Selective Amnesia on firing US Attorneys

The American Thinker ^ | 3/20/07 | clarice Feldman

[the Real fifi]

"Selective amnesia on firing US Attorneys Clarice Feldman A common media trick to get editorial opinion into apparent news stories is the use of outside "scholars" to argue the writer's point for him. So, I was not astonished to read this

about the Gonzales kerfuffle in the St Louis Post- Dispatch:

Several former U.S. attorneys and legal scholars say the timing of the Bush administration's replacement of top federal prosecutors is not only atypical, but also a threat to the impartial exercise of justice.

[the Real fifi]

Carter was involved in a worse scandal regarding the firing of a US Attorney and the media plays games.

[wastedyears]

Clintoon fired them all and we're not hearing anything about that.

[the Real fifi]

Well, I am hearing about Clinton though not very much in the MSM. The Carter case cited was very outrageous and the "legal scholars" cited by the press seem to have forgotten all about it.

[Congressman Billybob]

The situation would not be as bad if the press could be accused merely of "selective amnesia." They are not competent to operate a computer and put out stories, if they are unaware of prior firings of ALL the US Attorneys.

And if they are aware of that, and do not report it, they are liars acting on their biases, to protect the likes of Senators Reid and Shumer from the consequences of their own, blatant hypocrisy.

As often happens, a FReeper was on this subject before any part of the lamestream media picked it up.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article: "Prosecutors, Hypocrisy and Harry Reid"

[TexasCajun]

Liberals claim Slick fired all of them at the beginning of his term which is perfectly fine.

It only when you fire them in the middle of the term that is unacceptable.

Liberalism is indeed a mental disorder.

[piytar]

And the GOP has not raised it either. That's just lame.

Yup. I used to see things like this and think the GOP was just waiting for the right time to hit back.

Now I just think the current GOP and its lame leadership are a bunch of useless, spineless, Democrat appeasing wimps who wouldn't know how to "hit back" if their political lives depended on it, which they do...

[lilylangtree]

Clintoon's Reno fired all 93 US Attorneys in '93. Where's the outrage? Where's the scholarly opinion? Where's the political equality? Where's the media coverage? The truth is out there!

[OldYank1]

The fact that Bush fired some attorneys has nothing to do with this. The Dems are claiming foul simply to justify an investigation. The main purpose is to get Rove and others under oath. It will be determined there was no "crime" committed but there will be a number of claims of lying under oath and obstruction.

[the Real fifi]

It's utter B.S. And the document dump by DoJ on Congress proves it. Even the NYT couldn't find the pony today.

[the Real fifi]

Schumer kissing Fredo
Clarice Feldman
Senator Schumer, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has never been a practicing lawyer but who surely is the self-anointed supervisor of the Department of Justice's Southern District of New York, if not much of the Department of Justice itself, is predicting --based on nothing I can see--that Attorney General Gonzales will be removed. He goes so far as to recommend his replacement, offering up three names. One of those you'll recognize:

James Comey, who left the Justice Department in 2005 after serving as Thompson's replacement. Comey is trusted by some Democrats because of his perceived discomfort with some of the administration's terrorism surveillance policies and because he named U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that ended with the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
An endorsement by Schumer may carry weight somewhere. To me, this is like the Godfather kissing Fredo. It's marking Comey for political death in any Republican Administration.


It's time someone filed a FOIA request to Chuck's fiefdom,asking the SDNY to produce all correspondence and memoralialized communications between Schumer (and his office) and the SDNY US Attorneys' office since 2000.


And while you're at it, ask about the progress of the investigation involving Manny Miranda.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/schumer_kissing_fredo.html

[conservative in nyc]

It's time someone filed a FOIA request to Chuck's fiefdom,asking the SDNY to produce all correspondence and memoralialized communications between Schumer (and his office) and the SDNY US Attorneys' office since 2000.

Absolutely. And throw in the Eastern, Western and Northern Districts of New York as well. Schumer is no saint, and has sent letters to the Justice Department trying to affect ongoing litigation before. Despite the Democrats' demagoguery to the contrary, ALL of them likely have done that.

Someone also needs to create Citizens Against Political Grandstanders (CRAP) to counter the crap that is coming from CREW. Some of CREW's staff are Schumer retreads.

[Branzburg]

yea, the talking points are all over the map

[conservative in nyc]

The ironic thing is that I knew absolutely nothing about this whole "scandal" until March 14th, and the Marston article was one of the FIRST things I found while trying to refute another FReepers' claim that U.S. Attorneys haven't been fired before for political reasons. The other thing I noted in this post was that Nixon sacked Robert Morgantahu for (likely very good) political reasons, too. Any NYC conservative knows that Bob Morgenthau outright refused to enforce the NY death penalty law when it was reenacted during Pataki's tenure. If he did anything insubordinate like that while serving under Nixon, it would be good cause for removal.

One of the reasons why the Carter and Nixon USA firings haven't been news is because the Congressional Research Service's report on "U.S. Attorneys Who Have Served Less than Full Four-Year Terms" didn't look into USAs who were forced out before 1981. And the scope of the research is also a bit misleading, since most of the Clinton USAs left office AFTER their 4-year terms expired.

If the press were honest, they'd be looking into the circumstances of those USAs who left while Clinton was in office. I'd be willing to bet that a few were forced to leave before they wanted to make way for others or because they weren't properly implementing Clinton's policies or more nefarious reasons. That's simply the nature of politics.

[conservative in nyc]

The DOJ document dump has some interesting information about Congressmen and their staff directly contacting USAs. There's a lot more contact between Congressmen and the U.S. Attorneys office than CREW would like us to believe. For example:

1) A Feinstein staffer had direct contact with SD CA USA Carol Lam's office regarding Lam's policy on illegal immigration in early June 2006. According to an e-mail from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nancy Scott-Finan, the "good news is that Senator Feinstein's staffer Renee has finally called me for information instead of calling SD Ca directly. . She would like to know the prosecution guidelines for 18 USC Secs. 1324 and 1326 for not only Southern District of California, but also El Paso, Yuma and Tuscon." (Page 16)

2) If I'm reading this properly (Page 5), Feinstein also sent a letter to SD CA USA Lam, urging her to review an FBI request for warrants in a foreign abduction case.

3) Lam also met directly with some of the California Republican Congressional delegation to discuss their concerns about her enforcement of the immigration laws.

4) In general, as Nancy Scott-Finan vented in a 2007 e-mail: “I receive reports about Members reaching out to the USAs about cases all too frequently and have to return calls with the “neither confirm nor deny” or provide the public record pleadings.” (Page 56)

I truly wonder how often my grandstanding Senator Schumer has contacted the NY U.S. Attorneys' offices about cases.

[the Real fifi]

The Spectator blog has more on this.