New e-mails prompt the question: Did Bush make the decision to fire the U.S. Attorneys?
McClatchy's article from earlier today discusses the potentially overlooked role of President Bush in the decision to fire the U.S. Attorneys:
Internal administration e-mails show that the Justice Department postponed the firings for nearly three weeks late last year while awaiting White House approval. The final consent came on Dec. 4, four days after Bush returned from an overseas trip, once several senior White House officials signed off on the plan. It is not known if Bush himself did.
Harriet Miers, then White House counsel, had warned in a Nov. 15 e-mail to the Justice Department that approval of the firings would be delayed if Bush had to OK the plan.
"Not sure whether this will be determined to require the boss's attention. If it does, he just left last night, so would not be able to accomplish for some time," Miers wrote in the e-mail, which was among a batch of e-mails and other internal documents related to the firings that were released by the Justice Department last week.
As you can see by reading that e-mail interaction here, Miers response prompted Kyle Sampson to ask: Who will determine if this requires the President's attention?
Interestingly, as Miers forewarned, the decision was delayed, coincidentally, for the amount of time Bush was away for Thanksgiving and a foreign trip:
The e-mail exchange came the day after Bush left Washington for a weeklong trip to Russia and Asia. He returned for a long Thanksgiving weekend at Camp David, then took off to Latvia and Jordan before returning to Washington on Nov. 30, a Thursday. Four days later, on Dec. 4, the White House signed off on the firing plan.
"We're a go for the US Atty plan," Kelley told the Justice Department. "WH leg, political and communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes."
"WH leg" apparently refers to the White House legislative affairs office, the president's liaison to Congress. Rove heads the political office. "Communications" is under the purview of presidential counselor Dan Bartlett.
The "We're a go" e-mail exchange can be found here.
Think Progress and Talking Points Memo both took note of the 18-day gap from Mid-November through early December during which there were almost no e-mails in the documents provided to Congress. That gap coincides with the time that Bush was away. Tony Snow said there was a "good response" for the gap. Is the "good response" that the White House and Justice Department staffers were waiting for Bush to decide what to do?
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That is, any impulse or activity which does not conform to and have its place within the workings of society must, for the good of that society, be absolutely and categorically disallowed.
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Hence the practical reason cannot contain, in reference to such an object, an absolute prohibition of its use, because this would involve a contradiction of external freedom with itself.
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Obstruction Charges Coming in USA case?
Obstruction charges coming in USA case? Outside e-mails point to scheme to avoid WH records law. See, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=482402&mesg_id=482402
Since the US Attorney's case broke, it has been reported that Congress is interested in why discussions about firings were being carried out on a non-official e-mail server at the White House between Karl Rove's Assistant, Scott Jennings, and Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson.
If the WH was using outside e-mail to avoid the record-keeping requirements of the Presidential Records Act (PRA) -- and if that was part of a larger pattern of avoidance of the PRA within the Executive Office -- that may lead to a call for an independent counsel to pursue Obstruction of Justice charges in the US Attorney's firings.
We know that White House Counsel Fred Fielding is trying like crazy to withhold INTERNAL presidential documents from Congressional investigators -- it may turn out that the White House did not generate legally required memos related to decisions to fire the US Attorneys. There's a question about whether Bush even signed any order demanding the resignations of certain US Attorneys who left less than voluntarily.
The PRA requires that "the President shall take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as Presidential records." That law also applies to the decision-making of President's appointees, including Karl Rove and Albert Gonzales. http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records...
Potentially, this failure to meet PRA records requirements could lead to Obstruction charges being filed against all involved, including Bush.
The possible violations of the PRA was first reported a week ago, when we saw the first of the e-mails to Sampson from Jennings, Rove's Deputy, on the gwb.43.com server: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002771.php
CREW: White House Breaking Records Law?
By Paul Kiel - March 15, 2007, 2:24 PM
A number of readers have pointed out that Karl Rove's deputy at the White House, Scott Jennings, used an outside domain, gwb43.com, for his emails. The domain, it turns out, is owned by the Republican National Committee.
Now Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sent a letter to House government reform committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) requesting an investigation of whether the White House has been violating the Presidential Records Act -- in an attempt to keep certain correspondence away from prying eyes.
Jennings use of the RNC's email "raises serious questions about whether the White House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA, which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during his tenure," says CREW.
And there's evidence that Jennings' use of an outside domain was a pattern in Rove's office. CREW points out that Karl Rove's former assistant Susan Ralston also frequently used outside domains to communicate to her old boss, Jack Abramoff.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that House Democrats are also planning on investigating the White House's use of outside domains for correspondence. Namely:
Democratic congressional aides said they will investigate whether using the private address for government business violated laws against using taxpayer resources for political work or signaled that White House officials considered the firing of U.S. attorneys to be primarily a political issue. Jennings did not return a call to his office seeking a comment.
SNIP
The thing about the PRA is that the Act carries no direct penalties for violation. That fact may have caused the White House staff to get very, very cavalier about avoiding its requirements. In fact, if they failed to keep records of their decision-making to fire US Attorneys who were pursuing criminal investigations, that's an Obstruction of Justice (OOJ) violation. As you will recall, Scooter Libby was prosecuted for OOJ.
Here's an article about the OOJ implications in the US Attorney's case, and how that ties in with Fielding's tug-of-war with Congress over internal White House records: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/10/21543/2678
THE 240-DAY GAP: The Missing White House Memos
by leveymg
Thu Mar 22, 2007 at 01:46:15 PM PDT
Where are the President’s records of internal deliberations about the USA firings?
Earlier today, the Senate followed the House in announcing it was ready to issue subpoenas for testimony and documents showing internal White House deliberations about the decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys.
White House Counsel Fred Fielding had offered in a letter Tuesday to provide closed door, off the record "interviews", but no internal White House documents.
While many of us would like to see Karl Rove and Harriet Miers grilled under the klieg lights, the real gold is more likely in the documents -- or, rather, in the lack of them.
That’s because the White House probably didn’t keep anything in writing that documents exactly what higher-ups said to each other about "the real problem we have right now", as Kyle Sampson's 05/11/06 e-mail characterized then breaking news that US Attorney Carol Lam was investigating Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA). The failure to make and keep just those sorts of internal Presidential records is a violation of the law, and opens the decision-makers to Obstruction of Justice charges if they fail to turn them over.
MORE below . . .
Keep your eyes on this one, and you might want to remind your Congressman and Senator to push for a full investigation of whether the White House, indeed, tried to avoid the presidential records law.
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This is to be distin
This is to be distinguished from having the object brought under my disposal (in potestatem meam reductum), which supposes not a capability merely, but also a particular act of the free-will.Now, suppose there were things that by right should absolutely not be in our power, or, in other words, that it would be wrong or inconsistent with the freedom of all, according to universal law, to make use of them.But in order to consider something merely as an object of my will as such, it is sufficient to be conscious that I have it in my power.