Murder of Seattle Gun Violence Opponent Linked to US Attorney Scandal

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.

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."

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.

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.

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First Subpoenas To Be Issued By 110 th Congress

The following is a press release from the Office of Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez

Washington - Chairwoman Linda Sánchez today announced that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL) will meet tomorrow to vote on issuing subpoenas for certain former U.S. Attorneys who were recently fired by the Bush Administration.

If approved by the subcommittee, the subpoenas - which would be the first issued by the 110th Congress - would require Carol Lam, David Iglesias, H.E. Cummins, III, and John McKay to appear before a CAL Subcommittee hearing next week.

"In order to get the full picture of why these U.S. Attorneys were fired, we need to hear from the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys themselves," said Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. "We look forward to their testimony on this issue."

"I called this meeting because we pledged to do everything we can to get to the truth of what could be brazen abuse of power by the Bush Administration," said CAL Chairwoman Sánchez.

The hearing, which is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, will consider a bill by Congressman Howard Berman that would reverse a new provision in the USA PATRIOT Act allowing the Attorney General to indefinitely appoint federal prosecutors through the end of the Bush Administration without Senate confirmation.

**The vote to issue subpoenas is scheduled for Thursday, March 1, at 4:00 pm in the Judiciary Committee Hearing Room (2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC).

It seems that every day there is a new development in this scandal. Now that Fitzmas is winding down, this might just take it's place. Thank you Karl. Thank you Alberto.

Alberto should never have said he would never fire a prosecutor for political reasons.

If you want to watch today's hearing live you can click this link to pick up a live webcast feed at 4:00 pm Eastern. Depending on what happens today I will probably be popping popcorn and dialing in.

UPDATE: The AP has done some additional reporting on this story. The Senate Judiciary Committee is sending letters to those fired before voting next week to compel their testimony. It is a race to the hearing chamber.

In response to the charge that David Iglesias was fired for not indicting some Democrats before last November's election as requested by two congressmembers to help Republicans in their election efforts Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "The suggestion that David Iglesias was asked to resign because he failed to bring an indictment ... is flatly false. This administration has never removed a United States attorney in an effort to retaliate against them or inappropriately interfere with a public integrity investigation."

The charge isn't that Iglesias didn't bring an indictment, it is he didn't bring an indictment when it could do Republicans the most good. Instead he elected to do his job, and wait for sufficient evidence to win convictions.

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