Paul Krugman: Department of Injustice

Paul Krugman looks at The Gonzales Eight and the larger issues surrounding the scandal:

Department of Injustice, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued [subpoenas] two months before the 2006 election — and the ... news ... was quickly leaked to local news media.

The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat ... facing a close race at the time... Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.

Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible. ... Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.

For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales... [I]t’s already clear that he ... dismiss[ed] all eight prosecutors for political reasons... In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.

The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled ... investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs ... under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”

And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: “In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.”

Fortunately, Mr. Rove’s smear-and-fear tactics fell short last November. ...[W]ithout Democrats in control of Congress, ... the prosecutor purge would probably have ... never became front-page news.

Before the midterm election, I wrote that what the election was really about could be summed up in two words: subpoena power. Well, the Democrats now have that power, and the hearings on the prosecutor purge look like the shape of things to come.

In the months ahead, we’ll hear a lot about what’s really been going on these past six years. And I predict that we’ll learn about abuses of power that would have made Richard Nixon green with envy.

Update: More from Krugman - this is a transcript of his recent speech at the Economic Policy Institute A History of America's Disappearing Middle Class [Here's the video - the introduction is at 4:30, the speech begins at 6:45.]

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Previous (3/5) column: Paul Krugman: Valor and Squalor
Next (3/12) column: Paul Krugman: Overblown Personnel Matters

Comments

[calmo]

Good thing Krugman is here to remind us that the election results were about corruption [not about a war, (also with corrupt originations as the Libby trial illustrates to anyone interested) going badly] in this administration, because the rest of the MSM doesn't seem to be able to remember this...being shameless about their own continuing role in this corruption.

[maria]

There was a vigorous discussion between Scarborough and Buchanan this evening on the former's show about whether Bush or the Democrats would "win" on the issue of forcing Bush to call the troops home from Iraq. B. thought Bush could "win" by vetoing any bills to that end that the Democrats presented. I finally came to the conclusion that the Democrats need to proceed to impeachment as soon as possible. That really is the only way to stop this idiot from continuing to fly in the face of overwhelming public opinion. Stop the silly dancing around with him, and Cheney, and start impeachment proceedings now against both. But do the Democrats have the guts? ????

[anon]

I agree with maria. The only hope of salvaging the Iraqi situation is to start comprehensive regional negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, and others. Bush won't do that. In fact, horrifyingly, the Bush warnuts are apparently trying to stall the postive results of the recent Iranian-Saudi negotiations. As long as this madness continues the only alternatives are disastrous stay-the-course and disastrous withdrawal with a little pointless hoping for the best.

So, anything, like the unfolding US Attorney scandals, that gets some impeachment and removal action going on Cheney, and then Bush, is a positive step. Then sane people can take over. Impeach Cheney, tell Bush to appoint Hagel as VP, otherwise Bush gets trial in US and the Hague following his removal from office. After Hagel is VP, then Bush steps down.

Hagel is as conservative as they come, and all talk and no action against Busn, but will negotiate which is only hope for an halfway decent solution to the Iraq mess. Then I think Hagel is history, since the criminally minded bloodthirsty and truly depraved Bushmaniac warmonger wingnutosphere will never forgive Hagel for showing us all how idiotic and criminal the Bush administration was. So Hagel will lose in 2008.

That is the only non-nightmare scenario I can think off. Not the best, but beggars are not chooser and we are all beggars now.

[calmo]

~30% approval ratings... if that were to sink to the point where say Olbermann was joined by a few other voices from the media, I think there would be no hesitation with impeachment proceedings. But as it stands now the press has an opportunity to misbehave and depict the Dems as disorganized, incompetent and without leadership.
So it looks like we wait for Waxman to uncover the rest of the corruption and hope that is sufficient to unseat the media support for this administration.
We wait for more deaths because there is not enough support for an impeachment thanks to a GOP centric media.

[Bruce Wilder]

PK: "For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales... "

DS&JC: ". . . under the radar of a diligent national press."

Media Matters, Wednesday, March 7: "NBC's and ABC's nightly news programs have yet to cover the controversy over the Bush administration's dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, despite considerable congressional attention to the issue, including hearings begun on March 6.

MM, con't: "On March 6, in addition to covering the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, events in Iraq, and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, ABC also reported on the rising popularity of "purity balls," a "new ritual aimed at encouraging girls and young women to abstain from sex until marriage," which is "on the cutting edge of a grassroots Christian movement," and reported on a Wikipedia online encyclopedia editor who, as an ABC News online article reported, "forged his credentials and faked having a doctorate." NBC also covered Libby, Iraq, and Walter Reed, and additionally reported on a book deal signed by Jenna Bush, President Bush's daughter."

If you really want to depress yourself, take note of the Whitewater Journamalism rearing its head, with "gotcha stories without the gotcha" appearing about Edwards, Obama and Clinton.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10149.html

So, Krugman, notwithstanding, this matter is not getting the kind of press, which has real political effects. Should it?

I think it should. Krugman tells us about the politics, but not the Constitutional implications.

Mark Kleiman presented the kind of analysis, which highlights the really important aspect of this "scandal" -- and the general threat to the Constitution presented by the Bush Presidency:

"It's important not to romanticize U.S. Attorney "independence." U.S.A.'s are and always have always been patronage appointees of the Senators of the President's party from their home states, and frequently harbor political ambitions that may lead them to spare the guilty to accumulate favors or (like Rudy Giuliani) indict the innocent to make headlines.

"But historically they have been, once appointed, isolated from short-term political pressure. The Senators who chose them couldn't fire them, and the President who nominally appointed them couldn't replace them with his own creatures because the Senate would refuse to confirm anyone who didn't get a "green slip" from the relevant Senator or Senators. That was, and is, a practically important protection against tyranny.

"With career prosecutors at Main Justice and semi-independent U.S. Attorneys, a President has, until now, lacked the capacity to order a political opponent indicted or the case against a supporter or contributor quashed. The Bush purge changes that. Any actual conservative would be appalled; the silence from the Right is, therefore, rather deafening.

"Those are the real stakes in the Bush Administration's purge of United States Attorneys. And that's the context in which we ought to judge the sequence of events, and of explanations."

Before anyone buys into the "routine personnel matters" explanation presented by the Attorney General, they really ought to factor in the fact that Republicans had the foresight to insert a change of law, which give the Attorney-General the authority to replace these dismissed U.S. Attorneys with "interim" appointees, without the advice and consent of the Senate. Somebody thought ahead, and planned this very carefully.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/opinion/08thu1.html?ex=1331010000&en=6bf7c64883c8834b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

March 8, 2007

The Gonzales Eight

Americans often suspect that their political leaders are arrogant and out of touch. But even then it is nearly impossible to fathom what self-delusion could have convinced Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico that he had a right to call a federal prosecutor at home and question him about a politically sensitive investigation.

That disturbing tale is one of several revealed this week in Congressional hearings called to look into the firing of eight United States attorneys. The hearings left little doubt that the Bush administration had all eight — an unprecedented number — ousted for political reasons. But it points to even wider abuse; prosecutors suggest that three Republican members of Congress may have tried to pressure the attorneys into doing their political bidding.

It already seemed clear that the Bush administration's purge had trampled on prosecutorial independence. Now Congress and the Justice Department need to investigate possible ethics violations, and perhaps illegality. Two of the fired prosecutors testified that they had been dismissed after resisting what they suspected were importunings to use their offices to help Republicans win elections. A third described what may have been a threat of retaliation if he talked publicly about his firing.

David Iglesias, who was removed as the United States attorney in Albuquerque, said that he was first contacted before last fall's election by Representative Heather Wilson, Republican of New Mexico. Ms. Wilson, who was in a tough re-election fight, asked about sealed indictments — criminal charges that are not public.

Two weeks later, he said, he got a call from Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, asking whether he intended to indict Democrats before the election in a high-profile corruption case. When Mr. Iglesias said no, he said, Mr. Domenici replied that he was very sorry to hear it, and the line went dead. Mr. Iglesias said he'd felt "sick." Within six weeks, he was fired. Ms. Wilson and Mr. Domenici both deny that they had tried to exert pressure.

John McKay of Seattle testified that the chief of staff for Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, called to ask whether he intended to investigate the 2004 governor's race, which a Democrat won after two recounts. Mr. McKay says that when he went to the White House later to discuss a possible judicial nomination (which he did not get), he was told of concerns about how he'd handled the election. H. E. Cummins, a fired prosecutor from Arkansas, said that a Justice Department official, in what appeared to be a warning, said that if he kept talking about his firing, the department would release negative information about him....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/opinion/l09krugman.html

Our Squalid Government

To the Editor:

“Valor and Squalor,” by Paul Krugman:

I feel that I’m staring into a bottomless pit. Is there no end to the scandals contrived by the Bush administration?

Shortchanging the wounded veterans who sacrificed in President Bush’s senseless war should be the nadir — but is it? I hesitate to pick up tomorrow’s newspaper.

Lois Taylor
Old Greenwich, Conn., March 5, 2007

[reason]

As a foreigner, I find this particular aspect of the US hard to follow. Why does the system allow the public service to be politicised. The issue is not that it shouldn't be done, it is that is can be. In writing their constitutions most other countries saw the danger in this. I'm puzzled that their isn't a call for constitutional amendments. You identify a constitutional crisis, but refuse to see that the problem lies in the constitution.

The referee has to be impartial.

[enna]

reason -

Haven't you figured out that as much as Right Wing blowhards talk about how "great" America is, it's actually a much worse place to live than many, many others because of these people?

[Thomas Shafovaloff]

I think that the N.Y. Times editorial writers love to write about the obvious. An in depth article would discuss the results of using political influence during the last Presidential election.
For instance: Was the timing of the Plame coverup accomplished to avoid a cumulative amount of embarassing news from cauing a presidential reelection upset when it was apparent that it was going to be a close race? Was the report on the misspent billions for Iraq reconstruction delayed for the same reason? Did John Negroponte and Sentator Stevens conspire with the White House to delay the completed report from becoming public to influence the election?
When is your discussion going to reach the real and direct harm caused by the present administration using misinformation and censorship about an ongoing war for purely political purposes. And....When is the press going to follow up on the Bush assertion that violence was increasing in Iraq just before the election to influence the election outcome and "we will see if it is getting worse if it quiets down afterwards" when we will know that the terrorists were trying to play elecion politics from Iraq? Like in the Rose Garden, when asked by the press about his WMD information and the response "I have the information but I just can't show you the cards" when is the press going to follow up... or are you still prostrate for what Bush tells you to publish?

Thomas E. Shafovaloff
Winter Park, Florida
407-733-3689

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/opinion/07weds1.html?ex=1330923600&en=d00612b8b4046322&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

March 7, 2007

A Libby Verdict

There will be a great deal written and said in coming days about the frustrations of the Scooter Libby verdict — that it did not tell us whether someone deliberately blew Valerie Plame Wilson's cover or erase serious concerns about the prosecutor's abuse of the First Amendment. Let's focus first on what the verdict does say.

One of the most senior officials in the White House, Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was caught lying to the F.B.I. He appears to have been trying to cover up a smear campaign that was orchestrated by his boss against the first person to unmask one of the many untruths that President Bush used to justify invading Iraq. He was charged with those crimes, defended by the best lawyers he could get, tried in an open courtroom and convicted of serious felonies. Mr. Libby walked freely out of the court, had his say in public and will be allowed to appeal.

It was another reminder of how precious the American judicial system is, at a time when it is under serious attack from the same administration Mr. Libby served. That administration is systematically denying the right of counsel, the right to evidence and even the right to be tried to scores of prisoners who may have committed no crimes at all.

And although we still do not know the answer to the original mystery, the case provided a look at the methodical way that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Libby, Karl Rove and others in the Bush inner circle set out to discredit Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson, a career diplomat, was sent by the State Department in 2002 to check out a British intelligence report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the government of Niger for a secret nuclear weapons program. In his 2003 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In July 2003, Mr. Wilson wrote in an Op-Ed article in The Times that what he had found did not support that claim. The specter of a nuclear-armed Iraq was central to Mr. Bush's case for rushing to war. So, the trial testimony showed, Mr. Cheney orchestrated an assault on Mr. Wilson's credibility with the help of Mr. Libby and others....

[save_the_rustbelt]

If the stats on local corruption include Chicago, there may be as many as 100 or so in that batch alone.

The Chicago Tribune has a columnist who writes 3 times week on local corruption, and never runs out of materials. Neither does Fitzgerald.

Politicians are political - stunning news.

And I still can barely wait until 01/20/09.

[anne]

Yes; the New York Times has it right on the "Gonzales Eight" and the "Libby Verdict," and remembering the tragedy of neglectful care for rehabilitating soldiers at Walter Reed hospital, not to mention the on-going occupation of Iraq which are are being told will be on-going through 2008, this has been a sad week indeed.

There is more....

[anne]

Notice the new Republican cry is they all do it all the time, always have and always do and always will especially Democrats. But, no, Republicans have controlled the Administration and Congress these last years and it was Republicans who subverted American law and fairness and tradition over and over again. Yes; it has been Republicans.

Yes; it was Republicans who ordered Alaskan federal biologists not to speak of the plight of polar bears. Not Democrats, but Republicans.

[calmo]

Welcome back enna.

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

With respect to impeachment: Someone said, If you plot to kill the king you must kill him. Same goes for impeachment. If you start you must finish with removal from office. If you can't do that you may have strengthened the kings hand.
I don't think the dems have the power to get to removal.

[kthomas]

Dilbert-

They do have the power. They just just don't have the spine.

[maria]

I think impeachment even without a Senate conviction would stop Bush in his tracks. I think it would take the wind out of his sails and be worth it in every possible way. It would occupy the White House with his defense and keep it from inventing new war initiatives. It would say "the country is deadly serious about all this and it's time to call a halt to your stupid war". Clinton was damaged by impeachment without conviction even though he was popular with the public throughout. Bush is NOT popular.

[Lafayette]

“Meanwhile: Revisiting the French guru of American democracy”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/09/opinion/edjohnson

[ken melvin]

Congressman Obey on YouTube. Worth the look.
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/09/scooter-libby-is-not-a-good-man-and-other-thoughts/

[Jenna's Bush]

Worst. President. EVER.

[mrrunangun]

Out here in Illinois when the Republican Party was a going concern, it was usual for the US attorney to be a local boy and part of his job was to do for his party. Jim Thompson was US attorney here for Nixon and made his bones as a corruption fighter by putting former Democratic Governor Otto Kerner in jail. That got him elected Governor. His predecessor had been a Democrat [don't recall the name] and had put former Republican Governor William Stratton in the dock, but failed to convict. More recently, Clinton's US attorney Scott Lazar initiated the prosecution of Former Republican Governor George Ryan, but Thompson's firm was defending Ryan and stalled things out long enough for Patrick Fitzgerald to come in with Bush's election. Illinois Republicans were horrified by Fitzgerald's failure to do the usual thing and drop the Ryan prosecution. [Some hereabouts suspect local Republicans pushed Fitzgerald's appointment as special prosecutor in the Libby case to get him out of Illinois]. He instead finished the job and convicted Ryan, who is now appealing. This back-and-forth stuff has been customary in Illinois for over forty years now and is seen here as no big deal. With the collapse of the Republican party in Illinois over the past two elections, there will be few left for the Democratic US attorney to prosecute after the next election. Isn't it like this everywhere where there is a two-party state?

[Lafayette]

maria: "Bush is NOT popular."

Maria, you are the mistress of understatement ....

But, please explain that at their nadir, both Clinton and Bush were detested with a vehemence rarely seen.

Clinton for his dalliances and Bush for his obtuse incompetence. These are almost opposites in terms of reasons for disliking a PotUS.

Yet, both have generated an unusual rancor from the body politic.

[lonesome moderate]

I think impeachment even without a Senate conviction would stop Bush in his tracks. I think it would take the wind out of his sails and be worth it in every possible way. It would occupy the White House with his defense and keep it from inventing new war initiatives.

On the contrary, their first response to impeachment talk would be to do precisely that, if they had any options at all in that regard. I can't imagine them intentionally letting our guard down to enable a new terrorist attack, but they're certainly capable of, say, "unwisely" picking a fight with Musharraf that leads to war. This would, of course, be "in response to congressional pressure"--they need only do incompetently what Congressional Democrats are already pushing them to do.

[lonesome moderate]

The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

Seven times as many Democrats were prosecuted as Republicans, but if you adjust for the fact that there are slightly more Democrats holding office, then it works out to Dems being about six times more likely to face prosecution.

[lonesome moderate]

Here's the link to the original study from Shields and Cragan: http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/2007/Table%204Calculations.pdf.

[piglet]

reason is right, and as usual, nobody is listening. You can't have the government nominate judges and expect the judiciary to be impartial. You can't have party politicians oversee elections and expect elections to be fair and square. Etc. etc. You have to fix the system.

[anne]

Reason:

"As a foreigner, I find this particular aspect of the US hard to follow. Why does the system allow the public service to be politicised."

I took this to mean the civil service; which has been significantly taken from and protected from the political system. Am I not understanding?

[anne]

Piglet:

"You can't have the government nominate judges and expect the judiciary to be impartial."

I do not understand how judges are to be slected then other than election. I do not understand what this means?