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Bush gives Abramoff's prosecutor a
judgeship
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Editorial
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
January 31, 2006
Last week, President Bush removed Noel L. Hillman, the chief prosecutor in
the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal, from the case. Bush's action
came as the media and his critics swarmed around the problem of trying to pry
publicly owned photographs of Bush with Abramoff from the White House.
The president's means of putting Hillman, head of the Department of
Justice's Office of Public Integrity since 2002, out of the picture was to
nominate him for a federal judgeship, in effect, kicking him upstairs.
Although it is likely that the Abramoff prosecution would have shown the
lobbyist shoveling money and favors to Democratic as well as Republican members
of Congress and other government officials, the focus of the case so far has
been Abramoff's links to former House Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas; former House
Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney, R-Ohio; and other Republicans
involved in the notorious K Street Project. That was an enterprise designed to
place Republicans in key lobbying, campaign finance-providing positions in
Washington.
Bush's crude move in peeling Hillman off the Abramoff case, which he has
pursued for two years, could seriously weaken its prosecution. It is nice for
Hillman to get a promotion, but it is probably also incumbent on the Senate to
question him closely in hearings, and perhaps refuse to approve his nomination
if they wish to avoid the charge of aiding Bush's effort to torpedo the
case.
The revelation to the American people of what goes on in Washington in a
properly prosecuted Abramoff case would have been very educational in a
congressional election year. This example of Bush's further politicization of
the American judicial process does not inspire confidence in his commitment to
it.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)
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