Tag: US Attorney

Categories
Opinion

Politics and Prosecutors

Former United States attorney David Kustoff says politics did not influence decisions made in the Memphis office during his 26-month tenure, despite an inspector general’s report that criticizes a Bush administration appointee in Washington for applying a loyalty test to job applicants.

Kustoff resigned in June to enter private law practice with city councilman Jim Strickland. Kustoff previously ran for the Republican nomination for the 7th District congressional seat and was Shelby County Republican Party chairman and director of George W. Bush’s campaign in Tennessee in 2000 and 2004.

“There are no political considerations made involving the investigation or prosecution in any case,” Kustoff said in an interview Tuesday.

A harsher view of the U.S. Justice Department under former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, however, is contained in the inspector general’s report released last week. It says that White House liaison Monica Goodling routinely asked potential federal prosecutors such questions as “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” and “Why are you a Republican?” and “Aside from the president, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.”

She also asked 34 job candidates for their views on abortion and 21 candidates for their views on gays, according to the report.

Kustoff was one of three candidates for the job in 2006, after United States attorney Terry Harris resigned to take a job with FedEx. Kustoff said he was interviewed in Washington by career Justice Department employee and former organized-crime prosecutor David Margolis and three others.

“I think Monica was in part of one of the interviews, but she did not ask any questions,” Kustoff said.

He said he was asked about his ethics and priorities but was not asked about Operation Tennessee Waltz, which had received national media attention by then.

In the Flyer interview, Kustoff would not comment on specific cases during his tenure, but he said he was involved in “any and all major and minor decisions.” He did not personally try cases, leaving that job to career prosecutor Tim DiScenza and others. The Tennessee Waltz indictments had already been handed up and some of the defendants had been prosecuted or pled guilty when Kustoff took over the office.

Kustoff also oversaw the investigation known as Main Street Sweeper, which resulted in a split decision. Former city councilman Rickey Peete pleaded guilty, but former city councilman Edmund Ford Sr. went to trial and was acquitted days before Kustoff left office. After the trial, a separate indictment against Ford and former MLGW chief executive Joseph Lee was dropped.

All of the Memphis public officials indicted in Tennessee Waltz and Main Street Sweeper were Democrats.

Asked if the feds’ credibility has been damaged by reports of political interference in the hiring and firing of prosecutors, Kustoff said, “In the Western District of Tennessee it did not affect morale within the office or anyone’s job performance. From a national perspective, no doubt it did not look good, but it did not affect our operation.

“We have the best law enforcement in this district,” he said. “I base that not only on working with all facets but in talking to my fellow United States attorneys. They would talk about problems and issues they would have with law enforcement or local district attorneys. We had none of those issues here. [We] really came together to effectuate some really good investigations like Main Street Sweeper and Operation Last Call.”

Kustoff said he hired “three or four” assistant prosecutors, but they were only interviewed locally, not in Washington. He recalled his own decision to apply as being influenced by extensive conversations with Harris and Shelby County district attorney general Bill Gibbons. The president appoints U.S. attorneys based on recommendations from the state’s senators and governor if they are from the same political party. If not, then congressmen could have a voice.

There is likely to be a new U.S. attorney in Memphis next year no matter which party controls the White House. Career prosecutor Larry Laurenzi has the job on an interim basis for the second time.

Kustoff said he has no immediate plans to reenter politics.

“I am very happy practicing law and raising my family,” he said.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Politics and Justice

Laymen (heck, reporters too) sometimes confuse the various kinds of attorneys general in the U.S. Justice Department.

There is the attorney general of the United States in Washington, D.C. That would be, most recently, Alberto Gonzales, who took office in 2005 and resigned this week.

There is the United States attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, a position appointed by the president. That would be David Kustoff.

And there are assistant United States attorneys in each state. Some of them are career prosecutors. That would include Tim DiScenza, who prosecuted and convicted John Ford and the Tennessee Waltz defendants.

Then there is Bud Cummins.

Cummins used to be the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. He came over to Memphis a few years ago and prosecuted former Shelby County medical examiner O.C. Smith. But his real claim to fame is getting fired by Karl Rove, adviser to President George Bush.

Cummins is one of the “fired U.S. attorneys” that cost Gonzales his job. He was asked to quit on June 5th, 2006, so that former Rove aide J. Timothy Griffin could take his place. He left last December, and he started appearing on CNN early in 2007, when Democrats went public with their charges that Bush and Rove were trying to politically influence the Justice Department. Cummins is a Republican, but he was deemed less politically useful than Griffin, who has since been replaced, too.

Cummins heard about the Gonzales resignation Monday morning.

“I can honestly say I don’t take any personal satisfaction in it,” he told the Flyer this week.

“It’s a sad story,” Cummins said. “There are probably a thousand reasons to admire Gonzales but also a great number of reasons to be disappointed in him. That cost him his credibility in a job where credibility is mandatory.”

Cummins, now working as a consultant in Arkansas, declined to speak about Tennessee Waltz because he is not familiar with the facts in much detail. But he doesn’t think the prosecutions of Ford and others are tainted.

“I know the quality of the professionals actually pursuing the individual investigations,” he said. “I am not concerned that whatever political pressure was brought to bear has caused professional prosecutors to deviate from the nonpartisan pursuit of cases. But it has created an appearance of impropriety. And career professionals are paying a price for that.”

Cummins said he never had any contact with Gonzales before or after June 2006, when he was notified that he was being replaced.

So, does that suggest that the attorney general of the United States and the president and his advisers take a hands-off approach to U.S. attorneys in Tennessee and Arkansas? No, it does not. That would defy common practice and common sense.

Kustoff, who replaced Terry Harris in 2005 after Tennessee Waltz broke in the news, is a former Bush campaign organizer in Tennessee. It is common practice for presidents to appoint U.S. attorneys from their own political party, but they generally do it at the beginning of their terms, not in the middle.

Common sense suggests that back in 2003, when the Tennessee Waltz began, the attorney general (John Ashcroft at the time) was apprised of a sting operation targeting state lawmakers in Tennessee. And that Gonzales was apprised when most of them turned out to be black Democrats.

At a press conference following the Ford sentencing, DiScenza said he has had no personal contact with Gonzales. Kustoff and the FBI special agent in charge, My Harrison, wouldn’t say whether they were in contact with Gonzales or his assistants. They all said Ford’s pending federal trial in Nashville is “not our case.”

But that case cuts to the heart of Ford’s consulting business with TennCare providers, and that is a matter of great local interest.

The public deserves better answers. As Cummins said, there is an appearance of impropriety. Memphis does not exist in a vacuum apart from Nashville and Washington. And the feds are short-changing us on the story.

John Branston is a Flyer senior editor.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

The Gay Issue

I thank Jim Maynard for having the courage to acknowledge the obvious lack of scientific evidence for the biological causation of homosexuality (Viewpoint, March 22nd issue), and I respect his call for a deeper look at the issue of sexuality in modern America. 

His statement that the gay rights movement created a modern gay identity has been foundational to the Love in Action philosophy since its inception: People are not born “gay.” If a person decides it is a role they no longer choose to live out, there are healthy ways to engage a new one. 

We don’t turn gay people straight. We help those who choose to come to us examine and release identities and behaviors they never felt fully comfortable with. We explore the emotional and sociological factors of their self-identification, and we help them rediscover themselves simply as men and women created by God, free of the labels and accompanying behaviors that have been attached to them by themselves and others.

I share Maynard’s view that the right to make our own choices concerning our sexuality is paramount, but I do not agree that the nature/nurture debate is a smokescreen of the “ex-gay movement.” In my experience, it is gay advocacy groups that have had the loudest voice in declaring sexuality fixed and immutable.

Maynard closed his piece with the statement that to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight involves making a series of choices. This is the viewpoint we have always held. It is my hope that we learn to honor and respect the choice to release a gay identity as much as we’re asked to respect those who announce finding it.

 John J. Smid

President/CEO, Love in Action International, Inc.

Maynard’s premise is that all of us have an absolute right to choose sexual orientation. His argument also assumes any choice whatsoever, since he decries any religious or political sanctions against his view.

His absoluteness to not have absolutes against his view is a bit of a contradiction. This free-choice mindset logically leads to the freedom of “consenting” persons, animals, etc., to engage in almost any act in private.

Where does one draw the line if there are no absolute ethics? Why not have freedoms of consenting individuals to make suicide pacts in the privacy of their home? What about the freedom of humans and animals to engage in bestiality in the privacy of their home? His error is to not recognize that all legislation is a reflection of someone’s moral code.

There is no neutrality in social ethical sanctions. While Maynard rejects scientific findings regarding homosexual patterns, the empirical evidence shows otherwise. If we adopt his view that there are no moral absolutes, then what standard keeps a sexual partner faithful in a relationship?

Charles Gillihan

Memphis

Thanks to Bruce VanWyngarden for his editor’s commentary [about his gay uncle] (March 22nd issue). I am sick and tired of the hypocrites in this country who think it is okay for a person to fight and die for this country in a moral (or immoral) war but not okay to say who they truly are.

Diane Blankenship

Millington

The U.S. Attorneys

The firing of a U.S. attorney (Viewpoint, March 15th issue) is the president’s right. No question. Presidents, when they take office, usually accept the resignations of U.S. attorneys. The firing of so many in the middle of a second term is a very different matter.

It appears that the firings were done at the behest of long-standing aides of the president. Karl Rove and Tim Griffin started their careers as political operatives and destroyers of opponents’ good names back in Texas.  

Since we will have a presidential election in 2008, and Senator Hillary Clinton is running, one can only come to the conclusion that Griffin was named to replace a stellar U.S. attorney (Bud Cummins) to dig up dirt on Clinton. It appears Rove and those around him had only politics in mind, not the enforcement of the law for the citizens of Arkansas.     

Jack Bishop

Cordova

Editor’s note: In last week’s Flyer, we erroneously wrote that Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know radio program was affiliated with National Public Radio. Feldman’s show is a Wisconsin Public Radio show distributed by Public Radio International.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Someday, historians will wonder why the highest officials in the Bush Justice Department believed that they could inflict heavy-handed political abuse on federal prosecutors and get away with it. The punishment of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys betrays a strong sense of impunity in the White House, as if the president and his aides assumed that nobody would complain about these outrages or attempt to hold them accountable.The precedent for this misconduct was set long ago.

There was once another Republican prosecutor who insisted on behaving professionally instead of obeying partisan hints from the White House. His name was Charles A. Banks, and the Washington press corps said nothing when he was punished for his honesty by the administration of the first President Bush.

The cautionary tale of Chuck Banks begins during the summer of 1992, as the presidential contest entered its final months with Arkansas governor Bill Clinton leading incumbent President George H.W. Bush.

At the time, Banks had already served for five years as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. As an active Republican who had run for Congress and still aspired to higher office, he counted Clinton among his political adversaries. The first President Bush had recently selected him as a potential nominee for the federal bench. Nothing could have better served Banks’ personal interests than a chance to stop the Clintons and preserve the Bush presidency.

In September 1992, Republican activist L. Jean Lewis, who was employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation, provided that opportunity by fabricating a criminal referral naming the Clintons as witnesses in a case against the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association (the small Arkansas savings and loan owned by Whitewater partner and Clinton friend James McDougal).

The referral prepared by Lewis lacked merit — as determined by both Banks and the top FBI agent in his office — but Lewis commenced a persistent crusade for action against the hated Clintons. The FBI and the U.S. attorney repeatedly rejected or ignored her crankish entreaties.

Eventually, however, officials in the Bush White House and the Justice Department heard whispers about the Lewis referral. Obviously, that document had the potential to save the president from defeat in November by smearing the Clintons as corrupt participants in a sweetheart land deal.

That fall, Edith Holiday, secretary to the Bush cabinet, asked Attorney General William Barr whether he knew anything about such a referral. Although Barr knew nothing, he quickly sent an inquiry to the FBI. Weeks later, the president’s counsel, C. Boyden Gray, posed a similar improper question to a top Resolution Trust Corp. official.

The queries and hints from above created intense pressure on Banks to act on the Lewis referral despite his opinion, shared by the FBI, that her work was sloppy and biased. After Barr ordered him to act on the referral no later than two weeks before Election Day, he replied with a roar of conscience.

“I know that in investigations of this type,” he wrote in a remarkable memo to his boss, “the first steps, such as issuance of … subpoenas … will lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation in today’s modern political climate all too often publicly purport to ‘legitimize what can’t be proven’ …

“I must opine that after such a lapse of time, the insistence for urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election. … For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario … is inappropriate. I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy.”

The Whitewater case didn’t save the first President Bush, but it was later revived as a pseudo-scandal. More pertinent today is what happened to Banks and Lewis — and the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock.

Banks forfeited his promised judgeship and returned to private practice with his political career ended. The incompetent Lewis appeared before the Senate Whitewater Committee, where she lied repeatedly before “fainting” under examination by the Democratic counsel. She then disappeared from public view until 2003, when the White House rewarded her with an important federal job. Those who had observed Lewis in action were astonished when she was named chief of staff to the Pentagon Inspector General, at a salary of $118,000 a year.

An ugly sequel occurred in December, when the Justice Department ousted H.E. (Bud) Cummins III — another upstanding and competent Republican prosecutor in Little Rock — so that a crony of Karl Rove could replace him in the U.S. attorney’s office.

Was this what George W. Bush meant when he promised to return “honor” and “integrity” to the Oval Office?

Joe Conason writes for Salon and The New York Observer.