Justice Department report calls Bogden firing ‘arbitrary’

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Published Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 | 8:21 a.m.

Updated Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 | 4:56 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department’s Inspector General concluded in a long-awaited report out today that the 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including Nevada’s Daniel Bogden, was “unsystematic and arbitrary” and damaged the credibility of the department.

The nearly 400-page report still leaves Bogden’s firing unresolved, with no clear explanation of who put him on the list of attorneys to be fired and why. The Inspector General’s team revisits the various explanations offered by Justice officials after lawmakers began questioning if the firings were politically motivated.

The investigators conclude Bogden probably was dismissed after having failed to prosecute an obscenity case -- a case that had been important to the department’s porn czar but that Bogden has said was not a top priority. Bogden told investigators it was “small potatoes.”

The report is the third in the ongoing investigation of allegations of politicization of the Justice Department after the unprecedented attorneys firings. Previous reports this summer found politics had been unlawfully used in hiring decisions.

Aspects of the investigation remain unresolved because the White House refused to provide some requested material, including information from former adviser Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers.

“The Department’s removal of the U.S. Attorneys and the controversy it created severely damaged the credibility of the Department and raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecutive decisions,” the report concludes.

The report calls for a special counsel to be appointed by the attorney general to further the investigation and determine if any criminal laws violated in the firings.

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Bogden and six of the fired attorneys issued this joint statement Monday afternoon:

“We are saddened by the picture of mismanagement, dissembling, and lack of accountability by some Department of Justice officials that is set forth in the Report by the DOJ Offices of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility.

“The report describes our removals as the result of a ‘fundamentally flawed’ process that was ‘unsystematic and arbitrary,’ lacking in oversight by either the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General.

“While not a surprise to any of us, this characterization of our removals reinforces the need to be vigilant in protecting the independence of United States Attorneys throughout the country, and to safeguard their ability to make judgment calls based only upon what is just and fair.

“As the investigation continues, we reiterate our support of our former offices and the fine work that has been done, and will continue to be done, by the men and women at the Department of Justice and in U.S. Attorney Offices throughout the country.”