Two media statements released from members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee indicate that subpoenas will soon be issued in the matter of the allegedly coerced firings of U.S. Attorneys in the Department of Justice. A vote will take place tomorrow in the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law on whether to issue the subpoenas to Justice Dept. officials Carol Lam, David Iglesias, H.E. Cummins, III, and John McKay to compel them to appear before a subcommittee hearing next week.
As well, The BRAD BLOG has learned the Judiciary Committee will also hold hearings next week on matters related to “Election Reform and Irregularities.”
According to a Committee staffer, “subpoenas will be issued” tomorrow in the U.S. Attorney matter. If so, it would be the first time the Democrats have exercised their newly-gained subpoena power since wresting control of Congress from Republicans…
RAW STORY has posted a media release, announcing tomorrow’s meeting and next week’s hearing on the DoJ firings, from subcommittee chairwoman, Linda T. Sánchez (D-CA).
Further, The BRAD BLOG has since received an official statement from House Judiciary chairman John Conyers (posted in full below), which further indicates the likelihood of subpoenas.
Conyers expressed outrage over allegations that former U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias was fired after allegedly refusing to capitulate to political pressure from higher-ups. Iglesias has charged that he had refused “to provide information on the status of a federal investigation” under DoJ pressure to “speed it up to help Republicans fare better in the November elections,” according to the Conyers release.
“This is the most egregious allegation so far that the Administration has allowed partisan politics to corrupt the selection and retention of U.S. Attorneys,” said Conyers. “Worse, it appears to be part of a pattern of partisan activity in this area and should be unacceptable to anyone concerned about a fair and efficient criminal justice system.”
“The Judiciary Committee is committed to getting to the bottom of this and bringing checks and balances back to the federal justice system,” he said.
“We need to get to the bottom of whether competency in upholding the law is being sacrificed for political ideology,” Sánchez added in the release from Conyers’ office.
As well, The BRAD BLOG has learned that hearings will be held next Wednesday, March 7th, by the full Judiciary Committee on election reform and irregularities in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office building. (It’s been pointed out to us that that is not the basement, but rather the main Judiciary Committee hearing room!)
Topics for that hearing, according to our source, will have to do with deceptive practices as revealed during recent elections. Such practices include the systematic dissemination of false information such as incorrect election dates and polling locations, threatening information about arrests of voters, intimidation at the polling place, harassment, as well as misleading and repeated “robocalls” as was reported across the country during the 2006 election cycle.
UPDATE 3/1/07: As reported above, the committee has today voted to issue the subpoenas. Details, statement from Democrats…
John Conyers’ full statement on the U.S. attorney hearings, and the possibility of subpoenas, follows below…
For Immediate Release: February 28 , 2007
React to Former U.S. Attorney’s Allegations
(Washington, DC) – Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. and Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez released the following statements in response to U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias’ allegations that he was fired because he refused to give in to political pressure. Specifically, Iglesias charged that he was asked to provide information on the status of a federal investigation and pressured to speed it up to help Republicans fare better in the November elections.
Judiciary Chairman Conyers said: “This is the most egregious allegation so far that the Administration has allowed partisan politics to corrupt the selection and retention of U.S. Attorneys. Worse, it appears to be part of a pattern of of partisan activity in this area and should be unacceptable to anyone concerned about a fair and efficient criminal justice system. The Judiciary Committee is committed to getting to the bottom of this and bringing checks and balances back to the federal justice system.”
Chairwoman Sánchez said: ” We need to get to the bottom of whether competency in upholding the law is being sacrificed for political ideology,” said Congresswoman Linda Sánchez, Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. “For this reason we’ll be meeting tomorrow to vote on issuing subpoenas to the fired U.S. Attorneys so that we can discover the true motivation behind their dismissal.”
Sanchez’s Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee plans to issue subpoenas for former U.S. Attorneys Iglesias, Carol Lam, H.E. Cummins, III, and John McKay to appear at a hearing next Tuesday, March 6.
It’s about time…and not a moment too soon. If congress can’t get their balls together to stop this war, at least Conyers is spearheading a movement to get to accountability for an entirely corrupted election system. Kudos to him and boy are his constituents luckly to have him as a Rep. I’m a bit envious, our Rep from Mass is fairly dull.
Ah, so THIS is what oversight looks like!
Conyers is onto a big one there. Gonzales must be crapping his shorts!
Looks like they’re going to ignore the voting machines again, but I hope they go after Laura Ingraham.
It has been less than two months since “wresting control of Congress from Republicans” 🙂 … actually Brad, the story line goes “the people gave congress back to the democrats because they were pissed off at the republicans”.
But as we know, that assumes that the elections can be determined with accuracy. I still maintain that our elections are faith based, because we have so many cases where the election machines are untrustworthy.
Nevertheless, it is good to see congress cranking up. The pattern looks like it will be an ongoing ramp up until we have everyone realizing there is a constitutional crisis because the regime will not listen to congress or the people.
A double impeachment of Cheney and Bush, a firing of the cabinet, and then a real American government is the story of dreams. Good dreams.
Yet the senate majority is being used by Lieberman to extort power for himself, as he wonders out loud if he should turn republican and give senate control back to the republicans. Wow, what kind of man would sell power to profit himself to the futher demise of the nation?
Judas Iscariot comes to mind.
If the Republicans still had the majority in the House and Senate, none of this would be happening. They would be rubber-stamping the demise of our country, like they did for 6 years.
The Republican Party is responsible for the condition of our country right now.
The media is controlled by the GOP…why else would William Kristol and Newt Gingrich constantly be in the news, when we didn’t elect them to anything??? And NOT elected officials Bernie Sanders, John Conyers, Maxine Waters, etc…they are blacked out of the controlled mainstream media.
Here’s an example:
http://www.rawstory.com/showart...rc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nypost.com%2Fseven%2F03012007%2Fnews%2Fnationalnews%2Fnewt_rips_nasty_hill_nationalnews_maggie_haberman.htm
Who even cares what New Gingrich thinks of Hillary Clinton? Rupert Murdoch’s NYPost does, though. They would rather have a headline about a “former” elected Republican official, than a PRESENT Democrat official!!!
Why are William Kristol and Newt Gingrich shoved down our throats by the CMSM??????????????????????
At lunch, on my radio, guess what Limbaugh was talking about? My comment #5: Newt Gingrich bashes Hillary Clinton in the NYPost. So, the Corporate Noise Machine newspaper sets ’em up, and the Corporate Noise Machine radio show knocks ’em down!!! The coordinated Corporate Noise Machine! The NYPost, as in “Surrender Monkey”‘s headline, owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Limbaugh: “Did you see the headlines in the NYPost, how Newt Gingrich ripped Hillary a new one?”
Problem: The NYPost is not a real newspaper, and Limbaugh is not a real unbiased news radio show. It’s an coordinated “infomercial”!!!
Do WE care what a former Republican congressman from over a decage ago, THINKS???????????? And especially, about Hillary Clinton?????????
So, NYPost & Limbaugh, what are William Kristol’s latest revelations, too? Another person we did not elect to a single thing…EVER!!! But who’s always on ANBCBSNNX, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc…..
The people we want and need to see are on Democracy NOW! on LINK-TV & Free Speech TV. We will see: Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich, Ray McGovern, George McGovern, Seymour Hersh, Chalmers Johnson, former detainees from Guatanamo, Gitmo, and Abu Ghraib, Lynne Stewart…they’re all LINING UP to get on Democracy NOW!
They KNOW they are blacked out of ANBCBSNNX, even though a lot of them are elected Democrats. They’ll show Newt Gingrich and William Kristol, though…ONE point of view, and it’s not OUR point of view!!!
Laura Bush will say, “The liberals and the liberal media make you think things aren’t going well in Iraq…just because they show the 185 bombs a day going off, on TV…”
Everybody can have their own ideas on why they were fired. But the fact that all of the replacements are whitehouse cronies should tell you something.
The Los Angeles Times ran a story titled, “A Donor Who Had Big Allies” – Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2006 By Richard A. Serrano and Stephen Braun, Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion..
In key aspects, the Hurwitz case follows the pattern of the Abramoff scandal: members of Congress using their offices to do favors for a politically well-connected individual who, in turn, supplies them with campaign funds.
Pacific Lumber (owned by Charles Hurwitz) financed a recall campaign against the Humboldt District Attorney (G1) after the D.A. filed “fraud charges” against Pacific Lumber. You would think that there would be laws against that ? So what are Campaign Contribution Laws, anyway ? Another story documents break in’s at the DA’s home (G2). It has been estimated that Pacific Lumber has made millions of dollars from fraudulently harvested trees. Activists that were trying to document some of this were charged with “trespassing” in what have become known as the S.L.A.P.P. Lawsuits. David “Gypsy” Chain was murdered while documenting crimes of fraud that amount to RICO violations that has brought illegal profits to Pacific Lumber in the millions of dollars There is no way that anyone could say that the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office is not under undo influence or ” impartial” not to prosecute the Pacific Lumber Company for the “reckless homicide” of David “Gypsy” Chain. We even suggested allowing the logger that dropped the tree that killed Gypsy (after threatening to do so and video taped) immunity from criminal charges in exchange for testimony against Pacific Lumber. That would cinch the case against Pacific Lumber, but the District Attorney does not want to discuss it (as of yet, no response). So far, the California Attorney Generals Office has refused to even investigate a homicide complaint that I filed (hrm49) against the Pacific Lumber Co. Two of the responses are scanned and posted at reference (hrm4). See the attached news stories. Reference material: http://www.angelfire.com/hi/sob.../Gypsyref.html Regard, The Toxic Reverend No More Red Collar Crime Homicide Charges For Corporations http://www.angelfire.com/nm/redcollarcrime.
FBI Witch Hunt
Abuse of the judicial system and Grand Juriaies
http://www.fbiwitchhunt.com/