The Daily Background

The release of more than 3,000 pages by the Department of Justice tonight is sure to cause shock-waves across Washington.

Among the documents buried in the enormous document dump, The Daily Background has discovered, is a letter from 19 members of Congress to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales concerning then-US Attorney Carol Lam. Lam was at the time involved in a high-profile corruption investigation Republican Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

The 19 members of Congress wrote Gonzales in October of 2005 complaining that they felt Lam was too lax on illegal immigration. One of the members of Congress who signed the letter complaining about Lam was Congressman Cunningham, who is now serving an eight year prison term after Lam successfully prosecuted him.

Barely a month after the 19 Congressmen (Cunningham included) requested to meet with Gonzales specifically to complain about Lam’s prosecution policy on immigration-related matters, Cunningham plead guilty to two felony counts of criminal conspiracy and tax evasion.

At the time Cunningham and the other 18 Congressmen complained about Lam, Cunningham was still claiming innocence in the corruption probe that had intensified just as the complaint to Attorney General Gonzales was made.

“The U.S. Attorney in San Diego has stated that the office will not prosecute a criminal alien unless they have previously been convicted of two felonies in the district” the letter of complaint read. Lam, the US Attorney for Southern California at the time, and had received favorable job reviews from the Department of Justice before she was fired after successfully convicting Cunningham.

The Department of Justice had previously said in a written review of her work that Lam was “An effective manager and respected leader… [her] Strategic Plan and District Priorities were appropriate.” One of Lam’s priorities was persuing the corruption investigation that imprisoned Cunningham and the indictments of three other alleged coconspirators.

Lam was said to have been investigating the corruption case further, and that more indictments of high-level officials could have been on the way when she was fired in December 2006 by the Department of Justice. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told CBS’ Bob Shieffer on Face The Nation Sunday that after Lam notified Administration officials there would be a continuing investigation after Cunningham plead guilty, “The next day an email went from the justice department to the White House saying ‘we have a real problem with Carol Lam.’”

Senator Feinstein said she believed that Lam had sent a notice to the DoJ on May 10th 2006, telling them to expect more activity in the investigation that had already imprisoned Cunningham. A week later, Congressman Darryl Issa (R-CA) began a new campaign to raise criticism in the media of Lam on the topic of immigration.

Issa leaked an altered draft report to the Associated Press which he said proved that Lam’s policies on immigration prosecutions were too lax. Later that month, Issa appeared on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” to criticize Lam on immigration. Issa specifically mentioned Lam, saying she was neglecting her duties as a US Attorney to aggressively prosecute illegal immigrants.

Issa told Dobbs, “The border patrol cannot possibly catch all the people who want to come over the border. But they can, if they are allowed to, catch the coyotes and over time destroy the people who facilitate this activity. That dramatically drops the sophistication and the effectiveness of people coming over our border illegally.”

“And that’s exactly what Carol Lam has refused to do for more than a year,” Issa claimed.

The Department of Justice however was satisfied that Lam had been devoting appropriate attention to immigration cases, writing in a letter to Senator Feinstein that Lam’s office was ” committing fully half of its Assistant U.S. Attorneys to prosecute criminal immigration cases. Prosecutions for alien smuggling in the Southern District under USC sections 1234 are rising sharply in Fiscal Year 2006.”

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