Can the U.S. attorney scandal get much worse? In what now seems like ancient history -- two weeks ago -- it appeared the integrity of the Justice Department under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales already had fallen as low as it could go.
Make room in the department's sub-basement. And add an amendment to the News Tribune's May 25 editorial, "DOJ's attacks on U.S. attorneys reach a new low," which joined the outrage across the state over the revelation the Justice Department had planned to fire former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Tom Heffelfinger for spending too much time on American Indian issues.
Heffelfinger, who resigned on his own last year unaware that the ax was about to fall, assumed after learning of the plot that his name had been placed on the list for the amount of time he spent on American Indian criminaljustice issues. Former Justice Department White Houseliaison Monica Goodlingtestified to the House Judiciary Committee that "There were some concerns that he spent an extraordinary amount of time as the leader of the Native American subcommittee of the [Attorney General's Advisory Committee]."
But crime-fighting, it appears, wasn't the American Indian issue that bothered the top brass at Justice, or at least not the only issue. Rather, it was Heffelfinger's work on Indian voting, specifically, his defense of the right of tribal members, who tend to vote Democratic, to use tribal ID cards to register in the 2004 election. A U.S. attorney's fight to secure voting rights for American citizens is grounds for dismissal?
Gonzales' fingerprints have yet to show up on any order to get rid of Heffelfinger or the other U.S. attorneys whose crimes were doing their jobs too well and too independently of GOP politics. But the local Minnesota story has now gone national, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., has called for an investigation.Her colleague from across the aisle, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, has called forGonzales' job.
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