With Bailout, Palin top stories, Eugene Robinson urges not to overlook DOJ report on US Atty firings

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Politics Over Prosecutors
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 30, 2008; Page A19

With Wall Street's fate hanging in the balance, and with Sarah Palin's incoherence sparking interest in Thursday's vice presidential debate, it was easy to overlook a major story that got less attention than it deserved yesterday. The Justice Department released a nearly 400-page report with this jaw-dropping bottom line:

"Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several . . . U.S. attorneys."

Remember the controversy over the sudden dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys? Remember the allegation that the Bush administration had sullied the long-held principle that justice should be administered in an impartial, nonpartisan way? Remember the questions about what then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew and when he knew it? Remember Kyle Sampson, the Gonzales aide who played a key role in the firings? Remember Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, who went so far as to ask prospective Justice appointees to wax eloquent about why they wanted to "serve" George W. Bush?

The Justice Department conducted as thorough an investigation as it could, and it concluded that there was evidence of White House political meddling in "at least three of the removals." The joint probe by the department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility recommended further investigation to determine "whether the totality of the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed."

The investigators reported being stonewalled by the White House, saying they were unable to look at all the evidence "because of the refusal by certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, as well as by the White House's decision not to provide internal White House documents to us."

In other words, as far as the team of investigators could determine from the limited evidence they were allowed to uncover, what we suspected and feared seems to have been true. The Bush administration seems to have removed at least three federal prosecutors -- who are supposed to be even-handed and apolitical in the way they do their jobs -- for partisan political reasons....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902663.html?hpid=opinionsbox1