To some, Bogden + Reid doesn’t add up

By Jeff German

Saturday, June 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s recommendation that Daniel Bogden return as Nevada’s U.S. attorney has demoralized some prosecutors in the office and astonished other members of the legal community.

“A lot of people feel this office has been a stagnant office for a long time,” said one of several current and former federal prosecutors who were willing to talk about their concerns as long as their identities were protected.

“There was hope that with the election of President Obama that there would be new leadership that would pump fresh blood and new vitality into the office,” the prosecutor said.

Added another: “All the people in our office who voted for Obama, which is a significant number, wanted change and hope for the future.”

The prospect of Bogden’s return “is disheartening,” the prosecutor continued. “It’s not what Obama is all about.”

Bogden, who is registered as a nonpartisan, spent five years at the helm of the U.S. attorney’s office as a Bush administration appointee until his sudden firing in December 2006. He was one of nine U.S. attorneys let go in what some on Capitol Hill called a political purge.

The Justice Department’s inspector general concluded in September that the firings were “unsystematic” and “arbitrary” and damaged the credibility of the department. That month, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who authorized the firings, resigned.

A federal prosecutor from Connecticut is investigating whether Gonzales or any other top Bush administration officials should face criminal charges over the dismissals.

The Bush administration eventually replaced Bogden with Reno lawyer Greg Brower, a Republican whom the Obama administration has not asked to stay.

Many in D.C. puzzled

Reid, who recommended Bogden as Brower’s replacement in early March, was unavailable for comment for this story. But his spokesman, Jon Summers, said the Senate majority leader “felt like there was a wrong and wanted to right it” by getting Bogden back into the office.

Veteran Justice Department attorneys in Washington, however, were “flabbergasted” by Reid’s recommendation and don’t understand why Reid would want to take a political plum away from the new Democratic White House, a beltway-connected lawyer said.

“People in Washington don’t quite get it,” the lawyer said. “The career guys at the Justice Department who have been around a long time have never seen this happen before.”

Jeff Stempel, a UNLV Boyd School of Law professor, said it looks odd that Reid would not recommend a Democrat for the position when there are plenty of members of his party who are qualified, including some working as federal prosecutors.

“I’m willing to take Sen. Reid at his word that he feels there was a wrong that was done, but it’s unclear to me that it’s Harry Reid and Barack Obama’s job to right a wrong of the Bush administration,” Stempel said. “I understand why people are upset about this (Bogden recommendation). After eight years of the Bush administration, people think it’s time for Obama to appoint someone of his political group.”

It’s a key appointment for the state because the U.S. attorney’s office — which has about 50 lawyers in Las Vegas and Reno and operates on roughly a $10 million annual budget — is instrumental in setting the prosecution priorities for federal law enforcement agencies in Nevada.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry from the Sun about Bogden.

A prominent criminal defense lawyer who is active in the Democratic Party said many Reid supporters in the legal community don’t believe that the senator thoroughly vetted his recommendation.

Diversity issue raised

Prosecutors and defense lawyers all acknowledge that Bogden, a career prosecutor, was unfairly fired. But they also say that in his years at the helm of the U.S. attorney’s office, Bogden demonstrated poor leadership and administrative skills.

“He’s a nice man,” one of the prosecutors said. “But he’s not a good manager. I think he had trouble making decisions, and that kind of held him up a bit.”

During Bogden’s tenure, the office was rife with “jealousy and pettiness” and uneven distribution of workloads, the prosecutors said.

“Most of the people came in late and left early,” added a former prosecutor who worked under Bogden. “There were some good prosecutors in place there, but they were not encouraged to work hard because it made the others look bad.”

What the office lacked more than anything was diversity, the prosecutors said.

In his five years, they said, Bogden hired only one Hispanic prosecutor and no black prosecutors, and he had no minorities in management and only female women supervisors.

Travis Buchanan, president of the local chapter of the National Bar Association, an organization of black lawyers and judges, said his group is concerned about the lack of diversity under Bogden.

“There is the perception that the office engaged in little or no outreach efforts to hire qualified minorities,” Buchanan said. “If he is appointed, we hope he makes it a priority to try to reflect the (valley’s) population amongst his staff with regard to diversity.”

Some prosecutors and defense lawyers also say Bogden wasn’t as hands-on as he should have been and failed keep the office involved in the community.

“He was completely inaccessible to lawyers,” another well-known Democratic criminal defense lawyer said. “He delegated things to underlings and had no personal involvement in any cases. Historically in our district, U.S. attorneys get involved in the community. He didn’t.”

Bogden also had a reputation among the media during his tenure of keeping reporters at arm’s length and restricting the flow of information from the office.

Since his firing, however, he has been more accessible to reporters while practicing law in Reno.

Bogden said he wanted to respond to the criticisms leveled against him, but was instructed by the Justice Department to refrain from commenting while he is being considered for his return engagement at the office.

“When this process is completed, I certainly would be willing to address those matters,” he said. “But right now is not the best time to talk.”

Bogden supporters speak out

Bogden’s supporters have spoken up for him, though.

Following his firing, former Las Vegas FBI chief Ellen Knowlton said he was the finest U.S. attorney she had ever worked with in her 24 years with the FBI. And U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben described Bogden as a thorough and well-balanced prosecutor.

This week, Reno attorney Craig Denney, who worked as a prosecutor under Bogden, called him a “great boss” with the “highest integrity.”

“I never saw any instances of him being unfair,” Denny told the Sun. “He was always committed to doing justice, and that’s what the top federal prosecutor of the state should do.”

Summers said concerns about Bogden have reached Reid. But the senator also has heard from Bogden’s supporters, Summers explained.

He said Reid also has been told that Bogden had a system in place to promote diversity at the U.S. attorney’s office and that as many as 11 people within the office were involved in the process.

“At the end of the day, he feels like Dan Bogden is the right choice,” Summers said.

Three months after Reid made that opinion public, Nevada is still waiting to find out whether the White House agrees.

Jeff German is the Sun’s senior investigative reporter.