U.S. attorney firings open doors for the 9

[davidinalameda]

Source: LA Times

Daniel Bogden had just settled back into his office in Las Vegas early last December after a trip to Washington where he and dozens of other U.S. attorneys attended a conference at the Justice Department on protecting children from crime.

It had been an upbeat occasion. The department's No. 2 official gave a rousing speech during a closed-door session in which he praised members of the group as among the finest and most able U.S. attorneys in the department's storied history.

Three days later, on Dec. 7, Bogden and six other of those attorneys received phone calls from a top Justice official in Washington. They were told they were being fired.

"I thought it was some kind of bad joke," said Bogden, who had been the top federal law enforcement official in Nevada for five years. "I was waiting for the punch line that never came."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys9dec09,0,2732264.story?coll=la-home-center

[Bozita]

1. Carol Lam fears political hires for career positions "is going to take a long time to fix"

-snip-

But Lam said the mass firings did bring some positive changes, focusing attention on some of the other worsening problems at the department, such as widespread and dubious hiring practices.

She remains deeply concerned about the effect of what appeared to be long-term plans to fill career positions in the department with political appointees.

"That is going to take a long time to fix," she said in an interview. "It calls into question not only who was hired, but who should have been hired but wasn't."

-snip-

[Bozita]

2. I'll bet Bernie Ward would like to know about the # of politicos in career slots in the SF office

[Supersedeas]

3. padding the resumes of a bunch of rightwing kooks is not joke to Harriet Miers et al.

[superconnected]

4. I've yet to see the Justice Department correct this.

It's nice most of the 9 are doing well, but that doesn't fix the problem.