Investor's Business Daily, March 14th, 2007
Justice: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knows he serves at the pleasure of the president. So do all 93 U.S. attorneys, who can be fired merely for the color of their tie. Just ask former U.S. Attorney Jay B. Stephens.
Judging from the cacophonous Democratic demands that Gonzales resign over the "political" firings of eight U.S. attorneys, you'd think these were lifelong civil servants fired so the Bush administration could fill the positions with friends and sycophants -- just as Bill and Hillary Clinton did with Billy Dale and the White House travel office.
You remember Dale. He was director of the travel office and had served there since the Kennedy administration. But he was hit with a bogus charge of embezzlement, so he and his staff could be replaced with Clinton cronies.
Certainly the recent dismissals of the eight attorneys in Gonzales' Justice Department were handled with greater decorum and sounder purpose than Dale's. They certainly were less political than newbie Janet Reno's dismissal of all 93 U.S. attorneys shortly after her appointment as Clinton's A.G. -- something no administration has done before or since.
Among Democrats demanding Gonzales' resignation is someone who doesn't get Christmas cards from Dale or the 93 attorneys: senator and presidential wannabe Hillary Rodham Clinton. In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" aired Wednesday morning, she declared: "The buck should stop somewhere."
Like it did with Reno?
Gonzales has explained that U.S. attorneys, like himself, serve at the pleasure of the president and, like most of us with day jobs, are subject to performance reviews. It was as a result of a review process in the Justice Department that the eight were selected for removal. Even if they'd been dismissed for purely political reasons, it would have been perfectly legal.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says it was a "purge based purely on politics, to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans." Gonzales, he added, has "either forgotten the oath he took to uphold the Constitution or just doesn't understand that his duty to protect the law is greater than his duty to protect the president."
It was to protect President Clinton that Janet Reno fired all 93 U.S. attorneys in 1993. As we reported early last week, one of the attorneys fired was the U.S. attorney for Arkansas, George Banks, a Republican who was replaced by Paula Casey, an active Democrat and a law student of Bill Clinton's. Her purpose was to run legal interference for the Clintons and thwart any criminal referrals regarding Whitewater and the Rose Law Firm.
U.S. Attorney George Banks was not the only thorn in the Democrats' side that had to be removed by the 1993 Clinton-Reno purge. As the New York Times reported on March 24, 1993, one of those 93 was Jay B. Stephens, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
According to Stephens, he had just advised Reno's Justice Department that he was within 30 days of making a "critical decision" in a case involving Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, who at the time was chairman of the critical House Ways and Means Committee.
Rostenkowski was involved in the House post office and check-kiting scandal and was among those accused of heading a conspiracy to launder post office money through postage stamps and postal vouchers. He was later convicted anyway, sentenced to 18 months in 1995. He was pardoned by Clinton before he left office. The effort to protect him failed, but the motive was clear.
We cannot find any condemnation of Reno by Schumer, who in 1993 was a congressman representing the 9th district of New York. There was no righteous indignation or concern expressed that she was shredding the Constitution for political reasons. Nor was there any demand by then-Rep. Schumer or any other Democrat that Reno resign.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
