Return of US Attorney Firings: Bush Crony Linked to Scandal

Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake at 5:13 PM on March 7, 2008.

What have we here? A smoking Bush crony in the USAtty scandal? Do tell (via McClatchy):

A longtime protege of President Bush told former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias that he was fired for political reasons and that he shouldn't fight his ouster, Iglesias says in a new book.

"This is political," Iglesias recalls Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton telling him shortly after he was ousted. "If I were you, I'd just go quietly."...

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing: a U.S. attorney all but admitting that a colleague was being hung out to dry for reasons that had nothing to do with performance or professionalism," he wrote in a draft of the book, which McClatchy obtained.

Sutton, who's the top U.S. attorney in San Antonio, didn't return phone calls Thursday seeking comment.

As a result of Iglesias' and several other prosecutors' accusations that they were fired in December 2006 for improper political reasons, the Justice Department turned over thousands of documents, and Congress forced top officials, including Gonzales, to testify.

No one has determined who decided which prosecutors should be fired and why. Democrats say that must mean the White House was calling the shots, while the administration has said it demonstrates that the firings were blown out of proportion.

Iglesias said he asked Sutton how he knew about his firing.

"I saw your name," he quoted Sutton as saying.

This is especially intriguing in light of this from John Anderson's Follow the Money:

The tidbit in a footnote on page 277: details of Rove's prior use of a pliant USAtty office in San Antonio for payback against political opponents as a template for the current USAtty scandal and politicization questions embroiling the DOJ. So many of Rove's actions are repeats of successful smaller oppo actions in his past -- what other predictors are we missing?

From whom did Mr. Sutton get that sneak peek? His close working relationship with Rove in the political ratfuck arena sure does make that question a lot more interesting, now doesn't it?

Mr. Sutton? Meet Mr. Subpoena...

Tagged as: us attorney firings, igleisas, rove, sutton

Christy Hardin Smith is a former attorney, who earned her undergraduate degree at Smith College, in American Studies and Government, concentrating in American Foreign Policy. She then went on to graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the field of political science and international relations/security studies, before attending law school at the College of Law at West Virginia University, where she was Associate Editor of the Law Review.