Monday, March 13, 2017

Another US Attorneys' Thing?

So, the Trump Administration just gave 46 US Attorneys their walking papers the other day, and I'm kind like "been here before". This is a thing incoming Administrations do--they get resignations from the former appointees and appoint a whole new slate. The job entails "serving at the pleasure of the President".  It's kind of why I felt sort of "meh" regarding the Bush-era "US Attorney scandal" thing about how certain attorneys were forced out in the middle of 43's second term.  Weird, yes, but how do you prove it's not just weird but wrong?

The funny old thing being, US Attorney (I guess that would be "former") Preet Bharara does make an interesting case as being an attorney who might have been told he was staying. Which probably does make this seem more abrupt for him, but with a twist: he was contacted by President Trump just before this firing occurred, and this contact might not have been actually appropriate because Bharara might have been following up on a request that had been made of him with respects to Trump's own business dealings.  But this isn't much different from when all the diplomatic folks got their pink slips: yeah, it's sudden and heavy-handed and questionable--but this seems to be this White House's...style?

I'm pretty sure this is fascinating in part because Bharara was going after Fox Mushroom Farm, and had prosecuted a Russian spy case and also Dinesh D'Souza. But I don't think this thing has scandal-candle-power. Even if it could conceivably look like shenanigans.

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