Madison, WI—Reacting to the growing pressure on his office after McClatchy Newspapers reported that US Atty Steven Biskupic’s name appeared on a US Justice Department hit list of prosecutors; Biskupic’s office released an extraordinary statement on Saturday.
The statement makes the following points, among others:
- That the career prosecutor’s much-criticized Georgia Thompson prosecution (derided as politically motivated and harshly thrown out of appellate court) included consultations with two Democratic prosecutors (former US Atty and Wis Atty Gen Peg Lautenschlager, and Dane Co DA Brian Blanchard)
- That Biskupic’s public corruption cases included Republican-affiliated defendants
- And that “(u)ntil the recent controversy surrounding the firings of eight United State Attorneys around the country, it was never communicated to me that my job could be in jeopardy or that I was considered to be disloyal to President Bush's agenda.”
The 216-word statement does nothing to quell the controversy and raises more questions about the nature of Biskupic’s office, which is sounding more and more like that of a desperate politician’s out to save his hide.
Peg-and-Brian-said-it-too
The Peg-and-Brian-said-it-too rejoinder regarding the failed Thompson prosecution is a fallacious appeal-to-authority argument that does nothing to bolster Biskupic’s case that an appellate judge said is composed of evidence called “beyond thin.”
And, anyway, the last time I checked Lautenschlager and Blanchard were not infallible prosecutors, but rather were/are both ambitious politicians and prosecutors for whom bipartisan alliances are useful.
Update: Blogger Xoff notes that :”Lautenschlager (and another democratic prosecutor Dan Bach making statements in support of Biskupic) although Democrats, were rabid enemies of Gov. Jim Doyle at the time, because Doyle had encouraged Kathleen Falk to challenge Lautenschlager in the primary. They were after Doyle, even leaking information about the investigation to the media to embarrass him.”
As for the Thompson case being thrown into the hands of Republican political operatives seeking to unseat Gov. Doyle (D-WI) in the 2006 election, we are to believe – apparently on faith – that Biskupic’s “decision to charge Thompson was based solely on the facts,” the “beyond thin” facts.
Republican-money-donating-aligned individuals
The number of Biskupic’s Republican public corruption cases increases substantially when—as opposed to the study by Shields and Cragan noting the US Attys’ investigations of “Republican officials”—Biskupic notes inclusively the “cases against individuals who donated money to Republican candidates or who were aligned with the Republican Party.”
This reminds one of the diminishing “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” charge made at the 2004 State of the Union Address.
Disloyalty to Bush never communicated to Biskupic
I ask:
- What kind of administration would even consider axing this career prosecutor selected through a bipartisan commission, if he is the apolitical man he claims?
- Why did Biskupic (as the nation's principal litigator for some one-half of Wisconsin) not publicly challenge the administration in the name of the citizens of the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
- How does Biskupic feel about his overseers at the DoJ and White House and the way they mix partisans and prosecutors?
- What about the maligned voter fraud prosecutions that happen to be consonant with Karl Rove’s attack politics?
- Doesn’t it strain credulity to believe the Biskupic’s US Atty’s office is really the equivalent of a political monastery, isolated from arguably the most politicized White House and DoJ in American history? What does “never communicated to me” mean, did he intuit?
The Biskupic statement’s obvious PR message was: Candid, impartial, non-partisan public servant.
I see a careerist either disinclined or afraid to challenge the White House publicly, and stumbling badly for fear of standing up.
Update: In "Biskupic didn't fly under Rove's radar," the Journal-Sentinel’s Daniel Bice notes that Rove certainly kept track of Biskupic.
Update II: From Jason Stein’s piece (Sunday) in the Wisconsin State Journal:
"You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to be hearing the echo chamber from conservative talk radio about voter fraud and whether (prosecutors) are doing their jobs," said Joe Wineke, chairman of the state Democratic Party.
But if you live in a political monastery, as Biskupic's claims, then right-wing talk radio is another phenomenon from which Biskupic is isolated.
Update III: Talking Points Memo has the latest on US Atty for New Mexico, David Iglesias.
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