You haven’t heard the last of complaints about President Bush’s use of a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act to give a more-or-less permanent “interim” U.S. attorney appointment in Little Rock to Tim Griffin, a political operative from the Karl Rove team.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, who earlier had objected to Bush’s bypassing of the usual Senate confirmation process now says this loophole may have been used elsewhere in the country. Leading Democrats are unhappy and Pryor has joined Dianne Feinstean and Patrick Leahy in legislation that would return the power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys to the district courts, where it lodged for many years. In the alternative, of course, Bush could submit Griffin and other nominees for Senate confirmation, which is how it ought to work.
This has been a local issue until now. But the legislation, plus the suggestion that U.S. attorneys are being pushed out for political cronies under the Patriot Act seems likely to get some national attention. As Pryor put it, “It appears that the Administration has chosen to use this provision, which was intended to help protect our nation, to circumvent the transparent Constitutional Senate confirmation process to reward political allies.”
Pryor’s news release on the jump.