Another scandal fizzles out

After two years of investigating, the Justice Department says there will be no charges in the Bush administration’s firing of a handful of U.S. attorneys in 2006. You remember the episode, right? Bush foes cried scandal when nine USA’s were cashiered for “performance-related” reasons. All federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the president. But it was alleged Karl Rove and the White House ousted the nine for political reasons and that administration officials misled Congress about it. The kerfuffle contributed to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2007. Yet the two-year probe apparently didn’t turn up anything prosecutable, which, of course, isn’t the same thing as a blanket exoneration. U.S. attorney-gate thus joins other Washington scandals that raised a ruckus for a time but didn’t amount to too much once the dust settled.

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