JUST A THOUGHT : Do the right thing
Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007
An insult to justice ? Yes. Making a mockery of the system ? Certainly. Incontrovertible evidence that the Justice Department was in more capable hands under John Ashcroft’s leadership and is deserving of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ ouster ? Absolutely.
Last year’s botched firing of eight U. S. attorneys has proven to be all these things, and much more — but by no means will it go down as one of the more shocking chapters in our nation’s history. Compelling though it may be, this story’s varying strands don’t add up to another Watergate, Iran-Contra or Whitewater. Truth be told, it’s not even close to being the most scandalous episode to occur during President Bush’s six-plus years in office.
What it does represent is a headache this White House did not need at this particular juncture. Iraq is a mess, troubles in the Sudan continue, and the international riddles that are Iran and North Korea have yet to be solved. Bush’s second-term agenda (such as it was ) is stuck in the mud, battling an opportunistic Democratic Congress on one side while it lacks substantive backing from congressional Republicans, who these days are busy distancing themselves from the sinking ship over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Add to that the reality that much, if not all, of the American political establishment has already turned its attention to 2008 — along with all the fundraising efforts that come with any election cycle — and you begin to see that this White House, and Republicans in general, already have more than enough to defend themselves against. Revelations that the Justice Department, at the potential behest of the White House, thought it wise to fire eight of the country’s very best federal prosecutors is just one more nail in the coffin.
Everyone who bothers looking beyond this story’s political ramifications are going to discover, more than anything else, a dense tale centered around the vices of arrogance and mismanagement. At least so far as I can tell, nobody involved did anything very terrible, or illegal even. Poor ethics, however, as well as a lack of backbone, appear to have been in abundance throughout.
In retrospect, it’s possible that nothing at all would have come of last year’s decision by the White House / Justice Department to replace a handful of U. S. attorneys. Perhaps the critical mistake that began a seemingly endless domino effect was in choosing which prosecutors to let go.
On the afternoon of Dec. 15, the Justice Department announced that Tim Griffin, 34, a former aide of presidential advisor Karl Rove, would soon be the new U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. His soonto-be predecessor, Bud Cummins (who was appointed by President Bush to that post in 2001 ) knew a change was in the works, but had no idea it would come so soon. As always, though, Cummins was incredibly gracious, calling it a “ great honor” to have served the president.
Luckily for the American people not everyone was nearly so gracious about it. U. S. Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas could sense early on that something didn’t add up about Cummins’ dismissal and decided to raise hell about it. He felt that Cummins was an outstanding attorney, and deserved better than the brush-off the Bush administration was giving him.
Before almost anyone was paying attention to this story, Pryor was busy making inquires. In retrospect, Pryor’s efforts, along with lots of fine reporting by Linda Satter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, are a big part of the reason the American people ever learned anything about what had been done to Cummins and his colleagues — and for that Pryor deserves his fair share of credit.
By December’s close, both of this state’s senators were clamoring about Griffin’s appointment — which came during a congressional recess and courtesy of a provision buried within the USA Patriot Act that gave the Justice Department the right to fill vacancies for indefinite periods without going through the usual process of being nominated by the White House, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and being voted on by the Senate.
On Jan. 11 three U. S. senators, including Pryor, proposed legislation to prevent the indefinite interim appointment of U. S. attorneys. That same day, a press release put out by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy read, in part, “ We don’t know how many U. S. attorneys have been asked to resign — it could be two, it could be 10... No one knows. ” On Jan. 12 the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the firings of at least two more U. S. attorneys — one of whom had been terminated specifically for failing to make certain cases more of a priority.
On Feb. 6 Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Cummins had been let go to make room for different personnel, and that the decision was not based on performance. This announcement came two months after most of the firings had first been announced. According to Gonzales’ own testimony before the same committee in January, seven of the prosecutors had been let go strictly on the basis of how they carried out their duties.
The gigantic hole in the story the Justice Department chief was trying to sell was the eventual revelation that all eight of the U. S. attorneys caught up in this confusing mess had outstanding resumes. If it was true that Gonzales based his decision strictly on the basis of performance, committee members surely wondered, then whose personnel files was he looking at ? In the estimation of observers far and wide, not one of the prosecutors deserved to lose his or her job.
By mid-February Griffin gave up on his gambit to replace Cummins. By then it had been revealed that all but one of the eight U. S. attorneys in question had actually received positive job reviews shortly before their dismissals. More importantly, it was also learned that many of them had been involved in what the Washington Post termed “ significant public-corruption investigations. ”
Criticizing the on-the-job efforts by these attorneys turned out to be another significant gaffe. “ They’re entitled to make these changes for any reason or no reason or even for an idiotic reason, ” Cummins told the Post on Feb. 18. “ But if they’re trying to suggest that people have inferior performance to hide whatever their true agenda is, that is wrong. They should retract those statements. ”
On March 6, six of the ousted U. S. attorneys informed a pair of congressional panels of efforts by the Justice Department to quiet their protests over their own firings. Cummins told the Senate Judiciary Committee that in late February that Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General McNulty, had told him by telephone that any prosecutors who spoke to the press about the dismissals could face retribution — charges Elston flatly denied.
Six days later Gonzales said he accepted that “ mistakes were made” but that he had no personal knowledge of the discussions involving individual U. S. attorneys. Given that these “ discussions” wound up costing eight highly qualified individuals their jobs, people began wondering if Gonzales was the one who made the decision to fire them. That same day, D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ own chief of staff, resigned his post. On March 29, Sampson informed the Senate that Gonzales had approved the firings of the eight federal prosecutors. “ The decision makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president, ” Sampson said.
On April 16 the Washington Post reported that two- thirds of Americans believe political motivations were behind the firings. Just so, Americans appear to be split over whether Gonzales should lose his job over it.
With all this hanging over his head, Gonzales went before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, where he was bluntly told by several senators that they had lost confidence in him and that he should consider stepping down. On Monday President Bush reiterated his support for his embattled attorney general. “ This is an honest, honorable man in whom I have confidence, ” he said.
One of President Bush’s more honorable traits is that he isn’t willing to throw people under the bus, especially if they’ve been loyal to him in the past — even if they deserve it. Some might call this a weakness. I say it depends entirely on the situation.
In any case, firing friends is a talent that does not come easily to anyone. Suffice to say, Gonzales has put the president in an almost impossible and extremely awkward position.
Which is why the attorney general should resign right now, today, and save his boss the trouble of picking up the telephone and asking for his resignation. The Justice Department simply cannot continue to function (at least not very well ) with him in charge. So long as he remains, this scandal will be on everyone’s minds, and that’s bad for business. Furthermore, millions of Americans still aren’t sure whether Gonzales personally called for the dismissal of those eight U. S. attorneys, or was simply carrying out orders. Either way, there can be no denying that his credibility has been permanently tarnished.
Gonzales’ time as attorney general is a misadventure that has gone on long enough. Here’s hoping he takes the good of the country — and his president — into consideration and does the right thing.
Scott Shackelford is editorial page editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times. His column appears on Tuesdays.
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