And Now for Some Accountability: An Open Letter to the Bicoastal Gang of Two who Confirmed Attorney General Mukasey and let the Rule of Law be Damned

"The coordinated statements released late Friday afternoon by two Democratic senators [Schumer and Feinstein] that they would break ranks and support President Bush's attorney general nominee largely muted opposition from a Democratic base that has become increasingly frustrated with Congress, activist leaders said Monday"-- Manju Raju, The Hill.com 11/06/07

"Only a strong and independent attorney general can return the Justice Department to what it once was and should always be. Under this Administration, that nominee will certainly never share our views on issues like torture and wiretapping. The best we can hope for is someone who is independent, has integrity, will put rule of law first and, above all, will clean the stench of politicization out of the Justice Department. I believe Judge Mukasey will be that type of Attorney General." -- Senator Charles Schumer, web site

"Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Friday rejected referring the House's contempt citations against President Bush's chief of staff and former counsel to a federal grand jury. Mr. Mukasey said they had committed no crime.

Mr. Mukasey said the chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, and the former counsel, Harriet E. Miers, were right in refusing to provide Congress with White House documents or to testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The department will not bring the Congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mr. Mukasey wrote to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi."- NY Times

Dear Chuck and Diane:

He "will put the rule law first and, above all, will clean the stench of politicization out of the Justice Department"! Wait a minute, what's that smell? Are you shocked, shocked that a "strong and independent Attorney General," is thumbing his nose at majority votes in congress to place Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten (and down the line Karl Rove) above the law? To think that it would come to this. Were you duped? Two smart cookies like you just never anticipated that the man who would not say whether water-boarding was torture, lest he put those who perpetrated it at risk of law, would simply decline to enforce the law when enforcing it was contrary to the wishes of his party?

Or, were your November 2007 statements disingenuous? Were there just bigger fish to fry, contributors to settle, people to protect than our poor, battered Constitution? Back in November, there was no need to confirm any Bush appointee, but you said Mukasey was better than nothing. I didn't get it. then, and I don't get it now. Is it better to now have the precedent of an attorney general can simply ignore a Congressional contempt citation because he has decided peremptorily that "no crime has been committed"--a decision apparently arrived at almost instantly, with no visible process of consultation, just Mukasey privileging his own executive branch judgment over a majority vote of the House of Representatives? I can see a downside--not only does the investigation run out the election season in the suspended animation of judicial process, but it ultimately gets decided by a court packed with administration apparachiks who are themselves the result of Senatorial consent without advice capitulations. There's an opportunity for truly lasting damage. Please explain to me why it's better than an empty post at a dysfunctional Department of Justice . Is it functioning now?

These are not rhetorical questions. This is urgent. I'm serious guys. I want an answer. Accountability starts at home. I'm waiting for your account. Were you just fooled is there something on your agenda you value more than the rule of law?

Comments

[moderationsmuse]

I would like to know how our national interest would be served by prosecuting the CIA agents who water-boarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed. What are we supposed to do? Shut down our government? Perhaps the president could have found an Attorney General who is pure. Oh, please. Like anybody George Bush would nominate was going to be acceptable. Maybe he could have nominated Mrs. Clinton. THat would have been fun. Then he could have added, "just kidding" and we could have all had a great laugh.
Perhaps the Congress could entertain you by putting Bolter and Meirs on trial, as it were -- one of those media circus events now so famous that take the place of soap operas and lead various otherwise little noticed politicians into long, sanctimonious, grandstanding little speeches that can be replayed at 6 and 11.
Yeah. God forbid, that Congress should actually do something. Like legislate. Or something.

[timm0]

Holy CRAP! Feinstein and Schumer supporting dubya????!!?!? Who'd-a thunk it...

I wonder how lieberman voted....

[Via]

Pelosi is still dodging responsible action. This lawsuit will languish until after Bush is gone. The House could slap Bolten and Miers with Inherent Contempt tomorrow morning, drag them into the House chamber with the Sgt. at Arms and put them on trial in front of the nation. This, short of an Impeachment Inquiry, is about the only thing that will put the fear of gods in George W. Bush.

[shamanbart]

I was profoundly disappointed by the Democrats when Mukasey was confirmed.

It's obvious someone is not qualified to be Attorney General when they are not able to do the primary task they are appointed to do -- identify a crime when one has been committed. It's obvious that waterboarding is a crime -- Mukasey was unable to identify it as such.

Mukasey has proven this fact true by being unwilling to prosecute Miers and Bolton for contempt of Congress. Again, not knowing or being willing ot enforce the law.

A shameful act of complicity by the Democrats

[FogBelter]

Mr. Grossman, how does one reason with the willfully blind?

I wouldn't expect a response from the Senators, the response will need to come from their constituents.

[mommadona]

"Accountability starts at home. I'm waiting for your account. Were you just fooled is there something on your agenda you value more than the rule of law?"

Let's Review:

DLC

http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/dtree/CrdR

PLUS

AIPAC =

"That's a job for the WONDER TWINS!"

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/15/dianne-feinstein-and-chuck-schumer-wonder-twins/

[OldOne]

Those are good links. Just as Pelousi and Reid did not end the war when elected, Chucky and Diane won't allow prosecution of W. We have a one party system. We are given two faces of the party, so everyone thinks there is a place they belong. When all the posturing is wiped away, we get the same results.

[PioneerKing]

Diane Pelosi?? Shouldn't that read dear Nancy (Pelosi)?

[gcg737]

Marshall's referring to Diane Feinstein, who, along with Shumer were the traitors in the Senate who approved Mukasey's appointment as Attorney General.

In addition to these two, Nancy Pelosi deserves a great deal of censure for unilaterally taking impeachment "off the table," as if this is something she or any other SERVANT of the people has the right to do without consultation with the people.

Mukasey is poison. He is, believe or not, worse that Gonzales because, unlike Gonzales, he has a brain and the wit to use it.

[OverIt]

Nancy Pelosi is in the House of Representatives. The other Senator mentioned in the article is Diane Feinstein. Not sure why that was missing. Must be a truncated article.

[aznurse]

I think he means Diane Feinstein

[Frank Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Feinstein is old and she won't run again. Schumer probably will. I will donate to any progressive candidate who runs against him, and I hope we can end his vile political career. He will never win another election, unless New York follows the lead of Connecticut and elects a traitor Democrat. If he had any honor or integrity at all, he would resign. I am angrier at Feinstein and Schumer, and at all the other fascist fellow-traveling Democrats, than I am at the nakedly fascist Republicans. The Republicans are what they are: they rubber-stamped every Decider's decision because they believed in his new (to America) form of Unitary Executive government. (Those who knew better--like Specter and Powell--are even more contemptible.) We finally regained the majority in the hopes of ending the war and restoring the democracy, and we ran into the centrist Democrat wall. Feinstein and Schumer voted to send Mukasey's nomination to the floor even though Mukasey claimed in his testimony that Bush has the right to ignore any laws he chooses to ignore in fulfilling his great responsibility to protect us. That's fascism. Feinstein and Schumer have betrayed their country.

[FullChat]

During his confirmation hearings, he didn't know if waterboarding is illegal but knew that Bush was above the law. The Dems decided to take this crook because Bush would make an appointment during the recess. Well, they kept the Senate in session anyway - to thwart Bush from doing other madness during the recess. Why didn't they just stay in session - and turn down Mukasey and others of his ilk?

[SamThornton]

Another example, as if we needed one, that the much ballyhooed differences between parties is a laughable fiction.

If we are to be brutally honest, politicians and their moneyed supporters comprise an elite class in what has become a system of government best described as a feudal oligarchy. Republican and Democratic politicians alike alternately inflame and pander to their publics for a single, shared reason: the promotion of their personal fortunes and power, us commoners be damned.

The single trapping of our so-called democracy that remains is the ballot. We've seen how the current set of contenders inflame and divide our passions and offer empty nostrums to pander to what they tell us should be our concerns. I'm sorry, it's all bullshit. The bottom line will be exactly the same, regardless of who you or I vote for or don't vote for.

So what alternative remains for us commoners?

One answer is rebellion. If our would-be leaders are in fact a pack of thieves and unindicted criminals, interested only in their own fortunes and pleasant life styles, why not elect a real pack of thieves? Why not a massive write in vote for those who are at least honest in their criminality?

I give you for the office of President of the United States, write-in candidate Charles Manson. Yes, he's a madman, but could he possibly be any worse than what we've already endured or are likely to endure with the current crop of dissembling whack jobs?

For the rest of the ticket, go to your local law enforcement agency and ask for a list of those currently serving life terms. Pick the worst and write them in for the offices of Senator and Representative. At least we'll know where they are at all times. The added advantage is that we'll also know they are incompetent crooks (they did get caught), hence, likely to do less damage than the current class of political con artist.

Just kidding, of course.

[fairwitness]

Come on--it was obvious that this is how it would go. THAT'S why so little disturbance when Mukasey was confirmed. OF COURSE Schumer and Feinstein were complicit in the farce, everyone knew (and knows) it. Few episodes of complict corruption, anong the many others we've witnessed, were more transparent. You will get no more explanatory satisfaction from them now than they provided then. To portray themselves as duped will flatter them compared to the far more insidious truth it will hide.

It will come as no surprise when, perhaps after the Bushians leave office, we find that the NSA and the Justice Dept. (ho,ho,ho.­.."justice­"--has THAT become Orwellian, or what?) have gained, through their powers of illegal surveillance combined with the endemic malevolence and dark corruption of the Bushies, secrets with which they can manipulate these and most other congresspeople. Not to mention the dictatorial powers now weilded by our naked Emperor to secretly, legally kidnap, render, torture and murder ANYONE HE CHOOSES). How else can one make sense of the wholesale capitulation and anti-Constitutional mendacity of Congress? FEAR is the order of the day, and Congress has proven that it is well aware of their vulnerability if they cross the ruthless, brutal neo-fascists they now serve.

Tha fact that senators have 6 year terms (and so can get away with--and subsequently hide and dissemble away--the most blatant malfeasance realtively easily) has become a millstone around the neck of a drowning democracy.

Schumer and Feinstein were merely that day's enablers, that day's quota of corruption.

[DemandTruth]

You're right. Except for one point. I don't believe we will EVER "find" evidence of the criminal, thuggish, lawbreaking of which you speak. The information will be forever sealed, or erased, or there will be a mysterious fire. We'll NEVER know the extent to which this criminal Administration flouted the law, abused their authority and their positions to corrupt every arm, every branch, every position of the government. I mean - you're right. They did. They have. We'll just NEVER know how much. Not even close.

Seriously, they've been illegally wiretapping us (and who knows who else - EVERY Democratic Representative perhaps? how would we find out? what could we do?) for more than half a year BEFORE 9/11.

We KNOW they weren't looking for warnings about possible terrorist attacks. They already had those. PLENTY of those warnings, which were credible and LEGALLY obtained, and urgent.

Which they chose to ignore, dismiss, and cover up. So WHAT were they listening for?

We figured out the answer to that question about 1 month after the Democrats regained Congress. Didn't we?

[OldOne]

A very good article. Schumer, Feinstein, Bayh - Democrats who voted for Muck Casey. Should all be voted out of office.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Strong! Very Strong!

The President saying "I believe that the Executive Branch trumps the rest of the government" becomes prespumtively the law until a Court intervenes AGAIN to say that the system of checks and balances written into the Constitution demands that Congress be given unfettered control over the oversight function? Yes, all of the players up there are thoroughly versed in these basics and act in violation only conscisously and calculatedly.

The impasse we are at was not only predictable, but inevitable to all informed observers, including Shumer and Feinstein. They knew it, wanted what they wanted more than they valued their Oath, and challenged, and still do, anyone to prove to them that they are wrong to view themselves as "mini deciders".

Here two who clearly will, if a successful Primary challenge is mounted against them, pull a Lieberman. Democrats unless and until a successful Third Party run is required to keep their seats, and then "Independent".

[jmpurser]

Thank you. I wish we had a few more of these calls to accountability after the facts are in.

By the by, Senators Obama, Clinton, Dodd, and Biden skipped out on his confirmation vote. Let's remember those who refused to stand up and be counted today as well.

[Liberal2]

"[because in Mukasey's] opinion no crime has been committed..." No, the truth is far worse. Mukasey's opinion is that a [rethug] president is incapable of a criminal act: If Nixon ordered a burglary, the burglary is then by definition a legal act; if Bush orders Congress be abolished, then the House and Senate must go; if Bush orders an end to elections, his coronation is Tuesday.