Why This Scandal
Matters
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, May 21, 2007
As Monica Goodling, a key player in
the United States attorney scandal, prepares to testify before Congress on
Wednesday, the administration’s strategy is clear. It has offered up
implausible excuses, hidden the most damaging evidence and feigned memory
lapses, while hoping that the public’s attention moves on. But this
scandal is too important for the public or Congress to move on. This story
should not end until Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is gone, and the serious
damage that has been done to the Justice Department is repaired.
The Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States
attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging
from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous
power: they can wiretap people’s homes, seize property and put people in
jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of
elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a
president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a
nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.
This understanding has badly broken down. It is now clear that United
States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party,
and lost their job if they failed to do so. The firing offenses of the
nine prosecutors who were purged last year were that they would not indict
Democrats, they investigated important Republicans, or they would not try to
suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups with baseless election fraud
cases.
The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking. A study by two
professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri at St. Louis and John
Cragan of Illinois State University, found that the Bush Justice Department has
investigated Democratic officeholders and office seekers about four times as
often as Republican ones.
It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate
number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing
states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California
investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears
to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican
candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.
Justice Department headquarters has become deeply partisan. Young
operatives like Ms. Goodling were apparently allowed to hire and promote based
on party membership. Political appointees cleared the way for laws
designed to disenfranchise minority voters, and brought litigation to remove
Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls.
The department’s integrity lies in tatters. As a result of the purge, Tim
Griffin, a Republican operative and Karl Rove protégé, was installed as the top
federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas. Rachel Paulose, a 33-year-old
Republican activist with thin prosecutorial experience, was assigned to
Minnesota. If either indicted a prominent Democrat tomorrow, everyone
would believe it was a political hit.
Congress has to save the Justice Department, something President Bush shows no
interest in doing. It should pass a resolution of “no confidence” in Mr.
Gonzales, and push for his removal. But it also needs to insist on new
leadership that will restore the department’s traditions of professionalism and
impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does
not work to advance the interests of a political party.
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