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Edited on Sun Apr-15-07 10:51 PM by DaveT
Statement: Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President.
Yes, for the thousandth time, the President can fire a Federal Prosecutor. That means nothing to the current investigation because it is not about the President's power to choose or replace Federal Prosecutors.
The issue under investigation is whether the Bush Administration put pressure on Federal Attorneys to help Republicans get elected and to get away with graft. Part of the mechanism for putting that pressure was the threat of losing their job -- or at least there is available evidence suggesting that might have been the case.
Further investigation is amply warranted.
This distinction between the general right to fire someone and the particular motivation for firing a particular individual comes up very often in the law. As an example, an employer has a right to terminate a probationary employee that is very similar to the President's authority to fire a prosecutor. It is called "at-will employment." Yet an employer who fires somebody because she is female or African American violates the law. The motivation is what makes the otherwise lawful act unlawful.
Subjective motivation is difficult to prove. Not many lawyers can make a living litigating that kind of employment discrimination case. But if the Plaintiff in such a case can produce an e-mail from the owner of a company to the Human Resources Director saying -- "As you know, we don't want any women or blacks working for this company. It is your job to get rid of them before they make probation." -- that Plaintiff is going to win the case.
In Bush's case, it is perfectly acceptable -- legally, constitutionally and even as a matter of practical politics -- for him to fire a prosecutor for not carrying out Administration political policy priorities. For example, Bush could get a feather up his nose about pornography and insist that all his prosecutors make that their top priority, and fire any or all of them for not putting enough smut peddlers in jail. You or I might disagree with this on policy grounds as an unwise use of public resources, but our remedy would be the same as for all political questions -- we could try to win the next election to change public policy. This is the GOP talking point, and like many of that species, it is true but completely irrelevant to the situation at hand.
In contrast to this rationale, however, the unproven suspicion is that Karl Rove wanted to use the Federal Prosecution force as a wing of the GOP election effort. There are several different strands that need to be invesitigated. First, firing prosecutors who were going after Republican office holders and their campaign contributors for graft. Second, demanding that prosecutors hoke up bogus cases against Democrats running for office. Third, hoking up bogus cases about "voter fraud" -- helping with the Rove PR effort to convince the general public that there is a huge problem with non-white people stuffing the ballot box with fraudulent votes. Fourth, ignoring evidence of election fraud by GOP operatives.
Each of these efforts, if the Bush Government can be proven to have engaged in them, are criminal conspiracies. And the President cannot use the fact that he has a general right to fire prosecutors as a defense. He does not have a right to oblige Federal Prosecutors to help rig elections.
Just because an idea fits into a GOP talking point does not automatically make it invalid. But in this case it is absolutely bogus.
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