Michael Mukasey: Another Loyal Bushie

The Michael Mukasey Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing has demonstrated that Mukasey cannot be relied upon to function independently as U.S. Attorney General. Nevertheless, Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem so thrilled that Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales that they're willing to vote for him even though he's another loyal Bushie. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backed down on his promise to hold up the confirmation hearing until the administration turned over material his committee had requested regarding several investigations. Leahy said of Mukasey after the hearing, "He's at least answered the questions, which is better than his predecessor. He's going to be different than Gonzales on all the issues, I think. He will certainly be better than Gonzales on morale."

But saying that Mukasey compares favorably to Alberto Gonzales is faint praise for the nominee. The former Attorney General resigned during a firestorm of criticism about his U.S. Attorney purges, and his repeated claims of memory loss when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mukasey doesn't seem to have a memory problem; he relied on a different excuse for dodging the Senators' hard questions: he hasn't been "read in on" the details of Bush policies, such as interrogation techniques, or the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." Mukasey claims he doesn’t know what water boarding is, so he can’t say if it constitutes torture. Say what? Mukasey’s claimed ignorance of water boarding is about as credible as his predecessor’s convenient claims of amnesia. Rear Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.) testified at the confirmation hearing, "Other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, water boarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It was devised, I believe, in the Spanish inquisition. It has been repudiated for centuries."

Mukasey made the incredible assertions that "we do not torture" and "I don't think people are mistreated" at Guantánamo. The main problem he sees with Guantánamo is that "nobody owns it," that is, there is jurisdictional overlap between the Justice and Defense Departments. Mukasey callously told Sen. Dick Durbin before the hearings that Guantánamo was used as a "fright wig," and after all, detainees receive "three hots and a cot, health care better than many Americans, and taxpayer-funded Korans."

The rest of us haven't been “read in on” the classified details either. But we know that torture and inhuman treatment is Bush policy in spite of the fact it's illegal. The 2005 Department of Justice memos recently leaked to the New York Times say the government is engaging in water boarding, head slapping and exposing people to frigid temperatures, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody is tantamount to torture, and the U.N. Human Rights Commission concluded that force feeding Guantánamo prisoners amounts to torture. We also know that Bush spied on Americans without warrants in spite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because he and Gonzales admitted it. And we know what water boarding is.

Some of Mukasey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee should have raised red flags in the minds of Democratic Senators. Mukasey refused to reject the notion that the President can constitutionally violate FISA. He misread the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which clearly rejected Bush's claim that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions doesn't protect al-Qaeda prisoners. Common Article 3 prohibits torture and cruel or inhuman treatment of all prisoners. In fact, the Hamdan Court referred to possible liability under the U.S. War Crimes Act for those who violate Common Article 3. And when asked about contempt charges against witnesses who refuse to respond to congressional subpoenas, Mukasey said he would refuse to follow the statute that requires a U.S. attorney to refer contempt citations to a grand jury.

Nonetheless, Mukasey appears to be a shoo-in, with the Senate proceedings resembling a charade. One month before Mukasey was tapped by Bush for AG, the former federal judge penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining about too much due process in terrorism prosecutions and advocating special courts where the Constitution wouldn't get in the way of catching the bad guys.

Mukasey's excessive zeal for Bush's war on terror was evident right after 9/11. In an October 2, 2001 hearing in his court, then-Judge Mukasey dismissed attorney Randall Hamud's claim that his client, 21-year-old Jordanian Osama Awadallah, had been physically beaten while in custody and had the marks to prove it. Mukasey retorted, "As far as the claim he was beaten, I will tell you he looks fine to me." The judge then refused to direct that Awadallah be examined by a doctor, and ordered that he be held indefinitely. The marks were under Awadallah's clothing. He was one of the more than 1,000 men of Arab descent rounded up after 9/11, and later exonerated. Many suffered similar abuse while in U.S. custody. Ronald Kuby was a defense attorney in the 1995 Omar Abdel Rahman case, over which Mukasey presided. Mukasey "was violating the rights of Arabs before it was popular," Kuby said. "It was very much like trying a case with two prosecutors, one of whom was wearing a black robe."

After librarians complained about the USA Patriot Act's provision that required them to tell the government what books we read, Mukasey mocked them in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. He described civil liberties concerns as "recreational hysteria."

Although former Judge Mukasey ruled Jose Padilla had the right to consult with counsel, he held that the President has the power to detain U.S. citizens caught on U.S. soil without charging them with a crime. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned him, Mukasey incorrectly cited Hamdi v. Rumsfeld to support his position. Hamdi, unlike Padilla, was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and the high court held that even Hamdi was entitled to some basic due process. In response to Feinstein's question about whether Congress has the right to set boundaries on military action under Article I of the Constitution, Mukasey demurred, arguing his "learning curve" was "steep."

Mukasey ducked the question of whether he would advise the President to allow unlawful enemy combatants habeas corpus rights at Guantánamo Bay. "I would not advise the President to grant rights beyond those that they already have," he told Sen. Lindsey Graham. In spite of the Military Commissions Act, which purports to deny these people statutory habeas rights, the Supreme Court will likely decide this term that they still have the constitutional right to habeas corpus.

At the committee hearing on Wednesday, Mukasey was introduced by his dear friend and law school buddy Joe Lieberman. No one is fanning the flames of war against Iran more than Lieberman. Bush/Cheney likely see Mukasey as a reliable ally who will help "legitimize" their impending illegal attack on Iran.

When Bush nominated Mukasey for attorney general, he declared Mukasey would "ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence officers have the tools they need to protect the United States and our citizens." Mukasey, who refused to call water boarding torture, will likely support that "tool" in the war on terror. Mukasey told senators in advance of his hearings that he supports enhanced interrogation techniques, according to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.

Michael Mukasey cannot be counted on to independently investigate the crimes of the White House. Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment, advocated in a recent op-ed in the Progressive that the Senate should confirm Muksey only if he pledges to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration. That's what the Democratically-controlled Congress did in 1973 after Nixon nominated Elliot Richardson for attorney general. Richardson agreed, he was confirmed, and then appointed Archibald Cox as special prosecutor. Cox's investigations and summary dismissal resulted in the issuance of articles of impeachment against Nixon in the House Judiciary Committee followed by Nixon's resignation. It would be wonderful to have a Congress that once again stood up to the President when he breaks the law.

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Time for an Independent Counsel

Congressional leaders are calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible perjury charges against Alberto Gonzales. As we saw during the Watergate scandal, the executive branch cannot be counted on to investigate itself.

Watergate led to the enactment of the Ethics in Government Act. Three years after Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to pass a law authorizing the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute unlawful acts by high government officials. The bill empowered the attorney general to conduct a preliminary 90-day investigation when serious allegations arose involving a high government official. President Carter, who signed the bill in 1978, declared, “I believe that this act will help to restore confidence in the integrity of our government.”

Under the act, the attorney general could drop the investigation if he determined it was unsupported by the evidence. But if he found some merit to the charges, he was required to apply to a three-judge panel of federal court judges who would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate, prosecute, and issue a report.

The referral clause of the independent counsel statute provided, "An independent counsel shall advise the House of Representatives of any substantial and credible information which such independent counsel receives, in carrying out the independent counsel’s responsibilities under this chapter, that may constitute grounds for an impeachment.” But Congress, reacting to Kenneth Starr's witch hunt which led to Bill Clinton's impeachment, allowed the independent counsel statute to expire by its own terms in 1999.

With the death of the independent counsel statute, the pendulum had swung back. By failing to renew the act, Congress returned the investigation of high government officials to pre-Watergate policies. Once again, the power to appoint an independent counsel would rest with the executive branch, that is, the attorney general. The Department of Justice drafted a set of regulations to guide future investigations.

Now the attorney general, not a three-judge panel, has the authority to appoint and remove special counsel to investigate top government officials. He exercises power over indictments and other prosecutorial actions, and the special counsel remains accountable to the attorney general. He can block “any investigative or prosecutorial step” he deems “inappropriate or unwarranted."

Justice Department regulations call for the appointment of an outside special counsel when (1) a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted, (2) the investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department, and (3) under the circumstances it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter. When these three conditions are satisfied, the attorney general must select a special counsel from outside the government. (28 C.F.R. 600.1, 600.3 (2007).)

In light of material inconsistencies in Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress, a criminal investigation is warranted. Gonzales, who is suspected of committing perjury, has a conflict of interest. The public interest requires that the highest prosecutor in the land be brought to justice.

Congress should appoint a permanent special counsel to investigate and advise Congress about misconduct by high government officials, beginning with Alberto Gonzales. That procedure should lead the House Judiciary Committee to initiate impeachment proceedings against Gonzales.

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Showdown Looming Over Executive Privilege

George W. Bush's presidential tenure has been marked by one cover-up after another. But the masterful spinning of Karl Rove and a compliant media enabled Bush to get away with it. Now that the Democrat-controlled Congress is investigating administration malfeasance, Bush's cover-ups have come cloaked in the guise of "executive privilege."

Bush has claimed executive privilege in resisting congressional subpoenas in the investigation of the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. U.S. Attorneys who weren't "loyal Bushies" were ousted in a mass purge. Bush instructed former White House political director Sara Taylor and former White House counsel Harriet Miers to refuse to testify about any "White House consideration, deliberations or communications" regarding the firings. He also instructed his chief of staff Joshua Bolten to withhold documents demanded by the House Judiciary Committee. Defying a congressional subpoena is a crime.

Taylor testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, invoking the privilege selectively. Miers's and Bolten's situation is even more problematic. They refused to show-up at the House committee altogether. A witness must appear, be sworn, and then invoke the privilege. Miers and Bolten committed a crime when they failed to appear. They could be locked up for ignoring the subpoenas. Bush will claim the Executive is supreme and that his order to Miers and Bolten nullifies the subpoenas.

There are already signs that Bush will refuse to allow his Justice Department to enforce congressional contempt charges. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy responded angrily, saying, "By acting above the law, this President and Vice President seek to override the independence of law enforcement and manipulate our valued system of checks and balances," adding, "an independent review is probably in order." It remains to be seen whether Congress will match its rhetoric with its votes.

As it did after the Haditha massacre, the U.S. military covered up the real cause of Pat Tillman's death. After claiming he died in a heroic gun battle with the enemy, the administration was later compelled to admit Tillman died from "friendly-fire." When the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed "all documents received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President" relating to Tillman's death, Bush refused, claiming executive privilege. Again, a showdown is looming, this time over documents.

Chairman Henry Waxman and ranking Committee Republican Tom Davis wrote a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, which said: "The Committee hearing [on Tillman's death]. . . raised questions about whether the administration has been providing accurate information to Congress and the American people about the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Congress has three options. First, if a majority of the judiciary committee and the full chamber agree, they can issue contempt citations and then certify them to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action," according to a federal statute. But in spite of that statute, the White House will reportedly forbid the Justice Department from pursuing contempt charges.

Second, Congress could invoke its own "inherent contempt" power, direct the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest the recalcitrant witness, and imprison her in the Capitol basement. This power was last used in 1934.

Finally, Congress can hire counsel to enforce the subpoenas in civil court.

In the past, when the White House and Congress have clashed over claims of executive privilege, the President generally capitulated before criminal proceedings began. But Bush has consistently defied Congress and the courts with his secret spying program and his signing statements. He will likely hold firm, banking on favorable rulings in the increasingly conservative Supreme Court.

Perhaps Congress should subpoena Dick Cheney to shed light on these matters. Since Cheney denies belonging to the executive branch, he'd be hard pressed to assert executive privilege.

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Reining In an Out-of-Control Executive

Our Founding Fathers created three separate but co-equal branches of government to check and balance each other so no one branch would become all powerful. Indeed, James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, "The preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct." Madison warned, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." The American colonists were reacting against a police state.

More than 200 years later, we have another King George. In the last six years, George W. Bush has sought to accumulate all governing powers in the same hands - his. In the Declaration of Independence, the framers charged that the King "refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." Bush has repeatedly violated the Constitution's command that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," by breaking some and refusing to enforce others. The Constitution grants Congress the power to make laws; after both houses pass a bill, the President can only sign it or veto it. Bush, however, takes a different tack. He has vetoed just three bills, then quietly attached "signing statements" to more than 1,000 congressional laws, indicating his intent to follow only those parts with which he agrees.

In an end run around Congress and the courts, Bush secretly authorized the Terrorist Surveillance Program to conduct electronic surveillance without a judicial warrant, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment. Although two judges on a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the legality of Bush's spying program for lack of standing, the only two judges ever to rule on the merits declared the program illegal.

The Bush administration lied to Congress to get authority to invade Iraq. Long before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush and his officials were planning to attack Iraq and change its regime. Dick Cheney's secret energy task force drew up maps of Iraq's oil fields to divvy up the black gold once we occupied that country. They then devised an elaborate scheme to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States, notwithstanding overwhelming intelligence to the contrary. Since Bush launched "Operation Iraq Freedom," more than 3,600 American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died; many thousands more have been wounded. This invasion is a war of aggression, which violates the UN Charter, because it was neither executed in self-defense nor approved by the Security Council.

During the war, U.S. troops have been acting under rules of engagement - free-fire zones - that have led some to commit war crimes. For instance, the killing, execution-style, of 24 civilians in the Haditha Massacre, the execution of a disabled man, and the shooting of a wounded unarmed Iraqi in a mosque violate the Geneva Conventions which prohibit willful killing of civilians. Commanders, all the way up the chain to the commander-in-chief, could be convicted of war crimes if they should've known their subordinates would commit them and the commanders didn't stop or prevent it.

Bush's legal eagles, particularly David Addington and John Yoo, concocted elaborate "legal" arguments to justify the torture of prisoners. Never mind that international and American law forbid torture under all circumstances. Pursuant to a common plan to violate the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prisoners in U.S. custody are being tortured and abused. Prisoners have been subjected to water-boarding, attacks by dogs, sexual humiliation, and excruciatingly painful force-feeding.

The Bush administration has secretly rendered prisoners to other countries to be tortured. One former CIA agent observed, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear - never to see them again - you send them to Egypt."

Shortly after 9/11, the Bush gang set up a prison camp in Guantánamo, intending to create a legal black hole where they could hold prisoners for the rest of their lives without any judicial oversight. But the Supreme Court didn't buy the administration's argument that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over Guantánamo because it's in Cuba. And the Court struck down Bush's original military commissions since they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

The Supreme Court said in Berger v. United States that a prosecutor's job is to see that justice is done, not to politicize justice. But Bush's Department of Justice, the chief law enforcement agency in the government, has been seriously compromised. Several U.S. attorneys who refused to bring frivolous charges that would further Bush's political agenda, or who brought charges that didn't, were purged.

The White House is resisting congressional subpoenas that call for testimonial and documentary evidence about the U.S. attorney firing scandal. The deadline for Bush, Cheney and the Justice Department to produce documents in response to Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenas about the warrantless surveillance is July 18. In 1974, when the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, Article III charged refusal to comply with subpoenas during the Watergate hearings.

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Alberto Gonzales: Tip of the Iceberg

As Democratic and Republican leaders alike pile on to demand Alberto Gonzales' resignation, only George W. Bush is singing his praises. Deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Bush was happy with Gonzales' testimony. "The attorney general continues to have the president's full confidence," she said.

It's not surprising that Bush would be pleased. Like a good soldier, Gonzales, who claimed a faulty memory 70 times, was careful not to incriminate his bosses.

Bush and Cheney hired Gonzales as attorney general to carry out their plan to amass governmental power in the hands of the Executive. They knew they could count on him.

Gonzales' bona fides were well-known to his bosses. When he was counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush from 1995 to 1997, Gonzales provided his boss with "scant summaries" on capital punishment cases that "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence," according to the Atlantic Monthly.

Gonzales prepared 57 such summaries, including one regarding the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man executed for murdering a restaurant manager. The jury was never told about his mental condition. Gonzales's three-page summary of the case for Bush mentioned only that Washington's defense counsel's 30-page plea for clemency (which covered the mental competency issue) was rejected by the Texas parole board. Bush refused to stay executions in 56 of the 57 cases in which Gonzales wrote abbreviated memos.

The attorney general was central to the Bush-Cheney-Yoo illegal domestic surveillance program. When he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the New York Times uncovered the secret spying program, attorney general Gonzales walked in lockstep with his bosses. Gonzales would not tell the senators whether Bush had authorized other secret programs. He refused to say whether the government could wiretap purely domestic calls without a warrant, or whether he had the authority to search the first class mail of American citizens or to examine people's medical records. When Republican Senator John Cornyn asked him whether law enforcement could shoot down a plane with drugs, Gonzales said, "I'd have to think about that."

At Gonzales' confirmation hearing for attorney general, he said he wasn't sure whether torturing prisoners could be lawful. The former Texas Supreme Court justice surely knew the terms of the Convention Against Torture, a treaty ratified by the United States and therefore part of the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The convention says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

Yet, as White House counsel, Gonzales had advised Bush that the Geneva Conventions, which mandate humane treatment for all captives, were "quant" and "obsolete." Gonzales' advice facilitated the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo and secret CIA prisons around the world. Gonzales had evidently done his homework. The Nazi lawyers at Nuremberg also advised their clients that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and "obsolete."

Gonzales' confirmation testimony led the New York Times to opine, "Mr. Bush had made the wrong choice when he rewarded Mr. Gonzales for his loyalty," and the Washington Post to say, "The message Mr. Gonzales left with senators was unmistakable: As attorney general, he will seek no change in practices that have led to the torture and killing of scores of detainees and to the blackening of U.S. moral authority around the world." The Post concluded, "Those senators who are able to reach clear conclusions about torture and whether the United States should engage in it have reason for grave reservations about Mr. Gonzales."

In 2005, Bush said, "Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. I'm the kind of person, when a friend gets attacked, I don't like it." Eventually, however, Bush will have to unload Gonzales the way he unloaded his friend Donald Rumsfeld. Loyal Republican senators trying to paint Gonzales as incompetent don't want the finger to point higher to the real culprits - Karl Rove, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

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The New Watergate: U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights

The Bush administration is shocked, shocked, that the firing of a few U.S. attorneys has caused such a stir in Washington. After all, the Oval Office says, the President can choose whomever he wants to prosecute federal cases. But the Supreme Court declared in Berger v. United States that a prosecutor's job is to see that justice is done, not to politicize justice. The mass ouster of the top prosecutors had more to do with keeping a grip on power - by manipulating voting rights - than with doing justice. And like the Watergate scandal, the evidence points to a cover-up.

This cover-up revolves around efforts by the Bush administration to disenfranchise African-American voters in communities where the vote would likely be close. George W. Bush came to power in 2000 by a razor-thin margin awarded him by the Supreme Court. During the 2004 election, there were allegations of attempts to disenfranchise African-American voters, especially in Ohio. Yet no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African-American or Native American voters from 2001 to 2006.

Instead, the administration instigated efforts that would further disenfranchise these voters. U.S. attorneys were instructed to prosecute "voter fraud" cases. "Voter fraud" has "become almost synonymous with 'voting while black,'" the New York Times' Paul Krugman observed. Also, Republican lawmakers enacted voter ID laws which established new hurdles for voters to jump.

Former staffers in the Justice Department's civil rights division said they were "repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia's voter ID law to Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters," Krugman added.

The administration's effort to prosecute voter fraud is a sham. The New York Times reports that voter experts have found "widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud." However, the Election Assistance Commission, a federal panel charged with election research, skewed the findings of the voter experts.

The Bush administration has been hyping voter fraud since the last election; Karl Rove called it an "enormous and growing" problem. Two of the fired U.S. attorneys, David Iglesias from Albuquerque and John McKay from Seattle, were dismissed because they refused to file voter fraud charges after being warned to do so by well-placed Republicans. Others were fired for pursuing investigations of Republicans.

Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales' former right-hand man, wrote in an email that the qualification to be a U.S. attorney was to be a "loyal Bushie."

Shortly after the Watergate break-in, President Richard Nixon and his loyal chief of staff H.R. Haldeman spoke in the old Executive Office Building. Their conversation was taped, but 18.5 minutes were erased. This gap incriminated Nixon in the cover-up which eventually led to his impeachment and resignation.

Likewise, there is a suspicious 16-day gap in the email records between the Justice Department and the White House just before seven of the U.S. attorneys were fired in December. Moreover, many of the communications about the matter were conducted using email accounts of the Republican National Committee instead of government accounts, possibly in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The Los Angeles Times reported that senior Justice Department officials prepared documentation to justify the firings after the dismissals. One Justice Department official threatened to "retaliate" against the eight fired U.S. attorneys if they continued to publicly speak about their dismissals.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who heads the Justice Department, denied he was involved in discussions about the firings. But Sampson testified that Gonzales was consulted at least five times and signed off on the plan to fire the U.S. attorneys. "I don't think it's entirely accurate what he [Gonzales] said," Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales is reportedly sweating bricks over his own testimony before that Committee, slated for April 17. As a result of Gonzales' stonewalling in response to the House Judiciary Committee's request for documents, committee chairman Rep. John Conyers has subpoenaed the records. If the Justice Department defies the subpoena, the Judiciary Committee, and the full Congress, could cite the department for contempt of Congress, and a federal grand jury could issue criminal indictments for obstruction of justice.

The White House has indicated it will not allow Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to testify under oath. Why the resistance unless they intend to lie?

Alberto Gonzales should be fired, not just for malfeasance in the U.S. attorney affair, but also for advising Bush to violate the Geneva Conventions which led to torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody. Recall that Gonzales told Bush the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and "obsolete." Those were the same words the Nazi lawyers used at Nuremberg to describe the Geneva Conventions.

Firing Gonzales may temporarily stanch the flood of accusations about the U.S. attorney matter. But the corruption, the lawbreaking, and the cover-up go deeper - all the way up to the Oval Office. Hopefully, Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers will put impeachment back on the table.

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Patriot Act Unbound: Political Purging and Spying on Americans

Last year, Republican Senator Arlen Specter slipped a clause into the reauthorized USA Patriot Act that allows Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation.

Gonzales took advantage of that crafty little provision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys who weren't goose-stepping to the Bush agenda and replace them with Bush loyalists. Denying any impropriety, Gonzales dismissed the significance of the mass ouster (seven federal prosecutors were asked to resign on the same day last December), calling it an "overblown personnel matter."

The Attorney General swore to the Senate Judiciary Committee in January that he "would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons." But the evidence belies Gonzales' protestations.

Why did these prosecutors run afoul of the Bush gang?

David Iglesias from Albuquerque received an evaluation that said he was "respected by the judiciary, agencies and staff." But he didn't file a corruption case involving New Mexico Democrats before the 2006 election which would've embarrassed the Democrats. New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici called Iglesias and asked whether charges were "going to be filed before the election." Iglesias said he felt "sick" after Domenici called him. "I felt leaned on, I felt pressured to get these matters moving." Iglesias also received a call from Republican Representative Heather Wilson, who was running neck-in-neck with a Democrat in a race where the corruption investigation was a campaign issue. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse admitted Domenici's complaint to Gonzales about Iglesias was a factor in the prosecutor's removal.

Carol Lam, "an effective manager and respected leader" from San Diego, conducted an investigation of Republican Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham for taking over $2 million in bribes from defense contractors. It resulted in a guilty plea and an eight-plus year sentence. In February, Lam indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, formerly the number 3 man at the CIA. If Lam were permitted to continue, she might have uncovered more official wrongdoing in defense-contracting. Lam was replaced by a member of the Federalist Society with almost no criminal law experience.

Bud Cummins, a "very competent and highly regarded" U.S. Attorney from Little Rock, Arkansas, was removed and replaced with J. Timothy Griffin, one of Karl Rove's key researchers. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified that Cummins had done nothing wrong to justify his removal. "I'm not aware of anything negative," he said. Cummins said a senior Justice Department official warned him that the fired U.S. Attorneys should keep quiet about "their" firings.

Daniel Bogden, a "highly regarded" and "capable leader" from Las Vegas, had opened an investigation into allegations that Nevada's Republican governor had accepted inappropriate gifts.

Paul Charlton, from Phoenix was "well respected" for his "integrity, professionalism and competence." He had undertaken an investigation of two Republican Arizona Representatives.

John McKay, "an effective, well-regarded and capable leader" from Seattle was called by a well-placed Republican, who inquired about whether McKay intended to convene a grand jury to examine claims of voter fraud in a close gubernatorial election, which was won by a Democrat. McKay also favored a computerized law enforcement information-sharing system that the Justice Department opposed.

These prosecutors were punished for doing their jobs too well. In the Bush administration, justice has become politicized. Democrats have been investigated by the Department of Justice seven times more frequently than Republicans.

On the defensive as a result of the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, the administration has engaged in damage control. It has agreed not to oppose legislation overriding the Specter Patriot Act loophole.

Another Patriot Act provision that has been misused by the Gonzales Justice Department authorizes the use of "national security letters." These are administrative subpoenas that enable the FBI to obtain our e-mails and telephone records, and travel and financial information without approval from a judge. An audit by the Inspector General concluded last week that the FBI has used this provision to illegally force businesses to turn over customer data, then lied to Congress about it.

The Bush gang has engaged in a pattern and practice of misconduct, including a war of aggression, torture and war crimes, and spying on Americans without warrants. Congress has begun to hold hearings and conduct investigations. As increasing evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors emerges, it is high time for the House of Representatives to undertake its constitutional duty to initiate impeachment proceedings.

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Pentagon Attacks Lawyers of Guantánamo Detainees

In one of the most severe blows the Bush administration has dealt to our constitutional democracy, the Pentagon attacked the lawyers who have volunteered to represent the Guantánamo detainees.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned there. Flashing a list of corporations that use law firms doing this pro bono work, Stimson declared, "Corporate C.E.O.'s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."

In 1770, John Adams defended nine British soldiers including a captain who stood accused of killing five Americans. No other lawyer would defend them. Adams thought no one in a free country should be denied the right to a fair trial and the right to counsel. He was subjected to scorn and ridicule and claimed to have lost half his law practice as a result of his efforts.

Adams later said his representation of those British soldiers was "one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country."

Federal Judge Green, who has handled the many habeas corpus petitions filed by the Guantánamo detainees, expressed appreciation for the lawyers: "I do want to say we are very grateful for those attorneys who have accepted pro bono appointments. That is a service to the country, a service to the parties. No matter what position you take on this, it is a grand service."

More than 750 men and boys have been held like animals in cages during the last five years at Guantánamo. Many were picked up by warlords and sold to the U.S. military for bounty. None has been tried for any crime. Very few even have any criminal charges against them.

Ironically, there were no alleged terrorists connected with 9/11 there until Bush recently transferred 14 men from his secret CIA prisons to Guantánamo. Meanwhile, hundreds of detainees languish in custody, aided by 500 courageous lawyers from 120 firms who have volunteered countless hours to represent them.

Under the Military Commissions Act Bush just rammed through Congress, the Guantánamo prisoners could be held for the rest of their lives without ever seeing a judge. Those who decide that death could not be worse than life at Gitmo have participated in a hunger strike.

Rather than subject the Bush administration to embarrassment when prisoners die in U.S. custody, military guards force feed them. Thick plastic tubes are forced down their throats with no anesthesia. Tubes are not sterilized before being reused on other prisoners. The UN Human Rights Commission called the force-feeding "torture." Many prisoners also report being tortured during interrogations.

Guantánamo has become the symbol of U.S. hypocrisy. While fighting the "war on terror" and attacking other countries for their human rights abuses, the officials in the Bush administration have become war criminals. Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment are punishable as war crimes under the U.S. War Crimes Act.

The Supreme Court held in Rasul v. Bush that the Guantánamo prison is under U.S. jurisdiction, so prisoners there are entitled to the protections of the Constitution. The Sixth Amendment mandates that every person charged with a crime has the right to be defended by an attorney. The government is forbidden by the Fifth Amendment from denying any "person" -- U.S. citizen or not -- due process of law. The presumption of innocence is enshrined in our legal system.

Bush's attack on lawyers is the latest assault on our civil liberties, which now includes warrantless surveillance of our phone calls and email, and most recently, our U.S. Mail. Although Bush says he's spying on the terrorists, those who criticize his policies, including his illegal and immoral war on Iraq, are also invariably in his cross hairs.

All Americans should heed the words of Martin Niemoller: "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."

George W. Bush must immediately renounce Stimson's threats and relieve him of his duties. A country that would sacrifice its own values under the guise of protecting them has no moral authority in this world.

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Bush's "Humane" Torture Policy Hits a Speed Bump

On February 7, 2002, George W. Bush declared in an executive order that he could suspend the Geneva Conventions, which require that war prisoners receive humane treatment. Myriad news reports during the past month suggest that government interrogators took full advantage of that order to extract information from prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

To read the headlines in The New York Times, though, you would think that order qualified Mr. Bush for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Times credited Bush with setting a "humane tone" in his order. The Times places too much emphasis on self-serving language in the order stating "[a]s a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva." When one reads the full text of the order, however, there can be no doubt that Bush intended to authorize U.S. interrogators to use torture to elicit information from its prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. The Times overlooked Bush's qualifier that "military necessity" trumps humane treatment.

You would hardly recognize the men implicated in the apparent conspiracy to torture prisoners in U.S. custody. Former Assistant Attorney General – now federal court Judge – Jay S. Bybee, is characterized as a "gentle" soul in another New York Times article. Yet he advised Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush's White House lawyer, that "certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity" to constitute unlawful torture. In an August 1, 2002 memo, Bybee took 50 pages to methodically explain how U.S. military interrogators could circumvent our laws prohibiting torture. A human being, according to the gentle Bybee, could torture another human being as long as the torturer relied in good faith on legal advice in Bybee's memo.

Bybee's thesis, of course, is preposterous. Following the hue and cry heard 'round the world after release of his legal memo, the Bush administration quickly distanced itself from it. White House spokesmen inform us that the "humane" Mr. Bush never saw it. They now declare it "irrelevant," although it remained in force for two years, and was cited in numerous subsequent memos. We are told that it will be completely rewritten. The slate will be wiped clean.

Bush's spinmeisters first maintained that the heinous torture methods justified in memos recently released by the government were never employed. Those hundreds of pages of carefully worded legalese, according to Gonzales, were merely "exploring the boundaries as an abstract matter" of what was permissible.

But now they contend that the Bybee memo was not intended for use at Guantánamo Bay, only to guide CIA interrogators who question top al-Qaeda leaders. "Current and former government officials" quoted in today's New York Times admit, however, that the memo was used as an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures already in use by the CIA. First the sentence, then the verdict.

Bush's deputies, desperate to quell the firestorm surrounding the burgeoning torture exposé, deny that the commander-in-chief saw many of the memos. "I don't believe the president had access to any legal opinions from the Department of Justice," said his lawyer Gonzales.

We do know, however, that Bush had "extensive discussions" involving the "complex legal questions" of whether the Geneva Conventions apply to the al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured by U.S. forces, because his February 7, 2002 order stated precisely that.

In his order, Bush "accept[s] the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva." Gonzales would have us believe Bush accepted the Ashcroft/Justice Department conclusion without even reading any memos.

We are being asked to take it on faith that even though Bush had extensive discussions with lawyers from the Defense and Justice Departments before issuing his February 7, 2002 order, he conveniently wasn't privy to later memos that justified torture. Most significantly, we don't know whether Bush signed any directives on prisoner interrogation after February 7, 2002.

After some of the memos leaked out last month, the administration decided to release more of them in the face of intense public outrage. The original intent was to keep them secret. Bush's Feb. 7, 2002 order was not scheduled for declassification until 2012. Donald Rumsfeld's April 16, 2003 memo, which authorized the use of aggressive interrogation methods at Guantánamo Bay, was to remain classified until 2013.

Senator Patrick Leahy [D-Vt] spearheaded a subpoena for a gaggle of other government memos advising how to torture without risking criminal prosecution. (Last week, on the Senate floor, the genteel Vice President Dick Cheney rewarded Leahy for his efforts to shine light on Halliburton's activities by suggesting to Leahy: "Go fuck yourself.") In a characteristic move to limit transparency – and political damage to Bush – the Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee scuttled Leahy's subpoena. Senator Edward Kennedy thereafter accused the White House of orchestrating "a cover-up."

Of the memos recently made public, The New York Times editorialized: "About the only thing in them worth keeping secret was the degree to which the administration had decided to exempt itself from the Geneva Conventions and then spent months debating whether there was a legalistic way to justify what ordinary people would consider torture of prisoners."

The discussions within the administration about interrogation policy did not occur without dissent, although the communications from the dissenters were conspicuously absent from the documents the government released last week.

A 2002 letter from William H. Taft, the State Department's legal advisor to the Justice Department's deputy assistant attorney general, called the Justice Department's approach to handling detainees "seriously flawed," and said its reasoning was "incorrect as well as incomplete."

Senior military leaders concurred. They maintained that the Geneva Conventions should apply to the Taliban militia. Also, pursuant to a requirement of Geneva, flouted by Bush, military lawyers favored holding military tribunals to determine which Geneva provisions would protect individual detainees.

Additional pressure on the Bush administration is coming from the attorneys defending the soldiers charged with criminal conduct at Abu Ghraib. Harvey Volzer, counsel for Army Spc. Megan Ambuhl, said: "Isn't it amazing that hooding, nudity and physical contact short of death and organ failure all are mentioned as techniques, and yet the administration would have us believe that they were not employed when Bush was getting no results from interrogations"?

At the same time Bush's A-team was engaged in damage control on the torture front, his UN-team was scrambling to ram a resolution through the Security Council that would give him and his men immunity from war crimes prosecutions in the International Criminal Court. Similar strong-arm tactics had earned him immunity resolutions in the previous two years. But the revelations of torture were too much for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to bear. Annan urged the Security Council to resist the resolution "given the prisoner abuse in Iraq." He warned, "It would discredit the Council and the United Nations that stands for the rule of law and the primacy of the rule of law."

As a result, Bush was dealt a severe political blow when he was unable to muster enough votes for the resolution. "It also marked the most concrete evidence of a diplomatic backlash against the scandal over abuses of U.S. detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq," according to the Washington Post. The Financial Times called it a "major diplomatic defeat."

No big deal. U.S. Deputy Representative to the U.N., James Cunningham, said we still have the bilateral immunity agreements. The Bush administration secured them by blackmailing 90, primarily small, nations or fragile democracies with weak economies. These countries have pledged not to hand over U.S. nationals to the International Criminal Court, which Bush has denounced. But the three-dozen countries that resisted Bush's bullying suffered the cutoff of military assistance for their obstinacy.

Not to worry. Coalition dictator Paul Bremer extended his order that U.S. military personnel would be immune from prosecution for killing or torturing Iraqis. The only glitch is the handover of "sovereignty" to the Iraqis on June 30. Bremer's decree will be null and void once the occupation ends.

The new Iraqi government would be hard pressed to agree to give Americans immunity for killing and torturing Iraqis. When the Iranian government granted immunity to U.S. troops in the 1960s, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used it to galvanize opposition to the Shah. In a 1964 speech, Khomeini said, "Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed." The immunity, according to Khomeini, "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."

In another blast from the past, the gentle soul John D. Negroponte was quietly sworn in as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte, who was U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 80s, was instrumental in covering up the torture and summary executions carried out by the Honduran government.

Also sworn in under the radar was the kindly John Danforth as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. As described in my column, "John Danforth - Bad Choice for U.N. Ambassador," Danforth knows almost nothing about the United Nations. He voted against sanctions on apartheid South Africa and for cutting funds for U.N. peacekeeping. But his vote to limit U.S. support for international family planning and his fanatical, albeit dishonest, engineering of Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination landed him the plum nomination for U.N. ambassador.

Bush has compassionately appointed individuals with torturous pasts to high positions in government. The Good Judge Bybee, expert on how to torture without leaving illegal marks, will regularly be called upon to interpret laws against torture which are frequently cited by applicants for political asylum.

Last week, in response to the growing torture scandal, Bush attempted to put us at ease by saying: "Let me make very clear the position of my government, and our country. We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture."

Bill Clinton was unsuccessful in putting many at ease when he said, "I am going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Clinton was subsequently impeached for lying to a grand jury about the Monica Lewinsky affair.

It remains to be seen whether the "humane" Mr. Bush's torture denials will hold up. Time will also tell whether Bush, who hired a trial lawyer and was questioned by federal prosecutors for 70 minutes, can escape a felony grand jury indictment for the Valerie Plame affair.

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Drake Gate: A Victory for Free Speech

Apparently for the first time since the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover, the government has tried to use the grand jury to harass and intimidate anti-war protestors. Drake University and four peace activists were recently subpoenaed to produce records about the National Lawyers Guild before a federal grand jury in Iowa. But in response to the Guild's opposition and widespread outrage throughout the country, the subpoenas were withdrawn on February 10. This is a major victory for the National Lawyers Guild and the peace movement.

The subpoenas constitute a flagrant attack on constitutionally protected speech and association. They signal George W. Bush's strategy to make national security a centerpiece of his election campaign, and send a blunt message that dissent will not be tolerated. Bush also likely seeks to intimidate Democrats and shore up his Republican base in Iowa, which he lost in the 2000 election by a slim margin.

Served on February 3 by a Polk County deputy sheriff who works with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the subpoenas ordered Drake University to turn over documents relating to a November National Lawyers Guild conference. The conference presented nonviolence training for people planning to demonstrate the next day at an anti-war rally at the Iowa National Guard headquarters. Twelve protestors were arrested at the peaceful rally titled, "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!"

These subpoenas requested the agenda and purpose of the meeting, the identities of attendees and Guild officers, and observations of campus security. The individuals served with subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq in 2002.

The U.S. Attorney's office said that the sole intent of the subpoenas was to gather information about a solitary demonstrator who scaled a fence on federal property on a different day than the anti-war conference/training. Why then did the government issue five subpoenas calling for information about peaceful activists and the National Lawyers Guild? Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was right when he said, "I don't like the smell of it...It reminds me too much of Vietnam when war protestors were rounded up, when grand juries were convened to investigate people who were protesting the war."

The gag order slapped on Drake employees before the subpoenas were withdrawn confirms the government's intention to conduct its witch hunt in secrecy. John Ashcroft, traveling the country to drum up support for the USA PATRIOT Act, claimed it was not intended to authorize political surveillance of lawful dissent. Yet the Act lowered standards for government surveillance and created a crime of "domestic terrorism," which Ashcroft will likely use to target other organizations that criticize government policies.

This is not the first time the National Lawyers Guild's support of activism has made it a government target. In the 1950s, Guild members were subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee for defending people accused of associating with communists during the McCarthy era.

Years later, the Guild filed a lawsuit against the FBI for unlawful surveillance. The FBI had put agents in Guild meetings, wiretapped lawyers' offices and homes, and built dossiers on those perceived as critical of governmental policies. In 1989, the FBI finally admitted it had tried to disrupt the Guild even though it had no proof the Guild was a subversive organization.

After the Iowa subpoenas were withdrawn, Guild President Michael Avery said, "The government was forced to back down in this case and it shows that people can and should stand up to the government when it is abusing its powers ... the American people cherish their right of free expression and the right of political groups to dissent from government policies."

The National Lawyers Guild is calling for congressional hearings to determine the extent to which the government is gathering information on student political groups. In the face of Bush's request that Congress make the PATRIOT Act permanent, we call on Congress to sunset the PATRIOT Act now.

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Government Withdrawal of Drake Protest Subpoenas as Targeting National Lawyers Guild is Victory for Free Speech

Apparently for the first time since the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover, the government has tried to use the grand jury to harass and intimidate anti-war protestors. Drake University and four peace activists were recently subpoenaed to produce records about the National Lawyers Guild before a federal grand jury in Iowa. But in response to the Guild's opposition and widespread outrage throughout the country, the subpoenas were withdrawn on February 10. This is a major victory for the National Lawyers Guild and the peace movement.

The subpoenas constitute a flagrant attack on constitutionally protected speech and association. They signal George W. Bush's strategy to make national security a centerpiece of his election campaign, and send a blunt message that dissent will not be tolerated. Bush also likely seeks to intimidate Democrats and shore up his Republican base in Iowa, which he lost in the 2000 election by a slim margin.

Served on February 3 by a Polk County deputy sheriff who works with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the subpoenas ordered Drake University to turn over documents relating to a November National Lawyers Guild conference. The conference presented nonviolence training for people planning to demonstrate the next day at an anti-war rally at the Iowa National Guard headquarters. Twelve protestors were arrested at the peaceful rally titled, "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!"

These subpoenas requested the agenda and purpose of the meeting, the identities of attendees and Guild officers, and observations of campus security. The individuals served with subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq in 2002.

The U.S. Attorney's office said that the sole intent of the subpoenas was to gather information about a solitary demonstrator who scaled a fence on federal property on a different day than the anti-war conference/training. Why then did the government issue five subpoenas calling for information about peaceful activists and the National Lawyers Guild? Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was right when he said, "I don't like the smell of it…It reminds me too much of Vietnam when war protestors were rounded up, when grand juries were convened to investigate people who were protesting the war."

The gag order slapped on Drake employees before the subpoenas were withdrawn confirms the government's intention to conduct its witch hunt in secrecy. John Ashcroft, traveling the country to drum up support for the USA PATRIOT Act, claimed it was not intended to authorize political surveillance of lawful dissent. Yet the Act lowered standards for government surveillance and created a crime of "domestic terrorism," which Ashcroft will likely use to target other organizations that criticize government policies.

This is not the first time the National Lawyers Guild's support of activism has made it a government target. In the 1950s, Guild members were subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee for defending people accused of associating with communists during the McCarthy era.

Years later, the Guild filed a lawsuit against the FBI for unlawful surveillance. The FBI had put agents in Guild meetings, wiretapped lawyers' offices and homes, and built dossiers on those perceived as critical of governmental policies. In 1989, the FBI finally admitted it had tried to disrupt the Guild even though it had no proof the Guild was a subversive organization.

After the Iowa subpoenas were withdrawn, Guild President Michael Avery said, "The government was forced to back down in this case and it shows that people can and should stand up to the government when it is abusing its powers … the American people cherish their right of free expression and the right of political groups to dissent from government policies."

The National Lawyers Guild is calling for congressional hearings to determine the extent to which the government is gathering information on student political groups. In the face of Bush's request that Congress make the PATRIOT Act permanent, we call on Congress to sunset the PATRIOT Act now.

Read on >>