Les Jones: Hillary Clinton on the US AG Firings

March 27, 2007

Politics > Hillary Clinton on the US AG Firings

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday dismissed any comparison between the firing last fall of eight U.S. attorneys with the replacement of 93 U.S. attorneys when her husband became president in 1993.
"That's a traditional prerogative of an incoming president," Clinton said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Once U.S. attorneys are confirmed, they should be given broad latitude to enforce the law as they see fit, she said.

"I think one of the hallmarks of our democracy is we have a devotion to the rule of law," Clinton said.

She conceded that should she win the presidency in 2008, she likely would replace all of the U.S. attorneys appointed by President Bush. She said that's merely following traditions in which presidents appoint prosecutors of their own party.

So according to Hillary if elected she will fire all of Bush's appointees without regard to their performance or decisions and that would be fine, just as it was fine when her husband fired all 93 US AGs in 1993. On the other hand, when Bush fires his eight of his DAs based on their performance and judgment in prosecutorial discretion that's wrong. See the difference?

I personally don't see how Hillary's position is any less political than Bush's. I also agree with Charles Krauthhammer's take on the firings:

U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president -- and, by tradition, are recommended by home state politicians of the same party, not by a group of judges or a committee of the American Bar Association. Which makes their appointment entirely political.

Posted by lesjones | TrackBack

Comments

Come on now Les.Those people were fired not because of their performance or judgement but because they either were prosecuting/investigating Republican office holders like Randy "Duke" Cunningham or couldn't come up with criminal wrongdoing to charge Democrats the Bush White House and the Republican Party wanted prosecuted. So please checks your facts on this issue.It's ok to be a Republican..wrong headed but ok...but a reasonable minded person should not defend an incompetent and corrupt administration like the Bush White House and the current Republicans in Congress.

Posted by: ANGRYWOLF at March 27, 2007

The DA who investigated Murtha (and convicted him - this wasn't some sort of last minute scheme to get him off the hook - was targeted for elimination before she went after Cunningham.

And the DAs Bush eliminated were apparently his own appointees (I forget where I saw that or I would have included a link). So now Bush can't fire his own appointees? That's ridiculous.

Posted by: Les Jones at March 27, 2007

Whatever happened, you've got to admit the administration has gone way out of their way to try and discredit themselves here.

Posted by: Steve K. at March 27, 2007

They've handled it badly from a PR perspective, no doubt. But if the take home message is "never fire AGs" or "never fire AGs mid-term" I think that's the wrong message and it's entirely hypocritical.

Posted by: Les Jones at March 27, 2007

The message isn't that you can NEVER fire prosecutors mid-term. It's just that you better have good reason to do so because it's historically unusual. It's common to fire all - or nearly all - prosecutors at the beginning of a term. The problem here is that evidence keeps piling up that the 8 fired prosecutors were canned because they went after Republicans too vigorously and Democrats too softly, not that they didn't do a good job. This isn't just bad PR. It's just flatout wrong and the Bush Administration is petrified that the public find out just how wrong it was.

Posted by: Elrod at March 28, 2007

Question: do you think it was wrong for Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld? He was also a Bush appointee, and his firing was political, in the sense that Bush came out and said that the mid-term elections indicated Americans weren't happy with the way Iraq was going.

So, Rumsfeld firing - OK or not OK?

Posted by: Les Jones at March 29, 2007