Shocking Result In Dannehy US Attorney Purgegate Scandal!

As several folks have noticed in comments, the results are in from the Nick and Nora Dannehy DOJ investigation into the US Attorney firings by the Bush/Cheney Administration. And, shockingly, the Obama/Holder Department of Justice just cannot find any conduct, not one single instance, worthy of criminal prosecution.

From the official six page letter from DOJ Main’s AAG, Ronald Welch, making the belated and pitiful report to Judiciary Chairman John Conyers,

This supplements our earlier response to your letter of October 2, 2008, which requested information about the appointment of Assistant United States Attorney Nora R. Dannehy of the District of Connecticut to detennine if criminal charges are warranted based on certain findings in the public report of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) (collectively OIG/OPR) entitled “An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006” (Report). We are sending identical responses to the other Members who joined in your letter to us. As more fully explained below, Ms. Dannehy has detennined that no criminal charges are warranted with respect to this matter.

…..

In closing, it is important to emphasize that Attorney General Holder is committed to ensuring that partisan political considerations play no role in the law enforcement decisions of the Department. In this instance, Ms. Dannehy, a long time career prosecutor, was asked only to assess the possible criminality of the actions described in the OIG/OPR report, to conduct such additional investigation as necessary to make that assessment, and to determine whether anyone made prosecutable false statements to Congress or OIG/OPR. The Attorney General appreciates the work of Ms. Dannehy and her investigative team and has accepted her recommendation that criminal prosecution is not warranted.

The Attorney General remains deeply dismayed by the OIG/OPR findings related to politicization of the Department’s actions, and has taken steps to ensure those mistakes will not be repeated. The Attorney General also appreciates the work of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility on this matter.

We hope that this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact this office if we can provide additional assistance regarding this or any other matter.

The whole letter is here and speaks for itself if you care to read it.

This is entirely what anybody with a lick of sense should have expected from the forward looking modus operandi of the Obama Administration. The one note I would make is that Dannehy’s “investigation” was never a full fledged inquiry into the entire matter; the focus was set at, and remained, on David Iglesias’ complaint, which was not phrased all that compellingly by Iglesias to start with, and was further muddled by the antics of Scott Bloch. Little but lip service was given to the remainder of the sordid picture of Purgegate. You might remember Scott Bloch, the “professional” Iglesias was so sure would do the right thing and get to the bottom of the abuse engendered upon Iglesias.

In other news, the Obama/Holder DOJ recently announced they have no problem with Scott Bloch getting off with probation on his criminal plea of guilt.

The Obama White House loves tidy little packages, and they have clearly wrapped one up here. Any more questions about how the big John Durham “preliminary review” will come out?

Coming late in the day (h/t Fatster) is the somewhat weak and ineffectual response from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers. Acceptance and resignation continue to rule the day. Every day.

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  1. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Keep the likker cabinet full. Mr. and Mrs. Charles can go through a dozen martinis in the time it takes to read this comment.

    Lawyers are loathe to investigate themselves (as are medical doctors, accountants, etc.). Mr. Obama is taking that pre-existing tendency to new heights, as well. He is acting as if he were the head of Goldman Scratch who had just been put in charge of the SEC.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        At least Asta figured out that when his mate had a litter, and half of them were black and white, while he and his mate were both white, that the black scottie next door had been paying house calls and he promptly plugged the hole under the fence.

        This White House is plugging the wrong holes and leaving others wide open. The political tone deafness doesn’t appear in Obama’s speeches, but it shouts in his actions.

        • Gitcheegumee says:

          Ergo,

          “I can’t hear what you’re saying because your actions are shouting so loudly!”

  2. Gitcheegumee says:

    The Obama White House loves tidy little packages, and they have clearly wrapped one up here. Any more questions about how the big John Durham “preliminary review” will come out…bmaz

    Tidy little packages of “Bull Durham”.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      That’s supposed to refer to justice not being swayed by power or poverty. But your implication seems more accurate in describing the Bush Obama DoJ.

    • bmaz says:

      Gee, how will we all get on without him and his strong and unyielding public voice for civil liberties he exercised while at OLC?

      • wohjr says:

        seriously. If he turns back up on Balkanization I have some tart words for him

        edit: and a flaming bag of poop for his doorstep

  3. pmorlan says:

    I laughed when I read this post bmaz. I just posted over at the MSNBC website about this same issue and I too talked about looking forward, not backward. LOL

    I’m not surprised by the findings of this “investigation”. After all this administration has made it quite clear that they don’t do looking backwards…they only look forward unless, of course, you happen to be a whistleblower. If you’re a whistleblower they can find all kinds of prosecutable crimes to nail you.

    I hope our MSM will at least try to find out who was questioned and what they said. Or is this another story where we just take the word of our government without question?

    • Leen says:

      Excuse me but how the fuck do they expect the peasants to believe this “no one is above the law” horseshit?

  4. fatster says:

    For those interested in refreshing their memory, here is the 2008 report which resulted in today’s fig-leaf. It’s the
    report, “An Investigation into The Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006”, US DOJ Office of the Inspector General and US DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, September 2008.

  5. JasonLeopold says:

    Iglesias sent me a comment on the conclusion of the probe:

    “I’m glad the matter is finally over. I’m gratified the Justice Department took the matter seriously enough to appoint an experienced corruption prosecutor to investigate. I will not second guess her findings. I hope this scandal prevents future administrations and political leaders from attempting to politicize U.S. Attorneys.”

    • bmaz says:

      Arrrggghh. A milquetoast coda by Iglesias to a milquetoast complaint by Iglesias. I am starting to admire Breitbart, at least the fucker has some balls. Nobody else associated with the public governmental discourse seems to.

      • Gitcheegumee says:

        I have not yet reached the precarious precipice of admiring Black Bart,however, I did post this just a short while ago on another thread:

        WHY isn’t the NAACP and OTHERS using this opportunity to lambast Breitbart and Fox and NYT about the railroading of ACORN with those edited pimp and ho tapes ,resulting in Congressional approval and imprimatur,to defund ACORN?

    • spanishinquisition says:

      Was this guy such a pushover when Bush was President? Rahm is certainly getting one huge army of eunichs.

    • Mary says:

      That’s pretty funny – was there other context to indicate he was being sarcastic?

      No one has ever nailed down the Process (and by statute, there had to be a process that involved the President) of the firings. No investigation into whether statutes were complied with for the firings. No investigation into the completely opposed statements of the Bush WH (first, that he had nothing to do with the firings – followed later by assertionst that the USAs served at his will *implying, although he was NEVER asked about this, that he fired them and lied in his earlier statements that he wasn’t involved at all*)

      Misleading statements, no action, no review that isn’t inhoused and by someone who, as we find out from Jay Bybee’s transcript, works for an agency devoted to protecting the President’s power to ignore law – – no consequences – yeah, it will really deter future admins (like the one that is setting up assassination teams throughout the world with orders to kill Americans).

      I do think God has a sense of irony, though. While Iglesias is making sure that lots of people who were purchased in human trafficking transactions and who have been experimented on and treated with ongoing depravity get no actual legal review – his own complaint gets kicked to the curb. The difference, of course, being that he played ball with Obama so he’s got a job, paycheck and prestige out of it to offset any tingles that may accompany what he’s doing to justice and law and even to individuals and their families.

      **************

      From this story

      http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hp36_X1zSuiVBA_CQYRQ3hZavmtQD9H3L04O0

      I have to admit I don’t remember hearing that Harriet Miers had testified to the HJC that Karl Rove

      was “very agitated” over Iglesias “and wanted something done about it

      I musta missed that – since Karl had been removing himself from any involvement.

      But yeah, Iglesias is so right – after Fitzgerald letting him walk after fibs and wrong doing and Dannehy letting him walk after fibs and wrongdoing, Karl is going to be soooooooooo deterred in the future.

      Like totally.

  6. spanishinquisition says:

    The Attorney General remains deeply dismayed by the OIG/OPR findings related to politicization of the Department’s actions, and has taken steps to ensure those mistakes will not be repeated.

    Attorney General Holder did a wonderful job preventing Sherrod from being fired. Oh wait, Holder was nowhere to be found and the Obama administration fired Sherrod without even letting her defend herself.

    • bmaz says:

      Hey, I will actually defend Holder there. The backstabbing and gutting of Sherrod by the Administration occurred at such light speed that there literally was not time for Holder to have been involved from what I can see. I have little for Eric Holder, but I don’t think you can pin any of the Sherrod injustice on him.

      • spanishinquisition says:

        I really don’t buy that Holder was out of the loop given how that Breitbart explicitly called out Holder in regards to Sherrod. If the Obama administration’s reaction to having their Attorney General called out was to keep Holder in the dark (along with Holder’s own responsibility to keep himself in the know when he’s being called out) in response to the situation, we are all doomed.

        • bmaz says:

          That was pretty much after the fact and in relation to the phony New Black Panthers bullshit justification Breitbart posed as a justification for posting the video; it was not about Sherrod personally.

      • tjbs says:

        Hold your Holder defense until we see who was arguing for and against Sherrod in a reported White House meeting discussing how to handle the FU.

        And a special shout out to single bullet arline, for slipping language into the Patriot Act to allow the 8 replacements without senate confirmation because of the terror we live with.

  7. fatster says:

    Interesting how the focus was placed on Iglesias and didn’t include the others, such as Carol Lam and McKay. (In McKay’s case, I never have understood how the murder of Tom Wales kind of fell by the wayside.)

  8. eCAHNomics says:

    I still think that Breitbart is a false flag op of the O admin. Everybody in O admin knew their script too well, too soon, on all Breitbart’s ops for it to have been anything else.

    • Kelly Canfield says:

      When you first started saying that I thought “she is over the top.”

      But thinking about it, I realized there’s a big Obama actor/influencer with hardly any ink/fonts spilled about him.

      Sunstein.

      His “nudge” theory and “cognitive infiltration” theory are applicable with the political cover for moving the Admin to the business oriented right, while pretending “progressive” victories in legislation.

      • eCAHNomics says:

        Jest tryin’ to get to the bottom of it. Keep posting the comment in the hopes of feedback, pro or con. The more I think about it inside my own head, without external feedback, the more sense it makes. But I welcome opposition.

        You are smart to bring up Sunstein. He would certainly be in favor of using this kind of op to influence ordinary folks.

        • spanishinquisition says:

          I’m split on it being a false flag as this damages Obama. Then again this could be like forged Bush National Guard records – the whole situation causes damages to the admin, but not as much damage compared to doing nothing. If this was to distract from the Dana Priest articles, the pluses might outweigh the minuses. I’m also very wary of Sunstein.

          • eCAHNomics says:

            Righto. Sherrod damage will blow over. In a couple of weeks no one will remember who she is. But if Priest’s work had gotten traction, much worse damage. The other element of my false flag hypothesis is that that O really really wants to get rid of peeps like Sherrod in favor of peeps who favor PTB and NEVER give heartfelt speeches.

    • TarheelDem says:

      There’s that eleven-dimension chess again.

      Cynicism and lying certainly create a vast hall of mirrors.

  9. Bluetoe2 says:

    Move along. “Nothing to see here” is the MO of this craven administration. The people demand the rule of law and Obama would let the lawless run rampant. He is not deserving of reelection in 2012.

  10. Mary says:

    BTW – along with my other b*tching about the investigations not done, I always think of McNulty on this topic and how he got by with so much and hasn’t had to ever face up to anything, but then that always takes me to the MUCH WORSER situation of McNulty and the criminal investigation referrals to his ED VA guys whose cooperation seemingly helped walk him into the DAG slot (I mean, the fact that they were willing to go so much lower than Chertoff is pretty eye opening) and how they were all one big happy family when it came to the destruction of evidence with DOJ’s knowledge that was relevant in and subject to production orders in multiple pending cases.

    No one has ever investigated any of that – bc that wouldn’t be the touchy feely crap of what kind of opinion was being written. And the courts have just run up the flag and surrendered themselves to Exec branch lying lawyers.

    • eCAHNomics says:

      But there’s a backstory to all of this. WHY? What is the ultimate game being played or the ultimate goal of policy? Replacing USAAttys and not investigating it is just the beginning of the exercise. There’s something much bigger that this kind of behavior will allow in the future. “They” know what it is. It’s up to us to figure out what “they” know. That’s what’s to focus on.

      • Gitcheegumee says:

        I am not Karnak, but the timing of the Sherrod debacle ceratinly deflected the WaPoo trilogy on “government by contractors”.

        • eCAHNomics says:

          That’s one of the elements that immediately made me think of shiny objects. After all, Breitbart could have done his Sherrod hatchet job anytime. The video is what, 24 years old?

            • eCAHNomics says:

              Correction noted. But I think that does not damage my point. The original incident was very old; the fact that she talked about it more recently, was caught on video, could be edited to advantage…

          • Gitcheegumee says:

            ecahn, is Sherrod from Alabama? Or is it Georgia? Anyone?

            UPDATE: I looked it up-it’s Georgia.

            (Bet Vilsack’s got Georgia on his mind a lot,here lately.)

            • eCAHNomics says:

              Seems from GA, according to my google. Why? (My cursor is suffering a nervous breakdown, otherwise I’d try to link.)

              • Gitcheegumee says:

                Apparently Anderson Cooper is going to devote his programming tonite to eviscerating Breitbart.

                Payback’s a bitch.

                As to your question WHY did I ask about Sherrod’s provenance, I was wondering if there was pushback from some politico or big AG corporation not in favor of her appointment-perhaps she would be too independent to toe the line?

                Jus’ sayin’.

            • fatster says:

              The family she was helping in that incident, the Spooners, live “one hour south of Americus”, if I heard them correctly on the video. Americus is just a hop, skip and jump from Plains. LINK. And, of course, you do know Plains.

    • bmaz says:

      @33 and @36 – Yes; of course. I was just too tired to ramble on about all that rot yet again. It is like the question of destruction of evidence regarding the abu-Zubaydah and al-Nashiri torture tapes. Of course it is criminal destruction; those two detainees had a right to preservation. The rest is gravy. Never mentioned. By anyone. WTF is up with that? Same deal with what you just laid out (and have in the past). The most patently obvious criminality is not just blithely discarded, it is completely ignored as if it does not exist. Kind of amazing. But, hey, we got the best and brightest of the shining star of the American Justice System, the DOJ, on the job so…..

      • JasonLeopold says:

        The most patently obvious criminality is not just blithely discarded, it is completely ignored as if it does not exist.

        Just thought this deserved to be repeated

  11. Mary says:

    Geez bmaz, reading the letter just makes it worse. I’ve got a bad back and making my head spin like that is kind mean.

    Holder and Dannehy have said –
    1. We aren’t gonna investigate anything but Iglesias and we aren’t saying why (The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of
    Iglesias.) WHAT EVIDENCE? They freakin didn’t expand the scope of the investigation to see what evidence there was, then they oh well, we don’t have any of the evidence we didn’t look for so we shouldn’t look for it since we don’t have it … whatever.

    2. Hey, yeah, Domenici DID make a contact to smack on Iglesias about the handling of a matter currenting in front of the USA’s office but, “The evidence about the call developed in the course of Ms. Dannehy’s investigation, however, was insufficient to establish an attempt to pressure Mr. Iglesias to accelerate his charging decisions.”

    3. Instead of trying influence Iglesias, they think that Domenici *just* got him fired for not pursuing political bias in his prosecutions “The weight of the evidence established not an attempt to influence but rather an attempt to remove David Iglesias from office, in other words, to eliminate the possibility of any future action or inaction by him.”

    4. This, they say, is fine and hunky dory. Seriously. They say both that it is no problem for politicians to get DOJ lawyers fired for not being political lapdogs and then finish up by saying, “In closing, it is important to emphasize that Attorney General Holder is committed to ensuring that partisan political considerations play no role in the law enforcement decisions of the Department” and (bc that wasn’t really the closing after all) “The Attorney General remains deeply dismayed by the OIG/OPR findings related to politicization of the Department’s actions, and has taken steps to ensure those mistakes will not be repeated.”

    HUH – they’ve just said it is perfectly legal for politicians to get USAs who won’t do their bidding fired by covert contacts wtih the WH, but they are “committed” to ensuring partisan political considerations play no role? WTH?

    5. Anyway, the pull all of this off by giving a Bybee-esque review of “18 U.S.C. § 1503 [that] punishes anyone [at least, anyone the DOJ selectively decides to prosecute] who ‘corruptly . . . influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice.” Because, you see, Domenici didn’t try to “influence” Iglesias, he just got him removed. Which obviously isn’t an attempt to obstruct or impede. Like, ya know, if there was this witness to your criminal act, and you didn’t try to make them change their testimony, you just made them disappear – that kind of thing. Impede, obstruct, torture, etc. What a crew.

    Complete non-sequitor, but related in my mind after I finished working through the Bybee transcript – what he touted as great legal research into whether or not drowning and reviving someone who is not able to resist is torture or not, is looking for cases that have the word “waterboard” in them. Interestingly, he has these huge gaps in his memory over things like how the WH instead of CIA came to be the “client” for the CIC can torture at will memo, and yet he specifically remembers the lexis searches run for cases.

    Somehow the statements in the letter to Conyers – that DOJ can’t figure out how it might obstruct or impede how justice is being administered to let “home party” Senators get USA who won’t follow their agenda fired – brought me back to that. I guess since Domenici didn’t use the word “obstruct” or “impede” they must be right. After all, I’ve learned that cases involving the DOJ prosecuting people for drowning and reviving someone who is not able to resist are irrelevant to a memo on torture by using a waterboard to drwon and revive someone who is not able to resist, bc of the failure of those cases to use the word “waterboard”

    “…it is a case we might have used if we had seen it, but it does not use the word ‘waterboard.’ In fact, we could only find — we actually looked in the databases to see if we could find the term ‘waterboard’ any place in U.S. cases and we couldn’t find anything …”

    Heaven forbid that any of these people should get a lesson in alternative search terms or even just watch The Princess Bride some evening.

    • fatster says:

      Politics trumps. IANAL, as you well know, but that’s what I got from the Dannehy wrap-up and, from what you just wrote, it seems I’m not that far off. (Or, if I am, please correct me. Thnx.)

      • Mary says:

        I’d say a letter that lays out it is ok for a Senator to covertly arrange to have a USA who isn’t following his political agenda fired, bc that isn’t “influencing” the USA’s handling of the case, it’s just removing him from handling the case – I’d say it’s either politics or pharmaceuticals that gets you there.

        • PJEvans says:

          I’m wondering whether the pharmaceuticals are being used by the politician, by the administrator being asked, or by the poor USA who’s going to get fired for, y’know, actually doing the job they’re being paid to do. (And what kind, and how much, and who’s paying whom for them.)

          Because otherwise I’m liable to take my pitchfork and start driving toward DC.

  12. Gitcheegumee says:

    Bmaz and Mary,

    Would Ms. Sherrod have legal grounds for wrongful termination of her employment ?

    • Mary says:

      You’ve got me – I know nada about gov employment and her status (is she and appointee or career?) etc.

      I’d be wondering a bit, too, about possiblities in another area that isn’t my field, libel law. It actually would be nicer to make the case for that kind of suit to have some actual damages to show through something like being fired, even if it was temporary.

  13. dustbunny44 says:

    My mind boggles thinking that competent independent USA’s can be replaced by political hacks with law degrees, interrupting prosecutions in progress, and for lying reasons, with none of it prosecutable.

    Our country is doomed! (pass the beer)

  14. bluewombat says:

    Any more questions about how the big John Durham “preliminary review” will come out?

    None from this quarter. What’s the early morning line as to when he’ll be delivering his whitewash?

  15. Mary says:

    I’m trying to picture this –

    “Your honor, I really didn’t like what prosecutor was doing with my case. Don’t worry – I haven’t tried to influence him – I’ve just had him removed.”

    • fatster says:

      There ya go. That’ll work–apparently from here on out since we now know that it’s not prosecutable, but just politics.

      • Mary says:

        And for example, if you’re Karl Rove and watching Fitzgerald with Libby and you’re worried about your repeated grand jury fibs, you do NOT try to influence Fitzgerald. You just get Bush to fire him – which could even be done just by changing the scope of his authority, and could all be done in private, with no notice to Congress or the anyone else.

        DOJ has just said that would be “ok” as long as Rove didn’t try to influence Fitzgerald first. Not that it happened, but one more reason for me to get so pissed that, in all the investigations no one on HJC or SJC ever just flat out asked for the record about any modifcations of his authorizations or whether or not any of his charging decisions were overriden etc. Even with his letter to them, saying that his appointment was really independent in fact but merely set up to give the perception of independence and reiterating that he could have his mandate withdrawn or modified at any time and without any notice to them or anyone else.

        I hate it when such loose ends get left dangling, whether they are worth anything or not.

  16. DWBartoo says:

    What is the point of having power if something so mundane and pedestrian as the law can trip one up?

    There are court houses in the land that require anyone possessing a gun to check one at the “gun room”, then, having done so, such a person is excused from further scrutiny, the inconvenience of going through the “line” and having to empty their pockets, apparently, such persons are beyond suspicion … of any kind.

    Oddly enough, politicians all seem to be above suspicion, and operate, they will tell us, from the purest notions imaginable …

    Like Obama, all politicians award themselves B pluses and know which side their butt is breaded on.

    Some day, we must muse upon those things which have convinced the judiciary to go along …

    DW

  17. rosalind says:

    ot: for those in need of good news, via LATimes – A bag and a trap. Oil spill invention is a keeper

    “…when Matherne learned of the runaway BP oil leak, he considered it a personal challenge. He drove to a hardware store, bought some window screens and PVC pipe, and began to tinker. The result is the first device that, according to BP engineers and Coast Guard officials, promises a faster, cheaper and more efficient way to remove spilled oil than traditional skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Matherne’s apparatus looks like a trash bag in a big crab trap, but it works like a sieve to snag sludge and oil while seawater passes through.”

  18. PJEvans says:

    Why am I not surprised by the results of whatever investigation they’ve been pretending to do?
    (Because a real investigation would have produced actual results with actual consequences for the people who decided to purge uncooperative or honest USAs. Therefore this was not a real investigation, just an exercise in making someone feel good.)

  19. Petrocelli says:

    *Pant* *Wheeze* *Gasp* … I came running with an X-tra Large Pitcher of Chocolate Martinis … hope y’all are still here …

  20. Mary says:

    Btw – how come the letter to Conyers doesn’t even mention the possible wire fraud issue (or McNulty)?

    From an old story, when Dems were still trying to pretend they were goign to be worth something, despite their nothingness from 2006-2008

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27011195/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

    In their 358-page report, internal Justice Department investigators said the lack of cooperation by senior White House and Justice Department officials left gaps in their findings.

    “Serious allegations involving potential criminal conduct have not been fully investigated or resolved,” the report said, listing lying to investigators, obstruction of justice and wire fraud among the potential felony crimes.

    The report by Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility Director Marshall Jarrett described Gonzales and McNulty as “remarkably disengaged” from the process that led to the dismissal of the prosecutors.

    • Mary says:

      You tie it in with Lederman leaving (not that it necessarily does tie in) and you might get the feeling that the people who want to be actively involved in Obama’s assassination programs are dwindling and they had to go get someone who was already known to be on board with bombing babies and bad guy maybees to keep the program going.

      Seriously – after his castigations of Yoo, Lederman has sat through being a part of an OLC that signs off on assassinations of Americans. He must be so proud.

  21. Gitcheegumee says:

    AP: Homeland Security’s probes of people requesting info were …Jul 21, 2010 … dhslogo AP: Homeland Securitys probes of people requesting info were political. WASHINGTON — For at least a year, the Homeland Security …

    rawstory.com/rs/2010/0721/dhs-probes-people-info-political/ – 4 hours ago

    Political filter being applied to FOIA info requests | dailyrecord …Jul 21, 2010 … Career employees were ordered to provide Secretary Janet Napolitano’s political staff with information about the people who asked for records — such as …. Homeland Security rescinded the rule requiring prior political approval earlier … NJ, NY senators seek probe into alleged BP-Lockerbie link …

    http://www.dailyrecord.com/…/Political+filter+being+applied+to+FOIA+info+requests+ – 10 hours ago

    NOTE: I wish I had seen this when Shorrock was here earlier.

    ~~~Link broken, could not repair.~~~

  22. klynn says:

    First,

    Happy Birthday fatster! Have a great 69th!

    I am sorry I missed the party last night bmaz. I have no idea what hospitalities you were passing out, but Mary was spot on and at the height of her snarkiness. I must write that your post did do a great job of drawing the best out of everyone! Thanks for a great post.

    Mary,

    Btw – how come the letter to Conyers doesn’t even mention the possible wire fraud issue (or McNulty)?
    From an old story, when Dems were still trying to pretend they were goign to be worth something, despite their nothingness from 2006-2008

    That comment could be a post.

    Thanks to all for some great reading!

  23. Leen says:

    “In closing, it is important to emphasize that Attorney General Holder is committed to ensuring that partisan political considerations play no role in the law enforcement decisions of the Department.”

    Uh why would you have to say this? I thought we are supposed to assume that. Talk about showing your cards.

    “The Attorney General remains deeply dismayed by the OIG/OPR findings related to politicization of the Department’s actions, and has taken steps to ensure those mistakes will not be repeated.”

    This is the “moving forward, turn the page, next chapter, don’t be about witch hunts, vengeance” chorus. Obama, Holder, Leahy, “no one is above the law” Pure unadulterated horseshit. Rove and team clearly are above the law

  24. harpie says:

    Thanks so much for this post, bmaz! I always miss the fun. :-/

    …hope to catch up on all the good comments sometime today, but want to add my

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and best wishes for the year ahead to dear faster!

  25. someofparts says:

    I’m currently reading a book by Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead. She talks about the way entire supporting cultural systems vanish even from public memory once they are gone. One of the cultural structures she noted the passing of was the ability/willingness of professionals to police themselves.