Firing Of U.S. Attorneys

Floor Speech

FIRING OF U.S. ATTORNEYS -- (Senate - March 19, 2007)

Mr. REID. Mr. President, in today's Congressional Weekly, a respected publication we get back there, there is a column on the last page by Craig Crawford which I think is quite illuminating. It is entitled ``The Firing Squad Backfires.''

The fingerprints of the President's top advisers are all over the prosecutors' firing scandal, which means trouble for Bush.

Here is the first sentence:

Of all the scandals that increasingly bedevil George W. Bush's Presidency, none has more direct ties to the President than the flap over firing Federal prosecutors.

I rise today to express my strong support of S. 214, Senator Feinstein's legislation to strengthen the independence of U.S. attorneys. There is growing evidence that the Bush administration fired Federal prosecutors for improper partisan reasons. This legislation is needed to protect the integrity of the Federal criminal justice system and the autonomy of the chief Federal prosecutors across the country.

The U.S. attorney scandal is another example of the arrogance of power. As Lord Acton said, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. For too long, the Bush administration--shielded from oversight by a Republican-dominated Congress--enjoyed absolute power, and they abused it.

After all, this was a President who won two elections by the barest of margins, first by the Supreme Court. Yet after 9/11, instead of uniting the country, he has chosen to push the envelope of his authority. On everything from the runup to the war in Iraq, to the plan to destroy Social Security, to the use of warrantless wiretapping, this administration has governed without compromise.

The political purge of U.S. attorneys is only the latest example of this President's unhealthy disregard for checks and balances. Speedy passage of this bill is only the first step the Senate must take to deal with the administration's dangerous power grab.

We need to get to the bottom of this scandal to find out why these U.S. attorneys were fired. We need to find out whether the Attorney General and his deputies testified truthfully when they first explained the firings to Congress and the American people.

Federal prosecutors are enormously powerful individuals. They are the embodiment of Federal criminal law. They make life-and-death decisions about who to prosecute and who should receive leniency. Their discretion is largely unreviewable. They must be permitted to carry out their solemn duties without any political interference.

No one disputes the authority of the President to name U.S. attorneys at the beginning of his term, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate. But it is unprecedented that U.S. attorneys be terminated in the middle of a Presidential term without proper cause. It is unacceptable for U.S. attorneys to be replaced because they were perceived by the White House to be insufficiently partisan or too aggressive in prosecuting public corruption.

It appears that administration officials took advantage of a provision that they insisted be included in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization conference report last year. Now it is becoming clear why they stuck that provision in there. This was a plan they had for some time. That law reversed a longstanding procedure that allowed the chief Federal judge in the Federal district court to appoint a temporary replacement while the permanent nominee undergoes Senate confirmation. The Feinstein bill simply restores the pre-PATRIOT Act procedure.

Conflicting testimony and recently released e-mails strongly suggest the American people are not getting from the Bush administration the full story about this scandal.

In the State of Nevada, as an example, Daniel Bogden, a highly respected career prosecutor, was forced to step down. His chosen vocation in life was to be a Federal prosecutor. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney for a significant period of time before chosen to be the U.S. attorney by a Republican, JOHN ENSIGN, and by the President, who sent his name to us. We were initially told that Bogden and others were fired for ``performance-related reasons.'' But that explanation proved to be totally bogus. In fact, Dan Bogden's personnel review was glowing. We still don't know why Dan Bogden was fired. What we do know is under the new PATRIOT Act provision, Mr. Bogden could be replaced by someone with no ties to Nevada, and with no input from the Senate. The damage done to Bogden personally is irreparable. He can't work now as assistant U.S. attorney. That is part of the process. That is too bad. He is a fine man whose reputation has been besmirched.

Meanwhile, we learned of a scheme hatched in the White House to replace all U.S. attorneys. At least one U.S. attorney has stated he was forced to resign because he refused to bend to political pressure regarding ongoing investigations. Others were fired under circumstances that raise the same question. In the State of Arkansas, the U.S. attorney was fired and replaced by one of Karl Rove's underlings.

The Attorney General and his deputies told Congress these firings were not politically motivated. But according to newly released e-mails, White House political operatives such as Mr. Rove were involved in the decisionmaking. Kyl Sampson, who eventually became Chief of Staff to Attorney General Gonzales, wrote an e-mail that distinguished between those U.S. attorneys who were ``loyal Bushies'' and those who were not. Dan Bogden and other U.S. attorneys who were fired last December were not ``loyal Bushies.''

What I am worried about--and it hasn't come out yet--is what about those who were loyal Bushies? Were these people prosecuting people because of the political involvement of the White House? Perhaps so.

The real question is whether being a ``loyal Bushie'' meant letting partisan consideration poison law enforcement decisions. Do prosecutors who are ``loyal Bushies'' go easy on Republican corruption? Do they bring cases against Democrats without legal justification? The actions of the Bush administration call into question every decision by Federal prosecutors in corruption cases across the country.

I applaud the efforts of Senator Feinstein, who wrote this legislation and spoke about it early on. I also applaud the efforts of Senators SCHUMER and LEAHY, as well as colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are committed to getting the truth in this matter. I strongly urge the Senate to pass this piece of legislation. Simply put, we need to begin to keep politics out of the Federal criminal justice system, which is the way it has always been.

Source