U.S. Attorneys Scandal—Los Angeles

By Scott Horton

For the last two weeks, California Senator Diane Feinstein has been asking penetrating questions about the strange departure of the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles—Debra Wong Yang—in mid-October, at a time in which the plot against the U.S. attorneys was still in its gestation stage. Ms. Yang disappeared in the midst of a critical investigation targeting one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress—Rep. Jerry Lewis.

In his testimony, Kyle Sampson specifically recalls a discussion with the White House about Yang, which was coupled with one about Bud Cummins. Cummins, as we know, was involved in an investigation of powerful figures surrounding Missouri’s Republican governor just as Yang was looking at Lewis. The White House was, in the last weeks before a difficult election, concerned about both of them.

But the White House had a dilemma with Yang, starting with the fact that Gonzales had publicly praised her as one of the best U.S. attorneys in the country. How to address the situation? Suddenly, like deus ex machina, Yang received an irresistible job offer from one of the nation’s most prestigious law firms, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Adam Cohen at the New York Times takes us through the next steps:

The new job that Ms. Yang landed raised more red flags. Press reports say she got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties. She was hired to be co-leader of the Crisis Management Practice Group with Theodore Olson, who was President Bush’s solicitor general and his Supreme Court lawyer in Bush v. Gore. Gibson, Dunn was defending Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation.

Several issues bear investigating. First, did Ms. Yang know or suspect that she might lose her job, and jump ship to avoid being fired? That is not hard to believe because Ms. Miers and Mr. Sampson were exchanging e-mail about dismissing her in mid-September, and she announced her departure in October. Ms. Yang served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, which Mr. Gonzales has called “a small group of U.S. attorneys that I consult on policy matters.” That may have put her in a position to be tipped off in advance.

A second possibility is that Gibson, Dunn dangled a rich financial package before Ms. Yang to get her out, and to disrupt the investigation of Mr. Lewis. Ms. Yang, who says she left her job purely for personal reasons, may not have known she was being lured away by people with close ties to Mr. Lewis and the White House, who were hoping to replace her with a more partisan prosecutor.

This could, of course, all be completely innocent. But the fact that it prominently involved Ted Olson—a former Solicitor General and perhaps the most tightly wired practitioner in the country to the Gonzales Justice Department—and an often mentioned candidate to replace Gonzales as attorney general significantly raises concerns about all these coincidences. At this point there is no reason to presume that this was innocent. There is too much smoke about it, and Congress needs to be asking some very pointed questions.