Larisa Alexandrovna
Sees AG Mukasey as Obstructing Justice: A Revisit to the DOJ Partisan Prosecutions
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 5:37am. Interviews
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW Mukasey is obstructing justice, which is a crime. He can either resign if he feels that his oath of office is too cumbersome for him to adhere to, or he can be removed. Either we are a nation of laws or we are a nation without a democracy. -- Larisa Alexandrovna, Managing Investigative News Editor, Raw Story
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BuzzFlash: Larisa, you've done a tremendous job keeping light focused on the ongoing and still-existing injustices of what had become known as "Prosecutorgate," the partisan prosecutions of the Justice Department at the direction of Karl Rove. Alabama and Mississippi are two areas that you continue to spotlight. Let me first ask you: In Congressional testimony last weekend, our current Attorney General, Mr. Mukasey -- and Senator Joe Biden was quite tenacious when asked why no one will be prosecuted in the partisan hiring scandal in the Justice Department. He basically said these people have been punished enough. Two of them had left, and one of them is in a new job. Biden kept trying to nail him on this issue of the rule of law. What did you think as you were watching that?
Larisa Alexandrovna: I was not surprised by Attorney General Mukasey's take on this whole thing. But I was surprised at the level of his refusal to examine the rest of the political DoJ scandal. It's not just the hiring practices, although as we now know, that activity violated EOE laws and civil rights, to say the least.
There is a broader, wider scandal, which itself has sub-scandals. The U.S. attorneys who were not fired, for example, using their positions to be part of political campaigns and timing their prosecutions for elections, as well as cooking evidence and prosecuting people based on politics is entirely illegal and unprecedented in this country. The US Attorney scandal is just one sub-scandal in the larger politicized DoJ scandal.
So there was this whole slew of things. But I was not surprised at his refusal to honor his oath of office. That behavior has become a hallmark of the Bush administration. Where I was surprised was that he was so dismissive and so publicly contemptuous in front of Congress.
We can definitely thank Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein for helping put this man into his office, because I don't think that without them, he would have been confirmed.BuzzFlash: Of course, it has gone way beyond Prosecutorgate. on several fronts he has fallen short, including enforcing subpoenas from Congress.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Yes, that's another thing. From my vantage point he sort of looks like a “cleaner” coming into tidy things up, as the Bush administration is about to leave office. Not enforcing something as basic Congressional subpoenas, that is pretty brazen.
BuzzFlash: He's not very different from Gonzales in terms of protecting the administration.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Unlike Gonzales, Mukasey is incredibly intelligent. Gonzales refused to answer questions as well or just played stupid and MIA when it came to his job. But at least he appeared somewhat respectful of the other branch of government -– Congress -– during his questioning. Mukasey, on the other hand, reminds me of David Addington, Cheney’s Chief of Staff, who appeared before Congress and behaved with total contempt, as though he had better things to do and they were annoying him. Mukasey’s behavior is what fully surprised me.
BuzzFlash: This is not a minor case, but Mukasey dismissed it as though he thought these were minor indiscretions.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Well, if they can all use that kind of excuse, then the American people should be able to use it as well.
We are talking about government officials breaking the law, committing perjury, and abusing the power of their office. To say that they have suffered enough or that somehow a bit of good old fashioned embarrassment is enough punishment is astonishing.
Next time any American is indicted for perjury (to name but one of the alleged crimes committed by Monica Goodling, for example) they can all just say, “Hey, we have been embarrassed, so that will be our punishment.”
Mukasey has a choice to make. If he is not comfortable upholding his oath of office, then he should resign. But if he continues to hold this office and continues with these shenanigans, then he is obstructing justice and that is a crime too.
BuzzFlash: The Washington Post adopted the Justice Department spin on this. Their headline, basically was that Mukasey was offering a magnanimous gesture to re-interview anyone who had been turned down for partisan purposes.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Has everyone lost their minds?BuzzFlash: What was so ridiculous about the Washington Post headline was that Mukasey didn't talk about dismissing any of the people who were put into place for partisan purposes. They just talked about the PR spin, which the mainstream press let him get away with -- that he was kind of being a nice guy. He "rectified" the problem by re-interviewing these people, and if there were positions available. Of course, there would be plenty of positions available if he fired the people that were hired for partisan reasons.
Larisa Alexandrovna: That's right. You also have to remember one very important thing, and I don't think anybody thinks to about this in the broader sense.
The political hiring was not just in the Department of Justice. These sort of loyalists, or as they call themselves “loyal Bushies” were placed in all sorts of agencies and in all sorts of positions. That should be the primary concern. Who are these people? What is their skill-set, other than being experienced “loyal Bushies?” What have they been doing with their office? We don’t know who these people are, where in government they are, and what types of damage their inexperience, or worse, their politics have caused. These people carry over into the next administration, because these are professional positions.How can the public trust any part of this government when, for example, something as basic as the independence of law enforcement is compromised? And
these people carry over into future administrations, because these are professional positions.BuzzFlash: Civil service positions.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right. They are not traditionally political appointments. Although now there is no difference, and that is the problem. I agree that if you fire the people who need to be fired, there would be plenty of positions left for the qualified candidates. But again, I point to Schumer and Feinstein. I think it's up to them at this point to rectify the monster that they created by forcing the Mukasey nomination through.
BuzzFlash: Schumer and Feinstein have been missing in action in terms of being accountable for Mukasey. They've just sort of faded away, as if they're thinking, we got that wrong, but we're not going to say anything about it.
Larisa Alexandrovna: The public can say and should say something about it. Your readership, for example, can call their Representatives and Senators and demand that they push the Senate Judiciary Committee to remove Mukasey. He can be impeached.
BuzzFlash: Rove keeps wiggling out of the issue of the subpoena. Again, Mukasey is obstructing justice in not supporting the subpoena for the Congress. Even Judge Bates, whom we've criticized in the past and who is a George Bush appointee -- he approved the subpoenas for Harriet Meyers and Josh Bolton. Now they're just running out the clock.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Mukasey is obstructing justice, which is a crime. He can either resign if he feels that his oath of office is too cumbersome for him to adhere to, or he can be removed. Either we are a nation of laws or we are a nation without a democracy.BuzzFlash: Again, Judge Bates made some very partisan decisions in the beginning. For him to side with Congress is all the more compelling, given how partisan Bates had been earlier in his short career on the federal bench as a George Bush appointee.
But a lot of people get confused about contempt and Congress' capability to actually arrest Karl Rove and hold him in a basement room of the Capitol. Who would do that? It is within the power of Congress to issue a charge of inherent contempt and to have the Capitol police go and arrest Rove. But, realistically, this is not going to happen. No one's going to turn a room in the basement of the Congress into a holding cell for Karl Rove.
Larisa Alexandrovna: The other option is to impeach Mukasey for not enforcing the Congressional subpoena. That is obstruction of justice. Congress has the power, actually, the responsibility to investigate and call witnesses. If witnesses don’t show up, then Mukasey must bring the full force of the DoJ on them for thumbing their nose at Congress and the rule of law.But ultimately
Congress has to do something, because if they don't, then it really does not matter who wins the next election or the election after that. The damage will be so great that I cannot imagine what it would take to repair our system of government. The damage to the Constitution and to our democracy I mean. Congress can’t just abdicate without declaring that democracy is null and void.
The foundation of our very government is that we have three, co-equal branches of government that check and balance each other. When the Executive Branch has gone off into a dictatorship, can stack the courts and the US Attorneys offices against the people, and Congress does nothing, they have abdicated their duty and that is no longer a democracy. They can’t just say “Hey, let’s suspend the Constitution for now and pick it up later, under a different administration.” You can’t have a recess from the very foundation of our government because you don’t think the other team will play fairly. You adhere to the rule of law, no matter what you think the other team will do. Your job is not to calculate political risks, it is to balance and check the other branches of government. In essence, Congress becomes accessories to the various crimes after the fact. And that cannot be repaired. We are losing our democracy. Period.
BuzzFlash: They are running out the clock, too. They are saying we're doing what we need to do, but we won't push it to the limit. If Mukasey wants to go ahead and obstruct justice, we aren't going to initiate impeachment. We'll leave the status quo around. We subpoenaed these people for the record. We couldn't get them to appear because we didn't push the question.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right. That is the other issue for me. Either no one is above the law and we are a nation of laws or the contract between the governed and the government is null and void. Why should everyday Americans have to follow the law if the very people they have entrusted to create those laws, enforce those laws, and adhere to those laws are actually doing the opposite? Doesn't that open the door for anyone else to say I don't want to honor a subpoena? I realize that only a few people can make the Executive Privilege argument and the rest of us cannot. But is that not exactly the point? They seem to think they have the privilege to be above the law, no matter what the issue is.
Karl Rove says the President was not involved in the US Attorney Scandal and political prosecutions. So what privilege is he calling forth when he does not show up for a Congressional subpoena? From my vantage point, the only privilege I see is that of somehow being above the law by virtue of being in government. If Karl Rove won’t honor his subpoena, then why should anyone else honor?
BuzzFlash: That was the other part that the Washington Post completely didn't get into. The Attorney General was completely evading his responsibility in the enforcement of the rule of the law. At some point, Joe Biden just gave up. He said this makes no sense.
Larisa Alexandrovna: But here's my question. When one is a sitting Senator, especially someone with a seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, don’t they have the power to do more than just throw up their hands in frustration? I can throw up my hands in frustration because I have no power to do anything else. But these people have power, standing, and a national platform from which to express their position.
BuzzFlash: Well, we have a Constitutional crisis. This administration has gone so far as to knowingly dismiss the Constitution and the balance of powers. Cheney doesn't believe in them, and he has set the tone.
Larisa Alexandrovna: That is exactly it.
We are in a crisis while the nation holds its breath for the next administration, as though the Constitution can be temporarily suspended.
Congress appears to be compromised. That is what it looks like to me. I don’t understand why they are so willing to give up their own power, to violate their oath of office, to go against their own best interests because their constituents are not happy about these choices. That to me indicates that there is some sort of corruption that is beyond just party politics. It is systemic.much, much more at:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/124
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