Federal Prosecutor Firings - Update

by Steve

Note that GOP senator Charles Grassley voted with the Judiciary Committee Democrats today to authorize subpoenas for Rove, Miers, and others. Grassley specifically wanted it on the record that he supported the subpoenas.

Pat Leahy is trying to get Kyle Sampson to testify voluntarily next week, and Orrin Hatch has laid down a marker to the White House to not make Sampson another fall guy for them.

It’s hard for the administration to claim that the prosecutors were fired for performance-related reasons when the statistics indicate that three of the eight were among the best in getting convictions.

It appears that the administration sacked Arizona prosecutor Paul Charlton because he was going after one of the most corrupt GOP members in Rick Renzi.

Tony Snow told ABC with a straight face this morning that Congress has no oversight authority. Which means a) Congress should finally realize that the Bush White House thinks you are a joke; and b) Snow was blowing gas when he said Clinton couldn’t claim executive privilege back in the 90’s. Josh is right when he says the real issue here is that the White House doesn’t want Congress to find out about all the criminality that has taken place these last six years, and that this is really an effort to push this to the courts and run out the clock until the end of 2008. If so, then Congress should stop all appropriations, all nominations, and all actions on anything wanted by the White House. Issue the damn subpoenas already.