Earth-shattering prosecutor purge news from Tuesday's Washington Post

BobcatJH

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Tue Mar-13-07 12:08 AM
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Earth-shattering prosecutor purge news from Tuesday's Washington Post

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The Gonzales aide in charge of the dismissals - his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson - resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

Lawmakers requested the documents as part of an investigation into whether the firings were politically motivated. While it is unclear whether the documents will answer Congress's questions, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more closely involved in the dismissals, and at a much earlier date, than they have previously acknowledged.

These "voter-fraud investigations", the article notes, refer to cases in which individuals who allegedly shouldn't have been able to voted. Meaning: Votes that helped Democrats. The partisan witch-hunting on behalf of the White House is far, far worse, though:

Administration officials have repeatedly portrayed the firings as a routine personnel matter, designed primarily to rid the department of a handful of poor performers.

But the documents and interviews indicate that the idea for the firings originated at least two years ago, when then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers suggested to Sampson in February 2005 that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced. Miers resigned this January.

The article notes, before we continue, that Alberto Gonzales rejected such a plan as "impractical and disruptive", as it would have caused a widespread disruption to the system. Continuing:

The documents show that Sampson sent an e-mail to Miers in March 2005 ranking all 93 U.S. attorneys. Strong performers "exhibited loyalty" to the administration; low performers were "weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc." A third group merited no opinion.

So the best U.S. attorneys were loyalists while the worst "chafed against Administration initiatives". Sounds to me like a political test that preferred blind loyalty to the Bush administration and its goals than to the law itself. This is machine politics at its worst, and something far, far beneath a third-rate local party structure, let alone the Justice Department. Justice Department. I can't be the only one recognizing the irony of that title. Nor can I be the only one thinking this has the potential to undo the entire upper echelon of the Bush administration.

As an aside, no wonder President Bush wanted an idiot like Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, any elected officials worth their salt should confront each and every Bush judicial nominee from now on with her name, as it now appears she was truly a slap in the face of her profession. It would truly be fitting that the woman whose abrupt withdrawal from consideration for the nation's highest court caused a black eye for the administration again led to a black eye for the White House, this one far, far worse than a failed judicial nomination.