Politicizing Justice

The US Justice Department is most certainly ordering US Attorneys to resign to make way for political hacks. How do I know this?

Former U.S. Attorney John McKay told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his resignation this month was ordered by the Bush administration, which gave him no explanation for the firing.

“I was ordered to resign as U.S. attorney on Dec. 7 by the Justice Department,” McKay, who had led the department’s Western Washington office, said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. “I was given no explanation. I certainly was told of no performance issues.”

How do I know this?

A top Justice Department official said on Tuesday that one of several United States attorneys forced from their jobs last year was dismissed without a specific cause in order to give the job to a lawyer with close political ties to the White House.

One disputed case involves H. E. Cummins III, a United States attorney in Arkansas who was asked to step down last summer although his office had increased drug and firearms prosecutions and he had helped organize a multiagency counterterrorism council.

To temporarily replace Mr. Cummins, the Justice Department named J. Timothy Griffin, a former military and civilian prosecutor who was a political director for the Republican National Committee and who once worked as a deputy to Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

At the hearing, Mr. McNulty was asked by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, whether it was accurate to say that Mr. Cummins had not done anything wrong to justify his removal. Mr. McNulty replied, “I do not dispute that characterization.”

Had Mr. Cummins ever received a poor performance evaluation, Mr. Schumer asked.

Mr. McNulty answered, “I’m not aware of anything negative.”

So we have at least two cases where US Attorneys are being fired without cause. We also know that far more Democrats were being investigated by the Bush Justice Department, particularly at the local level, and the study that uncovered this information showed that the chances of this being a random occurrence are about 1 in 10,000.

The Democrats on the relevant committees appear to be all over this. It is unacceptable for the White House to be purging the US Attorneys across the country for purely political reasons.