Juridics: USA: Law prof Bainbridge muses on what's behind "the US Attorney mess" that has Dems calling for ousting of Attorney General Gonzales

Prof. Stephen Bainbridge's blog entry for Mar13,2k7 reflects on what's being called "the mess," an apparent fiasco which elicited an apology from the head of the US Department of Justice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today. Now Hillary Clinton has joined the fray, calling for the resignation of the Bush Administrations' Attorney General; she was foiled in her duplicitous effort by the re-emergence of her own involvement of the Clinton Admin's firing of all 93 Federal Prosecutors in 1994.

[Clinton's Attorney General, Janet] Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege. The long-running Waco emergency that culminated in the deaths of eighty Branch Davidian men, women, and children again proved that Janet Reno was not in charge in the Justice Department. Webster Hubbell, Hillary's former law partner in Little Rock and Bill's man at Justice, coordinated tactics with the White House. The President did not even talk to his attorney general throughout the crisis. -- "Justice denied: as President Clinton has time after time made a mockery of his oath of office, his attorney general has followed suit - Janet Reno," by Robert Bork (Sep1,1998) National Review,

On the apology, Tony Czuczka reports on the M&C (Mar 13, 2k7):

Washington - Faced with allegations that the Bush administration fired US federal prosecutors for political reasons, the top US justice official Tuesday acknowledged that 'mistakes were made' but rejected opposition calls for him to resign.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sought to portray last year's dismissal of eight prosecutors as driven by the White House and his own former chief of staff Kyle Sampson, who resigned Monday.

'I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility,' Gonzales told reporters.

But he insisted he was not informed of all details of the process. 'I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on,' he said.

But Bainbridges' remarks, while they do not render the former chief of staff innocent, they do supply space for questioning why the staffer and the White House may have wanted to get rid of the Attorney. Easily, in this speculative realm, the Attorneys may have been pursuing their own agendas, setting their own priorities, politically-motivated contrary to the directions set by Gonzales. Here's Bainbridge:

...[T]here is big difference between putting political constraints on a prosecutor's general exercise of his or her prosecutorial discretion and allowing political calculations to factor into specific decisions. For example, I think it is perfectly appropriate for the President and Attorney General to set law enforcement priorities. Say, the Attorney General says pornography is a priority. US Attorneys who fail to enforce that priority appropriately can be fired. Contra what some in the blogosphere seem to believe, US Attorney's serve at the pleasure of the President and may be terminated either with our without cause at any time.

In contrast, investigations and prosecutions aimed at furthering a prosecutor's own career or those that are aimed at individuals or entities because of their political status are improper. Robert H. Jackson warned about the dangers that political considerations posed to the reputation of federal prosecutors as "dispassionate, reasonable and just." Accordingly, both the ABA's Standards Relating to the Administration of Criminal Justice and the Department of Justice's United States Attorneys' Manual declare that political considerations are inappropriate factors in a decision to investigate and charge a specific person. If the US Attorneys in question were fired because they refused to bring voter fraud cases against Democrats or because they tried to bring voter fraud cases against Republicans, for example, we have a serious problem.

Two things for sure: neither the fired attorneys nor the Dems are to be trusted. This looks very much like the pattern already established to bring the present Administration absolutely to its knees.