Debra Wong Yang is the former U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles who was hired by Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, the law firm representing Congressman Jerry Lewis, the subject of a corruption probe by Yang's office.
In the last five years, Gibson Dunn has only announced hiring three new attorneys directly from government jobs out of 58 total announcements. Yang was one of those three; the other two also worked for her office. Each of the remaining 55 hires were either from private sector jobs or returning to the firm after working for Republican officials.
The L.A. Times, however, reports that:
Whatever officials in Washington might have intended, Yang and Lam's departures had no effect on the investigations, which continue unabated, sources close to the inquiries said this week.
Gee, you think their sources might have said that? Perhaps the sources are the new hacks the Bush Administration has installed over there. Then again, the sources could be right. Regardless, the real issue is what the Bush Administration's intent was, because if anyone in the DOJ or White House was aware of an attempt to move Yang out of the way to make life easier for Congressman Lewis, that's what we call obstruction of justice.
"You have so many players involved, it's ridiculous that you could make an investigation disappear, especially one that is high profile — because those are the ones all the assistants want to work on," she said.
Levenson said there are subtle ways, however, to let a case "die a slow death."
Supervisors could assign the prosecutors other matters to work on or divert resources away from the case. They could balk at issuing subpoenas or seeking approvals of various sorts from Washington. And when it comes time to seek an indictment, particularly if the case is not a slam-dunk, the U.S. attorney or even the Justice Department in Washington could waver and tell the prosecutors that they need to do more investigating.
Yet even this scenario is more likely to happen in a John Grisham novel than in real life, Levenson said.
I would have thought that lots of things were more likely to happen in novels than in real life -- until I started writing novels and the Bush Administration took power.
I actually find it laughable to dismiss claims that the Bush Administration would try and apply political pressure to U.S. Attorneys, especially in the midst of a huge scandal in which it is very clear that they did just that!
I do give credit to the L.A. Times though -- at least they've followed up on this story, which is worth more attention than the press has given.
© Jed Lewison