White House Reprimanded U.S. Attorney After He Failed To Cave To Hastings’ Pressure
White House Reprimanded U.S. Attorney After He Failed To Cave To Hastings’ Pressure
Yesterday, John McKay, the former U.S. attorney in Washington, revealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Rep. Doc Hastings’s (R-WA) office contacted him and attempted to pressure him in an ongoing investigation. McKay was investigating voter fraud in the hotly contested 2004 gubernatorial election, which had been certified in favor of the Democratic candidate.
After the hearing, McKay revealed that the White House was also upset that he refused to convene a federal grand jury to investigate voter fraud in the race, which may have been one the reasons he was denied a federal judgeship:
In remarks after the hearings, McKay said that officials in the White House counsel’s office, including then-counsel Harriet E. Miers, asked him to explain why he had “mishandled” the governor’s race during an interview for a federal judgeship in September 2006. McKay was informed after his dismissal that he also was not a finalist for the federal bench.
McKay applied for the federal judgeship in summer 2006, at which time “many local lawyers considered him the front-runner for the job.” Just three months later, he was forced to resign as U.S. attorney and told he was no longer in the running for the federal bench. Yesterday, the only excuse the Justice Department offered for firing McKay was that they were concerned with the manner “in which he went about advocating particular policies.”
In a statement yesterday, Hastings denied that his office ever contacted the White House about “whether he [McKay] was qualified to be a federal judge.” But Todd Young, Hastings’s chief of staff noted “Hastings had regular contact with the White House about judgeships.”
There is no evidence that McKay “mishandled” the Washington election investigation. The only thing that is evident is that Hastings, the right wing, and the White House were unhappy with McKay’s unwillingness to bend justice to politics.
Sort Comments By: Top Rated | Date
32 Responses to “White House Reprimanded U.S. Attorney After He Failed To Cave To Hastings’ Pressure”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Think ProgressContact Us
Donate
Are you saying there is something wrong with Thuggery, intimidation, brow beating, influence peddling, and retribution? Isn’t that the Bushco recipe to win friends and influence people? it is certainly their Foreign policy mandates.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:33 amHarriet Myers-where has she been lately?
March 7th, 2007 at 11:35 amBetter get Fitzgerald on the case!
March 7th, 2007 at 11:37 amHastings, if you want to investigate election fraud, 2004 Ohio and 2000 Florida would be dandy places to start.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:37 amThe evidence seems to be mounting that this administration has subverted elections, and conspired to obstruct justice in so many instances, that:
not commencing impeachment hearings against the vp and p immediately is a crime against the people of this country by congress.
What in the hell are you waiting for? Get the evidence in front of the american people and there won’t be another republican elected in 2008. If you are not as stupid as you appear, do you realize that you can put them all down forever? It is incredible that our congress is still doing nothing.
we, the people, need new representatives. we need to have our elections paid for by the government or we are going to continue to get the cowards and traitors we have today in positions of authority. It only matters how much money and how big a lie you can tell right now to become an elected official. It is time for that to end.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:39 amReward the wealthy and powerful, berate and abuse the poor and powerless.
Smells like Bush-America to me.
WWJI?
Who Would Jesus Intimidate?
-GSD
March 7th, 2007 at 11:42 ami like that miers woman. bush should consider her for a spot on the supreme court.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:45 amSo it has now been uncovered that at least four Republican members of Congress tried to intimidate one or another U.S. attorney in 2004, an election year. In these particular cases the intimidation was resisted, and the attorneys were subsequently fired. Very suspicious. Notice that each of these cases involved election politics. What do you bet that Karl Rove and/or Alberto Gonzales spread encouragement to use this kind of intimidation with a wink and a nod to say that the leadership at Justice would help provide cover? Are there other U.S. attorneys, still working, who were spared firing because a similar act of intimidation worked?
March 7th, 2007 at 11:46 amDid anyone see the Clinton backed NY Times hit piece on Obama?
March 7th, 2007 at 11:48 amThis is because Fitz who is a criminal conspiracy investigator would not file
for doing this in Iraq after she admitted who she was in ‘Vanity Fair.’
March 7th, 2007 at 11:58 amVermont votes to IMPEACH…
http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ thenation/ 20070307/ cm_thenation/ 1172344;_ylt=Ap4l.wIJTvGAHRaQgcB.ByMDW7oF
March 7th, 2007 at 12:12 pmRe #10, I see that the braindead troll idiots are going to persist with their debunked talking points. Are they really that stupid? Do they get paid to write this crap?
March 7th, 2007 at 12:13 pmVerbal, they’re really that stupid/brainwashed.
Just look at any organized religion.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:21 pmThe old saying about messing with the bull and getting the horn may be true but Bushco is having trouble distinguishing the horner and the hornee.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:22 pmWait, I thought these people loved election fraud.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:34 pmI know they didn’t invent it but they sure perfected it.
So now that they have all their machines in place if some neocon foregets to steal the election at the beginning they can’t go back and steal it later.
That must be very troubling for them. They must have been looking for a way to go to the Supreme Court.
Did anybody just see a real fast boat go by?
March 7th, 2007 at 12:34 pmAre they really that stupid?
Comment by VerbalKint
Yes, they are.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:34 pmHttm, I told you to stay on topic!! If you want to get your check today then you follow our orders when you troll these sites!
March 7th, 2007 at 12:35 pmHmm, investigating GOP election theft? No, the GOP doesn’t quite feel ready to go down that particular road… As long as we have electronic computerized voting machines and vote tabulating machines, there will be GOP thugs happy to hack, rig and steal American elections. Republicans have been electronically stealing elections since Chuck Hagel was “elected” Senator in Nebraska 1997 in elections that were “voted” on his own private brand of electronic voting machines. No even a lousy paper trail… Just “trust” GOP electronic vote “counting” machines…
Imagine the right-wing uproar that would have occurred if Al Gore had tried to run for public office with the election stage on his own private brand of electronic voting machines. Apparently it’s OK with the American corporate media for Republicans to steal elections electronically…
The GOP followed up their 1997 electronic election theft with more electronic election thefts in 2000, 2002 and 2004. (See the internets for details). 2006 will follow unless there is a tidal wave of votes for Democrats…
We need to immediately return to hand-counted paper ballots to restore our American democracy.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pmIs it actually true that the FIRST U.S. Attorney fired by the neo-Tammany hall is not a prominent part of the current story?
This older chapter of the story has a lot more than just congressmen going to jail, tying in all of the fun parts of recent scandals, and even providing some material for the national media to be shocked, shocked, I say, at appalling conditions (with little U.S. Flags sewn onto them).
After all, “…Jack Abramoff wanted to take the credit for getting rid of the chief federal prosecutor for U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean”, from a story “Abramoff sought credit for work he didn’t do”, MSNBC, Joel Seidman, June 30, 2006.
Frederick Black was the interim U.S. attorney for the territories. The story also said “Black told FBI agents investigating the wide-ranging influence-peddling scandal spawned by Abramoff that he was replaced because he stirred political controversy by starting his own, earlier probe of Abramoff.”
And Hastings was involved in this for along time, see Lawmaker in DeLay Inquiry Tied to Lobbyist”, AP, June 8, 2005. Also, the Charlie Brown congressional campaign (ran against Dolittle) sent out a bit of info on these issues, see “Campaign 2006: Brown Campaign releases records…”, Sept. 27, 2006.
The media has ORDERED that this part of the story be EXPUNGED. Please OBEY.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:48 pmIf the right wing is allowed to make the justice system modify its actions based on political whim then we will see what the nazis did in Germany happen here… The nazis went to great extremes to make the murder and other violations of peoples rights “legal” before they wholesale started attacking all those that did not swear allegence to the GOP.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:50 pmWhat did the White House counsel office think he mishandeled? TP has a nice writeup but didn’t note the particulars of what concerned them. Please update your post with the specific information the white house was concerned with. Do you have the transcript of the phone calls? I hate the he said she said crap that happens so often. You never know who is telling the truth and who is upset they got fired for doing a bad job. Personally, I would love to see what the white house was concerned with before passing judgement on whether they fired him correctly or not. Without that info, this isn’t really a story.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:05 pmDidn’t we all know she was behind the skulduggery in the White House? She has the appearance of a petite schoolteacher, and that contributed to her usefulness. No one can work for Bush for any time at all and not be corrupt.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:25 pm18 Httm, I told you to stay on topic!! If you want to get your check today then you follow our orders when you troll these sites!
Dearest GOP Troll Supervisor
March 7th, 2007 at 1:43 pmYour little trolls are getting really unruly. They have poop all over them. I’m afraid it may not be from all the ass kissing this time. I have discovered that Fox News and WH talking points cause dementia. When you combine them it causes immediate loss of bodily functions.
Unfortunately they have no shame so they won’t just go away.
I still feel quite in the dark in spite of following ePM posts and other diaries on the subject. What does seem clear is that these
“resignations”, taken collectively, have put my C/T radar on high alert.
My most dire forebodings revolve around ongoing efforts to grease the wheels for Federalizing of National Guard troops and or local police forces to deal with the next “emergency”,i.e. martial law.
With electoral prospects continuing to look dim for Republicans in the next election cycle, this might be a meglamainiacal way to hold power, ballot box be damned.
The reins of power continue to be held by madmen, and I do not sense any willingness on their part to allow us rabble to undo that arrangement.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/21/15226/2589
March 7th, 2007 at 3:39 pmIglesia didn’t take the firing lightly According to the San Diego Tribune:
And so, the question presses ever more urgently – why has the Bush administration sacked Carol Lam and six other trusted U.S. attorneys? No one, it seems, feels required to say. Only one of the seven, New Mexico’s David Iglesia, demanded to be told why he was terminated, but got no explanation.
Check out ePluribus Media Community and now Timelines too!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/21/15226/2589
…..Undoubtably What I was thinking is that Gonzales has boxed himself into a corner with this one.
A. He fired a good guy who is not going quietly
B. Domenici replacements are Republican and have experience
If he departs from previous Senate confirmation practices he is flying in Domenici’s face.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:41 pmhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/7/81651/41812
……Stupid bastards
Look at this image from Palast’s site, notice that these morons even named their Excel sheet
“Caging-4.xls”.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:44 pmLosing Sight of what really Matters…
I believe that we as Americans have lost sight of what is important to our survival. Currently we are a Nation that seems to care more about Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, and American Idol then we seem to care about Law, Politics, and most importantly…
March 7th, 2007 at 5:34 pmIn many ways this is worse than having Gonzales do the heavy lifting on the dirty work. Putting it directly in the Whitehouse makes it a purely partisan issue since the Whitehouse does not make judgements on “performance”, the Justice Department does.
It seems like each time you turn over a rock in the Whitehouse another immoral character shows up. Hell will be a crowded place in a few short years.
March 7th, 2007 at 6:27 pmI expected NOTHING LESS from the SCUMBAGS of Bushland Uber Allies like Doc “Butcher” Hastings, the Josef Mengele, and Harriet Myers, the Ilse Koch of the Nazi-Fascist THUGS of CHIMPya’s BROWNSHIRTS!!!!!
March 8th, 2007 at 2:00 am[…] out.” That same month, Miers called McKay directly and asked him to explain why he had “mishandled” the governor’s race. By December, McKay had been fired and denied a federal judgeship. […]
March 13th, 2007 at 11:35 pmAgriculture Nebraska Bankruptcy Attorney
This article sounds well, but how everything is related together?
March 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm