Now, we know the Justice Department rated its US Attorneys by three grades: with Team Bush and doing things we like; not doing things we like and should be canned; and no opinion.
How did Steve Biskupic rate? It's been reported someone felt he wasn't pursuing alleged cases of voter fraud vigorously enough. Then again, he later pursued a corruption case that cast a cloud over Doyle months before the election. Not that it mattered.
Bruce Murphy asks the right question:
The administration of President George Bush has caused a furor by replacing eight U.S. attorneys, with accusations that they were axed for the sin of investigating Republicans or not going after enough Democrats. If true, this raises the question whether those U.S. attorneys who were not replaced have cooperated with the Bush administration by aggressively investigating Democratic officials.
The U.S. attorney from Milwaukee, Steve Biskupic, has done an admirable job of going after three Milwaukee aldermen and former state Sen. Gary George, all Democrats. He has also launched several investigations embarrassing the Doyle administration, including the current probe of Troha. Biskupic’s first Doyle-related probe involved state employee Georgia Thompson, a case that I criticized. Thompson had been appointed by a Republican, had never made a political contribution, and as a civil service appointee, had no reason to fear she could be fired for taking an action the Doyle administration disapproved. Yet after Biskupic failed to show any wrongdoing by any Doyle political appointee who supervised Thompson, he went after this low-level employee for a minor infraction and sent her to jail.
Perhaps this was just overaggressiveness by Biskupic. But the timing seemed curious, coming amid a re-election campaign by Doyle. Biskupic has recently and repeatedly stressed that he’s a nonpartisan prosecutor. I hope that’s true. But so far, he’s helped generate more then a year’s worth of lurid JS headlines about the Doyle administration, while not one official has been charged with anything.
So, did the Bush team see Biskupic as one of them? Or was he seen as a "nonpartisan prosecutor."
The Brawler is entirely willing to believe that Biskupic, who previously took on Dr. Chaos and worked in a sting operation with Brett Favre to catch an autograph scam artist, truly acted independently. But it would be interesting to hear from him whether he received any phone calls from folks on high to be "more vigorous" in going after Doyle. The Bushies were in Wisconsin seemingly every other week leading up to the 06 election. It's difficult to imagine they were not paying close attention to the Thompson trial.
This quote is from the 7/7/06 Cappy Times apropos of the Thompson trial:
"The review is not going to be tied to the political calendar," Biskupic said Thursday. "We reiterate that the case is being looked at by professional investigators and career prosecutors. We do not intend that any step or any comment be construed as influencing the upcoming election in any way."
One can't look at this quote in quite the same way after revelations about how the Bush Administration politicized the pursuits of other U.S. attorneys. Who is the intended audience? Could he be addressing partisan interests who were pressuring him to influence the then-pending election?
Someone needs to ask Biskupic some questions. Indeed, if he ever wants to run for higher office in Wisconsin he's going to have to answer questions about this sooner or later.
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