The Final Nail?

From the Washington Post:

The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public." * * *

Senator Feinstein said the other day that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on this ProsecutorGate Scandal, and it looks like she was right. The real story doesn't necessarily involve the prosecutors who were fired for not doing the White House's bidding, but the prosecutors who weren't fired because they gave in to the political pressure.

Of course, this scandal wouldn't have snowballed like it did if it wasn't for the Democratic victory last November. Sure, Josh Marshall would have still broken the story, but a GOP-controlled Congress would have ignored it (just like it ignored the Downing Street Memos) and the mainstream media certainly would not have picked up on it. And folks like Sharon Eubanks would still be keeping their mouths shut on this issue if it wasn't for the fact that the Democrats now control both branches of Congress.

UPDATE: Robert Reich chimes in on this:

The real question isn’t whether the eight U.S. attorneys were fired because they refused to carry out the Republicans’ political agenda. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain capable of processing information that’s exactly why they were fired.

The real question concerns the other eighty-five U.S. attorneys who are still there. What kind of political vendettas have they engaged in, in exchange for keeping their jobs? Until all the information is out about the White House’s and the Attorney General’s political operation, a cloud hangs over the entire federal prosecutorial system. Senator Pat Leahy, whom Dick Cheney suggested copulating with himself, and who now runs the Senate Judiciary, should bear this in mind.