Border politics may have been her downfall
WASHINGTON — From the moment she took over as U.S. attorney in San Diego in 2002, Carol Chien-Hua Lam made no secret that white-collar crime would be her top priority -- including transgressions by prominent business and political figures.
And she was as good as her word, prosecuting corporate targets, local officials and a U.S. congressman, Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham of Rancho Santa Fe, who is in prison as a result of her efforts.
Lam, however, was recently fired, one of eight U.S. attorneys ousted by the Justice Department in what has become another headache for the Bush administration.
Congressional Democrats have challenged the firings, questioning whether aggressive prosecutors were removed for political reasons.
Lam's case has political overtones, but it also reflects a more complicated reality: a conflict over what the priorities of federal prosecutors should be and who should set them. In her case, pursuing white-collar crime at the expense of border crime, illegal immigration and gun violence.
California, with its cutting-edge business community and overnight fortunes, is fertile ground for white-collar crime and corruption.
At the same time, the state has some of the most active border crossings in the nation and big problems with drugs, smuggling, immigration and gang violence, issues that have been on the front burner of the Justice Department and the White House.
Heading into last year's midterm election, President Bush and his political strategists were struggling with a rebellion by conservative Republicans over immigration policy. The White House goal was to demonstrate toughness on border crime and security.
The record suggests Lam did not see things that way.
For one thing, she apparently took the appointment as U.S. attorney as a favor to Republican officials after several candidates were eliminated. And she always had an independent streak.
Associates said she also had a low opinion of the endless cases of border crime and was seemingly tone deaf to the rising political furor over illegal immigration.
That inevitably meant a conflict not only with Justice Department but with other federal law enforcement agencies involved in border security.
"They're clapping like seals now that she's gone," said one federal official in San Diego, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he works closely with the U.S. attorney's office there. "The Border Patrol. Customs
