It is true that U. S. Prosecutors are political appointees and that the President of the United States has the right to appoint and remove as he sees fit. However, appointed U.S. Prosecutors are supposed to be able to do their jobs freely, and isolated from any political pressures. For a handful of U.S. Prosecutors, this was certainly not the case.
Eight U. S. Prosecutors were fired by the Justice Department, and there appears to be political reasons for them being fired rather than for performance which has been claimed.
According to the Washington Post, a 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.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
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 Carol Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.
David C. Iglesias of New Mexico and five other former prosecutors recounted specific instances in which some said they felt pressured by Republicans on corruption cases and one said a Justice Department official warned him to keep quiet or face retaliation. Additionally, one Prosecutor was removed so that an aid for Karl Rove who he felt needed the position.
Iglesias's allegations of congressional interference have prompted a Senate ethics committee inquiry. Yesterday he offered new details about telephone calls he received in October from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), saying he felt "leaned on" and "sickened" by the contacts seeking information about an investigation of a local Democrat.
The article also points out that U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential. Perhaps Fitzgerald would have been next to be fired.
Mary Jo White, who supervised Fitzgerald when she served as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and who has criticized the firings, said ranking him as a middling prosecutor "lacks total credibility across the board."
Fitzgerald has been widely recognized for his pursuit of criminal cases against al-Qaeda's terrorist network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he drew up the official U.S. indictment against Osama bin Laden. He was named as special counsel in the CIA leak case in December 2003 after then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft recused himself.
Fitzgerald also won the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002 under Ashcroft
"He is probably the best prosecutor in the nation -- certainly one of them," said White, who worked in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake."
The firing of these Prosecutors is just another example of how emboldened White House officials have been in manipulating and withholding information, and blatantly attacking, and in the eight prosecutors' cases, removing anyone who voices differing views, or attempts to do his/her job.
However, now is a new day. The Congress should make sure that we have a transparent government. It has been six years coming, and not one day too soon.
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