A fox was protecting the hen house

A fox was protecting the hen house
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday,March 22, 2007 – Page 3

I was really starting to believe that the treasonous outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame in retaliation for her husband, career Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the Bush Administration lying us into the war in Iraq would be their undoing. Especially after Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby was found guilty on four of five perjury and obstruction of justice charges relating to the leaking of Plane’s identity to conservative pundit Robert Novak and others. Extra especially when Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday he wants Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify before his committee about his investigation. There was even a chance that Waxman would eventually subpoena the vice president and senior adviser to the president Karl Rove.

But then another scandal broke. Boy, it’s amazing what the power of subpoena and proper congressional oversight of the executive branch can bring to light.
It seems that at least eight U.S. Attorneys were fired because they weren’t loyal enough to the Bush administration and weren’t aggressive enough in investigating Democratic candidates in the 2004 and 06 elections.

Some people compared the Libby decision to when Nixon aide Alexander Butterworth let it slip before a Senate committee that there was a secret tape recording system in the Oval Office. People are comparing the firing the of eight U.S. Attorneys to the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973.

What happened that night is that President Nixon, sick of taking so much heat during the Watergate investigations, called Attorney general Elliot Richardson and asked him to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson let the President know that he was overstepping his Constitutional bounds, refused to fire Cox and resigned. Nixon then called Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus and told him to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and Nixon fired him. That meant that the Solicitor general, Robert Bork became acting Attorney General, and loyalist that he was, he gave Cox the ax. Nixon then declared that there was no longer an independent prosecutor and all of the Watergate investigations would come under the responsibility of the Justice Department and it’s new boss, Bork. This was one of the high crimes and misdemeanors that were described in the articles of impeachment that were started against Nixon before he so graciously resigned.

According to ABC reports last Thursday, March 15, one e-mail from Kyle Sampson, who worked at the Justice Department to then-deputy White House Counsel David Leitch shows that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and then White House Counsel, now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were both thinking about firing all 93 U.S. attorneys as early as January 2005.
Gonzales first told a congressional committee that White House counsel Harriet Miers (who was later a Supreme Court nominee) had brought up the idea, but that both he and Rove rejected the idea out of hand. Then he changed his story and half-admitted that “mistakes were made.”
In one e-mail they discuss replacing “15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys,” because “80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc.”

Bush defenders argue that many Presidents have fired U.S. Attorneys, but what they fail to mention is that they do it as soon as they come into office and they replace people who their predecessors had appointed. This administration fired their own appointees because they obeyed the law rather than letting themselves be pressured into letting the White House abuse the Justice Department for political means.

Gonzales attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents.

Gonzales authored a controversial memo in January of 2002 that concluded that the Geneva Conventions were “quaint” and outdated He wrote a Presidential Order allowing for secret prisons and torture. He’s also deported people to nations that allow torture.
He fought with Congress to keep Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy task force documents secret.

Gonzales was a major proponent of the USA PATRIOT Act. Things like secret wire tapping without warrants and opening U.S. citizen’s mail.

It’s ironic that someone with so little regard tor the Constitution should have been appointed top law enforcement officer of our Nation. Our only hope is that like with Nixon, our system still works. If it does, he will eventually be prosecuted under it.

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. ‘Ted’s Column’ has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. If you’d like to see any of Ted’s editorial cartoons bigger and brighter, you can visit http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2