This video from the USA says: ‘As the US Attorney scandal rages, another Alberto Gonzales scandal has flared up – this time concerning his pressuring then A.G. John Ashcroft to sign domestic spying orders when Ashcroft [was ill].
James B. Comey, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, testifies on May 15th about an incident on the evening of March 10, 2004 (from Wikipedia):’
From the BBC:
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, embroiled in a row over the sacking of eight US attorneys, has formally announced his resignation.
In a brief news conference Mr Gonzales said he had met President George W Bush on Sunday to tender his resignation, which will take effect on 17 September.
Members of Congress have accused Mr Gonzales of abuse of office over the sacking of federal prosecutors.
He is the latest in a run of senior officials to leave the White House.
See also here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
Juan Cole on Gonzales’ resignation: here.
How about after Gonzales? See here.
Gonzales jokes: here.
Special prosecutor appointed to investigate US attorney firings: here.
As with the resignations of Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, etc: good riddance to bad rubbish. However, Bush and Cheney still have to quit.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Posted by: “Jack” miscStonecutter@earthlink.net bongo_fury2004
Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:42 pm (PST)
American Nightmare: Gonzales “wrong and illegal and unethical”
by Greg Palast
Tuesday, August 28.
“What I’ve experienced in the last six months is the ugly side of the American dream.”
Last month, David Iglesias and I were looking out at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island where his dad had entered the US from Panama decades ago. It was a hard moment for the military lawyer who, immediately after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired Iglesias as US Attorney for New Mexico, returned to active military duty as a Naval Reserve JAG.
Captain Iglesias, cool and circumspect, added something I didn’t expect:
“They misjudged my character, I mean they really thought I was just going to roll over and give them what they wanted and when I didn’t, that I’d go away quietly but I just couldn’t do that. You know US Attorneys and the Justice Department have a history of not taking into consideration partisan politics. That should not be a factor. And what they tried to do is just wrong and illegal and unethical.”
When a federal prosecutor says something is illegal, it’s not just small talk. And the illegality wasn’t small. It’s called, “obstruction of justice,” and it’s a felony crime.
Specifically, Attorney General Gonzales, Iglesias told me, wanted him to bring what the prosecutor called “bogus voter fraud” cases. In effect, US Attorney Iglesias was under pressure from the boss to charge citizens with crimes they didn’t commit. Saddam did that. Stalin did that. But Iglesias would NOT do that – even at the behest of the Attorney General. Today, Captain Iglesias, reached by phone, told me, “I’m not going to file any bogus prosecutions.”
But it wasn’t just Gonzales whose acts were “unethical, wrong and illegal.”
It was Gonzales’ boss.
Iglesias says, “The evidence shows right now, is that [Republican Senator Pete] Domenici complained directly to President Bush. And that Bush then called Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General, and complained about my alleged lack of vigorous enforcement of voter fraud laws.”
In other words, it went to the top. The Decider had decided to punish a prosecutor who wouldn’t prosecute innocents.
All day long I’ve heard Democrats dance with glee that they now have the scalp of Alberto Gonzales. They nailed the puppet. But what about the puppeteer?
The question that remains is the same that Watergate prosecutors asked of Richard Nixon, “What did the President know and when did he know it?”
Or, to update it for Dubya, “What did the President know and how many times did Karl Rove have to explain it to him?”
During the Watergate hearings, Nixon tried to obstruct the investigation into his obstruction of justice by offering up the heads of his Attorney General and other officials. Then, Congress refused to swallow the Nixon bait. The only resignation that counted was the one by the capo di capi of the criminal-political cabal: Nixon’s. The President’s.
But in this case, even the exit of the Decider-in-Chief would not be the end of it. Because this isn’t about finagling with the power of prosecutors, it’s about the 2008 election.
“This voter fraud thing is the bogey man,” says Iglesias.
In New Mexico, the 2004 announcement of Iglesias’ pending prosecution of voters (which he ultimately refused to do) put the chill on the turnout of Hispanic citizens already harassed by officialdom. The bogus “vote fraud” hysteria helped sell New Mexico’s legislature on the Republican plan to require citizenship IDs to vote – all to stop “fraudulent” voters that simply don’t exist.
The voter witch-hunt worked. “Wrong” or “insufficient” ID was used to knock out the civil rights of over a quarter million voters in 2004. In New Mexico, that was enough to swing the state George Bush by a mere 5,900 votes.
So what is most frightening is not the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, the Pinocchio of prosecutorial misconduct, but the resignation of Karl Rove. Because New Mexico 2004 was just the testing ground for the roll-out of the “ID” attack planned for 2008.
And Rove who three decades ago cut his political fangs as chief of the Nixon Youth, is ready to roll. To say Rove left his White House job under a cloud is nonsense. He just went into free-agent status, an electoral hitman ready to jump on the next GOP nominee’s black-ops squad. The fact that Rove’s venomous assistant, Tim Griffin, was set up to work for the campaign Fred Thompson, is a sign that the Lord Voldemort of vote suppression is preparing to practice his Dark Arts in ’08.
It was Rove who convinced Bush to fire upright prosecutors and replace them with Rove-bots ready to strike out at fraudulent (i.e. Democratic) voters.
Iglesias, however, remains the optimist. “I’m hopeful that I’ll get back to the American dream. And get out of the American nightmare.”
Dreams. Nightmares. I have a better idea for America: Wake up.
**********
Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans – Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild (http://www.gregpalast.com/order-the-book/)
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White House in Contempt
Dear Friend,
I wanted to take the opportunity to update you on the status of the contempt of Congress resolution in the House of Representatives.
As you may know, the Judiciary Committee passed a resolution before the August recess holding the White House and Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for their failure to provide documents and appear before the committee as legally required by subpoena.
The information we have received to date from the Justice Department from our U.S. Attorneys investigation indicates the White House played a central role in the firing of the nine federal prosecutors. Yet, the White House has stonewalled and consistently refused to cooperate with inquiries into this matter.
At the heart of our investigation is the evidence uncovered suggesting that the nine U.S. Attorneys were fired for politically-motivated reasons, while others may have been retained because they were pursuing partisan investigations.
We have also discovered that job candidates’ political contributions and affiliations were considered in hiring decisions for nonpartisan positions in the Department of Justice. Our job has been made more difficult by apparent misleading testimony from the Attorney General and other Department of Justice officials.
This politicization of our judicial system cannot be tolerated. Our citizens have a right to expect that federal prosecutions will be conducted in a fair and nonpartisan manner.
There are many steps we can take in this confrontation with the White House. Some are more extreme than others. What we must first do is get the facts that show who made these decisions in the White House. Only once we have this evidence can we adequately pursue justice.
What is now required is for the House to pass these contempt of Congress citations and pursue legal action against the White House and Harriet Miers for their failure to meet the requirements of the subpoenas. Hopefully this contempt of Congress resolution will soon have a vote on the floor of the House. I am not prepared to allow this administration to operate above the law.
Thank you for your continued support for a better democracy.
Your Friend,
John Conyers, Jr.
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Millions of Bush administration e-mails recovered
December 14, 2009 5:23 p.m. EST
The Bush administration e-mails had been “mislabeled and effectively lost,” according to the National Security Archive.
* White House had said that about 22 million Bush administration e-mails were missing
* E-mails involve Bush administration’s 2006 firing of top federal prosecutors
* White House said during congressional hearings they might have been lost
* Suing watchdog groups will settle lawsuit with the Obama administration
Washington (CNN) — Computer technicians have recovered about 22 million Bush administration e-mails that the White House had said were missing, two watchdog groups that sued over the documents announced Monday.
The e-mails date from 2003 to 2005, and had been “mislabeled and effectively lost,” according to the National Security Archive, a research group based at George Washington University.
The archive and the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued over the issue in 2007, said Monday they will settle their lawsuit under an agreement with the Obama administration.
The controversy dates back to the Bush administration’s 2006 firing of the top federal prosecutors in nine cities.
After congressional committees demanded the administration produce documents related to the firings, the White House said millions of e-mails might have been lost from its servers.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/14/white.house.emails/index.html
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