This whole debaucle is yet another example of the most corrupt and dishonest administration in the history of this country. Let's start by making a quick point. The USA's serve at the pleasure of the President and the administration does not have to give a reason for firing them. BUT, if they do give reasons then they are obligated to give TRUTHFUL ones. And if Congress investigates, they are most certainly required to tell the truth while under oath.
THAT is what is driving the story at this point. This administration, namely the attorney general, continues to mislead the congress and the american people at every turn. The attorney general's chief-of-staff resigned yesterday for providing misleading information to those that were to testify in front of congress.
And lest you are tempted to believe the spin that this is simply a Democratic political ploy, you should understand that there are several prominent Republicans upset about being lied to. Today on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, REPUBLICAN Congressman (and extremely partisan) Darrel Issa stated that anyone involved in covering up the truth should resign.
(Full Quote and More after the flip)
Transcript here:
Now, the White House doesn't owe the senator or myself an explanation of why they choose to get rid of any appointee. But once they give a reason, then we can hold them accountable. And that's what this is all about right now.
This is where the House and the Senate, Republican and Democrats, agree that this attorney general and everyone involved needs to come down and explain to us, not per se why the president chose to fire these people, but why we were deceived.
Both the House and the Senate were deceived by individuals who were given bad information and sent down to literally say what others, including Kyle Sampson, knew was not true. That kind of hubris by this administration has to be cleared up, and everyone responsible has to be held accountable.
So everyone (except the far-right) is somewhat on the same page here. Kind of hard to label Issa as a closet-liberal or any other childish name that gets bantered about by the far right ideologues. But Issa doesn't stop there. He demands the resignations of anyone involved in the deception:
So let's not mix whether or not these people should have been let go or the president had a right to do, with the fact that all of us want to know who led Congress astray. The House and the Senate were LIED to, not by the people that were sent to the Hill, but by the people who sent them there. And every one of those people owes us a resignation.
And that's the difference, perhaps, between what the Democrats are walking around. If someone led us astray, they should resign. And I don't care how high it is: Anyone involved with this cover-up of giving us the truth needs to step down.
TPM has the transcript from Schumer's press conference that lays out the numerous lies given before congress. Here's an excerpt:
Fourth, we were told that the White House was not really involved in the plan to fire U.S. attorneys. This, too, turns out to be false.
Harriet Miers was one of the masterminds of this plan, as demonstrated by numerous e-mails made public today. She communicated extensively with Kyle Sampson about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In fact, she originally wanted to fire and replace the top prosecutors in all 93 districts across the country.
Fifth, we were told that Karl Rove had no involvement in getting his protege appointed U.S. attorney in Arkansas.
In fact, here is a letter from the Department of Justice. Quote: "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin."
It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as demonstrated by Mr. Sampson's own e-mail. Quote: "Getting him, Griffin, appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, et cetera.
I think AG Gonzales has finally gone too far. Are we really to believe that his chief-of-staff was a rogue operator on this? I don't buy it. But I'm certain of one thing - the Congress is going to get to the bottom of this and hold those involved with lying to Congress accountable. And for THAT you can thank the Democrats or I suppose you can support the DOJ and administration hacks that lied to Congress...
Cross-Posted at Right-leaning blog Just for the Record