Harriet E. Miers Quotes
I want to fire every U. S. Attorney.
She did not think that the U. S. Attorneys, most of whom were Republicans, were loyal enough to President George W. Bush or ideological enough. The Attorney General refused to fire them all, but he did fire eight for political reasons including one to be replaced by a friend of White House Aide Karl Rove. Miers was so unqualified for the Supreme Court that the Senate members of her own party forced her to withdraw.
Harriet E. Miers, White House Counsel to George W. Bush (Republican), Unconfirmed nominee for the Supreme Court, Quoted on CNN, March 13, 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President but are supposed to be non political in the way they execute their offices. Some officials of some administrations try to involve the U. S. Attorneys in partisan conduct of their office and Ashcroft, who was a very conservative Republican was also one of the more ethical members of an administration that tended to put partisan advantage over ethics. He himself not only refused to politicize the Justice Department bud advised his subordinates to do the same. Ironically, Inglesias, also very ethical, took Ashcroft’s advice and after Ashcroft left office was fired by the administration for not using his office in the interests of the party.
This Attorney General didn’t even want the FBI or the Immigration & Naturalization Service in his department as size and power might compromise the objectivity of the advice he gave the President. See {45926}
He was explaining his reasons for resigning in 2005 from the number two position in the Justice Department. The George W. Bush administration had implemented a program of secret wiretapping and surveillance of American citizens in America which required the authorization of the Justice Department which had determined that the program as it was being implemented violated the law. The Attorney General was ill in the hospital but had told Comey that he would not sign the authorization. The White House then pressured Comey to sign and he refused, and in a similar replay of the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre”, the number three man at Justice would have been ordered to sign. His resignation convinced President Bush to alter the program to take account of the Justice Department objections.
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party since 1988, she previously served as White House Staff Secretary from 2001 to 2003 and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy from 2003 until 2005. In 2005, Miers was nominated by Bush to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but—in the face of bipartisan opposition—asked Bush to withdraw her nomination.
