While the House Committee questioning of former Dep. Atty Gen. James Comey left a lot to be desired for depth and breadth, one reference that was elicited as interesting. It was a response by Comey in connection with firings of USAs that took place when he was Deputy AG and one element of that response seems to have gone by virtually unnoticed.
Did Comey testify that it takes a President to fire a US Attorney? And if so, where the purged U.S. Attorneys fraudulently induced to resign? Or did President Bush and his spokespersons engage in lies? It's all a bit murky, but the events Comey described, coupled with recent news reports, certainly raise the question.
Here is the testimony of Comey with respect to the "process" for the firings where he was involved.
He indicates his own discussions with Margolis and with the attorney general in advance, and the calls by Margolis that spelled out in detail why resignations were being sought. No one asks, and he does not offer, whether the AG or anyone else in the DOJ had discussion with the President before embarking on the firing of the USAs. However, he does offer up that after the discussions with Margolis, one USA was not willing to leave.
How was that resolved?
They had the President send a letter firing the USA. Comey was not asked any questions about White House and Presidential involvement in the firing decisions prior to the calls to the USAs where he (Comey) participated in the firing. But apparently there was enough involvement that a Presidential letter was fired off after the USA refused to leave.
Comey certainly did not seem to think that the stubborn USA could be removed by a senior career lawyer (like Margolis) or by the Dep AG (Comey) or by anyone's chief of staff or even by the AG himself. The letter firing the USA came from the President. And it would be a bit of a stretch to believe that Margolis and the Dep AG requested those resignations without some very good assurances that they were authorized to request them.
And yet what were we told about the recent firings of the USAs by Bush and his spokespersons when the story first broke?
President Bush made "no recommendations on specific individuals," Snow said. "We don't have anything to indicate the president made any calls on specific us attorneys."
emph added
http://www.cnn.com/...
Asked if President Bush himself might have suggested the firings, Snow said, "Anything's possible ... but I don't think so." He said Mr. Bush "certainly has no recollection of any such thing. I can't speak for the attorney general."
"I want you to be clear here: Don't be dropping it at the president's door," Snow said.
emph added
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
I put up a diary much earlier, before the President's responses became more polished and "Fieldinged" that no one can fire USAs without Presidential approval.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Just how that approval would or should be obtained seemed like it might be open to dispute. However, a recent article by Murray Waas may have clarified that issue.
Secret Order by Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Power to Aides
The AG's powers to fire non-USA employees of the DOJ are similar to the President's rights to fire USAs. Apparently, when Gonzales went about trying to delegate his firing powers, the Office of Legal COunsel raised objections to any overly broad delegation.
An original draft of Gonzales's delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling was so broad that it did not even require the two aides to obtain the final approval of the attorney general before moving to dismiss other department officials...
What happened with that broad delegation?
The department's Office of Legal Counsel feared that such an unconditional delegation of authority was unconstitutional, the documents show. As a result, the original delegation was rewritten so that in its final form the order required "any proposed appointments or removals of personnel" be "presented to the Attorney General... for approval, and each appointment or removal shall be made in the name of the Attorney General."
emph added
Is there any reason to believe that a lesser standard would apply to the President's delegation of his rights to remove USAs? If not, then in order for removals of USAs pursuant to a Presidential delegation of authority to meet the requirements seemingly established by the OLC, the specific USAs to be removed would have needed to have been "presented to" the President and "approved by" him. More than that, those handling the removal would have been required to have told the USA that their removal was being made in the name of the President.
Apparently, Bush says he never had discussions of specific USAs and so could not have "approved" the removal of a specific list of USAs. Moreover, the "text" of the removal generated by DOJ that has been referred to in emails released did not indicate that Battle was advised to tell the USAs that their removal was being sought in the name of the President.
However, we do have this statement from Lam:
On January 5, 2007, I received a call from Michael Elston informing me that my request for more time based on case-related considerations was "not being received positively," and that I should "stop thinking in terms of the cases in the office." He insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that these instructions were "coming from the very highest levels of the government."
emph added
http://judiciary.house.gov/...
via http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/...
So we have an OLC opinion for the AG that seemingly would apply to Presidential delegations as well. The mandates of that opinion were either not followed or the President has lied in his (and his spokespersons) original public statements. In addition to the original calls to fire the USAs, there is an almost threatening reference by Elston to Lam that her removal was to be immediate and was sought by the "very highest levels" of government, but still with no reference to the President.
So the only possibilities seem to be that - the President involved and lied about his involvement OR that the USAs were fraudulently induced and coerced to resign by people who misrepresented that they had direct Presidential authority to fire them when they did not have that authority.
Is there any other option?
Granted, now that he has returned (the President was out of the country when the story "broke") and been coached thoroughly, the President is very careful to make broad generic statements about the USAs serving at his pleasure and that the President having the right to remove them; but he has yet to reconcile these later generated references with his original statements that he was NOT INVOLVED in specific discussions about any of the USAs. The President ahs never been asked, and has never proffered, the who, what, when, where, why and how of his delegation of power to fire in his name.
Did it exist, and he lied? Or did it not exist, and he covered up for those involved? Is there another option?