RSS 2.0 FeedWhy The US Attorneys Story Matters
by Doug MataconisIt’s easy to dismiss the fact that a few U.S. Attorneys were dismissed in the middle of the Bush Presidency. After all, they do serve, to some extent, at the pleasure of the President and it is common for each incoming President to ask for the resignation of every sitting U.S. Attorney.
So, why does this story matter ?
For an answer, all we need to do is check out the internal White House emails released yesterday:
WASHINGTON, March 13 – Late in the afternoon on Dec. 4, a deputy to Harriet E. Miers, then the White House counsel and one of President Bush’s most trusted aides, sent a two-line e-mail message to a top Justice Department aide. “We’re a go,” it said, approving a long-brewing plan to remove seven federal prosecutors considered weak or not team players.
The message, from William K. Kelley of the White House counsel’s office to D. Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, put in motion a plan to fire United States attorneys that had been hatched 22 months earlier by Ms. Miers. Three days later, the seven prosecutors were summarily dismissed. An eighth had been forced out in the summer.
(…)
While the target list of prosecutors was shaped and shifted, officials at the Justice Department and the White House, members of Congress and even an important Republican lawyer and lobbyist in New Mexico were raising various concerns.
In rating the prosecutors, Mr. Sampson factored in whether they “exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general,” according to documents released by the Justice Department. In one e-mail message, Mr. Sampson questioned a colleague about the record of the federal prosecutor in San Diego, Carol C. Lam. Referring to the office of the deputy attorney general, Mr. Sampson wrote: “Has ODAG ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement? Has anyone?” Ms. Lam was one of the seven fired prosecutors.
Two others, Paul K. Charlton in Arizona and Daniel K. Bogden in Nevada, were faulted as being “unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them,” according to another e-mail message to Mr. Sampson, referring to pornography prosecutions.
Another United States attorney, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, was added to the hit list in the fall of 2006 after criticism from his home state, including a demand by Senator Pete V. Domenici, a Republican, to meet with the attorney general to discuss the performance of Mr. Iglesias’s office.
And there, you see, is the problem. By emphasizing loyalty to the President and Attorney General, and adherence to an ideological view of prosecutions, the Justice Department was attempting to politicize the U.S. Attorney’s office in a way that it had not been in the past. While the office itself is clearly a political appointment, prosecutors have traditionally been isolated from political pressure of the kind that Miers and Gonzalez were attempting to apply here. Prosecutors have also enjoyed no small degree of discretion over the cases they handle, and it’s fairly clear that the Department of Justice was trying to consolidate that authority in Washington by making it clear that certain types of cases (i.e., the pornography prosecutions noted above) should be given priority over others.
So, in short, the reason this matters is because it appears that the Bush Administration was trying to put political pressure on U.S. Attorneys across the nation by punishing those that didn’t follow the party line.
Update 3/21/07: Ignore all of the above, I was wrong when I wrote. The reason why can be found here.
“After all, they do serve, to some extent, at the pleasure of the President and it is common for each incoming President to ask for the resignation of every sitting U.S. Attorney.”
This statement of fact makes the entire article a non-story created for political purposes.
Comment by T F Stern — March 14, 2007 @ 12:56 pmThe politicization of law will continue as long as politics and law are intertwined. They must be separated.
- Josh
Comment by Wild Pegasus — March 14, 2007 @ 1:03 pmTF,
This statement of fact makes the entire article a non-story created for political purposes.
Except for the fact that firings like this in the middle of an administration for purely political reasons has never happened before.
And then there’s the fact that they used a little-known provision of the PATRIOT Act to replace the fired prosecutors without getting Senate approval.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — March 14, 2007 @ 1:06 pmMr. Stern. So any and all federal prosecutions should be done only to serve those wishes of the president and the U.S. Attorney? Should temporary appointments NOW NOT HAVE to answer to the confirmation of other courts and the Senate as the Patriot Act was corrupted into putting in place this time? If the attorneys are ONLY supposed to support the AG and the president’s will, then why have laws asserted that other courts and the Senate have a voice in their confirmation?
Sir, if you want to live in a dictatorship, I suggest you look outside this country. Many of the rest of us don’t want one, thank you!
Comment by calipendence — March 14, 2007 @ 1:07 pmI agree with Mr. Stern on this one; this whole “scandal†is such a non-issue. The Justice Department is part of the Executive Branch. The president is the executive and therefore, controls the Executive Branch. The Attorney General runs the Justice Department. Just as in any other line of work, you have people in leadership roles who have the authority to fire employees who, for whatever reason, are not meeting the expectations of the boss. If you have employees in your organization who are not “team players†or who are not willing to go along with the company’s mission statement, then they are let go.
I also disagree that “Except for the fact that firings like this in the middle of an administration for purely political reasons has never happened before.†Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t Bill Clinton fire prosecutors who were investigating him during Whitewater and replace them with his cronies? (and I am guessing that Clinton wasn’t the first president to do that either). As far as I am aware, none of these attorneys who were let go were investigating the Bush Administration.
The provision in the Patriot Act you mentioned is a valid concern. Maybe if the congress would have read the bill before passing it* this provision wouldn’t be part of the law.
The bottom line is this: if you do not think you can trust how a president will organize his or her justice department, don’t vote for that person. When you vote for president, you are not only voting for the person but every department in the Executive Branch. From there the Senate decides whether or not each cabinet member will serve. Like it or not, this is our system. When the president arranges his or her Administration in the way he or she sees fit, it is NOT a dictatorship. This is why we have the 2 other branches to act as checks and balances.
* See my post on the Read the Bills Act for more information: http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2007/03/13/no-legislation-without-representation/
Comment by Stephen Littau — March 14, 2007 @ 1:42 pmI have to agree with Stephen on this one Doug. US attorney’s have been let go over the years for numerous reasons, including not following through on the priorities of the administration. I am not in favor of some of the prosecutorial priorities of this administration, but isn’t that what we should expect from attorney’s appointed by who we vote for for President? That their priorities will shape political appointments?
Exactly why is it that it happened in the middle of his term relevant, even if it were unprecedented? Early or late in a term is somehow better? I don’t get it. How do you know past firings in the middle of past terms weren’t political anyway? Because nobody made an issue of it? I don’t get it Doug, I really don’t.
Even if it were unprecedented, so what again? There is nothing wrong (or more wrong) about doing it now than if he had done the same thing at the beginning of his term. Both would be purely political (which you actually haven’t established in this case)so the precedent isn’t when, it is why. The when doesn’t matter.
Lam didn’t follow through on those cases. The administration wanted them followed up on. She didn’t, they canned her. So what?
the Justice Department was attempting to politicize the U.S. Attorney’s office in a way that it had not been in the past.
That is just not true. There is no evidence the Justice Department is more political than in the past. Just think about Janet Reno’s reign.
Comment by Lance — March 14, 2007 @ 2:55 pmAnd now we are learning the real reason this afternoon as to why the Democrats have made such a huge issue over this.
Seems Bush ordered them fired cause they were drag-assing on Voter Fraud investigations in Washington State and New Mexico, that if they had been prosecuted would have sent top Democrats to jail.
Aha! It all makes sense now.
Comment by Eric Dondero — March 14, 2007 @ 4:31 pm