- Thankfully, we seem to have stalled for a moment here, and I blame the massive size of last night's document dump on that. Bottom line: we still(!) have not progressed on the Carol Lam front. Despite the thousands of pages released last night, very little dealt with Carol Lam (section 1-1 of the document dump here). As far as I can see, the earliest document dealing with her "border crimes" problem was an October 2005 letter (section 1-1 page 25-26) from 19 members of Congress (more on that in a sec) to the DoJ complaining about the virtual "catch and release" program the DoJ had for immigrations violations. First, as I saw in the documents, the DoJ (through Assistant AG William Moschella) defended Carol Lam's handling of border crimes (section 1-1 page 44-46 in a letter to Senator Feinstein), citing a lack of staff resources as the problem, not a lack of priority on Lam's part (section 1-1 page 47-49 in a response letter to Darrell Issa). But second, I thought it interesting who signed that complaint letter (along with 18 other members of Congress)- none other than Duke Cunningham, who was under investigation by Carol Lam at the time. As such, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the only egregious example of "catch and release" specified in the letter occurred in Carol Lam's district. As Josh at TPM notes, apparently Duke thought Carol Lam was focusing on too much corruption too. No no, nothing to see here, now move along...
- TPM's first thoughts on the document dump here. Patrick Fitzgerald is examined by the WaPo, because he was given a "middling" rating according to Administration officials.
- What's missing from the document dump? Well, anything that might indicate White House involvement, that's what. Tim Grieve at Salon's War Room reminds us (no idea if the link works, too many firewalls) that the DoJ is not claiming this document dump is comprehensive, and is actually actively withholding White House documents, because of...because of...well, just follow the link and see if you can make sense of the DoJ's argument here.
- Going beyond for a moment who originally decided to fire these USAs and why- who is deciding on the replacements, and why? Rayne put up an excellent diary pointing out that a heavyweight Republican donor will be "recommending" replacements for San Francisco USA Kevin Ryan and (wait for it) San Diego USA Carol Lam! Yikes.
- Senate passes 94-2 a bill that should close the Patriot Act loophole that started this mess (h/t TPMMuckraker). We'll see.
- Who's testifying where. Apparently, AG Gonzales will not testify in front of the House Appropriations Committee this Thursday, as previously planned (h/t BarbinMd). That may mean something, or it may mean nothing (personally, I think it means something). The White House just released a statement that will "allow" Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to give "private interviews" to the Senate Judiciary Committee (h/t Jay Carney at Time's Swampland). UPDATE: here's the text of the letter. My former Senator Leahy has vowed to get White House officials to testify in public, so I highly, highly doubt this will work. On Thursday there will be a vote to issue subpoenas to Karl Rove, former WH Counsel Harriet Miers, and deputy WH Counsel William Kelly, and this response has probably sealed the deal. The House Judiciary Committee will vote tomorrow to authorize subpoenas for those same people (h/t ThinkProgress).
- I don't want to delve too much into the talking points portions of the document dumps, because I'm not sure there's much to see there- in my opinion, it's mostly partisanship, personal spitting matches, and political maneuvering, as opposed to criminal conduct. I do want to point out this post by TPMMuckraker, however, with the purpose of hammering home, yet again, that most of the "problems" with the purged USAs cited by the DoJ are complete bulls--t. If the "problems" keep coming up as bogus and after-the-fact, as they have so far, then the DoJ employees involved with this purge keep edging closer and closer to obstruction of justice, especially with Carol Lam. Don't let anyone tell you that this is scandalous, but not necessarily illegal- this continues to look and smell like obstruction of justice.
- I've kicked Time magazine around for not aggressively covering this story, so let me just point out that Ana Marie Cox at Time's Swampland appears to have picked up the ball and ran with it. She's doing a good job combing through the emails, and also Going AstronautTM on fellow Swamplander Michael Kinsley for shrugging his shoulders on this story. Having said all that, however, I speculate that she and others at Time have valuable Administration sources that they have not (aggressively) tapped yet (she previously had IM conversations with WH official Dan Bartlett, but that didn't go very far), so I hope to see more out of her. McClatchy and TPM are still top dogs on this, with WaPo coming in a respectable third.
MUSINGS ON WHERE TO EXPAND THE US ATTORNEY STORY
- But let's not get so obsessed with Carol Lam that we forget all the other angles. There are many, many problems with this US Attorney Purge, and it points to many other possible instances of corruption in this Administration and DoJ. Let's not forget that many USAs have turned over in drips and drabs over the past few years, or that many USAs that WEREN'T purged are doing some, well, INTERESTING things. Guam USA Frederick Black (occams hatchet provides a good summary), Arizona USA Paul Charlton (h/t Glenn Greenwald, behind Salon firewall), Los Angeles USA Debra Wong Yang (leveymg's been doing work on this), New Hampshire USA Tom Colantuono (good work Betsy Devine), New Jersey USA Chris Christie, Kentucky USA David Huber, New Mexico USA David Iglesias, Southern Mississippi USA Dunn Lampton (h/t hungrycoyote)...these people are worth looking into.
- Also, many USAs are "interim" appointments which, according to the new infamous Patriot Act provision, has no time limit and no Senate confirmation requirement. So the "interim" USAs should be looked at as well. Fourteen have been made "interim" since the new provision, and that list is here. theghostofkarlafayetucker has been pointing that out, and I've encouraged him to keep working on it. I encourage anyone reading this diary to beg him to keep working on this part of the story.
- One more thing. There are 93 USAs across the country and only 8 were purged, meaning there are many other USAs who have been at least indirectly affected by this. Have any media outlets gotten comments on this purge from all the other USAs, and how it affects their respective offices? Is this purge perceived as a signal to everyone else? There is statistical evidence that makes this question valid and newsworthy.
As MissLaura pointed out on the frontpage today, let's put people-powered energy into this investigation. I think we'll all feel surprised/disgusted/validated by what we find.
As much as I loved Michigan basketball coach Tommy Amaker, it was time for him to go...
UPDATE: I thought I'd highlight a passage from Glenn Greenwald's piece about Paul Charlton. Recall that Paul Charlton butted heads with the DoJ and the FBI because he wanted to require law enforcement agents to record confessions and interviews of suspects, which various agencies did not want to do. Glenn points out some things to think about WRT the objections made by the DoJ (emphasis in original):
This is rather notable for multiple reasons. Initially, the conduct of agents in interrogations would only be at issue where the defendant was claiming that the statements or confessions were coerced -- or otherwise obtained using methods that cast doubt on the reliability of the statements. In such cases, federal agents -- in the absence of a recording -- would still be asked about what they said and what they did in order to prompt the responses or confessions. Thus, even in the absence of a recording, their conduct during the interrogation would be known to the jurors -- unless they lie about what they did and conceal their behavior....The difference between recording v. no recording is not whether the conduct of federal agents will be an issue in a trial. The difference is whether there will be an accurate or inaccurate record of what these law enforcement agents are doing to extract statements and obtain confessions. Yet here, every federal law enforcement agency is expressly arguing against recordings because they want to conceal from the jury what they did (or because they want to conceal what the defendant actually said).
UPDATE II: the Decider has spoken (h/t RenaRF). I only caught portions of it, so follow the link for a transcript of his speech. But let me just put the big thing he said in bold and capital letters: HE WILL OPPOSE ANY ATTEMPT TO SUBPOENA WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS ABOUT THEIR ROLE IN THE FIRINGS. He also said the AG acted completely appropriately, and the offer delivered today was a reasonable proposal. I'll catch the rest later tonight, but in the meantime...holy s--t. I don't think the Decider realizes that he's essentially dared Leahy and Conyers to call his bluff. He will lose this battle, and he will end up in court trying to convince a judge (and the American people) that he has a right to hide things from Congress and the American people, and while he's doing that this story will drag on and on...and on. Wow.
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