Meddling with the USA's at the DOJ

I find the recent U.S. Attorney (USA) scandal to be both troubling and fascinating. The Justice Department (DOJ) fired seven USA’s, citing job performance issues. Folks thought this was strange – usually, when USA’s are fired in a group, it is during a large purge at the start of the president’s term. But here, only seven were fired. Then, it was revealed that another USA had been dismissed to make room for one of Karl Rove’s former lackeys. There is nothing illegal about this dismissal – it just looks kind of ugly.

Indeed, as the White House correctly argues, the USA’s serve at the pleasure of the president. They are political appointees who are confirmed by the Senate. (Or, that is usually the case. A recently noticed provision in the massive Patriot Act allows the president to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney without confirmation for an indefinite term. Formerly, terms of interim USA’s were limited to a finite period of time.)

What makes this interesting is that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty seems to have mislead Congress when he told them that the USA’s were fired for performance-related issues. Turns out that they may have been fired for overt political reasons. Kyle Sampson, AG Gonzalez’s former chief of staff, described weeding out USA’s based on whether they were “loyal Bushies” or not. Perhaps more troubling are the allegations that Sen. Pete V. Domenici and Rep. Heather A. Wilson from New Mexico contacted the New Mexico USA, David Iglesias, to inquire about the status of a potential indictment of a Democratic politician. Although the USA's are technically political appointees, once they are in office, they are removed from the political process and political issues are not to be considered in their duties. Former USA Charles Pekor writes that during his tenure as an Assistant USA and interim USA, his office went to great lengths to ensure that there was never a hint of political interference with an ongoing criminal investigation.

The notion that USA’s are pressured to bring charges, or perhaps to drop charges, for political considerations is extremely troubling. New allegations have come to light that the Wisconsin USA brought corruption charges against a state employee. The Wisconsin USA alleged that the employee had improperly awarded a travel contract to a campaign contributor of Wisconsin's Democratic Governor. The governor was fighting off a Republican challenger. She was convicted and jailed; her conviction was material for attack ads by the Republican challenger. She appealed her conviction to the Seventh Circuit, which found the circumstances of her appeal so appalling that she was freed from prison immediately after oral arguments were heard. Although the written opinion of the Seventh Circuit is not yet available, one of the judges called the evidence "extremely thin." This situation raises the concern that other USA's have been the recipients of political pressure to pursue indictments and prosecutions based on political considerations. Our country should be better than this. If the allegations of political interference turn out to be true, it would be extremely damaging to the legal system. Our justice system is not perfect, but meddling in criminal prosecutions for political benefit is unconscionable.