Mimikatz already posted Rahm’s first response to Cheney’s wicked theories that he is a branch of government unto himself. And mcjoan has posted his second response.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the followingstatement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of  theVice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. Thelegislation – the Financial Services and General GovernmentAppropriations bill — will be considered on the floor of the House ofRepresentatives next week.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legalcase, his office has no business being funded as part of the executivebranch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannotignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice Presidentshould be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the VicePresident’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I haveworked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continueto pursue this measure in the coming days."

But I’d like to call attention to the recommendation Bill Leonard made last year when wrestling with these creeps.

Furthermore, if OVP is not to be considered an entity within the executive branch, I am concerned that this could possibly impede access to classified information by OVP staff, since such access would be considered a disclosure outside the executive branch. [my emphasis]

For the record, I’ve seen Leonard speak twice. He strikes me as a diligent, frustrated straight-shooter–if this is snark, it is sawdust dry. But I think we could have some fun if we find some way to threaten those sending OVP classified information with violations of their security clearance. Think about it–they won’t be able to start their Iran war without targeting information. Condi might manage to shut down Gitmo if Cheney remains uninformed of the meetings to shut it down.

There’s the problem that, so long as Bush is willing to put up with Cheney’s little theories, executive branch agencies (the ones with all the classified info, after all) would get beat up if they refuse Cheney information. Still–it’s a worthy idea, one the bureaucrats sick of Cheney’s reign might enjoy.

At a hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this week, Thomas Heffelfinger got asked some questions about how the USA Purge related to his work–and that of Chiara, Charlton, Iglesias, McKay, and Bogden before they were fired. In his testimony, Heffelfinger noted that those USAs on NAIS who were fired were not just on the subcommittee, they were leaders on it. Of the meetings NAIS had, four of five were hosted by the fired USAs (Chiara was the only fired USA who did not host a meeting). Heffelfinger went on:

All of those five people were zealous advocates in their own districts for improving public safety in Indian Country and improving Indian Country’s role in our broader Homeland Security infrastructure. As to the specific reasons why individuals got put on that list I think you will have to ask Kyle Sampson [laughs] but it is not a mere coincidence that five of eight were leaders amongst Native American prosecutors.

You’d think that, after Heffelfinger made such a statement before Congress, someone would act on it. We may not have long to wait. From a local story on Heffelfinger’s testimony:

Heffelfinger was slated to attend a meeting at the Justice Departmenton Thursday afternoon but would not say with whom he was meeting.

And DOJ, which has given precisely no persuasive explanations for anyone (save Kevin Ryan’s) firing, wants you to know that a focus on Native American issues has nothing to do with the firing.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Heffelfinger’sassertions were false, suggesting that Heffelfinger had no evidencelinking the firings and work in Indian Country.

I say we bring back Kyle Sampson and ask him under oath!

Just a super quick comment about the new emails released today. These are all, AFAIK from a quick scan, emails listed on the list of documents not turned over. This trend has actually been true for a while–that DOJ has dribbled out documents that they said, no way, no how, they weren’t going to release. And then they release them.

What does that say about their standards for releasing documents?

And, as in the past, the release of these are tied to recent or impending events. We got a big dump of documents just before Monica Goodling testified, presumably, because she might discuss or release them herself.

So we might call this batch the Taylor, Griffin, McNulty batch. Many are emails where Taylor exhibits herself to be a big jerk among a clique of jerks. There is more detail on the Griffin nomination (it appears it came from DOJ, not Miers, as I thought, but I’ll return to this tomorrow). And there are a few comments where members of the clique attack McNulty for saying something that put DOJ in a tough spot. The release of these, then, seem to be tied to Taylor and Griffin’s recent departures and McNulty’s upcoming testimony.

And the surprise of all surprise of this dump? Harriet Miers, not the nasty clique at DOJ, was the one insisting that DOJ/WH not go negative on the fired USAs. She always was pretty cute, with her pink blog and whatnot. Which makes me wonder how much the increasing negativity against the USAs had to do with her departure at the end of January?

As with Ashcroft, I can’t believe I’m thinking that things got worse with Harriet’s departure.

Update: Just an FYI, the email on page 17–regarding whether or not Sampson would hire Iglesias–was sent to a D Higbee. Don’t know who that is, but since they’re trying to hide it, I thought I’d make sure it was public.

I haven’t read all the coverage on Goodling’s confirmation of the reason behind Thomas Heffelfinger’s appearance on the firing list. But I’ve read a lot, and I’m really amazed by the coverage of the interchange. Goodling’s response to Ellison’s question about the reasons for Heffelfinger’s appearance on the list, Goodling said:

GOODLING:There were some concerns that he spent an extraordinary amountof time as the leader of the Native American Subcommittee of the AGACand put — clearly, people thought that that was important work, but Ithink there was some concern…

Goodling doesn’t specify what the problem with Heffelfinger’s NAIS involvement might be, so it could be any of several issues, including:

• Resource issues
• Gaming issues
• Abramoff issues
• Sovereignty issues
• Cobell lawsuit
• Voting rights
• Violent crime

Yet all the reporting I’ve seen has portrayed this as a matter of Heffelfinger’s work against violent crime in the Native American community. To be fair, it is partly Heffelfinger’s fault:

When I hear some bureaucrat in Washington say I was working too hard to fight violent crime in Indian Country, I’m outraged

Still, did no one hear Ellison’s follow-up?