Fired U. S. Attorneys - Part II

Remember, more of this story is at TPM Muckraker. I'm trying to make a timeline synopsis here.

We left off with eight attorneys being fired by the Bush admin because of this:

Section 502 of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, which was first drafted in July of 2005 and finally signed in March of 2006, changed the law regarding the appointment of U.S. Attorneys. Whereas before the relevant federal district court would have appointed a replacement within 120 days after the Attorney General picked one, now that pick stood without challenge.

Now who allowed this to happen:

In order to replace several U.S. Attorneys with handpicked successors, the Bush Administration has relied on a tiny, obscure provision tucked into last year's USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

How did it get there?
Former Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) slipped the language into the bill at the very last minute, according to one of the Republican managers of the bill.

A spokesperson for Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who led the House team working on the bill, said that the provision was inserted by Specter into the final draft of the bill. The language was apparently requested by the Justice Department. Specter's office didn't respond to numerous requests for comment.

Earlier versions of the bill did not contain the provision, which grants authority to the Attorney General to replace U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval. When the House and the Senate first voted in favor of the legislation, the provision did not exist.

Instead, the tweak was inserted during the conference committee, where lawmakers from the House and Senate reconcile discrepancies in the two versions and craft a final bill.

In an unusual move, Republicans blocked Democrats from participating in many of the committee's activities.

Now we come to Attorney Genral Alberto Gonzales who said there is no political motive to the firings:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is mounting a PR effort to rebuff suggestions that the recent spate of administration-forced resignations of U.S. Attorneys may be politically motivated.

"Nothing could be further from the truth,” he told the Associated Press.

“We are fully committed to ensuring that, with respect to every position, we have a Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed U.S. attorney. . . We in no way politicize these decisions.”

Since the November elections, Gonzales' department has requested resignations from several U.S. attorneys. The only known replacements have been political appointees that do not receive Senate confirmation, thanks to a recent change in law.

Sen. Feinstein joins other Senators in another question of an appointment by the Bush admin to replace a fired US Attorney:

Feinstein had earlier joined other senators in questioning the qualifications of one of the Bush-appointed replacements, Tim Griffin, a 37-year-old Karl Rove protege with a background in opposition research on behalf of GOP campaigns.

In his AP interview, Gonzales explained his expanded powers were necessary because federal judges -- who previously had appointed replacement U.S. attorneys -- were susceptible to cronyism and might appoint unqualified candidates.

Reads like a political thriller so far. And there is so much more. This will take a few more posts for the continuing saga.