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| DOJ heads threaten to Quit over Jefferson Document Return |
| 2006-05-27 |
| The Justice Department signaled to the White House this week that the nation's top three law enforcement officials would resign or face firing rather than return documents seized from a Democratic congressman's office in a bribery investigation, according to administration sources familiar with the discussions. Are they really this upset? And did they really leak this? The possibility of resignations by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales; his deputy, Paul J. McNulty; and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III was communicated to the White House by several Justice officials in tense negotiations over the fate of the materials taken from Rep. William J. Jefferson's office, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. My good fried Anonymous Sources is quoted again. Justice prosecutors and FBI agents feared that the White House was ready to acquiesce to demands from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and other lawmakers that the materials be returned to the Louisiana congressman, who is the subject of a criminal probe by the FBI. Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, David S. Addington, was among the leading White House critics of the FBI raid, telling officials at Justice and on Capitol Hill that he believed the search was questionable, several sources familiar with his views said. Administration officials said yesterday that the specter of top-level resignations or firings at Justice and the FBI was a crucial turning point in the standoff, helping persuade President Bush to announce a cease-fire on Thursday. Bush ordered that the Jefferson materials be sealed for 45 days while Justice officials and House lawmakers work out their differences, while also making it clear that he expected the case against Jefferson to proceed. White House officials were not informed of the search until it began last Saturday and did not immediately recognize the political ramifications, the sources said. By Sunday, however, as the 18-hour search continued, lawmakers began lodging complaints with the White House. So, Gonzales OK'ed this without checking with the Cowboy? Wonder why? Didn't tell him, but is willing to quit over it. Hmmm. Addington -- who had worked as a staffer in the House and whose boss, Cheney, once served as a congressman -- quickly emerged as a key internal critic of raiding the office of a sitting House member. He raised heated objections to the Justice Department's legal rationale for the search during a meeting Sunday with McNulty and others, according to several sources. Hastert wrote in an article published in USA Today yesterday that House lawyers are working with the Justice Department to develop guidelines for handling searches of lawmakers' offices. "But that is behind us now," Hastert wrote. "I am confident that in the next 45 days, the lawyers will figure out how to do it right." He knows he lost in the Court of Public Opinion. Also yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) met with Gonzales at the senator's Capitol Hill office. "We've been working hard already, and we'll continue to do so pursuant to the president's order," Gonzales told reporters on his way into Frist's suite just off the Senate floor. Got some suspects there too? I hope Specter is one of them. Jefferson, 59, has been under investigation since March 2005 for allegations that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using his congressional influence to promote business ventures in Africa. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him, including Brett Pfeffer, one of his former aides, who was sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison by a federal judge in Alexandria. I hate to pick nits, but don't the editors at the WaPo know that the past tense of plead is pled? Not that my grammar and spelling are ideal, but I don't claim to be writing the first draft of history. As the week progressed, the confrontation escalated further. At some point in the negotiations, McNulty told Palmer that he would quit if ordered to return the materials to Jefferson, according to several officials familiar with the conversation. McNulty, a former Alexandria prosecutor who was recently named Gonzales's deputy, was a central player in the contentious negotiations with Capitol Hill and the White House, sources said. He had also worked in the House for 12 years, as chief counsel for both the majority leader's office and a crime subcommittee. He probably knows where entire cemetaries are located. A message that McNulty might quit was passed along to the White House, along with similar messages for Gonzales and Mueller. Sources familiar with the discussions declined to say which Justice officials communicated those possibilities to the White House. The discussion of Gonzales and the others resigning never evolved into a direct threat, but it was made plain that such an option would have to be considered if the president ordered the documents returned, several sources said. "It wasn't one of those things of 'If you will, I will,' " one senior administration official said. "It was kind of the background noise." "One of the reasons the president did what he did was these types of conversations and other types of conversations in the House were escalating," the official said, referring to murmured threats by some House Republicans to call for Gonzales's resignation. Did those other conversations in the House involve words that begin with "I"? "If you tell the House to stick it where the sun don't shine, you're talking about a fundamentally corrosive relationship between two branches of government," the senior administration official said. "They could zero out funding; they could say, 'Okay, you can do subpoenas, so can we.' " |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #5 Just for information, both pleaded and pled are acceptable forms for the past tense of plead. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-05-27 23:37 |
| #4 How many CENTCOM Commanders have we trained in Iraq on building a new government to replace one that no longer had the 'consent of the govern'? Germany, Japan, now Iraq. I think we have an interim alternative if these clowns want to keep pushing it. |
| Posted by: Phereger Hupaith2439 2006-05-27 15:33 |
| #3 There is some deeply weird shit going on here. Congressmen do have a constitutional immunity while conducting the business of Congress. But please tell me they are not making the argument that bribery and corruption are an essential part of conducting that business. I hope Gonzalez and company have the stones to follow this through. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-05-27 12:37 |
| #2 Go ahead, let the House issue subpoenas over this, and watch the Republicans lose every borderline seat for the next 20 years. |
| Posted by: Perfesser 2006-05-27 11:12 |
| #1 why should they return the docs? You or I wouldn't get that treatment. They aren't above the law and I'm sick of these politicians thinking that they are. Why is Hassert even asking this - a little nervous what they might contain? Cheney is asking this too? Heh- sounds like the good ol' boys may be going down. If the Repubs are going to also get caught up in this corruption scandal too - tough. Good riddance. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-05-27 11:10 |