Editorial: Special prosecutor, or ... / Sacramento Bee

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/194474.html




This story is taken from Sacbee / Opinion.


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Editorial: Special prosecutor, or ...
Assault on elections needs full airing
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Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, May 26, 2007



... it is still not apparent just who came up with the idea of firing a number of U.S. attorneys.
On the side of clarity, it seems more and more apparent that behind the U.S. attorney scandal is a blatant effort of the Justice Department to tamper with the U.S. election process, trumping up voter fraud as an issue to intimidate voters and suppress voting in the United States.

The mention of voter fraud conjures up images of deceitful voters knowingly and willingly voting illegally, or of sleazy political operatives stuffing ballot boxes and paying voters for toeing the party line. But in this instance, the phrase seems to refer to high-level officials in the Bush administration using the machinery of government to corrupt the electoral process....This is a serious matter calling for investigation by an outside special counsel. But there's the rub. Since the independent counsel act expired in 1999, it's up to the attorney general to order an investigation. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is up to his eyeballs in this mess. He has obvious and irreconcilable conflicts of interest in investigating administration officials.

Of course, Gonzales could recuse himself (either on his own initiative or with prodding from the president) and have a deputy delegate to a special counsel all the authority of the attorney general. This was done in the 2003 appointment of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate allegations of unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity. It should be done now to assure an independent investigation.

............

Despite a major "voting integrity" initiative, the Justice Department netted only 24 convictions or guilty pleas for illegal voting between 2002 and 2005. Most allegations turn out to be false claims by election losers or simple voter error........As it turns out, last-minute, pre-election indictments go against the Justice Department policies, which tell federal prosecutors to be "extremely careful" not to conduct overt pre-election investigations to avoid "chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities" and causing "the investigation itself to become a campaign issue." Investigations, policies say, should "await the end of the election."

......

It is hard to see all of this as anything other than a blatant attempt to use the Justice Department to manipulate the outcome of elections. That surely is an appropriate subject for a full investigation. The appointment of an independent counsel is obviously needed. If the attorney general and the White House can't put such an appointment in motion, Congress will have no choice but to consider all the tools at its disposal -- including the impeachment of the attorney general.

The 'backwash' seems to be out in relative force. Doesn't look like the people are buying it however - check out the 'was this comment helpful?' tallies. :rofl: