Attorney-gate: Act XIV- Four Flavors.

This act opens with Our Brave Attorney General having a limited amount of time before he 'retires to spend more time with his family'.

The evidence mounts and mounts and MOUNTS some more that the firings were completely politically motivated and had nothing to do with real performance.

The NY Times brings us the four flavors of legal jeopardy (borrowed from John.)

1. Misrepresentations to Congress. The relevant provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1505, is very broad. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and also to “impede” it in getting information. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty indicated to Congress that the White House’s involvement in firing the United States attorneys was minimal, something that Justice Department e-mail messages suggest to be untrue.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made his own dubious assertion to Congress: “I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons.”

[...] 2. Calling the Prosecutors. As part of the Sarbanes-Oxley reforms, Congress passed an extremely broad obstruction of justice provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1512©, which applies to anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,” including U.S. attorney investigations.

[...] 3. Witness Tampering. 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (b) makes it illegal to intimidate Congressional witnesses. Michael Elston, Mr. McNulty’s chief of staff, contacted one of the fired attorneys, H. E. Cummins, and suggested, according to Mr. Cummins, that if he kept speaking out, there would be retaliation. Mr. Cummins took the call as a threat, and sent an e-mail message to other fired prosecutors warning them of it. Several of them told Congress that if Mr. Elston had placed a similar call to one of their witnesses in a criminal case, they would have opened an investigation of it.

[...]4. Firing the Attorneys. United States attorneys can be fired whenever a president wants, but not, as § 1512© puts it, to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding.

John goes on to explain just how the DoJ got into this sort of mess, and he also gives us the proper response to it.

Instead Gonzales and his appointees merely acted as if the law (or at least the less obvious laws) didn’t exist. So in a sense it may be perfectly true that they have no real idea what kind of trouble they’re in. Try to understand if my first reaction is to point and laugh.

Yes, I understand completely and agree.