The New AG

Now that Alberto Gonzales has finally resigned, President Bush has to nominate a new Attorney General. One of the names being bandied about as a replacement is that of Michael Chertoff, currently the Director of Homeland Security. Mr. Chertoff has worked in the Justice Department during the Bush administration, so he would normally be seen as a natural for the appointment. However, that prior service just might be the reason such an appointment is destined to go nowhere, at least one would hope so. An article in today's Los Angeles Times provides the reasons why such a nomination should be dead on arrival.

Shortly after President Bush took office in 2001, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's criminal division, met with the conservative group Judicial Watch. It wanted criminal charges brought against Hillary Rodham Clinton in connection with a lavish fundraising event in Los Angeles the year before.

"Chertoff personally assured us he would pursue it," the group's president, Tom Fitton, said recently, recalling the meeting with several top Justice officials. "They said they weren't afraid of taking on the Clintons."

Justice did not pursue a case against the senator from New York, but instead went after one of her fundraisers, David Rosen, who eventually was acquitted.

Now Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has announced his resignation, brought down in part by allegations that he let politics influence Justice Department decisions. And Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is a prominent candidate to succeed him.

Justice Department officials say pressure from Judicial Watch -- which made its name by suing the Clintons in the 1990s -- played no role in the decision to prosecute Rosen. Chertoff will not discuss the case. But it seems to be an early example of department actions under Bush that critics say were tinged with partisanship. [Emphasis added]

Now, whether or not Judicial Watch was the prime mover for the Rosen prosecution, no official from the Justice Department should have been meeting with that partisan organization in the first place. That's the kind of cozy politicization of the department that we've been screaming about, especially during the congressional investigations.

Here's the disturbing part, however. Surely this kind of information was available when Mr. Chertoff was undergoing questioning during the nomination process for Homeland Security Director. Why didn't this come up then? And why didn't the Democrats try to block that appointment?

If Mr. Chertoff is indeed the nomination for the Attorney General position (and that is by no means a sure thing), the Democrats had better be more thorough in their review this time around.