July 11, 2007
The U.S. Attorney Firings : Was There a Border Angle?

With all the hullabaloo going on around the shamnesty bill, the unfairness doctrine and the presidential primaries, I haven't spent much time looking into the U.S. Attorney firings.

Yes, I'm well familiar with the argument that Alberto Gonzales has the POWER to fire every single one of the U.S. Attorneys if he chooses to do so. I'm also fully aware that this information is ALL that die-hard W fans need to know. In other words, the Attorney General has certain legal powers. Gonzales (apparently) acted within those legal powers. Hence, there can be no scandal. By definition, in other words, there can never be a scandal in any situation in which the Attorney General exercises powers legally granted to him under the Constitution or laws of the United States.

As you may know, I'm not a Gonzales fan, so I don't find this argument persuasive. There are a whole lot of things a government official could legally do that would be completely unethical and scandalous. A President could, for example, pardon completely guilty people who just happen to be in a position to help him financially. That's legal. An attorney general could refuse to enforce the law against well-connected people who break it. That's legal, too. There are tons of other examples. The argument that a thing which is legal cannot be scandalous is ridiculous. I realize some people will stick with this administration no matter how many times it fails to tell us the truth, but I'm far beyond the point of taking this administration's word at face value. There was a time when I was willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on something like this, but that time expired a while back.

The fact that Gonzales acted WITHIN HIS POWER doesn't, by itself, establish that nothing untoward happened in this situation. If, for example, we found out that the U.S. Attorneys were fired because they refused to back off on their enforcement of certain laws, that would be a legitimate scandal. I don't know for certain that anything like this happened. I'm just starting to look into this. I have noticed that six out of the seven U.S. Attorneys fired in December and January were from states along a U.S. border, and four out of the seven were from states along the southern border with Mexico:

1. David Iglesias - New Mexico
2. Kevin V. Ryan - California
3. John McKay - Washington
4. Paul K. Charlton - Arizona
5. Carol Lam - California
6. Daniel Bogden - Nevada
7. Margaret Chiara Mar - Michigan
Is this significant, or only a coincidence? At this point, I have no idea. It's just something I've noticed. Stay tuned.


By Ragnar Danneskjold

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188646.php