By Brendan O’Reilly
Maintaining the administration’s ongoing theme of removing accountability of the executive branch from government, the White House had the Justice Department remove several federal prosecutors before their terms ended.
The White House’s defense is that some of the prosecutors selected for removal were not investigating voter fraud. Republican politicians complained directly to the president about the alleged negligence. So, if the firings were not about protecting the White House from investigations, they were partisan favors for whiny G.O.P. members. That’s much better.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez should be praying right now that the replacement prosecutors do not find any evidence of voter fraud. Otherwise, he should heed Sen. Charles Schumer’s call for his resignation. Schumer (D-NY) said Gonzalez has been more political than his predecessor, John Ashcroft.
Though the president appoints the attorney general, it is not designed to be a partisan position. The Department of Justice must remain independent of the executive branch to serve its purpose of enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States.
Sometimes the interests of the president do not coincide with the law. When the department is only serving the interests of one political party, it is failing to “ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans,” as reads the Justice Department mission statement.
A White House spokesperson said the prosecutors were removed for “performance and managerial reasons,” but most of those told to resign had received positive job evaluations not long before being ousted.
Carol Lam, who was among those removed, led the prosecution of disgraced former Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The Justice Department said the dismissal was because of her record on prosecuting firearms violations and crimes along Califonia’s border with Mexico.
Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney in Arkansas, was forced to resign and replaced with a former assistant to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
The fall guy in the whole mess is D. Kyle Sampson, a top aide to Gonzalez who resigned his position. He was working with Harriet Miers, the former White House legal counsel, whose nomination to the Supreme Court in October 2005 was a disaster. According to The New York Times, Miers asked if all prosecutors could be replaced. There are 93 U.S. Attorney posts across the country.
The task of replacing them all was not one the D.O.J. wanted to carry out, but even if they did, it was a terrible idea on behalf of Miers. It is not reassuring that this woman was giving legal advice to the president for years.
But there is one motivation for her suggestion that makes sense: In the 2006 reauthorization of The Patriot Act, the president was given the authority to make indefinite interim appointments to vacant federal prosecutor offices, without the consent of the Senate.
Before the reauthorization, a federal judge would make the appointment, which would last until the Senate confirmed the president’s nominee.
So maybe Miers was not being stupid. Maybe she was just being devious. Removing all the prosecutors, who had been confirmed by the Senate, and replacing them with people the president appointed without oversight would have been legal, but still abusing the real purpose of the law.
The Patriot Act, for all its faults, was designed to fight terrorism. The power to appoint interim prosecutors was granted to the president so someone could be enforcing the law and hunting terrorists during lengthy confirmation hearings. Using The Patriot Act to stuff the D.O.J. with cronies and partisan hacks would only serve to prove critics of the act right.
Brendan O’Reilly is a junior print journalism student. You can e-mail him at [email protected].