Wow

George W. Bush wasted no time throwing his weight around with his new warrantless spying power. What the hell were those Blue Dogs thinking, by God!?

Within a day or so of getting the power he claimed to need to secretly eavesdrop on international phone calls, Bush had the FBI use a secret warrant to raid the home of an American, former Justice Department lawyer Thomas M. Tamm. Looks like he just wants revenge on an honest civil service professional who may have told the truth about Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping before Congress legalized it for him last Friday. Bush will have to go after former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, too, I guess, because they were critical of the Bush administration about this at the same time as Tamm.

N.J. joins the Resistance

Former N.J. Attorney General Robert Del Tufo is among a bipartisan group of 44 former AGs who asked the Senate and House Judiciary Committees July 13 to investigate the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for its "potential inappropriate political interference in the offices of United States Attorneys," Wayne Madsen (subscription only) is reporting. Our radar honed in on Siegelman June 1 and also here.

The evidence that Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, used the U.S. Department of Justice to orchestrate the prosecution from the White House for the National Republican Committee so Siegelman would lose the election, even though it seems as if he actually won, is growing. Madsen reports it turns out a "dinner party" at Rove's D.C. home March 7 and his Florida vacation home on another date actually included others on the Siegelman prosecution team. It's not a stretch to assume these were partisan strategy sessions.

Madsen further reports:

We have also learned that a number of FBI field agents have been deterred in investigating the interference by the White House in the Siegelman case. That has resulted in a schism between FBI field offices and politically-motivated U.S. Attorneys offices, particularly federal prosecutors who are considered "loyal Bushies." The interference is reportedly being directed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove.

Upon sentencing, Republican federal judge Mark Fuller denied Siegelman bail pending appeal and did not even grant the ex-governor the cusromary 45-day window to report to jail�in order to put his affairs in order. Furthermore, Siegelman was ordered handcuffed and shackled in leg irons as he was immediately taken to prison after his sentencing.

Yet, Bush deigned jail too harsh for poor little I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to spend even a day there on his conviction of perjury and obstruction of justice in the conspiracy to leak the name and cover company of highly classified CIA NOC Valerie Plame Wilson and Brewster-Jennings Co. Siegelman's crime must be terrible if Bush didn't also commute his sentence, right? His crime was that as governor, he reappointed a hospital executive to an unpaid state health care panel, as did the three governors before him, coincidentally to the executive giving money to a charity so loosely tied to Siegelman that I can't remember how. What a danger to our national security, right?

Asking the wrong question

U.S. Attorney Chris Christie keeps saying Alberto Gonzales never asked him to do anything partisan, but why aren't the journalists asking the obvious folo question: Did he talk with anyone else in DoJ or the White House, like, say, Monica Goodling, who at 33 had experience only at the RNC with her degree from Pat Robertson's Tier 4 law school before becoming Christie's boss. She admits attorneys were used in partisan plots.

We learned yesterday those nine attorneys weren't "fired," according to Goodling. They were just part of the DoJ's "attorney replacement program." Dontcha just love newspeak?

Why aren't reporters interested in this story, and, moreover, why does MSM seem to need to continue to go out of their way to deceive readers about the fact Christie was on the firing list from January to November 2006, not just put on and off it in November?

Don't miss the post on yesterday's testimony at Bradblog.