Mary --

Eloquent post, but I think you're missing a very important piece here. A professor of mine in law school once said, "If you really want to protect constitutional rights, go be a prosecutor." The point is obvious. If you care about rights, be one of the people who makes sure that the system protects peoples' rights.

I'm a former federal prosecutor and a firm believer in the protection of constitutional rights. And yes, I felt real apprehension working for an administration whose policies I strongly disagreed with. And many of my colleagues felt the same. So what did we do? We did what we were supposed to do -- we made sure that in every case we worked on we acted with respect for constitutional rights that went beyond the letter of the law. We educated young federal agents on how to act within the law -- how to build case without pushing the envelope. And we pushed back when agencies wanted do do something that was close to the line.

I'd like to think that the work we did from within made a difference and had an effect beyond our limited caseloads. I'd like to think that while decisions were being made by others that crossed the lines, we stayed well within them and helped others do the same.

In a sense, my protest against the administration's practices was to do prosecutions in the right way, to show that we could build good cases without resort to the kind of extreme tactics applied in Gitmo and elsewhere.

And Mary, I'm sorry, but you're wrong about the Lewis investigation. Debra Yang's move to Gibson Dunn had absolutely no impact on the case. She was not running the investigation -- she had no impact on the day-to-day of the case. So that had no impact. O'Brien's appointment of Emmick to the Lewis investigation was widely seen and reported as a major boost to the investigation and an indication that the investigation was being taken very seriously by the office. No one expected Emmick to go anywhere, and he was an office institution. There's no conspiracy here. The investigation is still going, despite major challenges.

Testing -- Good questions. The budget issue is not a new issue -- it's been covered here at TPM and elsewhere. Bottom line, the real US Atty scandal was the administration's slashing of the USAO's budgets for from 2004-2007. This undermined the USAOs in a different way than the USAO firings, but no less damaging. No new hires in LA for two years, prosecutors who can make three times more in the private sector working without raises. The office is only now recovering. The budget problems -- no new hires, no raises, more work for less people -- had a devastating impact on the office's morale. And O'Brien's done a ton to address that -- raising salaries for the first time in years, bringing in dozens of new young prosecutors, and praising folks publicly for good work in ways no USA has in years. I observed all these things first hand.

As to the "best attorneys" piece, M's e-mail said "some of the best attorneys," not "all of the best attorneys." There are good attorneys in all sections in the USAO, but it's widely known that the frauds section attracts many of the best, for several reasons. The cases tend to be bigger in frauds, the attorneys on the other side tend to be better, and there are better opportunities after you leave the office for those who've been in frauds. So generally, frauds gets its pick of the litter. Putting frauds folks on these corruption cases is the best thing that could happen for those cases.

And as far as FISA and NSL abuses, the USAOs are the voice of reason in the administration on this front. The USAOs don't control these processes (the FBI and Main Justice do), but the USAOs can make sure these things are done right in the cases they prosecute, and can refuse to prosecute cases where these things were not done right. And they have.

Posted at March 24, 2008 11:21 AM in response to Former AUSA Gives Another Take on Disbanding of LA Public Corruption Unit

I like Scott Harper, but he has his facts wrong on this.

The Lewis investigation stalled primarily beacuse the lead prosecutor left for private practice more than a year ago. O'Brien then tried to move the investigation forward by appointing one of the most senior attorneys in the office (Mike Emmick) to supervise the investigation, but, as has been reported here at TPM, Main Justice then inexplicably refused to renew that attorney's status (he had a special status with the Office that required periodic renewals, which had previously been granted freely).

The prosecutor now handling the investigation is solid and has put away public officials in prominent cases in the past, but he has trials lined up (which take priority over investigations). I also hear that the agencies involved in the investigation aren't playing well each other.

For all his flaws, O'Brien's a real prosecutor, and I'm sure he would love to see this thing get indicted if the evidence is there -- it's always good for an office and its leadership to bag a prominent public figure who's abused the public trust. But you've got to do a case like this right.

Posted at March 21, 2008 5:34 PM in response to Former AUSA Gives Another Take on Disbanding of LA Public Corruption Unit