True North

My friend Rachel Paulose has announced her resignation from the position of United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota to accept a position of high responsibility and honor in the Department of Justice as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy (who is also chief of staff to Attorney General Mukasey).

Regular readers of this site know that I have written at great length about my high regard for Rachel since her Senate confirmation last December. She is to assume her new position with the Justice Department in January 2008. Rachel's appointment is obviously an expression of great confidence in her by the department.

The press release announcing Rachel's appointment includes testimonials to her service as United States Attorney over the past eighteen months from law enforcement authorities including St. Paul Chief of Police (and Dartmouth alum) John Harrington:

“Rachel Paulose has been the most aggressive U.S. Attorney that I have ever worked with and the most successful. Working with her has made the city of St. Paul a safer place. If you have any doubts, just ask the Latin Kings gang that terrorized an entire neighborhood with guns and drugs and murder. They are easy to find, since they are all doing time in federal custody. Or ask the kids at McDonough Recreational Center, where Rachel taught about Internet safety. Or better yet, ask the predators whom she put in prison, keeping them from being able to hurt children ever again."

Star Tribune reporter Dan Browning takes the occasion to report on "rumors"that are "circulating in the legal community." Browning also takes the occasion to recycle charges in the indictment of Rachel handed up by the New York Times last week. Browning writes:

[H]er relative youth, Republican credentials and initial selection by the administration made her suspect as a GOP loyalist in the eyes of many.

Suspicions about her grew deeper last winter as congressional hearings began into the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys, allegedly for political reasons. Paulose was tainted by her friendship with White House liaison Monica Goodling. And concerns deepened when it was discovered later that Heffelfinger had been under consideration for firing before he surprised the administration and quit to return to private practice.

But most public complaints about Paulose came from her own staff.

On April 10, several of her top managers quit their posts in a group protest of her management style, which has been described as dictatorial and at times vindictive. They include former First Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti, former Civil Chief Erika Mozangue, former Criminal Chief James Lackner, and Human Resources Officer Tim Anderson, who had been acting as office manager until the schism.

Let's see. She's a Republican. (The position of United States Attorney is a political appointmet.) She was appointed to the position by the Bush administration. (No one other than the president and the Attorney General had the legal authority to make the appointment.) She knew Monica Goodling. (Liberals used to oppose guilty by association.) And former United States Attorney Tom Heffelfinger might have been fired if he had not resigned when he did. I understand completely.

Motives for the resignations of the office's managment group such as those attributed to them by Browning have been routine, but so far as I know none of them has spoken in his or her own name to that effect. I believe that anonymous leaks have done the talking for the group, as in this April New York Times story. Together with the "rumors" that find their way into his story, Browning apparently thinks he's clearing things up.

I quoted Rachel on the record responding to certain of the charges recirculated against her last week by the Times in my NRO column "The Paulose test."

Cross-posted at Powerline. To comment on this post, go here.