Another Biopsy for the Department of Justice

By Scott Horton

How big is the tumor at the Department of Justice? Is it malignant? Those are top questions among legal affairs analysts today. The prognosis has not been promising. CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen offers one of the more somber recent takes. He ticks off the litany of recent problems surrounding the firing of U.S. attorneys and the meltdown in the U.S. attorney’s offices in Minneapolis and Milwaukee last week before winding to his conclusion:

The White House and Justice Department, under the reign of attorneys general Ashcroft and Gonzales, have encouraged over the past half decade an atmosphere that sullies the coin of the realm under our rule of law — the perceived legitimacy and authority and objectivity and neutrality and professional competence of the men and women who are tasked with enforcing our laws uniformly, fairly and without fear or favor. Without that legitimacy, the legal system devolves down into Third World status, perceived by those within and without it as subject to manipulation for political purposes.

When you populate an office with ideologues and partisans and underachieving talent, you get an ideological and partisan office with underachieving results. And if there is any department in our federal system that can least afford to be ideological and partisan and underachieving, it is the Justice Department. This sorry state is true today, regardless of how and when the scandal over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys is resolved. Of all the dismaying legal legacies left by this administration, this one surely ranks near the top.

Inside the Department of Justice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has disappeared from sight, and it now turns out that Solicitor General Paul Clement is the man in charge of questions relating to Purgegate, as the top three in the department are ethically conflicted.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post gives more attention to one of the excuses offered up for termination of some of the Gonzales Eight – and finds it untrue. In this case, William Moschella’s rationalization for the dismissal of David “Top Gun” Iglesias was scrutinized:

“Quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office, not their first assistants,” William E. Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney general, told the House Judiciary Committee last month.

Well, not quite, it turns out. Six U.S. attorneys were doing double duty, and it includes Montana’s William W. Mercer. His absenteeism became such an issue that Montana district judge called for his removal and called his office a “mess.” What was Mercer doing? Among other things, he was deep in the political plot to cashier some of his fellow U.S. attorneys.

Both the Senate and House committees are continuing the press for documents withheld by the Department of Justice. The House has now issued a subpoena, while the Senate has given Gonzales a last chance to comply voluntarily.