Prosecutor Paulose has political problems

April 7, 2007

With all the recent news about various U.S. Attorney controversies, I’ve neglected to report much on the new U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Rachel Paulose. This one’s a little different from some of the controversies — inasmuch as Paulose does not stand accused of allowing politics to dictate prosecutorial decisions — but it’s interesting anyway.

Paulose, who, at age 34, was senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty for two months before her interim appointment, first started raising eyebrows a couple of weeks ago, when KSTP-TV in St. Paul aired an investigative piece on Paulose’s “coronation.” At her swearing-in ceremony, she had a Marine Corps honor guard and choir, and someone who works for her compiled a list of “potential problem reporters” who might attend the event. Asked about the list by reporters, Paulose didn’t want to talk about it.

But that was just odd. Things heated up considerably on Thursday, when three of her top deputies stepped down from their leadership positions, citing her ideologically driven and dictatorial managerial style.

A source said managers had been unhappy with Paulose and decided to collectively resign.

“They did it jointly because they couldn’t stand her anymore,” the source said, citing what been described as her “dictatorial management style and general lack of management experience.”

The whole story raises more questions than answers.

* What, specifically, did Paulose do to anger the top prosecutors in her office? One source told the Pioneer Press, “These are career prosecutors who wouldn’t do it without a reasonable basis. If these folks took this action en masse and all of them are well respected career prosecutors, they wouldn’t do so lightly.”

* Why did Paulose’s predecessor, Thomas Heffelfinger, resign in early 2006? Right now, the circumstances appear “murky.”

* Why is the DoJ blaming the messenger? The NYT reported, “Ms. Paulose’s defenders at Justice Department headquarters said the criticism of her was unwarranted. They said older lawyers had difficulty dealing with a young, aggressive woman who had tried to put into place policies important to Mr. Gonzales like programs to combat child exploitation.” (David Kurtz added, “Got it? The administrators who resigned are a bunch of sexist old men — never mind that one of the four who resigned was a woman — who are soft on child exploitation.)

* If everything is fine in Paulose’s office, as her defenders claims, why is the DoJ sending in John Kelly, Deputy Director of the US Attorney’s executive office in DC, to help run the office in Minneapolis?

* And finally, Josh Marshall asks, “[I]s there any question now that the eight firings we know about now is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s going on in the Bush-Gonzales DOJ?”

I think we know the answer to that one.

She’s another of the Boys and Girls from Brazil we’re going to have to send the black helicopters after in 2009, who are going to be spending a loooooooooooooong time in the re-education camps. Actually, since home-indoctrination and a degree from a southern bible college are not evidence of an “education,” we’ll just call the re-education camps “schools.”

/snark

She first got noticed as a “strong activist” in the Federalist Society in law school – that tell you anything????

  • It should have been obvious from the beginning that the meat of this story was not who was fired, but who was hired.

    In addition to the 8, who were fired, there were another dozen, who were shoved out or lured out. All with the intention of putting in unqualified political hitmen, in “battleground” states.

  • the obvious question re: pelouse is:

    why hasn’t she been fired?

    if performance is the most important criterion for dismissal in the bush doj,

    wouldn’t pissing off your entire top staff to the point they resign enmass,

    count as a performance problem?

    eight other u.s. attorneys were.

  • Jeez, I had to endure the book Emerald City which showed how a bunch of ignorant illeducated zampolit morons could fuck things up. Stories like this make realize that this is the Admin’s MO. I hope to hell that working for the Bush II Admin is a career killer for most of these twits. Tom’s Boys/Girls From Brazil comment seems more appropriate as it’s not like these folks are talented or skilled or even experienced. It has been said that an organization takes on the mentality of its leaders and it is evident here.

  • It’s the Stalin Strategy: consolidate long-term political power by installing apparatchiks of absolute loyalty at every level on the bureaucratic ladder.

    Fortunately, our system is better suited to withstand that erosion-from-within than the USSR was–and Bush isn’t anywhere near as shrewd a political operator as Stalin was in the ’20s.

  • Their voluntary demotion reminds me of the scene in Band of Brothers where all the non-com officers did the same because they didn’t want to work with Lt. Ross from Friends (I can never remember the dude’s name so that’s what I call him).

    But they’re basically saying we’re not going into battle with this incompetent moron. A pretty strong statement by these guys – let’s hope it makes a difference. Why do I fear that it won’t??…..

  • I’ve started a pool: how many more disasters can this administration generate in the next 21 months?

  • The Emerald City comparison is perfect: actual objective capabilities mean nothing to this sAdministration; all that matters is ideological purity. Here they’ve installed a manager so inexperienced she cannot handle the administration of the office, so despite her significant pay, we have to fly in a DC DoJ staffer to help her do the job.

    In Iowa, a local TV station ran an interview with the fairly new USA for the Southern District (who was going to emcee the Iowa Christian Coalition annual event until Americans United threw enough of a fit to get DoJ to tell him not to; he did attend, however – he just didn’t emcee). He admitted he never thought he’d be a USA and until he was actually appointed “I had no idea what the United States Attorney did.” His prior experience was being the Rethugs’ sacrificial lamb in a bad loss running for State Treasurer. Oh, and he was an Iowa Hawkeye football player. So what has he done so far in office? Led high profile indictments into a job training organization whose Board included several Democratic elected officials, and recently indicted (on what appear to be fairly weak grounds) the only openly gay state senator in Iowa. Hmmm.

    I remember when USAs used to be very respected experienced attorneys in town or career prosecutors who worked their way up. Too bad actual merit doesn’t count for much these days.

  • the Minnesota Monitor
    reported that four “top staff” in the office “voluntarily demoted themselves Thursday, fed up with Paulose, who, after just months on the job, _has earned a reputation for quoting Bible verses and dressing down underlings.”

    http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=563

    As for the blatant lack of experience, remember that “heck of a job, Brownie” worked for a horse association before being picked for FEMA,

  • This is so sad because we will probably never know how many lives have been shattered by possible malicious prosecution, or how many criminals got to skirt around the law because of their political affiliation. Alberto Gonzales has to skip his vacation, but a hundred lost vacations will never begin to pay the price of this scandal.

    George W Bush is unrepentant as he stands up there blurting out that a USA serves at the pleasure of the President, so, so what? He doesn’t seem to care that he has disgraced and made dysfunctional yet another agency of the executive branch. What a disaster this man is.

  • A number of things stick out about this:

    – Are there no more old time “Goldwater Republicans” left in the party to appoinmt ot plum positions for their years of hard work, or does this mean the only left that are sufficiently loyal to Bush too young to know any better? This could be a sign that the Repubs are in worse shape than any of us realize. There could be a large number of vert savvy politcla operators who are/ will be turning tail on their former party because they’ve been spurned for their years of hard worl to party when they realized W wasn’t in the party’s best interests.

    – As for Paulose’s coronation, I think this officially certifies the Repubs having a delusions of granduer pathology.

    – I’d be very curious to see how many other long-term bureaucrats have suffered the “demotion or perish” phenomenon in order to ride out the remainder of the Bush years. What a sad cycle that any who have devoted their entire careers are dog-paddling just to save them from institutional Bushite incompetence.

  • There seems to be a connection between Paulose getting this job and DoJ’s recent efforts to protect the “faith-based community.” She’s actually been going around the office, quoting bible verses and lecturing staff on biblical principles. Seems Gonzo’s DoJ has become not only a base for partisanship, but also a base for what one might label “the Theocratizing of America.”

    The Republic is now clearly in harm’s way—and the Army that should be defending it is stuck in a meatgrinder, half-way ’round the world….

  • You guys are so stupid. I’m close to this situation and know for a fact the “facts” you all are listing here are COMPLETELY false. The “long-timers” in the office in MN all wanted the promotion to Paulose’s post. The worst thing she ever did was “micromanage” … as in talking to line attorneys over the head of their managers. That doubley pissed off the managers who werent promoted. They now have started a campaign to say that she holds prayer services and Bible studies in the office – also COMPLETELY and 100% false. Why would they do this to her….

    ask yourself: are they being *shudder* political????????

    stop following the herd around here and wait for actual facts…

  • note to outsider: She put on her resume when applying for the USA job that she had “taught sunday school at westville bible chapel” – that is a Brethern assembly. Brethern are pre-millenialists, and believe in the reign of Christ on earth.

    She may not be a Fundamentalist Bible she may be just an opportunist trying to pretend that she is to get ahead in her career, since this has been such a sure route to success. But I think we should take her at her word, and not accuse her of lying about this unless the facts prove otherwise.

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