Strange Justice

The mass firing of U.S. attorneys has been poorly managed -- at best.

THE JUSTICE Department's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys is neither as sinister as critics suggest nor as benign as the department would have you believe, at least on the basis of the evidence revealed so far. But it is, both sides agree, highly unusual and warrants further inquiry. And it points to the need to fix a law that was changed for the worse not long ago.

U.S. attorneys head the local outposts of federal prosecutors' offices around the country. They are nominated by the president and serve at his pleasure. But it's uncommon for one to be replaced in the middle of an administration and apparently unprecedented for an entire group to be canned, as has happened with eight U.S. attorneys at last count.

The department and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales have served themselves and the public poorly with their ham-handed, hide-the-ball handling of the dismissals. "I would never, ever make a change in a U.S. attorney position for political reasons," Mr. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee -- only to have Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty acknowledge that the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Bud Cummins, was ousted to make way for J. Timothy Griffin, a political ally of White House adviser Karl Rove. The revelation that all but one of the other U.S. attorneys had received positive to glowing performance reviews appeared to undercut the assertion that the prosecutors had been removed for "performance-related" reasons.

Meanwhile, the former U.S. attorney in New Mexico told McClatchy Newspapers that he believes he was sacked for failing, before the November election, to speed indictments in a probe of local Democrats; the prosecutor cited preelection phone calls from congressional Republicans as the basis for his suspicion. Justice said that had nothing to do with his dismissal, though it acknowledges that unspecified congressional concerns played a role.

Pending further investigation, the episode seems to reflect an unusual reaction to the normal tension between Justice headquarters and the would-be autonomous U.S. attorneys, in this case involving disagreements over how much to focus on immigration cases or when to seek the death penalty. Prosecutorial independence is important, but the president is entitled to have prosecutors who reflect his law-enforcement priorities and to replace those who balk at complying.

More troubling: Is the Bush administration seeking to circumvent the requirement that U.S. attorneys be confirmed by the Senate? The administration tucked into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act authority for the attorney general to name prosecutors who could serve indefinitely without confirmation. Justice viewed the previous law, under which unconfirmed replacements could serve for only 120 days, after which the district courts would name a successor, as an improper incursion of judicial authority into executive branch appointments. Yet the new arrangement presents the greater risk of the executive branch doing an end run around Senate confirmation. The best way to prevent that would be to return the law to its previous state.