From the Tribune (Editorial):

Judging prosecutors

Published March 5, 2007

Is the Bush administration carrying out a political purge in the offices of U.S. attorneys? That's the claim of congressional Democrats who say independent-minded federal prosecutors are being jettisoned to make room for the administration's political cronies. A House subcommittee has subpoenaed five recently fired U.S. attorneys to testify Tuesday.

At this point, the critics have not made a conclusive case. The evidence they offer is enough, though, to warrant a candid, comprehensive rebuttal from the administration, which has not yet been heard. It's normal for a president to clean house when he begins his term. It's rarer for U.S. attorneys to be relieved later in a president's tenure. If the Justice Department has good reasons, let's hear them.

One of the eight prosecutors who has been dumped, David Iglesias of New Mexico, has said publicly that his dismissal was based on politics. Critics of the administration say the same factor was at work in the case of Carol Lam of San Diego, who supposedly made enemies at the Justice Department by convicting former Republican U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of bribery.

Democrats also criticize the removal of Bud Cummins of the Eastern District of Arkansas, who was replaced by Timothy Griffin, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove. Griffin's selection drew so much fire that he ultimately withdrew his name from consideration as a permanent replacement.

It's no surprise that the prosecutors who were fired don't think they deserved it. In some instances, though, there is evidence to indicate the administration had genuine grounds for dissatisfaction. The FBI reportedly thought Iglesias put too little effort into public corruption probes. And while Justice has expanded greatly its prosecution of firearms crimes, Lam filed fewer gun cases in 2006 than in 2001.

The claim that politics was the motive to get rid of all these U.S. attorneys also is a bit puzzling. In the first place, they were all political appointees of President Bush. In the second, some of them were not exactly political virgins when they arrived. Iglesias ran for attorney general of New Mexico in 1998 on the Republican ticket. Cummins lost a 1996 congressional race, also running as a Republican, and was an elector for Bush in 2000. If politics was a non-factor in the selection of U.S. attorneys, these two would never have gotten the job to begin with.

But it's hard to judge whether the administration had good reasons to get rid of all these prosecutors, because it has declined to state publicly exactly where it thinks they fell short. These are public officials, and when the Justice Department decides to replace so many of them, it owes the American people an explanation. Failing to provide one will only strengthen suspicions that the administration is up to no good