March 14, 2007

Prosecutor Purge: New Development, Carol Lam Not Fired for Cunningham Investigation

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


TPMmuckraker reports today that Carol Lam, one of the USAs fired, was on a DOJ list of prosecutors to be removed months before the Duke Cunningham scandal was revealed. Lam’s successful prosecution of Cunningham has been widely believed to be the reason she was fired. This list created by the AG’s chief of staff Kyle Sampson may tell another story. Was Lam then actually fired for performance-related reasons? It hasn’t appeared so. Last Tuesday, at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on prosecutorial independence of U.S. attorneys, where Lam, along with 3 other prosecutors testified, Dianne Feinstein produced a letter from the DOJ which praised Lam’s performance. Well, so why then, was she fired? At last Tuesday’s hearing, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions claimed she was asked to resign because she did not prosecute enough gun cases. Um…doubtful. Stay tuned!

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate