The proposed housecleaning of all 93 U.S. attorneys is a red herring. Not only would firing all of them have been a political and logistical nightmare, but it would have been foolish from Rove's point of view. After all, the vast majority were apparently behaving exactly as he wanted -- as "loyal Bushies."
The key question, that the White House continues to duck: Did Rove approve of -- or perhaps even conceive of -- the idea of firing select attorneys? And if so, on what grounds? The latest e-mails certainly indicate that he was involved very early on.
Froomkin writes, and I agree, keep your eye on Karl Rove. From the LA Times:
White House political advisor Karl Rove more than two years ago began seeking input from the Department of Justice into how many U.S. attorneys should be fired in the second Bush administration, according to e-mails released Thursday that show a deeper White House involvement in the dismissal of federal prosecutors last year.
The e-mails also show that the Justice Department was willing to defer to Rove on the matter.
The Boston Globe gets it right.
IT IS customary for newly elected presidents to replace large numbers of US attorneys, especially if the new president is from a different party. It is not customary for presidents to sweep out many of their own appointees to these positions in the middle of their administration.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales caved in to pressure from the White House for such a housecleaning in recent months. Then department officials led Congress to believe that the eight US attorneys in question were forced out for performance problems, not for what now appears to be the real reason in at least some cases -- that the prosecutors were not sufficiently partisan in election and political corruption cases. Gonzales has lost any credibility he had with Congress and the public as the nation's chief law enforcer. He should resign.
Who but Karl Rove could have successfully strategized to fire only the 8 U.S. Attorneys who refused to pony up on demands that investigations of Republicans be scrapped while investigations of Democrats be launched?
Check out the e-mail (pdf) from Colin Newman to David Leitch about Karl Rove's visit to the White House Counsel's Office to inquire about the proposal to replace U.S. Attorneys. Rove asked whether the White House Counsel's Office intended to let them all stay, request resignations from all but accept only some of them, or selectively replace them.
To me, as a defense lawyer who has observed each of those scenarios occur during my years of practice in federal court, it shows that Karl Rove was intimately familiar with the possible options. Not too many people have mentioned the option of requesting resignations from all but accepting only some.
On the date of the e-mail, Gonzales was still White House Counsel. He had not yet been confirmed as Attorney General. The e-mail even states that on the date it was written, Gonzales was undergoing confirmation hearings for Attorney General.
Rove is not a big e-mailer, we know that from the Plame investigation. But he made it a point to visit David Leitch, who wasn't in, hence he talked to Colin Newman.
Is there any doubt that Karl Rove was really seeking Alberto Gonzales' opinion? And that he had been briefed on the possibilities?
As Fred Fielding stalls in responding to Congress about whether Rove will testify, we should all be asking, to what extent did Karl Rove lean on the White House Counsel's office, which at the time included Alberto Gonzales, to push DOJ into firing those U.S. Attorneys that he perceived not to be aggressively pursuing the Bush agenda?
U.S. Attorney jobs are awarded to political loyalists. But once they are in the job, their job is to see that justice is done. While they serve at the pleasure of the President, their performance is not supposed to be judged by how well they serve a political agenda.
Alberto Gonzales was the President's lawyer when he was White House Counsel. But the U.S. Attorneys were fired while he was Attorney General. Were they fired for political reasons, at the behest of Karl Rove? Did Gonzales continue to act as the President's lawyer instead of America's lawyer after he was confirmed as Attorney General?
These are all fair questions. And the inquiry shouldn't end with Alberto Gonzales.
