Clinton and Reno did fire 93 and Bush and Gonzo did fire 108. (You probably forgot the 100 or so that changed hands when the Justice Department went from a Clinton Justice Department to a Bush Justice Department in 2001, right?) But, of course, that isn’t the issue at all now is it? The issue is not numbers at all. The issue is timing. And, as they say “timing is everything”.
U.S. States attorneys are patronage positions customarily given to highly qualified attorneys usually having served as prosecutors. When there is a changing of administrations where the parties have changed, the States attorneys have submitted their resignations, as they serve at the pleasure of the President. Then they wait to see if they are going to be reappointed. If they are involved with highly visible and important cases, especially those involving gangs, drug trafficking, organized crime, etc. they will usually be retained in order to make the case as strong and secure as possible. Everyone else usually winds up pounding the pavement looking for a new job while the new President puts in people of his own choosing.
In the case of the change from the Clinton to the Bush administration, the Bushies accepted the resignations of almost all of the States Attorneys under Clinton in 2001 and appointed their own people. So most of the states attorneys became Republican at that time. It is HIGHLY UNUSUAL for states attorneys to be fired midterm in ANY Presidency, except for extreme malfeasance. That has only happened 3 times in the past 40 years.
When states attorneys are fired midterm, it raises the question of politics entering the door of the Justice Department. As a former prosecutor said today, states attorneys have absolute power to ruin peoples’ lives with an unjust or hasty indictment. So, the Justice Department and most administrations have bent over backward to avoid the impropriety of doing ANYTHING for political purposes. Were this to happen, the people of the United States would quickly lose confidence in their criminal justice system. We would come to see the Justice Department as just a political pawn of the political powers that be with no legitimate moral authority whatsoever, in much the same way that the German Justice Department became just an army of jackbooted thug enforcers called the Gestapo.
The word on the street this evening was that Karl Rove decided after running out the math of the debacle of the November 2006 elections that the thing that cost the GOP both houses of Congress was the perfect storm of scandal that hit the Republican Party in September of 2006. So Rove developed a plan to keep that from happening again in the 2008 election. So what was Rove’s plan? Did Rove send out a memo recommending that all the good little Republicans keep their noses clean and be on their best behavior for the next two years and not take any bribes or sell any legislation or commit perjury when testifying under oath? Of course not! We are talking about Karl Rove here, right? Nope, Karl decided to send out a message. And the message was going to be “You may indict as many Democrats as you want. In fact we don’t care how many Democrats you do indict just so long as it is lots of them and preferably just before elections. But, never, never, never under any circumstances indict a Republican no matter what they’ve done, no matter how much money they’ve stolen, no matter how much legislation they’ve sold. Rove punctuated that message by firing the States Attorney for the District of Western Washington who had investigated the closest election in Washington State history in 2004 between Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi and found no voting irregularities and therefore issued no indictments. He also fired the states attorney who had indicted and successfully tried and convicted the notorious cheat Randy “Duke” Cunningham for graft and bribery. And, so it goes down the other six states attorneys who were fired. Rove didn’t care whether the people being investigated were likely to be found guilty or not. He just wanted more indictments of Democrats and fewer indictments of Republicans before ANY election. And, surprisingly, that is exactly what the emails that have been turned over to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and the House and Senate Committees on Reform so far say.
By the way, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Gonzo during his confirmation hearings if he would hire or fire on the basis of politics. He said, “Of course not.” So, it would seem to me that from the memos that have already been released, they’ve got Gonzo on perjury charges already if they want him (and that wasn’t one of the instances where the Republicans allowed “Good ole’ Al” to testify without being put under oath and sworn to tell the truth.
