Editorial: Questionable firings

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

D aniel Bogden, the U.S. attorney for Nevada, resigned last week, a victim of a Bush administration housecleaning. At least seven U.S. attorneys, most from the West, have been forced to resign, but no one will say why - not Bogden, not the Justice Department, not Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who was briefed by the Justice Department.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that it was simply good management, so he could get the "very best" people into office.

That strikes us as odd because those fired had done fairly well. Bogden, a well-respected career prosecutor confirmed by the Senate in October 2001, oversaw the successful prosecution of the G-sting political corruption case, as well as prosecutions that put more than 40 members of the violent Rolling 60s Crips gang in federal prison. Others fired include the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, who was leading the probe into steroid use among professional athletes, and the U.S. attorney in San Diego, who oversaw the successful political corruption prosecution of former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Democrats wonder if the Bush administration is trying to use a provision in the Patriot Act that lets the president appoint an "interim" U.S. attorney without Senate approval. Gonzales denies the claim, but we note that one of the fired prosecutors was replaced with 38-year-old Tim Griffin, a former deputy to White House political guru Karl Rove, who would have little chance to survive confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate. A Justice Department press release said Griffin would serve "under an Attorney General appointment" as interim U.S. attorney.

While nominated by the president, U.S. attorneys have, once confirmed, traditionally been insulated from much political pressure. The sudden dismissal of these U.S. attorneys smacks of White House meddling. The justice system and the public deserve much better, starting with the truth.