Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice
W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 16 -- On Thursday afternoon we learned that Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, had decided to resign.
Some observers, and at least one ex-Clinton/Reno senior Justice official — albeit semi-facetiously — immediately drew a direct correlation with the president's authorization of military tribunals two days before.
The supposition was, if she knew she wasn't going to be allowed to try Osama bin Laden, what's the point of sticking around? One top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft assured me he knows of no reason to believe that was the thinking behind her decision.
White is not alone in having an elevated view of her place in the world. Main Justice has long regarded her predecessors, too, as independent cusses; the official name of the district, the Southern District of New York, is often transformed in Washington to "the Sovereign District" because of the tendency of Manhattan's chief prosecutor to go it alone. But because it's long been one of the largest and most active U.S. attorneys' offices, it has also attracted the best and brightest of legal talent, and it has a reputation for producing brilliant and aggressive prosecutions.
White was regarded as one of the most aggressive of the lot; famously tiny but fierce and feisty, she was also a favorite of the FBI, particularly of former Director Louis Freeh.
It was partly through his urging that her office had obtained virtually sole ownership of the bin Laden prosecution franchise. Janet Reno might roll her eyes at "the other attorney general," but White produced results, so Reno was content to let her have her way. And having served 8 ½ years, White could hardly claim her time in office was cut unreasonably short.
White's own statement said she had planned to step down in early fall after the Africa embassy bombings trial ended, but the Sept. 11 attacks delayed her departure. Of course, since January there had been guessing about how long the Bush administration would keep her around.
With regard to the former President Clinton pardon controversy, it perfectly suited Justice to let her proceed; she was furious at the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, and having one of Clinton's own appointees in charge of an investigation of him removed the appearance of partisan bias. Similarly, it was convenient to have her in place to take over the investigation of Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., when the campaign finance task force disbanded.
But Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Mindy Tucker, has always made clear that White was not indispensable in those inquiries; Tucker frequently pointed out that White was being retained to handle terrorism prosecutions, specifically to see the embassy bombings case through trial (at least, trial of those captured thus far).
But after Sept. 11, with the greatest loss of life in her district, it must have seemed only natural to White that she would continue her crusade against bin Laden and his network. Indeed, her prosecutors took the first steps in putting together a Sept. 11 case, bringing various material witnesses before their grand jury.
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