More on the South Dakota Connection to the mess with all the US Attorneys. Is the finger being pointed at Judge Piersol in congressional hearings?

On February 6th, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on prosecutorial independence, giving us all a window into why provisions were put into the patriot act to grant the Justice Department greater latitude in judicial appointments. And after seeing what went on, I can see why the administration might ask for it.

What did this hearing note? Again, it looks as if all of the trouble with the U.S. Attorneys comes back to South Dakota and Judge Larry Piersol trying to appoint his own person at nearly the same time as the president was appointing someone.

If you recall, there had been some trouble securing an permanent appointment. And come to find out, as they were in the middle of a new person taking over on a temporary basis, at one point in a criminal trial the federal public defender challenged an indictment brought by the interim U.S. attorney, claiming that he didn't have the authority prosecute because Judge Piersol had appointed someone else.

Of course, it's never a good thing to find out that someone else has your job in the middle of a trial. If you recall (as reported in the Rapid City Journal):

..... the Justice Department named Steven Mullins, then assistant U.S. Attorney for the western district of Oklahoma, as interim U.S. attorney in South Dakota. Mullins was sworn in the same day that former interim U.S. attorney Michelle Tapken officially resigned, according to court documents.

But U.S. District Judge Larry Piersol of Sioux Falls challenged that appointment. Piersol already had signed an order two days earlier — on Dec. 20 — appointing Mark Meierhenry, a Sioux Falls lawyer and former South Dakota attorney general, as interim U.S. attorney.

Read that here.

Mark Meierhenry was somebody who, while serving with distinction as State AG, hadn't gone through a federal background check. According to Deputy Attorney General McNulty's testimony a couple of days ago -

"We couldn't even communicate with that individual on classified information until a background check would have been done."

You could see where that could be a problem. And why they might try to pass a law to prevent it from happening again.

Actually, this is pretty fascinating stuff about the jurisdictional wrangling that's finally coming
to light a year later, with a Democrat appointed Judge seemingly trying to insert his own appointment overtaking that of the President.

And to think all of this caused a now controversial provision to be inserted into federal law. To prevent future controversial actions by Federal Judges.

(Somebody should write a book on all of this).