Stench of Corruption
Using the Justice Department for political purposes, rather than actually fighting crime and corruption is a horrendous waste of resources and is despicable to its core. It has been interesting to see where the current hearings on the attorney purge have taken us, especially with the newest revelation that senior level Justice Department official Monica Goodling will be pleading the Fifth Amendment. Andrew Sullivan today also has a very interesting tidbit over at his site regarding the actual pattern of prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys under the Bush administration at the local levels. The partisan disparity in prosecutions at the federal and state levels are nominal, when you delve down to the local levels, you’ll see that:
…Bush Justice Department investigated elected Democratic office holders and office seekers locally (non-state-wide and non federal offices) at a rate more than seven times greater (nearly 85 percent to 12 percent) than they investigated local Republican elected office holders and seekers.
Very interesting.
Now I’m not certain if you’re aware of this, but when the PATRIOT Act was up for reauthorization last year, there was a little provision snuck in that had:
…language that changed the way U.S. attorneys would be appointed if their predecessors were removed in the middle of their term. Under the old regime, interim U.S. attorneys needed to be confirmed by the Senate after 120 days. If they weren’t, federal district judges could select their replacement. The new language removed both judicial and congressional oversight of the interim U.S. attorneys, letting DOJ anoint them indefinitely. This served three important goals: consolidating presidential power, diminishing oversight, and ensuring that “interim” prosecutors had permanent jobs.
This was snuck in by Brett Tolman, who I will assume is a partisan Bush hack as he is sneaking things into legislation and who is now the U.S. Attorney for Utah. [Incidentally, Rove protege Tim Griffin help develop plans to have US Attorney Bud Cummins in Arkansas fired, then he himself was installed, thanks to the above mentioned provision installed into the reauthorized PATRIOT Act. This allows hack Griffin to stay on as USA indefinitely.]
Sneaking language into legislation before it is voted on would seem to me to be a crime, but I couldn’t really tell you. In the bigger scheme of things, this is deceit passed from the Executive Branch, through the Legislature and ultimately effects us. My question is, what else has gone on in the PATRIOT Act that we may be only remotely aware of? What other deceit exists because of this legislation that few of our elected representatives failed to read?
Of course there are the big ones, like the above mentioned attorney purge, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, torture (waterboarding), illegal spying on Americans and many more. What is in there that we aren’t aware of? That we haven’t studied the effects? I’d love to see bloggers tear the PATRIOT Act to shreds and really get into it, compare it next to what we’ve witnessed and try and shake out some tidbits we’ve missed.
“Sneaking language into legislation before it is voted on would seem to me to be a crime”
No, I’m pretty sure it’s just the way things are done, and not just at the federal level. State legislatures are just as poisoned.
Comment by Ross Karchner — March 27, 2007 @ 9:41 pm
What’s the point of have both Houses agree to it if it’s going to be changed at the last minute. I can’t argue that this is news to me but what’s the legality of this? What’s the protocol? Couldn’t someone just about slip anything in they wanted to?
Comment by Scott — March 28, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
After some admittedly shallow research, my hunch is that it happens in conference committee. In theory, their job is to reconcile the differences between a bill as it passed in the house and how it was changed by the senate, but when a single party controls both chambers it can essentially do what it wants.
Comment by Ross Karchner — April 1, 2007 @ 8:51 pm