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Friday, June 13, 2008

Attorney General?

For the people of the United States of America generally?

Or Attorney Specifically to insulate the executive branch from scrutiny?




From the AG's homepage:
Office of the Attorney General


The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the Office of the Attorney General which evolved over the years into the head of the Department of Justice and chief law enforcement officer of the Federal Government. The Attorney General represents the United States in legal matters generally and gives advice and opinions to the President and to the heads of the executive departments of the Government when so requested. In matters of exceptional gravity or importance the Attorney General appears in person before the Supreme Court. Since the 1870 Act that established the Department of Justice as an executive department of the government of the United States, the Attorney General has guided the world's largest law office and the central agency for enforcement of federal laws.


From the Department of Justice General Records:
60.1 Administrative History
Established: Effective July 1, 1870, by an act of June 22, 1870 (16 Stat. 162).

Predecessor Agencies:

Office of the Attorney General (1789-1870)
Functions: Enforces federal laws and investigates violations. Provides legal advice to the President and to heads of Executive agencies. Represents the Federal Government in court. Conducts law enforcement, crime prevention, and offender rehabilitation programs. Administers immigration and naturalization laws, and registers aliens. Supervises U.S. attorneys and marshals.


Contempt, conschmempt.
Clearly the Attorney General's only role is to prevent the President's administration from looking bad, by advising the President's subordinates to violate congressional subpoenas and then refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of checks and balances.



(LETTER TO CHAIRMAN CONYERS)

January 16, 2008


John Conyers, Jr., Chairman

House Judiciary Committee

2138 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515



Dear Chairman Conyers:

You have been a tireless champion of providing oversight to an Administration that has run roughshod over our constitution, that operates with no limits on executive branch authority and one that has repeatedly flouted the investigations and oversight the 110th Congress has tried to provide over the past year. We have the greatest respect for the work you have done and believe that impeachment hearings pertaining to Vice President Cheney are the best way to move that work forward.

Impeachment hearings will allow for the exact kind of oversight that you and the Democratic leadership have provided regarding the actions of the Administration but without the opportunity for the Bush Administration to ignore lawful requests for information, refuse subpoenas and effectively limit its own oversight.

Impeachment hearings can provide the opportunity to cut through the executive privilege defenses and force this Administration to answer a Congress it has clearly chosen to ignore. We know you would agree that as Members of Congress, we can not allow legitimate oversight to be thwarted or such a dangerous precedent to stand.

The charges against the Vice President relate to the core actions of this Administration, its unlawful behavior and its abuse of power. We are concerned with alleged crimes that are central to his duties of Vice President, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. As you know, the charges against Vice President Cheney include providing Congress and the American people false intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

We trust that you will hold a sober investigation and let the facts determine the outcome as you have as Chairman this past year. We sincerely believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step given what we have seen of this Administration. Chairman Conyers, we are respectfully asking you join us and concerned citizens around the country in supporting impeachment hearings.


Sincerely,



Robert Wexler

Support the Rule of Law and don't let the Attorney General violate his most basic job description

No man is above the law
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these [States]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present [President of the United States] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world"

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