more apparent that the U.S. attorney scandal is a blatant effort to tamper with elections ... intimidate voters and suppress voting

Special Prosecutor: Assault on Elections Needs Full Airing | The Sacramento Bee | Editorial | Saturday 26 May 2007

As more information comes out in congressional hearings, some things about the firing of U.S. attorneys become murkier and others clearer.

On the murkiness side, it is still not apparent just who came up with the idea of firing a number of U.S. attorneys.

On the side of clarity, it seems more and more apparent that behind the U.S. attorney scandal is a blatant effort of the Justice Department to tamper with the U.S. election process, trumping up voter fraud as an issue to intimidate voters and suppress voting in the United States.

The mention of voter fraud conjures up images of deceitful voters knowingly and willingly voting illegally, or of sleazy political operatives stuffing ballot boxes and paying voters for toeing the party line. But in this instance, the phrase seems to refer to high-level officials in the Bush administration using the machinery of government to corrupt the electoral process.

This is a serious matter calling for investigation by an outside special counsel. But there's the rub. Since the independent counsel act expired in 1999, it's up to the attorney general to order an investigation. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is up to his eyeballs in this mess. He has obvious and irreconcilable conflicts of interest in investigating administration officials.

Of course, Gonzales could recuse himself (either on his own initiative or with prodding from the president) and have a deputy delegate to a special counsel all the authority of the attorney general. This was done in the 2003 appointment of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate allegations of unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity. It should be done now to assure an independent investigation.

So far, testimony and documents from congressional hearings reveal that the Justice Department under Gonzales, with prodding from White House political adviser Karl Rove and others, targeted "battleground" states with closely contested 2006 elections - among them Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and Washington - as "hot spots" for voter fraud investigations. The Justice Department apparently also fired U.S. attorneys who refused to go forward with baseless investigations and prosecutions in these states. All this merits investigation.

In speeches, Rove has whomped up the idea that voter fraud is an "enormous and growing problem." The evidence shows otherwise.

Despite a major "voting integrity" initiative, the Justice Department netted only 24 convictions or guilty pleas for illegal voting between 2002 and 2005. Most allegations turn out to be false claims by election losers or simple voter error. ...

[Presidential records act]

CREW sues White House over missing e-mails | Nick Juliano | Published: Wednesday May 23, 2007

A Washington-based legal watchdog has sued the White House Office of Administration alleging the administration refuses to comply with a public records request related to more than 5 million e-mails from administration officials that have gone missing, according to a press release.

"The White House has decided to play an unlawful game of high-tech hide and seek with the American public," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, in the release. ...

Officials Describe Interference by Former Gonzales Aide | By Dan Eggen and Carol D. Leonnig | Washington Post Staff Writers | Wednesday, May 23, 2007; A04

When Jeffrey A. Taylor, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wanted to hire a new career prosecutor last fall, he had to run the idea past Monica M. Goodling, then a 33-year-old aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

The candidate was Seth Adam Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency and had served as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office.

Goodling stalled the hiring, saying that Meinero was too "liberal" for the nonpolitical position, said according to two sources familiar with the dispute. ...

Former Rove aide pleads the Fifth on White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Abramoff

Former Rove aide pleads the Fifth on White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Abramoff | Michael Roston | Published: Tuesday May 22, 2007

Susan Ralston, the former executive assistant to top White House adviser Karl Rove, invoked her rights against self-incrimination while she was being asked to answer questions by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Committee's Chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, announced in a memo Tuesday. The deposition for which she sat concerned contacts between convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Rove, as well as the White House more broadly.

"The subjects this morning that she will be unable to testify to...are the subjects of the relationship between Jack Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, including Ms. Ralston, and the subject of the use by White House officials of political e-mail accounts at the RNC," Ralston's lawyer, Bradford Berenson said, during the May 10 deposition. "She has material, useful information about both of those subjects."

According to Waxman's memo, which was sent to Oversight Committee members, Ralston is seeking immunity from prosecution.

"She is more than willing to provide it to the committee. However, she will, as we have previously discussed, require a grant of immunity before she is comfortable going forward," Berenson also said in the deposition. ...

GSA chief violated Hatch Act, OSC report finds ... illegal political activity with government agencies ... help "our candidates"

GSA chief violated Hatch Act, OSC report findsBy DANIEL FRIEDMAN | May 22, 2007

An Office of Special Counsel report has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from partisan political activity while on the job, sources say.

The report addresses a Jan. 26 lunch meeting at GSA headquarters attended by Doan and about 40 political appointees, some of whom participated by videoconference. During the meeting, Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.

According to meeting participants, Doan asked after the call how GSA could help “our candidates.”
Doan has until June 1 to respond to the OSC report, which was delivered to her May 18, according to officials. The officials asked to remain anonymous because the report has not been made public.

After Doan responds, the report will be sent to President Bush with recommendations that could include suspension or termination. The president is not required to comply with the suggestions. ...

Justice Weighed Firing 1 in 4 | 26 Prosecutors Were Listed As Candidates

Justice Weighed Firing 1 in 4 | 26 Prosecutors Were Listed As Candidates | By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein | Washington Post Staff Writers | Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A01

The Justice Department considered dismissing many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged, with at least 26 prosecutors suggested for termination between February 2005 and December 2006, according to sources familiar with documents withheld from the public.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June, and other administration officials have said that only a few others were suggested for removal.

In fact, D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues, the sources said. ...

Connect the Justice Department dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system.

Attorneys Scandal: An Illegal White House-coordinated Effort to Swing Elections to Republicans | By Marie Cocco, Truthdig. Posted May 18, 2007.

WASHINGTON -- It is time to stop referring to the "fired U.S attorneys scandal" by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.

This is no botched personnel switch. It is not even a political spat between the fired U.S. attorneys and Bush administration officials who deemed some of them insufficiently zealous in promoting the department's law enforcement priorities. Connect the dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It's Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.

The emerging picture is one in which widespread Republican claims of "voter fraud" -- unsubstantiated in virtually every case examined closely by law enforcement officials, local journalists, state elections officials and academics -- were used to stymie Democratic-leaning voter registration groups and create a taint around Democrats. The Justice Department's own statistics show that only a handful of people were convicted of voting illegally since it began a "voter integrity" initiative in 2002. Its top election crimes official, a career prosecutor, has told the U.S. Election Assistance Commission that the proportion of "legitimate to illegitimate claims of fraud" hasn't changed.

The "voter fraud" claims that White House political adviser Karl Rove promoted before last year's congressional elections were in battleground states such as New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with closely contested races. He also has complained about alleged fraud in hotly competitive states such as Washington, Florida and Missouri. Curiously, states where elections often are decided by wide margins -- New York, for instance -- don't turn up on his lists.

According to McClatchy Newspapers, Rove pressed Justice officials about voter fraud probes in October. Complaints from Republican activists wound up in the hands of Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a key figure in the imbroglio. Five of the 12 U.S. attorneys who were canned or targeted for removal were singled out for alleged laxity in pursuing voter-fraud prosecutions, The Washington Post has reported.

The Justice Department's power to prosecute was expected to be put to use in carrying out a partisan witch hunt. Yet even this picture is incomplete.

The shenanigans involving U.S. attorneys must be seen alongside the parallel campaign to turn the department's voting-rights section into a rubber stamp for Republican efforts to enhance the voting power of their loyalists while diminishing that of Democrats. ...

The Bush administration ran its warrantless eavesdropping program without the Justice Department's approval for up to three weeks ...

Tue, May. 15, 2007 | U. S. ATTORNEYS | Initial warrantless eavesdropping program deemed illegal by the Justice Department | By Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration ran its warrantless eavesdropping program without the Justice Department's approval for up to three weeks in 2004, nearly triggering a mass resignation of the nation's top law enforcement officials, the former No. 2 official disclosed Tuesday.

In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said that those he believed were prepared to quit included then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Comey said then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card visited Ashcroft as he lay gravely ill in a hospital bed on March 10, 2004, and pressed him to re-certify the program's legality. Ashcroft refused. ...

Senators Question Whether Gonzales Lied Under Oath About NSA Wiretapping Program

Senators Question Whether Gonzales Lied Under Oath About NSA Wiretapping Program

A group of senators led by Russ Feingold (D-WI) sent Alberto Gonzales a letter today highlighting an apparent lie Gonzales told while testifying under oath last year about the NSA warrantless spying program.

As ThinkProgress noted this morning, Gonzales said in 2006 that there was no “serious disagreement about the program,” a claim that flies in the face of the extraordinary testimony delivered by former Justice official James Comey yesterday. In the letter, the senators ask Gonzales if he stands by his claim:

You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee about this incident. On February 6, 2006, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you were asked whether Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department had raised concerns about the NSA wiretapping program. You stated in response that the disagreement that occurred was not related to the wiretapping program confirmed by the President in December 2005, which was the topic of the hearing. …

We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey’s testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it? ...

Weeks after the White House ruled out the Bush involvement in any discussions on the firing of 8 US Attorneys .. Gonzales recalls Oct 2006 discussion

Gonzales testimony contradicts White House, revealing Bush 'conversation' over US attorney firings Michael RostonPublished: Thursday May 10, 2007

Weeks after the White House ruled out the involvement of President George W. Bush in any discussions on the firing of 8 US Attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Thursday morning that the President had discussed the matter with advisers in an October 2006 meeting.

"I've now been made aware of the fact that there was a conversation with the President that basically mentioned the same thing in October of 2006," the Attorney General said while answering a question from Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA).

"The same thing" referred to voter fraud cases in three US Attorneys' districts, which Gonzales earlier acknowledged had been raised by Karl Rove in a meeting "sometime in the Fall of 2006."
Gonzales' statement varied from remarks by White House spokespersons that the President had not been involved in any discussions of firing US Attorneys.

"I have said on the record for several weeks now that there is no indication that the President knew about any of the ongoing discussions over the two years, nor did he see a list or a plan before it was carried out," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino on March 27, 2007.

Furthermore, in a March 21 press briefing, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow had been asked about a Nov. 15, 2006 e-mail from former Gonzales chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson to former White House Counsel Harriet Miers asking "Who will determine whether this requires the President's attention?"
Snow was then asked "did the President have to sign off on this?" referring to the firing of the Attorneys, to which he responded, "The President has no recollection of this ever being raised with him." ...

The purge of prosecutors looks increasingly like an effort to turn U.S. attorneys into arms of the Republican National Committee ... partisan motive

More stonewalling at Justice Published May 15, 2007

The controversy over the removal of several U.S. attorneys last year has been spreading by the week. But Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales sees no reason to change his approach, which is modeled on Muhammad Ali's famous rope-a-dope.At a hearing last week before the House Judiciary Committee, he evaded precise answers and professed a poor memory, while insisting that the decision to sack the prosecutors was utterly sound. The apparent administration hope is that by denying and stonewalling, Gonzales can not only save his job but eventually exhaust all interest in the matter.

...

The purge of prosecutors looks increasingly like an effort to turn U.S. attorneys into arms of the Republican National Committee. Some of the eight prosecutors known to have been fired last year had antagonized White House political adviser Karl Rove and GOP politicians by failing to pursue cases that could have affected last year's election outcome.

But recently, evidence emerged that there were more than eight. The department canned another U.S. attorney, Todd Graves of Kansas City, after he refused to go along with a voter-registration lawsuit filed against the state of Missouri -- a suit that was ultimately thrown out by a federal judge. And Justice Department officials interviewed by congressional aides report that Milwaukee's Steven Biskupic also made the hit list after Rove complained about his handling of vote fraud claims. But he was spared to avoid alienating then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).

Now, vote fraud is a serious matter, and the administration is entitled to make it a priority on its law enforcement agenda -- just as it is entitled to make drug cases or white-collar crime a priority. But the evidence suggests that the department's concern had a fundamental partisan motive, which is not acceptable. ...

They had failed to ring up convictions, or even mount prosecutions, for voter fraud.

The Cost of a GOP Myth By Harold MeyersonWednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A15

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales clings to his job much longer, he may end up as the only remaining employee of the Justice Department. By resigning on Monday, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty joined Gonzales's chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson; the department's White House liaison, Monica Goodling; and Justice official Michael Battle, who oversaw the dismissal of federal prosecutors, on the list of Gonzalesites who've left the building. At this point, the number of U.S. attorneys dismissed for political reasons still exceeds the number of Justice officials who've left because of their involvement in dismissing those attorneys or dissembling about it, but the ratio is tightening.

By now, it's abundantly clear that a number of the U.S. attorneys whom Gonzales's minions sent packing didn't live up to Karl Rove's expectations in one crucial particular: They had failed to ring up convictions, or even mount prosecutions, for voter fraud. As Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein reported in Monday's Post, five of the 12 federal prosecutors either sacked or considered for sacking last year had been singled out by Rove and other administration officials for nonperformance on voter fraud. Amazingly, all five came from states -- Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Wisconsin -- where Republicans were embroiled in tight election contests. ...

[Spying program] went forward without certification from the Department of Justice as to its legality,

Ashcroft's ex-no. 2 says Gonzales, Cheney tried to take advantage of sick Attorney General | Michael Roston | Published: Tuesday May 15, 2007

The former second-in-command at the Justice Department from 2003 through 2005 on Tuesday detailed a March 2004 incident in which top members of the Bush administration, including Alberto Gonzales and members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff, worked to subvert a legal certification process for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. One Republican senator compared the episode to President Richard Nixon's efforts to disrupt the Watergate investigation.

James Comey was the Deputy Attorney General first under Attorney General John Ashcroft, and briefly under Alberto Gonzales. He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday as part of continuing oversight pertaining to the firing of US Attorneys by the Bush administration.

However, most of the hearing focused on a March 2004 incident concerning a deadline for an internal authorization at the Justice Department of the legality of the warrantless domestic spying program of the National Security Agency. The deadline for the legal certification of the domestic spying program, called the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' by the Bush administration, was approaching, and Comey as Acting Attorney General refused to approve it.

"[The program] went forward without certification from the Department of Justice as to its legality," Comey told Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) in explaining his threat to resign over the incident in 2004.
...
Subsequently, Gonzales, serving then as White House Counsel, and Andrew Card, former White House Chief of Staff, arrived at Ashcroft's hospital bed, and asked the sick Attorney General to give his approval for the program. Ashcroft stated his strong opposition to the re-authorization. But then he added that his opinion was not important.

"But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the Attorney General, there's the Attorney General," Comey claimed Ashcroft said, with Ashcroft pointing at the Deputy Attorney General who was in the hospital room at the time. "The two men did not acknowledge me, they turned and walked from the room."

Comey was called to the White House by Card almost immediately thereafter, but said he would not meet Card without Solicitor General Theodore Olson as a witness because the Acting Attorney General was concerned with the conduct of the top White House officials.

"I was angry, I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the Attorney General because they had been transferred to me," he explained.

Comey further explained that a "large number" of officials within the Justice Department were threatening to resign as a consequence of the incident, including Comey. ...

Only weeks before last year's pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Dems

Thu, May. 10, 2007 | White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections | By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Only weeks before last year's pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.

In two instances in October 2006, President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, or his deputies passed the allegations on to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.

Sampson tapped Gonzales aide Matthew Friedrich, who'd just left his post as chief of staff of the criminal division. In the first case, Friedrich agreed to find out whether Justice officials knew of "rampant" voter fraud or "lax" enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back.
...
Congressional investigators are looking into whether the firings were motivated in part by prosecutors' failure to bring voter-fraud charges against Democrats. ...

anonymous employees ask President Bush to fire their boss ... allegations ranging from retaliation against subordinates to fraud, contract abuse, wast

Staffers Call for Special Probe of Watchdog | May 14, 2007 10:57 AM | Justin Rood Reports:

A group of anonymous employees are asking President Bush to fire their boss, the top watchdog at the Commerce Department, and opt for a special counsel to investigate him.

Commerce Inspector General Johnnie E. Frazier is already being investigated by a congressional committee, the Office of Special Counsel and the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), for charges ranging from retaliation against subordinates to fraud, contract abuse and wasteful spending. Frazier's job is ferreting out waste, fraud and abuse at the Commerce Department.
...
The May 10 letter also calls for the president to put Frazier's senior aides on administrative leave, alleging they have conspired with Frazier to obstruct justice and retaliate against employees who have cooperated with investigators. ...

DoJ's Civil Rights Division: unprecedented exodus..purge? racially discriminatory treatment ? only 2 lawsuits in 6 years? Minority vote suppression?

Dismantling Voting Rights Enforcement | A collaborative effort by ePluribus Staff Writers: Publius Revolts, Cho, Standingup, Aaron Barlow & Roxy | 11 May 2007

As ePluribus Media recently reported, since the replacement of long-time Voting Rights Section Chief Joseph D. Rich by John K. Tanner (promoted by former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights R. Alexander Acosta) there has been an exodus of unprecedented proportions of experienced voting rights personnel from DoJ's Civil Rights Division. TPM Muckraker's Paul Kiel has referred to this exodus as a purge, and it has stretched from the top to the bottom of the Voting Section's ranks. Acosta has been implicated in the plummeting number of voting rights cases filed to protect the rights of African-Americans. Since then, he has received three interim appointments from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida prior to being confirmed by the Senate. Tanner, however, remains Voting Section chief.
...
The attorney staff has been similarly dismantled. At least 17 attorneys, nearly half the staff, have departed just since Tanner's elevation to the section chief position in April of 2005, representing over 150 years of civil rights experience, employees who left the Section report. Many of their replacements have been members of the Republican National Lawyers Association or the ultra-conservative Federalist Society. This turnaround in the composition of the Section's staff has coincided with a shift, noted by McClatchy, from traditional voting rights enforcement to litigation aimed at suppressing the minority vote. ...

Former Section Chief Rich noted, in testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee in March of this year, that:

[...] of the five persons in section leadership at the beginning of 2005 (the chief and four deputy chiefs), only one deputy chief remains in the section today.

The most striking feature of the exodus has been the hue of the professional staff members who have left and the hue and political affiliations of the individuals who have replaced them. Since mid-2004, when political appointees began the purge by forcing career staff to downgrade the performance appraisals of employees who did not toe the Bush line, knowledgeable sources tell ePluribus Media, nine of 13 African-American professional staff members (attorneys and analysts) have left __ eight of them on Tanner's watch __ while only one African-American professional staff member has been hired.

The Section, which has already come under fire for filing only two lawsuits on behalf of African-American voters during the Bush years (one of which was prepared under the Clinton administration) and filing the first reverse discrimination suit against African-Americans ever filed by the Federal Government under the Voting Rights Act, which had been passed specifically to protect African-American voting rights, does not seem to be any more attuned to the needs of its own African-American staff members than it is to the rights of African-American voters.

Sources have reported that two Equal Employment Opportunity claims are currently pending in the Voting Section alleging racially discriminatory treatment and/or hiring practices against African-Americans by Tanner and Acting Section 5 Deputy Chief Yvette Rivera. ... Indeed, four highly experienced African-American Section 5 analysts, including the Section 5 supervisor, representing approximately 100 years of Section 5 enforcement experience, have left since Rivera became acting deputy chief, one accusing the Section of having become a "plantation" in an email sent to the entire Voting Section upon her departure, former employees report.
...

The lack of diversity may be startling, but it is only one aspect of the problem. The Section 5 unit, responsible for reviewing changes in states with the worst histories of racial discrimination in voting, has been completely gutted. Former Voting Section Chief Joseph D. Rich, who was forced out of the Section in 2005, when Tanner assumed the position, noted in testimony before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee in March that:

[... ] by 2001 ^__ the year that the new round of redistricting submissions began ^__ approximately 40% of Section staff was assigned to this work, including a Deputy Section Chief, Robert Berman, who oversaw the Section 5 work; 26 civil rights analysts (including 8 supervisory or senior analysts) responsible for reviewing, gathering facts, and making recommendations on over 4,000 Section 5 submissions received every year; and over six attorneys who spent their full-time reviewing the work of the analysts. Since then, and especially since the transfer of Deputy Chief Berman from the Section in late 2005 [after Tanner's arrival], this staff dropped by almost two-thirds. There are now only ten civil rights analysts (none of whom hold supervisory jobs and only three of whom are senior) and two full-time attorney reviewers. ...

"We were constantly being reminded about how our decisions could affect electoral results,"

Low-Key Office Launches High-Profile Inquiry | By Tom Hamburger | The Los Angeles Times | Tuesday 24 April 2007

The Office of Special Counsel will investigate US attorney firings and other political activities led by Karl Rove.

Washington - Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

"We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."

Bloch declined to comment on who his investigators would interview, but he said the probe would be independent and uncoordinated with any other agency or government entity.

The decision by Bloch's office is the latest evidence that Rove's once-vaunted operations inside the government, which helped the GOP hold the White House and Congress for six years, now threaten to mire the administration in investigations.

The question of improper political influence over government decision-making is at the heart of the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys and the ongoing congressional investigation of the special e-mail system installed in the White House and other government offices by the Republican National Committee.

All administrations are political, but this White House has systematically brought electoral concerns to Cabinet agencies in a way unseen previously.

For example, Rove and his top aides met each year with presidential appointees throughout the government, using PowerPoint presentations to review polling data and describe high-priority congressional and other campaigns around the country.

Some officials have said they understood that they were expected to seek opportunities to help Republicans in these races, through federal grants, policy decisions or in other ways.

A former Interior Department official, Wayne R. Smith, who sat through briefings from Rove and his then-deputy Ken Mehlman, said that during President Bush's first term, he and other appointees were frequently briefed on political priorities.

"We were constantly being reminded about how our decisions could affect electoral results," Smith said. ...

[Obstruction?] Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove

Administration Withheld E-Mails About RoveBy Murray Waas, National Journal | © National Journal Group Inc. | Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. ...

compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemea

Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes' | Nick Juliano | Published: Thursday May 10, 2007

A former top State Department aide to Colin Powell said today that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are more deserving of impeachment than was Bill Clinton.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on the public radio program On Point Thursday that "Bill Clinton's peccadilloes ... pale in significance" when compared to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Bush and Cheney.
...
"The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and precise -– it's high crimes and misdemeanors," he said. "You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."

Taking a historical view of impeachment, Wilkerson said he believed the Founding Fathers would be surprised that more presidents had not been impeached.

"I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some bastard out.'"Wilkerson said. "That's a form of accountability too. It's ultimate accountability."

Asked about the high crimes of the current administration, Wilkerson said the American public was duped into supporting a war in Iraq.

"I think we went into this war for specious reasons," he said. "I think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the American people and the leadership into war. That was a different time in a different culture, in a different America. We're in a very different place today and I think we essentially got goaded into the war through some of the same means." ...

[What vore fraud?]:

Saturday, May 12, 2007 | Not just one voter in question at Rep. Patrick McHenry's house! | [Research for this story provided by Muriel Kane.]

Update: Matt at InterstateQ, one of my favorite sites, has the latest on McHenry's nighttime buddy.

CBS News reported today that Michael Aaron Lay, an aide to (the unmarried) Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), was arrested on voter fraud charges.

First here's the item from CBS on Lay:

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay's paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes. According to Gaston County, North Carolina District Attorney Locke Bell, Lay was indicted on Monday, May 7 by a local grand jury. ...

[What vote fraud?]: FBI AGENT WHO INTERCEDED IN ANN COULTER [conservative commentator] VOTER FRAUD CASE ALLEGED TO BE HER FORMER BOYFRIEND

EXCLUSIVE: FBI AGENT WHO INTERCEDED IN ANN COULTER VOTER FRAUD CASE ALLEGED TO BE HER FORMER BOYFRIEND! | Conservative Coulter Critic Borchers Responds; Says Her '98-'99 Boyfriend Has Been 'Her Personal FBI Resource for Her Own Purposes'...

Palm Beach Paper Says FBI Agent Attempted to Clear GOP Pundit, BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Said to be Reason for Fraudulent Info Given on FLVoter Registration Form, Driver's License!

The Ann Coulter Voter Fraud case, which we've been covering for more than a year (see our Special Coverage Page here, including her fraudulent Voter Registration Form, the complaint that started it all, and much more) has taken several bizarre twists this morning as Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet once again steps up with several fresh scoops in the matter, and The BRAD BLOG, who, as of today's article, has now become a corollary in the story, has an exclusive detail or two of our own to offer on the heels of this morning's Post report.

First, Lambiet reports that the Palm Beach Sheriffs Office, which had been investigating the matter, has closed the case after an FBI agent interceded on Coulter's behalf. The PBSO had been investigating Coulter's fraudulent, knowing use of the wrong address on her voter registration form, a third-degree felony, and the fact that she subsequently, knowingly voted at the wrong precinct.

Second, the reason offered by the FBI man for Coulter's use of a phony address on her form --- actually that of her Palm Beach County real estate agent --- was because of claims that she was being "stalked" by a conservative BRAD BLOG guest blogger!

After the FBI intercession, as Lambiet reports, the PBSO investigator shut down the probe "without interviewing Coulter; a Realtor, whose Indian Road address Coulter used; or neighbors of Coulter's Seabreeze homestead."

The BRAD BLOG has previously shown that, in fact, Coulter had knowingly lied on her voter registration form, signing next to an "oath" swearing that "All information on this form is true" and that she understood "if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years." ...

administration's eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings,

Rove fingered five of the US Attorneys slated for dismissal | RAW STORY | Published: Monday May 14, 2007
...
According to the Post story, slotted on page A4, nearly half of the US attorneys slated for removal were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax in prosecuting voter fraud, "including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election- law violations, according to new documents and interviews."

"Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud -- Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; New Mexico; Nevada; and Washington state," writes the Post's Dan Eggen and Amy Eggen. "Four of the five prosecutors in those districts were dismissed." Excerpts:
#

It has been clear for months that the administration's eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings, but recent testimony, documents and interviews show the issue was more central than previously known. The new details include the names of additional prosecutors who were targeted and other districts that were of concern, as well as previously unknown information about the White House's role.

The Justice Department demanded that one U.S. attorney, Todd P. Graves of Kansas City, resign in January 2006, several months after he refused to sign off on a Justice lawsuit involving the state's voter rolls, Graves said last week. U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic of Milwaukee also was targeted last fall after complaints from Rove that he was not doing enough about voter fraud. But he was spared because Justice officials feared that removing him might cause political problems on Capitol Hill, according to interviews of Justice aides conducted by congressional staff members. ...

White House fired him [another US attorney] in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation

Ex-U.S. Attorney Questions Own Firing | Former W.Va. Prosecutor Says He Has 'Concerns' About Firing By Bush Administration | WASHINGTON, May. 11, 2007

(AP) A former West Virginia federal prosecutor said Friday the White House fired him in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation but never told him why.

Karl K. "Kasey" Warner said he has "concerns" and sees parallels between himself and eight other ousted U.S. attorneys. Congress and an internal Justice Department agency are investigating whether those firings were politically motivated.

The Justice Department rejected any suggestion of politics in Warner's dismissal. ...

Justice Dept: minority hiring and retention: "We would sue employers for having numbers like that."

I-Team: Justice Attorneys | - Friday May 04, 2007 5:50 pm

But our investigation has found that the Justice Department is missing a key component in its mission to protect civil rights - DIVERSITY � diversity in the attorney ranks to prosecute cases.

Congressman John Conyers: "They need someone to investigate them."

The I-Team has learned that since 2003...the criminal section within the Civil Rights Division has not hired a single black attorney to replace those who have left. Not one.

As a result, the current face of civil rights prosecutions looks like this: Out of fifty attorneys in the Criminal Section - only two are black. The same number the criminal section had in 1978 - even though the size of the staff has more than doubled.

Congressman John Conyers - Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee - was amazed to learn the Civil Rights Division has so few black attorneys trying criminal cases.

Congressman John Conyers: "They don't have the diversity that we're saying is required in the country in businesses and of course in the Department of Justice itself."

We obtained Justice Dept. internal records showing very few black or Hispanic attorneys hired in the last few years.

Congressman John Conyers: "Zeros, zeros zeros, point seven percent. They�re incredibly low."

For more than a decade, Richard Ugelow was a supervisor at the Civil Rights section that sues government employers for discrimination in hiring and promotion.

Richard Ugelow: "You can't operate like that. We're hypocrites." Professor Ugelow now teaches law at American University. We showed him the Justice Department's statistics on minority hiring.

Richard Ugelow: "We would sue employers for having numbers like that."

None of this should come as a surprise to the Justice Department. In 2002, it hired KPMG, an international consulting firm to analyze the diversity of its workforce.

It issued this 186-page report finding the department had "significant diversity issues", that "minorities perceive unfairness," are "significantly under-represented in management ranks," and "more likely to leave than whites." ...

vote-fraud cases against ... antipoverty group ... case was dismissed by a federal judge who found "no evidence" to support it. [Wisconsin again?!]

Congress probes allegations of politicized hiring | POSTED: 9:52 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2007 | From Kelli Arena | CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional investigators are looking into new allegations a top official at the Justice Department illegally hired career lawyers based on their political affiliations.

Investigators are focusing on Bradley Schlozman, a former top official in the department's Civil Rights Division, who recently returned to Washington after serving as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Missouri.
...
Rich now works for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a nonprofit organization that held a March forum on what it called the politicization of the Justice Department. He said he never saw Schlozman make decisions based on partisan factors -- but he said hiring was increasingly concentrated in the hands of political appointees.

And he said political appointees at Justice overruled career lawyers' recommendations on controversial issues such as whether to approve a voter ID law in Georgia and the legality of 2002 redistricting efforts in Texas and Mississippi.

"There wasn't any formal statement that we were doing this to help the Republican Party, but certainly all of the circumstances behind the reviews indicated that," Rich said.

Critics of the administration have also questioned Schlozman's decision as U.S. attorney in western Missouri to bring vote-fraud cases against members of the antipoverty group ACORN before November's congressional election. The Justice Department said its cases are brought "on evidence, not politics."

But leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday asked Schlozman to answer questions about his handling of voter-fraud cases, including a lawsuit he pursued after his predecessor refused to support it. The committee's chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, and ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said the case was dismissed by a federal judge who found "no evidence" to support it. ...

9th US attorney: forced out ... clashed with Justice's civil rights division over cases,

Number of Fired Prosecutors Grows | Dismissals Began Earlier Than Justice Dept. Has Said | By Amy Goldstein and Dan Eggen | Washington Post Staff Writers | Thursday, May 10, 2007; Page A01

... A spokeswoman for Bond confirmed that interaction but said Justice officials later told the senator's staff that the contracts issue was not why the administration wanted him to leave.

Graves acknowledged that he had twice during the past few years clashed with Justice's civil rights division over cases, including a federal lawsuit involving Missouri's voter rolls that Graves said a Washington Justice official signed off on after he refused to do so. That official, Bradley J. Schlozman, was appointed as interim U.S. attorney to succeed Graves, remaining for a year until the Senate this spring confirmed John Wood for the job. ...

U.S. Attorneys: looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schlozman was to help Republicans win a pivotal Missouri Senate race

Editorial | U.S. Attorneys, Reloaded | Published: May 10, 2007

As the United States attorney scandal grows, so does the number of prosecutors who seem to have been pushed out for partisan political reasons. Another highly suspicious case has emerged in the appointment of Bradley Schlozman, a controversial elections lawyer, to replace a respected United States attorney in Missouri. From the facts available, it looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schlozman was to help Republicans win a pivotal Missouri Senate race.

Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, was facing a strong challenge from Claire McCaskill last year when the United States attorney, Todd Graves, resigned suddenly. Mr. Graves suspects that he may have been pushed out in part because he refused to support a baseless lawsuit against the state of Missouri that could have led to voters’ being wrongly removed from the rolls.

Mr. Graves was replaced by Mr. Schlozman, a high-level Justice Department lawyer who had made his name in the Bush administration by helping to turn the department away from its historic commitment to protecting the voting rights of minorities. Mr. Schlozman was one of the political appointees who approved Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting plan and Georgia’s voter ID law, over the objection of career lawyers on the staff, who insisted that both violated the Voting Rights Act. McClatchy Newspapers reported that Mr. Schlozman also has been accused of hiring Justice Department lawyers based on their political party. ...

the Republican Party would, “challenge the voter’s registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.”

RFK: Rove And Rove’s Brain, ‘Should Be In Jail,’ Not In Office Published May 7th, 2007 in Articles, Interviews & Chats, Podcasts, Audio Reports | Monday, May 7, 2007

NEW YORK — Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin’s former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush.

“Timothy Griffin,” said Kennedy,”who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through ‘caging’ techniques - which are illegal.”

[Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and ‘caging lists’ below or here]

Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, “Armed Madhouse.” On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the ‘caging’ lists.

This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly “lost” by Rove’s office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with ‘caging’ lists attached.

‘Caging’ lists are “absolutely illegal” under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters ‘caged’ in a single state, Florida.

Palast wrote in his book, “Here’s how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters,” particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back “undeliverable” because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, “challenge the voter’s registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.”

The Republicans successfully challenged “at least one million” votes of minority voters in the 2004 election. ...

Is This Why Goodling Invoked The Fifth Amendment?

Is This Why Goodling Invoked The Fifth Amendment? |By Big Tent Democrat, Section Law Related |Posted on Sat Apr 28, 2007 at 10:22:50 PM EST

Anonymous Liberal has unearthed what appears to be an incriminating e-mail in which Monica Goodling instructed DOJ personnel to destroy documents that were clearly pertinent to an ongoing Congressional investigation. The e-mail, dated February 12, 2007, states in relevant part:

These are new and updated USA documents which can be used with the media or friendlies. Please delete prior versions. . .

Why could this be a criminal situation? Because of the federal obstruction statute. This article provides a nice background on the subject:

The federal crime of obstruction of justice is defined by 18 U.S.C. § 1503 to include conduct that, among other things, corruptly endeavors to obstruct or impede the due administration of justice. To sustain its burden of proof, the government must prove that there was pending judicial proceeding, that the defendant knew this proceeding was pending, and that the defendant then corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice.

In applying the obstruction of justice statute to issues of destruction of documents, federal courts generally have not required that a subpoena have issued. Rather, it is sufficient for an obstruction conviction that the defendant knew that a grand jury was investigating possible violations of federal law and intentionally caused destruction of the incriminating document. U.S. v. Fineman, 434 F. Supp 197 (E.D.Pa 1977). ...

Last year: one of the worst laws in the nation’s history: Lawmakers who objected were painted as friends of terrorists.

The Democrats’ Pledge | Published: May 9, 2007

Last year, Congressional Democrats allowed the Bush administration to ram through one of the worst laws in the nation’s history — the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This year, the Democrats pledged to use their new majority to begin repairing the profound damage the law has done to the nation’s justice system and global image.

But there are disturbing signs their pledge may fall victim to the same tactical political calculations and Bush administration propagandizing that allowed this scandalous law to pass in the first place.

Rewriting the act should start with one simple step: restoring to prisoners of the war on terror the fundamental right to challenge their detention in a real court. So far, promised measures to restore habeas corpus have yet to see the light of day, and they may remain buried unless Democratic leaders make them a priority and members of both parties vote on principle, not out of fear of attack ads.

President Bush turned habeas corpus into a partisan issue by declaring that the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, even innocent ones, do not deserve a hearing. Lawmakers who objected were painted as friends of terrorists.

But let’s be clear. There is nothing “conservative” or “tough on terrorism” in selectively stripping people of their rights. Suspending habeas corpus is an extreme notion on the radical fringes of democratic philosophy. ...
...
Consider some of the other wild-eyed liberals calling on Congress to restore habeas corpus: William Sessions, director of the F.B.I. under the first President Bush; David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union; the National Association of Evangelicals; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, founded by the Rev. Billy Graham; a long list of other evangelical leaders and scholars; and nearly two dozen sitting and retired federal judges. ...

Poll shows 39% of Americans support impeachment

Poll shows 39% of Americans support impeachment | Michael Roston | Published: Tuesday May 8, 2007

A poll published Tuesday shows that close to 40% of Americans favor the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, according to an article at Townhall.com.

"Few serious observers think things will ever get to actual impeachment. And yet the American public seems more open to the concept than many imagine, according to a new national poll," wrote Matt Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage, which commissioned the poll. "The implications of this public sentiment could be huge for the 2008 presidential elections."
...
"Forty-two percent of independents want Bush and Cheney impeached. These aren't just voters who disapprove of the White House. Instead, they're for initiating a process that could remove them from office," he wrote. ...

"the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”

Pelosi threat to sue Bush over Iraq bill | By Jonathan E. Kaplan and Elana Schor | May 09, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.
...
“The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching,” a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. “Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”

It is a scenario for which few lawmakers have planned. Indicating that he may consider attaching a signing statement to a future supplemental spending measure, Bush last week wrote in his veto message, “This legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency.”
...
In order to hear an argument, a federal court would have to grant what is known as “standing,” meaning that lawmakers would have to show that Bush is willfully ignoring a bill Congress passed and that he signed into law. ...

Palast / RF Kennedy, Jr. Says USA Griffin [Roves replacement US attorney] Under Investigation [... for voting rights violations?]

Breaking: RF Kennedy, Jr. Says USA Griffin Under Investigation | by 4Freedom | Fri May 04, 2007 at 08:25:13 PM PDT

Tonight in Montpelier, Vermont, Greg Palast announced that he received a phone call this evening from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that US Attorney replacement Timothy Griffin, Rove's former assistant, is under investigation for election fraud.

Palast published this on Griffin in March:

Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women.

(snip)

Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. ...

Monica Goodling Instructs DOJ Officials to Delete Documents ... while under investigation ...

Monica Goodling Instructs DOJ Officials to Delete Documents | By: Anonymous Liberal on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 10:02 AM - PDT

Another Friday, another document dump from the DOJ. As I was scanning through this set, I came across this one from Monica "I plead the Fifth" Goodling. Notice the instruction in boldface (see below the fold for full size image):

email2.GIF

Yes, that's an instruction to delete documents. And notice the date: February 12, 2007. That's well after Congress began investigating this matter. I don't believe any subpoenas or document requests had yet been issued (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that), but it was pretty clear by then that document requests were likely.
...
That's why the first piece of advice a private entity receives from its lawyers when it learns that it is being investigated is to issue a document preservation notice to all employees. The last thing you want is to have the government request a document and then learn that it was deleted or destroyed AFTER the investigation was initiated. Just ask the people who used to work for Arthur Anderson. The sad demise of that once proud firm is all the reminder you need that the Justice Department doesn't react too kindly to post-initiation-of-investigation destruction of evidence.

Which makes it all the more ironic that Monica Goodling, a high-ranking Justice Department official, is instructing other high-ranking Justice Department officials to delete documents that are relevant to an ongoing Congressional inquiry.

Now to be fair, from the context of the email, it seems likely that Goodling's primary purpose in asking people to "delete prior versions" of the documents was to make sure that everyone was on the same page and not working off of outdated materials. In other words, I don't think she was motivated by a desire to destroy documents that Congress might want for their investigation. That said, as an attorney, she should have known better than to make such a request. If there is any kind of litigation or investigation underway or even contemplated, you don't instruct people to delete documents. It doesn't matter if that's your normal practice and you're just trying to keep people from getting confused; it just looks bad, and it can get you and your organization in a lot of trouble. Goodling is not some low-level administrator. She was a senior legal counsel at the Justice Department. That Goodling would make such a request despite the budding Congressional inquiry into the matter is, at best, indicative of carelessness and sloppy practices.

U.S. attorney .. was not violating federal law by spending most of his time in Washington ... [after GOP staffer inserted clause into Patriot act! ]

Residency Clause Adds Fuel To Dispute Over U.S. Attorneys | One Prosecutor Gets an Exemption, Another Gets Fired | By Dan Eggen | Washington Post Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page A03

On Nov. 10, 2005, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sent a letter to a federal judge in Montana, assuring him that the U.S. attorney there, William W. Mercer, was not violating federal law by spending most of his time in Washington as a senior Justice Department official.

That same day, Mercer had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews

Congress passed the provision several months later as part of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill, retroactively benefiting Mercer and a handful of other senior Justice officials who pull double duty as U.S. attorneys and headquarters officials. Justice officials say the measure was a necessary clarification to ensure that prosecutors could fill temporary postings in Washington, Iraq and elsewhere, and that it also applies to assistant U.S. attorneys.

But the episode, which received little notice at the time, provides another example in which Gonzales's statements appear to conflict with simultaneous actions by his aides in connection with U.S. attorney policies. Lawmakers investigating the department's handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys have repeatedly accused Gonzales of being less than truthful about the roles played by himself and the White House. ...

Committee on House Administration voted yesterday to investigate the possibility of voting machine errors in the election in Sarasota, Florida

Thursday, May 03, 2007 | Congress orders investigation of Sarasota voting machines

A task force of the Committee on House Administration voted yesterday to investigate the possibility of voting machine errors in the election in Sarasota, Florida, that resulted in a win for Republican Vern Buchanan by 369 votes.

The election used touchscreen equipment, and the cause for concern is that some 18,000 votes in the congressional race were not recorded—an "undervote." Whether this occurred because of machine error, voter error or voter intention hasn't been established. But in reality it's unthinkable that so many people troubled themselves to vote and then intentionally failed to select a candidate in the congressional election.

The Democratic candidate Christine Jennings asked to inspect the source code of the voting machines, but was refused by a state court. Her case has now moved to a Florida appellate court, where it has remained for three months. Well, you know how that goes....

Bill Adair writes—

Task force members said the Florida courts were moving too slowly and that Congress had an obligation to conduct a speedy review and settle the dispute.

"There's no indication the courts are going to act - they have not acted yet, " said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the panel. She noted that House members serve a two-year term but the dispute has already taken six months.

The task force asked the non-partisan Government Accountability Office to conduct the investigation and examine the possibility of software or hardware problems. ...

US Attornies: effort included stiffer voter-identification requirements, wholesale purges of names from lists of registered voters ...

Wed, May. 02, 2007 | U. S. ATTORNEYS | 2006 Missouri's election was ground zero for GOP | By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Accusations about voter fraud seemed to fly from every direction in Missouri before last fall's elections. State and national Republicans leaders fretted that dead people might vote or that some live people might vote more than once.

The threat to the integrity of the election was seen as so grave that Bradley Schlozman, the acting chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and later the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, twice wielded the power of the federal government to try to protect the balloting. The Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly also stepped into action.

Now, six months after freshman Missouri Sen. Jim Talent's defeat handed Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, disclosures in the wake of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys show that that Republican campaign to protect the balloting was not as it appeared. No significant voter fraud was ever proved.

The preoccupation with ballot fraud in Missouri was part of a wider national effort that critics charge was aimed at protecting the Republican majority in Congress by dampening Democratic turnout. That effort included stiffer voter-identification requirements, wholesale purges of names from lists of registered voters and tight policing of liberal get-out-the-vote drives.

Bush administration officials deny those claims. But they've gotten traction in recent weeks because three of the U.S. attorneys ousted by the Justice Department charge that they lost their jobs because they failed to prove Republican allegations of voter fraud. They say their inquiries found little evidence to support the claims.

Few have endorsed the strategy of pursuing allegations of voter fraud with more enthusiasm than White House political guru Karl Rove. And nowhere has the plan been more apparent than in Missouri.

Before last fall's election:

-Schlozman, while he was acting civil rights chief, authorized a suit accusing the state of failing to eliminate legions of ineligible people from lists of registered voters. A federal judge tossed out the suit this April 13, saying Democratic Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan couldn't police local registration rolls and noting that the government had produced no evidence of fraud.

-The Missouri General Assembly - with the White House's help - narrowly passed a law requiring voters to show photo identification cards, which Carnahan estimated would disenfranchise 200,000 voters. The state Supreme Court voided the law as unconstitutional before the election.

-Two weeks before the election, the St. Louis Board of Elections sent letters threatening to disqualify 5,000 newly registered minority voters if they failed to verify their identities promptly, a move - instigated by a Republican appointee - that may have violated federal law. After an outcry, the board rescinded the threat.

-Five days before the election, Schlozman, then interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, announced indictments of four voter-registration workers for a Democratic-leaning group on charges of submitting phony applications, despite a Justice Department policy discouraging such action close to an election.

-In an interview with conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt a couple of days before the election, Rove said he'd just visited Missouri and had met with Republican strategists who "are well aware of" the threat of voter fraud. He said the party had "a large number of lawyers that are standing by, trained and ready to intervene" to keep the election clean.

Missouri Republicans have railed about alleged voter fraud ever since President Bush narrowly won the White House in the chaotic 2000 election and Missouri Republican Sen. John Ashcroft lost to a dead man, the late Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan, whose name stayed on the ballot weeks after he died in a plane crash.

Joining the push to contain "voter fraud" were Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., who charged that votes by dogs and dead people had defeated Ashcroft, Missouri Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, whose stinging allegations of fraud were later debunked, and St. Louis lawyer Mark "Thor" Hearne, national counsel to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, who set up a nonprofit group to publicize allegations of voter fraud.

Many Democrats contend that the efforts amount to a voter-suppression campaign. ...

USA: DoJ Official Wanted to Keep Me Quiet ... Elston has been accused by one of the fired U.S. attorneys of trying to intimidate them into silence.

USA: DoJ Official Wanted to Keep Me Quiet | By Paul Kiel - May 2, 2007, 1:10 PM

U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton told Congress that Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, called him and warned him to remain silent. "I believe that Elston was offering me a quid pro quo agreement: my silence in exchange for the Attorney General's," Charlton wrote in answer to questions from the House Judiciary Committee.

Charlton did not expound on the conversation in his answer, only saying that the call occurred after the firing on December 7th, but before the attorney general testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18th of this year.

It's not the first time that Elston has been accused by one of the fired U.S. attorneys of trying to intimidate them into silence. Two others have said the same thing.

U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Elston had made a similar call to him in mid-February. Cummins produced an email written the day of the call that clearly laid out the threatening undercurrent to Elston's message.

And U.S. Attorney for Seattle John McKay has said that he got a call from Elston in December. Newsweek reported that McKay says "he also got a phone call from a 'clearly nervous' Elston asking if he intended to go public: 'He was offering me a deal: you stay silent and the attorney general won't say anything bad about you.'"

So it would seem that there's a pattern here. Elston, for his part, has said that he's "shocked and baffled" by Cummins' accusation and that he "can't imagine" how McKay took the call that way. No doubt he'll be similarly flabbergasted by Charlton's accusation. ...

[Hatch Act]: Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed

Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed | White House Calls Meetings Lawful | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, April 26, 2007; Page A01

White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.