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To: steve-b

Yes where was Di-Fi? The Liberal DemoRAT Senator wants to have hearings to "confirm" US attys now, but when Janet Reno was ordered By Clinton to Fire All 93 Us Attys...She had no complaints..
Stinking SF Pinko Hag.


10 posted on 03/08/2007 3:51:33 PM PST by LtKerst (Lt Kerst)
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To: LtKerst
Yes where was Di-Fi? The Liberal DemoRAT Senator wants to have hearings to "confirm" US attys now, but when Janet Reno was ordered By Clinton to Fire All 93 Us Attys...She had no complaints..

U.S. Attorneys are presidential appointees. Every U.S. president fires the prior president's appointees and puts in his own. Bush fired every Clinton-appointed US Attorney (with only one exception out of 93, and that one was replaced within a year) and appointed his own people. (What was unique about Clinton was that he fired every sitting US Attorney en masse; most presidents --including Bush in 2001-- let the former administration's US Attorneys continue to serve until the new appointee is nominated and confirmed. Clinton did this because he wanted the Arkansas US Attorney, who was investigating Whitewater, out right away, and he fired all of the US Attorneys at once to try to hide what he was doing.)

It is well within the President's power to fire his own appointed US Attorneys at any time, but historically, this has very, very rarely been done. Bush has now fired 8 of his own appointees in a matter of weeks, which is legal, but unprecedented.

The other reason this is different from 1993 is that Bush proposed (and Congress passed) a change to the law last year (it was a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act renewal): it used to be that, if a US Attorney died, resigned or was fired, the President would have to seek Senate confirmation of his successor; if the successor wasn't appointed and confirmed within 120 days, the judges in that district's federal court would elect the temporary successor, who would serve until the president nominated a successor and the Senate confirmed him. Under the new law, Bush can fire a US Attorney and appoint a successor who can serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation. When Clinton fired all of the U.S. Attorneys in 1993, his new appointees all needed Senate confirmation, and the courts appointed interim successors for any not confirmed within 120 days.

40 posted on 03/13/2007 2:59:52 PM PDT by Lurking Libertarian (Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege)
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