Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Prosecutors getting fired and replaced with Bush Brown-nosers

host · 03-04-2007, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by politicophile

Something is obviously missing from that article. Whether it's corruption in the Bush Administration is anyone's guess. There is so little information in the article that I think any conclusions about the reasons for the firings are premature. Can anyone dig up more info about this?

Sigh.... this "new" scandal is covered extenxively here:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/us_attorneys/

....and I started posting about it here: 49 days ago.....
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...am#post2182097

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Help me out here, are they trying to persuade al-Qaeda not to "hate us

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002357.php
Update: Specter Admits Role in Expanding WH Powers
By Paul Kiel - January 17, 2007, 3:33 PM

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries. <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002354.php">Earlier</a> we reported that Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier versions.

Still, a mystery remains: Why Specter wanted the change, which arguably weakened the Senate's role in selecting federal prosecutors.

The senator made no public comment on the provision at the time of the bill's passage. A congressional report which accompanied the final version of the bill said that Specter's change "addresses an inconsistency in the appointment process of United States Attorneys." It's not clear, however, what exactly that inconsistency was.

In her email to me, Specter's aide did not respond to my request for an explanation of why Specter wanted the change.

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9-1m13lam.html
Lam stays silent about losing job

Law enforcement defends her record
By Kelly Thornton
and Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

January 13, 2007

Amid news reports that she has been asked to step down, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam declined repeated interview requests yesterday and did not address the matter with her staff.

At a weekly managers meeting, Lam was stoic, conducting business as usual and discussing next week's caseload, according to people who attended. She made no mention of a resignation request by the Bush administration, nor did anyone ask about it.

However, she did discuss the matter with at least one law enforcement colleague. Dan Dzwilewski, head of the FBI office in San Diego, said he spoke to Lam several times yesterday and he feels the criticism and the way the situation was handled are unfair.

“I don't think it's the right way to treat anybody. What's the decision based on?” Dzwilewski said. “I don't share the view of whoever's making the decision back there in Washington that they'd like her to resign. I feel Carol has an excellent reputation and has done an excellent job given her limited resources.”

Dzwilewski said he sympathized with Lam on issues of stretching budgets to meet priorities and felt that criticism that she wasn't giving proper attention to smuggling, drugs and gun crimes was off-base. “What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?” he said.

Lam's continued employment as U.S. attorney is crucial to the success of multiple ongoing investigations, the FBI chief said.

As for the reason for any pressure to resign, Dzwilewski said: “I can't speak for what's behind all that, what's the driving force behind this or the rationale. I guarantee politics is involved.”

Dzwilewski declined to discuss Lam's demeanor during their conversations, her state of mind, when or if she will resign or her future plans.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said. “What she's going to do, my guess is she's still trying to figure that out herself.”

Other members of the law enforcement community also defended Lam.

“She's been by far the most outstanding U.S. attorney we've ever had,” City Attorney Michael Aguirre said. “By far, she's done more to clean up the corruption in this city than anyone else, and she has won a national reputation as one of the top prosecutors in the country.

Sources have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Lam was asked to step down because she failed to make smuggling and gun cases a priority, choosing instead to focus on fewer cases that she considered more significant, such as public corruption and white-collar crime.

Some lawyers theorized yesterday that it wasn't just misplaced priorities that led to her impending ouster. The Randy “Duke” Cunningham case has spawned other corruption probes of Republicans in Washington, leading to conjecture that politics played a part in the decision to force her out.

However, Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney in San Antonio, Texas, said everybody in the position knows it's not a permanent job.

“We go when the president goes and sometimes before,” he said....

Quote:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1169028144620
U.S. Attorney Ryan's Departure May Be Part of Bush Administration Purge

Justin Scheck
The Recorder
January 18, 2007

...."It has come to our attention that the Bush Administration is pushing out U.S. Attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements without Senate confirmation," Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a press statement last week.

She reiterated that sentiment on the Senate floor Tuesday, adding that somewhere between five and 10 U.S. Attorneys are being forced out.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam also resigned this week, and on Tuesday, a spokesman for Republican Rep. Darrell Issa told a San Diego paper that Lam had been asked to step down. .....

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives...ke_cunningham/
Questions, Concerns Swirl around Politics of Prosecutor's Forced Exit
By Justin Rood - January 13, 2007, 8:38 AM

The head of the FBI's San Diego office and several former federal prosecutors are publicly questioning the politics behind the Bush administration's effort to force Carole Lam to resign as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.

Lam focused her office's efforts on public corruption, including the sprawling Duke Cunningham scandal. That investigation has touched several Republican lawmakers, leading some to speculate that Lam brought political heat down on herself with that probe, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The top FBI official for San Diego said that Lam's dismissal would jeopardize several ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," special agent in charge Dan Dzwilewski told the paper. He did not speculate further.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said.

Peter Nunez, who held Lam's post from 1982 to 1988, told the North County (Calif.) Times he was "in a state of shock" from hearing the news of Lam's forced ouster. "It's just like nothing I've ever seen before in 35-plus years. To be asked to resign and to be publicly humiliated by leaking this to the press is beyond any bounds of decency and behavior. It shocks me. It really is outrageous.".....

Cunningham Prosecutor Forced Out
By Justin Rood - January 12, 2007, 11:29 AM

The epic Duke Cunningham scandal gets weirder: Carole Lam, the San Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration. Lam's office has recently been troubling the CIA and Capitol Hill by pushing for documents related to the Cunningham investigation.

According to this morning's San Deigo Union-Tribune, the White House's reason for giving her the axe is that she "failed to make smuggling and gun cases a top priority." But most folks the paper talked to -- supporters and detractors -- said that sounded like a load of hooey.

A belated attempt at a cover-up? That doesn't quite fit. It's not like the Cunningham investigation has earned a place in the Great Scandal Prosecutions Hall of Fame. There have been signs of trouble all along. There was the strange decision to throw him in jail before ensuring he told everything he knew, as well as evidence of poor coordination between the numerous federal agencies involved in investigating the fiasco. If the administration for some reason didn't want the truth to come out about what the Cunningham scandal touched -- well, many folks thought all they had to do was sit back and let the probes tangle themselves in knots......

WSJ: CIA Blocking Cunningham Investigation
By Justin Rood - January 9, 2007, 10:01 AM

The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today......

Quote:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/pri...c-7aaa4efa6a3a
Published 12/28/2006

End around

Senators question U.S. attorney appointment.

J. Timothy Griffin was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Dec. 20, less than a week after his appointment prompted unusual public expressions of outrage from both of the state’s U.S. senators.

The outrage stems from the way Griffin was appointed. Instead of following the normal process, which would involve a presidential nomination and confirmation by the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration utilized a provision in the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint an “interim U.S. attorney” without Senate confirmation. Therefore, Griffin, 38, will serve as interim U.S. attorney until he is formally nominated or replaced by the president.

Interim appointments are usually made to fill vacancies, but Griffin was named to the U.S. attorney post on Dec. 15, while it was still occupied by Bud Cummins.

Cummins resigned on Dec. 20.

“Quite frankly, within the legal community in Central Arkansas and even Eastern Arkansas, they felt Bud was being pushed out so Tim could be rewarded with this position he wanted,” said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor.

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said, “Clearly, the president and his administration are aware of the difficulty it would take to get Tim Griffin confirmed through the normal process, and therefore chose to circumvent it in order to name him as interim U.S. attorney. This decision denied the Senate the opportunity to carefully consider and evaluate Mr. Griffin’s qualifications and denied the American people the transparency the standard nomination process provides.”

“The White House worked very hard to get him this job and keep him from going under oath and answer questions about his political life,” Teague added. “We’re not saying there should not be a process to name an interim position, but it should be done in good faith that a permanent replacement will be named at some point. The White House has indicated to the senator that Tim Griffin is their person, so the question is, if he is their person, why not nominate him? It’s an effort to keep him from going under oath.”

Asked to respond to 10 written questions regarding his appointment, Griffin provided the following statement: “As a fifth-generation Arkansan and the spouse of an Arkansas native, I love Arkansas and its people. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the people of Arkansas as U.S. attorney. The strength of this office lies with the many career professionals who work here. My top priority is to ensure that all Arkansans are treated equally under the law. I look forward to working with federal, state and local law enforcement to make Arkansas a safer place to live.”

Griffin had worked for Cummins as a special assistant since September, after a year of active duty in the U.S. Army — first as a prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Ky., and then as a Judge Advocate General with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq.

Before that, Griffin was deputy director of the White House Political Affairs Office (where he served under Political Affairs Director Karl Rove), and Lincoln and Pryor both suggest that Griffin’s appointment as U.S. attorney is a reward for his service in the Bush administration.

“I do not know Tim Griffin personally,” Lincoln said. “However, I have concerns about his partisan activities over a four-year period under Karl Rove in the White House, which causes me to question his ability to perform the duties of U.S. attorney in a fair and impartial manner.”

“We all know what’s going on here,” Teague said. “He’s being rewarded with this post for his political work.”

That political work includes serving from 1995-96 as an associate independent counsel investigating Henry Cisneros, who was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development; senior investigative counsel to the Republican-controlled House Government Reform Committee’s 1997-99 inquiry into foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee; deputy research director for the Republican National Committee from 1999-2000; legal adviser to the Bush/Cheney recount team in Florida following the 2000 election; special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff from 2001-02; and research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee from 2002-05, after which he joined the White House political affairs office.

The British Broadcasting Corporation unearthed e-mail messages Griffin sent from the RNC in 2004 containing spreadsheet information on thousands of Florida voters. The spreadsheets were titled “caging,” which, according to the BBC, alludes to a voter suppression tactic.

Teague says that episode, and Griffin’s other political work, explains why Griffin won’t submit to the traditional confirmation process.

“Bud had to go through the process,” Teague said. “What makes this guy so special? What are they trying to hide? Why not go under oath and allow the people of Eastern Arkansas to ask questions about his qualifications for the job? His primary professional occupation has been political research and political campaigns.”

Griffin’s legal experience includes a year as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock while he worked for Chertoff, but Teague says there were more qualified candidates, and that Griffin will be hindered by the controversy surrounding his appointment.

“No one in the Arkansas legal community knows Tim Griffin,” Teague said. “The people of Eastern Arkansas deserve an all-star attorney and there are a bunch of them in this state. … The decisions he makes there will always be suspect. He won’t have the full weight the office would have if he had gone through the nomination process.”

Teague says that Pryor will continue to pressure the Bush administration to formally nominate Griffin or someone else.

“The idea that they will go two years and say they can’t find somebody — it’s an insult to Arkansas,” Teague said. “If he goes through the process and wins, then he’s bona fide. The question for Tim and the White House is: Why not do that? Why not be bona fide?”

Griffin is a native of Magnolia. He graduated from Hendrix College and Tulane Law School, and attended graduate school at Oxford University in England. He is married to the former Elizabeth Crain

Quote:

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/...au/339192.html
Former Bush aide named to U.S. attorney post
Saturday, Dec 16, 2006

By Aaron Sadler
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A former Republican political operative and top aide to President Bush was named late Friday as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The appointment of Tim Griffin drew criticism from Arkansas senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, both Democrats. Pryor accused the Bush administration of circumventing the traditional nomination process on behalf of a political ally.

The open-ended appointment differs from a normal presidential selection, where Griffin would face Senate hearings and a confirmation vote.

Pryor believes the Senate should be able to quiz Griffin about his qualifications, especially given his background as Bush's deputy director of political affairs under Karl Rove, spokesman Michael Teague said.

Before that, Griffin worked in opposition research for the Republican National Committee.

"We hope it's not the White House's intention to go around the Constitution, go around the nomination process and reward a fellow who's done some political work for them," Teague said.

Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, defended the appointment. He said Griffin might face unfair treatment from Senate Democrats because of his political ties.

"There might be a tendency because he did work for the president in that capacity politically to hold that against him and not look at the fact he's very well-qualified," said Boozman, the only Republican in the state's congressional delegation.

"In going before the Senate, there are all kinds of politics," Boozman said.

Griffin, 38, will take over for Bud Cummins, who resigns Wednesday. The Eastern District includes Little Rock and 41 counties in the eastern and north central part of Arkansas.

Griffin on Friday declined to comment on his appointment.

The Magnolia native just completed a year of active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, including a stint in Iraq. He is a major in the Judge Advocate General's corps.

A graduate of Hendrix College and Tulane University law school, he worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the eastern district in 2001-02.

The interim selection leaves open the possibility for Bush to officially appoint Griffin or someone else to the post sometime in the future.

Conceivably, Griffin could serve as interim U.S. attorney indefinitely.

Teague said Pryor hopes the president makes a permanent selection - subject to Senate confirmation - after Congress reconvenes in January.

If Bush acts on a nomination before Congress returns, the appointee would serve as a "recess appointment" and Senate confirmation would not be required until the next congressional session in two years.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers gave Pryor no time frame for when Bush might select a permanent replacement, Teague said.

Teague said Pryor was not available to comment because he was at the hospital visiting Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who underwent brain surgery this week.

Pryor supports full Senate hearings for the next U.S. attorney and did not rule out support for Griffin.

"He very well may be the person," qualified to serve, Teague said, but "he should have to go through the normal nomination process."

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said in a statement that she was impressed by Cummins' work and his service.

Lincoln said she also would expect Bush to replace Cummins through the normal Senate confirmation process.

Teague said the timing of the announcement late Friday afternoon gave the appearance that the administration was attempting to keep the appointment quiet.

"His actions are always going to be suspect if you're not going to do this in the right way and in an open manner," Teague said. "It's hard to say if you're going to support or not support someone if you don't go through the process of who they are."

A report by the BBC in 2004 connected Griffin to a possible effort to disenfranchise black voters in Florida. The report said an e-mailed list of 1,886 names was to be used to challenge residents' voting status.

In a November 2000 Time magazine report, Griffin was depicted as a zealous researcher who sought to discredit Democratic candidate Al Gore at any opportunity.

The magazine said a poster hanging behind Griffin's desk said: "On my command - unleash hell on Al."....

Quote:

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...=.jsp&c_id=mlb
01/18/2007 1:38 AM ET
Federal prosecutor in probe resigns
Associated Press

...U.S. attorney spokesman Luke Macaulay said Tuesday that Ryan reached a "mutually agreeable decision with Washington" to step down.

Ryan is one of 11 top federal prosecutors who have resigned or announced their resignations since an obscure provision in the USA Patriot Act reauthorization last year enabled the U.S. attorney general to appoint replacements without Senate confirmation.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, complained on the Senate floor Tuesday that the White House is using the provision to oust Ryan and other federal prosecutors and replace them with Republican allies.

"The Bush administration is pushing out U.S. attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements," Feinstein said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied the claim, saying administration officials "in no way politicize these decisions."

Macaulay declined to say whether President Bush had asked Ryan to resign....

...since that time, #2 at DOJ, Paul McNulty...destroyed his own credibility with senators as he attempted to justify the firings on job performance rationales:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200702200006

I challenge anyone to find anything inaccurate reported about this mess from the links and the material I've posted....
If you do feel the need to escape to more pleasing reporting....try the account of White House "Gunga Din", John Soloman from two days ago. I call him that because when I read his "reporting", I can't ell if he is employed by the Wapo or the RNC:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...201949_pf.html
White House Backed U.S. Attorney Firings, Officials Say

By John Solomon and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 3, 2007; A01

The White House approved the firings of seven U.S. attorneys late last year after senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms and other issues, White House and Justice Department officials said yesterday.

The list of prosecutors was assembled last fall, based largely on complaints from members of Congress, law enforcement officials and career Justice Department lawyers, administration officials said.

One of the complaints came from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who specifically raised concerns with the Justice Department last fall about the performance of then-U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, according to administration officials and Domenici's office.

Iglesias has alleged that two unnamed New Mexico lawmakers pressured him in October to speed up the indictments of Democrats before the elections. Domenici has declined to comment on that allegation.

Since the mass firings were carried out three months ago, Justice Department officials have consistently portrayed them as personnel decisions based on the prosecutors' "performance-related" problems. But, yesterday, officials acknowledged that the ousters were based primarily on the administration's unhappiness with the prosecutors' policy decisions and revealed the White House's role in the matter.

"At the end of the day, this was a decision to pick the prosecutors we felt would most effectively carry out the department's policies and priorities in the last two years," said Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse......

Soloman leaves out the part about Sen. Specter's excuse for the insertion in the final version of Patriot Act II, of an unnoticed change to the law that enabled the white house to appoint interim replacements for US Attorney slots who can now serve indefinitely without senate confirmation.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/wa...pagewanted=all
A New Mystery to Prosecutors: Their Lost Jobs

By DAVID JOHNSTON, ERIC LIPTON and WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: March 4, 2007

This article is by David Johnston, Eric Lipton and William Yardley.

.....The Justice Department still appears to have an uphill battle in convincing lawmakers that its actions were justified. Several Congressional officials who have been briefed on the decision making said they were not persuaded that the firings were a well intended if botched effort to oust a few problem prosecutors among the country’s 93 United States attorneys.

Some said they suspected that the administration hoped to install its favorites in the jobs, as they did when J. Timothy Griffin, a prosecutor who had worked for Karl Rove, the White House political adviser, was chosen as the temporary replacement for H. E. Cummins III of Arkansas. Mr. Cummins was told last summer to step down after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, met with Mr. Gonzales’s staff on Mr. Griffin’s behalf.

Even Republicans who are generally supportive of the administration expressed skepticism about the Justice Department’s explanations. .......