What About the Attorneys Who Weren’t Fired?

Arthur Davis (D-Al.) made a point at a House Judiciary Committee hearing today that’s been overlooked in the resurfacing of the fired U.S. attorney scandal: What about the federal prosecutors who weren’t ousted?

The Justice Dept. internally investigated how the White House/Justice Dept. decided which U.S. attorneys were considered More…

Judiciary Committee: Pardon For Rove a Cool Idea!

The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing now into the U.S. attorney firings. Committee members’ questions to Glenn Fine, inspector general of the Justice Dept., have centered on whether Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, former top White House counsel, will ever talk to anyone about the dismissals (they More…

Congressional Investigators to Stay the Month

As the House debates the financial bailout bill today, the House oversight committee has set five hearings in October, each on a different aspect of the financial crisis. The announcement from Rep. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.) chairman of the House oversight committee, is extraordinary because lawmakers were supposed More…

U.S. Attorneys Scandal Reignited

The controversial and complex U.S. attorneys scandal reignited Monday with the release of an internal Justice Dept. report that details how former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales turned a blind eye as his chief of staff orchestrated the unprecedented dismissal of nine federal prosecutors.

In response, Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey named More…

Miers Mark All Over U.S. Attorney Report

Poor Rep. John Conyers. The House Judiciary Committee chairman has spent more than a year trying to get Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, to testify about her role in firing U.S. Attorneys. He even won a federal civil suit that prevented Miers from invoking executive privilege. But More…

U.S. Attorney Expose Released; Mukasey Appoints Special Prosector

This can’t help Alberto Gonzales with his continued job search.

Waxman: Lehman CEO Not Cooperating With Me

As Congress and the President negotiate a gazillion dollar Wall Street bailout, the House oversight committee has launched an investigation into companies that have already failed, inlcuding investment bank Lehman Bros. But Henry Waxman, (D-Calif.) chair of the oversight committee, says that Lehman CEO Richard Fuld has not More…

Did Bush Orchestrate Ashcroft Hospital Bed Visit?

Murray Waas reports for the Atlantic that George W. Bush told Alberto Gonzales to make the now-infamous March 2004 hospital bed visit to John Ashcroft to convince the attorney general to sign off on a secret domestic surveillance program.

Immigration Court System Polticized Under Ashcroft

My story on the broken U.S. immigration court system looks at how the illegal, politicized hiring of civil servants in the Gonzales-era Justice Dept. has lead to fewer immigration judges and also judges more inclined to deport asylum seekers. But one theory by immigration law experts is that the More…

Ideology of Judges Determine Asylum Seekers’ Fate

?In August 2006, then-Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales unveiled a 22-point plan to rescue the severely strained immigration court system. Gonzales vowed to better assist and police the more than 200 U.S. immigration judges, who are civil servants in the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the More…