I'm kind of amazed at the latest kerfuffle about the firing of the six US attorneys. As has been noted multiple times, they serve at the pleasure of the president. The only unorthodox thing about it, as far as I can tell, is the loophole that would allow them to be replaced absent Senate confirmation. And there seems to be a certain lack of ingenuousness in some of the reporting on it. For instance, in the piece at Slate, note this graf:

This kind of purge is legal but unprecedented. A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service revealed that since 1981, no more than three U.S. attorneys had ever been forced out under similar circumstances. And now we have six in a day? What's going on?

Unprecedented? Really? We'll come back to that in a moment.

Note the emphasis, which is mine. What does "under similar circumstances" mean? Well, if one follows the link to the CRA report, it turns out that it means "having served less than a four-year term." But why is it so awful for a president to remove his own appointee? The CRA report doesn't count those removed as a result of an administration change.

Which gets us to the "unprecedented" rhetoric. Where was all the fuss and bother in 1993, when Janet Reno fired every single US attorney bar one (over ninety of them) in a single day? As Judge Bork noted:

She was not in charge from the beginning. Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege.

Just as Whitewater was heating up. Just a coinkydinky, one can be sure.

Yet I don't recall it being such a big deal at the time. In fact, it's hard to find much reportage on it from the era (something that caused some of my commenters to unjustly accuse me of lying about it a few months ago).

Guess it's only an outrage when Republican presidents fire a few US attorneys. A wholesale slaughter isn't very interesting, when a Democrat does it. Particularly when it's a Democrat whom the press had just propelled into office by ignoring, or helping spin away, all of the many corruption issues and incipient scandals associated with him (certainly Clinton's problems with ethics and aversion to truth weren't unknown to Arkansas reporters of the era). And as Bork also notes, it set the stage for all the scandalous activity to come.

[Update]

Andy McCarthy has more on Democrat double standards in such matters, particularly from Senator Feinstein..

The press bears far less responsibility for Bill Clinton than two other conservative individuals:

1. George HW Bush: no new taxes. His fault. He could have vetoed.

2. H. Ross Perot: for single handedly dividing the conservative vote.

Even with all that, had the press properly reported on the Clinton ethics (and womanizing) problems at the time, and the Arkansas history, he probably wouldn't have mustered the 42% of the vote that he got.

The only unorthodox thing about it, as far as I can tell, is the loophole that would allow them to be replaced absent Senate confirmation.

That's because you don't know or don't care that Bush replaced 85% of the US Attorneys when he entered office. Most presidents do when the White House changes parties. What's so unusual this time around is that he's firing his own people. That is what makes it look suspect, even beyond ordinary partisanship. It only looks ordinary to certain ultrapartisans.

It is routine to replace almost all Presidential appointments.

Much ado about nothing.

Robert

It is routine to replace almost all Presidential appointments.

Even your own?

Can simberg find any articles from 1993, that
raise this issue?

Judge Bork is being intellectually dishonest by suggesting that these are equivalent events.

It is routine for an incoming President to ask for the resignation of all political appointees. What makes these firings different is that these were Bush appointees and according to CRS, this was an unprecedented event in recent political history.

I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that in 1993, Clinton just became president. Even if the purge was in December 1993, it was less than a year after he took office.

It makes sense that he would fire the Republican US Attorneys.

In contrast, the current purge happened well into the middle of Bush's second term. And it involved removing some US Attorneys investigating high profile Republican donors. And it involved putting political cronies into position.

This is another example of Bush using his office to put unqualified or underqualified candidates into positions of import.

Make no mistake, if a Democrat had done this, the Republicans would be all over it. And the White House and DOJ have not been up front about their reasons. This practice sets a bad precedent and should be criticized.

It involved removing some US Attorneys investigating high profile Republican donors.

Some US Attorneys who, moreover, were appointed by Bush himself.

Now it appears that a republican congresswoman and a senator tried to pressure a fired attorney with regards to an investigation gonzalez must be shitting himself.

But Rand, according to some (delusional) people, TV is a media advantage for the Republicans!

Media bias is widespred and undeniable. Even people inside the media will acknowledge it when cornered. Well, all except the most dishonest media people.

The only people who don't recognize media bias are those people who aren't paying attention. Or delusional.

Brad,

If you are Ron Paul, the media is to your left. If you are Dennis Kucinich, the media is too your right.

Generally speaking, the media is centrist. It is those who look at the media who are skewed.

Perception is reality? or Reality is perception?

TV is a media advantage for the Republicans!

That's right, Brad, although to put it more precisely, Republicans can use TV to their advantage. That's not the same thing as saying that TV is inherently biased towards Republicans, which in fact it isn't. TV is inherently degraded and has biases of many kinds.

This story is a case in point. Rand's argument in this post has already appeared on television. And it has appeared on shows that have accused television of having a liberal bias. A lot of people will watch a TV show that says one day, "Clinton did worse than Bush to US attorneys!" and another day, "The media has a liberal bias!" Many of them will then believe both messages because they saw them on TV.

People generally watch TV because they like it. They also enjoy criticizing TV, and they even take cues from TV for how to criticize TV. Since many TV shows accuse TV of a liberal bias, the viewers of those shows take that cue to heart.

These attorneys deserved to be fired and have their names dragged through the mud by the White House! According to the latest news reports, at least one of the attorneys was not working hard enough to prosecute Democrats. A Republican senator intervened and not much later these guys were fired for "poor job performance." If the Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, then it is their right to prosecute Democrats and anybody who gets in the way should have their reputations destroyed, just like these attorneys. After all, what's the point of being in power if you cannot abuse that power?

Senator Admits Calling U.S. Attorney
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2007; 12:28 PM

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) acknowledged today that he contacted the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque last fall to inquire about the status of an ongoing corruption probe of Democrats, saying he regretted the call but "never pressured him nor threatened him in any way."

Domenici also said he had told the Justice Department that U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias should be replaced, but said that occurred prior to the call about the criminal investigation of Democrats.

"In retrospect, I regret making that call and I apologize," Domenici said in a statement. "However, at no time in that conversation or any other conversation with Mr. Iglesias did I ever tell him what course of action I thought he should take on any legal matter. I have never pressured him nor threatened him in any way."

Domenici's statement comes four days after Iglesias alleged in interviews with reporters that two New Mexico lawmakers had called him in mid-October and pressured him about the pace of the investigation. Iglesias is one of eight U.S. attorneys who were part of a mass firing that has caused an uproar on Capitol Hill, and said he believed the calls were at the root of his dismissal.

Iglesias declined to comment in detail on Domenici's statement, saying he was honoring a request by congressional staffers to refrain from public remarks prior to congressional hearings on Tuesday.

"As to Senator Domenici's apology, I accept it and look forward to testifying on Tuesday," Iglesias said in an e-mail.

Domenici had previously declined to comment in detail, but told the Associated Press that he had "no idea" what Iglesias was talking about. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) has yet to comment; the rest of the New Mexico delegation has denied any calls to Iglesias.

A communication by a senator or House member with a federal prosecutor regarding an ongoing criminal investigation is a violation of ethics rules, experts say.

The prosecutor firings, which already had become a major controversy in Congress, has boiled over as the result of Iglesias's allegations of political interference. Iglesias and five other former U.S. attorneys are scheduled to testify about their dismissals Tuesday.

White House and Justice Department officials acknowledged Friday that the White House had approved of the unusual firings, in which seven of the prosecutors were called on Dec. 7 and asked to resign, even though most had positive job reviews. An eighth prosecutor was told earlier he was fired in order to make room for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Domenici said in his statement that he called Iglesias to enquire about a criminal probe of courthouse construction contracts linked to state Democrats, which the FBI had turned over to Iglesias's office.

"I asked Mr. Iglesias if he could tell me what was going on in that investigation and give me an idea of what timeframe we were looking at," Domenici said. "It was a very brief conversation, which concluded when I was told that the courthouse investigation would be continuing for a lengthy period."

Domenici is not specific about when the call took place, saying only that he made it "late last year." Iglesias said the calls occurred in mid-October, and said the lawmakers were focused on whether indictments in the case might be issued before the November elections.

At the time of the phone calls, Wilson was locked in intensely tight re-election battle with state Attorney General Patricia Madrid, a race Wilson won by less than 2,000 votes. A close ally of Domenici's, Wilson is widely considered the most likely GOP nominee should he decide not to seek re-election in 2008.

Domenici said his unhappiness with Iglesias began before he made the call about the probe of Democrats, saying that he was concerned about resource problems in the U.S. attorney's office and "an inability within the office to move more quickly on cases."

"This ongoing dialogue and experience led me, several months before my call with Mr. Iglesias, to conclude and recommend to the Department of Justice that New Mexico needed a new United States attorney," Domenici said.

The Senate Ethics Manual says that contact with prosecutors and regulatory agency officials is "generally permitted, where the communication is with the agency and not directed at the court, where the agency is not engaged in an ongoing enforcement, investigative or other quasi-judicial proceeding."

Stanley Brand, an ethics lawyer who served as House counsel in the 1980s, said Iglesias's allegation could result in internal congressional ethics probes. "It's going to precipitate a huge problem," Brand said, warning also of a potential review by the Justice Department.

In a related matter, administration officials said they were mistaken in saying that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty consulted his predecessor, James B. Comey, about some of the U.S. attorneys before they were fired. Comey was not consulted, the officials said Saturday.