In an op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe, Stern notes that the fired prosecutors are almost 10 percent of all U. S. attorneys and spells out how this could affect all of us:
Under either scenario -- and it is incumbent on the department to fully explain and for Congress to determine why these US attorneys were dismissed -- the result does not serve the American people. If it is pure politics, the message is that those who don't follow the party line will be thrown out. If it is a power play by the Department of Justice in Washington, then it signals that the department will enforce its will, even if it undermines the historical roles that US attorneys have played. In either event, the message to the other and future US attorneys (to say nothing of the many assistants who toil on the front lines) seems to be that independent judgment will no longer be part of the give and take in the department. The administration of justice can only suffer if that is the case.
The fired prosecutors included Bud Cummins of Arkansas, who was fired to make way for an associate of Karl Rove. At the time he was dismissed, Cummins was in the middle of an investigation into the awarding of lucrative license fee offices in Missouri.
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You might find this article interesting:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009784
It deals with how the Clinton Administration fired not 10 but all 93 U.S. Attorneys including Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in Chicago, who was investigating Dan Rostenkowski (D), and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment.
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