U.S. Attorney Firings Set Stage for Congressional Battle

By Dan Eggen, Washington Post - H.E. "Bud" Cummins III had served for five years as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock -- a longtime GOP lawyer and avid supporter of President Bush was surprised when he got a call from the Justice Department last year asking him to resign. He was told there was nothing wrong with his performance, but that officials in Washington wanted to give the job to another GOP loyalist. ... Cummins was replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Cummins was the first in a wave of seven U.S. attorneys to be fired by the Justice Department, ... including the U.S. attorney who oversaw a prominent public corruption probe in San Diego and a prosecutor in New Mexico whose life as a military lawyer was portrayed by Tom Cruise in the movie "A Few Good Men." Most have told colleagues that they have no idea why they were shoved out ... Dismissals include the heads of two of the most important U.S. attorneys' offices in the country: Carol S. Lam in San Diego and Kevin Ryan in San Francisco. Others were David C. Iglesias in New Mexico; Daniel G. Bogden in Nevada; Paul K. Charlton in Arizona and John McKay in Seattle described as "a rock-star U.S. attorney" and whose effort to build a law enforcement database is the template for a new nationwide program at Justice. ... A new provision, which was quietly tucked into USA Patriot Act reauthorization legislation last year, allows Attorney General Alberto R.Gonzales to appoint interim prosecutors indefinitely. [Read More]

---

Tags: Attorney General, U.S. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!