Comments on "Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."

Sweet nectar from blind Lady Justice's teat!

Or, for other people in amerika, such as black men, not every crime has to be in violation of a law.

Please, someone in the press or Congress have the balls to ask him, "Exactly what, Mister Attorney General, IS a crime? Please define it, and the 'rule of law.'"

This is the most genuinely Orwellian statement made by anyone in the entire Bush administration.

May that statement come back and bite him on the ass when he least expects it. What arrogance!

That not every violation of the law is a crime is technically true. Parking at an expired meter is not a "crime" per se, but it is still against the law. Apparently Mr Mukasey believes that violations of civil service laws are less severe than leaving one's car parked for too long.

Actually his statement is not just technically true but just plain old true.
Some things are morally wrong and not violations of law at all. Other things are morally wrong and have legal consequnces: like if Eliz divorces Johnboy, the fact he spent marital assets supporting Rielle just might enter into a division of assets. Some things are infractions or parking tickets. Some are misdemeanors. Some felonies. Some high crimes and impeachable. Some legal violations allow a swift armed response without trial. Like, if Canada sent tanks over our border and started shooting folks in Blaine. Then there's that whole area of civil liability. Breaking contracts, negligence and so on. The wrongful acts there are often not criminal at all.

Seems to me this acts inside the Justice department are probably a crime of some sort andthose in charge that directed it should be prosecuted. There may be some civil liability too. If all this was known by the higher ups in the white house, they should be impeached and prosecuted. Other lower-downs who enforced it or knew about it and did nothing should be thrown out of their jobs -- though they may not have committed a crime they broke their promise to do their job (enoforce the US laws and constitution) with competence and diligence -- and they might be prosecutable, too (they might have committed crimes, up to and including conspiracy, and they may not, I wouldn't know off hand).

Peace out.

Part of the gamble they are taking seems to be this: If the attorneys hired based on a loyalty litmus test perform as planned and successfully enact the "voter caging" schemes as per their instructions, any new administration that is "elected" will be friendly to the current one and therefore unlikely to pursue any action against it regardless of legality. It would effectively put those accused of stealing elections in charge of policing themselves, much like what we saw in the stolen 2000 election.

He's basically saying it isn't a crime if you get away with it. So far he seems to be on the winning side of this argument.

I was always under the impression that most of the justice department came and went under every administration. I've read some of those test question and they're scary, but so were some of the workshops I had to take when I worked at Kinko's in the 90's.

I'm not saying it's right, and I definately don't agree with what happened in the department under this administration, but is this new? More importantly, are the rules going to change with the next administration?

All your souls are belong to us.