Why are Democrats so riled up about the 8 US Attourney firings?

Question

When Bill Clinton and his administration fired all 93, it was hardly news, but when 8 get fired by Bush, all of a sudden it's the worst tragedy since 9/11?

Why are the Democrats in DC blowing this out of proportion and not concentrating on getting a deadline-less bill passed through the Senate and House, when they know that it's only going to be vetoed?

Answer 1

The Bush administration is embroiled in the most ridiculous non-scandal scandal in human history — set off when the administration stupidly apologized for firing its own employees.

U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president. The president may fire them for any reason at all. That includes not implementing the president's policy about criminal prosecutions. It also includes being in the way of someone else whom the president wants to appoint for patronage reasons.

Why wasn't a fuss made when Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld? He is every bit as much a political appointee as the U.S. attorneys are.

Democrats have the breathtaking audacity to claim that Bush's replacing his own political appointees is "politicizing prosecutions."

Answer 2

There's a huge difference. Every President, whether Democratic or Republican, routinely fires all U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of their terms. Bush did it, Reagan did it, they all do it. It is ethically acceptable for them to appoint attorneys who jive with their party's objectives. But, and this is a BIG but, it is unethical to then interfere with the U.S. Attorneys for any political reason. In other words, they cannot tell the attorneys to focus on Democratic corruption and then fire them when those attorneys find that a Republican is more deserving of investigation and indictment. It's not only unethical, it can be construed as obstruction of justice. It is NOT common practice for a President or a member of his/her Administration to conduct firings mid-term because they don't like the cases certain attorneys are pursuing. Currently, the point has become moot that the President can fire them at his pleasure, that is true. What the focus is now is that Bush's Administration has lied about the reasons why those lawyers were fired, and therefore the resistance to letting Karl Rove, and Harriet Miers testify under oath. If they tell the truth they have to admit to previous deception. They couldn't stop Sampson though, he had quite a few very interesting things to say today.

It's not this investigation that has caused the House and the Senate to pass bills with deadlines attached, there is no connection here. They set deadlines because they, and the majority of the American people, see the need for one. The majority believes the President is wrong about this. A veto will make the President even more unpopular than he is now if that is possible. The ball is in his court. Do you really expect people to just set their beliefs aside because "oh well it'll be vetoed anyway?" No, they have to start somewhere to put this President on the hot seat over his dictatorial approach to Iraq and funding is the power that Congress holds to force him to acknowledge the will of the people. When he vetoes it, he will lose his funding. Congress will not then back down and pass another bill without a deadline. A line has been drawn in the sand and if Bush wants his funding he's going to have to respect the will of Congress and the people in the end.

Answer 3

1) The difference is that these attorneys were fired mid-term for pursuing and/ or not pursuing political agendas. Once a US Attorney is appointed the executive branch should not interfere with the cases that attorney pursues. Example: The New Mexico US Attorney got calls at his home from both the state Republican Representative and Senator from asking whether he would be handing out indictments on a certain Democrat before the November elections when he said "No" the Senator replied "I'm sorry to hear that" and the phone went dead. A few weeks later that attorney was fired.

Another example: One of the emails states the attorneys should be replaced with "Loyal Bushies"

2) Then Gonzales lied and said it was for performance reasons which was not true. All had exceptional performance reviews

3) Then Gonzales lied again and said he had no knowledge of firings. Subsequent emails showed that he did. He sat in on a meeting to discuss the matter and in fact signed off on it.

4) Now those involved (Gonzales, Rove etc ) said they will only testify if there is NO oath, NO transcript, NO cameras, a limited number in attendance and the executive branch gets to set the agenda.

5) While the president can fire a US attorney, he does not have the right to replace one without congressional oversight. (say hello to checks & balances)

They got away with it this time by slipping in a provision into the PATRIOT Act which allows them to replace US attorneys with no oversight . However, after this debacle congress got on the stick and immediately repealed that portion of the PATRIOT Act (vote 98 to 2)

Also, Bush did fire all 93 attorneys in his first term something "Loyal Bushies" seem to forget. These 8 attorneys were both Republican and Bush appointed

Answer 4

It is a common practice for the incoming president to dump the US attorneys to suit his or her own agenda. You can call it politically driven or whatever, it is what happens, and it has been accepted for quite some time. It is no secret that the Dems have been seething at any political scandal they can drum up to attack the Bush administration. The funny thing with this administration is they have no problem being sloppy and giving the opposition everything they want. Now I am one that believes that the judicial process as well as the appointment of US attorneys should not involve political or partisan discourse, but in this day and age it happens. It is apparent to me that the Justice Dept mishandled these firings. The US attorneys can be fired for a myriad of reasons, but when the political door is swung open, the rules of engagement seem very ugly. If these 8 were fired strictly for performance reasons, that is fine, but if some of what the Dems are alledging is indeed true, our Justice Dept has screwed those 8 over, and has damaged the public trust in legal system to some extent. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor that secured the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been alledged to be on that list. The reason I think he was taken off, if indeed he was on it, his firing would have been extremely obvious stemming from the fact he was aggresively pursuing a top ranking aid to the vice president. I do agree that the handling of these firings was and is still being bungled by the Justice Dept and some of the Bush administration. I do believe that these 8 got shafted. The problem I am having is, where is the proof? All I keep hearing and reading is circumstantial, although today AG Gonzales chief of staff strongly contradicted remarks by the AG himself, regarding his knowing and meeting with top aides to discuss which aides to fire. Perhaps this is where the smoking gun will come to a head.

Answer 5

Here we go again....When Clinton fired 93 attorneys, as is custom he did it at the beginning of his term and he informed the Senate. All that is on the up and up. They had no opportunity to make anti Adminsitration decisions or probes.

In the current situation Bush fires 8 attorneys half way through his second term and for political reasons. He also did not inform the Senate. The Senate does not like to be kept out of the loop. The checks and balances are to make each branch of government equal. The executive was trying to gain more power than the legislative branch and they were called on it.

If this were the only wrong doing of this Administration deals might have been made and all would have been fine. But this is just another in a long line of corrupt shenanigans the Bush Administration has pulled. One can but wonder how many more have they done and did not get caught and how many more will they try in the time they are still in office.

Answer 6

US Attorneys are appointed for terms of four years. It is common practice when entering office to clean out all of the attorneys and replace them with your own selections. Bush Senior, Reagan, and Bush Junior all did the same thing at the start of their presidency.

The issue is that they are doing it in the middle of his term and purely base on political reasons, including their level of allegiance with the president, the investigations they are working on and were unwilling to drop, and in some cases there unwillingness to initiate an investigation of Democratic opponents in order to give the republican opponent an edge in the recent elections.

From the documents cited, and testimony from aides involved, they were using this power to blatantly pressure attorneys to do their bidding. It is a scary thing.

As for the second part; What you are saying is they should not even attempt any legislation that Bush disagrees with. Great idea. Maybe Bush can just give them a list of the legislation he is likely to approve, and they can only work on that. Or better yet, maybe all of congress can just go home.

If Bush is going to veto it, then let him veto it. I at least want them to try and end it.

Answer 7

Because it's the third major scandal the Justice Department has been involved in during the past month.

Bush is not the target of the investigation. Gonzales is.

As far as your Clinton analogy, try reading the dozens of other posts that have addressed how the situations are entirely different. It's not a matter of people getting fired. It's WHY they were fired, and whether Gonzales acted unethically doing so.

Answer 8

Congress is turning into a place to store the idiots of America. They invite Al Gore to talk about the dangers of global warming, then cheer when he refuses to reduce his own emissions to the national average.

Pelosi promises to do everything she can to fight global warming, then she's asking for her own private jumbo jet that can fly cross country without landing.

Congressional democrats are fighting those 8 jobs tooth and nail because anything else risks their own inactivity and political fighting being brought to light.

They go to pass a non-binding resolution so that they can act like they are moving to fight the president, when all it does is make front page of the news papers, without officially taking any stand on the issue.

Never forget, almost every Democrat that's been in congress for more than 6 years have voted for every move President Bush has made since 9/11, and almost every one of them hates the President for what he's done. What they told him to do.

So when they fight crap like attourneys getting fired, they are trying to move the spotlight away from themselves.

Answer 9

I find it amazing the level of obtusity many will stoop to to not admit when an underhanded tactic was used regarding their political side's dirty tricks. Blind allegiance is the epitome of despotism. Learn to try and be "fair and balanced". Liberals are so "up in arms" as you put it, because it is just another straw on the camel's back. The scary part is, nothing about this regime surprises me anymore. In my view, they should investigate this and all the other underhanded dealings completely.

Answer 10

The difference is they came before Congress and answered all the questions under oath and for the record. Now that the shoe is on the other foot the so called conservs don't like it. Incidentally, with the budget deficit at an all time high, WHAT IS A CONSERVATIVE?????

Answer 11

I can only imagine how Democrats would have reacted if Bush cleaned house at the beginning of his first term like Clinton did.