“Missouri’s election was ground zero for GOP,” was the headline of a terrific story by Greg Gordon for McClatchy Newspapers: . . . MORE . . .

Over the last month I’ve gotten a number of notes from readers suggesting that closer attention should be paid to Jeffrey A. Taylor, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Taylor arrived at his new post on September 22, 2006, using the speci . . . MORE . . .

Last week, I reported here and again here on the interview run in a local Seattle public affairs broadcaster concerning the murder of a young AUSA named Thomas Wales and the role it played in the decision to fire Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay. . . . MORE . . .

Kansas City Star reporters David Helling and Steve Kraske come up with more information suggesting that former U.S. Attorney Tom Graves was fired and that there were two principal concerns leading to the firing: his links to a corruption scandal surr . . . MORE . . .

“Which brings us to that troubling question: who can be entrusted with power? Who will guard the guardians themselves?” That was Juvenal’s question put to a proponent of the Socratic notion of the Philosopher-King (Satires 6: 347). . . . MORE . . .

Tara McKelvey is the author of the new book Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War, which tells the story of the Abu Ghraib scandal and, more broadly, examines the pattern of detainee abuse in Iraq. . . . MORE . . .

Alberto Gonzales’s prepared remarks, just released to the House Judiciary Committee, contain a strained plea. It’s time for Congress to move on, he says, and stop obsessing about all this criminal conduct by figures at the top of the Justice Departm . . . MORE . . .

Today, in a performance that seems largely a repeat of his Senate appearance, Alberto Gonzales had his say in front of the House Judiciary Committee. It’s hard to see how this appearance could set aside concerns about his leadership; more likely, it . . . MORE . . .

Alberto Gonzales isn’t leaving. But evidently many of his best career staff are planning to do exactly that if he hangs around. Speaking at a conference at Seattle University Law School, former U.S. attorneys John McKay, David Iglesias, and Paul Char . . . MORE . . .

On its website, GlobalOptions, a Washington-based corporate security and investigations firm, describes itself as a “private CIA, Defense Department, Justice Department, and FBI, all rolled into one,” and says it offers . . . MORE . . .

For several weeks now, reports have been circulating in Washington that, bracing for an onslaught of investigations from the new opposition-oriented Congress, the Bush Administration had been giving lessons to other government agencies about how to s . . . MORE . . .

For the past two months, we’ve seen in various reports how under acting Attorney General Karl Rove, the Department of Justice pressured U.S. attorneys across the country to commence frivolous prosecutions of voting fraud cases. The cases were genera . . . MORE . . .

A great deal more information is now emerging about the struggles between former Kansas City U.S. Attorney Tom Graves and main Justice, all of which leaves one puzzling about which side of the law enforcement divide is occupied by main Justice. It se . . . MORE . . .

During his testimony on Thursday, one of the questions to which Gonzales offered the most downright weasely answers was simple: so how many U.S. attorneys were fired as a part of this plan? The initial count was eight. But every week or so we have le . . . MORE . . .

Today the New York Times’s Eric Lipton takes a close look at the role played by Department of Justice White House liaison Monica Goodling and the program to subvert the Hatch Act by building political litmus tests into the hiring process across the b . . . MORE . . .

Hot on the heels of news about the closing of a voter fraud case targeting Ann Coulter following the unsolicited intervention of a senior FBI figure come reports out of North Carolina that an indictment for voting fraud has been handed down. Curiousl . . . MORE . . .

Anthony Trollope was a very great novelist, a man who in a sense is a far better surveyor of English society in the Victorian Age than Charles Dickens. His works are filled with humor and wisdom and importantly, they never tire the reader. I hardly e . . . MORE . . .

The McClatchy Newspapers report today that in the final weeks before the midterm Congressional elections of November 2006, presidential political advisor Karl Rove orchestrated a large-scale effort to suppress voter turnout among potentially Democra . . . MORE . . .

U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired by White House direction when her investigations resulted in the indictment of a prominent GOP congressman and took down the newly installed leadership of the CIA. At the core of the defense contracting corruption in . . . MORE . . .

The Kansas City Star reports that federal prosecutors handling a case against a former local Democratic official have filed a motion seeking a court order which would preclude the defense from talking to the jury about the massive scandal over politi . . . MORE . . .

The Navy has commenced the court-martial in Norfolk, Virginia, of LtCmdr Matthew Diaz. Commander Diaz is a 19-year veteran who was last detailed to serve as a JAG at Guantánamo—he faces charges that he disseminated “secret national defense informatio . . . MORE . . .

The Bush Administration has had a penchant for appointing the lowest grade political hacks to the position of inspector general at agencies all across Washington, as was recently noted by ABC News. Now one of those cases has the staff up in arms. ABC . . . MORE . . .

The reliably Republican editorial page of the Chicago Tribune takes a look at the bubbling cesspool that Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales have made out of the Justice Department. It reaches some inevitable conclusions: . . . MORE . . .

Newsweek reported some time back that Alberto Gonzales had pressured the Justice Department to approve an obviously illegal – indeed, criminal – surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens and had been rebuffed. Today in his testimony before the Sen . . . MORE . . .

The dramatic testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey provides the perfect framework for re-examining some of the less-than-brilliant editorial page writing appearing recently in the Washington Post. The Post’s national security report . . . MORE . . .

McClatchy Newspapers breaks important new ground in the U.S. attorneys scandal by confirming that the roster of U.S. attorneys involved is still larger than previously suspected. . . . MORE . . .

Alberto Gonzales is challenged on his testimony about FISA, in which he sharply contradicts Deputy Attorney General James Comey. His response is predictable: Gonzales is sticking with the sworn account he furnished earlier, which is to say, he’s st . . . MORE . . .

At the Norfolk court martial of Lt Cmdr Matthew Diaz, the officer who coordinated the Navy’s response to demands for disclosure of information about detainees at Guantánamo has given testimony which demolishes the prosecution’s contentions about the . . . MORE . . .

Former senior Justice Department official, now Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal explains in an interview with Time magazine that the late night visit by Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to the hospital bed of John Ashcroft–described so vividly by . . . MORE . . .

I have just read through James Comey’s testimony for a second time. I don’t understand the lack of media attention paid to this. What Comey is setting out is among the most dramatic testimony given in a Congressional hearing room, and in the end it w . . . MORE . . .

The Associated Press and several local Wisconsin papers continue to explore Wisconsin U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic’s ill-fated and highly political prosecution of Wisconsin civil servant Georgia Thompson. The case exploded a little more than a month . . . MORE . . .

The ultimate question of the Watergate era is posed today in an editorial by the newspaper whose modern reputation was cut on Watergate, the Washington Post. . . . MORE . . .

The Bush Administration, entering into its last, lame-duck year, has the usual difficulties finding qualified help. Add to that public approval levels as low as have ever been seen. And consider finally what must be the least desirable place to work . . . MORE . . .

In the end, the legacy of the Bush era will be this: that no act of nobility or decency goes unpunished if it casts the leader in a bad light, nor will any venal or criminal deed of an acolyte go unshielded if it is true to the will of the leader. . . . MORE . . .

Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was transformed from an organization that defended the voting rights of minorities into a tool in a Republican Party campaign to suppress minority voters, McClatc . . . MORE . . .

One week ago, following his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Alberto Gonzales told friends that he had “weathered” the scandal and expected to stay on. That seems laughable at this point, as Congress prepares to vote “no confidence” i . . . MORE . . .

A key role in the GOP effort to politicize the Department of Justice has been played by five “Christian” law schools – each with a long tradition of highly partisan political engagement and close ties to the Religious Right. The five are Regent Unive . . . MORE . . .

In the last two national elections, a single organization appeared on the scene, spouting all of Karl Rove’s “voting fraud” talking points. It was called the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR for short). It had instant access and appeared every . . . MORE . . .

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who after eight years of service as attorney general was certainly the state’s most popular prosecutor since Thomas E. Dewey, has a few words to offer on Alberto Gonzales and the sad state of the Department of Justice . . . MORE . . .

U.S. News & World Report’s Chitra Ragavan notes that Alberto Gonzales’s late night visit to John Ashcroft at George Washington University Hospital to talk about extension of a highly classified and unlawful surveillance program may not be under revie . . . MORE . . .

Former Nixon administration counsel to the president John Dean looks at the conduct of Alberto Gonzales from the outset of the Purgegate affair and draws some conclusions: perjury, obstruction of justice, orchestration of a potentially criminal consp . . . MORE . . .

Wednesday was Monica Goodling day in the House Judiciary Committee. After invoking the Fifth Amendment, Monica got immunity in order to facilitate her testimony. In the end, what she put on the record is very unwelcome news for the three men at the t . . . MORE . . .

In my post on Monica Goodling’s testimony, I neglected to discuss one absolutely critical element: her statement that she had been deeply engaged in the process of appointing immigration judges. These appointments were not subject to the normal civil . . . MORE . . .

I previously lamented the failure of the House Judiciary Committee to get into Monica Goodling’s dealings with Rove and Miers. A reader points me to Dan Froomkin’s column: . . . MORE . . .

We are asked to consider providing advice to the new American president who will be sworn in on January 20, 2009. The Bush Administration has pursued a war on terror for over five years. On the basis of its track record, what changes should now be . . . MORE . . .

On the eve of Memorial Day 2007, Vice President Richard Cheney addressed the graduating class at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Dick Cheney’s generation was called to service in a war in Indochina. Dick Cheney had “bette . . . MORE . . .

I just returned from a conference on counter-terrorism issues convened in Europe where the United States was represented by a delegation of very senior figures from the Department of Justice. The experience reminded me that there are committed profes . . . MORE . . .

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart started his piece on the South Carolina GOP presidential debate by noting that it was co-sponsored by “Fox News and the Republican Party.” “Now wait a minute,” he said, “isn’t that the same thing?” . . . MORE . . .

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has offered his sentencing recommendation for Scooter Libby, and yet again, the document is drawing attention more for what it has to say about Libby’s boss – Vice President Dick Cheney – than what it says about . . . MORE . . .

At the outset of World War II, President Roosevelt said that a good citizen, seeing his neighbor’s house on fire, runs for the fire brigade and brings a bucket himself. Roosevelt adopted a “Good Neighbor policy.” Bush has pledged close cooperation wi . . . MORE . . .

One of the mysteries surrounding the testimony last week of Monica Goodling has now been resolved, thanks to the reporting of the Legal Times. Emma Schwartz and Jason McLure take a look at some litigation launched by a disappointed career immigration . . . MORE . . .

Yet another senior aide to Karl Rove has resigned in the face of a Congressional subpoena. Sarah M. Taylor, a presidential assistant who works directly under Karl Rove and is widely known as an expert in voting suppression targets directed against mi . . . MORE . . .

His term as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock expired six weeks ago, but Tim Griffin continued to purport to act as the Justice Department’s legate in the Arkansas capital notwithstanding widespread demands for his resignation. Today, however, he finally . . . MORE . . .

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the senior-most Republican in the Senate, Ted Stevens of Alaska, is currently the subject of an FBI corruption investigation which is focusing on a series of cost-free improvements to his Anchorage residence. A c . . . MORE . . .

Tom Heffelfinger, the U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis who was replaced by one of Monica Goodling’s best 30-something friends, Rachel Paulose, has continued to be something of a mystery case. Was he a part of the purge? Or did he just decide to go? Initi . . . MORE . . .

Conviction on a felony works an automatic disbarment. Which helps explain why Alberto Gonzales is so eager to keep his fingers wrapped about the wheel of the nation’s prosecutorial machinery. . . . MORE . . .

The more we track the still-unfolding U.S. attorneys scandal, the more it appears to be in its essence something different: a massive scheme to corrupt the elections process. Today’s National Journal offers another one of those ground-breaking report . . . MORE . . .

Some months ago one of my Alabama relations mentioned that she had been tracking the prosecution of Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat. “There’s something awfully fishy about this whole prosecution. It just doesn’t smell right. It smells like politi . . . MORE . . .

Something’s rotten in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Heart of Dixie Edition, continued. Seems that the New York Times has now secured the full text of the affidavit which is quoted in the morning edition, and it’s far more explosive than first indicated . . . MORE . . .

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This weekend brings word of a significant terrorist plot which targeted the delivery of aviation fuel to JFK. It was hyped in a completely shameless fashion by media airheads (Josh Marshall has a rundown of some of the most vapid and irresponsible pi . . . MORE . . .

The evidence of corruption and misconduct in the U.S. Attorney’s offices in Montgomery and Birmingham related to the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman continues to mount. Now Time Magazine joins the New York Times in characterizing the ca . . . MORE . . .

The San Diego Union-Tribune has secured a thirteen-page document in which former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam answers follow up questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lam lost her job after successfully prosecuting Rep. “Duke” Cunningham, now wid . . . MORE . . .

Today, former Kansas City U.S. Attorney Brad Schlozman is set to make his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee (he had bowed out of the date originally proposed by the committee, stating that he would be “on vacation”). In preparation fo . . . MORE . . .

Over the last two years I’ve had a good number of meetings with JAG lawyers involved in the Guantánamo process in various capacities – advising the convening authority, handling prosecution and defense. I have an article about some of that appearing . . . MORE . . .

Former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey’s responses to the written questions of the Senate Judiciary Committee have now been submitted, and they contain a number of further bombshells. In general, his testimony and his written responses reflec . . . MORE . . .

The Federalist Society bills itself as “a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.” It sponsors debates and public information functions at law schools around the country. I have participated in Fede . . . MORE . . .

There’s something dark and unseemly in the Heart of Dixie. The Assistant U.S. Attorney who handled the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman–a matter which has now moved to the front burner of the U.S. Attorneys corruption scandal–has . . . MORE . . .

The Brennan Center at NYU has released an important study of the conduct of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division over the last three-years. The shorter version would be to say that scare quotes now need to be attached to the words “Just . . . MORE . . .

Humor is a fickle thing. So much of it is culturally specific, and the result is that comedies can be the most challenging literature to translate. But occasionally we have the comic genius who finds a way of making his works universal. Aristophanes . . . MORE . . .

The Senate prepares for a vote of no-confidence in the service of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General on Monday. In the meantime, the list of accusations of criminal conduct and ethics lapses against him continues to swell. The crimes include: perj . . . MORE . . .

On a hill above Birmingham, Alabama stands a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of the forge, a symbol of the city’s debt to the steel industry around which it grew. Today, however, little steel is forged in Birmingham, but scandals are coming aplenty. . . . MORE . . .

Michael B. Nifong was the state prosecutor in Durham, North Carolina, who brought and trumpeted rape charges against a group of Duke University lacrosse players. The charges were false, and the decision to hype them to the media was unconscionable. N . . . MORE . . .

I’ve now heard from several sources within the Administration that a significant part of the documents which are being withheld–both by the Department of Justice and the White House–demonstrate Karl Rove’s on-going dabbling in the internal affairs of . . . MORE . . .