Prosecutor's Firing Was Urged During Probe  —  The U.S. attorney in San Diego notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of "a real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

Republicans and U.S. attorneys — then and now  —  The fundamental difference between (a) a new administration replacing all U.S. attorneys (as multiple Presidents have done — including Clinton, Reagan and even Bush 41) and (b) cherry-picking ones for firing in the middle of an administration, has been amply documented.

Massacre  —  I'd been meaning to take a look at real-time reaction to the "scandal" of Clinton replacing US attorneys, but travel prevented from doing so, as I had pretty vivid memories of the "scandal" of Clinton doing something perfectly normal when he came into office.

BETRAYED  —  The Iraqis who trusted America the most.  —  Text Size: … On a cold, wet night in January, I met two young Iraqi men in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, in central Baghdad.  A few Arabic television studios had rooms on the upper floors of the building, but the hotel was otherwise vacant.