The Smearmongers Who Took Down Chiara and Hagen Got Promoted to Main Justice

/in /by

TPMM and LAT elaborate on what I reported yesterday–that the anti-gay discrimination described in yesterday’s Monica Goodling report was targeted at Margaret Chiara and Leslie Hagen. Both have interviews with Hagen’s attorney; the LAT did an interview with Chiara herself. And together, the LAT interviews describe the gossip-mongering of a few people within the USA office in Grand Rapids providing both the rumors that the women were in a gay relationship–and that Chiara’s management had created morale problems in Grand Rapids.

The report describes an alleged "sexual relationship" between a career prosecutor and a U.S. attorney, who were not named. Margaret M. Chiara, the former U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., said in an interview with The Times that she now believed she was fired because of the erroneous belief that she was having a relationship with career prosecutor Leslie Hagen.

"I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues," Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired. "Now I understand."

Justice officials said after her firing that Chiara was let go because of mismanagement and because she had caused morale in her office to sink. Chiara said Monday she believed those concerns were raised by the same people who spread rumors about her and Hagen. [my emphasis]

Most troubling, though, is the suggestion from Lisa Banks, Hagen’s attorney, that the attorneys who started those rumors eventually won jobs at Main Justice.

Banks said she believed the rumors were started by other attorneys in the Grand Rapids office who eventually landed jobs at the Justice Department in Washington. [my emphasis]

How convenient. Someone plays to Monica Goodling’s narrow-mindedness and gives her a reason to fire Chiara–and they get moved up to DC. I wonder if they share an office with Rachel Paulose?

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  1. BayStateLibrul says:

    Pulling the lever. Timing.

    What’s your thoughts on how the DOJ is rolling out these reports. It’s like the WAPO doing a three part story.
    Why the fuck can’t they release the report on Gonzo, and the Attorney firings all in one massive swoop?

    • techmom says:

      I think they’re waiting till we forget the last ione before they roll out the next lest the dots get connected.

  2. skdadl says:

    Well, if Lisa Banks knows who they are or has good reason for her suspicions, then we can be confident that the AG is looking into this closely already. Can’t we.

  3. SaltinWound says:

    I hate this:

    “I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues,” Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired. “Now I understand.”

    Maybe someone has a more generous interpretation of this, but she comes off like a total team player who can’t comprehend why she was lumped with a bunch of renegades.

    • emptywheel says:

      And it’s not entirely believable, since she was BY FAR the first one to realize that it was politics.

      I think Chiara knows there was something that either went down between her and our very Grand Rapids connected SOS on vote caging, something pertaining to tribes and casinos, or even her pursuit of employers who hire undocumented workers (as opposed to just the workers).

      In other words, I kind of think of that as a “I know why they fired me, but not what excuse they used to fire me” comment.

      • Rayne says:

        There’s a possibility that attacks on Native American women by non-Native American men may have been a key issue — although there’s plenty of reasons to go around.

        Ugh, the things I’ve learned this week about MI-SOS Land…blecchh…

  4. watercarrier4diogenes says:

    Much as I’d like to see that USA firing report, I see the separate releases as a positive. It keeps Mucksy’s DOJ performance in the spotlight. The brighter and more long-lasting that spotlight is, the better.

    And in case you’re reading EW today, thanks again, Sens. Shumer and Feinstein, you’ve helped screw the entire country far better than you even imagined you’d be when you helped get this cretin approved.

    • BayStateLibrul says:

      True, but there is a STRATEGY, since everything they do is political propaganda (mischief).

      • watercarrier4diogenes says:

        I’m not quite ready to say that _everyone_ at DOJ is in on the ’strategy’. IF that were the case, we’d never have seen trials, much less convictions, that we’ve seen. Glenn Fine doesn’t seem to be part of Mucksy’s team, at least not from the content of his reports thus far. Same with the IG at CIA, though he did get pressured by Darth Cheney.

  6. dude says:

    What happened to the other blonde, Marcy? I mean what happened to Sara Taylor, Rove’s former aid. She was involved in the comings and goings of USA’s.

  7. josiahbartlette says:

    For this group that gained power by spreading lies and personal destruction, is it really that hard to believe that those tactics were so internalized that they wouldn’t be used against each other?

    While her dismissal provides more useful evidence of the machinations of Goodling, Chiara was still a true believer. Don’t feel too bad for her.

  9. 4jkb4ia says:

    There may be different people working on the different sections of this report.

    This report was weak in the solutions proposed but was politicized subtly if at all. For example it took the word of the OLC attorneys that they did not recall speaking to Sampson about whether IRs were a civil service position. Since they had other evidence that Sampson was politicizing the position before he was said to have spoken to OLC, Sampson took the fall for helping to politicize this office.

  10. 4jkb4ia says:

    Seriously, they threw the book at Monica Goodling, and they did not have to. The incidents they described could be interpreted as simply political employee/career employee conflict. I expect this tack to have been taken by at least one wingnut blog.

    • Rayne says:

      They’re still only talking about throwing a book at her. Until she’s frogmarched out of whatever cozy winger welfare haven in which she’s now ensconced and forcibly put behind bars in a jumpsuit, they are still making a lot of hot air.

      Let’s hope all the hot air is enough to scare her into flipping on a bigger fish.

  11. manys says:

    Promoted to Main Justice? Surely there was some kind of press release for that. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who the rumor mongers are with a little digging.

    • Rayne says:

      This DOJ under Gonzales dramatically changed its communications habits. Under Reno and Ashcroft any major changes in roles between uppermost hirees and appointees was announced by a press release.

      Not so under Gonzo; I actually found that the number of such press releases fell between 30 to 60% depending on the kind of press release.

      Announcements about any changes to the membership of the USAG’s NAIS — consisting of 28 USA’s of which 30% rotated on/off the team each year — the press releases dropped altogether. It was virtually impossible to tell who was on the NAIS after Gonzo’s first year, with the exception of those members who’d been named to that committee the previous year by Ashcroft.

      I don’t imagine Mukasey to be any better at communication than his predecessor.