Legal question: Can the president fire USA's for not prosecuting his opponents?

Factual Questions
21

Oy, so many terms and such being thrown around without definition or any attempt to actually relate them to meaning. :rolleyes:

How is “keeping partisanship out of the legal system” an ethic? An ethic is something having to do with morality. You will note that, in my first post on the subject, I said that what the President and/or his advisors did was potentially politically stupid. But just because something that is done is politically not a good thing doesn’t make it unethical. Lying about what you’ve done is unethical, because it is morally not a good thing to lie, usually. But again, I cannot see where being overly partisan is unethical in and of itself, even if most everyone in the nation were to agree that it wasn’t something we wanted to see in our political system.

As for Punoqllads, I seriously suggest actually learning some equal protection law before you spout such silly statements. There is no way that the 14th Amendment was violated, even if the assertion about why the attorneys were fired is correct. As you say, you are no lawyer.

And Dr. Lao, of course the President is free to interfere with any federal case. Define “interfere.” Then, if you want to know if it is “obstruction of justice,” go look up the relevant statute in the federal code that defines that crime and see if it is violated by what you have defined as “interference.” If you get that far fine, then see if what the President is accused of doing meets both definitions. In the absence of such, you are simply throwing around terms in a vaguely veiled partisan attack.

If you truly seek enlightenment, the first step is actually educating yourself about the truth of the underlying concepts you are discussing. :slight_smile:

Which brings us to the reference to the Hatch act by Jeff Lichtman. Again, it would be helpful to actually know what the [url=http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm]Hatch Act prohibits** before invoking it. As we see from the web site, the Hatch Act is about activities that involve elections and political parties, primarily. So, on the list of no-no’s for DoJ members we see things like: cannot hold office, cannot collect contributions, cannot make campaign speeches, etc. We do not see: carry out the President’s policy to eliminate from their job people who serve at his pleasure and aren’t doing what he wanted, especially by failing to investigate those he wanted them to, and investigating those he didn’t want them to. Or any reasonable variant thereof.

<sigh> I don’t know why it is so hard for people to accept that, just because a thing that is done may be bad for one reason doesn’t mean it is bad for all reasons. I am by no means defending the firings. I just am asserting that the term “unethical” does not apply.

22

I can give examples. Ordering a USA to stop investigating someone or ordering them to investigate someone on the basis of their relationship with the president and irrespective of any legal evidence.

It certainly seems like it would be by title 18. But I am not a legal expert, so I don’t know how these laws apply in these cases. When someone has the evidence but lacks the expertise to evaluate it, it is usually a good time to as a question, huh?

I don’t think that is an appropriate accusation for GQ and unfair. I am asking about the powers of the president. I am not asking about any specific action by any president: past, present, or future.

23

Remember that the President also has the pardon power, which can, essentially, insulate someone from investigation and prosecution. Like the power to dismiss appointees, the pardon power can be used by the President without restriction, other than the political fallout. (To use another Watergate example, President Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was likely a significant factor in his failure to be reelected.)

To the extent that the President orders a prosecutor to investigate someone for political purposes, they have the protections of the independent judicial system to protect them (though imperfectly, no doubt). This is one of the reasons that the National Security Letters that the FBI can issue under the Patriot Act are such a concern, because there is no judicial oversight over the procedure. In any event, investigations and prosecutions for political purposes contain significant political risks if and when they are discovered.

24

Well, I admit not knowing as much about the law as you do, and I have less experience at looking up legal citations, and might be misconstruing some decisions, but it looks like part of the court opionion in Snowdon v. Hughes, 321 US 1 (1944) contraticts you. To wit:

In the case itself, the ruling was against the petitioner since the proof of whether or not there was intentional discrimination has a very high bar. But I feel the decision is clear in saying that in those cases where a state official intentionally discriminated based upon an arbitrary classification of a person, such discrimination is illegal. This would lead to the principle that applying pressure to such officials, even implicitly, to act in such a way that was discriminatory would also be illegal and, hence, unethical.

25

Please stop now.

You are, in fact, completely misreading this decision.

If you are sincerely interested in understanding why, I will be happy to explain it to you. If was merely a wild shot in an effort to buttress your position, I’m not going to take the time to type an explanation.

26

I will take you at your word that I am misunderstanding it, but I would like an explanation why, if you have the time.

27

To start with, you need to understand what is considered an action which fails to provide equal protection of the law. Key to understanding this is to understand that a law or action does not violate this provision of the Constitution simply because it provides a different result with respect to two different people. All statutes, and all state actions, inherently treat one person or some group of persons differently from others. The key is in what persons, and why.

If you read the decision you cited carefully, you will see that, in the paragraph beginning, “The lack of any allegations here …” the Court restates the principle, still good law so far as I know today, that individual actions by state actors are not a denial of equal protection unless the very same action, codified into law, were a denial of equal protection. That is to say, just because someone violates the law of a state, they aren’t denying anyone equal protection. If the action they take would be considered a denial of equal protection if codified into law, THEN the action could be considered a denial of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment (we will, for the time, ignore the fact that the case deals with state actors, not federal actors, and, thus, might not even properly be applicable to the present situation).

So, we see that a government official, simply by breaking a law, does not deny anyone equal protection. In the case under discussion in this thread, assuming as true the facts as alleged by the critics of the President, i.e., Gonzales (perhaps on order of the President himself) directed the firing of the attorneys in order to derail prosecutions of Republicans, or to implement the prosecution of Democrats (by installing “team players” in the open slots), and even if we were to assume that such actions were a violation of federal law, that fact alone would not be sufficient to establish that a denial of equal protection of the law resulted.
The case you cited, by the way, is particularly instructive of a point I try to make all the time to people: just because something is wrong doesn’t make it unconstitutional. The plaintiff in the Snowden case got shafted totally on the facts as alleged. He got denied his proper, lawful place on the general ballot, for reasons that are not made clear in the decision. Yet he did not have a valid claim in federal court under the Constitution. Would that more people understood this vital point. :slight_smile:

28

I am not an expert in federal criminal law. Presumably, those who are will be along eventually.

I believe that the best effort you might have would be under Title 18 §1503. Presumably the U. S. Attorneys are officers of the federal courts. But you would have to establish one of the following: corrupt act, threats of force, or threatening letters or communications. This assumes that telling Joe Attorney as the U. S. Attorney for, say, Wyoming, to drop the investigation into Tom Schmuck, personal friend of the President, would be considered an action that “influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice.”

I would think your best bet would be a phone call from Attorney General Gonzales saying, “Joe, drop the damn case against Schmuck or we’ll fire your ass!” Even then, whether or not this would be considered sufficient is iffy; after all the President is lawfully able to fire the ass of Joe Attorney.

So far as I know, that scenario isn’t even alleged by the detractors. The worst I’ve read would be phone calls from the A. G.'s office enquiring if it really is important to proceed in such-and-such investigation, or asking why the attorney didn’t proceed more aggressively against Jane Democrat, suspected of vote tampering.

So, to answer your question, the bare facts you are asking about are probably not enough to be considered Obstruction of Justice, as I read the statutes.