WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats signaled Sunday that of the eight federal prosecutors abruptly ousted by the Bush administration, the case in San Diego is emerging as the most troubling because of new allegations that U.S. Atty. Carol C. Lam was fired in an attempt to shut down investigations into Republican politicians in Southern California.
Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) revealed evidence that Lam had notified Washington about search warrants in a Republican corruption case last year. Soon thereafter, a top Justice Department official in Washington wrote to the White House about a "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam."
"As the evidence comes in, as we look at the e-mails, there were clearly U.S. attorneys that were thorns in the side for one reason or another of the Justice Department," said Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"And they decided, by strategy, in one fell swoop to get rid of them."
Another Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), agreed that an investigation in San Diego, along with a parallel GOP corruption probe in Los Angeles, might have been directly linked to Lam's firing.
"The most notorious is the Southern District of California, San Diego," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "In the middle of the investigation she was fired."
Schumer said he was told by Justice Department officials that Lam and the other U.S. attorneys were fired because of "performance-related" problems, a reason that Schumer said the department had been unable to back up.
In fact, he said, Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul J. McNulty later apologized. "He called me on the phone and said, 'I am sorry that I didn't tell you the truth,' " Schumer said.
According to Schumer, McNulty added: "I was not told that these things were happening by the people who were supposed to brief me" on why the eight U.S. attorneys had been fired.
"Well, gee whiz," Schumer said. "If you're firing someone in the middle of the most heated political investigation in America, don't you think you ought to have a reason and know the reason?"
Lam spearheaded the case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe who pleaded guilty to bribery and income tax evasion. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.
