[Infowarrior] - US Attorney Carol Lam fired

[Richard Forno]

Lam is asked to step down
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070112-9999-1n12lam.html

Job performance said to be behind White House firing
By Kelly Thornton and Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

January 12, 2007

The Bush administration has quietly asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam,
best known for her high-profile prosecutions of politicians and corporate
executives, to resign her post, a law enforcement official said.

Lam, a Bush appointee who took the helm in 2002, was targeted because of job
performance issues ­ in particular that she failed to make smuggling and gun
cases a top priority, said the official, who declined to be identified
because Lam has yet to step down.

Lam has had high-profile successes during her tenure, such as the Randy
³Duke² Cunningham bribery case ­ but she alienated herself from bosses at
the Justice Department because she is outspoken and independent, said local
lawyers familiar with her policies.

When she took over, Lam made it clear that she planned to focus less on
low-level smuggling cases in favor of public corruption and white collar
crime, which would mean fewer but more significant prosecutions.

Lam declined to comment yesterday.

Several prosecutors in Lam's office and many defense lawyers said yesterday
that they were unaware of her impending dismissal, and were universally
shocked by it.

³It's virtually unprecedented to fire a U.S. Attorney absent some misconduct
in office,² said criminal defense attorney Michael Attanasio, a former
federal prosecutor.

³This office has clearly made a priority of investigating and prosecuting
white collar offenses and has had occasional success doing so,² he said.
³One would think that would be valued by any administration, even if it
meant fewer resources were devoted to routine and repetitive border crimes.²

Lam, 47, has been criticized by members of the Border Patrol agents union
and by members of Congress, including Vista Republican Darrell Issa, who
accused her office of ³an appalling record of refusal to prosecute even the
worst criminal alien offenders.²

But even some of Lam's legal opponents said the supposed reasons she is
being forced out are perplexing.

³What do they want her to do, lock up Mexico?² said Mario Conte, former
chief of Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc. Conte, now a professor at
California Western School of Law in downtown San Diego, said every
prosecutor walks a tightrope.

³I'm sure that Carol, in her role, is simply not able to accommodate
everybody's desires of what they think the U.S. Attorney should be doing in
this district.²

Her most prominent case involved Cunningham. The former Rancho Santa Fe
congressman is in federal prison, and indictments of others connected to the
case may be forthcoming. Her office is also prosecuting Francisco Javier
Arellano-Félix, a suspected Mexican drug kingpin, who is in federal custody
in San Diego facing charges that could lead to the death penalty. Two San
Diego city councilmen were convicted of corruption charges by Lam's office,
but a judge reversed the jury's verdict for one of the men.

Lam spent almost a year personally prosecuting a national hospital chain
that she said used complex agreements to pay off local doctors in return for
referrals. That case ended in a mistrial.

But under Lam, the overall number of prosecutions has plummeted.

In 2001, the year before she took over, federal prosecutors in San Diego and
Imperial counties filed 5,266 cases, while in 2005, the office prosecuted
3,261 cases, according to statistics compiled by the Transactional Records
Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University from federal reports.

Of the 2001 cases, 2,419 were related to immigration, while that number
stood at 1,641 in 2005. Although the number of cases dropped significantly
in 2005, a higher percentage were immigration-related ­ 50 percent in 2005
compared with 46 percent in 2001.

Most of the other prosecutions were drug cases, with 2,294 filed in 2001 and
1,290 in 2005. There were 14 weapons cases in 2001, and eight in 2005.

Some in the defense community were glad to hear there may be change at the
U.S. Attorney's Office.

³She has shown a certain tunnel vision in her prosecutions and has exercised
an appalling lack of discretion in terms of the individuals she has targeted
for prosecution and the classes of crimes that she has chosen to direct her
resources at,² said criminal defense attorney Geoffrey C. Morrison, who
represented a defendant in the City Hall corruption case prosecuted by Lam's
office.

³Having somebody with a more broad-minded approach and a greater sense of
fairness and justice will do the legal community a tremendous justice,² he
said.

Lam, a career prosecutor, former Superior Court judge and political in
dependent, sent an e-mail to her staff late in the afternoon in which she
neither confirmed nor denied that she was asked to step down. She told
attorneys not to let speculation interfere with their work.

She also told them not to speak to reporters about the subject, but to refer
calls to her spokeswoman, according to a recipient of the e-mail who asked
not to be identified for fear of reprisal.

U.S. attorneys are usually appointed by the president and require Senate
approval. They typically serve the same term as the president that appointed
them, and are replaced when a new president is elected.

However, a provision in the Patriot Act that was revised last year allows
the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys for indefinite terms
when vacancies arise, without Senate confirmation. Filling interim vacancies
had been the responsibility of the district court.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., criticized the Bush administration
yesterday for ³pushing out U.S. Attorneys from across the country under the
cloak of secrecy.²

³We don't know how many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign ­ it could
be two, it could be ten, it could be more. No one knows,² she said in a
statement.

Feinstein said the administration was abusing its executive power by trying
to circumvent the Senate confirmation process. She and two colleagues
proposed legislation yesterday to restore appointment authority to the
district court when a vacancy occurs and an interim leader is needed.

Lam is one of several prosecutors who have either resigned under pressure or
been told to leave in recent months.

New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias is among those who have announced
they are stepping down.

³I was asked to resign,² he said. ³I asked (why) and wasn't given any
answers. I ultimately am OK with that. We all take these jobs knowing we
serve at the pleasure of the president.²

H.E. ³Bud² Cummins, who left the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Ark.,
wouldn't say whether he was asked. His replacement, J. Timothy Griffin, was
an Army prosecutor who worked in the White House and for the Republican
National Committee. Arkansas' senators, both Democrats, have criticized the
way in which he was selected because it did not require Senate approval.

It's not the intent of the Justice Department to avoid the confirmation
process, and the department is committed to working with senators when
making a nomination, a department spokesman said.

Of 11 U.S. Attorney vacancies since the Attorney General gained the
authority to make the appointments in March 2006, the Bush administration
has nominated four people and interviewed seven others, all of whom are
expected to complete the confirmation process, said Justice Department
spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

³In every case, it is a goal of this administration to have a U.S. Attorney
that is confirmed by the Senate,² Roehrkasse said. ³It is wrong for a member
of Congress to believe that this is in any way an attempt to circumvent the
confirmation process.²

Kelly Thornton: (619) 542-4571; kelly.thornton at uniontrib.com