Two Troubled Institutions

by emptywheel

I'm with Atrios. I'm pretty appalled that Jay Carney just doesn't understand the danger of an Administration that can fire Prosecutors without cause.

Jay Carney would have us believe that an attempt to stack the US Attorney roster with loyal Republican hacks is all very innocent, and he seems not to understand what a patronage system is. It isn't simply handing out goodies to supporters because of past service, it's a system of putting loyalists into positions of power to reduce the possibility that, say, they might investigate you and increase the possibility they might investigate your political opposition.

But I'd go further. Carney seems to believe that it is inconceivable for a Prosecutor appointed by BushCo to then investigate things that would harm BushCo--and therefore be canned to prevent embarrassment or worse.

It is also true that all of the USA's who have resigned, whether forced out or not, were appointed by Bush. In other words, if this is a massacre, it's auto-genocide.

I've got four words for Carney: Patrick Fitzgerald. Carol Lam.

The sacking of Carol Lam is pretty clearly an attempt to abort investigations into people like Jerry Lewis and Brent Wilkes.That investigation threatened to expose the whole Military-Industrial GOP Gravy Train, if not worse things. That investigation may well have exposed the corrupt foundations of GOP power.

But apparently Carney is comfortable if that all remains hidden.

In the context of the Libby trial, I've been obsessing lately about the corruption of two institutions that , together, should form the cornerstone of our nation's greatness: the independent press and the independent judiciary. In the Bush Administration, these corrupted institutions have been set against each other, with each attacking the other, thereby distracting from the their own problems. It has always seemed to me that, if it weren't for the corruption of both institutions, debates about press freedom wouldn't be so difficult. In other words, the press really ought to be more concerned about the independence of the judiciary because it's a quick way to address its own concerns.

But with Carney's post is a remarkable example of "auto-genocide" of transparency, the national media laughing off a troubling blow to our nation's independent judiciary. Wow.

Comments

[smiley]

Multiple choice question: when the Executive fires law enforcement officials becuase they are conducting politically inconvenient investigations, is it

(a) abuse of power
(b) obstruction of justice
(c) a violation of the oath of office
(d) an impeachable offense
(e) all of the above

[Carolyn in Baltimore]

'e' of course. But what else would you expect from this gang?

[viget]

Exactly, they've done this before with the USA in Guam/CNMI who was investigating the Jack Abramoff connections. They got away with it then, what makes you think that they won't get away with it again?

[Canuck Stuck in Muck]

Re: GOP operatives as USAs.
If Ashcroft had to recuse himself in the Plame/Wilson investigation for having too close a relationship to one of the possible perpetrators, i.e. Rove, why can't we bring a similar argument to put pressure on the goon who'll be given Lam's position, assuming, of course that the replacement has GOP written all over her? And, if the new kid is clean, we have nothing to worry about!
Start worrying.

[Mimikatz]

Well, not only the potential for abuse which you mention, but the chief drawback with a patronage system is that incompetent hacks are put in important positions, and then there isn't adequate foresight and planning, problems aren't properly addressed (or even addressed at all), and emergencies are botched beyond belief. Can you say Katrina, Iraq, Coalition Provisional Authority, Homelanmd Security in general, etc.

Rather the story of the Bush Administration in a nutshell.

OT, listening to Fed Chairman Bernancke testifying before the Senate Budget Committee this morning I was struck by just how truly stupid some of the GOP Senators (Allard, Bunning) are compared with ours (Conrad, Sanders, Cardin, Whitehouse). We've got some real winners in the new class.

[Dismayed]

There are flawed people, then there are criminal sociopaths. Nixon was flawed these guys are criminal sociopaths. I have just been stunned at the level of detachment they with which they orchestrate and cover their crimes. No so different than addicts, they want what they want, they'll do anything to get it, and the lie pathologically to avoid or even face any sort of responsibility. Whoever is running this machine truly is the evil that lurks in the night.

[John Lopresti]

This is an interesting story, ew. My impression is it is a segment of a strategy; I saved two article links to related items. Add Ryan to Lam in CA; Ryan is the northern district federal prosecutor. I need to read more to see how Patriot has bearing on this DoJ replacement policy; here is another related article about a speech of AG's at AE Institute, dated two days ago. I think it likely more people than AG are designing the replacements and allied shifts in strategy. Look at this fairly innocuous review of the effects of bringing wiretap suits under the FISA court's purview; as one commenter observed downthread there, removing some cases to a different venue long has been a strategy of this administration rather than face opposition in a court such as A.Diggs Taylor's, one of the suits likely affected if the administration simply opts out; though, on that specific matter Vernon Walker's many packets of related cases might be interesting to watch; I believe it begins to unfold again this month. All this is a little older news than the story you are following here; there was the withdrawal of several rerenominations in early January 2007, given the prospects in the new Democratic Party majority congress. And I keep remembering the various drafts of modernizing FISA which all seemed to award AG the sole discretion to sign off on what goes to FISA, though now that appears little variant from the usual paperwork process given the ostensibly renewed channel of directing most of those subpoena requests to FISC. Then there is the issue of the NS letters in lieu of accessing FISC. I think the administration's renovated policies, however, go beyond these most controversial applications, extending more toward the kind of retrenchment of the administration's A3 two year plan, which Neas reported Cheney espousing two weeks ago.

[PrahaPartizan]

What an interesting analogy? Actually, it's not auto suicide (isn't that redundant, by the way). Suicide would be the administration depleting its staff under its own command, thereby withering away. In fact, what we've got is a cancer on the administration, because they are appointing copies of the people already in power. In other words, they're metastasizing their own cells within the government. That's cancer. We should thank Carney for bringing up the concept. John Dean would love it.