More on the Fired U.S. Attorneys Who Opposed the Death Penalty
Posted on Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 07:12:00 AM EST
Tags: Alberto Gonzales (all tags)
Bump and Update: The LA Times is on the three fired U.S. Attorneys who opposed the death penalty.
Original Post:
Fired Margaret Chiara and the Death Penalty
On February 24, I wrote about the possibility Michigan U.S. Attorney Margaret Chiara was fired because of her anti-death penalty beliefs.
Quoting the Washington Post,
Chiara -- who had once studied to be a nun -- is personally opposed to capital punishment....Another of the fired U.S. attorneys, Paul K. Charlton of Phoenix, also clashed with Washington over the death penalty.
The Washington Post today has more on Chiara's firing and it isn't pretty for the White House. She was well-respected by the judges, federal prosecutors and defense lawyers in her district.
More...
This e-mail Chiara wrote to Assistant Attorney General is quite revealing. After saying she asked Michael Elston for an explanation of why she was fired she says:
He could offer no explanation other than that I erroneously assumed that good service guaranteed longevity because other USAs have been asked for their resignation without cause.
I read that to mean Elston, since resigned, told Chiara that other she wasn't the only U.S. Attorney being fired without cause. Yet the Administration continues to assert the firings were for cause.
Since the job is a political plum, the White House would have been better off giving no explanation of the firings. In its haste to provide explanations when the media caught on to the firings, it chose to prevaricate. That is what fails to pass the smell test. As always it seems with this Administraiton, it's the cover-up that gets them.
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