President Obama Re-Hires One of Nine Ousted US Attorneys from Bush-Era Scandal
EmailThe president sent up a host of nominations for the Senate to confirm. Of particular note: Daniel Bogden is his nominee to be US Attorney for Nevada.
Bogden, a former Air Force JAG, was one of the nine US attorneys fired during the 2006 US attorney controversy in the Bush administration.
Two days before the firings, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty emailed that he was “a little skittish about Bogden. He has been with DOJ since 1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside of government, I’ll admit haven’t looked at his district’s performance. Sorry to be raising this again/now… It is just on my mind last night and this morning.”
At a meeting, McNulty was told Bogden was a bachelor and didn’t have a family.
“Okay, never mind,” McNulty said, according to a later recounting by former Justice Department chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson.
In March of this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters that he hoped Bogden could be re-appointed to the positions.
“I just think it is so unfair what happened to him,” Reid said. “It is just not fair to have Bogden with this mark, this scarlet letter, of being a bad U.S. attorney… He was a good guy.,,, There was nothing bad about him. It's just Karl Rove trying to get back at Nevada, I guess.”
– jpt
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he rehire any of the one’s clinton fire?????? PS. Anyone ask barry if chris dodd going to use public option?
Posted by: barry | July 31, 2009, 4:50 pm 4:50 pm
Good on prez. Several of the victims of Alberto “I Don’t Recall” Gonzalez carrying out his masters’ voice have equally compelling reasons to be re-hired although I suspect many are happy now to be remote from a job subject to political whims.
Posted by: wayne wong | July 31, 2009, 5:01 pm 5:01 pm
Senator Reid, “It’s just Karl Rove trying to get back at Nevada, I guess.”
Senator Reid, what does that mean? Karl Rove was trying to get back at an entire state. What does Senator Reid suspect Nevada did to Rove?
Posted by: Red Rock View | July 31, 2009, 5:58 pm 5:58 pm
Barry, maybe you should actually look up facts…
OK, never mind, I’m going to stop there because we both know you don’t care about the truth, you just want to make a stupid political point.
My apologies.
Posted by: Richard | July 31, 2009, 6:21 pm 6:21 pm
I’m glad this scandal is finally getting some coverage.
Worse than the political firings, though, were the political hirings by Bush and Rove. Dozens of political hacks with more fundraising than legal experience were put into some of the most sensitive positions in government, and succeeded in causing chaos.
Posted by: Flash Override | July 31, 2009, 11:00 pm 11:00 pm
Hey, Obama, how about firing Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the no. 3 man at DoJ who dropped the federal case against the domestic terrorist Black Panther Party, for their intimidation of voters in Philly? This was after the government had won a default judgement against the RACIST group in federal court!
Talk about politicizing the Dep’t of Justice!
I guess you have to pay off you radical Lefty base.
Posted by: carl | July 31, 2009, 11:49 pm 11:49 pm
I think a better caption would be Obama appoints yet another Clinton appointee. These people are political appointees who serve at the president’s pleasure. ABC still trying to make a scandal for Bush. I am sure Obama didn’t dismiss any political appointees that were in office when he took over.
Posted by: judy | August 1, 2009, 7:46 am 7:46 am
@judy, we’ve heard this “pleasure of the president” bull too many times.
The fact is that they aren’t supposed to be working FOR the President, rather they are supposed to work for the public.
For the denser audience, let me point out that the scandal wasn’t that the attorneys were fired, it was that the Bush/Rove administration politicized the Justice Department.
Posted by: Flash Override | August 1, 2009, 10:09 am 10:09 am
Barry………….Senator Dodd will be using the public option that he and every member of Congress use now for healthcare. They all (republicans included) love that governmenr run program.
Posted by: Herb Gray | August 1, 2009, 10:23 am 10:23 am
Note to non-government employees, when administrations change, they “clean house” in departments. They do this for a very good reason. People, who put political motivation above their job, will use their job to advance their political motivation. Every department has them, DOD, DOS, DOJ, DOE, doesn’t matter. I can promise you this, there are firings and removals going on right under your nose for the last 6 months that just doesn’t make it in the news.
The press chose to cover the DOJ under Bush, they’ll choose to ignore them under Obama. I work in government and I’ve seen it first hand under 3 administrations.
Generals and Admirals are no exception either, conservative leanding or liberal leaning will be advanced under like administrations. It’s quite disturbing and pathetic.
Posted by: KR | August 1, 2009, 3:40 pm 3:40 pm
Considering that Bush’s ‘restacking’ of the US Attorney’s office let companies like Microsoft get away with their illegal practices…I’d say, yes, the DOJ needs to be cleaned out and monitored.
Posted by: Spicerun | August 1, 2009, 4:50 pm 4:50 pm
Since the attorneys were fired for the reason they were fired, it makes perfect sense for Bogden to be rehired, he was the least of the problems. I dare say you won’t see the others return. It would be far too hard to explain them away when the shoe drops.
Posted by: Litigant | August 1, 2009, 5:11 pm 5:11 pm
So didn’t Obama just fire the guy Bush appointed? How is this different than Bush firing the guy Clinton appointed? Isn’t this just politics where the new guy gets to pick his own people but ABC made a big deal out of it when Bush did it cause he was a Republican but it’s O.K. for Obama to do it cause he’s a Democrat like ABC?
Posted by: jim 234 | August 1, 2009, 5:15 pm 5:15 pm
Bogden, a former Air Force JAG, was one of the nine US attorneys fired during the 2006 US attorney controversy in the Bush administration.
This headline is a bald faced lie.
This was Not a Scandal at all!
The above paragraph proves it by calling
it what it was a Controversey!
The fact is any president has a right to
fire all of the U.S. attorneys as
Bill Clinton did when he took office
without giving any reason for the
firings!
Posted by: reaganfan | August 1, 2009, 9:18 pm 9:18 pm
Those positions are political hires. Every President has the option to hire or fire. Nothing illegal about it.Clinton fired more and no one complained . So, stop the pathetic boo boo. The democrats cry sooooo much …what’s next? the sky is falling and was Bush fault ???
Posted by: Frank | August 2, 2009, 3:20 am 3:20 am
Do some of you deliberately peddle misinformation or do you simply not know any better? U.S. Attorney’s generally submit their resignations when administrations change.
What set Bush apart is that he fired them in mid term. The investigation is now underway as to whether these firings were politically motivated. A Justice Department motivated by politics may be just swell in a banana republic but it shouldn’t be acceptable here.
Posted by: Brooklyn Democrat | August 3, 2009, 1:14 pm 1:14 pm
“What set Bush apart is that he fired them in mid term. The investigation is now underway as to whether these firings were politically motivated. A Justice Department motivated by politics may be just swell in a banana republic but it shouldn’t be acceptable here.”
Um… thats exactly how it works. If anything, these people were kept on board despite knowing their political leanings. When they began to undermine the legal position of the Administration, they were fired. Were politics involved? I imagine so. But had Bush fired them when he first took office, instead of trying to play nice with them, he would have saved himself some of this headache.
And if you think that there have not already been mass firings and moving around in the DOJ, you’d be mistaken.
Posted by: KR | August 3, 2009, 2:46 pm 2:46 pm