Byron York covers the firing of Carol Lam, the California U.S. attorney.
It all got started in December 2003, with an article in another paper, the Riverside, California Press-Enterprise. The story was headlined “Border Agents Face Uphill Fight: Even after arrest, prosecutions of smugglers are rare due to lack of resources,” and it quoted Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents the area, criticizing federal authorities for not prosecuting criminal alien smugglers. A month later, the paper published a follow-up story detailing how an alien smuggler named Antonio Amparo-Lopez had been arrested at a border checkpoint but later let go.
Issa was disturbed by the story. On February 2, 2004 — 15 months before the Cunningham case began — he wrote a letter to Lam citing the Amparo-Lopez case and asking for “the rationale behind any decision made by your office to decline or delay prosecution of Mr. Amparo-Lopez.”
Six weeks later, Lam wrote back, telling Issa to direct his complaint to the Justice Department in Washington. Two months after that, on May 24, Issa got a brief letter from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, offering no explanation for Lam’s decision not to prosecute Amparo-Lopez. Moschella’s answer was, in full: “Based upon all of the facts and circumstances of his arrest, the United States Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Mr. Amparo-Lopez.”
Read the rest.
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