Lithwick: Nutty Legal Logic Used to Fire Attorneys

The same legal argument marshaled to justify mistreating prisoners is behind the Bush administration’s contention that the President can fire U.S. attorneys for any reason or no reason, according to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick. It’s the theory that a greater power—like killing people in war—embodies a lesser power, such as injuring prisoners during interrogation.

Hence the greater power to appoint federal prosecutors embodies the lesser power to fire them for any reason. Lithwick calls it a “nutty legal syllogism” and concludes that “their greater power to offer this as a serious legal argument does not trump our lesser power to laugh at it.” (More US attorney stories.)