Fired U. S. Attorneys - Part III

Spector's admission:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries. Earlier we reported that Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier versions.

Now we move to the The Senate Judiciary Committee's oversight hearing:

At an oversight hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the sudden departure of several U.S. Attorneys at the administration's request.

"How many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign in the past year?" Feinstein asked Gonzales.

"You're asking me to get into a public discussion" of personnel issues, Gonzales replied.

"I'm asking you to give me a number."

"I don't know the answer to that question," said Gonzales.

The Senator Lahey:

"If we take a break for lunch," Leahy asked him, "would it be possible to get the number Sen. Feinstein asked for?"

Gonzales fished around for an answer, and finally answered, "I think so." But then he said he couldn't get into a public discussion of personnel matters.

"I don't care about the people," Leahy shot back. "Just get us the numbers."

I'm skipping a few things here but you can go to TPM Muckraker for their excellent coverage of this story.

Now enters Senator Schumer and more from Sen. Feinstein:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is slated to lead a hearing before the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 7 on the topic of "Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?" No witnesses have been announced.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) bill to fix the loophole allowing administration appointees to U.S. attorney spots to serve indefinitely could see some action. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee panel, expressed "qualified support" for the measure and asked to work with Feinstein on it, according to his spokeswoman, Courtney Boone.

Now comes an Arkansas Lawyer who challanges the new law:

An Arkansas lawyer has risen to challenge the law which allows the administration to circumvent Senate approval when installing new U.S. Attorneys.

On behalf of his client, an alleged crack cocaine dealer who's accused of killing a man he'd robbed to prevent him from talking to the police, Little Rock lawyer John Hall has challenged the appointment of Timothy Griffin, the recently-appointed U.S. Attorney for eastern Arkansas with close ties to the White House.

Griffin's resume is long on Republican bona fides and short on the sort of law experience usually expected of U.S. Attorneys. He was installed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and thanks to a measure slipped into the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act last year, may never face Senate confirmation.

Hall's motion argues that because Griffin's appointment circumvented Senate confirmation, it was unconstitutional -- thus rendering the prosecution of his client invalid. "Contrary to the [Justice Department], I've actually read the Constitution a few times," Hall told us.

More to come!

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.