Was it actually a crime for Bush to fire the federal prosecuters?

[Poiuyt]

Or was it just something that didn't pass the smell test?

[Dollface]

1. Does it fall under the Hatch Act? Anyone?

[atreides1]

3. Perhaps Obstruction

Especially regarding Carol Lam.

[valerief]

17. What happens the Rule of Law after a Coup? nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Could have been, yeah.

There was something about various labor laws that were breeched in the firings. I don't remember the specifics.

Obviously the perjury's illegal.

And the contempt of congress.

And ordering the contempt of congress.

[stirlingsliver]

4. Firing People Who Are Doing Thier Jobs SHOULD Be Illegal

Firing people who are doing their jobs should be ilegal.

Firing people for partisan political reasons should be illegal.

What Bush and Gonzalez did was immoral!

[Captain Hilts]

5. No. nt

[Dogmudgeon]

6. No. He has total discretion.

The problems are from the lies and evasions in telling Congress why.

The President has a free hand in many matters. But the Congress has complete authority to question him (or her, as the case may be someday). And lying under oath about issues material to an investigation is seriously against the law.

--p!

[Atman]

10. "It wasn't about the blow job, it was about the LIES!"

Oops...unless you're a Republican, I guess. Then it's only about angry Democrats who want revenge.

.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. So right

It wasn't kosher when the Big Dog did it. I wanted him to tell the inquisition, "it's none of your damn business who I have sex with!" Alas, he didn't, and then he lied; but I wince at Monday-morning quarterbacking Bill Clinton. I often disagreed with him, but he was an excellent president especially given the conservatives' dominance.

Clinton's lie was a venial, puerile peccadillo. What Bush is doing is several orders of magnitude beyond that. He isn't just in contempt, he's usurped power, albeit passively. The next step is to actively enforce his usurpation. That will probably be the threshold for impeachment. Because if he moves to do something like arrest members of Congress or use the police or military to block an investigation, half of his fellow Republicans will be ready to lynch him themselves.

The Democrats are getting a lot of shit here for not being aggressive enough. I sense that they are not scared of looking bad, but of triggering an ugly and potentially dangerous constitutional crisis. The Republicans like to play "chicken", but they're way out past their comfort zone with the Boy-King. We may speak of "balls", but such balls would involve the distinct possibility of blood. And we know that Bush does not hesitate to kill people to get his way.

The Navy wouldn't put up with it, and throw in with Congress; there is a powerful element in the Air Force that is fanatically RW, and would back Bush to hell if necessary; and the Army is split between the Freeper Right and the Labor Left, but from the point of view of the infantry, Bush is a lunatic who has condemned them to live in a meat-grinder at his pleasure. (I also will defer to service members' opinions on this.)

The most critical time will probably be October-February. I think the Dems and Reps alike will just try to stall as much business as they can and wait for Bush to leave. If that happens, look for a great deal of time spent in "bipartisan deliberations". They will be, in essence, freezing the "real" game until the drunk, gun-happy, rich dude cowboy finally passes out or otherwise leaves the game.

Of course, if things do get pushed to the edge, once Bush is out of power, his ass will be grass, and the GOP will go halvsies on paying the kid with the lawnmower. Republicans with any sense know that they will be spending 40 years in the desert -- every day of it, earned. The point now is to survive until they can purge the rot and rebuild. Republican perestroika, if you will.

--p!

[Atman]

22. But half of DUers seem to think that the Republicans would NEVER lynch him

No matter what. I disagree. They want to be re-elected, too.

Good post. Thank you.

.

[mentalsolstice]

7. It was unethical

Every attorney has to act with a certain measure of independence, even from superiors, to be free of conflicts of interest and and act ethically. An attorney's superior is mandated to recognize that the profession has certain rules that they must operate within.

And in this case, there's the alleged obstruction of justice and perjury.

[neohippie]

8. maybe so maybe not

But, if he fired any of them to derail ongoing investigations which it appears that in at least several of the cases there may be evidence that happened, it could be considered to be obstruction of justice. Either way, what he has done since the matter has been under investigation is definitely obstruction. Where are all of the folks who were so critical of Clinton now?

[Raven]

9. If a US Attorney was fired because he/she was investigating

someone or something the Bush Admin didn't want investigated, I believe that would be obstruction of justice. Lying under oath about it is perjury.

Just firing a USA because you want someone else in the job would not be a crime.

With Watergate, it wasn't the break-in, it was the coverup.

[onenote]

11. No. The president has complete discretion.

[Atman]

13. You're wrong, his discretion is not "complete."

He cannot fire them to exact revenge for their failure to prosecute that which he wants prosecuted, which is the matter at the core of the current controversy.

.

[onenote]

21. Query: Can the President be charged with obstruction for granting a pardon ,c lemency or amnesty?

On his first day in office, Jimmy Carter issued an executive order granting amnesty to Vietnam War draft resisters. This grant of amnesty, which is derived from the President's constitutional pardon power, directed the Attorney General to dismiss pending indictments relating to violations of the draft laws and to terminate pending investigations (and not start new investigations) of such violations.

Did Jimmy Carter obstruct justice? No. His authority to grant pardons, amnesties, etc. is complete. If he abuses it, the remedies include impeachment, among other things. Same goes for the appointment power. The president is not constitutionally obligated to give or even have a reason for nominating a particular person to be a US Atty or for asking for that person's resignation or from firing them if they don't resign.

The leverage we have is that Congress can demand to know why. And while the president isn't legally obligated to explain himself, as a political matter, he is open to fair criticism for refusing to disclose the motivations behind his acts. In other words, he can fire someone for wearing a pink tie. And he doesn't have to say why he fired the person. But there is enormous pressure on him to explain why, so as not to seem irrational in his behavior. So typically, an explanation will be offered. And if the explanation given is not truthful, and its given to Congress under penalty of law for untruthfulness, then a crime has been committed.

[MADem]

15. Not entirely true. You can't LIE about the reason you dismiss someone.

And when the reason goes to the attorneys refusing to play ball, politically speaking, that discretion is NOT complete. You're in Hatch Act territory, there.

In any event, this whole process was DIVORCED from the President--how convenient. It was DELEGATED. He had no knowledge of the activities of Goodling and Gonzo, et. al. They wrote it into the Patriot Act, that a job he was supposed to give an up-check to, got shoved downstream.

My take--you can delegate the acts, but you cannot delegate the responsibility for those acts. The Captain whose ship runs aground, even if he is sound asleep, or straining at a pesky and compacted stool in the head when it happens, is still responsible for the grounding.

[MADem]

12. Their civil service rights were violated. The administration LIED about their performance in some

cases. Attorneys were painted as lazy and poor performers, when they were aggressive and award winners.

One fellow was excoriated for going on ACTIVE DUTY as a JAG. He was also threatened by a GOP legislator for not 'coughing up' indictments for political reasons, and he wasn't the only one feeling that kind of pressure.

They fired them, they lied about why they fired them, and then they tried to cover that up.

It's like a mini-Watergate, where the crime isn't so much the issue as the coverup is. The crime is bad enough, but stupidity could be a factor in mitigation--when you cover up as well, you KNOW what you did was wrong!

[Suziq]

14. No Crime, But . . . .

It has to do with the provision slipped into the Patriot Act (some flunky in Arlen Spector's office put it in late one night) that replacements for these prosecutors DO NOT have to be confirmed by Congress.

Just one more tool in Bush's quest to stack the courts.

Funny how MSM seemed to miss this important point. :shrug:

[Beelzebud]

16. The crime is politicizing the justice department.

They transformed the justice department into an arm of the RNC.

THAT is the issue here.

[On the Road]

18. Josh Marshall Had Difficult Citing Specific Laws That Would Prohibit That Behavior

US Attorneys do take an oath to serve the people and/or the contstitution, so threatening dismissal over performance not sufficiently partisan would seem to be suborning some kind of illegal action. Almost impossible to prove in court, though.

[Sir Jeffrey]

19. It could be...especially in the Lam case...

Bush can fire attys but to say that he can do so absolutely is shortsighted. There are restrictions on that power...especially if the exercise of that power violates the law. Specifically, if Bush fired any of the attys in order to cover up criminal wrongdoing, then that would be obstruction of justice. The Lam case is, in my mind, the most significant because she was knee deep in Republican corruption cases when she got canned. And when she was canned, the cases she was investigating were slowed down/stopped altogether,

The interesting thing to note about the entire incident is that the crimes keep piling up as they continue to obstruct and perjure themselves. There isn't much sense in fighting tooth and nail like they are unless there is a deeper, more sinister reason for doing so....otherwise they could just appoint a fall guy/girl to take the blame and pardon them. In other words, there is something very bad in those papers they refuse to hand over...and they don't even want the information in those papers to reach the nightly news. What we know is bad enough, but what we don't know appears to be much worse (incredibly).