by publius
Like Steve Benen, I was shocked to learn that Karl Rove played a greater role than previously known in the U.S. Attorney firings. Of all the various DOJ disgraces of the Bush years, this one is actually the most inexcusable.
Don't get me wrong — the legal approval of torture and wiretapping was outrageous. But in those contexts, the lawyers have at least a plausible argument that they acted in good faith (subjectively speaking). That doesn't excuse anything of course. But the lawyers at DOJ can at least plausibly claim that they were motivated to help keep the country safe.
In the U.S. Attorney context, though, there's no justification that is even remotely plausible. Rove and the Bush DOJ fired U.S. Attorneys who refused to prosecute innocent people for partisan political advantage. Any by prosecute, I mean send them to jail.
There's simply no justification — there's nothing that's even plausible. It was more than simply ignoring law, it was affirmatively using the prosecuting power of the federal government to entrench political power like some banana republic dictator might do.
The firings also damaged the federal prosecution system as a whole — and cast a shadow of illegitimacy on virtually all prosecutions of political figures or activists. Prosecuting opposition parties is always tricky. But because it is often necessary, the need to be perceived as neutral is even greater in this context.
There's only one way to prevent this type of thing from happening in the future, but it requires "looking back."