January 18, 2007

The Mysterious Case of the Federal Prosecutor Firings

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Josh Marshall weighs in today with an interesting column in The Hill about the rash of federal prosecutors who have apparently been forced out by the Bush administration in recent weeks. Among the latest to go is San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam, whose office prosecuted the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery case and who announced her resignation on Tuesday. “The current work of the other fired USAs has less direct political implications,” Marshall writes. “But several seem to have had ongoing investigations of allegedly corrupt Republicans.”

While the motivation behind the firings remains a mystery, a look at the people who are being appointed to fill the vacancies is instructive.

Consider the estimable J. Timothy Griffin, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since Dec. 20 of last year.

If you hadn’t heard about Griffin’s appointment, don’t feel bad; the guy he replaced hadn’t either. Griffin’s appointment was announced Dec. 15, before the then-U.S. attorney Bud Cummins had even been given a chance to resign. Cummins got the call on his cell phone telling him he was out the same day the announcement was made. He was out hiking with his son at the time….

A quick perusal of Griffin’s resume shows that his more-or-less exclusive vocation has been doing opposition research on Democrats on behalf of the Republican Party. Until recently, he was head of oppo research at the White House, working directly for Karl Rove. In 1999 and 2000, he was deputy research director for the Republican National Committee. In 2002 he returned as research director for the national GOP and stayed on for the next three years.

Before getting involved formally in oppo research he worked in what you might call de facto oppo research positions. In 1995 and 1996 he was associate independent counsel in the Henry Cisneros investigation. And after that he headed up to the Hill to work for Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) investigating political contributions from Asian-Americans to Bill Clinton.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, according to Time, back in 2000, when he was in charge of digging up dirt on Al Gore, he apparently had a poster hanging on the wall behind his desk which read: “On my command — unleash hell on Al.”

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