I think you hve it pretty much correct. I agree with Brad that we can not like what the president did. I don’t think it is a legal scandal and the congress should butt out. Some people claim that because there “might” be a legal issue they should investigate it. That is a dangerous precedent as theoretically, if there is no evidence of illegal behavior, under that standard every action taken by anyone in Washington can bog us down in investigations.

Logan,

Not only were Cunningham and the other cases supposedly leading to her firing under the obstruction theory prosecuted, she was actually put on the list to be fired before the Cunningham case even existed. There is nothing there.

To warrant any further official investigation we need actual evidence of an actual crime, not that somebody can make up a plausible story of what theoretically could be illegal if we had access to everything the President has ever done. That is called a fishing expedition.

I can certainly assume every earmark in the budget might be because every congressman and senator has $90,000 in their refrigerator if I want. I can demand they each be investigated, along with possible bribes for every vote the legislators make. I am pretty sure we would even find a few. That doesn’t make it wise or right. Certainly you wouldn’t want the congress or the police to pursue you on this basis. If they did I am sure Doug would have a post up about your persecution quite quickly.

Eventually the Democrats will be back in the Presidency. If they thought they hated the Clinton scandals (where at least there were crimes and civil suits being investigated) how do you think they will like this new standard? People make up a story about what could be illegal and therefore since something could be illegal the President and his staff gets hauled up in front of congress. It will be endless. This is not a precedent we want to set.

If the Executive Branch caves to Congress on this, they will undermine an important check & balance in the Constitution, the independence of the Executive from Congress in the daily administration of their Constitutional duties.

Then we’re screwed. Bush will fold like an accordian.

Good points.

I’d add another:

5. If the Bush Administration handled this story right from the beginning, they probably wouldn’t be in this mess.

1. The White House and Justice are incredibly inept in handling the media and Congress (as we have seen numerous times over the past few years).

2. Congress has no business in this matter unless there is evidence that a crime has been committed. At this point there is none.

3. If the Executive Branch caves to Congress on this, they will undermine an important check & balance in the Constitution, the independence of the Executive from Congress in the daily administration of their Constitutional duties.

4. This is a major play by the Democratic Congress to take Bush from Lame Duck to end of Presidency two years early.

Perhaps.

But it also happened after Cunningham was indicted and pled guilty, and before his co-conspirators were indicted.

If obstruction of an ongoing investigation was really the goal, one would think that nothing would’ve happened after Lam was fired. Since that wasn’t the case, then the Cunningham case obviously had nothing to do with it.

You may well be right, but does any of that justify a Congressional inquiry, with witnesses under lights and cameras while Senators and Congressman read statements drafted by their aides expressing how outraged they are at the conduct of the Administration/the Democrats (depending on which party said politician is affiliated with) with regard to this matter ?

This might have been inappropriate, but it wasn’t illegal. And that, I think, makes a huge difference.

This very well may be a legitimate scandal, even if no laws were broken. I agree we’re seeing a lot of political grandstanding, but as for a scandal? Let’s look at the dictionary.reference.com definition of scandal:

1. a disgraceful or discreditable action, circumstance, etc.
2. an offense caused by a fault or misdeed.
3. damage to reputation; public disgrace.
4. defamatory talk; malicious gossip.
5. a person whose conduct brings disgrace or offense.

I think 1, 2, and 5 may apply here. As I pointed out a month ago, these fired attorneys had all had recent positive job evaluations. According to the WaPo story I linked then, the original story from the administration was that they were fired due to poor job performance. Your own thoughts last week mention that they were fired in many ways because they were trying to exercise their traditional discretion over which cases they prosecute, and yet the current “cause” of their firing was that the AG’s office was trying to push them into certain cases.

Whether it was illegal, I’ll leave to the lawyers to figure out. Whether it’s disgraceful, or brings offense, I would suggest that it does. It may merit a scandal, even if it does not put someone behind bars.

However, those firings are at the pleasure of the PRESIDENT, not his party. As one of the fired attornies said today in the NYT, they were told to be Non-Partisan in there work. This represented at attempt to inject partisanism, and I can’t agree with that.

But there wasn’t any prevention of prosecution. Duke Cunningham was sentenced to prison

Just this past February, after Lam was fired Foggo and two others were indicted.

Where’s the obstruction ?

And if the US Attorneys were fired to prevent the prosecution of Republicans and their friends, might that not bring on the possibility of obstruction of justice?

1. Whether there is a precedent for mid-term replacements or not is irrelevant. If the law allows it, which is certainly seems to, then the fact that it hasn’t been done before is irrelevant.

2. One could say the same thing about many pieces of legislation. Nonetheless, it passed. If Congress doesn’t like it, they can try to change the law.

3. Umm, Cunnigham was convicted and that former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, along with his best friend, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, are currently facing fraud charges. Where is the obstruction ?