Gonzales' sacking of US Attorneys like a 'coup d'etat'

A columnist at Salon has described Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sacking of United States Attorneys involved in controversial prosecutions as an act that amounts to a "coup d'etat."

Joe Conason highlights the removal from office of Carol Lam, Bud Cummings, and John McKay, U.S. Attorneys in San Diego, Little Rock, and Seattle respectively, whose prosecutions ran against the partisan interests of the Bush White House. These acts, Conason writes, suggest that "the White House and the Justice Department have been exposed in a secretive attempt to expand executive power for partisan purposes."

The ability of the White House to swap out U.S. Attorneys with partisan appointees resulted when the staff of Senator Arlen Specter inserted a measure in the renewal of the USA Patriot Act that "permitted the White House to place its own appointees in vacant U.S. attorney positions permanently and without Senate confirmation." According to Conason, Specter says he was not aware of the action by a member of his staff.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Gonzales_sacking_of_US_Attorneys_like_0209.html

So we have officially become a banana republic....

"According to Conason, Specter says he was not aware of the action by a member of his staff." ....no way Specter could not have know. Even if he didn't, once he found out, that staff member should have been fired immediately.

Whatta say Arlen...is the guy fired or not?

1) The AGs serve at the pleasure of the president, so they can remove them at will.

2) Clinton sacked all the AGs when he took over.


I am fairly sure #` is correct. Not sure about #2. Anyone have some facts I could use?

about it from the fascist noise machine. You would have heard the word "dictator" bandied about for years and years.

Never heard anything like that.

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What is highly dubious about the Gonzales/Bush purge is that it comes after a series of high profile and highly successful investigations into filthy Bushite Republican corruption, with one Republican after another hauled off in handcuffs, and just when Democratic-run Congressional investigations are getting under way--not to mention the Fitzgerald prosecution of Scooter Libby and re-exposure of all the Bush war lies. It is no doubt intended both to materially prevent certain investigations (and San Diego is a hotspot of Bushite corruption, including Diebold-election fraud related corruption), and to send a cold chill through the law enforcement community, to self-censor and self-limit any new ripening prosecutorial ideas that have filthy Bushite Republican targets.