Marcy Wheeler, A.K.A. emptywheel, is a Comparative Literature Ph.D. turned political sleuth. In Comparative Literature, "careful reading" of texts is the thing to do, and she’s turned those skills on the political intrigues of our times – notably the Plame Affair. Now she’s focused on the U.S. Attorney firings and the voluminous texts available as DOJ email "dumps." Right now, she’s in the middle of sleuthing out The Perplexing Case of Margaret Chiara.
Margaret Chiara [WD-MI] was one of the fired U.S. Attorneys. She was on the firing list from the start, though it’s not exactly apparent why. She wasn’t after any big Republicans. She wasn’t resisting the Bush DOJ Agendae. And from reading her emails, she actually comes across as a nice, sensible person. Why would such a person be fired?
The story starts with the resignation of Tom Heffelfinger [D-MN] last February. He was apparently on the earlier lists for firing, but resigned on his own. Most of us think it was a pre-emptive resignation in spite of his denials. He was prosecuting a Republican donor, Dr. McGuire, a C.E.O. of an insurance company who retired with an unbelievable amount of money in stock options [probably back-dated]. His replacement was the now infamous Rachel Paulose, formerly of the firm representing McGuire’s Company. So, Heffelfinger’s ouster has an explanation. But there’s something else. Heffelfinger was in charge of the Native American Issues Subcommittee of the DOJ. A lot of the targeted Attorneys were also on that committee – including Margaret Chiara, who was second in command. In addition, the staff lawyer, Leslie A. Hagen, liason between the Indian Community and the N.A.I.S. was "unfunded" after being told she would continue. When Chiara complained [meekly], she was told she was being fired.
In a third post, I’m going to make some wildarsed speculations about what might be going on.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.