More White House Malfeasance Exposed In U.S. Attorney Firings

Posted on March 13, 2007
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white house copter From reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post today, it’s clear that the firing of 8 U.S. attorneys was purely political, demonstrating a coordinated attempt by the Justice Department and the White House to further politicize prosecutions in the United States.

More specifically, it’s clear that some of the firings were prompted by the unwillingness of Republican-appointed prosecutors to compromise the integrity of their offices by carrying out politically motivated efforts to disenfranchise voters and to discredit Democratic Party candidates.

New Mexico’s Pete Domenici (R) is up to his neck in the mess reportedly having contacted one of the prosecutors, David C. Iglesias, apparently to influence the New Mexico prosecutor to bring indictments against a Democratic candidate before the November election. Iglesias testified before Congress last week that he had told Domenici, when he called, that he would not indict the candidate in question before the elections, but felt pressured by Domenici, nonetheless.

It is reported that Domenici later complained directly to President Bush about Iglesias, and there’s a strong suggestion that Domenici’s office remained closely involved in the firing as the Post reports:

On the day of the Dec. 7 firings, [Harriet] Miers’s deputy, William Kelley, wrote that Domenici’s chief of staff “is happy as a clam” about Iglesias.

Miers, the former White House counsel was, of course, is also deeply involved. She was reported as having asked Gonzales whether all U.S. Attorneys could be fired.

One of the controversies concerns Justice and White House denials that the firings were initiated in order to exercise, for political purposes, the special powers to appoint “interim” U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department (Gonzales) without Congressional oversight, granted by the former Republican Congress in the Patriot Act.

Miers’ desire to fire them all seems to speak to that desire, and the notion of a political goal is reinforced by communications by Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to Harriet Miers, reported in the Post:

“I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed,” Sampson wrote in a Sept. 17 memo to Miers. “It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don’t have replacements ready to roll immediately.

“I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments,” he wrote.

By avoiding Senate confirmation, Sampson added, “we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House.”

Sampson, apparently Gonzales’s cover for inaccurate statements made to Congress, symbolically “fell on his sword” for the administration on Monday as documents were being released, but it was reported in an interview on NPR with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), that Sampson is being allowed to continue in some capacity at Justice until he can find other employment. Justice, at least, appears lenient for the scapegoat.