Look What I Found

Rep. Darrell Issa did an online chat today where he again tried to peddle the Republican line that Carol Lam was fired solely because of her lax prosecution of drug smugglers and border crossers in San Diego. But he neglected to mention his role in the case.

Issa's leak of an anonymous report about border smuggling was very deliberate. Lam was expanding the Cunningham investigation into the FBI and the Dusty Foggo/Brent Wilkes/Hookers at the Watergate situation. And the Lewis investigation was ramping up at the same time, unquestionably with at least a little support from Lam's office since all the players were the same. Issa received the report about border crossings and smugglers several months before he released it.

In actuality he was just a messenger, dropping the report in a convenient way for DoJ to justify firing Lam. More from emptywheel:

That means that Issa, after having sat on the report for at least six months, suddenly saw fit to publish it--and do a media campaign around it--just a week or so after Lam's investigation of Cunningham expanded to include Jerry Lewis and Dusty Foggo. What a remarkable coincidence, huh?

But I wonder if there isn't another coincidence here. Issa received this document back in fall 2005, right? I wonder if it was anytime around the time that a bunch of Republican Congressmen from California wrote a letter complaining about Lam's immigration prosecution policies. I ask that question, you see, because a whole bunch of those who signed that letter are among those who were targets of what would be--or might have been--Lam's expanded investigation. The signers include:

Duke Cunningham
Jerry Lewis
Richard Pombo
John Doolittle
Duncan Hunter
Bill Thomas

Man, I wish I caught this earlier, that would've been my question.