THIS is why the United States Attorneys General were fired:

[dixiegrrrrl]

Last edited Fri Mar 10, 2017, 10:36 PM - Edit history (1)

According to NPR...which reported this on Wed:

Ethics Watchdogs Want U.S. Attorney To Investigate Trump's Business Interests

The executive director of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, sued Trump in Jan. for violating the Emoluments Clause, and sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, asking him to pursue a case.

The Justice Department has a "broad mandate" to ensure compliance with the Emoluments Clause,
the letter says. It also notes that Bharara has jurisdiction over the issue because he is the U.S. attorney of the southern district of New York, where the Trump Organization is headquartered, the letter says.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/08/519281372/ethics-watchdogs-want-u-s-attorney-to-investigate-trumps-business-interests

So, cut to Friday, today....and 45 other United States Attorneys General are fired to cover up firing Bharara.

[crazylikafox]

1. fuck

[elleng]

2. Maybe/Maybe not.

U.S. Attorneys are always expected to 'resign' with new administrations; that's nothing new. Timing of the 'demand' here may be odd, and particularly Mr. Bharara who had recently, apparently, agreed to stay on?

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Nobody said a word about letting them go in the first week or 2

and Bharara was told he could stay on.
And now, when Trump is faced with a huge number of high positions to fill, Sessions empties out 45 more positions, on a Friday, right after Bharara gets a request from Ethics watchdogs to look into the legality of Trump's money deals while in office.

trump does not want anyone looking into his money deals, cause the truth about the Rusian money laundering would be revealed.
Right now just a few are putting that picture together.
I am real comfortable with my interpretation, but will allow room for it to be even worse than I could think, cause that seems to be the way Trump works.

If you want a good look into the money laundering angle....it, check out this guy's evidence on his Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur

[elleng]

9. Right

[triron]

22. I think you may be on to something.

Rachel talked about this tonite as well. Seems Bharara's jurisdiction includes Trump Towers in NYC,

[iluvtennis]

30. And to get Bharara, you have to fire them all to avoid the appearance of discrimination

[dixiegrrrrl]

37. More is revealed today, adding to the reasons

He was doing an investigation of Fox News, so there is that....

[krispos42]

3. It's actually a routine move by a new president

The US attorneys scandal during the Bush years was something different. In fact I believe Obama was criticized for not dumping Bush's guys faster.

There's plenty to be mad about; this isn't one of them.

Unless he replaces them with more Breitbart editors or something.

<pause>

Oh, shit.

[babylonsister]

16. Not that routine...

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/141282/department-justice-conducting-purge-obama-appointed-officials

Is the Department of Justice conducting a purge of Obama-appointed officials?

Late on Friday afternoon—when all of the really good Donald Trump news drops—the Department of Justice ordered 46 U.S. state attorneys, including anti-corruption crusader Preet Bharara of New York, to resign.

“As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice. The attorney general has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. attorneys to tender their resignations in order to ensure a uniform transition,” Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.

But, as with many things in the Trump administration, this deviates from precedent in key ways. It’s traditional for new administrations to ask for resignations at the start of the term—today was Trump’s 50th day in office. And the affected attorneys appear to have been given very little warning:

Adding to the weirdness are the many calls from outside the Trump administration to “purge” officials appointed by former President Obama. Sean Hannity, never one for subtlety, used the p-word in a segment last night that attempted to blame the “deep state” for the Trump administration’s many failures in its first 50 days. When Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the “deep state” at Friday’s press briefing, he blasted Obama allies/varmints who he claimed had “burrowed into government” to undermine Trump. Finally, Preet Bharara had met with Trump in November and had been persuaded to stay with the Justice Department—his resignation may not be accepted, but the fact that it is now being asked for is notable.

At this point, there seem to be two possibilities. The first—Occam’s razor in the Trump administration—is that sheer incompetence and a lack of familiarity with the levers of government are causing a lot of confusion. The second possibility is that Trump, the avid cable news watcher, is listening to Sean Hannity.

[Generic Brad]

21. I remember John Ashcroft doing the same thing

We got our undies in a bunch then too. Can't say I like the practice, but it is the right of a new administration to do that.

[L. Coyote]

36. NOT when it is done to obstruct justice. Then it is a crime.

[tomp]

38. yes, but you would have to prove it was done with that intent.

hard to do without someone inside or documents testifying to that effect.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Do you remember when a president would have faced removal if he interferred with an investigation?

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Seems I do...

But the last "honest" Pres. I can remember, before Obama, is Jimmy Carter.

[PoliticAverse]

5. "asking him to pursue a case." - what type of case? It's not a criminal offense for the president

to receive an emolument, as far as a civil case what could Bharara sue for?

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. the linked article has your answers. n/t

[PoliticAverse]

15. No, it doesn't. It merely asserts that...

The Justice Department has a "broad mandate" to ensure compliance with the Emoluments Clause,

[lark]

31. Yes it is illegal.

There is a federal law about this and it's been known he was violating it even prior to him taking office. This is all about drumpf keeping everyone donating to his personal wealth and avoiding following the law by divesting from his conflicts of interest.

[PoliticAverse]

33. Please cite the federal law concerning emoluments that you refer to. n/t

[ProfessorPlum]

43. Look up the emoluments clause in the Constitution itself

It's even worse than illegal. It is unconstitutional.

[PoliticAverse]

44. Yes but a federal prosecutor can't charge someone with "unconstitutional". n/t

[ProfessorPlum]

45. this is true

[JHB]

10. Am I missing something in the terminology? US Attorneys and Attorney General...

...are not the same thing.

Are we talking about US Attornerys? (The article seems to be.) Or Attorneys General? And for 45 of them, are we talking state Attorneys General?

[mtngirl47]

11. US Attorneys--Prosecutors for the US Govt and work for the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions

[JHB]

13. Right. So when the OP talks about "Attorneys General", it's conflating them with...

...US Attorneys.

Wanted to clarify that, because it just didn't look right.

[Lurks Often]

12. You aren't missing anything the OP used the wrong title

It was the US Attorneys that were told their services were no longer needed.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. ty for pointing that out, corrected it. n/t

[JHB]

19. Actually, you're still off. You can correct by removing "General"...

...in the subject line and in the last line of your post.

[KittyWampus]

14. Fine. Even better if it's an Indpendent Investigator.

[kentuck]

18. What an obstinate bunch of criminals!

They will do anything to protect the king.

[Hulk]

20. Our nation is being tested...

So far, we are flondering. It's extremely politically divided, but time is wearing away some of the solid, blind support for this con artist and his oligarchy of inept surrogates that he has installed. If they persist...this cointry crashes and burns.

The Democrats are firmly opposed to this evil son-of-a-bitch, but ever so slowly pieces of the repuKKKe wall are crumbling, and I hope and pray we will prevail. It's not a sure thing at this point in time. The public needs to voice their concerns and force Congress to represent us.

[triron]

23. kick for visibility

[usaf-vet]

24. Well on this one you scooped Rachael Maddow.

I listen to the podcast of her show last night and she couldn't figure out why. She kept making the point that 45 has the right to fire but she did not scope this out for a reason. She had a guest on who didn't specifically pin point this either.

I kept thing to myself the best explanation is Bharara must have something on Trump in the pipeline.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. Rachel needs to read DU!

as many of us remember, Bush illegally fired a few of the USAGs for purely political reasons, and as a matter of fact, at the time, Josh Marshall was just beginning TPM, and many of us were digging up info and putting it together over there.

I also remember reading about the NPR story, in my link, so it was not a far reach to put the 2 together.
Damn fool should have let them all go, that would have been normal.

the internet has a long long memory....

[guillaumeb]

26. US State Attorneys General serve at the President's pleasure.

But it does seem as if Bannon wishes to empty out large sections of the US Government. First the State department, now Justice.

[DallasNE]

27. This Was One Area Where Things Were Going According To Schedule

There are 93 US Attorney's and 47 have already been rotated out. It normally takes 3-4 months for the full rotation of all 93 to occur so it was completely on schedule. But that doesn't mean that a new President has to follow the protocol and rotate them out in an orderly manner as common sense would call for. And with Trump common sense is far down the list of considerations for his actions. Indeed, it seems to be non-existent in Trump's world. The end result is what we see here. Somebody put a bug in Trump's ear and he swung the meat-ax. The Bharara angle is as good as any to explain it.

[MFM008]

28. Bahar refusing to resign

Says fire me to maggot.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. I just caught that, it is rapidly gaining headlines.

Good on him!!

[PoliticAverse]

35. And Bharara was apparently fired...

US Attorney Bharara fired in standoff with Trump
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/11/politics/bharara-not-resigning/index.html

[Nitram]

32. The plot thickens.

[laserhaas]

34. Um....this is a theory...not fact

There are many other contributing factors.

And the changing of the guard is a dynamic providing clarity.

[Az_lefty]

39. Congratulations! I think you nailed it

[dixiegrrrrl]

41. Actually, turningo ut that is only ONE of the investigations into Trump.

Also looking into serious Fox News illegal behavior.
This whole day has been revealing much about the firings and targets of investigations.

[Fast Walker 52]

40. also Sean Hannity asked Trump to stop the investigation into FoxNews

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/us/politics/us-attorney-justice-department-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. Yeah..my jaw is dropped over that....

And teh Wash. DC US Attorney was looking in to Session's lying under oath.