Clinton’s ‘purge’ revisited

March 19, 2007

As we’ve discussed many times, one of the principal talking points for the right in response to the prosecutor purge scandal is “Clinton did it, too.” I won’t rehash the whole debate all over again, but the argument has been debunked — presidents replace the slate of U.S. Attorneys when they take office; what Bush did was obviously different.

But Glenn Greenwald reported today on a point I’d forgotten: some of the people who insist Bush had every right to fire eight federal prosecutors are the same people who went after Clinton for doing what was ordinary in 1993.

Nonetheless, Republicans sought in 1993 to depict the routine and standard replacement of U.S. attorneys by the Clinton administration as some sort of grave scandal which threatened prosecutorial independence and was deeply corrupt. Yet now, people like The Wall St. Journal’s Paul Gigot — one of the most vocal critics of the 1993 U.S. attorneys replacement — insist that the President has the absolute right to fire any U.S. attorneys at any time and for any reason. On the WSJ weekend Fox show, Gigot offered what has become the standard defense of Bush followers:

“U.S. attorneys are political appointees. They’re prosecutors appointed by the president, who serve at his pleasure. So presumably the president can dismiss them. What did the administration do wrong in this case?”

The idea that Presidents have an unfettered right to fire U.S. attorneys at any time and for any reason is the precise opposite of what Republicans were arguing in 1993 — when Bill Clinton simply replaced all U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration, rather than singling out prosecutors for termination in the middle of his term.

Greenwald compiled quite a list from the early 1990s.

The Washington Times called the March 1993 U.S. Attorneys’ replacements the “March massacre.” Rush Limbaugh compared the normal turnover to Nixon’s “Saturday-night massacre” of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and Attorney General Eliot Richardson. Bob Dole, at the time, said, “The American people deserve a Justice Department that takes a back seat to politics and one that functions efficiently.” The WSJ’s Paul Gigot questioned whether the Clinton administration was committed to “independent justice.”

I’d almost forgotten how ridiculous the anti-Clinton smear machine was and how early it started. But more importantly, some of these exact same people who blasted Clinton for replacing H.W. Bush’s U.S. Attorneys are now blasting anyone who dares to question W. Bush’s unfettered right to fire any prosecutor he pleases. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Glenn concluded:

The beginning of the Clinton administration was really the birth of the all-out right-wing filth and noise machine, and — working with Republican Congressional leaders — it attempted to convert a completely routine decision by the Clinton administration to replace all U.S. attorneys into some sort of explosive corruption scandal. And yet these are the same people, and the same faction, which now insists that there is absolutely nothing wrong with firing U.S. attorneys at any time and that the President has the unfettered right to do so — even in the unprecedented circumstance of singling prosecutors out and replacing them in the middle of the President’s term.

It’s literally the same people who defend President Bush today by saying the exact opposite of what they said in 1993. Yes, that is extremely common for them to do. And yes, there is nothing surprising about it. But it is still worth noting, particularly when the dishonesty is as glaring and inescapable as it is in this case.

And how does the right respond to Glenn’s observation? Here’s one of the leading conservative critics of the purge scandal: “For your comical perusal read Greenwald’s pretzel logic. Here’s a summary: Republicans bitched in 93 about the 93 Reno fired, but it’s different now because George Bush is a crook. Hilarious.”

“Pretzel logic”? It’s almost as if some folks prefer confusion to reality.

do these idiots only read every tenth word or something? i could’t create that “summary” of glenn’s column if i tried. (his column was very good, btw).

  • You make a very good set of observations here. But remember, the people who you are profiling as hypocrites are also what Mr. Eliot would call hollow men. They have not a care about how they effect the world. They have no conscience within their sentient capabilities. They are intellectual charlatans who have hijacked our ideals and reworked them into their own desires. Enlightened souls people like Gigot and Limbaugh are not. -Kevo

  • The Greenwald piece is excellent and should be used to put this to bed for any Republican with half a brain.

    But here’s what’s cracking me up… There are quite a few Republican lawmakers who can smell the dead tuna that is underlying the stories that they’ve been told so far, people who know that the “Clinton did it” meme has zero relevance. And yet we have lots of others, the usual idiots, out there pushing the Clinton Did It meme, as if they could make that fly by sheer force of will.

    Once the hearings begin we’ll get a lot more data, and the idiots will look even more idiotic, but Fox will keep inviting them on to make asses of themselves.

    It’s like watching a loaded clown car crash and burn. I can’t stop looking and it’s funny but not in a ha-ha kind of way.

  • Ah, but the Reich has the same problem with Dems investigating “8-Gate” as they had with Clinton tearing out Bu$hCo-41’s 93.

    Both are severe, detrimental impediments to the furtherance of the Amerikan Reich.

    Clinton effectively gutted the Neocon legal mechanism, stalling the Reich’s “fair and balanced” (insert guttural obscenity of your choice here) application of the law that began with the coronation of the Great ReaganGod in ’81. Dems exposing the blatant “ReThuglicanizing” of criminal investigatory efforts by Bu$hCo-43….

  • One thing I’ve had a bit of trouble tracking down is exactly how many US Attorneys Reagan and Bush I replaced. Along these same lines, another argument the rightwingers are coming up with was that Reagan and Bush I let the US Attorneys’ terms expire and then replaced them, while Clinton/Reno requested everyone’s resignation. These arguments sound pitiful, but it would be nice to have hard information to respond.

  • Don’t forget, Bush DOES have the right to replace any or ALL of the US Attorneys any time he wants and he does NOT need to have Congressional approval of any of his replacements.

    That is the law. Clinton needed Congressional or judicial approval for each and every nominee.

    However, just because Bush could replace the 8 that he didn’t like. His administration can not lie to Congress. They can no lie under OATH. That is a felony and people can and do go to jail for it.

    As the Republican should know, or at least Newt and Rudy should know, having sex outside of marriage is not a crime. But if you lie about it then ….

    What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

    Unless, the ganger is a Republican. Cause according the the Wall Street Journal, Republicans can never break any law.

  • Am I the only one who has a secret desire to have Dubya caught getting blown by an underling in the Oval Office just to see if once again his defenders go, “But Clinton did it…”

  • What makes the Clinton meme so incredibly stupid (other than the rank hypocrisy) is that St. Ronnie, and Bush II did the exact same thing Clinton did!! Why is this so f$%^ing hard for these people to understand?!?!

    I have a link somewhere to prove it (I really need to start using del.ico.us to get some synch between work and home) and will post it if possible tonight. But Bush I was the only who didn’t have a mass purge because he liked most of Ronnie’s appointments — and why wouldn’t he?

    Other than that, though, every prez has replaced them at the beginning of his term because that’s the way they system works. It’s something my toddler could understand, but these tools can’t.

  • I think the constitutional law scholars, even on the left side, are going to end up siding with the Republicans on this one. But I don’t think it’s that open-and-shut. There’s a reason why the constitution makes explicit provision for the president’s impeachability for high crimes and misdemeanors, and for his liability for crimes even while in office. The law shouldn’t reach into the president’s established ability to dismiss his at-will subordinates as a default (right now the law seems to distinguish between which exec branch officers the president can dismiss at will and which he can’t) but, what is the sense of allowing the president to use his powers to tamper with prosecutors’ pursuit of justice in a way that for anyone else would be criminal?

    If the president finds a criminal conviction unjust, there are other avenues for him to affect the process, like his power to pardon and his veto power, and his political power to influence legislation. Prosecutors and judges need a degree of independence to do their jobs for justice to function, and firing prosecutors for refusing to indict people just so Republicans will do better in an election is just the type of thing, if there’s anything, that elected office holders should not be able to do when it comes to influencing prosecutors, no matter what office they hold.

    Hopefully when they consider arguments like this, the constitutional types’ support for the Republican argument will turn out to be merely tentative.

  • Also there is the question of firing someone at will versus threatening them with firing if they won’t do something differently. Should there be a distinction here for the purposes of determining where executive branch power ends / imposing liability on executive branch officials?

  • So the White House’s position is that the US Attorneys serve at the president’s pleasure and that he has the right to fire them. OK, then let’s just subpoena Bush and ask him under oath why he fired them.

  • Rights do not prevent consequences. I have the right to tell my wife she is ugly, but that right won’t stop her from dumping my sorry ass.

    Bush has the right to fire the Attorneys for whatever reason, and Congress can Impeach his sorry ass if he did it to cover up Republican / Administration wrongdoing.

  • Funny… Even Deborah Howell (the WashPo ombudsman) was able to understand (once it had been explained to her) that Clinton’93 is comparable to Bush’01, NOT to Bush ’06… You could almost hear her sigh with regret in yesterday’s column, but she accepted facts.

  • I mean, there are a variety of questionable situations presented by the prosecutor purge scandal, including, but not limited to, prosecutors getting fired for a few different things. There’s the question of whether the prosecutors can get fired at all for any of those things, and there’s the question of whether, if the firings can be traced to the president, that effects it. One question, for example, is, if the president fire some prosecutor for not doing something criminal- indicting someone on no evidence- is the firing legitimate, and is it even a crime? That’s probably the worst example. Other situations probably seem more likely within the president’s discretion. So when talking about the illegality of all of this, you have to make sure people know what they’re talking about. Lumping all these together is not the way to figure out if any of it was allowable or even criminal.

  • When a Republican says this is all legal, the best way to respond is to ask what they’re referring to- say, Do you mean when such and such prosecutor was intimidated into doing such-and-such? Or when such and such prosecutor was intimidated into doing such-and-such?’ Just run through the whole list of the prosecutors until people try to interrupt you a couple times and it gets ridiculous. And ask them what their legal theory is- who are they saying didn’t break the law that was involved in each instance of intimidation or firing, and what makes them think that it wasn’t illegal for that person to do that- on what basis would it be legal.

  • People: We’re losing track of the BIG difference between these firings, and ALL previous firings( or, technically, handing in letters of resignation), is that their replacements were approved by the Senate, and the Bush method of operation was going to put them in “temporarily”, without Senate confirmation.

    Under this method of appointing “temporary ” USA’s, Bush, “UNDER PRESIDENTIAL PEROGATIVE”, could appoint Barbara Bush(the mom, or shucks, maybe the twin) to become the new USA, and no one could complain.

    Besides being a political purge( I’ve shown my prejudice), it is the bypassing of Senate confirmation that will have the greatest harm in the future.

    What previous USA’s have served without Senate Confirmation??

  • The most similar thing to what George Bush is doing is when Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and Attorney General Eliot Richardson from their posts during their invesitgation of him. Selective politically (and ciminally) motivated firings.

  • I find it strange that the liberal response to “Clinton did it, too” as you so eloquently put it, is what Clinton did was “routine and standard”..?
    What exactly does routine and standard mean? Do you mean, routine and standard, like when the last Democratic president before Clinton replaced only 1 Attorney General Atty. Gen Griffin Bell (1978) for political reasons???
    You see I’m just a slow right wing conservative, so maybe you high intellectuals can explain to me this double standard; sorry I mean routine and double standard!!!

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