Truthout: Bush Appointee Could Thwart Congress

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071207J.shtml

Bush Appointee Could Thwart Congress
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 12 July 2007

While Congress has threatened to hold senior Bush administration officials in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas pertaining to their investigation into the controversial firing of nine US attorneys, enforcing such criminal contempt charges would fall to Jeffrey Taylor, interim US attorney for the District of Columbia. According to Justice Department documents, Taylor took part in behind-the-scenes discussions involving the US attorneys who were fired.

That raises questions about whether Taylor, who would be in a position to decide whether to turn the matter over to a grand jury, has a conflict of interest and would be forced to recuse himself from the case.

According to DoJ documents, Taylor worked closely with Justice Department officials who were planning the US attorney purge. Before being appointed to his current position, Taylor served as counsel for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, one of the main targets of the ongoing Congressional investigation. Email communications between Taylor and Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff for the attorney general, and William Mercer, former acting associate attorney general, show that Taylor worked closely with Sampson and Mercer while the two men were planning the firings. Specifically, the emails show that Taylor was asked to assist Sampson and Mercer when the DoJ came under fire for alleged lack of enforcement of illegal-immigration laws. A lack of illegal-immigration enforcement was later used as a rationale for the removal of Carol Lam, former US attorney for the Southern District of California.

The DoJ has released only two emails sent by Taylor and only one that was directly addressed to him, leaving Taylor's exact role in planning the attorney purge unclear. In an email, Mercer asks for Taylor's "thoughts" about an email exchange between DoJ officials regarding an inquiry by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) regarding illegal-immigration prosecutions. If Taylor responded by email, that document was not made public. DoJ did not return multiple calls for comment on this issue, and has not specified how many relevant documents it is withholding

If Congress votes to hold officials involved in the US attorney firings in contempt, Taylor, as the interim US attorney for Washington, DC, would be responsible for deciding whether to convene a grand jury to rule on Congress's charge. If Taylor decided not to enforce contempt charges issued by Congress, the investigation could grind to a halt, leaving questions about the motives behind the US attorney firings unresolved.

Taylor's close professional relationship with the Bush administration and the attorney general, and Taylor's potential role in the firing plan, raise a potential conflict of interest issue in this situation. That issue could prompt Taylor to recuse himself from involvement. According to Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane, Taylor "is obligated under Department of Justice regulations at least to consider recusal and, if he was involved in the purge, recusal would be mandatory."

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[frogcycle]

1. the cancer has been allowed to grow so wide and so deep

that it just may be impossible to excise it using Constitutionally-prescribed means

[MrModerate]

2. Meaning . . . ? n/t

[frogcycle]

3. that we may be screwn

[frogcycle]

4. and that the history books a century from now

may have a lot to write about the rise and fall of the Great Experiment

or maybe they'll write about the turmoil that the Union endured the second time it was threatened with and overcame extinction

[DemoTex]

5. Conflict of interest?

These fuckers wouldn't know a conflict of interest if it hit them in the head with a 2X4.