A couple friends and I have been discussing the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, only the latest of the many scandals that have plagued the corrupt Bush administration. One of them mentioned something that I heard echoed today on Air America 2.0‘s new morning program, The Lionel Show. U.S. Attorneys supposedly serve at the pleasure of the President. So why didn’t Alberto Gonzales just say this instead of hemming and hawing, saying he couldn’t remember stuff, etc.?

If you look at the actual statue mentioned in the Joe Conason article linked above (Title 28, Part II, Chapter 35, Section 541 of the U.S. Code), it reads as follows:

§ 541. United States attorneys

1. The President shall appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a United States attorney for each judicial district.
2. Each United States attorney shall be appointed for a term of four years. On the expiration of his term, a United States attorney shall continue to perform the duties of his office until his successor is appointed and qualifies.
3. Each United States attorney is subject to removal by the President.

So U.S. Attorneys, after being appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, generally serve four-year terms, after which the incoming President usually swaps them all out (as the right-wing hatemongers correctly state Bill Clinton did when he came into office). But, the President can remove any U.S. Attorney he chooses, at any time. So what happens then? Before March 6, 2006, Title 28, Part II, Chapter 35, Section 546 of the U.S. Code stated the following:

§ 546. Vacancies

1. Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant.
2. The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give advice and consent.
3. A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the earlier of–
   1. the qualification of a United States attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title;or
   2. the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section.
4. If an appointment expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.

As Conason notes in his article, an aide in Senator Arlen Specter’s office, at the request of the Justice Department, had an amendment to this statue slipped into the 2005 Patriot Act renewal signed by George W. Bush. This amendment took effect on March 6, 2006, and replaced sections (c) and (d) above with the following:

(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.

Not only was Specter himself not aware of this amendment, but it looks like most of the Senate wasn’t either. Essentially, this was a request by the Justice Department for elimination of any oversight in the President’s appointment of interim U.S. Attorneys so that any new appointments made by the President could serve indefinitely. This administration doesn’t trust anyone, even its own appointees to the Courts. So as soon as the Senate realized what they had missed in the Patriot Act renewal, it voted to overturn the amendment, but of course, George Dubya hasn’t felt like signing it yet.

So basically, what we have here is a case of the Bush Administration actually doing something they were legally entitled to do (since they changed the rules) and, typical of the completely dysfunctional nature of this administration, they manage to completely bungle answering charges brought by the Senate that they did something wrong.

I could be wrong, but here’s how I see this case broken down in very simple terms:

1. Bush and friends are afraid of potential prosecution (at the hands of judges they, themselves, appointed) for crimes high and low, far and wide.
2. Gonzales requests from a friend in Specter’s office that an amendment be slipped into the pending Patriot Act renewal of 2005 stating that new appointees to the U.S. Courts can serve indefinitely and aren’t subject to the “120-day” rule.
3. Senate doesn’t notice, and passes bill, President signs.
4. Justice Department fires Attorneys, proposes others for firing. Democrats cry foul.
5. Justice Department and President acted legally, because they changed the law.
6. Democrats (and some Republicans) sign legislation that will repeal the amendment.
7. President has not yet signed this, so the law is still on the side of the Justice Department.
8. The only scandal is that Bush/Gonzales changed the law to avoid cronies’ prosecution and the Senate didn’t catch them until it was too late, and now the Senate Democrats feel they have found something they can latch on to in order to bring down this administration (because Iraq, Katrina, etc. weren’t enough apparently).
9. Totally un-surprisingly, and actually quite predictably, this administration is so completely and totally inept, they even bungle any attempt at answering a charge of which they are not actually even guilty.
10. Former aide to Gonzales, Monica Goodling, in sworn testimony, admits that she “crossed the line of the civil service rules” by asking political questions of candidates interviewing for civil service jobs and “took political considerations into account on some occasions,” and was “surprised to learn that the deputy had blamed [her] for the incomplete or inaccurate information provided to the Senate.”
11. And the saga continues…