Bush Administration Prosecutor Purge

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Political Motives for Termination

* A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after... US Attorney Frederick A. Black, who had launched the investigation, was demoted. A White House news release announced that Bush was replacing Black. The timing caught some by surprise. Despite his officially temporary status as the acting US attorney, Black had held the assignment for more than a decade... His replacement, Leonardo Rapadas, was confirmed in May 2003 without any debate. Rapadas had been recommended for the job by the Guam Republican Party. Fred Radewagen, a lobbyist who had been under contract to the Gutierrez administration, said he carried that recommendation to top Bush aide Karl Rove in early 2003. Link

* New Mexico's David Iglesias told lawmakers he felt pressed by Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, last October to rush indictments against Democrats before Election Day in November... "He (Domenici) said, 'Are these going to be filed before November?'" Iglesias recalled. "I said I didn't think so. And to which he replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.' And then the line went dead." Link

* Another fired prosecutor, John McKay, of Seattle, tells NEWSWEEK that local Republicans pressured him to launch a criminal probe of voting fraud that would tilt a deadlocked Washington governor's race. "They wanted me to go out and start arresting people," he says, adding that he refused to do so because there was "no evidence." After McKay was fired in December, he says he also got a phone call from a "clearly nervous" Elston asking if he intended to go public: "He was offering me a deal: you stay silent and the attorney general won't say anything bad about you." Link

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