"Pleasure of the President" isn't license to fire attorneys for any reason. If Bush had these attorneys fired to punish them for investigating Republicans or to otherwise intimidate or influence who they investigated or indicted, he can be impeached, convicted of obstruction of justice and see prison time. This is why the right-wing propagandists are so carefully obfuscating by absurdly insisting no law was broken despite the White House's previous admissions of lying, the refusal to disclose known documents and the frivolous invocation of "executive privilege" in an obvious attempt to conceal pertinent truths.
18 U.S.C. § 1503 defines obstruction of justice as follows: <ul type="square">Whoever ... by any threatening ... communication, endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any ... officer in or of any court of the United States ... or by any threatening ... communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be punished ... by imprisonment for not more than 10 years, a fine under this title, or both.[/list]A related canard is that all presidents fire U.S. attorneys for approximately similar reasons. This was demolished by a
Congressional Research Service study released on February 22.
For the 20 years prior to Bush, 54 attorneys left office under the President who appointed them before completing their terms. One died, 30 became judges or other government officials, 15 returned to private practice after announcing their desire to do so. Of the remaining 8, five resigned or were fired after coming under investigation or being publicly accused of impropriety. Three more resigned for reasons unknown, all during Bush.
Bush's sacking of eight more U.S. attorneys is therefore another of his many departures from precedent and law -- illegal edavesdropping, illegal torture, illegal war -- designed to illicitly empower this "conservative" administration.