I’ve been following along with the “Gonzales Eight”: a handful of U.S. federal prosecutors who were fired from the Justice Department earlier this year. Former Attorney General Gonzales subsequently lied about it, or maybe he just forgot. Perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead. It’s been a hell of a scandal that seems to have slipped from the radar, yet it’s fascinating to see everyone in MSM still dancing around the reason many believe the attorneys were sacked in the first place — for not doing enough to prosecute porn and so-called obscenity. The LA Times skirts the issue in a recent follow-up saying the attorneys were told they were fired for being “underachievers” after a conference on “protecting children from crime”. Like most MSM coverage with issues like this, it’s what they don’t say that tells the most interesting story. Like, how these guys have been treated since the firings. Snip:
A year later, most have landed on their feet, in law partnerships or private-sector jobs where their compensation dwarfs government pay. Some carry scars from the experience. Six of the attorneys marked the anniversary of their firings at a private dinner in San Diego 10 days ago, where they toasted one another for persevering.
“The great irony of this is, it has hardly tarnished any of our reputations,” said Paul Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, who hosted the reunion.
Charlton, now a partner in a Phoenix law firm, says that as a group, the attorneys have fared much better than the department officials who orchestrated their demise.
Several of those officials, including former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, have hired lawyers to defend themselves in connection with a wide-ranging departmental investigation.
Several of the fired attorneys have been honored by bar groups for blowing the whistle and helping expose the scandal.
John McKay, the former U.S. attorney in Seattle, got an award from the Washington state bar for displaying “exceptional courage in the face of adversity” and “bringing credit to the legal profession.” He is now a professor at Seattle University law school, where he has written a law- review article that makes a case for bringing criminal charges against Gonzales and other officials on suspicion of lying to Congress and the public about the firings.
Link.
* Note: MSM coverage is pervasive about the “Gonzales Eight” yet this LaT piece has the total at nine.