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McClatchy: US Atty Spots Go to Bush Loyalists
Since last March, nine top federal prosecutor positions have gone to conservative loyalists, according to a new story from McClatchy Newspapers:
Being named a U.S. attorney “has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who's now a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In the past, there had been a great deal of delegation to the local offices. Now, you have a consolidation of power in Washington.". . . Since last March, the administration has named at least nine U.S. attorneys with administration ties. None of them would agree to an interview. They include:
- Tim Griffin, 37, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, the U.S. attorney for Arkansas.
- Rachel Paulose, 33, who served briefly as a counselor to the deputy attorney general and who, according a former boss, has been a member of the secretive, ideologically conservative Federalist Society, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.
- Jeff Taylor, 42, a former aide to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. Taylor worked as a counselor to Gonzales and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
- John Wood, the husband of assistant secretary of homeland security Julie Myers and an ex-deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, U.S. attorney in Kansas City.
- Deborah Rhodes, 47, a former Justice Department counselor, in Mobile, Ala.
- Alexander Acosta, 37, a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division and a protege of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in Miami.
- John Richter, 43, chief of staff for the Justice Department’s criminal division and acting assistant attorney general, in Oklahoma City.
- Edward McNally, senior associate counsel to President Bush, in southern Illinois.
- Matt Dummermuth, a Justice Department civil rights lawyer, in Iowa.
Comments (18)
ohiomeister wrote on January 26, 2007 7:23 PM:No 33-year-old is qualified to be the U.S. Attorney, the chief federal prosecutor, for a state. The U.S. Attorney runs the whole U.S. Attorney's office and makes dozens of important decisions.
It's like making them head of a large law firm. It just wouldn't happen in the real world. They are just so vastly unqualified that it's hard to overstate the point. A bunch of Mike Brown's waiting to happen. These people are prosecuting drug and gun conspiracies, massive corporate frauds, etc. It's sad to think of what bad consequences these appointments could have.
Other appointments to these positions have been political, but not as unqualified as this group. Why is this not front page news again?
Joe Bua wrote on January 26, 2007 8:20 PM:You have to wonder how many of them will be disbarred before the end of Hilary's term in office.
I'm sure these eager go-getters will do everything but their jobs, they will get themselves in trouble and then it's goodbye license to practice.
Let's see if the prizes afforded loyalists are truly worth the risk.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on January 26, 2007 9:22 PM:I am guessing that party affiliation will begin to play a large portion in law within the next six months or so.
Here is hoping that these folks' predecessors join in Congress' good work over next two years.
Robin Boerner wrote on January 27, 2007 1:08 AM:I don't know if Alaska would be on the "tops" list...but I'd like to see a complete list. Notice how Nelson Cohen is claiming HE is not part of this exclusive group. Then read the article below from the CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER:
"But Gonzales overrode Stevens' objection and put in Cohen to be U.S. Attorney in Alaska on a temporary basis. As such, the Cohen appointment does not require Senate confirmation"
From the DOJ website:
Key Personnel In United States Attorney's Offices
District: ALASKA
Site Phone Phone Number
Office: (907) 271-5071
Fax: (907) 271-3224
Site Address Type Address
Mailing: Federal Bldg. & U.S. Cthse.
222 W. 7th Ave., #9, Rm 253
Anchorage, AK 99513-7567
Shipping: Federal Bldg. & U.S. Cthse.
222 W. 7th Ave., #9, Rm 253
Anchorage, AK 99513-7567
* Represents Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney
Official Position/Title Name
USA Nelson P. Cohen
http://corporatecrimereporter.com/stevens090706.htm
CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Senator Stevens Feuds with Main Justice in DC as FBI Raids Son's Office in Alaska
20 Corporate Crime Reporter 35(1), September 6, 2006
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is feuding with the Justice Department.
On August 22, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appointed Nelson Cohen, head of the white collar crime unit at the U.S. Attorney's office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – to be the interim U.S. Attorney in Alaska – over the objections of Senator Stevens.
Senator Stevens said at the time that he was “furious at the way the Attorney General handled the matter.”
According to a transcript provided by Senator Stevens' office to Corporate Crime Reporter, at a press conference on August 28 in Anchorage, Alaska, Senator Stevens was asked by a reporter – “Who do you think should be U.S. Attorney?”
“Well not someone who comes from Pennsylvania, and that's a little problem I have right now, finding out what to do about that,” Stevens said. “Because very clearly, I was called three weeks ago now, and told they had someone who they'd like to nominate from outside Alaska. And we said, ‘No, no. You're not going to do that. You can't do that. You don't do that in any other state. You're not going to do it in this one.'”
But Gonzales overrode Stevens' objection and put in Cohen to be U.S. Attorney in Alaska on a temporary basis. As such, the Cohen appointment does not require Senate confirmation.
In a press release , the Justice Department says that prior to joining the U.S. Attorney's office in Pittsburgh, Cohen practiced law for ten years in Alaska.
“We submitted some names, but Justice had one reason or another that they figured the person had a conflict, but they never really came with anything other than that we should find someone else,” Stevens said at the press conference. “We did give them some additional names, but in the meantime they had already taken action on this person. We have to arm wrestle on this one. It is not the thing to do. It has only happened one other time that I can remember. I can remember it happened in Illinois and it caused such an uproar. As a matter of fact, it became a real cause celeb with the Illinois Bar Association.”
On August 31 – just three days after Senator Stevens' press conference denouncing the Department of Justice – the FBI raided the offices of a number of state legislators in Juneau including that of Senator Stevens son – Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens.
FBI agents reportedly left Ben Stevens Capitol offices with 12 boxes of documents labeled “evidence.”
Federal officials are reportedly investigating payments from oil service giant VECO to a number of public officials in exchange for their support for a new production tax law and the construction of a natural gas pipeline in Alaska.
The Anchorage Daily News reported last week that “in disclosures he was required to file as a legislator, [Ben] Stevens said he was paid $243,000 over the last five years as a ‘consultant' to VECO. Whenever he was asked to describe what he did for the money, Stevens refused to answer. The company also refused to say.”
In addition to computer hard drives and hard paper records linking the legislators to VECO, FBI agents were reportedly seeking hats emblazoned with the logo – “Corrupt Bastards Club” or “Corrupt Bastards Caucus.”
In March, in an op-ed piece run in the state's major papers, Lori Backes, executive director of the All Alaska Alliance – a group that has supported an alternative gas pipeline route – had charged eleven lawmakers – including Senator Ben Stevens – with taking money from VECO.
The lawmakers reportedly started referring to themselves as the “Corrupt Bastards Club” or the “Corrupt Bastards Caucus” – and had hats printed with the CBC logo.
Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Senator Ted Stevens, would not discuss anything having to do with the FBI raid in Alaska.
Nor would he say why Senator Stevens was “furious” with Attorney General Gonzales.
Could it be that the Justice Department was not going to give Senator Stevens his choice of a U.S. Attorney when the Stevens family was caught in the middle of a public corruption probe?
No comment, Saunders said.
Home
Corporate Crime Reporter
1209 National Press Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20045
202.737.1680
Can ANYONE in this Administration tell the truth about ANYTHING? If a 46 year old gimped woman that sells doors and windows for a living and only has time because I am home on meds can dig this up on a US Attorney with a Pinochio Complex...why isn't anyone in tne media other then TPM all over this?
Astrid Russell wrote on January 27, 2007 5:13 AM:Richter should also raise red flags because of his timely deployment to Oklahoma to squelch investigations into 911 connections to a whole host of unsavory characters in Norman. See for one account of this.
Astrid Russell wrote on January 27, 2007 5:15 AM:This link disappeared from my previous pos
thttp://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=108626
mac2151 wrote on January 27, 2007 5:18 AM:Brent & Howard Wood both have connections to Skyway & their Cocaine I airplane in Mexico. Michael Wood founded Leapfrog that was involved with a $1 million dollar school scam in Maryland.
Robn Boerner wrote on January 27, 2007 6:06 AM:Maybe they plan on raising money for the Republican organization by selling coke to grammar school kids in Kansas City.
Maybe they plan on raising money for the Republican organization by selling coke to grammar school kids in Kansas City.
Posted by: mac2151
Date: January 27, 2007 05:18 AM
God, that is even more paranoid and sinister then my theory that Ted Stevens doth protest too much! Our boy Nelson is really here to CYA while the FBI raids the Alaska Legislature's office...namely one Ben Stevens.
Link your's to the Mena Arkansas Airport conspiracy theory and you may have something there. Like candy from a baby.
Old Atlantic wrote on January 27, 2007 10:09 AM:Bush appointed one in Arkansas, that gives him control over Clinton's past. Johnny Sutton was appointed in Texas over Austin, that gives him control over the Bush past.
McNulty was at Eastern District of Virginia, where many government prosecutions are done. Now he has DC.
What is Bush concealing? Probably a lot. But one hypothesis in particular is that Clinton profs gave Russia billions in IMF loans when Russia had academic kompromat on them. Bush neocon profs knew that in the 1990's. Clinton profs and Harvard may have concealed info from USAO Mass investigation of Harvard, Shleifer, HIID, Russia activities from 1997 to 2005.
Neocon profs may have known this and used it to get the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment and then during Bush v. Gore to influence Scalia and also make Gore go away. John Yoo may have passed the info to Scalia and that is why he was so independent of Ashcroft at DOJ that Ashcroft was angry over it. Yoo made Bush president, so he was independent of Ashcroft in this scenario.
The above is all speculation. Search on "US v. Harvard" or Russia plagiarism files for more info. A brief intro is at the link at my name on this post.
grandpa john wrote on January 27, 2007 11:41 AM:Not new, this has been going on ever since bush took over. most all government agencies are now run by incompetent hacks appointed because of their politics rather than their abilities. remember FEMA, remember the revelations of how the people in Iraq handling the recovery were appointed? every major agency of our government has been handled the same way, but if you depended on the media for information you would never nk now about it.
Anonymous wrote on January 27, 2007 3:35 PM:I am almost 70 years old and I lwill be long gone before our country ever recovers from the disaster of the bush administration, God help us
Every asterisk below is a Presidential Appointee. Since I know this list is incorrect about Alaska, I might assume the few states without asterisk's might be appointees as well. Gonzalez wouldn't lie to us would he?
The amount of US Attorney's appointed by the Bush Regime should frighten even the most ardent Fox News lover. Bush and his croney's now control the justice system in America. Do anyone think these new US Attorney's are against waterboarding, rendition and Civil Rights Violations? I can tell you from first hand experience from dealing with Nelson Cohen and crew that Civil Rights and making sure that the citizens of Alaska are protected from violations of them are the last thing he is concerned about. In the pursuit of higher office he so far has distorted and ignored evidence presented to him in federal court. I stand behind my calling him on his honesty over this. My name and link is at the bottom of this post. I can provide proof of my claims.
We need to impeach Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, et al. It is time to take back our government. Remove the corrupt, self serving bastards from office...all of them.
I applaud TPM for staying on this story. It is one of the most important and underreported today.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/offices/personnel/usattorneys.html
United States Attorneys Listing
* Represents Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney
District United States Attorney
ALABAMA, MIDDLE *Leura Garrett Canary
ALABAMA, NORTHERN *Alice H. Martin
ALABAMA, SOUTHERN *Deborah J. Rhodes
ALASKA Nelson P. Cohen
ARIZONA *Paul K. Charlton
ARKANSAS, EASTERN Tim Griffin Updated!
ARKANSAS, WESTERN *Robert C. Balfe
CALIFORNIA, CENTRAL George S. Cardona
CALIFORNIA, EASTERN *McGregor W. Scott
CALIFORNIA, NORTHERN *Kevin V. Ryan
CALIFORNIA, SOUTHERN *Carol C. Lam
COLORADO *Troy A. Eid
CONNECTICUT *Kevin J. O'Connor
DELAWARE *Colm F. Connolly
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Jeffrey A. Taylor
FLORIDA, MIDDLE *Paul Ignatius Perez
FLORIDA, NORTHERN *Gregory Robert Miller
FLORIDA, SOUTHERN *R. Alexander Acosta
GEORGIA, MIDDLE *Frank Maxwell Wood
GEORGIA, NORTHERN *David E. Nahmias
GEORGIA, SOUTHERN *Lisa Godbey Wood
GUAM *Leonardo M. Rapadas
HAWAII *Edward H. Kubo, Jr.
IDAHO *Thomas E. Moss
ILLINOIS, CENTRAL *Rodger A. Heaton
ILLINOIS, NORTHERN *Patrick J. Fitzgerald
ILLINOIS, SOUTHERN Randy G. Massey
INDIANA, NORTHERN *Joseph S. Van Bokkelen
INDIANA, SOUTHERN *Susan W. Brooks
IOWA, NORTHERN Judith A. Whetstine
IOWA, SOUTHERN *Matthew G. Whitaker
KANSAS *Eric F. Melgren
KENTUCKY, EASTERN *Amul R. Thapar
KENTUCKY, WESTERN *David L. Huber
LOUISIANA, EASTERN *Jim Letten
LOUISIANA, MIDDLE *David R. Dugas
LOUISIANA, WESTERN *Donald W. Washington
MAINE Paula D. Silsby
MARYLAND *Rod J. Rosenstein
MASSACHUSETTS *Michael J. Sullivan
MICHIGAN, EASTERN *Stephen J. Murphy, III
MICHIGAN, WESTERN *Margaret M. Chiara
MINNESOTA *Rachel K. Paulose Updated!
MISSISSIPPI, NORTHERN *Jim M. Greenlee
MISSISSIPPI, SOUTHERN *Dunn O. Lampton
MISSOURI, EASTERN *Catherine L. Hanaway
MISSOURI, WESTERN Bradley J. Schlozman
MONTANA *William W. Mercer
NEBRASKA Joe W. Stecher
NEVADA *Daniel G. Bogden
NEW HAMPSHIRE *Thomas P. Colantuono
NEW JERSEY *Christopher J. Christie
NEW MEXICO *David C. Iglesias
NEW YORK, EASTERN *Roslynn R. Mauskopf
NEW YORK, NORTHERN *Glenn T. Suddaby
NEW YORK, SOUTHERN *Michael J. Garcia
NEW YORK, WESTERN *Terrance P. Flynn
NORTH CAROLINA, EASTERN *George E. B. Holding
NORTH CAROLINA, MIDDLE *Anna Mills S. Wagoner
NORTH CAROLINA, WESTERN *Gretchen C. F. Shappert
NORTH DAKOTA *Drew H. Wrigley
OHIO, NORTHERN *Gregory A. White
OHIO, SOUTHERN *Gregory G. Lockhart
OKLAHOMA, EASTERN *Sheldon J. Sperling
OKLAHOMA, NORTHERN *David E. O'Meilia
OKLAHOMA, WESTERN *John C. Richter
OREGON *Karin J. Immergut
PENNSYLVANIA, EASTERN *Patrick L. Meehan
PENNSYLVANIA, MIDDLE *Thomas A. Marino
PENNSYLVANIA, WESTERN *Mary Beth Buchanan
PUERTO RICO Rosa E. Rodriguez-Velez
RHODE ISLAND *Robert Clark Corrente
SOUTH CAROLINA *Reginald I. Lloyd
SOUTH DAKOTA *Martin J. Jackley
TENNESSEE, EASTERN James R. Dedrick
TENNESSEE, MIDDLE Craig S. Morford
TENNESSEE, WESTERN *David F. Kustoff
TEXAS, EASTERN *Matthew D. Orwig
TEXAS, NORTHERN *Richard B. Roper, III
TEXAS, SOUTHERN *Donald J. DeGabrielle, Jr.
TEXAS, WESTERN *Johnny Keane Sutton
UTAH *Brett L. Tolman
VERMONT *Thomas D. Anderson
VIRGIN ISLANDS *Anthony J. Jenkins
VIRGINIA, EASTERN *Chuck Rosenberg
VIRGINIA, WESTERN *John L. Brownlee
WASHINGTON, EASTERN *James A. McDevitt
WASHINGTON, WESTERN *John McKay
WEST VIRGINIA, NORTHERN *Sharon L. Potter
WEST VIRGINIA, SOUTHERN Charles T. Miller
WISCONSIN, EASTERN *Steven M. Biskupic
WISCONSIN, WESTERN *Erik C. Peterson
WYOMING *Matthew H. Mead
* Represents Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney
James wrote on January 27, 2007 4:41 PM:A purge of Federal prosecuters, in 2007,is an example of the Bush Admin.'s incompetence. This should have been done his first week in office. Just like Clinton did in 93.
mike wrote on January 28, 2007 7:49 PM:This sort of bungling is what got Tom Delay railroaded, and the lacross team at Duke prosecutorially raped.
What goes around comes around. Remember when JFK, back in 1961, appointed his 35-year old brother, who had absolutely no law enforcement experience whatsoever, Attorney General of the entire United States? Of course what Bush is doing is reprehensible, but don't get the idea that the Democrats have ever been any different, or will be any different in the future. I wish they were better, but they're not.
timmy wrote on January 29, 2007 10:54 AM:Re: the comment above, no offense, but all US Attorneys are presidentially appointed. Really, "duh." The fact of a presidential appointment isn't the problem, it's the qualifications.
It's true that the Democrats have appointed very young US Attorneys, too--Michael Hawkins, who's now a 9th Circuit judge (Clinton appointee), was US attorney in Phoenix under Carter when he was about 32 or 33 years old.
Sir Skeptic wrote on January 29, 2007 3:46 PM:Why not think more longterm about these appointments. How many of these great legal minds will someday be touted for court appointments on tbe strength of their 'experience' as US Attys.
Evan wrote on January 29, 2007 8:42 PM:The whole point of these appointments is to make the first 2 years of the next democratic presidents term hell. These guys will last just long enough to launch a bunch of partisan investigations.
Nuncamas21 wrote on January 29, 2007 11:34 PM:Do Senators of the various states not still have the power of a hold or a veto on these appointments? Whatever happened to that?
epenisa wrote on January 11, 2008 4:06 AM:Hello
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Bye