Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said the lawyer, John Dowd.

The party is over. This is something that reaches straight into the oval office. The removal of these attorneys, by law, can only be executed by the President. Not the Attorney General, not his chief of staff, not the White House chief of staff, The President. Here's the future. Gonzales, who pissed off the other 85 US Attorneys is looking at removal and likely prosecution, but he's not the fall guy on this, he can't be because he can't actually fire the attorneys.

Mr. Nixon? Your car is in front again?

Gonzales Aide to Invoke Fifth Amendment | The Huffington Post

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

Let me preface this by saying, I'm a smoker. That said, why on earth would the Bushies want to go easy on the tobacco companies in a case that was already won??? I can only come up with one answer, and i is so that the tobacco companies give the money to support Republicans rather than payment in the settlement.

Any other ideas, please post them.

Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case - washingtonpost.com

Mr. Gonzales believed that the prosecutor, H. E. Cummins III, the United States attorney for Arkansas, was dismissed for performance reasons, the e-mail suggested. But his deputy, Paul J. McNulty, testified that Mr. Cummins had been replaced to create a vacancy for J. Timothy Griffin, a political ally of the White House political adviser Karl Rove.

Now why would Karl Rove care about having one of his cronies in place as the US Attorney in Arkansas? Oh, that's right, that's where one of the likely opponents in the next election lived through the 80's. Let's put our boy down there so we can stir up more on her come election time so we can get someone in the White House who won't look too close at what we were doing and send us all to jail.

New E-Mail Gives Details on Attorney Dismissals - New York Times

Feinstein said that on May 10, Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants sent in the case of Dusty Foggo and a defense contractor. The next day, an e-mail went from the Justice Department to the White House."

The May 11 e-mail was from D. Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, to White House Deputy Counsel William Kelley. "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam … leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her four-year term expires," it said.

Can you say "Obstruction of Justice?" No? How about Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations? Too hard? Try RICO. See? Isn't that easy?

Democrats turn up heat on firing of U.S. attorney - Los Angeles Times

In testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys.

Just a month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff, laid out a plan to do just that. In an e-mail, he detailed a strategy for evading Arkansas Democrats in installing Tim Griffin, a former GOP operative and protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove, as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

"We should gum this to death," Sampson wrote to a White House aide on Dec. 19. "[A]sk the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."

That would be "Lying to Congress," "Perjury," and "Violating the Oath of Office." Goodbye Alberto. Now apologize about the door, you could have walked through it gracefully rather than defenstrate yourself.

Statements On Firings of Prosecutors Are Key Issue - washingtonpost.com

The New York Times got the editorial ball rolling on Monday, calling for the firing of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales due largely, if not completely, to the burgeoning scandal involving the forced departure of eight U.S. attorneys. Today the notion spread across the country.

That Georgie Bush, he's a uniter, not a divider. Why, the whole country is united that he should show Alberto Gonzales the door!

Editorial Pages Call for Axing Attorney General

Gonzales, who cancelled an out-of-town trip to appear at a hastily called Department of Justice (DOJ) press conference Tuesday, said, "I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on . . . That's basically what I knew as attorney general."

In other words, you had no idea what your chief of staff was doing, and no idea why he was talking to the White House all the time? Bullshit.

Is Gonzales's Apology Enough? -- TIME

A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.

The previously undisclosed Guam inquiry is separate from a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia that is investigating allegations that Abramoff bilked Indian tribes out of millions of dollars.

In Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, investigators were looking into Abramoff's secret arrangement with Superior Court officials to lobby against a court reform bill then pending in Congress. The legislation, since approved, gave the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court.

In 2002, Abramoff was retained by the Superior Court in what was an unusual arrangement for a public agency. The Los Angeles Times reported in May that Abramoff was paid with a series of $9,000 checks funneled through a Laguna Beach, Calif., lawyer to disguise the lobbyist's role working for the Guam court. No separate contract was authorized for Abramoff's work.

Follow this, Poppy Bush nominated the formaer US Attorney in 1991, Clinton left him there, he stayed on the job until about the beginning of 2003. Here's where things get interesting. At that point he's investigating and has sent out subpoenas based on what he's got and then gets axed.

We're probably looking at fraud, money laundering, bribes, and any number of other things based on the description given, and that's just in Guam. Now let's take a trip to Washington. This is not someone who was fired with all the other US Attorneys, he's got a different track. He gets fired, and replaced by, get this, an operative of the then governor of Guam, who the prior attorney was investigating for corruption!

Bush may end up meeting the high standards or Harding of Buchanan. Oh who am I kidding, he's exceeded them. Harding didn't get us into a war and Buchanan didn't have the same levels of influence peddling and corruption. Bush combines the worst of both worlds.

Bush removal ended Guam investigation - The Boston Globe

Officials said they could not be sure of the scope of the violations but suggested they could be more widespread, though not deliberate. In nearly a quarter of the case files Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reviewed, he found previously unreported potential violations.

I'm trying to remember how I said they'd use the PATRIOT act... let's see... Oh, here I am in June of 2005,

Why am I opposed to things like TSA and PATRIOT? Because they've demonstrated time and again they don't pay any attention to minor niceties like what's legal. Add to that the fact that they are notoriously bad at safeguarding that sort of information and you have a recipe for being a bigger threat than the one they are trying to stop.

Adding sugar to urine doesn't make it stop being urine. They took this, and managed to abuse even its incredibly open-ended ability. That's not easy. It needs to go.

Frequent Errors In FBI's Secret Records Requests - washingtonpost.com

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

...

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.

It was about the se... the oath... the distracted from his job... the blowjob!

Newt, you lying blivet!

Gingrich Had Affair During Clinton Probe | The Huffington Post