An edit was made to this section by anon 71.129.65.194 diff here. I decided to start fleshing it out, but now believe that while this info might be useful somewhere, so far none of these are real firings (at least not comparable to current US attorney dismissal situation). These people were replaced because they were promoted, or were interim, or died. Suggestions?? R. Baley 19:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Since I don't think it belongs in the article, I've removed it and preserved the work here. . . R. Baley 19:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
In addition, Clinton appointed U.S. Attorneys were also replaced by Clinton in his second term with the following:
1997 — Eric H. Holder Jr. moved to the Justice Department where he was unanimously confirmed by the senate as deputy attorney general. He was replaced with Mary Lou Leary an interem U.S. attorney who, though she did not apply for the job on a permanent basis, was nonetheless the first US Attourney to serve the Washington area. Mary Lou Leary was ultimately replaced with Wilma A. Lewis. [1]
- Jim Wiggens, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1996, was ultimately succeeded by Beverly Martin for the Middle District of Georgia U.S. Attorney position. [2]
- Caryl Privett resigned on September 8, 1997 and was succeeded by G. Douglas Jones as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. [3] Privett had served in an interim capacity since February 1995 when federal judges in Birmingham tapped her to fill the position until Clinton made an appointment. [4]
- Other relacements this year include: Thomas Scott, and Sharon Zealey. citation needed
1998 — Byron Jones, Denise O’Donnell, Paul Warner, Scott Lasser, Paul Seave, Ellen Curran, Stephen Robinson, Richard Deane Jr., Alejandro Mayorkas, Robert Green, Harry Litman, and Jose Rivera. citation needed
1999 — Melvin Kahle, Gregory Vega, Thomas Strickland, Donna Bucella, Daniel French, Quenton White, Jackie Williams, Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., and Carl Schnee. citation needed
2000 — Daniel Webber Jr., Norman Bay, Steven Reed, Ted McBride, and Audrey Fleissig. citation needed
References
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Well, there is one precedent similar to the fired U.S. Attorneys affair - the Saturday Night Massacre. Though the SNM was higher up and much closer to the President, the themes are rather similar. I doubt we want to include that in the article, however. I know of no press accounts that relate the U.S. Attorneys to the SNM. Note that it was entirely "legal" for the President to fire Archibald Cox...it was just really bad public policy.
I've poked at the lede a bit. It seemed to be getting a little convoluted/redundant. I don't think we have to bend over too far backwards to make the case for "unprecedented" in the lede. The references and article make that case clearly IMO. I am happy to see "Gonzales-gate" gone from the lede - this does not seem to be a common phrase for this scandal. Bdushaw 20:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
1. The title of the article is
Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. Shouldn't this be unabbreviated to
Dismissal of United States attorneys controversy?
2. The lead section calls it an unconcluded dispute. Isn't common practice to use the term "ongoing" instead of "unconcluded"?
A
ecis
Brievenbus
15:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
In the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-renzi23feb23,0,2161875.story
Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) was indicted. He had apparently been under investigation by Charlton - see the bottom of the article. Was Charlton fired because he had started investigating Renzi?
By rights, this and other related articles should come under a broader article on the politicization of the Department of Justice. That would be a monumental task, however. I suspect that this article serves as the proxy for the general article. But one of the problems this article faces is what to do with material that is related but not to the specific issue of the fired attorneys. Bdushaw ( talk) 20:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/29alabama.html
Noises from the appellate court sound similar to the court's reactions to some of the other allegedly political prosecutions. This wikipedia article is focussed on the dismissed USA's, but there is the broader issue of the politicization of the Dept. of Justice - the USA's issue is a symptom of that. Bdushaw ( talk) 16:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
This is the same rationale for including the Wecht trial information as well. It is also under review by congress in conjunction with the Siegelman case for being politically motivated. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've deleted this long-winded section again. The relation to fired attorneys, even with the broad scope of this article, is not obvious to me. The section was repeated verbatim at Cyril H. Wecht and also at Mary Beth Buchanan. If we're going to have a section on this topic I suggest (a) the discussion be reduced to a very modest/small paragraph (use a "See Also" to guide the reader to the greater discussions elsewhere, and (b) the modest paragraph show explicitly the relation of the topic to the fired attorneys/politicization of the department of justice issue. Bdushaw ( talk) 21:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is a relation of the Wecht case to Siegelman, o.k. - I don't object to a small section on Wecht. But we've tried very hard to keep this article to manageable size. The section that has been "proposed," say, is much too long and meandering. It is also mostly repeated elsewhere as noted above. So, IMO, if you want to add a section, o.k., but please keep it brief, point out that the Wecht case is related to the Siegelman issue, and show how. You don't have to repeat the material at Cyril H. Wecht and Mary Beth Buchanan, you may merely redirect the reader there. (Even the Seigelman section is a little long, if you ask me.) Bdushaw ( talk) 19:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
We're not making any headway against the reverter, 75.205.XX.XXX; shall we file an incident report? In the mean time, I'll store my quote concerning Paulouse resignation here: Palouse resigned as U.S. Attorney on November 19, 2007 to work on legal policy issues at the Justice Department in Washington. [1] Bdushaw ( talk) 04:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy&action=edit§ion=38 Editing Talk:Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy (section) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I've reported a 3 revert rule violation. Bdushaw ( talk) 17:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've developed a short section on this subject, drawn from the lengthy, disputed addition. I think with that I will stand down from this discussion and let others take it from here...probably best that I recuse myself for the time being, under the circumstances. Bdushaw ( talk) 20:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Bdushaw's condensed section fails to capture the issues of the case and its relation to the US Attorney scandal. While I respect his or her view to keep the article concise, his/her summarization is not as clear as the one added by user 75.207.232.31 on June 9th at 12:40. Perhaps it would be better to adjust what Bdushaw has provided as a summarization to include the issues of the jury reporting that they felt the case was politically motivate after sitting through the proceedings. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:05, 9 June 2008.
Additionally, we may have not had the issues over the past few weeks with 75.xxx.xxx.xx if Bdushaw had taken the lead to summarize the Wecht article opposed to deleting it. It is unfortunate that when 75.xxx.xxx.xx did summarize the article, Bdushaw requested the information be reverted and block the user. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:05, 9 June 2008.
Once the article is opened for publishing, I will add the jury information which was sourced within the original submission. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 8:58, 10 June 2008.
Yellowdesk, the jury information is key in relation to the issue of the case being a politically motivated prosecution by the DOJ. The judge bared the defense and prosecution from raising the claim in court, so the jury could not have known about the accusations. Even though the jury was in the dark on the issue, the jury members released a statement to the press they felt the case was purely politically motivated and such statements have caused congress to review the case in conjunction with the Siegelman case-- Jacob2727 ( talk) 18:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
All, I would like to adjust the following point in the Wecht summarization to read as follows:
Buchanan was known for her high-profile prosecutions of prominent Democrats such as Sheriff Pete DeFazio, former mayor Tom Murphy, former mayor O'connor, a County Judge, Joseph Jaffe, and mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
There are news coverage in the local paper that reference both the Ravenstahl and O'connor investigations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob2727 ( talk • contribs) 17:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Bdushaw, I think when you summarized the expenses related to the charges, you misrepresented them slightly. It is my understanding that the defense claimed that the total expenses of the 84 counts was 1,778. After the 43 counts were dismissed, the defense revised this claim to a 1,600 amount. I'll attempt to find the newspaper reference to the amounts. It will take time since the numbers moved around during the proceedings of the case. Jaco2727 ( talk) 12:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be beneficial to mention the congressional review of the case and the OPR investigation into the case that has been revealed? Jaco2727 ( talk) 10:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
In the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17attorneys.html?ref=washington It seems we might have to start thinking about the next phase of this saga, and how to approach the article organization for that. Bdushaw ( talk) 10:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
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help)New report just came out. Read about it here [2] and the report is here [3]. This information should be added. Remember ( talk) 19:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It appears that in the minds of congressional investigators, there is a link between the Siegelman and Wecht cases. On the 26th of June, Congress subpoenaed all the records, correspondences, etc. in the Wecht and Siegelman case. The interesting point is that in the request, congress intertwined the two cases. Here is the link:
http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFs/Conyers080627.pdf
Perhaps we should merged the two case discussions of Wecht and Siegelman under a heading of alleged selective prosecutions to be more in line with congress' viewpoint on the cases. Jacob2727 ( talk) 6:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
If there are selective prosecutions, how many cases are there of "refusal to prosecute" based upon power, influence, political connections, cronyism, corruption and anarchy?
The L A Times reporter, Scott Glover detailed a story that the CA US Attorney, Tom O'Brien disbanded the Public Corruption Unit and threatened career prosecutors with retaliations if they dared to speak to the Press!
Laserhaas ( talk) 05:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
On Comedy Central (perhaps the most reliable reference we have...): http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/17/fired-us-attorney-i-was-working-for-the-sith-lords/ It is interesting to hear him comment on the various aspects of the mess. We on Wikipedia go through the references and try to summarized as best and NPOV as we can; I am always a little nervous that we get it right. Mr. Iglesias nicely reaffirms our take on the situation, it seems to me. He uses "unprecedented" to describe the firings, by the way. Bdushaw ( talk) 04:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Article on report detailing illegal hiring practices Remember ( talk) 18:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
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help) Chiara's dismissal was always a bit of a mystery to me - we never heard much about her and why she was fired.
Bdushaw (
talk)
20:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
ITS A SCANDAL NOT A CONTROVERSY....ALSO WHY IS THE ARTICLE SO HYPOCRITICAL? —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
24.111.234.4 (
talk)
05:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
THE report even says that the justice department.... the group which is trusted to uphold the law....violated it!!!! THATS A SCANDAL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.111.234.4 ( talk) 05:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Amidst all the exciting news today, a special prosecutor:
Lichtblau, Eric (September 29, 2008).
"Special Prosecutor Named in Attorney Firings Case". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-29. {{
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I believe we are justified in declaring the firings as politically motivated - our lead may be due for an overhaul. Bdushaw ( talk) 22:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
There's something like this at the bottom, with reams of stuff that has no direct relation to the attorney firings. It makes no sense to be here. I can't see any reason not to take it out, and lots of reasons why it should be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate ( talk • contribs) 18:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I just tried to make improvements to this article, adding in appointment of special prosecutor, findings of DOJ report, structuring the top so that it has a real lead (instead of hundreds of words) by pushing most of that info below the table of contents (which is most attractive, most appropriate as per guidelines, and definitely most useful to readers) and started sections on the DOJ findings on this matter and the IG report. I also started to kill adjectives and add neutral language whenever i came across stuff. All were instantly reverted to the vastly inferior existing version. There are other huge problems with this article -- for instance all of the nonsesnes at the bottom about "other bush controversies;" arguably you could have links to the relevant pages on those, but large summaries of 6 or so unrelated cases should just be automaticall deleted. The ultimate no brainer. Also, the structure, with weird digressions about case law relating to the replacement of US attorneys in general before getting into the specifics of the matter at hand, is poor. The specific, relevant stuff should be higher than the general, background stuff. At any rate, take a look at my last revision. I really can't believe an objective person won't recognize those for the improvements they are.
And why "revert all" when at the very lease i am adding in important and useful information? They're just hitting the undo button, without making any effort to improve the article themselves. Bali ultimate ( talk) 19:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Yellowdesk: Thanks for taking the time to respond. While i'm new to taking wikipedia edits seriously, i'm not new. But one of my weaknesses is lack of knowledge on policy. I'm almost certain that there is a policy that calls for stripping our irrelevant information ("kitchen sink" stuff i call it.) In this instance we have an article that's about a controversy over alleged abuse of power for political reasons by the Bush administration in the Justice Department. Someone then includes over 1,000 words about other alleged abuses of power by the Bush Administration. While all of this kitchen sink stuff might belong in an article titled "A review of alleged abuses of power by the bush administration" it seems entirely innapropriate to include in an article about the specifics of the firing of 9 federal prosecutors. Do you know what the specific guideline on irrelevant information in an article might be? I'll bet one unit of whatever currency didn't lose value today that such a guideline exists. Best and thanks. Bali ultimate ( talk) 01:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Sparked by the recent reports on Schlozman, I've carried out my earlier threat to reorganize the article. See how you like it; I won't put up too much of a fight over changes, but the organization I've implemented makes the most sense to me. The top section - Issues in brief - was meant to give the reader a quick overview of all the issues and a bit of a roadmap. It makes no sense for it to appear later on down the article. I consider the sections:
4 Replacement of the U.S. Attorneys 5 Reactions and congressional investigation 5.1 January 2007: Initial reaction 5.2 February 2007: The controversy blossoms 5.3 March 2007: Transition to scandal o 5.3.1 Battle resignation o 5.3.2 Sampson resignation o 5.3.3 Calls for Gonzales resignation o 5.3.4 Executive Privilege claims + 5.3.4.1 Taylor testimony + 5.3.4.2 Contempt of Congress charges o 5.3.5 Goodling resignation 6 Subpoenas and lost emails 7 Congressional hearings 8 Status of interim U.S. Attorneys, through June 2007
to be chronologically linked, hence they should not, IMO, be broken up. It was the never ending expansion of these sections that prompted the creation of the associated timeline article.
It occurred to me that the Patriot Act reauthorization might be ported to a new article altogether, along the lines of our discussion about creating a set of articles all related to the DoJ mess. This section was originally to justify the "unprecedented" statement, but seems to me there are sufficient references now for that. Just a thought.
Bdushaw (
talk)
12:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I've developed this introductory paragraph a bit more, and also brought it up to date (the Bush White House is past tense now). This paragraph seems to me to be rather important - setting the tone for the article and touching upon some, well, touchy subjects. I'm not altogether sure that I got it right, or that I got NPOV right either - I think so, but... So this is to open a review and discussion of this paragraph, and also, perhaps, the selection of "Main Issues" that we have. Are we missing anything? Could they be reorganized? etc. Bdushaw ( talk) 05:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is gigantic and is only one of a series of articles related to this event, is there any way to get this down to the basic facts and either rely on one of the many sub articles on this subject or its sources. Bonewah ( talk) 15:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It is probably a bit late for this, but wouldn't "Controversy over the dismissal of U.S. attorneys" be a less confusing title? The current title is ambiguous as to whether it is the attorneys or the controversy that is being dismissed. Grover cleveland ( talk) 15:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The lead in this article is a highly charged POV that is not accurate. Nor the is the citation valid. Dismissal of U.S. attorneys is routine with each new administration. The lead should make that perfectly clear. It was the Democratic senators who objected, and in all, only 7 attorneys were dismissed. Bush had appointed every one of them and had the legal right to dimiss them with or without cause. They all serve at the pleasure of the president. It is NOT unprecedented. It is tradition. The Democrats charged it was because these particular attorneys would not investigate ACORN voter fraud. But evidence from valid sources shows otherwise. David Iglesias being a prime example. Malke 2010 ( talk) 00:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. Thanks for your comments on my edit. I think the whole thing is just politics because the President has every right to dismiss any U.S. attorney at any time for any reason since they all serve at the pleasure of the president. There is no guarantee that they will serve a full term, and all of the attorneys in question had been appointed in 2001. I think the problem with the Bush administration is two-fold. I think, and I don't have citations for this opinion mind you, that at the start of the second administration, they had complaints from various partisan quarters, but put the matter on the back burner. Then when the complaints heated up, and perhaps seeing an opportunity to put in more favorable people, they just went ahead and dismissed en masse. I think they had complaints from monetary donors to the party, frankly, because I think money talks on both sides of the aisle. Then, of course, the senators from the various states weighed in, and the whole thing was off to the races. I do think the lead should reflect that the president does have that right to dimiss at any time for any reason, and in fact, legally, the president doesn't have to give a reason. As per the positive evaluations, that doesn't mean anything. What president is going to say, "Hey, the guy I picked is a turkey?" Plus, these are already accomplished individuals, why muck up their resumes? Nobody does that, in part, I think, because it would have made Bush look dumber than his choices. I think the press went nuts and turned it into a 'scandal de jour,' (spelling?), but I do think the lead should reflect the number dismissed right off the bat, because honestly that's the only reason I looked it up, and I found the number from another source. Thanks Malke 2010 ( talk) 06:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I think the opening sentence should say, "the dismissal of seven U.S. Attorneys. . ." because that's what people would first want to know, how many? Also, I'd like to see comparison with other administrations. Reagan, Bush, Clinton all bounced them at each term. And the line about the other two attorneys dismissed at the same time, are they also part of the this dismissed group? If so, then it's nine attorneys, but when I Google it, it usually comes up as seven. Also, the DOJ report does question the U.S. Attorney's decisions to prosecute, specifically David Iglesias. So the line about prosecution decisions should be clarified to identify the attorneys as the subject of that line. Because as soon as Iglesias was out the door, his replacement, Larry Gomez handed down a 26 count felony indictment on Manny Aragon who then plead guilty to 3 felony counts of mail fraud and conspiracy. So coming up with a 26 count indictment isn't something you do on the fly. The evidence had to be there all along. So I can see why Iglesias got fired. Manny Aragon was a NM state senator (local politics rule) and a Democrat, so politics played a part on Iglesias' side of the equation. And that could be added in the section that mentions that it isn't clear why the attorneys were all fired. There are 93 U.S. attorneys in total, so bouncing 7 of them hardly seems excessive or unusual. It probably happens all the time after mid-term elections when a new party is in and wants to return a political favor by appointing a donors son, etc. There will always be guys who aren't performing. And possibly the Bush administration fed the scandal themselves to distract from some other thing they didn't want reporters paying attention to. Might be interesting to see what was going on in Iraq or at Gitmo on that day. Malke 2010 ( talk) 23:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
August 2009 (UTC)
It's much ado about nothing. Unprecedented to use politics to fire political appointees? Hardly. Seven guys out of 100. That's nothing. When Clinton came into office in '93 he fired them all on Jan 20th and told them to get out of the office that day. No notice, nothing, just clear out your desks today. The media later tried to make something out of that, but it ended up going nowhere. They attorneys are all appointed by the president and they can get bounced at any time. There will always be guys who don't get the job done. David Iglesias is the biggest, loudest example. He was downright dangerous for allowing Manny Aragon to get away with bribery and mail fraud. They are all appointed for political reasons so bouncing them for political reasons hardly seems a scandal. People just don't like Bush. Who can blame them? So he gets treated more harshly. And notice Obama didn't rehire Iglesias as a U.S. Attorney. That tells you something right there. The guy is now a reserve attorney in the JAG corps, where if he doesn't do his job, he goes to jail. Obama's not dumb. He doesn't want Iglesias stinking up the place. Malke 2010 ( talk) 14:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm curious mainly, I've always felt that while the firings were legal they were improper and politically motivated. Those terms show up quite frequently in the sources about this controversy. Is the legality of the situation more significant though? RTRimmel ( talk) 00:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Should the article title be "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy"? Or should it be changed to "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys in 2006"? The former title had been in place for quite some time. An editor moved the article to the new title (the latter title) very recently. That editor thought it best to remove the word "controversy" from the article title. I reverted the move. I think such a move needs to be discussed via a Move Discussion or a Talk Page consensus. I don't think it should be done unilaterally. Any thoughts? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 19:33, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
The best and usual practice at Wikipedia is to exclude the word "controversy" from article titles except when it has become part of the common name for the event, such as the antinomian controversy. This is because a Wikipedia article like this one will often include much information that is not controversial at all, even if it became notable because of controversy. This is merely a special case of the more general rule that titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that. In this case, a title like "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys by George W. Bush Administration" is precise enough, and the word "controversy" does not really remove any ambiguity, and instead confines the scope too narrowly. Likewise if we renamed Kirk Douglas to Movie stardom of Kirk Douglas or renamed Abraham Lincoln to Political career of Abraham Lincoln or renamed Empire State Building to Height of the Empire State Building. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 05:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the "move request" at the following Talk Page ( Talk:Hillary Clinton email system#Rename this? (June 2015)) has finally been resolved. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 22:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Just noticed that Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy documents was WP:PRODded. It does look to be a strange article for Wikipedia. Posting here not so that someone will deprod but in case those involved with this page have an idea for what to do with the material, if anything. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Per WP:CRITS: "Sections or article titles should generally not include the word "controversies". Instead, titles should simply name the event, for example, "2009 boycott" or "Hunting incident". The word "controversy" should not appear in the title except in the rare situations when it has become part of the commonly accepted name for the event, such as Creation–evolution controversy." I dont believe that the dismissal of US attorneys under Bush has become commonly know as a controversy so i propose that this article should be renamed Dismissal of U.S. attorneys under George W Bush or Dismissal of U.S. attorneys in 2006 or something similar and neutral. Bonewah ( talk) 16:50, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
This article series seems overly long and in depth for an event that turned out to be mostly a footnote of history. I have not had a chance to pour over these articles just yet but i propose that an effort be made to trim down this series to just the essential facts while still providing the coverage one would expect from an encyclopedia. Im not saying that information should be deleted per se, but that only a certain level of detail is needed, and any more than that is a distraction. I will provide more detailed examples as i have time to review this series. Bonewah ( talk) 16:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I am starting this section to keep track of any links which end up getting removed due to my efforts to trim down this article down.
here is a copy of the article before I began. Ill try and recover any citations that are now orphaned. Bonewah ( talk) 16:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
I think thats all of them from the main page. Ill add more as i edit further. Bonewah ( talk) 15:22, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
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I noted the quite vigorous changes in December 2015 to this article by a single editor. I write to express several concerns about these changes. While I noted that Bonewah is a senior and experienced editor, this article was forged in considerable, long-term discussion among several dedicated editors - I think I object to a single editor taking to the article some years later with disregard for the careful compromises, language selections, etc. that built the original article. The initial sentence used the word "unprecedented," for example, which is not only correct, but was discussed considerably both on this page and in the news reports. The recent article revisions have greatly blunted the essence of the controversy - it was unprecedented and the actions undermined the integrity and impartiality of US Attorneys. Meanwhile, this article is a political article and it (an other such articles) have been regularly attacked by those (on either side, to be fair) wishing to spin the article in favor of their side - (is this what Bonewah is doing?). I will not claim that Bonewah is not acting in good faith, I tend to give experienced, long-term editors the benefit of the doubt, but I do make the point that it is important to approach articles like this with a degree of sensitivity and caution (I made this mistake when I first began with this article; see the early Talk discussions!). I worked with Yellowdesk, the long term caretaker of this article, for quite a while on this article and I am sure he is not happy with Bonewah's changes. He can speak for himself, though he may have tired of the fight. It is not POV to make clear and explicit what the essence of the controversy was - the unprecedented firing of US attorneys that undermined the integrity and impartiality in the performance of their jobs with the extraordinary power that they wield. This article has had regular inquiries along the lines of "what's the big deal? (c.f., above) - It was a big deal (unprecedented, politically-motivated personnel changes, lengthy hearings, numerous resignations, damage to US Attorney's integrity, etc.) and the article should make clear why it was. Bdushaw ( talk) 09:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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I removed part of Goodling resignation section diff as a potential BLP problem. While we dont name names, the cited source does. This is a bit of a tough one, the rumor itself existed, i.e. its not that we are starting a rumor here, it was started in the Justice department itself. Whats more, the allegation that the subject of the rumor was fired due to the rumor is also true, i.e. that was alleged and investigated. However, the investigation concluded that the subject was not fired due to the rumor, so we have another potential BLP problem in claiming that Goodling fired this person due to the rumor. The BLP problem there is alleging that Goodling fired that person improperly. You could make an argument that this is all relevant, and that a rewrite could solve at least the second BLP problem, but my instinct is to simply follow what wp:blp says in its lede "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Suchmaterial requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, to this policy, and to Wikipedia's three core content policies:" "We must get the article right." My instinct is to simply leave it all out barring both really good sourcing and a convincing argument that inclusion of this material is actually needed to further the reader's understanding of the subject. Bonewah ( talk) 15:08, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Ok lets get to discussing specific edits. Id like to start with the "fallout" section and this diff edit. Im ok with a list of who resigned or was dismissed, although i think it should be converted from a list to prose. I think the following passage should be removed as speculative editorializing. By April 2007, the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice, the influence of politics on the appointment of some of the U.S. Attorneys, and the alleged politically motivated prosecutions by some of the U.S. Attorneys began to affect cases of public corruption and voter fraud nationwide. According to the ''[[National Law Journal]],'' <blockquote>"Just the appearance of political influence in cases related to those firings, combined with the recent, unusual reversal of a federal public corruption conviction in Wisconsin [c.f., [[Georgia Thompson]]], some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers to question the political motivation of prosecutors in certain cases; make magistrates and judges more skeptical of the evidence before them; and perhaps even chill line prosecutors in their pursuit of some indictments."<ref name="NLJ-Coyle-2007-04-27" /></blockquote>
The problem i have with this is that its loaded with weasel words because it doesnt cite any new facts. "some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers" "and perhaps.." Oh? "some" say a lot of things, and perhaps a lot of things lets stick to facts not unnamed opinions and speculation. I propose, for now, this edit diff as it cuts to just the facts. Bonewah ( talk) 14:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
There is a significant amount of material in this article that is really just unnecessary detail that adds little to the reader's understanding of the subject and serves as a distraction. Id like to use this section to discuss that sort of removal, things that are problems because they are mostly irrelevant or extraneous. Bonewah ( talk) 23:16, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
The Congressional hearings section is really long and basically boils down to "these people exerted executive privilege and these people were found in contempt. I think we should move the details of this to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy hearings article and sum it up in two or three sentences in the "Reactions and congressional investigation" section above it. Get to the point in this article, interested readers can reference the sub article if they want more detail. Bonewah ( talk) 14:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Subpoenas and lost emails section is relevant, but needs tightening up as it is overly long and pointlessly detailed. I am removing the paragraphs:
On April 10, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for documents from Gonzales that included the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely redacted in the DOJ's previous release of documents. [1] In a letter accompanying the subpoena, Rep. John Conyers ( D), the chair of the committee, wrote "We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials.... Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs...At this point further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose." [1] The Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, responded to the subpoena stating that the administration would like "to reach an accommodation with the Congress" but that it might not be possible. "Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned.... Furthermore, many of the documents Congress is now seeking have already been available to them for review. Because there are individual privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate the Congress would choose this option." [2]
References
I feel that this doesnt add much to our understanding, it merely adds bulk to the article and makes it harder to read and understand. Bonewah ( talk) 14:46, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
The section "Status of interim U.S. Attorneys, through June 2007" seems mostly pointless. Maybe we could say something about what happened to the positions after all this stuff was done, but this section doesnt really do that and, i feel, that it simply distracts from the narrative, the 'controvery' around the firings. Bonewah ( talk) 14:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
This section contains the line "In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress" with a dead citation. Does anyone have a still good citation or know what became of this? that was 2007, we should be able to say what the special prosecutor found. Bonewah ( talk) 14:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
I removed some fluff material from the section "Reactions and congressional investigation". A line that the senate convened and has oversight over the judiciary and a line that Feinstein issued a press release. Both are mostly extraneous and so i removed them for that reason. I preserved the relevant links. Bonewah ( talk) 13:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
In the section "Testimony of Sara Taylor: Claims of executive privilege" i am removing some extra material. The line "She was granted the unusual allowance of having her attorney, W. Neil Eggleston, next to her at the witness table to advise her on which questions she could answer and remain in accord with Bush's claim of executive privilege." would need to be sourced to demonstrate relevance to this section. As it stands now, it looks like fluff. Bonewah ( talk) 14:02, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
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Should "United States Presidents' Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys" be elevated from a sub-category of U.S. President H. W. Bush to a more general higher-level category, or possibly its own top-level article?
The 2015 assessment of this article as a "footnote in history" was short-lived. In June 2020, the thorough cataloging of this subject matter by past editors approaches prescience in its relevance to current affairs. With U.S. President Donald Trump's apparent firing (removal from office through U.S. Presidential Executive Authority) of the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, this subject is no longer just a sub-article of President H. W. Bush "controversies". The subject matter is of general relevance. Presidential firings of U.S. District Attorneys for allegedly improper or unlawful reasons has now escalated over three U.S. Presidents, H. W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. Further, there is significant ongoing newsworthiness in President Trump's apparent firing of a U.S. District Attorney investigating Trump's business affairs, and that this action is taking place only 135 days before the U.S. Presidential Election on 3 November 2020. ("Apparent" because the announcement, as of the time of this comment, came only from U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Should Trump disclaim direct involvement in contradiction of his own Attorney General, that only elevates the newsworthiness of the subject matter). It appears likely this subject matter will continue to be covered in both mainstream journalism and academic sources. Wikipedia users will be searching for information about the topic in general, not primarily as a historical reference to the H. W. Bush Presidency.
I acknowledge the subject matter is politically controversial and elevating the subject may be viewed as politically biased. However, addressing the issue of Presidential firings of U.S. Attorneys as its own issue across Presidencies, rather than primarily as "controversy" sub-categories in individual Presidents, may help negate concerns about political bias and "controversy-loading" individual Presidential articles. I see the primary barrier, pending community discussion, as the significant cost in time of skilled, neutral editing.
Currently this subject matter is scattered.
[1].
See also:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53123847 "Geoffrey Berman: Trump fires top US prosecutor who refused to quit", BBC(6 June 2020);
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/nyregion/trump-geoffrey-berman-fired-sdny.html, New York Times (6 June 2020; link warning: paywall);
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/william-barr-trump-fired-sdny-federal-prosector (6 June 2020);
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/us-prosecutor-who-probed-trump-allies-refuses-to-quit/articleshow/76480102.cms (6 June 2020).
-- WillisNo ( talk) 23:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
References
An edit was made to this section by anon 71.129.65.194 diff here. I decided to start fleshing it out, but now believe that while this info might be useful somewhere, so far none of these are real firings (at least not comparable to current US attorney dismissal situation). These people were replaced because they were promoted, or were interim, or died. Suggestions?? R. Baley 19:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Since I don't think it belongs in the article, I've removed it and preserved the work here. . . R. Baley 19:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
In addition, Clinton appointed U.S. Attorneys were also replaced by Clinton in his second term with the following:
1997 — Eric H. Holder Jr. moved to the Justice Department where he was unanimously confirmed by the senate as deputy attorney general. He was replaced with Mary Lou Leary an interem U.S. attorney who, though she did not apply for the job on a permanent basis, was nonetheless the first US Attourney to serve the Washington area. Mary Lou Leary was ultimately replaced with Wilma A. Lewis. [1]
- Jim Wiggens, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1996, was ultimately succeeded by Beverly Martin for the Middle District of Georgia U.S. Attorney position. [2]
- Caryl Privett resigned on September 8, 1997 and was succeeded by G. Douglas Jones as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. [3] Privett had served in an interim capacity since February 1995 when federal judges in Birmingham tapped her to fill the position until Clinton made an appointment. [4]
- Other relacements this year include: Thomas Scott, and Sharon Zealey. citation needed
1998 — Byron Jones, Denise O’Donnell, Paul Warner, Scott Lasser, Paul Seave, Ellen Curran, Stephen Robinson, Richard Deane Jr., Alejandro Mayorkas, Robert Green, Harry Litman, and Jose Rivera. citation needed
1999 — Melvin Kahle, Gregory Vega, Thomas Strickland, Donna Bucella, Daniel French, Quenton White, Jackie Williams, Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., and Carl Schnee. citation needed
2000 — Daniel Webber Jr., Norman Bay, Steven Reed, Ted McBride, and Audrey Fleissig. citation needed
References
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Well, there is one precedent similar to the fired U.S. Attorneys affair - the Saturday Night Massacre. Though the SNM was higher up and much closer to the President, the themes are rather similar. I doubt we want to include that in the article, however. I know of no press accounts that relate the U.S. Attorneys to the SNM. Note that it was entirely "legal" for the President to fire Archibald Cox...it was just really bad public policy.
I've poked at the lede a bit. It seemed to be getting a little convoluted/redundant. I don't think we have to bend over too far backwards to make the case for "unprecedented" in the lede. The references and article make that case clearly IMO. I am happy to see "Gonzales-gate" gone from the lede - this does not seem to be a common phrase for this scandal. Bdushaw 20:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
1. The title of the article is
Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. Shouldn't this be unabbreviated to
Dismissal of United States attorneys controversy?
2. The lead section calls it an unconcluded dispute. Isn't common practice to use the term "ongoing" instead of "unconcluded"?
A
ecis
Brievenbus
15:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
In the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-renzi23feb23,0,2161875.story
Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) was indicted. He had apparently been under investigation by Charlton - see the bottom of the article. Was Charlton fired because he had started investigating Renzi?
By rights, this and other related articles should come under a broader article on the politicization of the Department of Justice. That would be a monumental task, however. I suspect that this article serves as the proxy for the general article. But one of the problems this article faces is what to do with material that is related but not to the specific issue of the fired attorneys. Bdushaw ( talk) 20:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/29alabama.html
Noises from the appellate court sound similar to the court's reactions to some of the other allegedly political prosecutions. This wikipedia article is focussed on the dismissed USA's, but there is the broader issue of the politicization of the Dept. of Justice - the USA's issue is a symptom of that. Bdushaw ( talk) 16:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
This is the same rationale for including the Wecht trial information as well. It is also under review by congress in conjunction with the Siegelman case for being politically motivated. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've deleted this long-winded section again. The relation to fired attorneys, even with the broad scope of this article, is not obvious to me. The section was repeated verbatim at Cyril H. Wecht and also at Mary Beth Buchanan. If we're going to have a section on this topic I suggest (a) the discussion be reduced to a very modest/small paragraph (use a "See Also" to guide the reader to the greater discussions elsewhere, and (b) the modest paragraph show explicitly the relation of the topic to the fired attorneys/politicization of the department of justice issue. Bdushaw ( talk) 21:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is a relation of the Wecht case to Siegelman, o.k. - I don't object to a small section on Wecht. But we've tried very hard to keep this article to manageable size. The section that has been "proposed," say, is much too long and meandering. It is also mostly repeated elsewhere as noted above. So, IMO, if you want to add a section, o.k., but please keep it brief, point out that the Wecht case is related to the Siegelman issue, and show how. You don't have to repeat the material at Cyril H. Wecht and Mary Beth Buchanan, you may merely redirect the reader there. (Even the Seigelman section is a little long, if you ask me.) Bdushaw ( talk) 19:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
We're not making any headway against the reverter, 75.205.XX.XXX; shall we file an incident report? In the mean time, I'll store my quote concerning Paulouse resignation here: Palouse resigned as U.S. Attorney on November 19, 2007 to work on legal policy issues at the Justice Department in Washington. [1] Bdushaw ( talk) 04:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy&action=edit§ion=38 Editing Talk:Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy (section) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I've reported a 3 revert rule violation. Bdushaw ( talk) 17:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've developed a short section on this subject, drawn from the lengthy, disputed addition. I think with that I will stand down from this discussion and let others take it from here...probably best that I recuse myself for the time being, under the circumstances. Bdushaw ( talk) 20:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Bdushaw's condensed section fails to capture the issues of the case and its relation to the US Attorney scandal. While I respect his or her view to keep the article concise, his/her summarization is not as clear as the one added by user 75.207.232.31 on June 9th at 12:40. Perhaps it would be better to adjust what Bdushaw has provided as a summarization to include the issues of the jury reporting that they felt the case was politically motivate after sitting through the proceedings. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:05, 9 June 2008.
Additionally, we may have not had the issues over the past few weeks with 75.xxx.xxx.xx if Bdushaw had taken the lead to summarize the Wecht article opposed to deleting it. It is unfortunate that when 75.xxx.xxx.xx did summarize the article, Bdushaw requested the information be reverted and block the user. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 21:05, 9 June 2008.
Once the article is opened for publishing, I will add the jury information which was sourced within the original submission. Jacbo2727 ( talk) 8:58, 10 June 2008.
Yellowdesk, the jury information is key in relation to the issue of the case being a politically motivated prosecution by the DOJ. The judge bared the defense and prosecution from raising the claim in court, so the jury could not have known about the accusations. Even though the jury was in the dark on the issue, the jury members released a statement to the press they felt the case was purely politically motivated and such statements have caused congress to review the case in conjunction with the Siegelman case-- Jacob2727 ( talk) 18:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
All, I would like to adjust the following point in the Wecht summarization to read as follows:
Buchanan was known for her high-profile prosecutions of prominent Democrats such as Sheriff Pete DeFazio, former mayor Tom Murphy, former mayor O'connor, a County Judge, Joseph Jaffe, and mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
There are news coverage in the local paper that reference both the Ravenstahl and O'connor investigations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob2727 ( talk • contribs) 17:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Bdushaw, I think when you summarized the expenses related to the charges, you misrepresented them slightly. It is my understanding that the defense claimed that the total expenses of the 84 counts was 1,778. After the 43 counts were dismissed, the defense revised this claim to a 1,600 amount. I'll attempt to find the newspaper reference to the amounts. It will take time since the numbers moved around during the proceedings of the case. Jaco2727 ( talk) 12:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be beneficial to mention the congressional review of the case and the OPR investigation into the case that has been revealed? Jaco2727 ( talk) 10:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
In the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17attorneys.html?ref=washington It seems we might have to start thinking about the next phase of this saga, and how to approach the article organization for that. Bdushaw ( talk) 10:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
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help)New report just came out. Read about it here [2] and the report is here [3]. This information should be added. Remember ( talk) 19:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It appears that in the minds of congressional investigators, there is a link between the Siegelman and Wecht cases. On the 26th of June, Congress subpoenaed all the records, correspondences, etc. in the Wecht and Siegelman case. The interesting point is that in the request, congress intertwined the two cases. Here is the link:
http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFs/Conyers080627.pdf
Perhaps we should merged the two case discussions of Wecht and Siegelman under a heading of alleged selective prosecutions to be more in line with congress' viewpoint on the cases. Jacob2727 ( talk) 6:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
If there are selective prosecutions, how many cases are there of "refusal to prosecute" based upon power, influence, political connections, cronyism, corruption and anarchy?
The L A Times reporter, Scott Glover detailed a story that the CA US Attorney, Tom O'Brien disbanded the Public Corruption Unit and threatened career prosecutors with retaliations if they dared to speak to the Press!
Laserhaas ( talk) 05:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
On Comedy Central (perhaps the most reliable reference we have...): http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/17/fired-us-attorney-i-was-working-for-the-sith-lords/ It is interesting to hear him comment on the various aspects of the mess. We on Wikipedia go through the references and try to summarized as best and NPOV as we can; I am always a little nervous that we get it right. Mr. Iglesias nicely reaffirms our take on the situation, it seems to me. He uses "unprecedented" to describe the firings, by the way. Bdushaw ( talk) 04:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Article on report detailing illegal hiring practices Remember ( talk) 18:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
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help) Chiara's dismissal was always a bit of a mystery to me - we never heard much about her and why she was fired.
Bdushaw (
talk)
20:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
ITS A SCANDAL NOT A CONTROVERSY....ALSO WHY IS THE ARTICLE SO HYPOCRITICAL? —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
24.111.234.4 (
talk)
05:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
THE report even says that the justice department.... the group which is trusted to uphold the law....violated it!!!! THATS A SCANDAL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.111.234.4 ( talk) 05:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Amidst all the exciting news today, a special prosecutor:
Lichtblau, Eric (September 29, 2008).
"Special Prosecutor Named in Attorney Firings Case". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-29. {{
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I believe we are justified in declaring the firings as politically motivated - our lead may be due for an overhaul. Bdushaw ( talk) 22:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
There's something like this at the bottom, with reams of stuff that has no direct relation to the attorney firings. It makes no sense to be here. I can't see any reason not to take it out, and lots of reasons why it should be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bali ultimate ( talk • contribs) 18:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I just tried to make improvements to this article, adding in appointment of special prosecutor, findings of DOJ report, structuring the top so that it has a real lead (instead of hundreds of words) by pushing most of that info below the table of contents (which is most attractive, most appropriate as per guidelines, and definitely most useful to readers) and started sections on the DOJ findings on this matter and the IG report. I also started to kill adjectives and add neutral language whenever i came across stuff. All were instantly reverted to the vastly inferior existing version. There are other huge problems with this article -- for instance all of the nonsesnes at the bottom about "other bush controversies;" arguably you could have links to the relevant pages on those, but large summaries of 6 or so unrelated cases should just be automaticall deleted. The ultimate no brainer. Also, the structure, with weird digressions about case law relating to the replacement of US attorneys in general before getting into the specifics of the matter at hand, is poor. The specific, relevant stuff should be higher than the general, background stuff. At any rate, take a look at my last revision. I really can't believe an objective person won't recognize those for the improvements they are.
And why "revert all" when at the very lease i am adding in important and useful information? They're just hitting the undo button, without making any effort to improve the article themselves. Bali ultimate ( talk) 19:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Yellowdesk: Thanks for taking the time to respond. While i'm new to taking wikipedia edits seriously, i'm not new. But one of my weaknesses is lack of knowledge on policy. I'm almost certain that there is a policy that calls for stripping our irrelevant information ("kitchen sink" stuff i call it.) In this instance we have an article that's about a controversy over alleged abuse of power for political reasons by the Bush administration in the Justice Department. Someone then includes over 1,000 words about other alleged abuses of power by the Bush Administration. While all of this kitchen sink stuff might belong in an article titled "A review of alleged abuses of power by the bush administration" it seems entirely innapropriate to include in an article about the specifics of the firing of 9 federal prosecutors. Do you know what the specific guideline on irrelevant information in an article might be? I'll bet one unit of whatever currency didn't lose value today that such a guideline exists. Best and thanks. Bali ultimate ( talk) 01:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Sparked by the recent reports on Schlozman, I've carried out my earlier threat to reorganize the article. See how you like it; I won't put up too much of a fight over changes, but the organization I've implemented makes the most sense to me. The top section - Issues in brief - was meant to give the reader a quick overview of all the issues and a bit of a roadmap. It makes no sense for it to appear later on down the article. I consider the sections:
4 Replacement of the U.S. Attorneys 5 Reactions and congressional investigation 5.1 January 2007: Initial reaction 5.2 February 2007: The controversy blossoms 5.3 March 2007: Transition to scandal o 5.3.1 Battle resignation o 5.3.2 Sampson resignation o 5.3.3 Calls for Gonzales resignation o 5.3.4 Executive Privilege claims + 5.3.4.1 Taylor testimony + 5.3.4.2 Contempt of Congress charges o 5.3.5 Goodling resignation 6 Subpoenas and lost emails 7 Congressional hearings 8 Status of interim U.S. Attorneys, through June 2007
to be chronologically linked, hence they should not, IMO, be broken up. It was the never ending expansion of these sections that prompted the creation of the associated timeline article.
It occurred to me that the Patriot Act reauthorization might be ported to a new article altogether, along the lines of our discussion about creating a set of articles all related to the DoJ mess. This section was originally to justify the "unprecedented" statement, but seems to me there are sufficient references now for that. Just a thought.
Bdushaw (
talk)
12:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I've developed this introductory paragraph a bit more, and also brought it up to date (the Bush White House is past tense now). This paragraph seems to me to be rather important - setting the tone for the article and touching upon some, well, touchy subjects. I'm not altogether sure that I got it right, or that I got NPOV right either - I think so, but... So this is to open a review and discussion of this paragraph, and also, perhaps, the selection of "Main Issues" that we have. Are we missing anything? Could they be reorganized? etc. Bdushaw ( talk) 05:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is gigantic and is only one of a series of articles related to this event, is there any way to get this down to the basic facts and either rely on one of the many sub articles on this subject or its sources. Bonewah ( talk) 15:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It is probably a bit late for this, but wouldn't "Controversy over the dismissal of U.S. attorneys" be a less confusing title? The current title is ambiguous as to whether it is the attorneys or the controversy that is being dismissed. Grover cleveland ( talk) 15:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The lead in this article is a highly charged POV that is not accurate. Nor the is the citation valid. Dismissal of U.S. attorneys is routine with each new administration. The lead should make that perfectly clear. It was the Democratic senators who objected, and in all, only 7 attorneys were dismissed. Bush had appointed every one of them and had the legal right to dimiss them with or without cause. They all serve at the pleasure of the president. It is NOT unprecedented. It is tradition. The Democrats charged it was because these particular attorneys would not investigate ACORN voter fraud. But evidence from valid sources shows otherwise. David Iglesias being a prime example. Malke 2010 ( talk) 00:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. Thanks for your comments on my edit. I think the whole thing is just politics because the President has every right to dismiss any U.S. attorney at any time for any reason since they all serve at the pleasure of the president. There is no guarantee that they will serve a full term, and all of the attorneys in question had been appointed in 2001. I think the problem with the Bush administration is two-fold. I think, and I don't have citations for this opinion mind you, that at the start of the second administration, they had complaints from various partisan quarters, but put the matter on the back burner. Then when the complaints heated up, and perhaps seeing an opportunity to put in more favorable people, they just went ahead and dismissed en masse. I think they had complaints from monetary donors to the party, frankly, because I think money talks on both sides of the aisle. Then, of course, the senators from the various states weighed in, and the whole thing was off to the races. I do think the lead should reflect that the president does have that right to dimiss at any time for any reason, and in fact, legally, the president doesn't have to give a reason. As per the positive evaluations, that doesn't mean anything. What president is going to say, "Hey, the guy I picked is a turkey?" Plus, these are already accomplished individuals, why muck up their resumes? Nobody does that, in part, I think, because it would have made Bush look dumber than his choices. I think the press went nuts and turned it into a 'scandal de jour,' (spelling?), but I do think the lead should reflect the number dismissed right off the bat, because honestly that's the only reason I looked it up, and I found the number from another source. Thanks Malke 2010 ( talk) 06:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I think the opening sentence should say, "the dismissal of seven U.S. Attorneys. . ." because that's what people would first want to know, how many? Also, I'd like to see comparison with other administrations. Reagan, Bush, Clinton all bounced them at each term. And the line about the other two attorneys dismissed at the same time, are they also part of the this dismissed group? If so, then it's nine attorneys, but when I Google it, it usually comes up as seven. Also, the DOJ report does question the U.S. Attorney's decisions to prosecute, specifically David Iglesias. So the line about prosecution decisions should be clarified to identify the attorneys as the subject of that line. Because as soon as Iglesias was out the door, his replacement, Larry Gomez handed down a 26 count felony indictment on Manny Aragon who then plead guilty to 3 felony counts of mail fraud and conspiracy. So coming up with a 26 count indictment isn't something you do on the fly. The evidence had to be there all along. So I can see why Iglesias got fired. Manny Aragon was a NM state senator (local politics rule) and a Democrat, so politics played a part on Iglesias' side of the equation. And that could be added in the section that mentions that it isn't clear why the attorneys were all fired. There are 93 U.S. attorneys in total, so bouncing 7 of them hardly seems excessive or unusual. It probably happens all the time after mid-term elections when a new party is in and wants to return a political favor by appointing a donors son, etc. There will always be guys who aren't performing. And possibly the Bush administration fed the scandal themselves to distract from some other thing they didn't want reporters paying attention to. Might be interesting to see what was going on in Iraq or at Gitmo on that day. Malke 2010 ( talk) 23:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
August 2009 (UTC)
It's much ado about nothing. Unprecedented to use politics to fire political appointees? Hardly. Seven guys out of 100. That's nothing. When Clinton came into office in '93 he fired them all on Jan 20th and told them to get out of the office that day. No notice, nothing, just clear out your desks today. The media later tried to make something out of that, but it ended up going nowhere. They attorneys are all appointed by the president and they can get bounced at any time. There will always be guys who don't get the job done. David Iglesias is the biggest, loudest example. He was downright dangerous for allowing Manny Aragon to get away with bribery and mail fraud. They are all appointed for political reasons so bouncing them for political reasons hardly seems a scandal. People just don't like Bush. Who can blame them? So he gets treated more harshly. And notice Obama didn't rehire Iglesias as a U.S. Attorney. That tells you something right there. The guy is now a reserve attorney in the JAG corps, where if he doesn't do his job, he goes to jail. Obama's not dumb. He doesn't want Iglesias stinking up the place. Malke 2010 ( talk) 14:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm curious mainly, I've always felt that while the firings were legal they were improper and politically motivated. Those terms show up quite frequently in the sources about this controversy. Is the legality of the situation more significant though? RTRimmel ( talk) 00:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Should the article title be "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy"? Or should it be changed to "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys in 2006"? The former title had been in place for quite some time. An editor moved the article to the new title (the latter title) very recently. That editor thought it best to remove the word "controversy" from the article title. I reverted the move. I think such a move needs to be discussed via a Move Discussion or a Talk Page consensus. I don't think it should be done unilaterally. Any thoughts? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 19:33, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
The best and usual practice at Wikipedia is to exclude the word "controversy" from article titles except when it has become part of the common name for the event, such as the antinomian controversy. This is because a Wikipedia article like this one will often include much information that is not controversial at all, even if it became notable because of controversy. This is merely a special case of the more general rule that titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that. In this case, a title like "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys by George W. Bush Administration" is precise enough, and the word "controversy" does not really remove any ambiguity, and instead confines the scope too narrowly. Likewise if we renamed Kirk Douglas to Movie stardom of Kirk Douglas or renamed Abraham Lincoln to Political career of Abraham Lincoln or renamed Empire State Building to Height of the Empire State Building. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 05:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the "move request" at the following Talk Page ( Talk:Hillary Clinton email system#Rename this? (June 2015)) has finally been resolved. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 22:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Just noticed that Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy documents was WP:PRODded. It does look to be a strange article for Wikipedia. Posting here not so that someone will deprod but in case those involved with this page have an idea for what to do with the material, if anything. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Per WP:CRITS: "Sections or article titles should generally not include the word "controversies". Instead, titles should simply name the event, for example, "2009 boycott" or "Hunting incident". The word "controversy" should not appear in the title except in the rare situations when it has become part of the commonly accepted name for the event, such as Creation–evolution controversy." I dont believe that the dismissal of US attorneys under Bush has become commonly know as a controversy so i propose that this article should be renamed Dismissal of U.S. attorneys under George W Bush or Dismissal of U.S. attorneys in 2006 or something similar and neutral. Bonewah ( talk) 16:50, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
This article series seems overly long and in depth for an event that turned out to be mostly a footnote of history. I have not had a chance to pour over these articles just yet but i propose that an effort be made to trim down this series to just the essential facts while still providing the coverage one would expect from an encyclopedia. Im not saying that information should be deleted per se, but that only a certain level of detail is needed, and any more than that is a distraction. I will provide more detailed examples as i have time to review this series. Bonewah ( talk) 16:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I am starting this section to keep track of any links which end up getting removed due to my efforts to trim down this article down.
here is a copy of the article before I began. Ill try and recover any citations that are now orphaned. Bonewah ( talk) 16:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
I think thats all of them from the main page. Ill add more as i edit further. Bonewah ( talk) 15:22, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 19:43, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I noted the quite vigorous changes in December 2015 to this article by a single editor. I write to express several concerns about these changes. While I noted that Bonewah is a senior and experienced editor, this article was forged in considerable, long-term discussion among several dedicated editors - I think I object to a single editor taking to the article some years later with disregard for the careful compromises, language selections, etc. that built the original article. The initial sentence used the word "unprecedented," for example, which is not only correct, but was discussed considerably both on this page and in the news reports. The recent article revisions have greatly blunted the essence of the controversy - it was unprecedented and the actions undermined the integrity and impartiality of US Attorneys. Meanwhile, this article is a political article and it (an other such articles) have been regularly attacked by those (on either side, to be fair) wishing to spin the article in favor of their side - (is this what Bonewah is doing?). I will not claim that Bonewah is not acting in good faith, I tend to give experienced, long-term editors the benefit of the doubt, but I do make the point that it is important to approach articles like this with a degree of sensitivity and caution (I made this mistake when I first began with this article; see the early Talk discussions!). I worked with Yellowdesk, the long term caretaker of this article, for quite a while on this article and I am sure he is not happy with Bonewah's changes. He can speak for himself, though he may have tired of the fight. It is not POV to make clear and explicit what the essence of the controversy was - the unprecedented firing of US attorneys that undermined the integrity and impartiality in the performance of their jobs with the extraordinary power that they wield. This article has had regular inquiries along the lines of "what's the big deal? (c.f., above) - It was a big deal (unprecedented, politically-motivated personnel changes, lengthy hearings, numerous resignations, damage to US Attorney's integrity, etc.) and the article should make clear why it was. Bdushaw ( talk) 09:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 22:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
I removed part of Goodling resignation section diff as a potential BLP problem. While we dont name names, the cited source does. This is a bit of a tough one, the rumor itself existed, i.e. its not that we are starting a rumor here, it was started in the Justice department itself. Whats more, the allegation that the subject of the rumor was fired due to the rumor is also true, i.e. that was alleged and investigated. However, the investigation concluded that the subject was not fired due to the rumor, so we have another potential BLP problem in claiming that Goodling fired this person due to the rumor. The BLP problem there is alleging that Goodling fired that person improperly. You could make an argument that this is all relevant, and that a rewrite could solve at least the second BLP problem, but my instinct is to simply follow what wp:blp says in its lede "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Suchmaterial requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, to this policy, and to Wikipedia's three core content policies:" "We must get the article right." My instinct is to simply leave it all out barring both really good sourcing and a convincing argument that inclusion of this material is actually needed to further the reader's understanding of the subject. Bonewah ( talk) 15:08, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Ok lets get to discussing specific edits. Id like to start with the "fallout" section and this diff edit. Im ok with a list of who resigned or was dismissed, although i think it should be converted from a list to prose. I think the following passage should be removed as speculative editorializing. By April 2007, the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice, the influence of politics on the appointment of some of the U.S. Attorneys, and the alleged politically motivated prosecutions by some of the U.S. Attorneys began to affect cases of public corruption and voter fraud nationwide. According to the ''[[National Law Journal]],'' <blockquote>"Just the appearance of political influence in cases related to those firings, combined with the recent, unusual reversal of a federal public corruption conviction in Wisconsin [c.f., [[Georgia Thompson]]], some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers to question the political motivation of prosecutors in certain cases; make magistrates and judges more skeptical of the evidence before them; and perhaps even chill line prosecutors in their pursuit of some indictments."<ref name="NLJ-Coyle-2007-04-27" /></blockquote>
The problem i have with this is that its loaded with weasel words because it doesnt cite any new facts. "some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers" "and perhaps.." Oh? "some" say a lot of things, and perhaps a lot of things lets stick to facts not unnamed opinions and speculation. I propose, for now, this edit diff as it cuts to just the facts. Bonewah ( talk) 14:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
There is a significant amount of material in this article that is really just unnecessary detail that adds little to the reader's understanding of the subject and serves as a distraction. Id like to use this section to discuss that sort of removal, things that are problems because they are mostly irrelevant or extraneous. Bonewah ( talk) 23:16, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
The Congressional hearings section is really long and basically boils down to "these people exerted executive privilege and these people were found in contempt. I think we should move the details of this to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy hearings article and sum it up in two or three sentences in the "Reactions and congressional investigation" section above it. Get to the point in this article, interested readers can reference the sub article if they want more detail. Bonewah ( talk) 14:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Subpoenas and lost emails section is relevant, but needs tightening up as it is overly long and pointlessly detailed. I am removing the paragraphs:
On April 10, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for documents from Gonzales that included the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely redacted in the DOJ's previous release of documents. [1] In a letter accompanying the subpoena, Rep. John Conyers ( D), the chair of the committee, wrote "We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials.... Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs...At this point further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose." [1] The Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, responded to the subpoena stating that the administration would like "to reach an accommodation with the Congress" but that it might not be possible. "Much of the information that the Congress seeks pertains to individuals other than the U.S. attorneys who resigned.... Furthermore, many of the documents Congress is now seeking have already been available to them for review. Because there are individual privacy interests implicated by publicly releasing this information, it is unfortunate the Congress would choose this option." [2]
References
I feel that this doesnt add much to our understanding, it merely adds bulk to the article and makes it harder to read and understand. Bonewah ( talk) 14:46, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
The section "Status of interim U.S. Attorneys, through June 2007" seems mostly pointless. Maybe we could say something about what happened to the positions after all this stuff was done, but this section doesnt really do that and, i feel, that it simply distracts from the narrative, the 'controvery' around the firings. Bonewah ( talk) 14:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
This section contains the line "In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress" with a dead citation. Does anyone have a still good citation or know what became of this? that was 2007, we should be able to say what the special prosecutor found. Bonewah ( talk) 14:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
I removed some fluff material from the section "Reactions and congressional investigation". A line that the senate convened and has oversight over the judiciary and a line that Feinstein issued a press release. Both are mostly extraneous and so i removed them for that reason. I preserved the relevant links. Bonewah ( talk) 13:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
In the section "Testimony of Sara Taylor: Claims of executive privilege" i am removing some extra material. The line "She was granted the unusual allowance of having her attorney, W. Neil Eggleston, next to her at the witness table to advise her on which questions she could answer and remain in accord with Bush's claim of executive privilege." would need to be sourced to demonstrate relevance to this section. As it stands now, it looks like fluff. Bonewah ( talk) 14:02, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
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Should "United States Presidents' Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys" be elevated from a sub-category of U.S. President H. W. Bush to a more general higher-level category, or possibly its own top-level article?
The 2015 assessment of this article as a "footnote in history" was short-lived. In June 2020, the thorough cataloging of this subject matter by past editors approaches prescience in its relevance to current affairs. With U.S. President Donald Trump's apparent firing (removal from office through U.S. Presidential Executive Authority) of the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, this subject is no longer just a sub-article of President H. W. Bush "controversies". The subject matter is of general relevance. Presidential firings of U.S. District Attorneys for allegedly improper or unlawful reasons has now escalated over three U.S. Presidents, H. W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. Further, there is significant ongoing newsworthiness in President Trump's apparent firing of a U.S. District Attorney investigating Trump's business affairs, and that this action is taking place only 135 days before the U.S. Presidential Election on 3 November 2020. ("Apparent" because the announcement, as of the time of this comment, came only from U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Should Trump disclaim direct involvement in contradiction of his own Attorney General, that only elevates the newsworthiness of the subject matter). It appears likely this subject matter will continue to be covered in both mainstream journalism and academic sources. Wikipedia users will be searching for information about the topic in general, not primarily as a historical reference to the H. W. Bush Presidency.
I acknowledge the subject matter is politically controversial and elevating the subject may be viewed as politically biased. However, addressing the issue of Presidential firings of U.S. Attorneys as its own issue across Presidencies, rather than primarily as "controversy" sub-categories in individual Presidents, may help negate concerns about political bias and "controversy-loading" individual Presidential articles. I see the primary barrier, pending community discussion, as the significant cost in time of skilled, neutral editing.
Currently this subject matter is scattered.
[1].
See also:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53123847 "Geoffrey Berman: Trump fires top US prosecutor who refused to quit", BBC(6 June 2020);
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/nyregion/trump-geoffrey-berman-fired-sdny.html, New York Times (6 June 2020; link warning: paywall);
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/william-barr-trump-fired-sdny-federal-prosector (6 June 2020);
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/us-prosecutor-who-probed-trump-allies-refuses-to-quit/articleshow/76480102.cms (6 June 2020).
-- WillisNo ( talk) 23:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
References