Partisanship at Justice Dept. Isn’t New (Joe Conason for Truthdig)

[marmar]

Partisanship at Justice Dept. Isn’t New


Posted on Mar 14, 2007
By Joe Conason

Someday, historians will wonder why the highest officials in the Bush Justice Department believed they could inflict heavy-handed political abuse on federal prosecutors—and get away with it. The punishment of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys betrays a strong sense of impunity in the White House, as if the president and his aides assumed nobody would complain about these outrages or attempt to hold them accountable. The precedent for their misconduct was set long ago.

There was once another Republican prosecutor who insisted on behaving professionally instead of obeying partisan hints from the White House. His name was Charles A. Banks, and his story begins in the summer of 1992, as the presidential contest entered its final months, with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton leading incumbent President George H.W. Bush.

Banks had already served for five years as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. As an active Republican who had run for Congress and still aspired to higher office, he counted Clinton among his political adversaries. The first President Bush had recently selected him as a potential nominee for the federal bench. So nothing could have better served Banks’ personal interests than a chance to stop the Clintons and preserve the Bush presidency.

In September 1992, a Republican activist employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation provided that opportunity by fabricating a criminal referral naming the Clintons as witnesses in a case against the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association (the small Arkansas savings and loan owned by Whitewater partner and Clinton friend James McDougal). The referral prepared by L. Jean Lewis lacked merit—as determined by Banks and the top FBI agent in his office—but she commenced a crusade for action against the hated Clintons. The FBI repeatedly rejected or ignored her crankish entreaties. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070314_partisanship_at_justice_isnt_new/