Why Fire All Those US Prosecutors? (Updated) 0
Dan Froomkin advances a theory: Briefly, to turn the Department of Justice into the political enforcer for the Current Federal Administration.
Or, as White House Watch reader Charles Posner wrote to me in an e-mail yesterday: “Dan – I think everyone is looking at the Justice Dept. scandal form the wrong end – it’s not the firing, but the hiring that’s the crux of the issue. Rove has a plan and a list. The plan is to install partisans in the prosecutors’ office in order to target Democratic congressmen. Of course, Rove can hand pick each prosecutor without Congress’s involvement as allowed by the secret provisions of the Patriot Act. Now, where’s his list?”
As I said, it’s a theory.
But one consistent with past behavior of smears, innuendoes, lies, and rumors.
Addendum, 3/23/2007:
Digby offers his thoughts here.
Glenn Greenwald on executive privilege. Crucial quotation:
Once a party demonstrates a propensity to issue false explanations and refuses to tell the truth voluntarily, no rational person would trust that party to make voluntary disclosures. One could trust (if at all) only on-the-record testimony, under oath, where there are criminal penalties for lying (if they have questions about that motivational dynamic, they can ask Lewis Libby).
