DoJ Official Argued against Sending “Extensive Resources” to LamThe administration has repeatedly argued that U.S Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam was fired because she failed to make immigration cases a priority. Either that’s true, or it’s a cover story.
Yesterday I laid out Lam’s performance on immigration. It’s clear that in another administration, Lam would have been commended, not fired.
But it’s clear from the emails that certain senior Justice Department officials just didn’t like Lam — and seemed to harbor a wish that she not succeed.
“There are good reasons not to provide extensive resources to [Carol Lam’s district],” wrote Bill Mercer, a senior Justice Department official in May of 2006, responding to a suggestion that the Department provide Lam with more prosecutors. “Other border districts have done substantially more. It will send the message that if your people are killing themselves, the additional resources will go to folks who haven’t prioritized the same enforcement priority.”
Five days later, Mercer suggested a “range of options” for dealing with Lam, the first one being “replace Carol.” The third one was to add prosecutors “immediately after Carol’s successor is named.”
Let’s frame the conflict here once again: as I reported yesterday, the number of immigration cases in Lam’s district had dipped as a direct result of her office’s policy, not because of a lack of priority. Fully half of the prosecutors in her office were at work on immigration cases, but they targeted more serious offenses, which meant they filed fewer cases. (It’s worth pointing out that measuring immigration enforcement simply by the number of cases is a superficial, arbitrary measure — equally valid measures, for example, would be the length of sentences meted out and the seriousness of offenses charged, measures by which Lam exceeded other districts.)
So fixing the “problem” (fewer immigration cases) was as simple as requesting that Lam change her office’s policy.
But, though making such a request was repeatedly suggested, they never did that.
On May 31, Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson asked if anyone had ever “called Carol Lam” and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement.” And on June 1, Sampson relayed Gonzales’ desire that someone have a “heart-to-heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement” and that she be put “on a very short leash.”
But there never was any woodshedding, or a heart-to-heart, or any leash. Lam continued her office’s policy, unaware that the Justice Deparment wanted it changed (and even without changing it, the number of immigration cases filed by her office did rise sharply during her last year).
Maybe, since Mercer thought that “interacting” with Lam was something to be avoided, they just didn’t feel like having that conversation. Or maybe they were just hoping they’d have an excuse to fire her.
