How Republicans created executive branch hegemony
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Guest Writer
(Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term and has served as an Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.)
Having made the mistake of confirming Michael Mukasey as US attorney general, the Democrats again find their efforts to hold Republican government officials accountable for illegal and unethical behavior stonewalled by the Department of Justice [sic] and blocked by the Brownshirt tactics for which the Bush Regime is now infamous.
White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers were found in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas and refusing to cooperate with congressional committee investigations of the Bush Regime’s political firings of eight Republican US attorneys. The eight fired US attorneys declined to politicize their offices by investigating only Democratic officials and ruining their election chances with leaks from "investigations" designed to smear their reputations.
Mukasey gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the majority Democrats in Congress the finger and refused to refer the House of Representatives charges against the two Bush Regime operatives to a federal grand jury for investigation. Following the now established practice by the Bush Regime, Mukasey told the speaker of the House that members of the executive branch are above the law and are not accountable to the US Congress, formerly a co-equal branch of government under the US Constitution in the days now past when the executive branch felt obliged to abide by the Constitution.
Mukasey boldly asserted in his letter to Congress that Miers and Bolton are immune from congressional subpoenas and, thereby, their "noncompliance did not constitute a crime." According to Mukasey, "The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege." [Mukasey Refuses to Prosecute Bush Aides, By Dan Eggen, Washington Post, March 1, 2008]
The way matters stand in America today, the executive branch can falsely prosecute, frame-up, and imprison members of Congress and governors of states at will, but itself cannot be held accountable to law.
(Continued here.)
Online Journal Guest Writer
(Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term and has served as an Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.)
Having made the mistake of confirming Michael Mukasey as US attorney general, the Democrats again find their efforts to hold Republican government officials accountable for illegal and unethical behavior stonewalled by the Department of Justice [sic] and blocked by the Brownshirt tactics for which the Bush Regime is now infamous.
White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers were found in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas and refusing to cooperate with congressional committee investigations of the Bush Regime’s political firings of eight Republican US attorneys. The eight fired US attorneys declined to politicize their offices by investigating only Democratic officials and ruining their election chances with leaks from "investigations" designed to smear their reputations.
Mukasey gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the majority Democrats in Congress the finger and refused to refer the House of Representatives charges against the two Bush Regime operatives to a federal grand jury for investigation. Following the now established practice by the Bush Regime, Mukasey told the speaker of the House that members of the executive branch are above the law and are not accountable to the US Congress, formerly a co-equal branch of government under the US Constitution in the days now past when the executive branch felt obliged to abide by the Constitution.
Mukasey boldly asserted in his letter to Congress that Miers and Bolton are immune from congressional subpoenas and, thereby, their "noncompliance did not constitute a crime." According to Mukasey, "The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege." [Mukasey Refuses to Prosecute Bush Aides, By Dan Eggen, Washington Post, March 1, 2008]
The way matters stand in America today, the executive branch can falsely prosecute, frame-up, and imprison members of Congress and governors of states at will, but itself cannot be held accountable to law.
(Continued here.)
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