No mention of Bush DOJ in front-page Wash. Post article on Stevens trial
SUMMARY: In an article about Ted Stevens' trial, The Washington Post asserted that Eric Holder must try "to remake the reputation of his department" but did not mention that "his" department's current reputation was forged under the Bush administration.
In an April 8 front-page Washington Post article about a probe into allegations of misconduct by federal prosecutors during former Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) corruption trial, staff reporter Del Quentin Wilber wrote that Attorney General Eric Holder must try "to remake the reputation of his department, which has been troubled in recent years," and also reported that U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan -- who criticized "the mishandling and misconduct" in the Stevens trial -- "asked Holder to better train prosecutors." But Wilber did not mention that Sullivan assigned blame to the Bush Justice Department and, specifically, to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey for mishandling the Stevens trial. Nor did Wilber address any other conduct by the Bush administration -- again, preceding Holder's tenure -- that resulted in the Justice Department's tarnished "reputation," such as the politicization of hiring practices, the improper firing of U.S. attorneys under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and the adoption of contentious Office of Legal Counsel memos about torture and presidential authority that were eventually withdrawn.
As The Associated Press reported on April 7, "Sullivan said the misconduct [in the Stevens trial] was too serious to be left to an internal investigation by the Justice Department, which he said dragged its feet before investigating. He criticized former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for not responding to complaints: 'Shocking, but not surprising,' Sullivan said." The New York Times similarly reported on April 8: "Judge Sullivan also criticized Michael B. Mukasey, the last attorney general in the Bush administration, saying it was shocking that he had failed to respond to letters from the defense team complaining about the Stevens prosecution. Mr. Mukasey's office would not comment." Wilber's colleague at the Post, Dana Milbank, also noted Sullivan's criticism of Mukasey, writing in his April 8 Washington Sketch column, "When the judge heard that Stevens's attorneys sent three letters about prosecutorial misconduct to former attorney general Michael Mukasey but received no response, he called it 'shocking -- but not surprising.' "
From Wilber's April 8 Washington Post article:
A federal judge focused scrutiny yesterday on a small Justice Department unit assigned to root out corruption when he dismissed the conviction of former senator Ted Stevens and appointed an outside lawyer to investigate allegations of misconduct by prosecutors.
The rare move to turn the investigation on the prosecutors themselves puts six federal lawyers, accused of mishandling evidence and witnesses, in the awkward position of becoming potential defendants in a criminal trial. It also creates a challenge for the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who must put a tainted prosecution behind him as he tries to remake the reputation of his department, which has been troubled in recent years.
The Justice Department would usually examine such accusations internally. But U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said yesterday that he has no faith in such an investigation after seeing so much "shocking and disturbing" behavior by the government.
"In 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I have seen in this case," he said.
[...]
And in February, Sullivan held three prosecutors in contempt for not complying with an order to produce documents connected to an investigation of the FBI agent's allegations. The judge said the most recent allegation linked to prosecutors' notes was "the most shocking and serious" so far.
Sullivan asked Holder to better train prosecutors in how to handle evidence and witness statements that may be helpful to defendants.
Yes that was true, but in his interview last night with Katie Couric he even refered to it as his dept and his DOJ. He never mentioned the past administration. I think Holder is a stand up guy and does not want to play politics with the department unlike the past AGs.
not mmfa, they don't want people to forget who the last president was and if there is any blame for anything they will remind people it was Bush, as if we are stupid.
Bush , Bush, Bush. Most Americans want to move on except the partisans.
Do you think it would be unfair or partisan of the Washington Post to mention Bush in its reporting on the Stevens' trial?
Sure they can mention Bush. Mentioning him is not partisan, but I was not under the impression he was the attorney in this case.
What are you going on about? MMfA is talking about the Bush DOJ, not Bush. You and James are the ones who are talking about Bush and Bush alone. When they talk about the DOJ having issues, they need to mention that those issues were under the BUSH DOJ, not just the DOJ. They need to mention Bush when they mention the Bush DOJ. See, the 4 letter word "BUSH" is the first word in "Bush DOJ".
Exactly. We have to ignore the horrible damage that the Bush administration did to the country because that way we can be sure to elect somebody just like him to do the same thing again.
I am not saying ignore, I am saying learn and move on. It is the same thing the Cons did with Clinton. It is tiring and unproductive.
i think you gave the neo cons more credit than they deserve because as soon as the economy tanked they started blaming clinton and to a small extent bush sr.
exactly Casey, they are always a beat behind because they cling to us versus them until they look ridiculous. good examples of that are put up here everyday, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh - mirrored by a select number of posters here on the left.
That is your response to "Bush, Bush, Bush. Most Americans want to move on except the partisans."? Seriously?
I am just tired of hearing about Bush, I lived with this administration for 8 years. We all have. I think we all know he was the President from 2001-2009. I get it. Yes President Obama and his administration were not in charge when Ted Stevens was found guilty . But they are in charge now, they have to answer the questions and they (Holder) has to find out what went wrong. Unless we want the Bush administration to come back so we can keep playing the blame game?
well said. we are not stupid. we all knew who the president was for the last 8 years. we don't need to be reminded of Bush's name everytime the term "recent history" comes up in that context. Bush was a disaster as far as I am concerned, for many reasons, but I don't get some thrill invoking his name just to make sure people don't forget the messes he left. I give the people more credit than that.
James I agree. Most posters seem to want to make sure Bush is blamed in every column, article and TV segment for anything that has occured. And to be reminded that he was the President. Americans know it was the Bush administration.
Americans know it was the Bush administration.
But the media doesn't. Or at least they don't mention it when appropriate.
Maybe in this case the media does not want to treat us like we are stupid.
But it has nothing to do with treating us like we are stupid.
It has to do with identifying the culprits accurately. Just saying the DOJ doesn't do that. It's not the DOJ. It's the previous administration's DOJ that's the problem.
It has nothing to do with being tired of hearing about Bush.
It has to do with the issue that it is not the Obama DOJ that is to blame for the failings of the Bush DOJ. When you don't separate the two, and mention the prior Bush DOJ, you imply that there's no significant differences between the two organizations. It'd be like saying the leadership of AIG is bad. The leadership of AIG was bad. The new leadership might turn out to be bad, but right now, it's new leadership, and it's not fair to find fault with them when they have no blame for what the departed leadership chose to do.
You do this all the time. Without looking back in order to determine what happened how can these things be improved on or prevented in the future? You remind me of Palin and her contention about the causes of global warming...
"I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate because the world's weather patterns are cyclical, and over history we have seen changes there. But it kinda doesn't matter at this point in the debate what caused it. The point is it's real; we need to do something about it."
Except, how do you solve a problem if you can't "look back" in order to find out what happened and how to affect change so as to prevent it in the future?
I do what all the time? Blame Bush? Been there done that. Bush was the worst President we ever had. Time to move on.
I know what Bush did and so do most Americans. Stop treating the American people like we are children.
I think you have difficulty reading english.
My point is you say in many posts that we need to move on and quit blaming Bush. But how do you not prevent a mistake from being repeated if you don't take time to examine what happened (sometimes including who's to blame) and take the lesson MOVE ON and try not to repeat the same error.
No Bush deserves blame. I believe we should have hearings and prosecutions on the Bush admins law breaking, I have never suggested otherwise. Thanks though for trying to define me.
WTF!? Up thread you post...
Bush , Bush, Bush. Most Americans want to move on except the partisans
And down here you post...
No Bush deserves blame. I believe we should have hearings and prosecutions on the Bush admins law breaking, I have never suggested otherwise.
You contradict yourself on a regular basis.
Ben, there is a difference between not wanting to hear or read about Bush anymore vs. holding him accountable in a hearing or court.
If you can't see the difference then I can't help you.
"There is a difference between not wanting to hear or read about Bush anymore vs. holding him accountable in a hearing or court."
We all see the difference. You say that we shouldn't dwell on the past. The administration and the congress don't seem to want to hold him accountable. How do you think they can be persuaded to hold "hearings and prosecutions on the Bush admins law breaking", if we all just dummy up about the administration.
I understand your point. You think it does no good to bring up the Bush administration but if we don't, no one will ever be held accountable and, eventually, history will repeat itself.
I understand your point. You think it does no good to bring up the Bush administration but if we don't, no one will ever be held accountable and, eventually, history will repeat itself.
No, I believe we need to have hearings investigations etc. I don't believe we need to be treated like idiots by the media and reminded in every article that Bush was the last President or it was his DOJ in power last fall. We should all know this.
If we don't discuss it, them what will get the administration and congress to investigate?
They seem to have decided not to look into it which means that there won't be an investigation.
The only way for there to be an investigation is to discuss it and report on the abuses until congress acts. If we don't speak up, there will be no investigation and we'll be going down the same dark path sometime in the future.
The Washington Post treating us like idiots will not change Congress.
Write to your Congressmen and women and demand hearings. I have.
So far not enough of us have written to our representatives. Do you actually think that more people will write if the media ignores it from here on in?
The investigation will not take place unless more people are made aware of what went on during the past eight years. If the media doesn't continue to press the point about the Bush DOJ.
Do you think Holder's reputation has been tarnished by the Stevens' trial?
no.
Why anyone would think that Attorney General Holders reputation would be tarnished because of something that happened when he was not the Attorney General is just stupid.
it absolutely is. incredible.
I guess he has been tarnished because the Washington Post did not tell its stupid readers that Holder was not attorney General last fall, and they did not make it clear that Bush was President last fall.
OMG, can't make it up.
The Washington Post thinks Holder's department needs to be remade. Perhaps you can shoot 'em an email about your election scoop.
they say no such thing.
The Washington Post and other media outlets have said that Holder needs to fix his dept. There's no evidence that his dept has done anything wrong. The Bush DOJ did stuff wrong.
I think the Washington Post wants to know why those attorneys still have jobs, that is a legitimate question, no?
In an exclusive interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, Holder, who noted that he has only been in his post for eight weeks, said he doesn’t think “anybody can say that this department has dragged its feet.”
He pointed out that “in this limited time that I've been Attorney General,” he “looked at the case, decided that mistakes had been made, and made the determination that the case had to be dismissed, looking at the totality of the circumstances.”
Holder also told Couric that he will not fire two major targets of the investigation, lead prosecutor Brenda Morris and William Welch during the probe.
“You're reportedly close to the lead prosecutor, Brenda Morris, who's under investigation for failing, among other things, to disclose crucial information to defense lawyers in this case,” Couric pointed out to Holder. “Another target of the investigation is, apparently, William Welch, who's head of the office, ironically, of public integrity. Will you fire either one of them? Will they stay on during the course of these investigations?”
“Unless there's some basis for me to decide if they have something wrong -- they'll remain in place,” Holder said.
So close to the beginnings of the investigations into the misdeeds of the prosecutors he's not willing to fire anyone? So what?
I would think less of him if he fired them before the investigations were complete.
i think if nothing else he has made his reputation but saying.....he a mistake was made we are dropping the charges.
Maybe I am wrong but I believe Victor (Governor) believes that Holder should have instead said since this was done in the last Administration and you should not drop the charges, and blame Bush. If you want this fixed talk to Bush.
Don't speak for me. Ever.
Governor, I was not speaking for you. You however seem to have no problem speaking for others.
FoxNews said that the dismissal of the indictment of Stevens "exonerated" him.
That's not accurate, and is a distortion of reality that benefits those on the right.
The Washington Post said that it was the DOJ, not the Bush DOJ, that had issues. That's not accurate, and it is a distortion that benefits those on the right.
Ellie this article is not about FOX News. IT is about the Washington Post .
Yeah, maybe you should read the 3rd sentence instead of attacking the messenger. I was making a comparison between two events that have happened recently, both involving former Senator Stevens.
Ellie you always attack the messenger. Take your own advice. By the way the title of this thread is
No mention of Bush DOJ in front-page Wash. Post article on Stevens trial
its not about FOX News.
FoxNews said that the dismissal of the indictment of Stevens "exonerated" him.
That's not accurate, and is a distortion of reality that benefits those on the right.
The Washington Post said that it was the DOJ, not the Bush DOJ, that had issues. That's not accurate, and it is a distortion that benefits those on the right.
Hmmm, I wonder if I know that the article is about the Washington Post not saying anything about the Bush DOJ? You are the one who is clearly clueless and attacking the messenger. I, on the other hand, am clearly attacking your message, because it's you who had the kneejerk reaction when you read "FoxNews" in my post. I am attacking the kneejerk reaction and your continued defense of it. You, on the other hand, are trying to claim that I didn't know what the subject was when it's clear I know what the subject is. That's attacking me just because I am me because there was not a thing wrong with my message.
Indeed. Republicans wrongly went after Stevens and Democrats rightly dropped the charges. Holder need not "remake the reputation of his department". The Washington Post is wrong and the 2 partisans here can't see that.
I tell you what, we'll stop reminding people about Bush's failures as soon as your friends on the right stop picking over the bones of FDR.
The attacks on FDR by partisan right wingers has been going on for years. They attack him because he was a success. FDR should never be compared to Bush who was what Dick Gebhardt said a "Failure".
The Couric Interview continues tonight on CBS. I do like the Attorney General.
I believe most Americans would not blame the AG for the Stevens mess. He did the right thing and saw the terrible way it was handled. My question is why are those people still employed at the DOJ if they are Bush people? Also I thought the Bush DOJ was politically motivated, why did they do this to a fellow Republican if they were?
Good Questions.
J, that is a valid question. Couric asked him yesterday why Brenda Morris and William Welsh are staying on and he said they would be staying on. Also for a Bush DOJ, these two are holdovers?
He didn't say they would be staying on. He said he wouldn't fire them today.
that is a good question......something doesn't make sense here.
im doing some checking and about the only thing i can even think of is stevens threatening to resign from the senate if transportation money that he had gotten for alaska was redirected to new orleans after katrina. idk if that would have been enough to start this whole thing though
Holder also told Couric that he will not fire two major targets of the investigation, lead prosecutor Brenda Morris and William Welch during the probe.
“You're reportedly close to the lead prosecutor, Brenda Morris, who's under investigation for failing, among other things, to disclose crucial information to defense lawyers in this case,” Couric pointed out to Holder. “Another target of the investigation is, apparently, William Welch, who's head of the office, ironically, of public integrity. Will you fire either one of them? Will they stay on during the course of these investigations?”
“Unless there's some basis for me to decide if they have something wrong -- they'll remain in place,” Holder said.
I've seen a few mentions of legal action being possible for proscution misconduct. That would be good.
Why did the Bush Administration attorneys in the Bush DOJ muck up the prosecution of a Republican so badly that he cannot be held accountable for his crimes?
Maybe so that he wouldn't be held accountable for his crimes!
Ellie , now that is actually one good opinion. You may have a point. But now Ellie why wont the AG fire them? And if they are from the Bush DOJ , why are they still in the DOJ?
When you stop attacking the messenger and are on topic, you might get a response from me about why Eric Holder has determined that he doesn't want to fire these people. Why he has chosen to not fire them is not the topic under discussion. It's the missing "Bush" in discussing the failings of the Bush DOJ.
Firing a federal employee is an intricate process, it takes awhile. They may have remained to complete the case that they failed at. I'd guess their current duties are a bit circumcribed as testimony and hearings are organized.
"Yes that was true, but in his interview last night with Katie Couric he even refered to it as his dept and his DOJ."
Yes, it's his dept and his DOJ now. But it's not his DOJ that failed so miserably in the prosecution of Senator Stevens. And for the Washington Post to not mention the fact that it was the Bush DOJ, instead of 'the' DOJ, that failed so miserably, is misleading.
It's really too sad that this thread got hijacked by people not interested in talking about the topic here.
Summary: In an article about Ted Stevens' trial, The Washington Post asserted that Eric Holder must try "to remake the reputation of his department" but did not mention that "his" department's current reputation was forged under the Bush administration.
When you criticize AIG's management, acting like it hasn't changed, that's not a fair picture to create. When you say that Holder needs to remove the stain from the DOJ, it creates an unfair image if you don't say where that stain came from.
Here's an example from the LA Times.
Allegations of such conduct had led the Justice Department's ethics office to open an investigation into the trial team that prosecuted Stevens. And upon taking office in February, Holder replaced the team with a new set of lawyers who discovered more undisclosed exculpatory information. That moved Holder to abandon the Stevens prosecution for good.
But Sullivan evinced his displeasure Tuesday with the pace of the department's ethics investigation and signaled that he wasn't certain the department could be counted upon to investigate its own misdeeds.
But it's not the Obama DOJ that needs to investigate its own misdeeds. The misdeeds aren't theirs. The misdeeds were under the Bush Administration. THey belong to the Bush DOJ.
This is the point of MMfA.
So Ellie, are you saying we should not investigate the misdeeds of the DOJ becuase it was the Bush DOJ?
What lunacy you exhibit with your obsession with attacking the messenger.
The statement from the LA Times is that the current DOJ needs to investigate "its own misdeeds."
But it's not the current DOJ that did those misdeeds. The misdeeds need to be looked into. But they aren't the current DOJ's misdeeds. And when that point isn't made, when that differentiation isn't made, it creates the wrong impression. The current DOJ needs to investigate someone else's misdeeds, not its own misdeeds.
It's really too bad that your obsessive need to attack the messenger causes you to miss simple things like the import of the MMfA piece or how the example I posted is another demonstration of why the mention of the Bush DOJ is important and necessary.
I was attacking your less than lucid message. Nothing I said could be interpreted to mean that I thought we shouldn't investigate the misdeeds of the Bush DOJ. I put "its" above in italics for a reason. The current DOJ is not going to have to investigate its misdeeds. It is going to need to investigate the Bush DOJ's misdeeds.
It's bizarre, to see anyone implying that even the slightest responsibility for the intentionally bungled Stevens' prosecution, would belong to the Holder DOJ.
Obviously there was a complete change in the administration of our Federal Government, and that all of the misconduct involved in the Stevens' prosecution, belongs to the Bush administration.
It's as obvious as the fact that the attacks of September 11 2001 occurred also during the Bush administration, and that they failed to protect the lives of the American People that day.
And it's likewise bizarre, that another administration, the Clinton administration, would be blamed in some way for those attacks, that did not even happen during their administration.
And so neither the prosecutorial misconduct of the Stevens' trial, nor the attacks of September 11 2001, are in any way related to the Bush administration, despite both of those things occurring exclusively on George W. Bush's criminal watch?
Talk about an insulting attempt at revisionism: what next, the invasion of IRAQ also will be denied, as happening during the Bush administration?