Home > Window on Washington > Archives > 2007 > April > 24
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
If I’m Elected President….
At a press conference Tuesday organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., decided to do some campaigning in his quest for the White House.
Hunter, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, had championed a bill signed by the president last year to build more than 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Unfortunately, he said, only two miles have been built.
“If I’m elected to be president of the United States, I will complete this border fence in six months,” he said, to raucous applause.
FAIR is a group that seeks to reduce immigration.
Duncan also said that as president, he would pardon two imprisoned former Border Patrol agents — Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos — who have become a cause celeb among conservatives.
The two agents are serving 12 and 11 year prison sentences after being convicted of shooting a suspected drug smuggler and trying to cover up the incident.
Supporters say the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the U.S. border against criminal intruders.
Duncan said the two men were convicted “with what I would call the most extreme injustice ever dealt to men and women in uniform in United States agencies.”
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of San Antonio has stood by his prosecution of the agents.
Permalink | |
On the Road Again
They’re packing up and heading out, again.
Ex-Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were named today to lead the U.S. delegation to tomorrow’s funeral of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
The current President Bush also named William Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, to the official delegation.
Permalink | |
In the ‘Never Mind’ Department…
UPDATE: A Kucinich spokeswoman says the presser has been rescheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, had planned to introduce articles of impeachment against Vice-President Richard Cheney Tuesday at a Capitol Hill press conference.
Namely, Kucinich believes that Cheney and President Bush have violated the law by threatening “aggressive” war against Iran - a violation of the U.N. charter.
But then Cheney went to the hospital to have the blood clot in his leg checked, and suddenly it didn’t look like a very good day to start trying to impeach the vice president.
“Until the vice president’s condition is clarified, I am placing any action on hold,” Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate, declared in a statement.
A Kucinich spokeswoman said the press conference has yet to be rescheduled.
Permalink | |
Congress sets new interviews in attorney firing probe
President Bush’s pledge of support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did little to deter the House and Senate investigators probing his questionable firing of eight federal prosecutors last year.
House and Senate investigators are interviewing Justice Department official William E. Moschella today about the firing of the prosecutors.
They are planning to press Moschella, principal associate attorney general, about testimony he gave the House Judiciary Committee last month that the U.S. attorney in New Mexico was fired on Dec. 7 because he had delegated his first assistant to running the office.
David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney from New Mexico who is a captain in the Navy Reserve, did leave the office for 45 days each year.
House aides say Moschella will be asked about whether the Justice Department created an excuse to dismiss Iglesias because they had heard numerous complaints about him from Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M..
Iglesias told the House and Senate panels that he felt pressure to hasten an investigation of a state Democrat. Domenici called him to ask about an investigation just weeks before last November’s elections put the Democratic party back in control of Congress. Records show that Domenici complained to the White House and Gonzales about Iglesias.
The committees also plan to interview Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty this week. They are interested in testimony he gave earlier this year to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the dismissals.
McNulty told the committees that the attorneys were ousted because of peformance problems. Records released in the probe show that nearly all of the prosecutors had unblemished performance records.
Permalink | |
