Lam Was on DoJ Hit List before Cunningham Case

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

In March of 2005, Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff sent White House counsel Harriet Miers a list rating U.S. attorneys.

Certain prosecutors were rated “strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General,” others had not “distinguished themselves either positively or negatively, and others Sampson “recommend[ed] removing” — those were “weak U.S. Attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives.”

Carol Lam was one of the prosecutors Sampson recommended removing.

This was, of course, a full three months before the Duke Cunningham scandal came to light. The San Diego Union-Tribune broke the story on June 12, 2005.* So does that mean that Lam really was removed for other reasons?

Well, Sampson also wrote this list a number of months before Republicans started raising complaints about Lam’s handling of border cases. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who led the charge against Lam, began publicly raising concerns in the summer of 2005.*

And while the list makes clear that Lam, one way or another, got on Sampson’s hit list, it’s very unclear whether that was because of some deficiency in performance.

Bud Cummins of Arkansas, for instance, also was categorized in Sampson’s list as a “weak” U.S. Attorney. But there has never been any indication from any Justice Department official that Cummins didn’t do a good job. Justice Department officials have never claimed that he was removed for “performance related” reasons, unlike all of the other fired prosecutors. Justice Department officials, in fact, have freely admitted that he was removed for no other reason than to install Karl Rove’s former aide, Timothy Griffin.

Sampson’s list also singles out two of the prosecutors who were ultimately fired, New Mexico’s David Iglesias and San Francisco’s Kevin Ryan, as “strong” U.S. attorneys. Justice Department officials have claimed that Ryan was removed because he was a poor manager of his office.

So, in conclusion: it’s not clear that Lam’s inclusion this early on means anything except that she was on Sampson’s hit list from the beginning. Lam is, after all, a political independent. It’s also worth noting that because the Justice Department redacted all mentions of other U.S. attorneys on the list, it’s not clear how many other federal prosecutors Sampson wanted removed. Was Lam one among 10? 20? 30?

A little bit later, I’ll take a look at what some of the other emails released yesterday indicate about the reason for Lam’s firing.

*Update: To answer a reader comment below about whether Lam’s office was investigating Cunningham before the Union-Tribune broke the story — the answer is no. Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, one of the lead prosecutors on the case, told The American Journalism Review that without the Union Tribune‘s story, “there might not have been a Cunningham case.” The Union Tribune’s Marcus Stern, he said, “was responsible for the criminal prosecution.”

*Update: A correction of sorts. The North County Times has reported that Issa actually began his campaign against Lam starting in “early 2004.”

Latest Muckraker
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: