*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by D.C. Correspondent Margie Burns

Today I sat in on the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Department of Justice Oversight,” part of which Brad posted about, earlier. The solo witness was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, covering some by-now familiar ground in the matter of those questionable firings of US Attorneys in seven of 93 districts. In spite of some repetitive questioning, primarily by Charles Schumer (D-NY), the day was actually enlightening.

First, the hearing further indicated the direct White House connection suggested earlier by Brad. Gonzales is still in a position where he cannot speak freely about Bush, even if he wanted to do so. But even Gonzales’ measured and cautious answers to questions were revealing. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of Judiciary, led off by asking whether Gonzales had had any conversations about the US Attorneys with White House senior advisor Karl Rove. Answer: yes, in fall 2006 Gonzales had a conversation with Rove about USAs, regarding “voter fraud” in three districts – New Mexico, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia....

[NOTE: SEVERAL UPDATES NOW ADDED INCLUDE ADDITIONAL DETAILS]

One quick observation concerning Gonzales's sorry "don't attack our troops" defense, and another --- much more important note --- on a so far unreported aspect of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal that seems to reach straight into the White House and about which someone on the Senate Judiciary Committee needs to ask some questions.

First, just the observation that Gonzales has been continuously suggesting today that questioning him is actually an attack on the career attorneys at DoJ. Nothing could be more disingenuous, yet familiar as a now-routine defense for this bunch. The reprehensible defense is identical to the oft-employed White House/GOP response to criticism of George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War. "Stop attacking our troops!" they say, whenever someone is critical of Bush's horrendous war management.

Gonzales's "Stop attacking our career DoJ attorneys!" defense is no different and equally as disingenuous, particularly considering the now-long documented history that this White House has for its unprecedented politicization of the DoJ, its direct attacks on career attorneys in the civil rights division and elsewhere, its overruling of positions of those employees by Bush's political appointees, and so much more.

Thankfully, just before the lunch break, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pointed out exactly that, and likewise compared it to the "Stop attacking our troops!" defense. It brought a round of applause from the audience in the room. (UPDATE: TPMMuckracker now has video of the exchange.)

Secondly, but certainly of far more importance, there is the so far ignored --- yet as I see it, direct --- connection to the White House concerning the firing of Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins...

For those linking in from Joe Conason's NY Observer column today on the GOP's phony "voter fraud" claims in general, and the very real voter fraud committed by Republican celebrity Ann Coulter... Here's our Special Coverage page on Coulter's felony, which offers a great deal of documentation, including her felonious Florida Voter Registration Application from 2005.

You'll certainly find what you're looking for quicker than Palm Beach County's Election Supervisor has been able to find a law enforcement official in Florida willing to bring charges against the powerful Republican, despite the dead-to-rights evidence against her.

Color us stunned that George W. Bush's U.S. Attorney down there hasn't found fit to bring a case, since we all know how eager they were to send Democrats to jail (or even deport them) for such things --- even when the "crime" was accidentally committed...unlike the clearly purposeful and fraudulent efforts of Coulter.

RAW STORY has just posted an anonymous letter sent from "A Group of Concerned Department of Justice Employees" to the chairs of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees detailing their concerns about the politicization and "litmus" test applied to hiring of new career employees, and even interns, at DoJ.

The two-page letter as posted at RAW is somewhat difficult to read, so here is a PDF of that letter if useful.

We're trying to catch up, as time allows, on a number of important items from the last few days and weeks which travel, various background work and deadlines of late have kept us from covering. The following is one of those items (with more to come) and relates to the anonymous letter mentioned above.

We've reported, in a number of stories, how the unprecedented politicization of the Dept. of Justice via the U.S. Attorney purge, and related actions, were meant to influence elections. From the upcoming 2008 Election (here) to the 2004 and 2006 elections (a few examples are here, here, here, here and here.)

An important editorial from Joseph D. Rich, the chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's civil right division from 1999 to 2005, was published a few weeks ago by the LA Times but fell through the cracks (as so much has of late) in the busy last couple of weeks. We didn't get to cover it originally, but want to make sure we do.

Rich speaks to much of what we'd reported long ago in late 2005, when few were paying attention to this issue, about the Administration's work in gutting the beloved, 40-year old Voting Rights Act by political contravention of of consensus opinions of career civil rights attorneys at DoJ.

After revealing the tip of the iceberg of the DoJ's corrupt electoral gamesmanship, Rich concludes that "As the 2008 elections approach, it is critical to have a Justice Department that approaches its responsibility to all eligible voters without favor."

Indeed, he details several points that we've reported here over the last several years, but from his insider, first-hand eyewitness experience.

His enlightening op/ed, exposes how the Bush Administration --- for the first time in Rich's 35 years devoted to civil rights law enforcement at DoJ --- politicized and gamed every aspect of the job and the civil/voting rights division for solely partisan purposes. It begins this way...

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, equates the GOP/Bush "Voter Fraud" scam/coverup at the heart of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal with Watergate. Writing at AlterNet she concludes...

Robert Reich on today's This Week:

Thank you, Mr. Reich. Consider it done. (For the last three years and counting.)

RAW STORY has the video and transcript...

Whaddaya know? A federal judge has found no "voter fraud" in Missouri, finding in favor of the Secretary of State, and against the Department of Justice in their continuing attempt to game the election system and keep voters from voting via bogus claims of "voter fraud".

This is what your Dept. of Justice has been wasting their time on, at the behest of the most criminally politicized bunch who has ever occupied the White House.

As BRAD BLOG readers likely know, Missouri is "Thor" Hearne country. The St. Louisan Hearne was the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and the cofounder of the currently-defunct "non-partisan" "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR). The ACVR was ground zero for entire GOP "voter fraud" scam and Hearne cut his teeth disenfranchising Missouri voters on behalf of Gov. Matt Blunt (and his father Roy, who once served as MO Sec. of State, and now serves as Minority Whip in the U.S. House).

See this page for more on the snakeoil salesemen of the ACVR --- who have, since the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal broke, slithered back underground. For now anyway...

The judge's full ruling in the trumped up MO "Voter Fraud" case is here [PDF].

(Hat-tip Victoria Parks!)

Just back in town, and catching up with much that we've been unable to keep up with. That process will likely continue for several days, even as we've got a "biggie" coming tomorrow.

In the meantime, today's "biggie" news comes out of The Albuquerque Journal indicating that the order to fire New Mexico's U.S. Attorney David Iglesias seems to have come directly from George W. Bush after Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM) attempts to get the prosecutor to either bring "voter fraud" cases or be removed had otherwise failed.

Domenici's attempts preceded the Nov. 2006 election between Rep. Heather Wilson (R) and NM's former Democratic Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who ended up being reported as the loser by fewer than 900 votes.

Talking Points Memo distills the Journal piece, we distill TPM's distillation...

A TPM followup to the piece notes that it's "curious" the White House has yet to comment --- at all --- on the report...

Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is doing some good digging into the Milwaukee connection to the phony "voter fraud" claims used to help push U.S. Attorneys out of their job in the Bush Administration's political purge/disassembly of the now-ironically named Department of Justice.

As well, a recent, and unusual, overturned case in Wisconsin's Seventh Court of Appeals is similarly adding fresh fuel to the insidious GOP "voter fraud" scam at the heart of the outrageous abuse of power by the current Executive Branch. And today, Senators on the hill are asking new questions about it to Alberto Gonzales.

We've covered various elements of the invidious and baseless GOP "voter fraud" scheme in New Mexico (see here, here, here and here, for just a few examples) and touched on Washington State as well. But Bice jumps in with new details on the same scam in Milwaukee, which has now led to an official Congressional letter of inquiry on the matter sent today to Gonzales from Senators Leahy, Schumer, Kohl, Feingold, Feinstein, and Whitehouse.

As Bice reported yesterday...

Read on for more and see the letter from Leahy for more details on the heels of a surprise Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that issued an order immediately overturning a case brought by Biskupic against Georgia Thompson, an aide to Wisconsin's Democratic governor, Jim Doyle. Just in time for the '06 election we might add. (It didn't help; Doyle won anyway.)

The basis for the unusual appellate court decision was that the evidence used to convict Thompson on charges related to voting irregularities was virtually non-existent --- leading the senators to question what sort of pressure was brought on Biskupic to bring the charges in the first place.

This is your government. On steroids. In the form of the Bush Administration Gone Wild. And it's got to not only be stopped, it needs to be: Pushed. Back. Down.

If serious accountability is not brought (and we mean more than simply pushing out a pawn like Gonzales) the bar will have been forever lowered as far as what sort of outrageous, un-American Executive Branch overreach is tolerable in this country.

I hope to hell that somewhere in the bowels of Congress someone is preparing Articles of Impeachment.

(Hat-tip to BRAD BLOG Commenter "Dredd" for the Leahy letter.)

As reported by Democracy Now on Wednesday...

Ah yes, the always reliable GOP "vote fraud" scammers' "ACORN canard" rears it's ugly (and unsubstantiated) head again. The NEWSWEEK article referenced above is here.

ACORN is the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now", a group which has successfully run voter registration drives across the country in low-income and minority areas.

As we reported back in December of 2005 --- when high-level GOP operative James Tobin was actually found guilty of jamming Democratic 'Get out the Vote' phone lines in order to keep voters away from the polls in 2002 by "orchestrating an election day phone-jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats" --- the ACORN nut had already fallen off the Republican's "vote fraud" tree.

ACORN had "been vindicated of the various bogus charges, as virtually all of the frivolous lawsuits and investigations the GOP liars made so much noise about had simply collapsed by then," as we reported at the time in linking to ProjectVote.org's coverage.

And yet, the scam, built deep in the heart of Texas (by Rove and his slimy, democracy-hating operative buddies at the phony ACVR), just kept rolling...

New Mexico attorney John Boyd, who was working with state Dems at the time, had a front-row seat to the bogus 2004 "voter fraud" charges in the state, and wrote about it, in some detail, for BRAD BLOG a few weeks ago.

It's always been about undermining democracy for these jerks. From 2000 on up to 2008, the quest for power trumps the people in the minds of the wretched GOP evil doers.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by D.C. Correspondent Margie Burns

Has the Washington Post been fooled (again) by high-level ‘leakers’? It sure looks that way.

On Tuesday, March 20, the Post ran a front-page article on the DOJ-U.S. Attorneys scandal that led off:

The item was sourced to unnamed “administration officials” who gave it to two WaPo reporters “yesterday.”

This juicy lede graf was followed up:

The major problem with this story? It’s not true. The Department of Justice never 'ranked' U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald negatively or as 'undistinguished.' According to sworn testimony by D. Kyle Sampson, today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Fitzgerald was rated 'very strong' internally in the DOJ.

So who fed the Post that story? And why did they run it without pinning it down first?...

From attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law in today's WaPo...

And three more notable money quotes from the piece worth running here...

Arlen Parsa of The Daily Background, and now BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger (see his story yesterday on the ties between the U.S. Attorney Purge and gaming the 2008 Election), files a story today at TruthOut destroying the DoJ claims that the reason for some of the purges was that the prosecutors were too lenient on immigration issues.

You'll be stunned to learn that the immigration claims were little more than a cover story hatched by the DoJ communications team as they initially prepared (and, apparently "misunderestimated" the need for) their public explanations for the politically-based firings. All exposed in new email docs dumped late last Friday, following the 3000+ pages dumped earlier in the week.

The skinny version of Parsa's TO report today...

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG emailer "Jazzolog")