispensed with and BushCo. continued on its Brownie-esque rampage to replace experience with cronyism.

More here about Michael Chertoff connection with Fisher

Fisher, a protégé of Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's, will replace outgoing chief Christopher Wray.

From 2001 until 2003, Fisher, 38, served as Chertoff's deputy in the Criminal Division, overseeing major fraud and terrorism cases. However, unlike Chertoff and Wray, Fisher has never served as a federal prosecutor.

more at the above site..or go to firedoglake.blogspot.com, or just google to find more

[kentuck]

8. Then shouldn't the Democrats call for an independent investigator??

There are few that of us that think there will be a "complete" investigation...

[KansDem]

10. Just like they got to the bottom of 9/11...

Bush's hand-picked commission will blame it on "faulty intelligence." :eyes:

[EST]

11. No

[paulk]

12. there are still a lot of good people at the Justice Dept

I don't think BushCo will be able to "whitewash" this. It's just too big.

[gratuitous]

13. If they get to the bottom of it . . .

They'll only find themselves, so why bother?