The Justice Department has wrapped up its investigation into the Bush Administration's firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. No charges will be filed.
San Diego's Carol Lam was among the U.S. attorneys ousted. She says the firings opened a window into the politicization of the Justice Department.
Lam says the politicization started long before the Bush Administration's removal of the U.S. attorneys, but it was the suddenness and the scope of those firings that exposed, for the better, practices that had no place in the Justice Department.
"Those practices included politicizing the hiring of attorneys at the Justice Department," said Lam. "They included taking, to some extent, political considerations into account when evaluating whether criminal charges should be brought and political decisions being made with respect to who was promoted or who was placed in certain positions of authority."
Lam would not say whether she thought her firing was political. She is now a senior vice president and deputy general counsel at Qualcomm.
