Murder, Voter Fraud, and Obstruction at the Department of Justice

By Scott Horton

As the first accounts of the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys broke, suspicions were raised and quickly denied. Could politics have played a role in the decision? In the course of the last two weeks, it has become apparent to all but the most hopelessly blind (which is to say, the Washington punditry) that a wholesale assault on the integrity of the Department of Justice has been underway for a much longer period of time. It emanates from the White House—specifically Harriet Miers and Karl Rove—and involves the complicity of the entire senior echelon of DOJ officials.

The Department of Justice has for generations been a bastion of pride among the somewhat uneven institutions of the federal government. As administrations come and go, they introduce different policies and have different priorities. But the Justice Department has distinguished itself with a consistent focus on justice – not a political agenda. That seems even to have held into the term of John Ashcroft, notwithstanding a series of distressing aberrations like the “torture” memoranda, the approval of surveillance programs that violate FISA and similar transgressions.

With the arrival of Alberto Gonzales, that began to change very rapidly, and under his rule, the Department of Justice has become the famous mackerel that Lenin described on the beach – glistening and silvery on one side, but when turned over, rotting and infested with maggots.

Yesterday, for instance, the Washington Post verified the account that John McKay provided about a young assistant U.S. attorney who was shot and killed.

McKay wanted aggressively to pursue the killing, but the Gonzales Justice Department preferred not to. Why? Well, it turns out the young man was an advocate of stronger gun control, so his murder was not something they desired to highlight. The life of a person who disagrees with an administration policy is not worth much, it turns out. How much better to put resources into the suppression of voter registration programs among minority communities. Indeed, no representative of main Justice traveled to Seattle to attend the memorial service for the fallen assistant U.S. attorney, and that “didn’t set a very good tone,” in the words of the FBI’s special agent in charge. McKay didn’t comprehend this repulsive logic, and hence he lost his job. If this story doesn’t sicken and outrage you, perhaps you have lost all capacity for outrage.

The Post also teaches us today that the Justice Department “inadvertently” failed to turn over an additional document—which made Alberto Gonzales out as a liar for the umpteenth time – this time with respect to the termination of McKay. The “inadvertent” mistake was, as usual, discovered only after the Department was called on the failure to turn the document over.

Finally, we learned that Rove, McNulty, Moschella and others met in the White House to “agree” on their account about what happened in the face of a Congressional probe – as subpoenas were being openly threatened, and as the White House was feverishly seeking to evade them. The “agreed account” which emerged from this conference was fraudulent, designed to throw Congress off the trails that led straight to Karl Rove. This was a clear-cut effort to obstruct an inquiry into criminal conduct, undertaken by two of the three top officials at the Department of Justice.

Increasingly the conduct of senior officials at the Justice Department resembles that of white-collar criminals who have been cornered and are swerving madly to evade a criminal prosecution by putting out false statements. This conduct, and the fact that the actors remain to this day in their posts, has horribly tarnished the reputation of the Department of Justice. McNulty, indeed, took other steps to hide the truth - including instructing his chief of staff to call three of the cashiered U.S. attorneys to make thug-like threats to them about the consequences of speaking to Congress about what happened.

As the New York Times writes today, this matter is exceedingly serious. It dwarfs any scandal seen in Washington in several decades. It has destroyed public confidence in the administration of justice. Specifically, it has destroyed confidence in the Department of Justice. The Times assesses the situation correctly:

It is long past time for President Bush to fire Mr. Gonzales. But Congress, especially the Republicans who have dared confront the White House on this issue, should not be satisfied with that. There are strong indications that the purge was ordered out of the White House, involving at the very least the former counsel, Harriet Miers, and Karl Rove.

It is the duty of Congress to compel them and other officials to finally tell the truth to the American people.

And then, of course, it will be time to hold them to account for their offenses against one of the basic pillars of our democracy. No penalty for these misdeeds can be too severe considering the damage which has resulted.