Congressional Report: Clinton Didn’t Do It Too

Attorney Scandal Without Precedent: CRS Report Reveals Audacity of Dismissals
By Scott Lilly, The Center for American Progress

Tuesday 20 March 2007

Defenders of the Bush administration’s decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys in December have argued that the move was not out of the ordinary since those appointed to that position are presidential appointees and thus serve at the leisure of the president.

The argument is that if the president wants to weed out those who have been less than satisfactory by whatever subjective standard the president or his staff may wish to apply, then there is no reason that he cannot take away what he has given. Critics of the move agree that the president may have the power to appoint U.S. Attorneys, but argue that these positions should not be manipulated as if they were pieces in a game of political chess.

One question that has remained unresolved is the extent to which the view put forth by the Bush administration matches that of previous administrations. Is the White House and Justice Department today practicing business as usual? Or is this a complete break from past practice and an unprecedented move?

That question appears to be largely resolved by a Congressional Research Service report on the issue released yesterday. CRS examined the tenure of all U.S. Attorneys who were confirmed by the Senates between the years 1981 and 2006 to determine how many had served-and of those how many had been forced to resign for reasons other than a change in administration.

The answer is that of the 468 confirmations made by the Senate over the 25-year period, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration prior to the firings that took place in December, according to the available evidence gathered by CRS. The average incidence of such involuntary departures was one out of every two-and-a-half years; the largest number of such departures prior to this administration was a total of four departures during the Clinton administration.

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