October 09, 2007
Court Appoints Taylor

Jeffrey Taylor will remain interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for the forseeable future. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, announced today that the court has voted to continue Taylor's appointment.

"By all accounts, Jeff Taylor has done an outstanding job of managing the U.S. Attorney's Office, and has worked closely with the community to address the problems and concerns of its citizens. We look forward to working with him and his staff in the months ahead," Hogan said in an e-mailed statement.

The court appointment means that Taylor, whose nomination is pending in the Senate, will likely serve for the remainder of President Bush's second term. Taylor was first appointed in September 2006, before Congress revoked an unnoticed provision of the Patriot Act that allowed the attorney general to fill vacancies in the U.S. attorneys' offices without Senate confirmation. Bush signed the bill striking the provision in June, reinstating the traditional 120-day half-life on interim appointments.

Once the 120 days are up, it falls on the federal district judges to decide whether to continue the interim appointments in their jurisdictions or select new U.S. attorneys. Taylor's term was set to expire on Friday.

In an e-mail, Taylor said, "I am honored and appreciate the vote of confidence given by the court. I look forward to working with the many talented members of the U.S. Attorney's Office in continuing to build on the successes of my predecessors."

In the past few weeks, at least three other courts have elected to hold on to their interim U.S. attorneys. Here's our running tally.

It appears that the court can still replace him if it so chooses, but I'm not clear on that, or if it would, even if it could. Considering who Taylor is, I'm not encouraged as to the likelihood that he will persue serious investigation of the administration or enforcement of congress's subpoena's:

Jeffrey A. Taylor

Prior to his work in Washington, DC, Jeffrey Taylor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1995-1999.[1] From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Taylor served as majority counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee where he advised Chairman Orrin Hatch and drafted provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.[2]

Before his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Mr. Taylor served as Counselor to Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales from 2002 to 2006 where he oversaw law enforcement operations by U.S. attorneys.[1] He was appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by Alberto Gonzales on September 22, 2006 and was sworn in seven days later;

A loyal Bushie, clearly, and the man in charge of overseeing the "law enforcement operations by U.S. attorneys" during a period in which they were strongly pressured to mis-enforce the law to further the GOP's political goals. So I wouldn't, ahem, look to him for meaningful investigation into let alone prosecution of these scandals. Why am I not surprised?

And why am I not surprised that this guy was first appointed by Clinton, who is rapidly emerging as a precurser to Bush--a "Bush Lite", if you will--with respect to so many of the latter's most horrible policies.

And anybody who thinks that Hillary will order the DoJ to seriously investigate and prosecute these matters is delusional. She will not. Perhaps there was a time early in her life when she genuinely cared about such things, in terms of the public interest. But evidence strongly suggests that she was fully integrated into the establishment "Borg" years ago, and is operating on its behalf now. If BushCo are the "bad cops", then the Clintons are the "good cops". As are most leading Dems, whether actively, through actual complicity, or passively, through cowardice and/or cluelessness. So get ready for more of the same, even if it has a more "progressive" face, even if Dems take over everything in '08.

All is not necessarily lost, though, as I still have some hope that, as has often been the case in the past (e.g. abolitionists, organized labor, civil rights activists), a small group of determined people will persue this matter on their own, and make a meaningful difference (h/t to Mead for coming up with the famous quote which I am obviously paraphrasing).

E.g. some of these fired USA's, in a class action suit and/or politically pressuring Dems to do something about it, possibly in concert with genuinely progressive Dems who don't want to just let this slide, and perhaps advocacy groups such as MoveOn and the ACLU--or even some bloggers! ;-)

But clearly, if something is going to happen, it's going to have to come from OUTSIDE the dominant political establishment (in both its GOP and Dem forms), because the latter is simply too corrupt, at the very least morally, and often literally, to be expected to do such a thing on its own.