# Abramoff prosecutor offered federal judgeship: coincidence? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894 "2006-01-27T20:00:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/21 "2006-01-29T16:01:01Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > How low can this Executive Branch go? Think “trench limbo.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/22 "2006-01-29T16:25:46Z")
I hope that any of the people in congress who broke the law will go to jail…or at the very least pay a heavy fine. That said…if there isn’t enough carnage on the Republican side to satisfy you guys, the conspiracy theories will hit the air like flies over a garbage dump. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/23 "2006-01-29T16:28:14Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > I hope that any of the people in congress who broke the law will go to jail…or at the very least pay a heavy fine. > > That said…if there isn’t enough carnage on the Republican side to satisfy you guys, the conspiracy theories will hit the air like flies over a garbage dump. You will acknowledge, I hope, that conspiracy theories are not always wrong. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/24 "2006-01-29T19:09:05Z")
> [@Whack-a-mole](#): > > 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. Midterm elections are only 11 months away. A less zealous replacement could take long enough to get up to speed that indictments or damaging revelations were delayed until after the election. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/25 "2006-01-29T19:58:28Z")
[QUOTE=Evil OneThat said…if there isn’t enough carnage on the Republican side to satisfy you guys, the conspiracy theories will hit the air like flies over a garbage dump.[/QUOTE] What a helpful and perceptive comment! I even thought of putting some preventative snark in the OP to try to discourage such tinfoil-hattish comments, but I hoped it would be unnecessary. As I said, I don’t know what the proper procedures are for this sort of thing. What I’m asking about is conspiracy theory only in the technical sense of the word: that is, it’s possible that at some point I’ll have a theory that some people involved in this case made an agreement to act in an illegal fashion. I currently have no such theory. I consider it unlikely I’ll ever have such a theory regarding the offer of a job to the prosecutor. I do have a theory that the Administration’s acts have the appearance of impropriety. The proper thing to do in this case would have been to delay the nomination until the case is resolved. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/26 "2006-01-29T19:58:51Z")
> [@elelle](#): > > 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. Read the 13th Amendment. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/27 "2006-01-29T21:07:37Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Read the 13th Amendment. > > –Cliffy **Ellele’s** question may, as I understand it, be read in a less draconian fashion than some folks are reading it ;). Could we not, for example, consider a prosecutor who takes on a case to be making a contract to prosecute the case, and who therefore has an obligation to finish the case absent a compelling reason to leave it? Could we not impose some sort of penalty on a prosecutor who neglects this duty, e.g., suspending their license? I don’t think we do have such a penalty, but it certainly wouldn’t violate the thirteenth amendment. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/28 "2006-01-29T21:40:28Z")
Coincidence? Fiddlesticks! This is a much of a coincidence as that time the Nixon administration offered the judge in the Ellsberg break-in case the directorship of the FBI. Hmmmmmmm ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/29 "2006-01-30T01:15:05Z")
Thanks, **Daniel** , you put it much better than I did. According to [Newsday article, Jan 25](http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--bush-judicialnomi0125jan25,0,382990.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey) , prosecutor Hillman’s appointment to the NJ court has been in the works since last summer: > [@](#): > > Hillman came to Washington in 2001. Before that, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey from 1992 to 2001, coming in while Chertoff was the U.S. attorney. > > Last summer, Democratic Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg signed off on the nominations of Hillman and two others \_ assistant U.S. Attorney Renee Bumb and U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Wigenton \_ nominated to judgeships in New Jersey on Wednesday. They gave the OK as part of an agreement to lift their objections to Bush’s nomination of Peter Sheridan, a lawyer and Republican activist, to the federal bench Since the Abramoff case has been in process for two years, this could be just a regular appointment, but it does seem that the timing is convenient in view of the heat lightning pattern of how Abramoff’s far-reaching tentacles are being exposed. We shall see, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/30 "2006-01-30T08:47:57Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > **Ellele’s** question may, as I understand it, be read in a less draconian fashion than some folks are reading it ;). Could we not, for example, consider a prosecutor who takes on a case to be making a contract to prosecute the case, and who therefore has an obligation to finish the case absent a compelling reason to leave it? Could we not impose some sort of penalty on a prosecutor who neglects this duty, e.g., suspending their license? > > I don’t think we do have such a penalty, but it certainly wouldn’t violate the thirteenth amendment. > > Daniel we do but it’s totally discretionary with the trial judge, who rArely holds an individual (as opposed to a firm) to complete a case. If it were a wildly complicated piece of litigation, where a new trial counsel would be likely to immediatly ask for 6 mopnths delay to get up to speed, the judge might get pissy, but even then, the assumption is at a US attorney’s office has more than one competent trial counsel so **arguably** there is no prejudice to the goverment’s case. Har de har har. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/31 "2006-01-30T20:33:18Z")
It’s worth pointing out that this is the **second** time the Bush Administrator has removed a prosecutor who was digging too close into Jack Abramoff’s dealings: > [@](#): > > [**Bush’s personal favor for Abramoff: demoted Investigator, halted probe in 2002**](http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9951) > By Walter F. Roche Jr., Los Angeles Times | August 8, 2005 > > A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after. > > The previously undisclosed Guam inquiry is separate from a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia that is investigating allegations that Abramoff bilked Indian tribes out of millions of dollars. > > In Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, investigators were looking into Abramoff’s secret arrangement with Superior Court officials to lobby against a court reform bill then pending in Congress. The legislation, since approved, gave the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court. > > …The transactions were the target of a grand jury subpoena issued Nov. 18, 2002, according to the subpoena. It demanded that Anthony Sanchez, administrative director of the Guam Superior Court, turn over all records involving the lobbying contract, including bills and payments. > > **A day later, the chief prosecutor, US Attorney Frederick A. Black, who had launched the investigation, was demoted.** A White House news release announced that Bush was replacing Black. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/32 "2006-01-30T22:22:03Z")
> [@elelle](#): > > 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. Unfortunately, this idea is barred by the 13th Amendment. Sua ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894/33 "2006-01-30T22:23:26Z")
Must … finish … reading … thread … before … responding. Sua [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abramoff-prosecutor-offered-federal-judgeship-coincidence/341894.md?page=1)