Thursday, May 17, 2007

Chris Christie and the US Attorney Scandal

It's entirely fair and accurate to say that most New Jerseyans view U.S. Attorney Chris Christie as a bulwark against the miasma of corruption that envelopes this state. During his tenure, his office has successfully prosecuted both Republican and Democratic officeholders who egregiously abused the trust reposed in them by the public. I therefore probably wasn't the only Garden State resident who was stunned to read in this morning's paper that main Justice seriously considering firing Christie, as well as 25 other federal prosecutors -- many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged -- between February 2005 and December 2006, according to sources familiar with documents withheld from the public. Read the story here.

The upside of the disclosure is that it fatally subverts the assertion (made by several of Christie's likely targets) that Christie is a stooge of Alberto Gonzales and, by extension, Karl Rove. The downside is that it is one more conspicuous example of how this Administrative is inclined to punish competence and reward political hacks.

3 comments:

JerseyCape said...
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JerseyCape said...

Well, being on that list of federal prosecutors to be fired might have shown Chritie's independence from Karl Rove and the Alberto Gonzalez Justice scandal had Christie in fact been fired. But he wasn't fired. Instead, Christie dropped a bogus subpoeana against Menendez in the middle of the campaign for Senate against Tom Kean Jr., and Christie leaked it to the press, and thus he kept his job as U.S. Attorney. Kean is in line to be Lieutenant Governor? This whole thing stinks.

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