Via WaPo: Prosecutor’s Firing Was Urged During Probe
The U.S. attorney in San Diego notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general’s chief of staff warned the White House of a “real problem” with her, a Democratic senator said yesterday.[...]
The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel’s office saying that Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.
“Please call me at your convenience to discuss the following,” Sampson wrote, referring to “[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires.”
The FBI raided Foggo’s home and former CIA office on May 12. He was indicted along with Wilkes on fraud and money-laundering charges on Feb. 13 — two days before Lam left as U.S. attorney.
The revelation that Lam took a major step in the Foggo probe one day before Sampson’s e-mail message was sent to the White House raises further questions about the decision to fire her, Feinstein suggested.
Perhaps it is all coincidence. But I must say this: the coincidences are starting to really pile up (see the previous post as well).
What I find odd is that Lam was supposedly tagged for non-replacement when her term ended because she wasn’t vigorous enough on immigration cases. However, it would seem to me that ferreting out major corruption (e.g., the Cunningham case) ought to get one a gold star in the DoJ, not a pink slip. Regardless of what one thinks about immigration policy, it strikes me as unfortunate that the lack of such prosecutions could be deemed by anyone to overshadow the very significant work that Lam did during her tenure in office–unless we are going to assume that the current DoJ didn’t like the fact that corruption that was uncovered belonged to the wrong party.
Others commenting:
- Ed Morrissey:
However, this memo gives the appearance of more than coincidence between her investigation of corruption and the motive to remove her, at least for Kyle Sampson. It could still be coincidental, but it’s getting harder to buy. Why would Sampson escalate the removal of Lam to the White House counsel office a day after she requested the search warrants for Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo? Surely, as someone who already had Lam on his short list of non-renewal candidates, he must have watched her performance carefully at the time. Would he have known of the search warrant requests, and if he did, doesn’t that indicate a connection (for Sampson) between that an the escalation of her firing?
- James Joyner:
Still, this all looks rather suspicious. While there’s no question but that the president has the right to fire any U.S. Attorney at any time, for any reason, it’s not customary to do so in mid-term. (Although, in the case of Lam, her four-year appointment simply expired and was not renewed.) Further, senior administration officials, including the Attorney General, have told Congress that “performance” rather than politics was behind these firings. It would certainly behoove the president to get out in front of this, quickly, by offering more detailed explanations beyond AG Gonzales’ rather vague “mistakes were made” statement.
Technorati Tags: DoJ, USAs, Fired attorneys, Carol Lam
Sphere: Related Content
