Re-Hiring of Fired U.S. Attorney Could Spell Trouble for Gonzales
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Even after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had left the building in 2007 and the Justice Department’s internal investigation into the U.S. attorney firing scandal had wrapped up its conclusions in a few hundred pages of reports in the fall of 2008, there was one man still looking for answers: Nevada’s fired U.S. attorney Dan Bogden.
Bogden has been a special case among the nine U.S. attorneys fired during the politicization of the Justice Department. While Carol Lam of San Diego was told she was pushed out for poor statistics on gun and immigration prosecution, and John McKay of Seattle was informed his dismissal stemmed from a disagreement with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty over an information sharing program, the reasons behind the firing of Bogden, a highly regarded prosecutor with a stellar record, are more or less a mystery. In their report into the firings, the Justice Department’s Inspector General “could not determine who was responsible for Bogden’s name being placed on the U.S. Attorney removal list.”
But Bogden may finally be getting justice from the Justice Department. Yesterday, in a piece for The Atlantic, Murray Waas revealed through sources “that the White House counsel’s office has been quietly vetting his background in anticipation of his possible reappointment.”
The move comes after requests to the White House from the Senators from Nevada, which includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to reinstate the mysteriously fired U.S. attorney.
If Bogden is indeed reinstated, it could set an interesting standard for the new administration on righting the wrongs made by the Justice Department during Gonzales’ tenure. For one, it could mean that the special prosecutor Nora Dannehy, appointed by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to continue looking into the scandal, gets the go ahead for more than her initially allotted 60 days to sniff around. Prolonging Dannehy’s investigation means it’s more likely that the government is trying to build a case, not just look for answers — which could spell possible trouble for those involved in the firing scandal.
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The most interesting thing about Murray’s article were the multiple references to Bogden’s firing being OK because he was a ‘bachelor’ and didn’t have a wife and kids.
And then I think back to Monica Goodling, Gonzales’s right-hand lady in making sure that everyone in DOJ was a ‘loyal Bushie’ and the stories that she purged a career attorney who was rumored to be a lesbian, as NPR reported.
So I wonder: being a ‘bachelor’ is a classic code word. Was Bogden purged because he is, or because Gonzales and his handy helpers believed that he is a gay man?
Kate, isn’t it time to moveon.org? Are you still griping about all the things that big old meany President Bush did. The poor lawyers; they got fired, boo hoo. Where are they now, out on the breadlines? Justice department lawyers ARE political appointees, and, when they are fired, they are political firees. They were under Clinton, they were under Bush, and they are under the Obama. What I find reprehensible is releasing to the public the names of lawyers who served their country in good faith, and with the presumption that their work would be classified, by advising the CIA on sensitive matters like interrogation of prisoners of war. These courageous individuals’ work was invaluable to the successful prosecution of the war on terrorism that our country has been conducting (up till now). Their work was also invaluable in the effort to protect you and the rest of us from terrorist attacks. Now, Obama has thrown them to the dogs. That is what I call political firing.
MR,
There’s a lot of unresolved shadyness in this whole story. Lam always believed she was pushed out because she went after CIA executive director Dusty Foggo, and Chiara did tell NPR she thought it was because she was an unmarried woman (code word for lesbian). At the end of the day though, the Inspector General’s report ruled those reasons out — and instead posited alternatives for why they were fired, as ridiculous and unlikely as they might seem — Bogden never even got that.
Murray’s implication here is definitely that this was because Bogden was a bachelor (code word for gay) and that’s been a long standing rumor, but one that wasn’t addressed by the OIG report.