A high ranking official within the Department of Justice fires a federal prosecutor for political reasons, when that prosecutor is in the middle of a criminal investigation. The date? October 1973.
The current controversy surrounding the dismissal of U.S. attorneys by DOJ officials acting on the instructions (implicit or explicit) of President Bush’s top advisors has a precedent in history. More than three decades ago, Acting Attorney General Robert Bork carried out President Richard Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox. Cox was the Special Prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eliot Richardson to investigate the possible involvement of the White House in the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters and efforts to cover up that involvement. Bork became Acting Attorney General because Richardson had resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s order, as had the Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus.
Because the DNC headquarters was housed in the Watergate Hotel, the scandal became known as “Watergate,” and it eventually expanded to include a wide array of abuses of presidential powers.
As we have repeatedly heard in recent days, U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. All presidents expect federal prosecutors to follow the administration’s law enforcement agenda and to carry out his or her priorities. But, as Nixon discovered, and President Bush is learning, the American public has little tolerance for the blatant politicization of justice that is exemplified by the firing of prosecutors for doing their jobs, or for refusing to do their jobs in a “partisan” manner. Nor should they. Thanks, in part, to public outrage over the Saturday Night Massacre – as the events culminating in Cox’s firing came to be known - Nixon’s presidency did not survive the Watergate scandal. He was on the verge of being impeached by the House of Representatives when he resigned his office in disgrace.
The Bush presidency is not similarly threatened by the recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys who were not, as one e-mail described them, sufficiently “loyal Bushies.” The attorney generalship of Alberto Gonzales may well be.
Is the removal of Gonzales from office warranted?
On March 29, Gonzales’ former Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Gonzales participated in a November meeting to plan the firings, and that he briefed Gonzales in some detail and on numerous occasions about the plans and the specifics regarding who was to be fired. He also said that Gonzales was the “decision maker,” along with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Sampson’s testimony directly contradicts Gonzales’s March 13 statement that he was not “involved in any discussions about what was going on” regarding the dismissals. In our view, misleading Congress and the American public is a sufficient reason for removing the nation’s chief law enforcement officer from his or her post. But in the rush to censure and punish false statements (see Clinton and Libby), we should not overlook the conduct preceding the mendacity.
Attorneys general will likely share the politics and general law enforcement agenda of the presidents who appoint them. But the public expects these law enforcement officers to represent us, and not the partisan goals of the White House. We expect them to exercise independent judgment and to make every effort to ensure that justice is blind.
Eliot Richardson understood this. In his resignation letter he reminded Nixon that he had pledged publicly at his confirmation hearing “not to countermand or interfere with the Special Prosecutor’s decisions or actions.” To Nixon’s plea that he place national interest above his personal pledge by remaining on the job, he responded that maintaining his pledge was in the national interest.
At this point, the calls – by Democrats and Republicans alike -for Gonzales to resign are mounting, and the White House’s defense appears lukewarm. There are reports that Justice Department employees, here in Washington and around the country, are demoralized and concerned about the impact these events are having on their ability to do their work.
There appears to be no way for Attorney General Gonzales to restore public confidence in his leadership. We hope he will at least restore our confidence in the Department of Justice by resigning. If he remains in office, he should issue his own pledge: to make sure, going forward, that the partisanship that infects today’s political culture does not affect the administration of justice. It is one thing for incoming presidents to dismiss all or most of the sitting U.S. attorneys and to replace them with prosecutors who share their political philosophy and priorities. Selectively firing competent prosecutors for prosecuting too many Republicans or not enough Democrats is another matter. Whatever else he may have done, the Attorney General is guilty of placing his loyalty to President Bush and the Republican Party above the integrity of federal law enforcement.