Several folks have commented about how they just don’t see a story here and have wondered, to one degree or another, why I am concerned about it all. My point has been that there is a story here worthy of consideration and that to dismiss the situation as either normal politics or nothing more than the president asserting control of political nominees is to be ignoring too many oddities and issues of possible concern.
I think part of the problem is that this is a complex story with many moving parts that is not easily summarized or discussed. One of them is the USA PATRIOT business and the new powers granted to AG for naming replacements (an issue that I think is key to the entire affair), along with the question of whether Congress was provided accurate information (an important element), amongst other issues.
One major question is whether the fired USAs were fired because of performance on the job, because they weren’t pursuing the DoJ’s priorities properly or whether the firings were for deeper, or for more troubling political motives.
At this point, that latter issue is one of interpretation and is based on circumstantial evidence. Still, it is hard to look at these scenarios and not at least wonder what was going on. Below is some of the recent reportage on a handful of the fired USAs and some issues about their work that at least raises questions.
The McClatchy Newspapers has a piece that discusses some background information on some of the key fired USAs: A look at what’s behind the U.S. attorney flap. The piece deals with Cummins (AR), Iglesias (NM), Lam (CA), McKay (WA).
The Cummins firing mostly looks like cronyism (and I discussed it some here). The LAT had a story that suggested that perhaps Cummins’ investigation of Missouri’s Republican governor, Matt Blunt. However, according to the Kansas City Star, Cummins said he never told the LAT that he wondered whether the Blunt matter was related to his firing.
The Iglesias case is perhaps the most concerning, as there is clear evidence of political pressure (or, at least, intense inappropriate political interest) aimed at Iglesias regarding alleged voter fraud on the part of Democrats in New Mexico. Back to the McClatchy piece:
Iglesias said he felt “leaned on” when two prominent New Mexico Republicans, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, separately called him about the investigation. At the time, Wilson was in danger of losing her congressional seat, and Republicans were struggling to avoid a Democratic takeover in Congress.
At a minimum one has to admit that a sitting US Representative oughtn’t be calling a USA about investigating their opponent. That is unseemly at best and an attempt to assert undo influence at the worst.
Newsweek notes, in regards to Iglesias and McKay:
In New Mexico the administration canned David Iglesias, a clean-cut former Navy lawyer who had been the model for the Tom Cruise character in the movie “A Few Good Men.” Iglesias has told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was getting political pressure from lawmakers to indict Democrats in a local corruption case before the November elections. In Washington state, the ousted U.S. attorney, John McKay, has said that he took heat from local Republicans for failing to bring voter-fraud charges in a deadlocked gubernatorial race.
The thing is: voter fraud has, since 2000, been an issue that both parties have sought to use as an issue in close races, specifically seeing the courts as a forum for arbitrating elections. It is one thing to bring lawsuits. It is yet another for partisans to pressure government officials to pursue investigations of partisan rivals. Such a move would be, in my mind, an abuse of power by the USAs.
One guesses, in fact, that if we were talking about a Clinton administration here (either in the past or in the future), many GOPers would not be taking such a blasé attitude towards this situation if Democrats were overly interested in getting Clinton appointed USAs to investigate Republican in the same manner as described above.
In regards to Lam, there is this from the McClatchy Newspapers: U.S. attorney’s firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam’s dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.
Coincidence? Very possibly–but it is a rather remarkable one.
Ultimately, there may be nothing here. And I will conceded that Democratic politicians are clearly trying to exploit this situation to their political advantage–such is life in Washington. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a story here of significance beyond just the exercise of presidential control over political appointees.
At any rate, more later.
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March 19th, 2007 at 8:44 am
[...] Now, legally there is no doubt that the President had the right to fire Iglesias. However, the question of whether it was proper to do so is an open one. Given that several of the other fired USAs were involved in cases that were potentially politically problematic for the GOP, the red flags should be obvious. [...]