It appears that the heads are continuing to roll after the controversial firings of 8 U.S. Attorneys who stepped down in January.
From The Buffalo News
Michael A. Battle, formerly the top federal prosecutor in Buffalo and now a senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice, called several U.S. attorneys from across the country Dec. 7 and gave them some unusual bad news.
It was time for them to resign.
Little noticed at the time, the unprecedented purge of eight of the nation’s 94 U.S. attorneys has caused a huge uproar in Washington that is culminating today in hearings on both sides of Capitol Hill. Democrats are alleging that the fired prosecutors, Republicans all, lost their jobs for political reasons.
Looks like someone else may have become a victim of the purge.......
Battle on Monday announced that he plans to leave the Justice Department for private practice but stressed that his resignation was not connected to the controversial personnel changes.
Asked why he was resigning, Battle said, "Opportunity." He will be joining Washington office of Fulbright & Jaworski, a top international law firm.
Anything suspicious going on here? Why would the man who actually made the calls now be asked to step down? Could it be that he actually knows the reason the 8 Attorneys were fired?
Senator Charles Schumer:
"This raises another question about a subject where there are already too many unanswered questions," Schumer said. "While Mike Battle, a man of integrity, must issue the customary denial, the timing of his resignation asks whether he’s another casualty of the U.S. attorneys imbroglio."
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:
skilled prosecutors were being replaced by "cronies" of the Bush administration.
"It undermines the criminal-justice system altogether if it’s overpoliticized," Sloan said. "You don’t want prosecutors worrying about the political ramifications of whom they indict or don’t indict."
Cronyism? How about making room for one of Turd Blossom's former assistants....
H.E. "Bud" Cummins III, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., said Battle called him in June and asked him to resign, thereby making Cummins the first U.S. attorney of the eight to be removed.
"We’re well-acquainted and have a personal friendship as well as a professional relationship," Cummins said. "As head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, it fell to him to make the call."
Cummins told Battle he was surprised and had thought he would serve for the rest of the Bush administration.
"I asked if I had done anything wrong, and he said no," Cummins said. "He said it was entirely about a desire to give somebody else the opportunity." "Somebody else" turned out to be Tim Griffin, ex-aide to Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political strategist.
Thanks to a story lead from
CapitalNews.org
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