TPM coins a nice soundbite: "selective prosecution"

[StefanX]

We all understand that politics and the law aren't two hermetically sealed domains. And we understand that partisanship may come into play at the margins. But we expect it to be the exception to the rule and a rare one. But here it appears to have become the rule rather than the exception, a systematic effort at the highest levels to hijack the Justice Department and use it to advance the interest of one party over the other by use of selective prosecution.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013251.php

For any friends / relatives who maybe haven't had the time or inclination to find out what the big deal is over the Attorney Purge, that article would be a good one to send them. It explains how this sort of thing just isn't "done".

And the phrase "selective prosecution" sums everything up in two words: letting criminals go free and harrassing innocent people. That's a great soundbite.

[merh]

1. Another good place to repost this

-snip-

In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal. The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”

And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: “In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.”

-snip-

scroll down to Krugman's March 9, 2007 entry at this link http://mgpaquin.blogspot.com/search/label/Krugman

The Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan preview of their study, complete with the statistical data/charts can be found at this link http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/2007/20070212_political_profiling.html
(look at the end of the article for the charts)

merh
Wed Mar-21-07 11:20 PM
17. Here is the list

* Carol Lam (Southern District of California)
* David Iglesias (District of New Mexico)
* H. E. Cummins III (Eastern District of Arkansas)
* Paul K. Charlton (District of Arizona)
* John McKay (Western District of Washington)
* Kevin V. Ryan (Northern District of California)
* Daniel Bogden (District of Nevada)
* Margaret Chiara (Western District of Michigan)

Let's see, Arkansas, could that be because Hillary Clinton has baggage worth investigating in Arkansas? Didn't Clark announce his 2004 presidential bid from Arkansas? And isn't Arkansas a weak red state?

New Mexico, Richardson is a dem candidate, does he need further scrutiny and isn't New Mexico a barely red state that had voting issues in 2004? Weren't New Mexico's electoral votes important in 2004?

Nevada, a barely red state.

California, a blue state that has the most electoral votes and a republican governor, do they think it is vulnerable and do they need to increase the investigations into dems?

Arizona - McCain? Is he not their annointed successor?

Michigan - 17 electoral votes and a state that is barely blue.

Washington -- vulnerable given the controversy related to the 2004 governor election and the "cloud of suspicion" over the dems regarding voting irregularities (as promoted by rnc).



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3175377&mesg_id=3175426

McClatchy Newspapers: New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records
By Greg Gordon, Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

....Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.

Rove thanked the audience for "all that you are doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the integrity of the ballot is protected." He added, "A lot in American politics is up for grabs."

The department's civil rights division, for example, supported a Georgia voter identification law that a court later said discriminated against poor, minority voters. It also declined to oppose an unusual Texas redistricting plan that helped expand the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. That plan was partially reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Frank DiMarino, a former federal prosecutor who served six U.S. attorneys in Florida and Georgia during an 18-year Justice Department career, said that too much emphasis on voter fraud investigations "smacks of trying to use prosecutorial power to investigate and potentially indict political enemies."

Several former voting rights lawyers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of antagonizing the administration, said the division's political appointees reversed the recommendations of career lawyers in key cases and transferred or drove out most of the unit's veteran attorneys....

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16962753.htm