Bush League Justice

Bush League Justice is a series (airing Monday-Thursday at 9 pm on MSNBC) that stems from my increasing frustration and outrage over how the Bush administration has politicized the usually apolitical Justice Department. In the process, it has significantly abused its authority to try to enhance power at the expense of any sense of objective justice. Many of the administration's most controversial maneuvers have been widely reported, from the torture memos to the NSA's warrantless searches to the U.S. Attorney scandal to the appointment of only the most conservative of judges and justices.

But that is really just the tip of this administration's ongoing effort to uproot the Justice Department. As we will show the week of December 10, they have regularly circumvented Congress, and decimated some of the most fundamental and cherished principles that define justice in this country.

Maybe most egregious is the now nearly unrecognizable Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Since 1957, it has led the effort to enforce civil rights laws and the fight for minorities. Even Richard Nixon's effort to delay implementation of school desegregation, was less radical then how this president has flipped the goals and mission of the Division and allowed it to become a tool of the radical right.

Instead of pursuing cases of discrimination against African Americans, the Division under President Bush has focused on supposed reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination cases against Christians. A Boston Globe report even showed that almost half of the new hires in that department who had "civil rights experience" had "experience" only in defending employers or -- fighting -- affirmative action.

Those in the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department must really feel like they are in an upside down world. From 2001 to 2006, not one voting discrimination case was brought on behalf of African-American voters. Instead they have focused on alleged voter fraud cases that effectively target minority communities rather than protecting them.

We will also expose the president's unprecedented use and misuse of so-called signing statements; addendums he tacks on to laws when signing them. The president has effectively declared the right to disobey more than 750 laws. From the interrogation of prisoners to torture to investigations by U.S. officials in Iraq, President Bush has added a caveat that says, "I will only enforce this "if." So he is effectively telling Congress thanks for your advice on this law, but I reserve the right to ignore this law. Rather than working with Congress to pass a law that he will enforce, the president chooses to simply ignore them.

Maybe the most obvious betrayal of the public trust has been politically motivated prosecutions. A University of Minnesota study conducted this year shows that for every elected Republican investigated during this president's tenure, there were seven elected Democrats investigated. The most flagrant example may be in Alabama where the democratic former Governor was convicted in 2006 on corruption charges.

A case that led 44 former state Attorneys General, Democrats and Republicans, to complain of irregularities in the investigation and prosecution. They even said it called into "question the basic fairness that is the linchpin of our system of justice." That is hardly surprising considering that there were allegations and even witnesses who said that then-presidential advisor Karl Rove convinced the U.S. Attorney to prosecute and that the key witness made similar allegations against prominent Republicans that were never even investigated.

This series is long overdue. The scandal with the firings of the U.S. Attorneys under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales exposed the underbelly of this administration's penchant for putting politics over objectivity and qualifications. We now hope to dissect the subject more fully and help spur change as the new Attorney General Michael Mukasey tries to rebuild confidence and trust in our Justice Department.

This post first appeared on MSNBC's blog.

Comments

[mamacat]

Velcome to Amerika! Ve vill make you like it!!

[Tinksrival]

Dan,

Please tell us what you think of the Don Siegelman case.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_siegelman/

If you can shed more light on all this crap I will love you more than Keith.

Thanks,
Wendy

[FogBelter]

It makes a lot of sense that a group of criminals that seize a government, as Bush Co has, would make it their first order of business to undermine the section of the Government that would be capable of punishing them for their crimes.

It's the same as putting advocates for a given industry in charge of the Government Agency responsible for regulating it.

It's the reason that Grover Norquist wants to shrink the Federal Government to the point it could be drowned in a bathtub ... to eliminate its capacity to referee American Society ... to get in the way of Social Darwinism.

These guys are good, Dan, I think we fool ourselves if we think what is transpiring today was thought up by these miscreants on the fly ... they have wanted enhanced feudalism for a long time ... and they are getting it.

"There was latent, he thought, not far below the uneasy surface of our disrupted society, an impulse among a good many "strong" men, men used to having their way, mostly industrialists who directed affairs without being questioned, a feeling that democracy had run its course and that totalitarians had grasped the necessities of the time. People wanted strong leadership; they were sick of uncertainty, anxious for security, and willing to trade liberty for it."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt on why Douglas MacArthur was one of the most dangerous men in the US as recalled by Rexford G. Tugswell, August 1932 (Tugswell 'The Democratic Roosevelt')

We live in dangerous times Mr Abrams ... Justice may only be the first casualty.

[thepainter57]

Bush has dumbed down the DOJ and is intent on destroying the Constitution.
Look what he's done to the Supreme Court........

Won't be any justice for a while

[SimplyBilly]

Dan, I hope you include the following from Senator Whitehouse's comments:

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

[Tellmethetruth]

Biden Wants Special Counsel in Tape Case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate Democratic leader said Sunday the attorney general should appoint a special counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists. Sen. Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cited Michael Mukasey's refusal during confirmation hearings in October to describe waterboarding as torture."

Please note the reason Joe Biden wants an independent counsel to investigate is if the Department of Justice under the Attorney General Mukasey who didn't think waterboarding is torture - this would be a conflict of interest.

If congress investigates as Jay Rockefellow wants then Jay Rockefellow (Chairman of the Intelligence Committee) was briefed in 2002 on torture, has oil family interests, and the results of a Congressional Investigation is the change laws, not to hold any party legally responsible for crimes committed.

An independent counsel is independent of political interests as well as able to convict someone of crimes and have them go to jail.

Joe Biden was on ABC and is in all the major newspapers - Too bad Huffington Post is not listening to him. How many articles are on Obama and negative on Clinton today when this very important news is silenced. Hum....

Joe Biden in right again.

[mommadona]

You go, Dan.....

Let's string up those stinkin' chickens.

[Singha]

Better late than never. But...just to let you know, I won't watch your show if Cliff May or any of the other extreme right-wing/fox spews "pundits" are on. They have lack of believability
based on six years of being dead wrong.

[rh654]

I am glad that Dan's show is back on the air - I am not really too interested in these legal shows - but Dan's actually has some common sense and isn't just a shout-fest with the most extreme points of view that can be found.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Let's just call it the Department of Injustice.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Give 'em hell, Dan.

Or the Constitution.

[Balzac]

Dan, please help us put Bush behind bars.

It's the only way to protect justice in America.

[clevelandchick]

Dan,

This is what we get when people support a party that believes 'government is the problem'...they go out of their way to make government a problem. It's not incompetence or even hubris, it's the deliberate destruction of our federal goverment.

What Bush has done to the Justice Department is what he's done to every single federal agency in our government. FEMA, FMSHRC, EPA, HHS, NIH, the interior department and so on and so on.

Every person with expertise and experience in each department's jurisdiction has been driven out of every agency of our government and replaced with inexperienced political and industry cronies. Hell, now that I think of it, Bush is an inexperienced political crony.

I thank you for finally doing what the people expect of the traditional media, holding power to account. I hope you will also take the story of the Justic Department and expand to include all of the other agencies that are vital to the American people as well.

[Jim R]

Thanks for this series, Dan, I look forward to it. And thanks as well for the work you and Keith are doing to expose the the Republican takeover of our heretofore neutral justice system.

The Constitution does matter and should not be subverted by Republican thugs bent on absolute power at any cost.

[nancytheragingliberal]

Dan, This show sounds interesting. I will watch it, and hope that you have most of the American people watching too. Thanks for the Post.