This document is part of a series about Randall "Duke" Cunningham's attempted murder / suicide on November 25th, 2005

Home page for "Cunningham's Last Battle" web site / Contact the author / victim / witness Russell 'Ace' Hoffman

Re: Rep. Darrell Issa: Front-man for a cover-up?

March 28th, 2007

Dear Readers,

If you saw CSPAN this morning (Wednesday, March 28th, 2007), you saw Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA, 49th) blithely defending the firing of Carol Lam on specious grounds.

But I doubt Mr. Issa thinks for a minute that the immigration issue is the REAL reason she was fired.

And I DOUBT he misunderstands statistics as much as it appears, when he claims that Carol Lam's performance on immigration was at all inadequate.

In fact, Carol Lam had extremely high CONVICTION RATES, which are what counts most of all in her profession.  Equal justice under the law demands equal justice within the available budget, and there are always cut-off points.  So she went after the biggest fish of all and caught him.

Carol Lam caught Randall "Duke" Cunningham, the man right next to Darrell Issa -- the very next Congressional district over -- for the biggest crime in Congressional history (so far).

The Bush Administration -- of which Congressman Issa is practically a White House staff member, a lackey to the whims of Karl Rove -- fired her.

Mr. Issa:  I ask you: WHO can catch a Congressman, but the top attorney in town -- and they better be GOOD?  WHO would dare to then fire that person?  WHO would support that firing?  You?  How dare you?

Mr. Issa, we WOULD all love to have ALL the little fish caught, down to some petty thing -- down to whatever crime we, personally, commit, be it jaywalking, being an aggressive driver, cheating on one's taxes -- nobody's perfect.  But we don't want people persecuted just for sending a check to some peace / activist organization that (unknown to us small fish) is on your Patriot Act's vile list of banned or suspect organizations for no good reason.  We don't want the politically-motivated, unconstitutional targeting of individuals in any way.  We don't want a POLICE STATE.  We want equal justice under the law.

The BIG fish are NOT like the rest of us.  To be a big fish, you have to eat a lot of little fish.  But to be a little fish that commits a petty crime, you simply have to decide how much you fear the boogey-man.  How much you fear the hard knock on the door in the middle of the night.  How paranoid you are; how afraid of the consequences.  How much you THINK you live in a police state (or not).  Are we a free people, or are we not?

Cunningham killed U.S. soldiers by misappropriating MILLIONS in defense funding.  I'd like Carol Lam to find every criminal he ever dealt with.  Wouldn't you?

And if that's not possible, I'd, at the very least, like her reputation to remain as spotless as it PROBABLY deserves to be.  So WHY was she fired, WHO decided it, and WHO condoned it?

You have recklessly helped destroy the career of the prosecuting attorney who nailed the biggest crook in YOUR profession -- a crook who was YOUR Congressional neighbor, one of your closest friends.  How many times does the Congressional Record have you describing Congressman Cunningham as your friend, or he describing you as his?  THOUSANDS?  By supporting the firing of Carol Lam, do you THINK you are protecting an old friend?  Because it looks that way to me.

Statistically, this mass-firing of eight attorneys is unprecedented.  It's one thing to take the opportunity of coming in against a previous administration and making a clean sweep of EVERY position, as Bush, and Clinton, and others, have done.  It does not harm the reputation of the individual attorneys.  But THIS -- this does.  And it REEKS of politics.  I think Lam was TARGETED by the Bush Administration, and the immigration complaint is a COVER for the real issue.

Your single example of a single "coyote" who was seemingly-routinely being let go shows, plain as day, the magnitude of the whole problem.  Even when you first made this charge, it was petty COMPARED to what she was working on at the time, and did not reflect her overall record anyway, even then.  Carol Lam's record on immigration shows that she focused on the big fish, and successfully prosecuted many of them.  How did you miss that?

Perhaps the Department of Justice's immigration policy IS flawed.  But we ALL know that surely its major flaw in the area of illegal immigration (and perhaps in all areas) is -- duh -- under-funding.

The U.S. Attorneys who deal with the river of immigration flowing across our southern border are like sticks thrust into that river.  In reality, they barely impede the flow of the river at all.  Enough sticks, and maybe some nets in-between, and there may be the beginnings of a dam -- a regulated flow -- but otherwise, it accomplishes little, in the big picture.  Carol Lam concentrated on the violent ones, the ones who killed their own "cargo" or left them for dead, or fought with border agents, or resisted arrest -- and she got convictions at terrific rates.  You, most of all, should LAUD her for that.  As I do.

But it's catching crooked Congresspeople that tickles me PINK!

That is, *IF* I can't catch crooked presidents (and vice-presidents, a term never so aptly applied as it is today), I'll *SETTLE* for crooked Top Guns of a slightly lesser caliber.

NO ONE believes Carol Lam was necessarily finished getting all the information former Congressman Cunningham -- now known as Federal Prisoner 94405-198 -- has to give.  In fact, she had to rush a major portion of the matter just to be sure it succeeded before she got the final boot -- lest it not succeed at all.  She pulled that off, and got her indictments, days before her forced resignation took effect.  Mark that down as "works well with staff and accomplishes goals by deadlines, even if those deadlines are artificial and designed to thwart her (and her staff's) efforts."  Yet you wanted her fired.  WHY?

In fact, I don't think Cunningham is cooperating fully, as he PROMISED he would do.  And I think most people assume he HAS stopped talking by now, and is just COUNTING THE DAYS until Bush pardons him.

Personally, I want Cunningham to start singing again -- and maybe even give another public apology or two, too.

Perhaps Carol Lam COULD get the answers -- and the apologies -- I seek.  My question to you, Sir, is this:  Are you helping to block that from happening?

Sincerely,

Russell "Ace" Hoffman