I’m not looking for a debate; I posted this in General Questions for a reason. Regarding the recent firings of a bunch of US attorneys, I’m not clear on what the big scandal is supposed to be. All the online news stories are saying that these sorts of firings are pretty normal. The TV news tonight said that US attorneys can be fired by the president for any reason at all. So why is Congress riled up? So far, all I’ve heard are vague accusations that the firings were politically motivated, but frankly that doesn’t say much. Any insights into the nature of this incident would be appreciated.
US Attorneys can be fired for pretty much any reason at all - except this looks like a mass murder of of guys who are doing the right thing. The public doesn’t pay much attention these days (although they should, but that’s “ideal world,” not “real world”); if they did, they’d see a lot of personnel moves in recent years (and decades) that involve excellent civil servants being relieved for no good reason. That sucks because, in my opinion and experience, “excellent” and “civil servant” aren’t usually words/phrases that go together well.
As a custom, political appointees offer their resignation to the new president upon his or her election. That includes US Attorneys. These resignations are usually accepted by a new president with the current office holders staying on until a new appointment is confirmed.
As I understand it, it is quite unusual for US Attorneys to be forced out in mid-term and so questions arose. The further people look into the matter the more questions arise since the Administration people, as is their custom, have given a series of different accounts and reasons for the action.
Time will tell as to the outcome.
US Attorneys are a politically appointed position. They serve at the pleasure of the President. Despite this fact, once they are appointed at the start of a Presidency, they are almost always allowed to serve to the end of that president’s tenure in office if they choose. The thought behind this is that it allows them to do their job without worrying about political pressures from TPTB in the White House.
In the case of the attorneys who were fired, some have made the direct accusation that their removal stemmed from the fact they either pursued investigations embarrassing to the administration or the Republican Party, or failed to pursue investigations that the Republican Party or the administration wanted vigorously pursued. If these allegations are correct, then they would represent another in a large list of efforts by the current administration to politicize aspects of government that have resisted such efforts to date. Note the “if” there. 
Moreover, Gonzalez keeps slandering the terminated attorneys by saying that there were “performance problems” that resulted in their firing.
The question itself paraphrases one political position, thus responding to “what’s the big deal” can only amount to supporting the other view.
I tried three times, and have concluded that there is no possible non-political answer to this GQ. If you read through the GD threads on this, and check out the cited articles, you will be able to answer the question for yourself I think.
The implication seems to be that the people who were fired, were terminated because they were skilled at their work and honest in pursuing whoever seemed dishonest, and/or not pursuing those who seemed honest (but who the administration wanted to be done in anyways.)
So you can either read it as an attempt to get more people in who will smear honest Democrats, or fewer who will pursue dishonest Republicans.
Given the various torture/wiretapping/Plame-leakings and whatnot which are one-by-one being ruled against in the justice system, personally I’m voting on the latter, but there’s no real way to know.
I don’t think that’s true at all. I remember hearing criticisms of Clinton for firing people from the White House travel office. I remember thinking that it was pretty much up to him to decide who worked for him or not. I never did find out what the big deal was. That doesn’t mean I support one side or the other, I still don’t know what the sides were.
If you miss the first few hours of a major news story, it can be hard to catch up. We have 24-hour news networks, but in my opinion, they don’t do a very good job of connecting the dots on something like this. I have some sympathy for the people who got fired; and if the administration is lying about their performance, that’s a pretty scummy thing to do, but not necessarily a scandal. But I know damn well that justice is supposed to be blind. And if anybody is using their office to shield their friends and pursue investigations of their enemies, then we should know and do something about it.
If United States’ Attorneys were fired for prosecuting cases against Republicans, then I want to know what’s up with the attorneys they kept.
In particular, the attorney general delivered sworn testimony before the senate judiciary committee this past January, which appears to be contradicted by internal white house and justice documents.
While the posters so far have been pretty good trying to answer this in General Questions, I think I’ll move it to IMHO so’s to allow a bit of latitude in the answers.
Note: I’m NOT moving it to Great Debates. We already have a thread or two going elsewhere.
Thanks to all who can keep this as factual as possible without trying to dabate the issue.
samclem GQ moderator
I heard something on NPR the other day that made the scandal make more sense to me. Apparently, there’s an item in the PATRIOT Act that allows the attorney general to appoint new US attorneys without any vetting or approval process. So, in theory, the administration could get rid of everyone they didn’t like (or whatever the case may be) and put in new attorneys without having to go through Congress or what have you.
IIRC, of course.
Yeah - for me Avarie identifies a significant point.
We’ve got all these provisions in the huge Patriot Act which are supposedly in there to protect us. Tho many folk have objected to this apparent expansion of executive and police power, our concerns have been pooh-poohed, and we’ve been assured that adequate protections are in place and the PA provisions are all necessary and will never be used for less than laudable purposes.
Yet it seems as tho a little known provision was inserted and approved with little debate, and then was used for what appear to be largely if not primarily political purposes.
At the moment, what’s driving the controversy is the Administration’s refusal to be straight with Congress about what happened and why.
Administration: “Routine personnel matter.”
Congress: “Actually, unprecedented purge.”
Administration: “Um, okay. Performance related.”
Congress: “Most of the terminated employees had exemplary ratings and appraisal records.”
Administration: “Um, okay. We’ll check, but it was a low-level decision, not involving the White House.”
Congress: “Records show White House people were engaged in the decision.”
Administration: “Um, okay. Some White House staffers, maybe, but the Attorney General didn’t know about it.”
Congress: “More records show that the Attorney General was involved from the beginning.”
And so on.
Scandal after political scandal demonstrates that it’s not the action that gets you in trouble, it’s the cover-up. Regardless of whether the initial act was minor malfeasance or high treason, the more you look like you’re trying to keep the truth from coming out, the worse things get.
So it’s unusual for attorneys to be fired mid-term? That explains it somewhat. Since we’re now in IMHO, I’ll go ahead and expound on my views more. It looks to me like the Democrats are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. One of the risks of being a presidential appointee is that the president can boot your ass out the door for any ol’ stupid reason. It comes with the turf. The conflicting answers do raise questions (and frustrations), but ultimately I’m still not seeing the big greivous offense that’s supposed to have me screaming for Alberto Gonzales’ head.
I’ve read that someone (Gonzales? Karl Rove?) has given reasons for two of the firings. Supposedly, the attorney for Southern California wasn’t pursuing immigration violations fervently enough for their liking, and the guy from Arizona was opposed to the death penalty. The former case seems perfectly OK to me, and while I’m not a big fan of the death penalty it seems to me that this is still something that is within their discretion.
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The attorneys dismissed were Bush appointees, not holdovers. It is nearly unprecedented for an administration to fire its own appointees in the middle of a term like this. (See #2.)
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The reason for the dismissals is highly disputed. There is evidence that the attorneys were dismissed for suspicious political reasons, not for job performance issues, as claimed by the administration.
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Two of the fired prosecutors claim to have been threatened or harassed by an official of the Justice Department for making the situation public.
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The Presidential authority to do this is twisted with the Patriot Act stuff and there is evidence that the administration was looking to exploit the provisions of the Patriot Act in order to bypass Congressional approval of appointments of US attorneys to get their own hand-picked replacements in.
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(Oh, we’ve been moved to IMHO? In that case… ) Karl F’ing Rove is involved. I hate that slimy creep and generally think that something illegal is going on if he’s got a hand in it.