Today I was listening to Al Franken. As usual, I take a lot of what he says with a healthy sodium dose; but one thing he said seemed a little odd to me.
I freely admit this might be coincidence. I don’t know enough about how federal judgeship nominations work. However, given that this case involves corruption at a federal level and a lobbyist’s ability to influence politicians unethically, and given that there’s been at least some contact between this lobbyist and the Administration making the judgeship nominations, it seems to me that offering the prosecutor a better job that would (even coincidentally) require him to leave the anti-Abramoff case at least has the appearance of impropriety.
How is a Federal judge removed from that position? I ask not to hijack but to wonder at how much a Federal judge needs to be concerned for their job if they piss off the President. This then leads me to wonder what kind of quid pro quo the White House might expect from such an appointment. Heck, even if the new judge felt he owed something back to the administration what could he do in regard to that case as he’d be off of it? I would imagine he’d have to recuse himself if the case ever came before him.
I am just not sure what possible upside there is to the Bush administration by pulling this guy and giving him a judgeship except to perhaps delay the process while a new prosecutor gets up to speed and/or hoping the new prosecutor is either less capable or more beholden to the administration.
I don’t think any quid pro quo would be needed. The prosecutor who did the work would be gone, and the Justice Department could nominate someone not quite so inquisitive. Hillman, the former prosecutor, is now working on something else. He’s in a bind - this opportunity doesn’t come very often.
And the Bushies got great deniability. Hillman is just being rewarded for his great work in investigating the scandal. Who can complain about that? Rove learned from Watergate - don’t fire them, promote them.
Franken is right - this stinks to high heaven, and there definitely needs to be a special prosecutor who will stick around until the job is done.
That’s what I thought. I’ve just finished reading The Night Manager, another excellent and thoroughly cynical espionage novel by Le Carre. And that’s one way the bad guys operate: they promote their enemies until their enemies can no longer hurt them.
Obviously this isn’t a spy novel, but it does look like this could be a motive; even if it’s not, it really seems as though someone interested in avoiding the appearance of impropriety would wait to nominate this guy until he’s done with the case.
Basically, they aren’t. Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments. Once confirmed and sworn in, a federal judge stays a judge until he retires, dies, or is impeached and convicted in the Senate. I think a total of 26 fedeal judges have been impeached, and at least some of those not convicted.
. Hillman is just being rewarded for his great work in investigating the scandal. Who can complain about that? Rove learned from Watergate - don’t fire them, promote them.
Just when we learn to watch out that Rove doesn’t pick out pocket we discover (the hard way…) that he’s stolen our pants…
This seems to me that it should be illegal: a federal prosecutor should be bound to follow through on the case, especially a high profile one like this. It’s a waste of time and money to get a new prosecutor.
As it appears, that’s not the way things work, but it should be reformed.
I’d like to hear good reasons why this should be allowed.
because there is no effective way to discriminate between the blatant conflict of interest (like here) and the run of the mill coincidence–
or, to put it more accurately, if you have a person appointing judges (bush) who is no longer runing for office, and he chooses to place an irresistable prize in front of a prosecutor (two words:“Lifetime Tenure”), and then, goshgeewilly, there’s an opening, well, you don’t expect me to appoint my ENEMIES, do you? Of course not…
At that point, barring impeachment and conviction, we are well and truly fucked
I get your point, alaric, but I would like to know why, from the fine legal minds we have here, that allowing a prosecutor in the middle of an important Federal case, should be allowed to abandon it because of a promotion.
Logic , or at least decent process, would allow for a prosecutor to finish current cases before accepting a higher post. Can someone astute with the law explain why this isn’t the case? And why it has any benefit?
The point was made on Hardball that the change in prosecutor can be raised as an issue in defending anyone caught in the Abramoff web. It seems that anything out of the ordinary can be twisted into a disadvantage for the defendants.
it’s an argument not without merit. Strictly speaking, the judge has to agree to the prosecutor going off the case, or he would in the instance of a civil ation where plaintiff’s counsel, (usually bacause the plaintiff is rejecting a settlement) seeks to be relieved.
If the judge says no, the lawyer is stuck.
Likewise, when defending a criminal client who has had a negative wallet biopsy.
So, if the judge in question wanted to, I think he COULD make the prosecutor finish out the process
I do not know but my understanding is the US does not permit what amounts to forced servitude. That is to say anyone is free at anytime to say “I quit”. I know it gets fuzzy with strikes and such (e.g. air traffic controllers were theoretically barred from striking) but bottom line I think anyone is free to quit their job anytime they feel like it. That person may face civil actions against them for breach of contract but no criminal penalties.
So, if you want to slice it up this way, Hillman could say “I quit” and then get re-hired a minute later by Bush.
I appreciate your consternation at this but I do not know that there is a legal way to stop it.
Out of curiosity if a lawyer quits in the middle of a case (or cases) can they face criminal charges? (If that is too much a hijack say so but it may have relevance to this discussion.)
not criminal-professionl. The Barwill be up your ass in half a minute if you piss in a judges’face.
Also, strictly speaking, you can go to jail for arguing with the judge.
My father once told a judge that “$100.00 (his fine) did not begin to measure his contempt for this court” He found out what that lettle room off the courtroom is for–the one with the grill over the door window…
Right, and Ken Starr couldn’t take that gig in Pepperdine, right?
Feh. I’m not saying there’s any true impropriety here. Just the appearance of such. It’s an unusual situation and one that may or may not play. We’ll have to watch how things go in the case from here on out.
Are you saying the cases are analogous? I don’t think they really are, if that’s what you’re saying: as far as I know, there’s no implication whatsoever that Clinton had anything to do with the Pepperdine offer. If Clinton had said, “Hey, Starr, want a different job?” the cases would be analogous.
There are other differences as well (e.g., where the investigations were at the moment of the offer), but the lack of involvement of the Administration in Starr’s offer is the big one, IMO.