Call U.S. Attorney General Mukasey and ask him to meet with Common Cause

From Common Cause:

Over the seven years of the Bush Administration, the American justice system has taken quite a beating. From the denial of fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to the outright abuse of our Constitution – the integrity of our justice system is in jeopardy.

So, Common Cause is stepping up to the plate to restore our democracy's rule of law. Our first step was to ask new Attorney General Michael Mukasey for a meeting to express our concerns and recommendations. But he refused. I am writing to you today to ask you to make a simple, quick phone call to Attorney General Mukasey, urging him to meet with Common Cause.

Common Cause is running a telephone campaign. They are having difficulty getting U.S. Attorney General Mukasey to talk with them. We can help by calling his office directly ourselves and asking him to meet with Common Cause, then leaving the answer at Common Cause's webpage for this campaign. The number is (202) 514-2001. Be sure to report your call! Thank you.

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Attorney General Mukasey will not enforce contempt charges against executive branch officials from Congress

TPMmuckraker blog has an update on Attorney General Mukasey's interview before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. On the issue of whether he would enforce a charge of contempt by Congress against executive branch officials who deny subpoenas, he said "no". This is clearly against his charge of office. In controversy after controversy from the Bush administration, the executive branch has been siding on obfuscation, denial, rejection, lies and contempt when it has been asked for further information from Congress.

Perhaps Senator Robert Wexler's intent to call for impeachment hearings against Vice President Cheney is due to, as he says, "these abuses of executive power and the fact that the White House still refuses to provide any answers whatsoever to subpoenas."

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Attorney General Mukasey: USDOJ Office of Legal Council pardons lawbreakers in advance

TPMmuckraker reports the ongoing struggle between the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress. New Attorney General Michael Mukasey is defending the Justice Dept's. Office of Legal Council, even if it's opinions may breach actual law.

The Justice Department will not investigate whether CIA agents engaged in torture by waterboarding detainees, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said earlier. Ditto goes for the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, Mukasey added later, when asked by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) whether he would appoint a special counsel to investigate. The question came after Mukasey had baldly asserted that it was not a "practical view" that the president could order someone to act outside the law. Nadler wanted to know if the president hadn't done just that with his warrantless wiretapping program, which had ignored the constraints of FISA. Well, Mukasey said, the President had ordered that on the advice of the Justice Department that it was lawful. So, just as he will not initiate an investigation of waterboarding since the DoJ had given its OK, he will also not investigate whether the warrantless wiretapping was lawful, since it was legal, because the DoJ said it was ("there are views on both sides of that" he acknowledged). Mukasey also went back to correct his statement during last week's hearing that he "didn't know" if the President had ordered the warrantless wiretapping outside the law. Silly me, he said, of course it was legal -- it was authorized by the DoJ.

Now you know why Jack Goldsmith, the former chief of the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel, said that OLC has the power to issue “free get-out-of jail cards,” or "advance pardons" with its opinions.

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Right wing power grabs for the Civil Rights Commission

CREW, a public advocacy organization, has issued a press release concerning the Bush legacy of politicizing civil rights-- the Civil Rights Commission is stacked with partisans.

Washington, DC – This morning, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) hosted a press conference call with the NAACP and MALDEF to demand that U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey rescind a Bush legal memo that authorized deceptive appointments of exclusively partisan Republicans to the bipartisan Civil Rights Commission.

The letter, signed by LCCR, CREW, NAACP, MALDEF, National Women’s Law Center, National Partnership for Women & Families, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, National Congress of American Indians and the ACLU is online:

http://www.civilrights.org/library/advocacy-letters/usccr-letter.html

In order to circumvent the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Bush Justice Department wrote a memo allowing Republican members of the Commission to switch their party affiliation to “independent.” That allowed the president to appoint more Republicans to the bipartisan eight person commission under the guise that they were somehow “independent,” allowing the Bush administration to circumvent the law requiring that no more than four members of any party serve on the commission.

During his confirmation hearing, Mukasey pledged to review “significant” decisions of the Office of Legal Counsel to ensure that such decisions were “sound, soundly reasoned, soundly based.” Allowing this deception in the appointment process was neither sound, soundly reasoned or soundly based and is a continuation of the Bush administration's legacy of undermining the credibility and subverting Congress' intent to retain the commission's independence and bipartisan membership

Mukasey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

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Let this nation be a witness to integrity

Congress is presently conducting hearings on the U.S. Justice Department, and whether they put the Republican Party ahead of the public interest. The whole world is watching.

The American people, of course, have a much more direct relationship with the Bush administration. Attorney General Gonzales has an opportunity to rise to the occassion, and take control of his office. He must be open, honest and humble. He must show that, under his leadership, the Justice Department has been functioning flawlessly and professionally. These hearings will bring these issues to light, if the Congressmembers do the same. These are public offices on both sides of the interviews.

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