Domestic Injustice

Amidst the financial chaos yesterday, the Justice Department released its findings on the suspicious and sudden firing of 9 US attorneys in 2006, none of which had poor performance reviews and most of which were presiding over corruption investigations. The bottom line? "Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several . . . U.S. attorneys." Most Americans are aware of and increasingly frustrated with the Rovian politics of this administration, but the extent to which these politics damage democracy at its core is appalling. 

What goes unsaid in the report is equally as telling. The investigators were refused access to evidence by the White House at every turn.  This lack of access to evidence was explicitly due to "the refusal by certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, as well as by the White House's decision not to provide internal White House documents to us." 

In the most egregious example, US attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias, was blindly fired after complaints by Sen. Domenici (R-NM) and other high ranking GOP party activists that he was not prosecuting democrats thoroughly enough in election law cases. The report found that then-attorney general "Gonzales and his deputies at Justice never looked into Iglesias's handling of those cases and, in fact, never even asked him about them. They just fired him." What is worse, is that the investigators at DOJ were not allowed to do their job. "The investigators wanted to ask White House political czar Karl Rove, White House counsel Harriet Miers, Goodling, Domenici and Domenici's chief of staff about any role they played in Iglesias's dismissal. All refused to be interviewed."

The Bush administration has prioritized political gain and ideology over fairness and good public policy, not only at the DOJ but throughout the US government over the past 8 years.  It's time to end these disastrous means of governance and the upcoming presidential election gives the American people the chance to do just that.