Mystery Solved?

One of the smaller, curious elements in the Attorney-gate story is the mysterious appearance of language in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gave the White House power to appoint new US Attorneys without Senate confirmation. When this provision came to light some weeks ago, none of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee knew how it got in there.

It later became clear that someone on the staff of Republican Senator Arlen Specter inserted the language during negotiations over the bill, and didn't call any attention to it. It is, of course, this very provision that is key to the whole politicization scheme - by firing these US Attorneys, they can now be replaced with people who would never make it through a confirmation process.

I've been wondering about the exact details there. Who was that staffer, and why would he have included language that gave away so much power from his bosses on the Judiciary Committee? A story in the Salt Lake Tribune may give us a clue:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said senators plan to look into how language ended up in the Patriot Act that allowed the attorney general to replace the federal prosecutors, questioning whether it was part of a premeditated plan by the Justice Department.

The provision was added to the Patriot Act renewal while staffers were working out differences in the versions of the bills that had passed the House and the Senate.

Brett Tolman, now the U.S. attorney for Utah, was then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's staffer handling the issue and added it at the request of the Justice Department, Specter said at a hearing last month.

So, just to be clear, the guy who inserted the language (that the Chief of Staff at the Justice Department wanted to use in its purge) was a Senate staffer at the time, but since then was appointed by that same Justice Department to be US Attorney in Utah?

Is that a coincidence? Enquiring minds want to know. We now know that Harriet Miers suggested replacing all 93 US Attorneys, but was dissuaded because it would be impractical, presumably because of Senate confirmation. So the value in making it easier to replace US Attorneys was in the minds of those involved long before the language was inserted. It would be interesting to know who specifically at the Justice Department was responsible for writing that language, and what specifically was involved in getting Mr. Tolman to insert it.

Update: McClatchy Newspapers has more information, but it raises more questions that it answers.

In an interview Wednesday, William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general, said that he pursued the changes on his own, without the knowledge or coordination of his superiors at the Justice Department or anyone at the White House.

Moschella maintained his intent was not to strip the Senate of the power to reject U.S. attorneys that might be objectionable. Justice Department officials noted that 16 U.S. attorneys nominations have been sent to the Senate since the passage of the law in March 2006.

"I did not intend nor was it the department position that this provision be used to circumvent the Senate's confirmation's role," Moschella said.

But neither Moschella nor other department officials disclosed at what point Moschella or anyone else at Justice realized the provision could be used as part of the wider strategy of replacing U.S. attorneys.

Moschella and department officials also could not explain why the then-assistant attorney general for legislative affairs was in a position to pursue such a change without input from others within the department or permission from superiors.

Riiight. This guy decided to rewrite the law, all by himself, without anyone else knowing. And the fact that it does what it does, and what it has been used for, is some kind of an accident that he didn't intend.

Where do come up with this stuff?