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Paul Krugman | Surging and Purging    [

    Gonzales Appoints Political Loyalists Into Vacant US Attorneys Slots
    By Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
    McClatchy Newspapers

    Friday 26 January 2007

    Washington - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is transforming the ranks of the nation's top federal prosecutors by firing some and appointing conservative loyalists from the Bush administration's inner circle who critics say are unlikely to buck Washington.

    The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

    The nine recent appointees identified by McClatchy Newspapers held high-level White House or Justice Department jobs, and most of them were handpicked by Gonzales under a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act that became law in March.

    With Congress now controlled by the Democrats, critics fear that in some cases Gonzales is trying to skirt the need for Senate confirmation by giving new U.S. attorneys interim appointments for indefinite terms. Some legal scholars contend that the administration pushed for the change in the Patriot Act as part of its ongoing attempt to expand the power of the executive branch, a charge that administration officials deny.

    Being named a U.S. attorney "has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who's now a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In the past, there had been a great deal of delegation to the local offices. Now, you have a consolidation of power in Washington."

    A Justice Department spokesman said it was "reckless" to suggest that politics had influenced the appointment process.

    The appointments have troubled some current and former prosecutors, who worry that the Justice Department is tightening its control over local U.S. attorneys' offices in order to curb the prosecutors' independence.

    If they're too close to the administration, these lawyers said, federal prosecutors might not be willing to pursue important but controversial cases that don't fit into the administration's agenda. Similarly, they said, U.S. attorneys could be forced to pursue only Washington's priorities rather than their own.

    The selection of U.S. attorneys has always been a political process.

    Traditionally, the top assistant U.S. attorney in each local office temporarily fills any vacancy while home-state senators search for preferred candidates to present to the White House for consideration. If it takes more than four months to find a permanent successor, a judge can extend the temporary appointment or name another acting U.S. attorney. Ultimately, the candidates must be confirmed by the Senate.

    Gonzales gained the ability to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for indefinite terms as a result of a change to the Patriot Act that stripped federal judges of their appointment power.

    A Justice Department spokesman denied that Gonzales has sought to compromise the independence of U.S. attorneys' offices by appointing political loyalists. In some recent cases Gonzales has followed the traditional process.

    "Allegations that politics inappropriately interfere with personnel decisions made about U.S. attorneys are reckless and plainly wrong," department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "... The bottom line is that we nominate experienced attorneys who we believe can do the job."

    He said that it's common for attorneys to serve stints at department headquarters and that it "can be tremendously beneficial" for a U.S. attorney to have served in Washington.

    Gonzales and his aides also deny that they're attempting to do an end run around the Senate. In a recent letter to two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said the change was sought to avoid conflicts involving federal judges appointing officials to posts in the executive branch of government.

    At a recent Senate hearing, Gonzales said the administration is committed to giving senators of the president's party their traditional say in selecting U.S. attorney candidates.

    Since last March, the administration has named at least nine U.S. attorneys with administration ties. None would agree to an interview. They include:

• Tim Griffin, 37, the U.S. attorney for Arkansas, who was an aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
  
  
• Rachel Paulose, 33, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, who served briefly as a counselor to the deputy attorney general and who, according to a former boss, has been a member of the secretive, ideologically conservative Federalist Society.
  
  
• Jeff Taylor, 42, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who was an aide to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and worked as a counselor to Gonzales and to former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
  
  
• John Wood, U.S. attorney in Kansas City, who's the husband of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers and an ex-deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
  
  
• Deborah Rhodes, 47, the U.S. attorney in Mobile, Ala., who was a Justice Department counselor.
  
  
• Alexander Acosta, 37, the U.S. attorney in Miami, who was an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division and a prot g of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
  
  
• John Richter, 43, the U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, who was the chief of staff for the Justice Department's criminal division and acting assistant attorney general.
  
  
• Edward McNally, the U.S. attorney in southern Illinois, who was a senior associate counsel to President Bush.
  
  
• Matt Dummermuth, the U.S. attorney in Iowa, who was a Justice Department civil rights lawyer.

    Some of these appointees have drawn praise from local skeptics and later won Senate confirmation for permanent appointments.

    Roehrkasse said that while some newly appointed U.S. attorneys might have political connections, they all have outstanding credentials.

    Todd Jones, who was a U.S. attorney in Minneapolis during the Clinton administration, said he was concerned by the overall trend of an administration putting into place a "more centralized, command-and-control system."

    Several prosecutors said prior Republican administrations avoided such tight control.

    "Under Reagan and the first Bush administration, we worked very hard to push the power out to the locals," said Jean Paul Bradshaw, who was a U.S. attorney in Kansas City under President George H.W. Bush. "Local attorneys know how a case will play in their areas, what crimes are a problem. Ultimately, these decisions are better made locally."

    Peter Nunez, a U.S. attorney in San Diego under President Reagan for six years, said prosecutors have expressed frustration with the strict oversight from Washington.

    "I've heard nothing but complaints over the last six years about how many things the Justice Department is demanding relating to bureaucracy and red tape," Nunez said.

    In the wake of the recent firings of a half-dozen U.S. attorneys, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, filed bills that would restore to federal judges the right to name interim appointees when vacancies develop. On Thursday, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., whose office has confirmed that he inserted language making the change in Patriot Act last year, gave his qualified support to Feinstein's bill.

    Justice Department officials have refused to say how many prosecutors were fired or to explain the firings, but Feinstein has said she's aware of the ouster of at least seven U.S. attorneys since March 2006.

    Former U.S. attorneys who know some of those ousted said they were concerned because the administration in some cases offered no reason for the dismissals.

    Among those dismissed were Carol Lam of San Diego, whose office won a bribery conviction against then-Rep. Randolph "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., and prosecuted several members of San Diego's city council. The Cunningham case is ongoing.

    Also ordered to resign was Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, who was overseeing high-profile investigations into steroids use by major league baseball players and the backdating of stock options by Apple Inc., and other firms.

    "One of the strengths of any administration towards the end of their time in office is having highly experienced people in place," said Tom Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney in Minneapolis who voluntarily resigned and was replaced by Paulose. "It helps things function really smoothly, and you get your priorities handled aggressively and efficiently."

 

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    Go to Original

    Surging and Purging
    By Paul Krugman
    The New York Times

    Friday 19 January 2007

    There's something happening here, and what it is seems completely clear: the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.

    Last month, Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Eastern District of Arkansas, received a call on his cellphone while hiking in the woods with his son. He was informed that he had just been replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican political operative who has spent the last few years working as an opposition researcher for Karl Rove.

    Mr. Cummins's case isn't unique. Since the middle of last month, the Bush administration has pushed out at least four U.S. attorneys, and possibly as many as seven, without explanation. The list includes Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for San Diego, who successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham, a Republican congressman, on major corruption charges. The top FBI official in San Diego told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Ms. Lam's dismissal would undermine multiple continuing investigations.

    In Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say how many other attorneys have been asked to resign, calling it a "personnel matter."

    In case you're wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn't normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, "typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president's term, and serve throughout that term." Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?

    The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead.

    Since the day it took power this administration has shown nothing but contempt for the normal principles of good government. For six years ethical problems and conflicts of interest have been the rule, not the exception.

    For a long time the administration nonetheless seemed untouchable, protected both by Republican control of Congress and by its ability to justify anything and everything as necessary for the war on terror. Now, however, the investigations are closing in on the Oval Office. The latest news is that J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary of the Interior Department and the poster child for the administration's systematic policy of putting foxes in charge of henhouses, is finally facing possible indictment.

    And the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice.

    Won't the administration have trouble getting its new appointees confirmed by the Senate? Well, it turns out that it won't have to.

    Arlen Specter, the Republican senator who headed the Judiciary Committee until Congress changed hands, made sure of that last year. Previously, new U.S. attorneys needed Senate confirmation within 120 days or federal district courts would name replacements. But as part of a conference committee reconciling House and Senate versions of the revised Patriot Act, Mr. Specter slipped in a clause eliminating that rule.

    As Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker.com - which has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story - put it, this clause in effect allows the administration "to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation." How convenient.

    Mr. Gonzales says that there's nothing political about the firings. And according to The Associated Press, he said that district court judges shouldn't appoint U.S. attorneys because they "tend to appoint friends and others not properly qualified to be prosecutors." Words fail me.

    Mr. Gonzales also says that the administration intends to get Senate confirmation for every replacement. Sorry, but that's not at all credible, even if we ignore the administration's track record. Mr. Griffin, the political-operative-turned-prosecutor, would be savaged in a confirmation hearing. By appointing him, the administration showed that it has no intention of following the usual rules.

    The broader context is this: defeat in the midterm elections hasn't led the Bush administration to scale back its imperial view of presidential power.

    On the contrary, now that President Bush can no longer count on Congress to do his bidding, he's more determined than ever to claim essentially unlimited authority - whether it's the authority to send more troops into Iraq or the authority to stonewall investigations into his own administration's conduct.

    The next two years, in other words, are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis.