Washington D.C. is in a fuss over the replacement of eight United States Attorneys after President Bush’s reelection in 2004. One of the main talking points of the Bush administration’s minions is that no matter what the reason for these eight attorneys’ demanded resignation, all of the 93 U.S. Attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President.” Is that explanation enough?
President Bush said on March 14, 2007, “U.S. attorneys and others serve at the pleasure of the President. Past administrations have removed U.S. attorneys. It is their right to do so.”
Karl Rove said on March 8, 2007, “Look, by law and by Constitution, these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term.”
Despite this acclimation of unfettered power, there must be some reason for a decision. Of course, “at the pleasure” does not require a reason to be justified. If the basis for a change in Department of Justice
personnel is simply on a Presidential whim, then that is as scary, if not more so, than partisan politics.
Pleasure. The word sounds so benign – like margaritas with little umbrellas sipped on a white beach near the equator. But the definitions of the word “pleasure” are telling, even damning in this context.
The first definition of “pleasure” is “desire, inclination.” If those eight U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and were asked to resign, then what prompted President Bush to desire such a change or to be so inclined?
Absent some kind of civil rights violation, the President can fire any appointee for any reason. He could complain that they aren’t blonde, they smoke, or they like Cocoa-Puffs – not Count Chocula. Of course, such reasons would be whims – child-like. It would be reminiscent of a pre-adolescent stomping around the room proclaiming, “I’m the boss of me!” Translated: “I’m the Decider.”
Obviously the reason for the replacement of the eight U.S. Attorneys was not that capricious. In fact, it is more likely that such decisions were highly calculated. The administration claims there is no evidence of impropriety in the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. In the same breath they refuse full and open testimony on the matter by White House officials.
It’s difficult to discern whether there is evidence of impropriety if no evidence is presented at all. There are only the flat statements that the U.S. Attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President.”
Does a further definition of “pleasure” apply in the situation of the eight, fired U.S. Attorneys?
2 : a state of gratification
3 a : sensual gratification b : frivolous amusement
4 : a source of delight or joy
The U.S. Attorney for the state of Arkansas, William Cummings was asked to resign and was then replaced by Timothy Griffin, a confidant of Karl Rove. Maybe Mr. Cummings served at the pleasure of Mr. Rove, not the President. Perhaps there is some kind of mutuality of pleasure between President Bush and Karl Rove. The thought is too scary – I won’t ask, and they shouldn’t tell. I’ll forego sworn statements and transcripts if only not to hear about such affairs.
The spoils of attaining power only go so far. While Department of Justice appointees do ostensibly serve at the pleasure of the President, their mission is far more important. United States attorneys serve in the interests of justice for the American people – not simply the interests of the White House. These people took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States not an oath to a specific leader equivalent to Omerta .
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IIRC, the President's "pleasure" does not include illegal acts
(Except, of course, for the coke and the drunken driving. But the one was a long time ago, and Fredo took care of the other.)
Illegal acts like, oh, obstruction of justice, for example.
Because if the President’s pleasure trumps the rule of law, then we really do have a monarchy.
If a lawyer could set me straight on this with sme cites…
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Too Numerous To Recall
But there is a great book written by Elizabeth De La Vega called United States v. Bush et al. The author is a former prosecutor who sets out the case she would present to a grand jury to secure an indictment against Bush/Cheney.
Granted, this book was written well before the numerous possible charges that could be envoked in articles of impeachment drafted today.
It's NOT what the 8 (or 9) did to get fired that really matters
“It’s what the other 80+ did to remain employed that should occupy our attentions.
Shane-O, Love your use of the pleasure principle
“How much pleasure should one president have,” though I might change the “have” to “get,” is a meme worth propagating.
Smart, funny post.
At the pleasure of the President assumes a President who is fulfilling his duty to uphold the constitution. The firing of those US Attorney’s was in the service of an unconstitutional attempt to rig elections. That much pleasure no president is allowed, or should be allowed to get, have, or hold.
I think it was Josh Marshall who pointed out that just because a specific act or set of circumstances is not technically illegal, doesn’t mean that it is either ethical or constitutional, because a constitutional democracy often assumes a certain level integrity often covered by the phrase, “the way things are done,” or, more to the case in point, “that is not the way a President or an administration acts,” or, “it just aint’t kosher.”
Leah, Thanks For The Kind Compliment
All your points are well taken - any conjugation of “to have” would work in the title - yours may be better!
As to your comments about legality - if only unethical behavior was justiceable.
And the double negative is throwing me - something that is “not technically illegal” would be legal. Violating the Constitution by a president is illegal.
Maybe I’m just being dense - it happens.
There are two issues
1. Is that the President can be impeached, and legitimately, for reasons other than violating the law. This is the idea that impeachment is the remedy for a Constitutional crisis, and that impeachment arises from the people, through their representatives. For example, disinformation about the WMDs probably was not illegal. Should it be impeachable?
2. Is that the “pleasure of the President” notion does not provide cover for illegal acts. Obstruction of justice would one such act. Voter caging would be another. Bringing false charges would be another.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
A Respectful Rebuttal
Lambert:
The president can be impeached simply by a majority vote of the House of Representatives upon duly introduced articles of impeachment. The legitimacy of such an impeachment rests with Constitutional interpretation. True, impeachment is a remedy in a Constitutional crisis (I see you’ve been reading John Nichols) but it is not the only remedy. The Judicial branch can be of assistance.
As we all know, there have only been two presidents that were impeached. In both cases, the articles of impeachment were based on actual “high crimes or misdemeanors.” Also, in both cases they were politically motivated – that’s the point, isn’t it? While scholars will tell you that an actual violation of a law is not necessary for impeachment, such charges do lead to legitimacy.
Think of impeachment as the indictment and the Senate hearing as the trial. A flimsy indictment will almost certainly lead to an acquittal in the Senate – especially given the fact that a 2/3rds vote is required for removal from office. In both cases of impeachment in our history, the Senate acquitted. And in both cases there were articles of impeachment that contained actual accusations of violations of laws. If only the articles of impeachment brought against President Nixon were not dropped…
“The pleasure of the President” notion applies to legal acts. If only our representatives could get some facts (rather than constant unsubstantiated claims of executive privilege), i.e., evidence, perhaps articles of impeachment would contain the legitimacy necessary for an actual removal by the Senate. I’m not saying the bases aren’t out there – they truly are. There are also many more to be found.
But remember, the man overseeing such a trial in the Senate would be Chief Justice
John Roberts.
The first impeachment is more on point here
The Andrew Johnson impeachment is not an event I have studied in great depth I should say right off the bat, nor am I any sort of a Constitutional scholar in the law-school sense. But in even the most general terms there are some valuable comparisons that can be made:
Johnson inherited every grudge that anybody ever had against Lincoln’s actions in his first term, which I firmly believe would have very likely have resulted in his impeachment had he not had the good sense to get shot and turned into the Last Martyr of the Civil War (one reason I am so fierce to smack down anybody who hints that it would be a Good Thing for ill to befall our current idiot, and yeah I’m lookin at you, Woody.)
Lincoln had however at least had the good sense earlier to win his war so would have been protected to some degree by that, although the example of Churchill’s quick fall from grace/power under similar circumstances may be illuminative here.
So Johnson prompty falls into wrangles with Congress—he’s a Democrat for starters, a Southerner even worse, and even though he is Only Following Orders as left by Lincoln in carrying out non-punitive tactics of Reconstruction his motives are questioned anyway.
His biggest foes are in the Cabinet, who have the backing of various powerful members of Congress. Lincoln had the talent of playing them off against each other to keep overall control. Johnson lacked this talent utterly, and not having been in the executive branch during the first term had not had the opportunity to pick any of it up by observation (unlikely that he could/would have anyway as it did not suit his personality.)
Now everyone is united against him, so, again due largely to his management style if you will, he decides the way to solve this is to get the fuck rid of the Cabinet ministers who are conniving against him. Now they turn to to their Congressional backers to say “No thou shalt not, dipshit” and a LAW is passed requiring that any Cabinet position which requires Senate confirmation must have similar Senate approval to be dismissed.
Johnson sez, fuck you assholes and fires some anyway.
So in the terms we are discussing today he had indeed committed a LEGAL offense, violating a law duly passed by Congress. Of course this law was dubious and unquestionably “political” and as we all know in the end it fell to what was essentially jury nullification. The impeachment failed.
Thus we come back to the fact that precedent, such as it is, supports both of your arguments. It is a Constitutional matter (I don’t say crisis as that term should be reserved for situations in which the Constitution is being abrogated, which an impeachment is not.)
It is also a practical political matter, under the rule that “if you strike at the king you must kill him.” (This. is. a. metaphor! dammit. Literary quotation! I am not advocating violence here, see above note to Woody.)
I would say as a part time half-assed historian that whoever the target, the next impeachment had damn well better be carried out to conviction. Otherwise it will almost certainly be terminally flawed as a remedy for executive overreach.
One more try that just turns out to be —in the eyes of the public— a big boring hoo-rah and the guy gets off again, and I seriously doubt it will ever be tried again.
Not Intending To Pick An Argument With Xan
over historical matters, because I am not that belligerent or foolish, so setting aside the likelihood that Andrew Johnson contributed politically to his impeachment by being a colossal ass and that he also may not have assiduously followed Lincoln’s Reconstruction intentions but instead struck out on a more racist course all his own, it is clear that a comparison with our current situation is both different in the particulars and similar in terms of the questions an impeachment engenders.
A Harper’s Weekly editorial of November 3, 1866 opined: “There are two questions which immediately present themselves. Has the conduct of the President made him liable to impeachment? And if so, would it be wise to impeach him?” One hundred and fifty years on, the answers to these questions are still the most relevant and the most critical.
That Bush and Cheney both have committed impeachable acts is likely but not yet conclusively provable. Further investigations by Congress may or may not be sufficient to provide a “smoking gun” and the corrupted co-conspirators at the Justice
Department are certainly not going to help incriminate them selves. Absent legally clear proof of criminality, it seems that this House will not impeach.
Even with Articles of Impeachment from the House, true believers in the Republican Senatorial Caucus would almost certainly vote for acquittal. What level of disgusting perversity would induce them to convict? The world has already seen Bush holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the country of origin for most of the 9/11 hijackers and most of the foreign fighters killing our soldiers in Iraq. He could be caught in bed with both a dead girl and a live boy, each named bin Laden, and it still would not be enough. The greatest likelihood is that Xan’s prediction will come true: Bush and Cheney will walk and impeachment will ever more be seen as an impotent, useless tool, lost as a means of curbing future despotism.
Impeachment is hugely appealing. But how? Bush first, then Cheney? What is to be done with President Cheney’s inevitable nomination for VP? Cheney first? How then is Bush’s VP nominee dealt with? Or will it be first one then the other with the Senate refusing to confirm a new VP, making a Democrat into a President by constitutional coup d’etat? Is constitutional overthrow of an administration six years on really what the nation needs? Even in the face of the electoral/judicial coups of 2000 and 2004 along with a colossal pile of immorality and incompetence on top of probable criminality, is it – whether a failure or a success - still wise?
Xan, Leah, Lambert and Shan-O thoughtfully raise important questions, on a difficult topic. It may be that, as with so many aspects of this regime, there are no good answers.
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/06F…
Don't let's be silly...
There will be no impeachment.
Please, please, prove me wrong, Congress.
I dearly would like for these visions of national destruction to be nothing more than paranoid delusions.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
/slaps forehead/ "clear legal proof?"
i guess i’ve lost touch with ’reality.’ there are certain concepts that i no longer understand, and here’s a good example. FISA. i don’t care what post-criminality legal babble that comes out of the executive office, the FISA violations are so clear that even republican stacked courts have had to take them seriously. bush broke the law, lb- remind me how many times now? still is, by any honest interpretation of the original law…
i guess i’m just crazy, but i understood the Old Republic to have laws that prevented the president from doing whatever he wanted, whenever, and never having to answer for it. I missed that part of the constitution. lying a nation into war, outing an important spy for political purposes. torture. the geneva conventions. various articles of the bill of rights, now “quaint.” it’s time for Black Bush: if Bush were black and had done these things, how far do you think his neck would be stretching right now?
there is no, none, nada, question that bush and cheney are “criminals.” it merely is a question for those who long for the Old Republic to enforce its laws.
Yes, impeachment is wise and needs to be done at once
I’m sold on the argument that it’s wise and we have to do it now, that was made on Bill Moyer’s program.
Assuming that we don’t have, er, “continuity of government” issues at some point in 2008, and a Democrat wins, and is allowed to take power, even then we have to impeach now.
Because if Bush is allowed to leave the power he’s seized to a successor, Democrat or Republican, we’ll never be able to ratchet back, and that means the end of the Republic. Nobody, nobody, should have that kind of power.
I should have seen, and made this argument, but… I guess I’m just not Shrill
enough. I think we need to stop thinking, “It’s not pragmatic,” and start thinking “How can we convince the pragmatists”?
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Crimes Have Been Committed
no argument, not from a common sense, rational thinking viewpoint. But I’m using the word proof here in the strictly legal sense. What we have now are allegations. Close, but for the Republican die-hards and dead-enders in Congress, still no cigar and there has to be a cigar, or a stained dress, or someone from inside the circle who talks. If Harriet Meyers gets a stretch in Stony Lonesome, maybe she’ll testify that “Dick and Karl made me do it – and George watched” but even then, even then. Remember the OJ verdict - head slaps all around.
The issue isn’t whether or not BushCo have done illegal things (they have), it is whether or not an impeachment can be successfully launched (maybe) and, critically, a conviction obtained (not likely). A failure to convict and remove from office would leave the Constitution, including the Congress, in worse shape than dealing with the legal issues one by one under the Justice
system.
As CD points out, even this SCOTUS can’t swallow all that BushCo have done. But the Hamdan ruling addresses only the issue of his legal status designation and the manner of his judicial processing, and says nothing about whether crimes were committed by Bush or Cheney. Other complaints will have to be filed, other investigations made, charges levied and trials held. A slow miserable process, a Democrat has to win the Presidency, DOJ has to be reconstituted, years will go by and there is no certainty of success but it may still be a better option than impeachment.
If all that Bush and Cheney have done, all the nefariousness that we already know about, is not enough to impeach AND convict, and it isn’t, why start the process? There is no point, we can all agree, on symbolic, unenforceable legislative maneuvering.
The difficulty, IMHO, isn’t so much convincing the pragmatists, who ever they may be, but swaying enough Republican Senators (and the Lieberman/Nelson bunch of Quislings) to reach 67 votes. Any plan to accomplish that, I’m all ears. Without a conviction, however, impeachment may well turn out to be a net negative.
"Serve at the pleasure of the president"
What the hell is this suppose to mean? Everybody and anybody who works for the U.S. Government, including the president, serve at the pleasure of the people. We don’t have a Queen or King who gets people serving for him at his pleasure. Bunch of retards…