A popular right-wing talking point lately regarding the burgeoning US Attorney scandal has been along these lines: “oh come on, Clinton fired all the US Attorneys when he took office. US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, so really, what’s the big deal?”
Some have been clamoring for more information about this. A big pile of information arrived today via the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Background: US Attorneys are nominated by the President and must be confirmed by the Senate. Once confirmed, they serve a four-year term, but they always serve at the President’s pleasure and therefore can be removed at any time. It is relatively common for a wholesale changeover of US Attorneys to occur when a new president takes office, especially a new president of a different party; no one has yet bothered to dig out statistics on that, evidently because the proposition is so uncontroversial.
The CRS report looked at US Attorneys who left office between 1981 and 2006 before they completed their four-year terms for reasons other than a change in presidential administration. It found 54 such individuals.
Of those 54, 17 left to become Article III federal judges, one left to become a federal magistrate judge, six left to serve in other positions in the executive branch, four sought elective office, two left to serve in state government, one died, and 15 left to enter or return to private practice.
That accounts for 46. The remaining eight are obviously the ones of interest — were they dismissed by the president for reasons resembling those in the recent Bush/Gonzales purge, or did they leave for other reasons?
The report found that six of the eight resigned from office, three for reasons that the CRS could not discover. The other three resigned amid allegations of misconduct: one “was videotaped grabbing Jacksonville television reporter Richard Rose by the throat,” one suffered “accusations that he bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club after losing a big drug case,” and one — Frank McNamara, the US Attorney for Massachusetts — was “the target of an internal probe” because it was suspected that he had “lied to federal officials when he accused his predecessor as U.S. attorney, William F. Weld, of smoking marijuana.”
Finally, two US Attorneys were dismissed by President Reagan in his first term. J. William Petro of Ohio was fired over charges, later proven true in a criminal proceeding, that Petro “disclosed information about an indictment pending from an undercover operation and that the information reached a subject of the investigation.” And William Kennedy of California was fired “for charging that the Justice Department, at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency, was blocking his attempt to prosecute Mr. [Miguel] Nassar [Haro], because he had been a key CIA informant on Mexican and Central American affairs.”
The bottom line appears to be this. The CRS could find reasons for 51 of the 54 early departures from office that did not result from a change in presidential administration. Exactly one of those — Reagan’s firing of Mr. Kennedy — could even arguably be described as “political,” in the sense that the Bush/Gonzales purge is turning out to be political.
So yes, based on the available evidence, what Bush and Gonzales did is unprecedented. Surprise, surprise.
laurel says
excellent post. just sorry you had to do the
trollypostersright-wingers homework for them…laurel says
i meant to ad: but it’s great to have the facts layed out so cleanly. your work is appreciated. not to mention its very interesting learning about the pecadillos of certain fmr attys. biting topless dancers? holy cow!
laurel says
Looks like the Seattle P-I wasted no time in scanning the emails for “McKay”, the name of one of the US Attys on Bush’s chopping block. As the P-I puts it
Yeah. Because if you don’t rip the blindfold off The Spirit of Justice while you’re draping her unclad breast, you just aint “with us”, meaning you must be against us. (that zaney Bush – such a binary thinker. Coulda been one heck of a programmer. Missed his calling.)
tim-little says
In light of McKay’s potential replacements:
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[U.S. Attorney nominee’s state law license suspended in 2003
http://www.legalnews…]
jimcaralis says
According to Stuart Gerson in a chat with the Washington Post
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A quote from Gerson
lasthorseman says
Words of Mass Diversion
What happened to stopping “the surge”.
What happened to restoring the Constitution.
What happened to the Downing Street memo.
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What about this????
http://www.americanc…
raj says
…Requesting the resignations of all political appointees at the beginning of a new administration is commonplace. The resignations may or may not be accepted, and oftentimes poltical appointess of the previous administration are kept on until new appointees can be confirmed.
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What is unusual is when an administration does a wholesale firing of almost 1/10 of a segment of its staff (the US Attorneys) so late in its tenure and in so brief a period of time. There’s something going on there, and I suspect we all know what it is.
chimpschump says
I agree that firing a BUNCH of them was unprecedented, but the record shows other political firings.
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The dump from CSR only went back to 1981, but in 1978, Jimmy Carter fired the US Attorney for NJ for investigating a US Representative that he, Carter, wanted to retain in office. I’ll go find the source and post it later. I seem to recall others, but maybe its just that I’m getting old . . .
Chuck
anthony says
….that happened in Philadelphia. I can’t find anything to link to, but as I recall it was never proven that the firing was politically motivated. It should also be noted that President Carter strove during his administration to revamp the US Attorney posts which up to that time were pretty much patronage positions that were often filled by individuals recommended by Senators without much question by the executive branch. Carter and his Attorney General (Bell??) passed over a lot of the senatorial nominees and caused a bit of a dust up in the process.
laurel says
Just read over on Pam’s House Blend that there is an 18 day hole in that email dump. Heh. Nothing like witholding documents to point fingers at your own culpability.