First-hand observations

I had an opportunity to listen to John McKay discuss his feelings and beliefs about the 2006 Attorney General scandal, the same issue Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton were recently cited for contempt of Congress for failing to testify about, and which Congress is now taking the Administration to court over for it's refusal to press the contempt charges.

Given the amount of time which has passed, I'd prefer Congress should just send the the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Ms. Miers under the inherent contempt statute, but that's a different matter.

Back to McKay. What makes his thoughts on the subject particularly compelling to me, in addition to the fact he was one of the Attorney General's directly affected by the mess, is his background. His family among the prominent Republican families where he lives, and had had, prior to being named Attorney General, been actively involved within the Republican party. Whatever else he might be accused of, he can't be accused of party-based bias.

As McKay noted, though, upon being named Attorney General he tried to lay the pasty aside and follow the law rather than a party agenda ... an approach anathema to this administration.

He said when the events first occurred he didn't have much of a strong opinion, but as time has passed and more information has come out, he is now strongly of the opinion at least some of the firings were clearly politically motivated. In particular, he cited David Iglesias of New Mexico (who refused to pursue an alleged voter-fraud case), Carol Lam of Southern California (who was actively pursuing several high profile cases against Republicans in the area, and Todd Graves of Missouri (another failure to pursue voter fraud).

McKay noted he felt the Graves case was especially egregious, given his successor rushed to bring the voter fraud charges up shortly before the election that November. Five months after the election, in April 2007, the case was summarily thrown out of court, something McKay noted is extremely rare, and which points to the weakness of the claim.

McKay was asked about his own firing, and did feel his case was similar to that of Iglesias and Graves. In the 2004 elections Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington Governor's race by a mere 129 votes after a recount which initially saw Rossi as winning (the two are scheduled for a rematch this fall). He talked about the pressure he received to bring voter-fraud charges to court over the race, but said on looking at the evidence there just wasn't anything there. He didn't feel, however, there was the level of evidence in his case that the matter was key to his firing as there is for the Iglesias and Graves removals.

All-in-all an interesting discussion. While he never came out and said as much, McKay's tone on several questions definitely implied disgust with the Bush administration and the whole sordid tale. The investigation has been stalled long enough, and if it takes marching Miers in under armed guard to get her to testify, well, it's time to do it.