Attorney General Mukasey Obstructs Justice: That Makes Two AGs in a Row

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher

July 17, 2008

Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein should hang their heads in shame for wholeheartedly supporting former New York Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General.

Just like his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, Mukasey has comfortably settled into the role of obstructing justice rather than enforcing it.

In particular, Mukasey has become just another consigliere for the Bush Administration, as is evidenced most recently in his letter asking Bush to assert executive privilege over DOJ documents concerning the roles of Cheney and the gang in the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative.

As we noted in a BuzzFlash News Alert the other day, the tenacious Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had subpoenaed documents relating to the investigation of the Plame leak by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. These are all documents directly resulting from a DOJ investigation and therefore any of them potentially could have become public in the course of Libby’s trial if Fitzgerald had deemed it necessary.

The assertion of executive privilege, from a justice standpoint, is actually the obstruction of justice and a violation of a congressional subpoena. Most news accounts headlined and characterized this story as indicating that Bush asserted executive privilege. That is technically true. But it was Mukasey who officially wrote a letter urging Bush to keep the material from Congress, in defiance of a subpoena. In fact, as a Fire Dog Lake blog entry reveals, Mukasey may have also used the executive privilege letter to tip off Cheney and Bush as to what Waxman was looking for.

Now Waxman is considering holding Mukasey in contempt of Congress.

But that will lead nowhere because Mukasey has asserted – and we know that this is starting to sound unbelievable – that he will not enforce any contempt of Congress charge relating to executive privilege. So, he certainly won’t enforce one against himself by bringing it before the D.C. U.S. Attorney.

Oh, man, Mukasey makes justice in an old Soviet courtroom look good.

What’s more is that Bush has packed the court with GOP political hacks like Justice Bates who recently indicated that he couldn’t intervene (did someone tell him that he was a judge?) on the issue of the DOJ not enforcing Congressional contempt charges because it would upset the balance of powers. "Both sides have the same argument," Bates said. "Whether I rule for the executive branch or I rule for the legislative branch, I'm going to disrupt the balance." Of course, that is exactly what a federal judge is supposed to decide.

So what does a nation do when its Attorney General is obstructing justice and sending helpful signals to the defendants in the White House?

We don’t know, since he is the chief law enforcement officer of America – and happens to be as crooked as a cop on the take with the mob.

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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