According to a little noticed change in the Patriot Act, the Bush administration is firing (not promoting or commending) some of its star prosecutors. Why? Because they became inconvenient. Worse, the fired prosecutors have all been replaced with political hacks whose jobs will include NOT prosecuting law-breaking friends of the Administration, among other nefarious duties. This situation is disgraceful.
Here’s what’s going on, according to yesterday’s NYT Op-ed: [1]
In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.
Ms. Lam is one of at least seven United States attorneys fired recently under questionable circumstances. The Justice Department is claiming that Ms. Lam and other well-regarded prosecutors like John McKay of Seattle, David Iglesias of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona — who all received strong job evaluations — performed inadequately.
It is hard to call what’s happening anything other than a political purge. And it’s another shameful example of how in the Bush administration, everything — from rebuilding a hurricane-ravaged city to allocating homeland security dollars to invading Iraq — is sacrificed to partisan politics and winning elections.
The net result of these firing is that our government will not be able to prosecute many of the white-collar criminals who have connections with the Administration. Much of what those prosecutions would have found will not ever be learned by the media or U.S. citizens.
This story really hits a nerve for me. It brings up disturbing thoughts and images.
I once served as an Assistance Attorney General for the state of Missouri. I had stellar job evaluations. I was fired, though, after I vigorously investigated the illegal actions of several major contributors to the Missouri Attorney General, William L. Webster. As my superiors postured to fire me, some of my co-workers who saw the same things I saw suddenly got stupid. Some of the people who had previously been cordial to me became distant, because they didn’t want to get sucked into the mess and lose their jobs too. I was thrown out on the street with no redress. I served at the pleasure of the Attorney General, just as the fired federal prosecutors serve at the whim of the Administration.
The epilogue of my story is that federal prosecutors came to the rescue and prosecuted Webster, a Republican. Webster eventually spent time in prison. Had the federal prosecutors failed to step in and investigate Webster, he would have become governor of Missouri (he was 20 points ahead in the polls when they started investigating). It is safe to assume that he would be a U.S. Senator by now.
That’s how important it is to have qualified prosecutors working for the federal government.
The NYT article about these recent firings from the Justice Department should be front page stories. Maybe they will be, thanks to Senator Charles Sdchumer, who is investigating. [2]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjglMi0olSI[/youtube]
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