From: Gary Britt 

Prosecutors are part of the executive branch not the judicial branch and
all serve at the pleasure of the President.  When Bill Clinton came into
office in 1993 he fired all 84 US Attorneys.  Bush didn't do this kind of
mass firing.  Clinton also did many mass firings in other areas of
government as well.  Also not followed by Bush.

Bush should have followed the Clinton model, but he was trying to play
nice, foolishly thinking that he could achieve with washinton democraps
what he had achieved with Texas democrats.  Washington democraps ain't the
same kind of critter.

Gary

Rich Gauszka wrote:
> Yet another  debasement of the Patroit Act - The Bushies firing Federal
> prosecutors  to get their cronies in without Senate confirmation.
>
>
> http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4606122.html
>
> WASHINGTON - A fired federal prosecutor told a Senate committee Tuesday that
> he felt "leaned on" and sickened as Republican Sen. Pete
Domenici hung up on
> him in disgust last fall when told that indictments in a corruption case
> against Democrats would not be issued before the fall elections.
>
> "He said, 'Are these going to be filed before November?'"
former federal
> prosecutor David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys summarily fired in
> recent months, told the panel. "I said I didn't think so. And to which he
> replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.' And then the line went dead."
>
> The Bush administration also applied a heavy hand after the firings of eight
> prosecutors became public and some of the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been
> quoted in media, according to one of those ousted, Bud Cummins of Arkansas.
>
> Cummins said in an e-mail released by the Senate Judiciary Committee that
> Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, had
> called and expressed his displeasure that the fired prosecutors talked to
> reporters about their dismissals.
>
> "If they (DOJ) feel like any of us intend to continue to offer
quotes to the
> press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they feel
> forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to
> defend their actions more fully," Cummins said in the e-mail to five other
> fired prosecutors.
>
> Iglesias said he received the call at home on Oct. 26 or 27th and that it
> lasted two minutes, "tops."
>
> "I felt leaned on. I felt pressured to get these matters
moving," Iglesias
> testified.
>
> Asked by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., whether such a call was unusual in
> Iglesias' experience, the former prosecutor answered, "Unprecedented."
>
> Six of eight prosecutors fired by the Department of Justice in recent months
> were expected to appear before House and Senate panels - all six under
> subpoena before the House, four voluntarily in the Senate. Justice officials
> have said most of the eight were dismissed for performance-related issues,
> an allegation those testifying staunchly denied.
>
> http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/03/06/editorial/editorial/daily938.tx
t
>
> The New Mexico controversy suggests a possible attempt to use the courts to
> sway an election. In San Diego, reasonable people might detect a whiff of
> payback as well as a possible fear of where an unfinished investigation
> might lead next. And when a former Karl Rove aide ends up as a federal
> prosecutor in Arkansas, it's hard to avoid the notion that someone's
> planning to revive the Whitewater scandal against Sen. Hillary Clinton.
>
> Apparently, a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act allows U.S.
> attorneys to be replaced without Senate confirmation. A lack of confirmation
> hearings no doubt caused some fine political minds to believe they could put
> people more sympathetic to their plans in those jobs, as long as they kept
> things quiet.
>
>

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