How Does A Prosecutor Prove He's A "Loyal Bushie"?
While Congress, press and bloggers have concentrated on the 8 (or maybe 9 if you count Minnesota) fired US Attorneys, it has always seemed to me that the really big story is that of the vast majority US Attorneys who were not fired and who, by their conduct, proved themselves to be “loyal Bushies.†What did the loyal Bushies do? Well, it appears that one answer seems to be emerging.
In Wisconsin, US Attorney Steven M Biskupic, a well-regarded career prosecutor was, it appears on the “to be fired†list. He was saved from life in the private sector at the last minute it appears. Why do you think? What did he do, if anything, to demonstrate his loyalty? Did he, perhaps, indict a Democrat in a setting which threatened to change the course of an election?
Well, as it happens, he did. Biskupic caused a Grand Jury to indict Wisconsin state civil servant Georgia Thompson for a contract steering charge which seemed to implicate the state’s Democratic Governor Jim Doyle while the 2006 elections were going on. (The claim was that Thompson had awarded a contract for state employee travel to one agency because its owners were Doyle contributers.) Biskupic secured a conviction and, harshly, Thompson was imprisoned while her appeal was pending.
At oral argument, four months later, the appellate judges took the view that the case was (in the words of one of them) “beyond thin.†Instantly after oral argument, the US Court of Appeals took the extraordinary step of ordering the immediate release of Ms Thompson and directed an order a acquittal. (The order is here and an audio file of oral argument is here for those of you who want to know what appellate defense attorneys dream of).
The decision has gotten some notice from left legal writers such as this from Talk Left and today’s NY Times sports an editorial comment by Adam Cohen .
The good news for Ms. Thompson is that she’s been offered her old job back and that the State of Wisconsin will pay her legal fees. For the rest of us is left the question, what else have the “loyal Bushies†done and to whom?
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2006 Elections | Corruption | George W. Bush | Republican Party
The Misuse Of the Police Power For Political Purposes
Submitted by Daniel Millstone on 18 April 2007 - 10:28am.
is, course, not new but it is wrong. The fact that police and prosecutors do evil things for the advancement of their masters is appalling. A wrong that is steeped in tradition is still wrong. Politically motived arrests and prosectutions are and should be a scandal. I am sorry to read that Mr. Folsom's long experience as a reporter has led him to lose his sense of outrage at outrageous misuse of power.
U.S.Attorney controversy
Edwin Olson was serving as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago during the Capone era of the 1920s. He was doing little about racketeering or Capone (as a matter of fact, his chief assistant later went on to defend Capone), so the White House replaced him with a lawyer named George E.Q. Johnson, who soon got Capone convicted based on evidence gathered by a Treasury unit.
The U.S. Attorney's offices in all 95 districts around the country have always been steeped in politics --- I know, I'm a retired newspaperman who covered the office of the Southern District of Florida and saw it at first hand for years.
Not only is this manufactured controversy over Bush and Justice's actions fueled by typical historical illiteracy, but by typical media misfits and simple-minded Bush haters.
[Ed. Note]: Not so. What we have in this case are three discrete scandals:
1. The Attorney General made conflicting statements to Congress, under oath, which is a big no-no.
2. A hyper-partisan "administration" tried to derail active investigations into its own partisans by firing those doing the investigating, cf. Fitzgerald, Patrick, negative evaluation of.
3. In so doing, the Bush "administration" cast doubt on the impartiality of the administration of justice. That's the biggie here.