Renew inquiry into removal of U.S. attorney in Guam

THE ISSUE Two congressmen are calling for a new inquiry into the demotion in 2002 of an interim U.S. attorney in Guam.

COMPLAINTS by the former interim U.S. attorney for Guam and the Northern Marianas that he was removed because of his investigation of yet-to-be-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff were determined by the Department of Justice inspector general last year to have been unfounded. The controversy over the purge of other U.S. attorneys should prompt a new inquiry into the Guam controversy, as called for by two House committee chairmen.

Frederick A. Black had been acting U.S. attorney in Guam since his appointment to the post by the first President Bush in 1991. He was demoted Nov. 18, 2002, a day after a federal grand jury issued a subpoena seeking records involving lobbying fees paid to Abramoff by the Superior Court of Guam.

Abramoff, now serving six years in prison for public corruption, had unsuccessfully lobbied Congress against giving the Guam Supreme Court authority over the Superior Court. Abramoff received a series of $9,000 checks through a California attorney to disguise his role, according to the Los Angeles Times. Abramoff was known in the Pacific for his work for garment manufacturers accused of employing people in sweatshops.

In a report last June, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that Black's investigation of Abramoff could not have played a role in his demotion because Black's successor, Leonardo Rapadas, already had been chosen for the post without Abramoff's knowledge. The White House had approved Rapadas for the job in March 2002, pending background checks, according to the report.

The Rapadas nomination was presented to President Bush by D. Kyle Sampson, then associate director for presidential personnel, after he had gained the approval of then-White Counsel Alberto Gonzales, according to the report. After Gonzales became attorney general, Sampson served as his chief of staff until resigning this week amid the current controversy.

Abramoff had been involved in a plan to oust Black as early as February 2002, e-mailing members of his lobbying team that Black was "a total commie" who should be "sniped out of there." Learning in early March that the White House had decided to nominate Rapadas, Abramoff told a member of his team by e-mail that they should "play it" as though their lobbying team was responsible.

In a letter to four committees planning hearings on the U.S. attorney purge, House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., include Black's demotion in their investigation of the more recent U.S. attorney firings.

The Abramoff case in Guam, Miller and Rahall asserted, "may represent the beginning of a pattern of behavior by some members of Congress and officials in the Bush administration to politicize the work of U.S. attorneys to quash their independence."