On October 11, 2001, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales was murdered in the basement office of his home. At the time it was reported that
Federal investigators and Seattle police are trying to determine a motive for the death of Tom Wales, 49, but several sources said the case has all the markings of a deliberate hit.In addition to being an Assistant U.S. Attorney Wales was a well know gun violence opponent. He had enemies both among those he had put away in his work as AUSA and among pro-gun supporters.
Wales was working at a computer in the basement of his home shortly after 10:30 last night when a gunman apparently went up to a basement window at the back of the house and fired at least five shots.
Two of those shots hit Wales, one in the neck and the other in his side. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he died at 1:17 a.m. today, according to the hospital.
A senior federal law enforcement official said the incident does not appear to be random and based on what investigators know now, Wales was a target and the shooting was "no doubt deliberate."
Naturally, solving his murder was a major priority for the FBI in Seattle. The FBI worked the case hard, but have been unable to find the killer. Finally, in June of 2003 the FBI cut the number of agents assigned to the investigation. The murder is still unsolved.
Fired US Attorney John McKay was outspoken in his demand the DoJ assign more assets to the investigation. It seems his demands rankled feathers at main Justice.
Yesterday Rep. Mel Watt asked James Convey if John McKay's request for more resources to investigate the Tom Wales murder had any thing to do with his firing. Solving the Wales murder is very, very important to the Seattle law enforcement community.
This morning Josh Marshall posted a comment from a reader--a prosecutor in Seattle. As Marshall says the comment speaks for itself. Here is part of it, but you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.
A pro-gun control federal prosecutor was shot and killed. John McKay was agitating for more resources to bring his killer to justice. That pissed off DOJ, who apparently thought that McKay should spend his time going after bogus voter fraud prosecutions rather than solve the murder of a guy who was in favor of gun control. If you don't think the fact that Tom Wales' political views weren't taken into consideration by the higher ups at DOJ when they decided to punish McKay for fighting to find his killer, you haven't been paying attention to the way these guys have operated for the last 6 years. Every single thing they do is about politics, and the political views of those they help or hurt.Now do you understand why we can't allow the Department of Justice to become politicised, Karl Rove style. Even if the decision to cut back on the investigation had nothing to do with politics, the prosecutor in Seattle, and probably most of the Seattle law enforcement community, think the cutbacks were political. That is corrosive.
